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Brisbane - Ice-cool Ashleigh Barty produced a commanding performance to beat power-hitting Aryna Sabalenka and hand Australia a 2-1 lead in their Fed Cup semi-final against Belarus in Brisbane on Sunday.
The world No 9 breezed past a player ranked one place below her 6-2, 6-2 to leave her country in prime position to make their first final since 1993, with either France or Romania awaiting them.
Belarus are bidding to reach the final for the second time in three attempts, after being beaten by the United States in 2017.
The task now falls to either Samantha Stosur to book the team's place in the decider or fellow Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka to take the tie to a fifth rubber doubles match. They play each other next.
"A really clean match today. I stuck to my game plan well and was able to execute under pressure," said Barty.
"Certainly nice to return (serve) so well."
Barty is in red-hot form after bursting into the top 10 by winning the Miami Open last month and is now on a 13-match Fed Cup winning streak.
Sabalenka had a 2-1 edge in career meetings coming into the tie, but Barty was the more composed, with the Belarussian's serve letting her down.
The Australian got the crucial break in game five of the first set, when Sabalenka fired down four double faults, including on break point.
Her serving wobbles continued with Barty exploiting the weakness with her all-court play and broke again to pull 5-2 clear when Sabalenka hit a forehand into the net.
She served out to love and took the set on an ace.
A tight second set also went with serve until the fifth game, and in a mirror image of the first Barty again broke when Sabalenka double faulted as the pressure mounted.
She broke again for a 5-2 lead as Sabalenka's error count mounted, before serving out for the match, again with an ace.
Results from Fed Cup semi-final between Australia and Belarus on the Pat Rafter Arena hardcourts in Brisbane on Sunday:
Australia 2 Belarus 1
Ashleigh Barty (AUS) bt Aryna Sabalenka (BLR) 6-2, 6-2
Playing later
Samantha Stosur (AUS) v Victoria Azarenka (BLR)
Ashleigh Barty/Samantha Stosur (AUS) v Lidziya Marozava/Vera Lapko (BLR)
Played of Saturday
Aryna Sabalenka (BLR) bt Samantha Stosur (AUS) 7-5, 5-7, 6-3
Ashleigh Barty (AUS) bt Victoria Azarenka (BLR) 7-6 (7/2), 6-3


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Fewer selling days in December led to lower total sales but average transaction amount was up.
Retail Analysis
Similar to November, open hours decreased as stores closed for Christmas and New Year holidays. Fewer selling days resulted in a decrease in sales. Even so, the average transaction amount for each customer increased.
In considering seasonal trends, expect donations to be abundant into January but sales won't likely come close to record territory again until the warm weather begins again.
Production Analysis
The number of pieces produced exceeded 21,000 pieces again but are still lower than the 22,750 pieces produced in December 2016. The number of available units for sale certainly impacted the total number of pieces sold. The 10,875 pieces sold fell below 11,000 pieces for the first time in almost a year. The average price per piece metric dropped to $4.30 from the previous month's $4.38 but still is well above the $3.67 recorded in December 2016.
2017 proved to be a banner year in many respects. The general economic prosperity experienced across the U.S. led to purchases of new items. In turn, more donations of gently-used items were made to thrift stores. The sorting and pricing of these donated items led to more available product for purchase. And these one-of-a-kind items found their way into customers' homes, increasing sales in total.
The ability to process donations efficiently at the right price point continues to provide the greatest opportunity for improvement. Sales are directly correlated with the amount of available product to sell. Finding ways to produce more product with the available items from donations is the best way to drive sales (and profits) higher.
Metrics from thrift operators located across the country are compiled and analyzed monthly to identify trends in the thrift industry. Data includes all ThriftTrac users with locations having at least 1,000 customer transactions (retail) and 1,000 units processed (production).
ThriftTrac is business software for the thrift industry that turns data into actionable intelligence, driving greater profitability for thrift operations.

subset: commoncrawl


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Just because it's in the water doesn't make it waterfowl.
And being on the shore doesn't make it a shorebird.
Just because it's in the water doesn't make it waterfowl.
And being on the shore doesn't make it a shorebird.
A group of birders at the Bronx Botanical Gardens the other day heard a cry of "Connecticut!" Immediately they rushed back to the parking lot… to find a child saying excitedly, "Look, Mom! This bus is from Connecticut! And the car is from Maryland!" Big laughs all around, but that got me thinking — how about a locale Big Year?
Find your Connecticut Warbler in Hartford! A Nashville Warbler at the Country Music Hall of Fame! Philadelphia Vireo by the Liberty Bell!
