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ENOUGH: Survival Is What Comes Afterward
ENOUGH is a Rumpus series devoted to creating a dedicated space for essays, poetry, fiction, comics, and artwork by women and non-binary people that engage with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
The series will run every Tuesday afternoon. Each week we will highlight different voices and stories.
This Does Not Define Me
Meredith Johnston
I've never used the word rape before to describe it, never said it aloud. I know I said "no," but I don't know if he heard me, what with my face so hard in the pillow that I couldn't breathe. My face so hard in the pillow because his hand was firm against the back of my head. Maybe he was trying to make me be quiet; I think we can all agree that there are better ways to do that.
I'm not special; I wasn't injured, not physically, not like the women who are attacked, beaten, hurt, traumatized. Scarred. I don't want to distract any attention or bring shame to the strong women who must fight that fight. Maybe, though, the difference between the sex I planned to have and the sex he did have that night, though, maybe that is an attack.
These words are hard to say, even twenty years later. I'm ashamed. I don't want to be a victim and I don't want to be that girl again. I'm ashamed of who I was to end up that night in that bed, face down with my head in that awful pillow. He had no emotional power over me. He was merely the tool I used to hate myself.
Can such a man rape me?
Can such a woman be raped?
I don't remember where my hands were. I know they were useless to me. They didn't help me breathe. They didn't stop him from pushing too hard. They couldn't pull his hand from the back of my head.
Rape is a word that carries tremendous emotional baggage with it: victim, blame, pity. Shame. Violence. Rape is power. Desire for power. He had the power, of course, despite being so many things I didn't want: pot smoker, heavy drinker, hunter.
It wasn't like checking a box: power or powerless (check here!). But looking back now, I see it. Coming out of a painful breakup with a married man, I didn't want the responsibility of a relationship, of truth, of honesty. I wanted to hate myself for loving someone else's husband. And this man in a crappy hotel room was my path to self-hatred.
I've tried so hard to forget that moment, when he came into me hard from behind, doggy style if you will, his legs holding mine too close together. I tried to stop. I just wanted to shift so that it didn't hurt so much. I wanted to face him, to get control. I wanted it not to be as it was. And then his hand was on the back of my head as I said "no" over and over into that cheap hotel room pillow.
I remember now when—ten years later—the boyfriend whose light helped me fight off my own darkness, who helped me regain my sense of self, I remember when he wanted to try something different, to spice up our love life, something too close to what had happened that night. I could not get away from the vicious memories, the need to pull away, to run away. I remember overreacting, embarrassment, and tears. I couldn't tell him why. I wouldn't tell him why.
I thought I could overcome it, this failure. Like I needed to find a way to enjoy it, to get my legs a little closer together because I knew he wanted it. But I knew it would hurt, and it did. And still I tried, because I thought that's how I would move on. I thought that's how it would disappear. It wasn't his fault that I never told him the truth. It's not about him; it was about me.
It was about all the baggage that comes with the word "rape."
This is not an appropriation of victimhood. It is instead the realization, angry rejection, and eventually the unsettled acknowledgement that I am—though I don't want to be—a victim of something. Whether you or I or he or she calls it rape or the consequences of my own actions or the results of a situation that went too far, the fact is that there were two of us in that room and one said "no." I made poor choices that put me in that room on that night, but I certainly didn't know what the choices would lead to.
I've never used the word rape to describe it, never said it aloud, though it's been lurking in the periphery of my mind, waiting for me. I pushed the word, the thoughts, the memories, away.
Nearly twenty years later, confronting these memories and truths unsettles me to the point of distraction, to the point of looking for a door out of whatever room I'm in. But confronting these memories also teaches me how far I've come in all these years, how far I came of my own accord in so many ways. It is just one small piece of the much larger story that is my life. It may be a moment of darkness, but it does not define who I am.
The magic pixie dust that I most want would wipe this all of this away, turn it into a bad joke about a man in a red thong who doesn't realize he's the punchline. The magic pixie dust that I most need doesn't make me forget, but lets me forgive myself. I can look at myself in the mirror with love, can't I? Can I look without blame?
Maybe not today, but some days.
moving back to the city
where i was first raped
Molly Raynor
is a ready kind of war.
is a map of puckered silence.
a quickened step, a sour sunset,
racing light as it slips to slit. watch
me slice
through these
streets like violent silk,
soft savage, keys between
my knuckles, lady scissorhands
ready to slash the sky to violet scraps.
i know
what lurks
in the dark &
in the day. alleyways:
convenient shortcuts for
some, traps for others, shattered
gold, ghouls glittering on every corner.
this city
a map of pink regret,
corpses of all the girls i know
with names of men marqueeing their
bodies, who can't go to certain clubs, stores
this city
a minefield of maybe,
of what if he's there, re-routing
coffee runs to avoid all the hims that
hummed liquored hymns cross our hips
we try to
forget but geography
doesn't, letters clang against our
temples like flags, marking all the graves.
moving home
is like this: a riot of
roses unfolding in my
bath, sugar & lavender
from the farmer's market
boiling on stovetop, making
syrup so strong you can't
sour it, can't erase us, try
& dam(n) an ocean, the
breast that keeps on
feeding, try & cut a
worm, the body
that tills the
soil, we
writhe &
recede &
t s u n a m i
i drove to dexter yesterday.
passed the house
on campus
passed a field of
sunflowers, each black
mouth singing my name,
a chorus of self,
each lionmaned flower waving
me on, propelling me to the
blueberry farm, where my
sister & i filled red pails
to the brim with
& snuck bites
____& went home
______& baked a
________blueberry pie
for our grandmother
________who is the fiercest silver,
______a pressed diamond
burning in my mouth.
i'm making
a new map.
every street
after a girl
who chose
to return,
my fingers
stained with
my sweet, not
my blood.
beware boy,
if you ever come home,
you'll find a city bursting with
y e l l o w
A Tightly Held Truth
Sarah Kasbeer
No one is hardwired to handle a rape. Yet a survivor's behavior during and after a sexual assault is often called question. At twenty-three, I was out with my coworkers at a bar when I ran into a guy I'll call "N." He invited me back to his loft nearby to hang out and smoke a little pot. Even though weed on top of a couple of drinks usually made me anti-social, it seemed like a good idea at the time. We sat on his bed and made out for a few minutes before I decided I needed a short nap, which I intended to take fully clothed.
When I awoke, N had unzipped my jeans and was touching me. Half-conscious and disoriented, I allowed him to slide them off completely. When I realized what was happening, I didn't run or kick or scream. I closed my eyes and pretended I was somewhere else. Like with a man I wanted to be with. Or floating in a lake. N put his head between my legs, and my body responded accordingly. As soon as I had an orgasm, he stealthily slipped himself inside of me. He didn't look me in the eye when he did this, nor did he use a condom.
"Stop," I asked. It was like he didn't hear me at first—or maybe he didn't want to hear me. "Stop," I tried again, my body now moving up and down against my will. When our eyes met, he finally stopped and rolled off me.
"I guess I got carried away," was all he said.
It happened so fast that I didn't do or say anything. Instead, I turned so that my back was facing him. He slung his arm over my shoulder. We were both still wearing our shirts.
As soon as he fell asleep, I put my pants back on, tiptoed toward the door, and opened it as quietly as I could. When I got home, I laid in bed, memorizing the grooves of my ceiling light fixture. I knew that I'd never had the chance to consent to sex of any kind, but wasn't able to fathom what had been done to me. In the scheme of things, it wasn't so far off from times I'd been pressured into consenting to sex when I really didn't want to. So, I mentally filed it under "bad sexual experience" and did my best to move on.
A few weeks later, I gave N a ride home after work. Treating him like any normal gentleman caller would better fit the narrative my brain was straining to produce. Just a misunderstanding. It only lasted a few minutes. I'll be fine. When we got to his house, in a desolate part of town, he asked slyly if I wanted to come in. He was flirting with me.
"I can't," I lied with my eyes straight ahead. "I'm seeing someone."
He looked disappointed and stepped out of my car, his boots hitting the pavement loudly. I wouldn't hear from him again for another ten years.
When journalists try to explain why it takes women so long to come forward about sexual assault, they often cite fear of not being believed—or fear of retribution. They note the possibility of re-traumatization by police officers or the court system, which can be unlikely to bring a case and even less likely to secure a conviction. No one ever mentions that sometimes it takes ten years just to come out of denial, to make sense of a traumatic experience.
In the decade that followed, I never considered N a sexual partner: a partnership implies both parties' active participation. Still, I managed to live in denial that I'd been raped. Instead, I changed everything I could about myself, in hopes of escaping the truth. I dyed my blonde hair dark and moved to another city, where I managed to build a career and get married—all without admitting that anything out of the ordinary had ever happened.
This was no easy task. I was in a constant battle with my mind, which I experienced on the surface as anxiety. To avoid specific memories, I had to avoid adjacent ones. Let's say I were to start thinking about pizza and then let my mind wander to how much I love deep dish, and then back to living in Chicago (my old city, where it happened). At that point, I'd be in enemy territory and need to do something drastic—like curse at myself—to drown out the memory before it had a chance to creep in.
"Fuck. Shit!" I'd yell out of nowhere.
Eventually, my anxiety bubbled over, and I finally had to reckon with what happened.
The longer survivors spend fighting—ourselves, our institutions, or our culture—the less incentive we have to offer anyone else an opportunity to poke holes in what has become, by necessity, a tightly held truth. Because every time you willfully follow a thread of doubt, it threatens to unravel your progress. It leads you back to the event, which you're forced to re-live before arriving at the same conclusion: what happened was not your fault.
When I was in therapy, ten years after the fact, I followed one of those threads: I emailed N to confront him. This may sound strange, but deep down, a part of me hoped to find some redeeming quality in him. Something that could rekindle an improbable narrative—one I'd worked so hard for so long to believe in. That what happened was just some big misunderstanding. (It wasn't.) Despite his protest at my use of the word "rape," he mostly agreed with my account, and even suggested that since I was asleep on his bed, he probably thought I was "into it."
Hearing his motivations, however unnerving, confirmed that I was not to blame but merely a casualty in a culture where men feel entitled to women's bodies.
My behavior made perfect sense. It was his that didn't.
Jane's True Story
Sara Kuhns
|Jane's True Story by Sara Kuhns
|Jane's Super-Ego as Informed by the Dominant Male Culture
|At fifteen, I was hanging out at the pizza place with my friends. Another night watching guys smile and talk to them while I inevitably said something dumb or annoying, like "Who's Robert Plant?" Another night being alone in a crowd, wearing my brave face, trying to act like I was having a good time. This place was careless with its alcohol. We couldn't go up to the bar and buy our own, but we could drink.
|Your family loved you, you had friends. Your life was so much better than some. Why wasn't this enough?
|I drank beer, watched my crush move easily, not seeming to care about this clique or that. I admired his confidence, his ease. I'd stand at the edge of a group, laugh with them, then drink another beer when they dismissed me. I remember turning around, trying to find a place to fit. Then my crush was there. He stood beside me and I got giggly and stupid, but he didn't seem to care. He grinned and asked if I wanted to get high, I jumped at the chance to hang out with him, laughing when his friend bundled into the car beside me. This was my crush and his sidekick. It was going to be like in the movies; we were going to be friends, and then he would fall in love with me. They gave me a can of beer, passed me a joint. They thought I was funny; they laughed when I laughed; they passed me another can, and shared another joint. I felt like I belonged. I felt safe and protected.
|Pathetic. Looking for self-worth by getting drunk and hoping someone will notice you.
It was 1974. You watched Buster & Billie that summer. It was so romantic, boy falls in love with girl who fucks for self-esteem. You were asking for it.
Then I blacked out.
For the first time.
|The memory is a montage. I remember pain. I remember trying to sit up, not sure how I ended up in the back of his mom's station wagon. I remember immobility. I remember recognizing an intersection. I remember the red light. Cars lined up, one driver looking at the wagon. I remember not wanting to be there. I remember not being able to speak.
|Being drunk and stoned and blacked out didn't make you innocent. Idiot.
|I remember beginning to sober up. Trying to fit what I had done in my head. I remember not wanting them to know how unclean, how dirty I felt. And when the one who'd been driving wanted his turn, he took me into an empty lot, pressed me back against a chain link fence. He asked me if I was okay with this. I remember being glad it was night, because shame covered me. I didn't want him to have that power. I slurred, "Yeah." I watched him open his jeans. He took out his penis but couldn't get an erection. He took me back to the car. My crush was sitting at the wheel, smoking a cigarette, nodding. Grinning.
|You didn't get raped. You got stupid.
Yet, you still hoped he'd love you.
|They took me home stone-sober. My head as clear as a coastal morning, shrouded in the fog of self-judgement. They parked on the street, and the friend asked me which room was mine. He asked me to undress in front of the window. I said, "Alright."
|Who the fuck would've wanted to watch your skinny-assed, no-breasts-chest undress?
|Inside, I told my parents the party was okay. I went to my room, looked at night pressed against the windows, and turned off the light. Crawling into bed in my clothes, I stuffed the covers against my face, soaking them with silent regret. Humiliation covered me that night. Took me again. Then it invited morning, and I lay under every blanket I owned, exposed.
|I don't feel sorry for you. Just sorry that I was you.
|I was shit.
|Yeah, you were.
|One of my friends called, told me I was wasted when they saw me leave. I wanted to ask why they didn't stop me; instead, afraid of blame, I quashed regret and sorrow. I told a different story. I lost my virginity to my crush. "It was great," I said. Soiling my reputation to save my soul.
|I don't even know where this logic came from. Don't even think of claiming this is a rape story.
|I gave myself permission to stay drunk, high on anything I could find. And whored my way through high school. Each boy fed my narrative, allowed me to pretend I wasn't dirty, unwelcome, ugly.
|Bullshit. You felt the judgement. You knew they threw you away when they were done.
|I imagined myself powerful, my open legs a weapon. Truth was, I was just a broken girl. A liar who could barely believe her own stories.
|Not quite. You accidentally had an orgasm and discovered a new drug of choice. Goddamn whore.
|I dropped out. Ran away. Left the Midwest for California. I thought sunlight, like bleach, would purify. But the stain of self-loathing is hard to remove. Dousing it with alcohol, scrubbing it with PCP, just blurred the edges, spread it over a larger space. I could hide in the pit of myself. I even let myself forget.
|Do you know what you did to your family? They didn't even know if you were alive. Privileged ingrate.
|Until it happened again four years later. It was Halloween, and I'd gone to a concert in Denver. I was disappointed because I wasn't high, and I couldn't find my friends. I stuck out my thumb for a ride. This time there were five. When they were through with me, and tired of my sobs, they left me in the foothills of the Rockies. In the middle of the night. One of the guys got out of the van, and when I backed away from him he said, "Christ, I'm not gonna do anything to you." I remember being paralyzed, again. He turned me around, pointed at the dark road down the hill, and said, "That way to people."
|You know, if you hadn't been hitchhiking, if they'd pulled you off the street… But you're forgetting you're the same girl that fucked her way through high school. That shit doesn't magically disappear.
|I remember watching the tail lights of the van float up the hill, and finally disappear. Somewhere a cow mooed. Somewhere, something howled. I remember how raw my body felt, how cold and exhausted I was. I wanted to curl up on the side of the road. I was ready to die and afraid of dying at the same time. I was a coward. I turned to look down the hill and a single light, like a star, seemed so very far away. I started walking. Hunched, with slow, quivering steps. I was so afraid of the darkness around me, I couldn't think.
|Leaving you in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night was a shit thing to do.
|A lifetime later I rang a doorbell at three in the morning. A police car came. The officer had me show them where the guys dropped me off. He told me he'd kill them if he could. At the station, they interviewed me; when the detective asked if I'd taken any drugs at the concert, I told him I was given a hit of acid, but it didn't work. He didn't believe me. He didn't believe anything I said.
|Sounds like a music video. But you still remember what your teeth sounded like, you were so cold.
What was it going to take to wake up and stop using mood-altering substances. Fuck. How was I supposed to make something good of my life if you continued to exercise such bad fucking judgement. God, I hate you. You disgust me.
|A different policeman drove me back to Denver, stopped at the gas station where the van had stopped after they picked me up. I watched the officer talk to the cashier, a young blond guy who looked at me for a minute. When the officer got back in the car, he told me he had the license number of the van, and that the cashier remembered hearing them talk about what they were going to do to me. My eyes burned. I remembered laughing in the front seat with my "friends." I was inviting them to a post-concert party. I remembered the cashier looking at me.
See, guys know how to look out for each other. What was it going to take for you to figure that out?
|They had all that, but told me the guys had alibis.
Nothing ever came of it.
|Of course not. Today they call it rape culture. You know, boys will be boys and it's a man's world, sweetheart.
Katie Simon
"When will I stop being 'the raped girl'?" I wondered aloud to my friend Tyler, smoking Marlboros on the sidewalk. It had been three years since a stranger raped me in a Tel Aviv alleyway, dust and shadows and crumbling cement. I wanted to escape the label the attack had cast upon me; though nobody called me that out loud, I felt myself forced into an identity I hadn't asked for, and I resented its accompanying pain.
I thought I already knew the answer to my own question; I could stop being "the raped girl" when I could think of the alleyway, think of Israel, without panicking. When it was just a place, no longer a nightmare.
For years after the rape I expected never to return to Israel. I hoped that by putting thousands of miles between myself and the alleyway, I could escape it.
Years later, I still couldn't.
I decided to go back.
I blacked out drinking the night before I got on a flight back to Tel Aviv. I fell to the ground in my friend's driveway, threw up in a diner bathroom, and ignored what was coming. I preferred feeling nothing to feeling pain.
As the plane landed in Tel Aviv I felt like my body was being compressed, like I was shrinking. I couldn't breathe. I pressed my spine into my seat as the wheels touched down, as if a shift in a single passenger's bodyweight could force the plane to reverse. I had never wanted to be anywhere but my present location more than in that moment. Not in the alleyway, not in my trauma therapist's office, recounting my worst moments. Nothing was actually happening to or around me. Just inside me.
Being in Israel was not the hell I had imagined. I had forgotten how walking through Jerusalem feels like walking through history; how the Negev is so silent that when the wind blows, it sounds like a symphony; how blue the Mediterranean appears, bluer than the sky.
But I was not there for the cities or the sounds or the sea. I was there for the alleyway, to prove to myself that it was a place, not a nightmare. Anticipatory anxiety is always worse than the thing itself, and the best way to stop it is to do whatever I was anticipating.
So I went on a walk. I walked past the sushi stand on Rotschild and Carmel Market, past the spice vendors and lightbulb shops and abandoned, graffiti-cloaked buildings, past the apartment building I used to live in, and down Florentine Street. I crossed a basketball court and faced the exact spot I was raped.
There was the wall I had stared at; the streetlight that had beamed stripes onto the dirty ground at my feet; the ledge he had pushed me onto. Murals covered one wall, smudged paintings of flowers and words in Hebrew. The wall belonged to a preschool. I imagined kids playing catch in these shadows, cops and robbers around these corners.
A fence blocked the entrance to the alleyway now, so I stood staring between its bars, crying as silently as I had that night. I turned around and walked away, headed for the sea.
I expected to feel more pain than I did returning to the alleyway. But that was not the real pain.
The real pain was doing the things I had done before the rape: revisiting the brunch spot with the rolls and getting bleached beach sand in my sneakers and renting a ridiculously bright red car and floating toes-up in the Dead Sea and living off sun-warmed hummus and carrying with me a bottle of seventeen-shekel wine, cheap and sugary and tastes-like olives, just like all the bottles I had drunk years before. I buried it in my backpack and lugged it all around Israel.
On the last night of my trip I opened it—using a fork and a fist—and felt the pain of being unable to access the self that drank it, the self I was before a few hours later being raped with the taste of that wine still on my tongue. It was the last thing I tasted before my rapist and tasting it for the first time since the last time was the pain. Codas are patterns and therein lies their power.
Sometimes people tell me that I am brave for "surviving" rape. I don't agree.
It was not the experience of being raped that I survived.
I survived what came after: the fact of being trapped inside a body I despised with a fresh, searing hatred of which I had not known I was capable. I survived weeks of hiding a rainbow of bruises from my family, of hiding a story from everyone I knew and met, of hiding from myself. I survived a reorganization of my world to allow for random people to do horrible things to good people. I survived the knowledge that violence is possible, no matter how much I try to mitigate the risk—a knowledge that many people do not grasp, and that would help end widespread rape if only they could. I survived the disturbing revelation that I could wish somebody dead, and wish that I had killed him. I survived telling my story.
We are victims of what happens to us; survival is what comes afterward.
Rumpus original logo art by Luna Adler.
ENOUGH is a Rumpus series devoted to creating a dedicated space for work by women and non-binary people that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence. We believe that while this subject matter is especially timely now, it is also timeless. We want to make sure that this conversation doesn't stop—not until our laws and societal norms reflect real change.
We received over four hundred submissions to our initial call and will not be accepting additional pieces at this time. We may reopen for submissions at a future date. We also must acknowledge that the submissions we received overwhelmingly came from white, heterosexual women. While we are actively assessing how we can do better in our next call for submissions, we also believe this points to systemic inequalities that need to be addressed: who has access to healthcare and to therapy, who has been taught to speak up and who has been taught to be silent.
Many names appearing in these stories have been changed.
Visit the archives here.