Some would be a puzzle. Do I look for Acadian Flycatcher in a park in coastal Maine, or in the bayou? Is my life-bird victory dinner lobster or crayfish? If a Chickadee is in South Carolina, it's probably a Carolina, but be sure to listen to its song!
While some are gimmees: Florida Scrub-Jay is found in Florida, period. Galapagos Penguin!
I could branch out to finding birds only in their named habitat — What are the odds of finding a Palm Warbler perched in a palm tree? If it's in a Salix, does that make it a Willow Flycatcher? Can I find a Sandwich Tern at the deli?
And you can wind up your search for Brewer's Blackbird somewhere like this.
Off to Russia for a Muscovy Duck!
'Where's my Supersuit?'
Thor calls down lightning.
Superman leaps towers.
I have to settle for
more mundane super-powers.
Wolverine's self-healing.
The Hulk smashed Loki flat.
I can be up and out the door
in 15 minutes, stat.
The Flash moves like a cheetah,
Nightcrawler like a toad.
I can find a Stewart's
at the end of any road.
Tony Stark's a genius.
Spiderman crawls wall.
I just keep on getting up
no matter how I fall.


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French and Languages
Children wrote thank you cards in French for their friends, someone they care about or as you can see,lots of children chose to write to [...] Read more
You are here: Home » School Life » School Blogs » Fortune shines on year 5
Posted on: 30 Jan 2017 by Weston Green School | Category: Key Stage 2, Year 5
As part of their celebration of Chinese New Year year 5 not only enjoyed Chinese multiplication (ask them to show you how it works!) and a delicious Chinese lunch courtesy of Matt and the food committee, but at home time Connie handed out fortune cookies, dressed in her wonderful Chinese dragon's outfit, which has been handed down the generations in her family.
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A January, 2009 Paper in EOS 90:3 (20 Jan 09) by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman surveyed over 3,000 AGU members for their views on climate change.
The paper is linked on the EOS site but is subscriber-only: EOS Vol. 90 no. 3, 20 Jan.2009
Fortunately, this write-up at Scienceblogs is open-access.
Lesser mortals might see this as a threat to their own little personal slice of the pie, carved out of a winter's worth of evenings and weekends, but not I. No, I am noble and fair-minded, and I want credit to go where credit is due. These
I'll still hold forth my list as potentially useful: I show who is highly cited, link to their home page for everyone to see for themselves what each researcher is working on and what they've posted on their own sites. Also, my coverage of the now nearly a dozen public declarations and open letters goes beyond what has been done previously on the web. Much of the time, that has consisted of copying and pasting just the names without the context of who they are or how much weight they may carry within the field.
I hope my listing gives a glimpse into that issue that is of some use to others.


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Surf Collective and Waves for Water are extremely thankful for all of our amazing contributors! It is because of all of their kindness that we have been able to pull this great campaign together. #Love4Relief wouldn't be the same without … Continue reading
Tag Archives: NOAH ABRAMS
Surf Collective Launches "Love 4 Relief" Special Edition Valentine's Day E-Card Program // To Benefit Non-profit Waves for Water's Sandy Relief Initiative
We are happy to announce the launch of "Love 4 Relief," an original series of Valentine's Day e-cards to benefit Waves for Water, a non-profit organization founded by former professional surfer Jon Rose and the charity's Hurricane Sandy Relief Initiative. Available online (HERE) beginning … Continue reading
SKATEISTAN Those of us in the Western world probably imagine Afghanistan more in terms of soldiers and bombs than skaters bombing hills. Last summer, however, Noah Abrams learned about the country's emerging skateboarding scene, and the photographer immediately jetted to … Continue reading


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TARDIS – Bigger on the Inside than Outside
SalePage: http://www.splitinfinity2503.info/internetmarketingtardis.com/
Price: $47
But what has the T-A-R-D-I-S got to do with Internet Marketing? Let me ask a question of you. How many IM Products have you bought that left you little disappointed? You may not have asked for a refund but you still though, "Oh well – thats another $47/$97 down the drain"
Many IM Products are Smaller on the Inside than on the Outside[center][img]http://filetut.com/images/d.png[/img] [code] http://filetut.com/n5en39qeh5wf/T-A-R-D-I-S.rar.html
[/code] [b][color=red]Purchase premium accounts in order to enjoy unlimited downloads with resuming support
***If link dead, please leave a message, we will update immediately***[/color][/b][/center]


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My family's world was forever changed in July 2015, when my mom, Stephanie "Fifi Ann" Altman, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She had no previous risk factors and was in sound health. Thankfully, because of our network of family friends, my parents were able to make arrangements for her to be seen by the best pancreatic cancer physicians in the country. She began her journey with chemotherapy and was responding well, and her tumor began to shrink. However, in July 2016 the tumor began to grow and spread.
My mom fights with strength and courage every day to fight this terrible disease afflicted by too many. She is nothing short of amazing and is my hero for the grace and dignity she has maintained through her fight. I have hope every day that a miracle will save her life.
My family is not alone in the fight with pancreatic cancer. In 2016, an estimated 53,070 will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States, and a staggering 41,780 will die from the disease in that same year. Early detection is nearly impossible, and at diagnosis many are given only weeks or months to live. It is one of the nation's deadliest cancers, with a five year survival rate of just 8%, yet it is extremely underfunded, hindering research efforts.
The funds that are donated on this page will go directly toward the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, which is a network of people dedicated to working together to advance research, support patients, and create hope for those affected by pancreatic cancer. The goal of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is to double the survival rate by 2020. This can only be achieved if we are able to provide additional funding to support researchers, by increasing clinical trials and the enrollment rate of those trials, by educating doctors not familiar with pancreatic cancer with best practices, and creating more public awareness and visibility.
Please make a donation to not only change the outcome of those currently fighting this disease, but to also help those who will fight the disease in the future. Together we can Wage HOPE in the fight against pancreatic cancer. Thank you for visiting this page.
Peace, Hope and Love,
Update: November 12, 2016
Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of so many of our friends and family, I have decided to expand my goal to $15,000 to provide even greater resources for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Thank you again for your support!
Update: November 24, 2016
Today my mom lost her battle with this monstrous disease. The grace and dignity she maintained until the very end will always make me proud to be her daughter. She fought bravely and faithfully, and has been a true blessing in my life. I will continue my fight to raise awareness and funds for pancreatic cancer in honor of my mom.
Update: November 30, 2016
Although my mom has lost her battle, I want to do everything I can to provide funding and resources that will allow others to battle this unforgiving disease. Therefore, I am pushing forward for an even greater goal of $20,000.
Update: November 2, 2017
In just 1 year, through the generosity of so many, I was able to raise nearly $40,000 for pancreatic cancer research. Today I relaunch my efforts in hopes that I can raise $10,000 more to help researchers continue the fight to find a cure for this terrible disease.
Printable donation form - print and mail.


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Before submitting payment please make sure there are enough spaces available in the adventure/course of your choice. You can do so a variety of ways such as; Submitting a Registration Form, Sending us a Message via the Contact page, E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com, or Call/txt 1-807-472-4742.
Experience the Adventure of Rock Climbing
with Outdoor Skills And Thrills!
Running Times:
-Customized (3 hours/session)
Locations: The Bluffs, Silver Harbour, Pass Lake, Claghorn, other
Visit our Events Calendar to see times & locations for each date.
Once Registered we will send you our Information Package
with driving directions, parking information, clothing considerations, itinerary, etc.


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I called Daniel Cole [El Paso County Republican party executive director], and he said he couldnt sign, but would ask Jeff Hays [county GOP chairman]. I told Daniel I would re-write the message, using words he liked, no trigger words, no specific LGBT mention. They turned down the invitation.Here's what One Colorado had to say about the situation:
John Suthers was called directly, and his office was emailed the benign wording. The invitation was declined, I guess...we never heard back from him or his office.
So...One Colorado spruced of the message for the ad and was more specific toward LGBT. Blog away...they used their own rope on this one...
Thanks to your support, we were able to come together with pro-equality community and faith leaders to respond to a mean-spirited ad placed in the Gazette by a Colorado Springs pastor. His ad called on people to be unwelcoming of their LGBT neighbors.
We didn't stand for this attack on LGBT Coloradans and their families, and because of you, we were able to send a strong message against discrimination in Colorado Springs.
The work we do puts us on the right side of history. Thank you for being there with us.
Don DeAngelis
Southern Colorado Organizer
One Colorado
Showing 1-24 of 24


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By Tom Engelhardt
One Man's Online Journey through Bush's Alphabet Soup
The Internet teaches its own lessons, often painfully quickly. In April 2005, I followed an urge, as I often did in those days. Our President, who would soon claim to be spending his spare time absorbing meaty books like King Leopold's Ghost, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, and Mao: The Unknown Story, was then largely known for reading The Pet Goat to schoolchildren while the 9/11 attacks were taking place and for being fond of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. So I took a plunge into humor and wrote a mock children's ABC book that I dubbed "George's Amazing Alphabet Book of the Contemporary World, or Al-Qaedas All Around." I claimed that the manuscript, produced by George W. himself, had been leaked to my TomDispatch.com website by "a senior official in one of our intelligence agencies."