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Many in Utah are hopeful that the state will legalize medical marijuana this November, and it looks like the odds are very good that it will at least receive a vote.
The initiative to legalize medical marijuana needs a little over 8,000 more signatures in the next two weeks to qualify for the November ballot. Utah law requires at least 113,000 signatures for an initiative to get on the ballot, which the medical marijuana campaign already has received with over 122,000 names. But Utah also requires that an initiative receive signatures from 10 percent of the number of voters in the most recent presidential election in 26 of the state's 29 senate districts. So far, they've received enough signatures in 22 of the districts, so they only need four more.
There's plenty of reason to be optimistic about the Utah medical marijuana initiative. Recent polls show around 75 percent of Utahans support medical cannabis, which indicates that the initiative should pass with ease.
However, there does seem to be a strong opposition movement forming. Recently, Utah's Governor Gary Herbert spoke out against the initiative, claiming it will pave the way towards recreational legalization. The Utah Medical Association, a lobbying group for the state's doctors and medical professionals, also came out against the initiative, although they also claimed it was because it could lead to recreational marijuana, not for any medically backed reasons.
But they're still going to need to convince around 25 percent of the population to change their minds about medical marijuana in the next seven months. That will be no easy task.
(h/t Utah Policy)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
AgustaWestland UTC
Lift-Off for the AgustaWestland UTC
Visitors to the Structures laboratory in BLADE will find a new 'occupant' in residence: they will not be able to miss the carcase of a Lynx Helicopter supported at Mezzanine level on a custom built frame! This newcomer symbolises the growing collaboration between the Engineering Faculty and AgustaWestland and is one of the many investments being made by both parties in the new AgustaWestland UTC (University Technology Centre) on Vibration Reduction.
For many years, the Aerospace Engineering Department at UoB has had close links with Westland Helicopters (now, AgustaWestland) in both its teaching and research activities. One of the strong themes of the research collaboration has been focussed on the many vibration and structural dynamic problems which plague helicopters more than almost any other man-made structure. In most machines, vehicles and structures, vibration is an unwanted side effect of moving components which causes undesirable discomfort, noise, unreliability and - in more extreme cases - structural failure through fatigue. In the great majority of cases, it is a second-order effect, caused by slight out of balance, or non-smooth road surfaces etc. but in helicopters there is an in-built first-order dynamic loading which results from the inherent nonsymmetry of the large aerodynamic forces on the rotor blades. This is particularly acute when the helicopter is in forward flight as well as hovering. As a result, the levels of vibration in a helicopter tend to be much higher than those experienced in other vehicles: hence the strong interest in the structural dynamics expertise that can be found amongst the many research groups who are active in the BLADE laboratories.
This is the background to the creation of a strategic partnership between UoB and AgustaWestland which is modelled on the UTC format developed over the past 20 years to a very high degree of sophistication by Rolls-Royce (and whose Composites UTC is now another major initiative in the Aerospace Department ). An agreement to establish the AgustaWestland UTC in Vibration Reduction was formally signed in 2007 and over the past 2 years the structure, fabric, team of researchers and initial 5-year research programme for the Centre have all been assembled. Just a few weeks ago, at the end of September 2009, the first formal meeting of the UTC's Steering Committee – with representatives from Bristol, Yeovil and Cascina Costa (AgustaWestland's HQ in Italy) was held to review the first year's technical progress and to chart the way forward for the next few years .
While the UTC is primarily concerned with the prosecution of a large research programme (there will be between 4 and 6 full-time researchers, most of whom are postdoctoral RAs), it is intended that - as a strategic partnership - there will be many more interactions between the university and the company than those dealing with the core research tasks. The UTC team will become involved in other technical activities at AW: for example, in September three of the UTC researchers participated in the vibration testing of a new helicopter – a major milestone in the development of any new aircraft and an event rarely observed by 'outsiders' to the company that builds it. Also, there will be many points of contact between AgustaWestland and the UG and PG course activities – final-year or design projects, industrial visits – even, in the next few weeks, the opportunity to experience a flight in a helicopter - although not the one which will soon reside in the BLADE laboratories!
For further information on the UTC please see the AgustaWestland web site