Maybe it wasn't Jon-Stewart-worthy, but I posted it anyway as my commentary of the week and thought no more about it until the first angry emails began appearing in the TomDispatch mail box. A number of readers claimed I had been "gulled." I shoulda known! The President could never have written such a document! It had obviously been produced by the CIA! No, the Secret Service! No…
A perfectly sane friend rang up, wondering whether the manuscript could possibly be genuine -- or was I pulling a leg or two? Irritated readers assured me that it was a total fraud and I, a total fool for ever taking the word of that senior intelligence official.
I was stunned. I hadn't been trying to fool a soul, just make a passing point or two about our President and his people. Still, I got the message -- an instant lesson in Bush-era online reality. You couldn't out-absurd this administration. You couldn't write a "document" so extreme that some readers wouldn't mistake it for the real thing. That was the extremity of our moment -- thank you, George W!
Actually, back in November 2001, that very extremity had driven me on line in the first place and into the waiting arms of what became TomDispatch.com -- after the assaults of 9/11; after we had been at "war" and George had become a "wartime" President with an ever-expanding idea of his own powers; after Americans had engaged in endless 9/11 rites in which we took all the roles in the global drama (except Ultimate Evil One); after we had become the planet's greatest victims, survivors, and dominators; after, with relentless, repetitive vigor, the heartland had donned hats and t-shirts proclaiming that they "loved" (or hearted) that former Sodom -- to Los Angeles's Gomorrah -- New York City; after the Patriot Act was reality; after the money -- to "support our troops" -- was already pouring into the Pentagon and allied private corporations; after a budding second Defense Department, the Office of Homeland Security, was a reality (it would be turned into a full-scale Department of Homeland Security in November 2002); after the Bush administration had begun planning for a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that would become the jewel in the crown of an offshore Bermuda Triangle of injustice; after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials had made clear their urge to "take off the gloves" and commit just about any act imaginable, from kidnapping to torture, against anyone anywhere they believed to be a "terrorist"; after the newspapers I normally read in the still commanding world of print had narrowed their coverage, upped their "patriotism," and were beating the drums for George Bush's Global War on Terror.
TomDispatch was a happenstance, the unplanned creation of a man too old by half for the medium he stumbled into. It came into existence out of a simple urge not to sit still, not to continue my life as it had been while our already shaky world was being ravaged. Between November 2001 and 2004, it went from a private, no-name group email for perhaps 12 friends and relatives to an official site in cyberspace, backed by the Nation Institute, and featuring a range of provocative writers and thinkers.
Sometime in 2004, the year after the site gained its name, I went out to lunch with a Mexican political cartoonist. In what still passed for real life, I was working, as I had been for almost 30 years, as a book editor in the publishing business and we were discussing a project we planned to do together. At one point, trying to explain his life and world to me, he said: "You know, for Mexicans, the PRI years" -- he was talking about the one-party-state era in his country -- "were shameful times…" He paused and then leaned across the table confidentially, "…but we political cartoonists," he said, "we were like pigs in slop."
In the same confessional mode, what were indisputably the worst years of most of our lives turned out to be a small, late-in-life odyssey for me. Call it "A" for adventure.
TomDispatch is -- as I often write inquisitive readers -- the sideline that ate my life. Being in my late fifties and remarkably ignorant of the Internet world when it began, I brought some older print habits online with me. These included a liking for the well-made, well-edited essay, an aversion to the endless yak and insult that seemed to fill whole realms of cyberspace, and a willingness to go against, or beyond, every byte-sized truth of the online world where, it was believed, brevity was all and attention spans virtually nonexistent. TomDispatch pieces invariably ran long. They were, after all, meant to reframe a familiar, if shook-up, world that was being presented in a particularly limited way by the mainstream media.
Finding myself on a mad, unipolar imperial planet, I simply took the plunge into an alphabet soup of mayhem and chaos. Let me try, now, to offer you my shorthand version of the world according to TomDispatch.
An Expeditionary Service in an Expeditionary World
In late October 2007, when top-level volunteers for duty in Iraq from the U.S. State Department had long since thinned out, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened to assign diplomats to posts in Baghdad and the provinces, whether they wanted to go or not. This had not happened since the days of the Vietnam War. At an angry "town hall" meeting of career diplomats, a foreign service officer named Jack Croddy denounced the plan. He called it a "potential death sentence." "It's one thing," he said, "if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment."
David Satterfield, Rice's deputy, responded: "I certainly understand very much that this is extremely difficult for people who have not contemplated this kind of service." Then he reportedly added, "This is an expeditionary world. For better or worse, it requires an expeditionary service."
An expeditionary world. An expeditionary service. How typical of those muscled-up, faintly un-American phrases -- think "homeland," "regime change," "enhanced interrogation techniques," "extraordinary rendition" -- that the Bush administration has made part of our vocabulary. These were years when American men (and a few women) put on the pith helmets they had last seen in imperial adventure films in the movie theaters of their childhoods, imagined themselves as the imperial masters of a global Pax Americana (as well as a domestic Pax Republicana), and managed to sound as if they were surging across the planet with Rudyard Kipling at their side.
In the good old days of 2002-2003, before a ragtag insurgency in Iraq managed to lay low the plans of the leaders of the Earth's "sole superpower," the administration's neoconservative followers and assorted pundits openly touted empire (and, incongruously enough, "freedom"). They spoke glowingly of the United States as a new Rome or a new imperial Britain. The U.S. was to be the last great power on which the sun could never -- in fact, would never dare to -- set. Commentator Max Boot was typical when he wrote of the U.S. military in 2002, that, in its "full-spectrum dominance," it "far surpasses the capabilities of such previous would-be hegemons as Rome, Britain, and Napoleonic France." Of course, back then, a barrel of crude oil was still in the $20 price range.
By that time, the leftover American internationalists, whose weak last hurrah was the Clinton interregnum, had been ousted. Clinton's eight years had, of course, taken place in the midst of a quarter century-long Republican "revolution" that, in the name of "small government," had ramped up the powers of the national security state and the profile of the Pentagon, while slowly strangling services to the populace. From George W. Bush on down, the officials of the new administration would, however, prove extreme, even by the standards of that right-wing revolution. They arrived triumphantly in Washington as armed, aggressive isolationists who couldn't swallow the concept of partnership either in Washington or in the world.
The phrase du jour was "unipolarity." In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, there was, it was said, only one Great Power "pole" left on the planet and it was firmly embedded in Washington D.C. The job of the rest of the world was to accept that reality and bend a knee to it. Anything else would be considered a form of terrorism or, as the administration put it in one of its Ur-documents, the National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: "Our strength as a nation-state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes and terrorism." There was an unholy troika for you, a genuine axis of evil.
When Bush's people sallied forth into the world, they did so without equals, and less as classic imperialists than as imperial looters (in conjunction with crony corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel, and Blackwater USA, to whom they slipped their no-bid contracts). Arm-in-arm with a mob of K-street lobbyists, Congressional power brokers, and assorted right-wing think-tanks and media pundits, they were itching to take the world by storm. These were people who imagined no problems that couldn't be overcome by a shock-and-awe-style military strike abroad. They saw their toughest enemies, however, not overseas, but in Washington. As a result, they first seized the Pentagon, then Kiplinged the military and the intelligence services, sent the State Department into purdah, and set up the most secretive, yet leak-ridden, administration in American memory.
Unlike any previous administration, they arrived in office with a full-scale allied right-wing media network already firmly in place -- their own publishing houses, newspapers, talk-radio shows, and "fair and balanced" TV news. They felt no need to jolly up to, or interact with, the rest of the media. As Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, put it in 2007, "We have endured nearly seven years of the most press-phobic government in a couple of generations."
In the phrase of critic Jay Rosen, the intent of the Bush administration was to "roll back" the media, pacifying and sidelining the major papers and TV networks; and, with the help of the assaults of 9/11, they were more than successful in doing so -- for a time. Never, in fact, had an administration released less news to those covering them. (Most newspapers and the TV news, for instance, gave up even assigning a reporter to cover Vice President Dick Cheney, a man so averse to providing information that his daily schedule was regularly unavailable, while reporters couldn't even find out the full roster of people working in his "office.")
The administration's method of ruling revolved around injecting regular doses of fear into the public bloodstream, while dominating an increasingly powerless Congress. If conquering Washington had been the only thing that mattered, the Republicans might have been titans for decades, though it's worth remembering that to do so they still needed a little help from their enemies -- even ones they didn't deign to pay the slightest attention to on occupying the Oval Office. After all, they were only conquerors after September 11, 2001. On September 10th of that year, the media was still describing the administration as "adrift"; its Secretary of Defense was believed to have "cratered"; and the President's polling figures were visibly sagging, thanks to a public which viewed him "not as decisive but as tentative and perhaps overly scripted."