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Ghumarwin MLA Rajesh Dharmani has demanded a high-level judicial inquiry into the accidental death of Parshu Ram award-winner and athletics coach Kamlesh Thakur. Talking to mediapersons here today, Dharmani said despite the ordeal she went through at the hands of various conspirators led by a senior officer of her department, she did not lose her balance of mind and vowed to fight back to get justice.
Rajesh Dharmani said despite her repeated requests and representations to the police, district administration, Sports Department, state Women Rights Commission and even the Chief Minister for the past three months, no action had been taken.
Rajesh Dharmani said the Chief Minister had assured her that an inquiry would be ordered and she would get justice soon. But within days of this assurance by the CM, she was transferred to a far-off school in Una district from Bilaspur town. Dharmani said the CM failed to give justice to Kamlesh when she was alive. He demanded CM to order an inquiry and ensure justice to her.


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I am very interested in Amish fiction, but I am kind of a wimp about buggy crashes, or too much death and sadness. So I gave up on reading them because it seemed like the authors always used that to bring excitement to what would otherwise be a rather plain life. I'm interested in the simple joys and trials of life. What would you say are the gentlest Amish books you have read? Something more along the lines of the Little House books where the troubles are usually related to crop failure etc. instead of tragedy...
Thanks for sharing that real world example, Frank. Yes these ads seem disconnected from reality. As I wrote, the only positive spin I could come up with is maybe it's for someone who would want to create a few plots or one novel for very little pay just to get the experience before moving to something better. Just looking at rates for genre writers on the same site, the hourly rate for many is as much or more than the price offered for one plot by this company. https://www.upwork.com/hire/romance-writers/
Some[who?] argue that the non-Amish authors fail to understand Amish theology and how it differs in key areas from mainstream Christianity. They thus present characters who may appear Amish but who maintain an evangelical Christian worldview. For example, a character might proclaim an assurance of salvation, rather than a "living hope" of such as the Amish do. Amish specific beliefs such as non-violence, non participation in government, and an unwillingness to proselytize may be glossed over or not mentioned. Evangelical themes, such as sexual purity, are substituted.[citation needed]
The genre has proven lucrative for publishers,[2][3][4] many of which are Christian publishers, such as Bethany House, Thomas Nelson, and Zondervan.[5] The first commercially successful Amish romance novel, according to writer Valerie Weaver-Zercher, was Beverly Lewis' The Shunning, published in 1997 by Bethany House.[5] In addition, over 150 Amish fiction e-books were self-published between 2010 and 2013.[6] The three most successful authors of Amish romance—Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall, and Wanda Brunstetter—have sold over 24 million books.[6]


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The Obama administration declassified a series of documents on the National Security Agency's extensive surveillance of Americans' phone data on Wednesday.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the release was "in the interest of increased transparency," though the "transparency" comes after some of the documents were already leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Two of the documents are briefing papers from 2009 and 2011, when, as the New York Times reports,
the provision of the Patriot Act that the court relied on to issue that order was up for reauthorization. The papers outlined the bulk collection of "metadata" logging all domestic phone calls and e-mails of Americans and are portrayed as an "early warning system" that allowed the government to quickly see who was linked to a terrorism suspect.
Referring to a provision allowed by Section 215 of the Patriot Act and the "Pen-Trap" provision in FISA, the 2011 document stated, "Both of these programs operate on a very large scale."
The third document is an April 2013 order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordering Verizon to turn over its customers' phone metadata. Though the name "Verizon" is not seen in the heavily redacted document, the Washington Post reports that
senior U.S. officials said it was issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to a subsidiary of Verizon in April. Officials described it as the formal order underlying the directive that was disclosed in June by Snowden.
Responding to the declassification of the document already revealed by Snowden, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange told Democracy Now! on Wednesday:
Well, Edward Snowden already made the order public, so, I mean, this is absurd. This is like our release of Guantánamo Bay documents and other documents. These have already been made public, and now the administration is going to apparently wave some magical pixie dust to remove the contaminant of it being formerly classified by the administration. So, I mean, here we have an example that there's actually no disclosure before the public, until there is unauthorized disclosure before the public.
The documents were revealed the same day as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on NSA surveillance, prompting Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to say at the hearing:
An hour ago, ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] declassified a FISA court order under Section 215 -- that's a good thing -- but ODNI has known for weeks that this hearing was coming and yet ODNI releases this material just a few minutes before the hearing began.
You know, again, it's a step forward, but you get the feeling when it's ad hoc transparency, that doesn't engender trust, I don't think.
At the hearing, FBI deputy director Sean Joyce defended the bulk collection of phone metadata at the hearing, saying, "We must have the dots to connect the dots."
An unofficial congressional hearing that would have featured voices from critics of NSA spying was also scheduled for Wednesday but was abruptly canceled after Obama called a surprise meeting with House Democrats.


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Maritime Washington National Heritage Area
Beginning with coastal canoe cultures and continuing to superferries and superfreighters, Western Washington's community and commerce has grown on our saltwater shores. The story of our maritime heritage is a key to understanding ourselves as a region. It is also a story of national importance, reflecting a unique way of life in a place like no other.
A variety of groups, from heritage societies to ports to Native American tribes and intertribal organizations, have worked diligently to protect and celebrate our living maritime heritage. However, many of those groups have also struggled to maintain volunteer support, raise funds, and build sustainable organizations. Individual groups believe that telling a bigger story—one that brings together old and new, the Pacific and Puget Sound, large craft and small—will engage more of the public and better share the history, drama and excitement of our maritime stories. Accordingly, Washington's maritime heritage community has banded together and for the past several years have been working to achieve a new designation for Washington's maritime resources as a National Heritage Area, stretching along Washington's saltwater coastline from Grays Harbor County to the Canadian border.
In February 2019, this long fight for designation achieved a stunning victory when the Congress passed the John Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management and Recreation Act, the largest public lands bill in over a decade, which included the official designation of the Maritime Washington National Heritage Area (MW-NHA). The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation is named as the local coordinating entity for the program and we are excited to work with our partners to capitalize on the new designation!
Maritime Washington National Heritage Area Funding Update
Good news on the funding front for the Maritime Washington National Heritage Area (MW-NHA)!
In December, Congress passed a budget for the 2020 fiscal year, which includes increased funding to National Heritage Areas. This will result in an anticipated $150,000 to support the management plan process for our newly designated NHA.
Also in December, Governor Inslee released his proposed 2020 state supplemental budget, which likewise included $150,000 to support development of the MW-NHA management plan through the Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation. If the Governor's proposal makes it through the legislature, this will be the required local match for the NHA's federal funding. Stay tuned for how you can help!
Maritime Washington National Heritage Area Celebration
The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation was proud to join the Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation, Congressman Derek Kilmer, and representatives from the offices of Senator Patty Murray, Senator Maria Cantwell, and Congressman Denny Heck at Foss Waterway Seaport in Tacoma on August 29 for a celebration of the new MW-NHA. As the designated local coordinating entity for the new National Heritage Area, we look forward to working with partners across Washington's saltwater coastlines to tell the unique story of our state's maritime heritage. Check out a few photos from the event!
Stay in the loop!
As the local coordinating entity, the Washington Trust is looking forward to putting together the management plan for the newly designated National Heritage Area. Over the next few years, we will be working with a variety of stakeholders to develop that plan to create a vibrant heritage area. Following approval of this plan by the NPS, we will be off and running, highlighting the stories, resources and individuals that make our state's maritime heritage so compelling. If you'd like to stay up-to-date on Maritime Washington National Heritage Area (MW-NHA) developments, please join our email list!
Feasibility Study
National Heritage Area designation follows a two-step process: completion of a feasibility study (rather than an application) and introduction of authorizing legislation in the U.S. Congress. Broadly, these evaluation criteria relate to the following questions:
- Does the landscape has an assemblage of historic, cultural, and natural resources that, when linked together, tell a nationally important story?
- Do outstanding opportunities exist for improving the quality of the resource assemblage through conservation, recreation, and education?
- Are there ongoing traditions, customs, and lifeways associated with a nationally important story?
- Does an organization exist that has the financial and organizational capacity to coordinate heritage area activities?
- Is there public support for NHA designation and the proposed coordinating entity, and are potential partners interested in working with the proposed coordinating entity on heritage area activities?
This study was the culmination of a four-year grassroots movement, an extensive community outreach process, and a rigorous assessment of Washington State's unique maritime heritage and its contribution to our shared national story. The nation's west coast is a place to experience two vital components of the American character: our pioneering spirit and restless innovation. The proposed National Heritage Area demonstrates these uniquely American qualities through its stories of exploration, intrepid communities, and dynamic industries. The Maritime Washington National Heritage Area will make a strong contribution to the growing collection of National Heritage Areas throughout the country, offering opportunities for learning unavailable anywhere else.
Want a shorter peek at the content of the feasibility study? Check out the overview document or the themes and sub-themes exerpt from the full document.


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The July issue of NFPA News, our codes and standards newsletter, is now available.
In this issue:
- Overview of new NFPA Regulations
- Results from the 2011 Association Technical Meeting on 19 NFPA documents
- Free live web updates regarding antifreeze in sprinkler systems
- Call for members on technical committees
- Committees soliciting proposals
- Committee calendar
NFPA News is a free newsletter, and includes special announcements, notification of proposal and comment closing dates, requests for comments, notices on the availability of Standards Council minutes, and other important news about NFPA's code and standards making process.
Free subscription
Sign-in on NFPA's website and then select "NFPA News" from your e-mail options.


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13/02 Stukafest Kick-Off
13 februari 2019 20:00 t/m 23:00 - Door: Communication
On Wednesday, February 13th you can experience the real Stukafest atmosphere during three different performances at Freetown. This little sneak preview of Stukafest offers free acts of Pieter Jouke, the Marvin Dee band and Tim Horsting. Guaranteed that you'll have a fun night!
The first artist to perform is comedian Pieter Jouke. Together with Arjan Lubach and Edo Schoonbeek, he started the collective Buro Rekema, wrote three books and you can see him on television regularly.
The Marvin Dee band will perform right after Pieter Jouke. They are an acoustic pop-rock band from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The band combines frontman Marvin's background in musical theatre with a rocky edge, finding a middle ground somewhere between Freddy Mercury's dramatic vocals, Dave Matthews Band's complex Americana jams, JJ Grey's Southern gospel soul, and The Common Linnets' five-part country vocal harmonies. Therefore, their music does not lend itself well to be labelled, and continues to surprise audiences across the Netherlands. In an industry currently dominated by synthesizers, auto-tune and computerized pop sounds, Marvin Dee Band wants to return to the basics. Honest, real music; what you see is what you get, and everything you hear is performed live.
Marvin Dee - When You Go (Official Video)
The third performance is by Tim Horsting. He is a magician, theatre producer and fire breather from Wageningen. He performed on various festivals throughout Europe, was on television with Uri Geller, survived difficult record-breaking attempts and played in more than seventy shows in Dubai. During the 2019 Stukafest Kick-Off, Tim will bring an unique mix of humour, horror, magic and interaction. You won't believe your own eyes!
Curious when and where the performances take place? Check it out!
Times 404 - Freetown Cafe X Living Room - Freetown
20:00 – 20:30 Pieter Jouke Marvin Dee band Tim Horsting
20:45 – 21:15 Pieter Jouke Marvin Dee band Tim Horsting
21:30 – 22:00 Pieter Jouke Marvin Dee band Tim Horsting
Stukafest Delft 2019
Intimate performances in cosy student rooms: this year's edition of Stukafest Delft (Student Kamer Festival) will be on February the 27nd. Take off your coat, grab a beer and get ready to be surprised. Cozy, messy student rooms throughout Delft are transformed into mini-stages where you can enjoy music, dance, comedy, theatre and much more. You can choose your three favourites, during three rounds. Between every performance there is a thirty minute break so there won't be any rush to get to the next room. After the final round, everyone - including the artists - put on their dancing socks for the legendary afterparty!
Do you want some more info?Check the Facebook event
Wednesday 13 February | 20:00 – 23:00 | at Freetown of X | FREE! [In co-op with Stukafest Delft]


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Huge product rangeOver 140,000 books & equipment products
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Exceptional customer serviceGet specialist help and advice
This is a thorough revision and update of this highly successful text which achieved sales in excess of 4,500 in the first edition. The text serves as a comprehensive introduction to parasitology for both undergraduate and beginning graduate students. In this edition, particular emphasis is placed on parasites of human and veterinary importance. The first three chapters in the text are concerned with how parasites 'work', their biochemistry, molecular and cell biology and physiology. The remaining chapters cover ecology and epidemiology, immunology and chemotherapy and the final chapter covers integrated control. This new edition contains new material on cell and molecular biology, vectors and control, in contrast to the general biological approach of the first edition. The second edition will succeed the first as the major text on parasitology for students in biology, zoology, microbiology, medicine, veterinary medicine, tropical medicine and public health.
Parasitic protozoa; Parasitic helminths; Vectors; Epidemiology; Biochemistry; Molecular biology and molecular genetics; Physiology and nutrition; Immunology; Chemotherapy; Control