The President, who had just returned from an overlong, much criticized vacation at his "ranch" in Crawford, Texas, was then being charged by figures in his own party and Republicans in Congress with being "out of touch" and out of ideas. Wielding, in Mike Davis's vivid phrase, hijacked "car bombs with wings," al-Qaeda solved that one fast. As the towers fell and that giant cloud of dust and ash rose toward the heavens, the Bush administration found itself swept along by the perfect storm toward its conquest of Washington.
When it came to conquering the world, however, the President's top officials would turn out to have an excess of faith and not a clue.
A Faith-based Administration
Let's start with that faith. Much has been made of the Christian fundamentalist beliefs of George W. Bush and the religious foot soldiers of the Right whom his administration mobilized in the election campaigns of 2000 and 2004. But consider the possibility that the most fundamental belief of the top officials of his administration was, in fact, in the efficacy of force.
If the Republicans emerged from 9/11 as a fundamentalist regime, it wasn't really as a fundamentalist Christian one. After all, political strategist Karl Rove, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the Vice President were not Christian fundamentalists, any more than were key Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, for example. The administration's top officials may not, in fact, have agreed among themselves on when (or whether) End Times would arrive, but they all had a singular faith in the U.S. military as the most awesome power projector in history.
They tended to hold individual American military commanders in contempt -- unless they had a very big "Yessir" stamped on their foreheads -- but when it came to the ability of the U.S. Armed Forces to accomplish anything, romantics would be a mild word for what they were. They believed themselves uniquely in possession of an ability to project force in ways no other country ever had; and so, despite much talk of "democracy" and "liberty," a Hellfire-missile-armed Predator drone would perhaps be the truest hallmark of the early twenty-first century American civilization they presided over.
They were in awe of the military at their President's command, armed to the teeth as it was with techno-toys; already garrisoning much of the globe (and about to garrison more of it); already on the receiving end of vast inflows of taxpayer dollars (and about to receive more of them); and already embedded in a sprawling network of corporate interests (and about to cede further control to such corporations). By the time the Bush administration took the helm of the warship of state, most of the globe had already been divided into U.S. military "commands" -- essentially imperial viceroyships -- but they would finish the job, creating a command for the "homeland," Northcom, in 2002, and for the previously forgotten, suddenly energy-hot, continent of Africa, Africom, in 2007.
The President and his top officials put the lean, mean, high-tech, all-volunteer military on a pedestal and worshipped it as the most shock-and-awesome institution around. Speaking of his war in Iraq in 2007, in a statement typical of his administration's military hyperbole, Bush said: "I'm confident we'll prevail because we have the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known -- the men and women of the United States Armed Forces." The greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known. This was a claim unimaginable from any past president. Then again, all the President's men had similar warm and fuzzy visions of achieving planetary dominion of a sort that had once, in American parlance, been the goal only of the most evil of foreign powers -- the Nazis, Imperial Japan, or Stalin's Russia.
When it came to unleashing that force to achieve their aims, they turned out to be fervent utopians and blind believers. They were firmly convinced that, with it, they could reshape the Middle East, establish an unassailable position in the oil heartlands of the planet, roll back the Russians (yet further), and cow the Chinese.
And then, with 9/11, the "Pearl Harbor" of the new century, they suddenly had a divine wind at their backs, a terrified populace ready to be led, a supine Congress, and a pacified media. Everything they believed deeply in seemed just so… well, possible. In faith-based terms, the attacks of 9/11 were a godsend. Not surprisingly, they promptly began to prepare to act on behalf of an angry imperial god by bringing the world -- particularly its energy heartlands -- to heel.
First, however, they created their sacred texts at the heart of which lay the doctrine of "preventive war." At the same time, the President began speaking out about the need to act forcefully to prevent the emergence of any possible threat to the country. As he put it in his 2002 State of the Union Address, "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
Meanwhile, in the office of the White House Counsel and in the Justice Department, acolyte lawyers were creating pretzled legal memos that essentially redefined torture out of existence, clearing a path for any agent or interrogator in the field ready to take off those constraining "gloves." At home, these fundamentalist believers were also working to free the President from all restraints, intending to create a Caesarean commander-in-chief presidency as well as the first imperial vice-presidency in American history.
Because their faith was of the blind sort, however, they would misread the nature of what was powerful in our world; and so their fervent unipolarity would help give premature birth to a newly multipolar planet. Among other disastrous miscalculations, they would confuse the power that lay in the threat of loosing the American military with its actual ability to impose itself on places like Afghanistan and Iraq. They believed, like the monotheists they were, that a single God, personified by the military at their command, would sweep all before Him; that, with a "coalition of the willing" (by which they meant the submissive), they could take their God of force to the heathen at the point of a cruise missile, and that victory would be theirs. We now know just how impossibly wrong this belief would prove to be.