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In an interview with a right-wing Israeli newspaper, Elor Azaria, said he had "no remorse whatsoever" for killing an incapacitated Palestinian in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in 2016.
After an alleged stabbing attack against Israeli occupying soldiers, the young Palestinian man, Abd al Fattah Al-Sharif, had already been shot and was seriously wounded. He was lying motionless on the ground, surrounded by many Israeli soldiers. In the video of the murder documented by the Human Rights Defenders in Hebron and the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem (warning: many viewers may find this video and the others below, to be disturbing), two other soldiers were closer to the wounded man, and it is clear they did not see him as a threat anymore.
Out of nowhere, Azaria cocks his weapon, aims at Al-Sharif, and fires one round into his head. A pool of blood begins to stream down the street. This was an extrajudicial execution, plain and simple. Again, the man was motionless and posed absolutely no clear and present danger, which is why the two soldiers who were standing close to Al-Sharif were not expecting anyone to fire at him, as is visible by their reactions.
Azaria also did not cock his weapon nor fire with a sense of urgency that would indicate a true threat. The fact that his rifle was not already cocked implies that there was no present danger. He just did not expect to be caught on camera while murdering someone, and probably thought he would get away with killing a Palestinian.
One might say that Azaria is simply a bad apple and does not reflect the behavior or attitudes of Israeli occupying soldiers. The problem is, there are many documented videos of Israeli forces behaving in such a callous way. Below are just a few examples of documented Israeli brutality against Palestinians, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are also plenty of examples where such ruthlessness was not captured on camera.
In this video taken by Israeli soldiers themselves, a sniper shoots a Palestinian protester on the other side of the fence in Gaza. He screams in joy after hitting him, and exclaims, "Wow, what a video!" Another soldier seems to be impressed that the man was shot in his head.
In 2014, Defence for Children International released a video showing surveillance footage of two Palestinian teenagers gunned down and killed by Israeli forces, despite the fact that these children did not pose any danger.
In another video documented by B'Tselem, an Israeli soldier is thrilled after hitting a Palestinian protester in a town near Nablus. The same soldier is disappointed that they are using rubber bullets, instead of normal ones (even though rubber bullets can also be lethal). In the same video, a soldier tells another of his plan to fire tear gas in a way that will cause the photographers to get all the gas.
In this video taken in Ramallah, Israeli police run over a protester with their vehicle. Then one of them knocks the protester in the head with his rifle, stomps on him, and walks on top of him. Then they rough up the Palestinian medics and prevent them from treating the injured man. In the same video, one of the medics is seen being carried away on a stretcher, and a reporter is manhandled and assaulted by the police.
And one cannot forget the cold-blooded murder on June 1, 2018 of Razan Najjar, a volunteer paramedic who was treating an injured Palestinian protester east of Khan Younis in Gaza. Apparently, Ms. Najjar was running in the direction of the border fence to reach one of casualties of the protest. Despite wearing a white uniform and clearly raising her hands high, indicating that she is a medical worker, an Israeli sniper nevertheless mercilessly shot her in the chest. Ms. Najjar had no weapon whatsoever and was clearly not attempting to breach the heavily fortified Israeli security fence with Gaza. Yet she was still gunned down like an animal. In this case, it is rather fortunate that there was no video of the actual murder. One does not need to witness another barbaric execution.
So, how does Israel get away with such brazen executions of human beings? Simply put, Israel can murder Palestinians because it can, and it faces almost no consequences for doing so. For executing an unarmed, incapacitated man, as shown by clear and overwhelming video evidence, Elor Azaria was convicted of manslaughter, not murder (it is worth noting that Azaria lied and tried to claim that he feared the Palestinian man had an explosive vest and that he tried to reach for a knife, both of which were clearly untrue). He only served nine months in prison for this killing. The Israeli officer who killed the two teenagers also received only nine months.
To put this into perspective and to show the double standard in Israeli convictions, one can look at the cases of five boys from East Jerusalem who received longer prison sentences for throwing stones. These boys received sentences ranging from two years and four months to three years and three months in prison. Ahed Tamimi, the teenager who slapped two Israeli soldiers while protesting in response to her 15-year old cousin being shot in the head at close range by an Israeli rubber-coated steel bullet, received an eight-month prison sentence. How does it make any sense that Palestinian minors engaging in civil disobedience against their occupiers receive such long prison sentences, while Israeli murderers are let off after nine months?
What makes Azaria's case even more despicable is the fact that he was serving specifically as an Israeli medic in the occupying forces. This is someone who took an oath to provide medical care and save lives, "to extend a helping hand to any who is injured or ill, be he lowly or venerable, friend or foe – to any fellow man." Obviously, Azaria is a dishonorable and cruel person, and his desire to kill a Palestinian is greater than his desire to save a human being.
Again, one might say that Azaria is just a horrible example of someone serving in any military who commits a dreadful crime simply because he is a psychopath, someone who is dishonest and manipulative, and lacks remorse or empathy.
If Azaria's actions were such an anomaly, why is it that within hours, an online crowdfunding campaign to support him raised at least 400,000 Israeli shekels (around 110,000 US dollars)? Why is it that he received a "hero's welcome" when he returned for the first time to the scene of the murder?
Why is it that 70 percent of Israelis supported clemency for Azaria, and only 19% said that he should not be pardoned? This 70 percent includes Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, minister of education Naftali Bennet, and other senior officials. These are the people who represent a large segment of the Israeli public. Bennet even said that Azaria should be pardoned "without him serving a single day in prison." He added that punishing Azaria would send the wrong message to other Israeli soldiers in similar situations. For Bennet and many other Israelis, it seems that the right message is that soldiers should be able to kill Palestinians without hesitation.
These are just some of the questions that Israelis must ask themselves. Azaria had no remorse for taking a human life, but it does not seem that many Israelis had much remorse either.


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Paul and Val McMahon
Paul and Eve Clift
Neil Deakin
Peter Hamlett
Pete & Kate Leeming
Paul and Val McMahon
Paul and Val McMahon are part of the senior leadership here at The King's Church. Paul was a professional musician before surrendering his life to Christ in the early 70's. Val came to the Lord through Billy Graham at one of his crusades.
They were married in 1975 and have three children and four grandchildren. They lived in Bradford, being part of The Church House Fellowship (now LIFE Church) for many years before being sent out to join the church in Halifax in 1984. Paul has fulfilled various leadership roles before becoming the senior leader in 1994.
Both have traveled extensively in sharing the message of the Kingdom. Their passion is to see the Church fulfill its God-given vision and to see the people reach their full potential as fully equipped and available ministers of the life of the Kingdom wherever they are planted.


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So how are your New Year's resolutions going? That's right, we're checking up on your goals for self-improvement for 2014… While it's almost the end of January, we thought it would be good to ask people what their resolutions are – hopefully this will remind you to stick to them!
We asked students and staff members of EC San Diego English School for their 2014 resolutions. If you haven't already made a resolution for yourself, take a look at these for some inspiration!
Student Services Counselor Izzy: "I want to experience more of nature – go hiking, camping, swimming!"
Student Services Counselor Liz: "To learn a language other than Korean or Spanish. To catch a bear with my bare hands."
Teacher Mai: "I resolve to test other people's resolutions. Also, I live my life perfectly; I don't need any resolutions."
Takaaki K: "I want to find a good job and visit friends in Switzerland!"
Kumiko H.: "I want to speak English very well and be able to live with foreigners in Japan."
Anthony B. "To play more sports and stay healthy"
Sultan A.: "I plan to go to University – and get engaged!"
Yuri S.: "I want to get an internship at a naval company."
Bruno C.: "I want to buy an apartment in Brazil for my fiance and me…I'm already engaged."
Student Services Counselor Elisabeth: "To catch a leopard shark with my bare hands, shuck an oyster, and not eat so much chocolate!"
Academic Assistant Andrew: "To eat more chocolate. And to make everyone else around me eat more chocolate."
Yuko: "To get my license to work at an insurance company. Also, I want to take diving lessons!"
Teacher Melissa: "I want to enjoy more walks by the ocean."
Assistant Academic Director Nick: "To go running once a week. And to move into a place where my 14 month-year-old son Luca can have his own room!"
Joonsung: "To improve my English…and get a girlfriend"
Teacher Adolf: "To go bungee jumping"
Teacher Alvin: "To attend the World Cup this year"
Accommodations Director Tina: "To make spontaneous decisions and go on a 20-mile hike"
Operations Manager LyKai: "To follow my dream!"
So…what's your New Year's Resolution for 2014?