Missing Stories on a One-Way Planet
At his 2006 confirmation hearings for the post of CIA director Michael V. Hayden, who absorbed the Bush ethos while running the National Security Agency, the super-secret electronic spying organization, offered the following promise to Congress: "If confirmed as Director, I would reaffirm the CIA's proud culture of risk-taking and excellence, particularly through the increased use of non-traditional operational platforms… and the inculcation of what I would call an expeditionary mentality." That same year, then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told the Marine Corps Intelligence Association, "We are developing an 'expeditionary' mentality in the field of science and technology."
That old-fashioned imperial idea of an "expeditionary mentality" abroad took on a life of its own in the Bush years. The answer to any problem was that "expeditionary mentality" and the armed expedition that went with it. And disaster, of course, ensued. For the adherents of the cult of force, the world of fantasy took over; the result was an empire of stupidity. If, for instance, you were to offer a reckoning of the Bush administration's "Global War on Terror," you might -- at least in the world according to TomDispatch -- sum its achievements up this way:
With Guantanamo as the Devil's Island of the twenty-first century; with the extraordinary renditions, waterboardings, tortures, and abuses (and the perverse memos and photos that went with them); with the CIA's "ghost prisoners" and network of secret offshore prisons; with that Delta Force intelligence agent who, according to journalist Ron Suskind, stepped off a plane from Afghanistan holding the head of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri in a "U.S. Government" metal box (the head, it turned out, belonged to someone else); with neither Osama bin Laden nor Zawahiri apprehended; with woebegone terror wannabes, the innocent, and small fry of every sort turned into Public Enemies numbers 1-1,000; with illegal spying and warrantless, limitless surveillance taking hold in "the Homeland"; with the Taliban rising from the grave and the original al-Qaeda (as opposed to name-stealing al-Qaedas elsewhere) finding a "safe haven" in Pakistan's tribal borderlands; the GWOT (as it so inelegantly came to be known) could easily have been renamed something like the "misfire on terror" (MOT) or even, with an eye to what developed in Iraq and elsewhere, the "engine for terror" (EFT).
Among the administration's greatest achievements was launching what in the eyes of many globally came to look like a "crusade" -- to use a word that slipped effortlessly out of the President's mouth soon after 9/11 -- against Islam. In the process, the President's neocon supporters demarcated an area extending from the western border of China, through the former Central Asian SSRs of the Soviet Union, through the Middle East, down through the Horn of Africa and across North Africa (more or less coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet), and dubbed it "the arc of instability." Then, from Somalia to Pakistan, the Bush administration managed to set it aflame, transforming an empty turn of phrase into a reality on the ground, an actual arc of instability, even as the price of crude oil soared above $130 a barrel.
For most of these years, much of this was remarkably ill-covered (if covered at all) in the mainstream U.S. media. Almost no American reporter, for instance, considered it worth the bother to write about those massive "facts on the ground" in Iraq, the permanent mega-bases -- heavily fortified American small towns, sometimes 15-20 square miles in area, with multiple bus routes, PXs, brand fast-food outlets, and many of the amenities of home -- that the Pentagon was building at the cost of multi-billions of dollars. (And no television news show thought it worth the bother to show Americans pictures of what their tax dollars had built in Iraq.) Few American journalists in Iraq or Afghanistan bothered to look to the skies and consider the role of air power in the president's global war (even though air power had been the signature American way of war for well over half a century); almost all of them found the crucial issue of energy flows through the oil heartlands, and the vast oil reserves of Iraq in particular, an embarrassment to mention in conjunction with the invasion and occupation of that country.
From 2002 through 2007, TomDispatch has focused on stories like these, as well as on what underpins so many of the missing stories of these years -- the imperial nature of the American world we've been inhabiting. For a brief period in 2002-2003, the neocons and various right-wing pundits were openly beating the drum for "empire," but when Iraq started to go south and the U.S. military visibly ran off the tracks, the words "empire" and "imperial" left the scene of the crime as well -- except at websites like TomDispatch.
And yet, in American thinking, this still remains an imperial planet. Try to imagine, for instance, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad landing on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Mexico -- as Vice President Dick Cheney did on the USS John C. Stennis on May 11, 2007, while it floated in the Persian Gulf off Iran's coast -- and saying, as Cheney also did: "With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike. We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats…," and so on.
If that had happened the other way round, it would have been cause for a declaration of war -- and imagine what the press coverage would have been like then. Cheney's address to the sailors of the Stennis was instead reported as just another humdrum event on our still one-way planet.