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Best places to play poker in India
I've been playing as many different internet poker programs as I can, trying to get a sense of them and find which ones I think would be the very best. I am rather certain that I have been on each internet poker website that India offers, that has resulted in me coming up with all the 8 online poker websites in India I believe are the very best and worthy of the time.
To start for me personally, I have one of the top rated internet poker websites in India, that were working hard to set themselves as the number one online poker platform from the nation, the remarkable Adda52. Not just do Adda52 have among the very best gameplay programs in the internet poker business but they also have some amazing promotions aimed atn't just bringing new players for their website but also rewarding those that are faithful to them. Add in the fact that Chris Gayle is currently working with Adda52 and you may see exactly how well they're doing.
Among my personal recommendation is Khelo365, It delivers the ideal internet experience and provides security concerning cash withdrawals and deposits. The new and enhanced Khelo365 is readily available for downloading on Windows, Android and HTML5 Instant Play. It provides a variety of Poker games to Select from such as Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Pineapple (OFC), Texas 6+ Poker, Boost and Reverse Hold'em.
The newest model of Khelo365 is packed with exciting and new capabilities. Money Game attribute, Anonymous, Boost (fast-fold poker), Straddle/re-straddle, Run it Heads up.
If You're in it to win it then Choose the Tournament/SnG attribute which comprises:
Freezeout and Re-buy/Add-on: Here players have been removed until there's only 1 participant left with the chips. And they're not permitted to re-buy or add on – at a'freezeout'.
Shootout: Here gamers should continue winning the dining table to have the ability to play at the last round.
Timed tourney: Race against the clock with this tourney wherethe winner is going to be the person who gets the maximum chips at a restricted set of period.
Satellite and multi-stage series championship – Win here and you are able to win the buy fee to the huge games such as the World Series of Poker Main Events. Wonderful, right?
Khelo365 includes a great deal of new features that I can go on around. Experience the pleasure of playing poker online on Khelo365 and keep tuned for the newest upgrade because in the month of November 2019.
Spartan Poker has some Massive offers
If it comes to playing internet poker, Spartan Poker is obviously on top of my listing. Not just do Spartan Poker supplies online gambling experience but they've raised the bar by organising substantial tournaments for players like India Poker Championship, that has broken records like no other in India. It's a massive number of users playing its platform, and it has seen an upward tendency, intriguing the gamers to perform more. Spartan Poker always has something fresh for Indian internet poker players and can be full of surprises, just wondering what's going be its own next.
Poker Baazi is still offering up
It wasn't long ago when you used to listen to quite a whole lot about Poker Baazi and it appeared for some time that it was going to truly have a fantastic go in controlling the internet poker scene in India. Regrettably, even though it seems as though it could really be slipping a bit, as I have not been hearing much sound from the website or on it in my own poker circles. That said, Poker Baazi is still going strong and can have tons of busy rooms to encounter. While they don't appear to quite be about the degree of Adda52 and Real Poker India, they're not too far off.
Real Poker India additionally provide Rake Back
We have an internet poker company that's been operating in the Indian marketplace for a couple of months now but that has been creating a few big movies on the internet poker arena, the thrilling Real Poker India. In an attempt to acquire new players to combine its internet poker platform, Real Poker India are supplying some enticing sign up bonuses, such as a No Deposit Bonus plus a Double Your Deposit Bonus, each of which have obviously been working miracles, as their number of users appears to be steadily rising all of the time.
PokerStars is a Massive title
If it comes to playing online poker, it's most likely reasonable to state that the most important and most famous name in the online poker business is PokerStars that's been dominating online poker scene for several decades now, throughout the world. Having said that though, while I can not deny that PokerStars is good at what it does, I feel as if there's something missing that I can not really put my finger on. The gameplay is smooth and the website has some fantastic offers but once I am playing on PokerStars, I only feel like I need something just a bit longer.
PokerRaj are making great progress
Another brand new name on the internet poker arena in India is PokerRaj, that was brought to us from the well known celebrity couple Raj Kundra along with his wife Shilpa Shetty, that are wanting to pump at the capital to take over on peak of the Indian poker arena. PokerRaj is currently coming along well but you can tell it is still in its infancy concerning getting to where it needs to be. There are a couple of glitches here and there that require ironing out, and of course a number of the current sound encompassing some flaws. But that apart, PokerRaj is coming along well and is a fun place to playwith.
9 Stacks
9 Stacks are now focusing on improving their consumer experience
We have 9 Stacks and in case you've been keeping up with your internet poker information in India then you'll be conscious the 9 Stacks is working rigorously to utilize all their tools and are planning to enhance its own poker platform. Right now, things all look somewhat basic on 9 Stacks along with also the simplicity functions as their appeal. Obviously, a lot could be added but I have still contained the website in this list. The rationale being, I am very intrigued to observe how their recently aquired fundings will grow and increase their internet poker platform.


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Artillery Pant
With rugged, workwear-inspired style, the Dakine Men's Artillery Pant brings it back to basics with a durable construction and timeless design. The tough nylon oxford construction is built to last, while its fully taped seams and waterproof, breathable membrane shields you against some of winter's worst at the resort. Mesh-lined inner leg vents help prevent you from getting too hot after hiking the same rail in the park, while boot gaiters and an adjustable hem with gussets puts the level of protection you desire in your hands. Not to mention, a small army of pockets provide the necessary storage for your on-hill essentials to ensure you're never unprepared.
- Weatherproof snowboard pant that delivers protection at a value
- Waterproof, breathable membrane seals out rain, sleet, and snow
- Mesh-lined inner leg vents provide a quick cool-down
- Regular fit and articulated knees help you stay mobile
- Multiple pockets stash your daily goodies
- Adjustable waistband customizes your protection
- Item #DAK00R2
- Material
- [membrane/laminate] DK Dry, [shell] nylon
- Waterproof Rating
- 10,000 mm
- Breathability Rating
- 10,000 g/m²
- Seams
- fully sealed
- Fit
- semi-fitted
- Pockets
- 2 hand, 2 back
- Venting
- inner thigh zips
- Gaiters
- yes
- Recommended Use
- snowboarding, skiing
- Manufacturer Warranty
- 2 years limited
Tech Specs
What do you think about this product?


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BinckBank's profile
BinckBank N.V. BinckBank is an online bank for investors and savers. It is listed on Euronext Amsterdam and has been included in the Amsterdam Smallcap Index (AScX) since 2016. BinckBank provides services for private customers, companies/legal entities, and independent asset managers. BinckBank offers Trading, Investing, and Saving services, using a European IT base platform. BinckBank has offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and Spain, and offers its services under the brands Binck and Alex.
BinckBank enjoys a leading brokerage position the Netherlands and Belgium and is ranked third in France. An important feature of the online brokerage service is a stable platform that gives users access to important financial markets, professional trading facilities, and analysis tools. The online platform Binck Fundcoach makes it easy for people to invest in investment funds and ETFs by providing news, opinions, columns, and detailed fund information.
Binck Forward, Binck Comfort and Binck Select are online discretionary management products that customers can use to authorise BinckBank to invest their money.


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Spiritual energy therapy is also termed as energy medicine or energy therapy. It is emerging and quite advanced form of alternative medicine. But it is not a modern concept or approach it already existed in our lives. Its origins were found in the ancient days. Medical practitioners in the early days believed that when the energy in our body is completely exhausted we fall ill and sick. Countries like China and Japan are practicing energy healing courses at great levels. It works as a part of many approaches to medicine. But it is believed that the role of energy healing is restricted only to the body.
What is energy healing therapy?
Energy healing therapy is defined as an alternative form of energy. There are various methods for the same. Practicing this makes you feel refreshed and positive. Followers of energy healing therapy is expanding day by day and it is bringing much of positivity is people's life.
Effects of spiritual energy healing:
Every kind of condition can be treated with spiritual healing. Body of every person varies from one another so the effect of healing differs from person to person. Sometimes the effect of energy healing is really unexpected. Its effect depends from person to person. There has rarely been a case that a person is taking energy healing course and is not affected at all by it. Feedback of this has always been positive. But we should always keep one thing in mind that exceptions are always there. Energy healing therapy has proved to be very beneficial for the people of every age. It purifies our body from within. The more spirituality you develop the more efficient healer you could become.
Benefits of Spiritual energy healing:
- You do not really need to know what is wrong with your body– Reiki is the first thing that comes into our body no matter where we put our hands on. You really do not need to diagnose yourself. The newer your problem is the quicker it disappears. If you have some chronic disorder you need to practice energy healing therapy for some weeks and you will be alright within few days. Such energies work quicker in children.
- You cannot do anything wrong– This is such form of energy that will restrict any kind of negative energy to move around you. You will feel as if you are being loved or hugged from within your body. It is such a feeling that stops you from doing anything wrong.
- Anxiety and depression removal– It helps to remove all the negativity within you. With negative energy within your body you cannot perform well and it acts like a de-motivating factor. When a person is depressed from within he/she cannot perform well.
Energy healing is gaining popularity day by day. People of all age are heading towards practicing it. It helps lightening the mood and through this you could focus on your career and work.


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PULSE global launch in Las Vegas
Just a quick update to let you know how things went for Jules and Adam at the International Lingerie Show in Las Vegas last month.
The show was where we did the global launch for PULSE – and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Stock has been allocated and shipped to the US and we're now fully focused on PULSE's UK launch, which will happen very soon.
Jules and Adam had interest from buyers in China, Japan, Australia and South America, as well as all the US buyers, of course. We agreed to an exclusive distribution deal with US distributer Entrenue, with plans to roll out to other distributors in 2014.
PULSE was shown at the Entrenue booth at the show, as well as the Hot Octopuss booth, and the feedback from Entrenue President Joe Casella is that it was among the most talked about products at their booth.
As well as Entrenue, PULSE is launching in the US with two retail partners initially – Babeland and Good Vibrations.
More info – including when reviewers will get their own PULSE units to test – coming soon!
Want all the news plus exclusive discount codes and offers? Sign up here.


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Here at EveryJoe, we're always on the lookout for the next superstar model coming up through the ranks. We've been hearing about April Cheryse for a while — and, wow, I see why. If you don't instantly fall in love, you're a deader man than me. This 23-year-old could melt a candle in the dead of winter.
Check out the 9 April Cheryse pics below and have a towel nearby to avoid unsightly drooling.
She currently lives in Los Angeles and measured 5-foot-7 and 110 pounds. Her measurements are darn near perfect at 32-24-35. She calls herself a glamour model but as you will see in the shots below, she's down for just about anything.
Amazingly, she's a relative unknown at the moment. On Twitter, she has only 6,000 followers. Considering that she has superstar written all over her, that's an stunningly small amount.
Here are the 9 images we promised. Be sure to click "Next" to see all of her best modeling shots.


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Min ha vape
i dunno here you go
here are the best songs in existance
here are some digits of pi
an unofficial trilogy (not all inclusive)
Answer this poll!
Here's some anime
k i have a thing
A poll
Fun Fact: Once I publish this article, I will have all bronze trophies!
just answer this
It has returned :D
The best antivirus ever!
The History of Tamon
Seriously. Listen to it.
The full copypasta
It's the best day ever!
I may do French next.
I may do Korean next.


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How many of you have watched a movie or TV show where one of the characters, who has experienced a stressful situation in her life, suffers from what appears to be a classic heart attack but isn't? While this may sound a little farfetched, doctors are beginning to recognize a condition that mimics a heart attack, but after further testing there is little or no sign of cardiovascular disease. Doctors refer to this condition as stress cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome. In all my years in nursing and reading up on health matters I have never heard of this syndrome before, until I came across an article in the Spring 2010 issue of Better Homes and Gardens Heart-Healthy Living Magazine.
After doing my own research, I discovered that broken heart syndrome can mimic a true heart attack but does not cause death or irreversible damage to the heart like a classic heart attack can. However, the two conditions can be difficult to differentiate when a patient presents to the emergency room with chest pains, shortness of breath, nausea and in some cases even heart stoppage.
In a February 2005 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine released the findings regarding the signs and symptoms of broken heart syndrome and how it varies from the common heart attack. Unlike the classic heart attack which occurs when the arteries of the heart become blocked, researchers believe broken heart syndrome occurs after the heart has been exposed to large amounts of stress hormones, such as adrenaline and norepinephrine, over a period of time that actually "stun" the heart. This usually occurs after the patient has been under an undo amount of stress, but not always.
Although broken heart syndrome is rare, when it does hit, it tends to strike older women who are quite healthy otherwise, but who have undergone a period of stress in their lives. They often arrive to the emergency room with classic heart attack symptoms, however after further testing, there appears to be no cardiac disease found. The positive side to this is there is no long term, irreversible damage to the heart itself and recurrence is rare.
So what should one do?
As always, if you experience any chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiousness, etc, call 911. Remember heart disease is the number one killer of women and ignoring symptoms can be the difference between death and recovery.
Have you ever heard of broken heart syndrome? Have you ever suffered from it yourself?
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I have experienced this... it's horrifying. I had to learn how to handle emotional shocks and turmoil in a more healthy fashion. This article should be updated, as broken heart syndrome CAN kill. My grandaunt died from this when the grief due to my grandmother's death pushed her heart too much. Although the cases are rare, an attack can be fatal. Report
I have never suffered from this one. Report
Very interesting Thanks for sharing! Report
Thanks! Report
Good information to know. Report
Good information! Thanks! Report
Great info! Thanks! Report
thank you Report
Wow. Thanks for the article! Report
Yeah, I believe I went through this. When a new relationship failed right after I had just fallen in love, first, I could not stop crying. I really thought it was best I stayed out of the relationship, so I endured the heartbreak (anxiety, total fear, sweating, moody, complete sadness), which I felt was making me breath shallow and out of breath, therefore leading to heart palpitations and trouble concentrating. I've had a few broken hearted situations in my life that left me sick. One time, I immediately got the flu after getting in a text fight with a boyfriend. I was already feeling under the weather, but after the text fight, I became seriously ill, worsening my allergies and bringing on bad asthma. Report
Just recently read a comment on a SP blog about someone finding out this is what they had. Before that I'd not heard of it as a medical diagnosis--just in people's speech as a metaphor. Interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Report
It is very possible that I went through this two years ago in June. I had chest pain, my heart was racing, had trouble breathing, was sweaty and nauseous. I was directed to the the emergency room. As soon as the nurse administered nitro things got better. After a stress test and ultrasound my results were unconclusive. Nothing like that has happened since. This is interesting. Report
Three years ago, my husband of 20 years left me and our kids. It was the most painful thing I've ever gone through. For the first 6 months I had panic attacks every night (that left my heart racing and sometimes feeling like it would stop beating for a second or two), anxiety filled my days as I tried to push through it all and take care of my kids who were suffering too. Report
I had heart attack symptoms within a month after my first husband died. I was 45 though, not post-menopausal. I went to the ER for chest pains, and they checked everything out: I spent a night in the hospital. At least now I know what the chest pains feel like, so I won't dismiss them. Thanks for the great article, and for all who have shared their experiences. Report
I know what it is like to physically feel the pain of a broken heart. I knew what it was, though. As a counselor, I have seen many clients have panic attacks that their loved ones believed were heart attacks. It is not uncommon for someone going through grieving to have decreased health. Report
While I've totally been in the broken heart situation and I'm sure most of us have been, I think it's about time for to stop calling every negative life issue a disorder, disease, or syndrome. Take menopause for example. From what I understand it isn't a bag of chips. However, women have gone through it since the beginning of humanity. It isn't new and isn't a disease. However, health professionals have been treating it like it's one.
I think that's what's going on with this broken heart issue. It's totally normal to feel that way when you've experienced heartbreak. Why make it a bigger deal than it is? Next, they'll have medication for it (if they don't already). I can see counseling, but it is possible to completely go too far with something that is a totally normal life event. Not everything is a disease. Report
I never had heart problems until my 29 year old son was killed in a freak accident 3 years ago. Last year the cardiologist told me I had an enlarged heart and heart disease, said I needed a stent. I told him my heart is broken and can't be fixed. I had the stent put in, but my heart still aches daily. Report
Interesting. Someone I know went into hospital last week thought she was having a heart attack, although they could not find anything, they held her overnight. She has been stressed and worried about her husband lately, he is going thru bad time. Report
Well this is very very interesting. I've never heard of this before, but I am glad I learned about it. Report
I have never had a problem with this but my mother in-law did the night my father in-law died. Thankfully we were already at the er. It makes since why they would call it the broken heart syndrome. Report
Very interesting- and prolonged release of /exposure to stress hormones can do many things- this makes sense. Thanks for the informative article! Report
I worked for Zoll Cardiac Solutions, which developed and manufactuers the only wearable cardioverter defibrillator (The Lifevest), which monitors and will protect from Sudden Cardiac Death. I have read many reports which Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or Broken Heart Syndrome is the reason for nonischemic cardiomyopathy (meaning it is reversable). As stated in the article, many patients are female, who experience a traumatic loss. Sad, but at least it is treatable Report
To call this *real* PHYSICAL cardiomyopathy "broken heart syndrome" as if it's a psychological or social problem really trivializes it and burns my chaps!
I was hospitalized with this last September. Very minor chest discomfort, perfect EKG with no changes when compared to one I had a few years ago during an annual physical. I didn't even get admitted to the ER yet when I felt fine again, but my husband insisted I stay and get checked out. Lab work showed a very slight elevation in one cardiac marker (troponin) so I was rushed into the cardiac cath lab, where the doctor found my bulging and trapped left ventricle and made the diagnosis of Takotsubo Syndrome, the REAL name of what the writer is calling "broken heart" syndrome.
Yes, it can be caused by sudden and severe stress, a great shock to the system both physically and emotionally, and yes, it usually reverses itself within a few weeks with proper treatment, such as medication to strengthen the heart muscle and a few months of cardiac rehab therapy. A low sat diet is also recommended.
It was discovered and named in Japan, given the name "takotsubo", which means "octopus trap," because of the way the muscles surrounding the left ventricle of the heart spasm and trap the area, preventing the heart from pumping correctly. There's a great web site that explains it all in laymen's terms:
Most people who get this are post-menopausal females, those of us in the "sandwich generation" who are caring for not just our children but our parents and elderly relatives, too In my case, it's an adult son who graduated college with a Master's in engineering 2 years ago who still can't find a job in *any* field, even retail working a register, and a 91 year old aunt with mid-stage Alzheimer's disease who was about to be transferred from a rehab facility after a fall to assisted living but the nurses started telling her she could go home any time she wanted, that she didn't have to go to the other facility. The woman couldn't remember where she lived or what year it was but darn it, she knew she wanted to go home and live alone again. We had already started to empty out her house so we could sell it to pay for assisted living!! We now had 24 hours to get her out of there and she insisted on going home. A week later I wound up in the ER with chest pains.
It's been 6 months, and the stress has increased instead f decreased. I'm still working out the hr a day the cardiac rehab nurses said I must do, still taking the heart pill the cardiologist wants me to take, even though my primary care doc says I no longer need it. And w\although the literature - and the cardiologist - say the syndrome did reverse itself within a month, I now have to claim myself a cardiac patient whenever I get treatment for anything else, including at the dentist. Takotsubo syndrome is going to continue to be a part of my life, even though it's gone now. Report
4 years ago @ 3 a.m. I was woken up by a racing heart and massive chest pain. With a family history of early heart disease, I was put through a battery of tests. I was told that I have no blockages but was told I had a stress related heart attack. There was no damage to the heart or arteries so I am wondering if I had a heart attack or if it was this. I am not on heart medication, only valium to keep me emotionally in check so I don't spaz everytime I get stressed. I have a doctors appointment on the 15th and I am going to ask him about this. Report
My father-in-law in his late 40s suffered from this. He ended up with a disability and left his job as an IRS agent (talk about a stressful, thankless job). This was before I met him. But the docs couldn't find anything "physically" wrong with his heart. Since then he has had other medical problems, but stress is not something to be blown off as being all in your head---it is very real and can be disabling. Report
I was actually diagnosed with this about twelve years ago. I was traveling in Ireland and ended up in the Accident & Emergency department because of what appeared to be a heart attack. The doctors concluded that I had Broken Heart, which made so much sense as it was the first anniversary of my son's death. Incidentally, Blue Cross refused to pay for the visit...no such diagnosis, they said. Report
Never heard of this, but I just MIGHT have experienced it. After going through a divorce after 30 years of marriage, 4 months after having moved from IL to TX, all alone, with no friends, I wound up calling 911, because I THOUGHT I was having a heart attack. Was kept almost 24 hours, it was determined it was 'anxiety' & told if I experience it again, just take an Aleve & I'd be fine. Report
I have never heard of this but certainly understand how it could happen. I have had a tremendous amount of stress since the first of the year and I felt likel it was affecting my health. I have seen my doctor and am on the road to feeling better. Lift on life's terms sometimes is not good for us. Thanks for a great post.
Oh I am suffering from this right now. I didn't know it had a name either. I am newly divorced and it is very painful. And yes, I have had what I considered anxiety attacks, and it did feel like a heart attack. But, I got up, got on my treadmill and calmed down. I have found holding my little Poodle helps too. And thankfull, I belong to a wonderful online organization like Spark People and have made many friends here too!
Mary Report
Absolutely, I have felt this way. One relationship I believe it took 5 years with pain but not realizing that it was over him. Finally got over him and it. Thankful for the experience, though. Report
I guess that would explain what happened to my DF. She lost her DH to cancer. They were married for 35 years. I can't imagine losing someone so close! Report
No, i have not heard of it and i don't suffer from it at all. Report
This happened to me a year ago this month. I was dismissed from the ER with indigestion and then ran through an angiogram that showed absolutely nothing but clear arteries. The case was never solved. I believe it is now! Thank you! Report
I had a simular experience 20 yrs ago. It was due to a change in my medication. years later it was diagnosed as anxiety attack.
Both times my ex was having an affair. I did not realize the affair was happening until months later. I guess my body knew what my mind was denying. Report
I had these same symptoms twice 3 months apart to the day. My husband had an affair 2 1/2 years ago with the wife of his co-worker and so called friend. It devastated me after 8 years of marriage. The second time it happened I was at work and I went to the doctor on the orders of my co-workers. The doctor diagnosed it as a panic attack. I had never had a panic attack before so I figured after all of the stress I had been through he was probably right. My doctor said that sometimes it is a delayed reaction to a stressful event. Luckily I have not had one since. Report
Yes this has happened to me twice and it was scary! I have a stressful job at times and sometimes am very hard on myself about things which can very often be beyond my control. I've checked myself into the doctor's office and er once and I wasn't haven't a heart attack but thought that I was. Thanks for a great blog.
This sounds like an Anxiety attack or a Panic attack to me. My brother first had one thirty years ago and swore he was having a heart attack when he went to the ER. Didn't show any signs of heart disease, and was diagnosed with Panic Disorder. To this day he says if he does have a Heart Attack it won't be a surprise after what he already went through. He's continued to take anxiety medicine since. Report
I just spent 4 hours in our local ER with these exact symptoms. This is the second time it has been this intense and both times with stress. All tests revealed "normal" everything. Doc said "likely" muscular or skeletal, but nothing for sure. This article makes COMPLETE sense to me. Thank you. Report
Good information. I don't recall experiencing this nor have I previously heard of it. Report
I have been in a very mentally abusive relationship and this man did VERY horrible things to me and I told him a couple times my heart was literally in pain and it was. Maybe it was this. Report
This gets me to think...I am under stress side hurts to the point; I hold my breath, unable to move...I thought it was anexity attack...very interesting.
Thanx. Report
I had a broken heart syndrome when my oldest DD passed away. The dr. was listening to my heart and I told him my heart was broken and he told me that it does beat differently at times like this. So this is no surprise to me. Report
Forgot to mention one thing--in stress cardiomyopathy, EKGs DO show a heart attack. It's just that the damage is different. I'm not trying to make light of panic attacks, but it's NOT the same thing. Report
The answer to both questions is no. I do know emotions can be a powerful thing and when they aren't examined closely at times they can play havoc on the body, so this isn't all that surprising to me. Report
More From SparkPeople


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Presenting our holiday equestrian gift guide. These are Daphne's must have equestrian chic accessories. Her absolute fave? The CityLux, for sure. With its super-smart interchangeable flaps, you have many bags in one. It also carries everything she needs for her multi-tasking life on the road (no small feat). So, for an ultra-memorable gift pick this year, go with the CityLux. Everything is 100% returnable/exchangeable so we have taken all the gift giving risk this year! Also, as a member of the exclusive 'CityLux Club' she will get insider information about limited edition flaps coming soon. Other top equestrian gift guide picks include the Gate Belt and the Paddock CrossBody, which is a big part of Daphne's everyday routine and now indispensable.
We are so honored to have you in the Oughton family, thank you very much. Happy Holidays.


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News reaches me from my followers in Oz that a feral pig got into a campsite, stole and consumed 3 6-packs of beer and went on a nocturnal rampage. These creatures are quite large and ugly anyway, probably started using rude words as well after all that beer. It then picked a fight with a cow and passed out under a tree. Sounds just like a PuddleDaddy outing: I shall never drink beer.
I had another great day at school apart from when someone collided with me in the playground and I got a scraped knee. And apart from when Ben and I bumped heads and both of our mummies got text messages to that effect.
As it happens I stayed in the dispensary with the First Aid Teacher and helped dispense plasters, cotton wool and confidential healthcare advice to subsequent patients.
Also unhelpful was pickup time where it all started well but I swiftly regressed to Sulk Mode. Problem is, I had done a maths test. I allege that I am competent and got 8 right in the 2 minute timed multiplication test, even though the teachers use the significantly smaller BeefGravian second, so the 2 minutes is up in only 40 of your Earth seconds. Furthermore, I contend that I came top and everyone else got between 0 and 3 right. I declared that one of the more difficult sums was 9 x 9, and I had discovered by compound addition that the answer was 81. In addition to this addition, I had discovered that the easy way to do this sum is to add the 2 factors, and simply transpose the digits:
9 x 9 ≡ 9 + 9 = 18. 18 ↔ 81. Therefore 9 x 9 = 81.
Also, the friction coefficient of a spinning torus suspended in Helium at zero Kelvin times the number of free radicals in the Oort cloud expressed as a Hexadecimal number proves that the net angular momentum of the observable universe ≠ 0, QED, dur.
For some reason this did not impress and he mentioned Times Tables. I know these are fearsome tools of torture designed to make everything more difficult so I got very very angry. In fact I remained on the edge of madness throughout Gymnastics and supper and cheered up only when I discovered my new duvet cover. Coincidentally, 4 fire engines and a helicopter attended a block of flats by Cosham railway station this afternoon. I wonder why.


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Bayley was part of the 5 man squad earning Canada's FIRST-EVER Gold Medal Win in the Men's Team Pursuit, at the Track Cycling World Cup, in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
This victory, together with their Bronze Medal performance at World Cup #1 (in Glasgow last week), moves Canada into the overall lead in the World Cup standings, AND qualifies them for the 2017 World Championships, to be held in Hong Kong, in April.
Bayley was interviewed after the win and quoted saying: "We've got five guys here who can execute, so we are using everyone to have some fresh legs for each ride. This was my first trip with the team, and the first ride I got to do was in Glasgow for the bronze medal. It was nerve-wracking but we executed it that day and then we were able to come here and do it again. I can't even put it into words, really. The time was good; we looked at the past times here when the world championships were here in 2011 and the winning team was a high 4:01, so we are pretty happy with our time."
Incredible, consistent performances by Bayley Simpson, Adam Jamieson, Aidan Caves, Jay Lamoureux, and Ed Veal! Congratulations on continuing to make Canada so proud!
Click here to watch Video of Team Canada's Gold Medal ride against Belgium
Click here to read CBC Sports coverage
Embed from Getty ImagesEmbed from Getty Images
Thank you & Photo Credits to Guy Swarbrick trackcycling.net
Click here to see more Photos by Canadian Cyclist
Click below to LISTEN to post-race interviews:
Interviews w/Team Canada's Melvin, Caves, Simpson & Lamoureux on GOLD at UCI Track World Cup in Apeldoorn
GOLD for Team Canada in Men's Team Pursuit at Apeldoorn UCI Track World Cup + Takes Overall Lead


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Mr Timothy Mashford1, Mr Scott Davidson1
1Victoria Police, Melbourne, Australia
Policing agencies across the world regularly utilise hotspot mapping processes to identify risk and predict future crime events. The most common hotspot technique, kernel density estimation (KDE), takes a number of parameters for which intelligence practitioners often accept the default values suggested by the software. This study examines two of these parameters – search radius and input data period – and tests their impact on KDE's ability to predict future crime events. Using a volume crime category (theft from motor vehicle), a variety of parameter value combinations are tested, with the predictive accuracy measured on a weekly basis across a 12 month period. The results demonstrate that the choice of parameter values can have a significant impact on the predictive accuracy of hotspot maps, suggesting more effort is required to educate intelligence practitioners on how these parameter values should be considered.
Tim has worked as a geospatial analyst at Victoria Police since 2004. He currently manages the Geospatial Analysis Unit, which focuses on the application of GIS to analysing crime and road policing data, and supports intelligence practitioners across the organisation to enhance geospatial capabilities. Tim has qualifications in geospatial science and statistics, and is a certified Geographic Profiling Analyst. He has presented at crime mapping conferences in Australia, UK and the USA.