In these last years, the Bush administration's unbounded sense of imperial impunity, and an older American belief that this country possesses a moral code exceptional among nations, have proven a lethal geopolitical cocktail. This curious perspective has led our administration to commit acts of horror in our name, while absolving us from thinking about how others might look on those acts -- and by extension, how they think about us.
Because, for years, so little on these, and similar, subjects made it into print or onto the TV news, there has been a special need and place for online political websites. We started -- and maintained -- discussions that only slowly seeped into the mainstream, even as readers from that world increasingly fled on-line. At the height of the Bush administration's power and narcissism, what TomDispatch and other sites like it represented was perhaps a simple urge not to let them set an agenda for all of America, and for the planet. This, it turns out, they were incapable of doing -- and for that, perhaps, we should be modestly thankful. When the first histories of our desperate times are finally written, historians will have to turn to the record created by the world of the Internet, or their histories will be as incomplete, the dots as unconnected as they were in the mainstream in these sorry years.
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a collection of some of the best pieces from his site, has just been published. Focusing on what the mainstream media didn't cover, it is functionally an alternative history of the mad Bush years. This essay is adapted from that book's introduction. A brief video in which Engelhardt discusses the book and the American mega-bases in Iraq can be viewed by clicking here.


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Jul 26, 2012 1:46 PM GMT
The findings are based on 25,464 interviews conducted with working U.S. adults in Gallup Daily tracking during the second quarter of 2012. Gallup asks employed adults to describe the work they do and then codes each respondent into one of 11 job categories.
Obama's job approval ratings by occupational group clearly relate to election preferences. Gallup previously found that Obama does best compared with likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney among voters who are professionals and service workers. Romney does best among voters who work in farming and fishing or construction, or are business owners.
In the overall average for the second quarter of 2012, 47% of working Americans approved of the job Obama is doing as president, and 47% disapproved. This is slightly improved from 45% approval and 48% disapproval in the first quarter.
Across occupational groups, installation and repair workers, as well as clerical and office workers, became significantly more approving of Obama in the second quarter. Business owners were the sole group that became significantly less approving, with their second-quarter approval of 35% reflecting a decline from 41% in the first quarter.
[...]Although business owners represent just a small subset of the U.S. population, they are of course a critical component of the economy and overall economic optimism in the country. If business owners become more positive about Obama and his plans for the economy, that could potentially boost his approval ratings and broader U.S. economic confidence closer to the levels necessary for him to be well positioned for re-election. Conversely, further deterioration in his approval rating among business owners could certainly add to the perception that Obama is not doing enough to bolster small businesses in the country.


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'Hunger Games' Sequel Eyes Box-Office Record
Box-office juggernaut "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is projected to have one of the biggest openings of all time. Ben Fritz report on the News Hub. (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the ... I ... you ... I ... that is how the airline ... is Aberdeen highly anticipated blockbuster testify that this weekend Ben Fritz as as I and really pretty certain he's joining us now and then ... I ... so what any expectations for the hungry in sequel ... well they did it they could be big enough for the tracking which of these holes before released at ... Hollywood Studios lookouts ... other privileges highs the members can get it with his can be one of the tickets openings of all time hundred and seventy under eighty million dollars ... to make it probably the number two and Number three domestic opening movie of all time behind only the Avengers ... and media Iron Man three ... to give it to be very close by the entry ... clearly this is great news for the name City Alliance da not as great news for delivery man that stands in its non film that's also opening this weekend ... why think it's a friend hundred on filling ballon them a fighting chance ... of for for delivering and which is financed by DreamWorks this year's tournament Steven Spielberg and that you get into account Emerging release I didn't eat ... all they wanna do is just get me the fifty million dollars just enough for people to be talking about it ... I think the thing to have a pretty good movie an unusual move the offbeat comedy forbids on ... and people like people talk about it and then it might keep going over the next few weeks and use a piece in Business ... is hoping it or not totally obliterated that back then maybe to some people who go to the theater thinking about catching fire but it's also about me because he delivered me and that's either more notable box office under Johnson's means to pull this off ... the what happen before us to the blindside is a massive hit in more than two hundred million dollars ... that open against a on Twilight movie opened in November a few years ago ... had a pretty solid start with a can of workers conservative audiences in the south and then it grew from there ... also of Mamma Mia the musical did quite well but opening in the dark Knight ... in the summer of two years ago ... so it can happen but usually you happy opening against a movie ... that has the Steelers that has a certain audience that while it was only ... girls and women ... so up and people working to cut a sexy hot movie so if you use if there is that the people who don't wanna see that movie ... the new control them but the problem for delivering this it seems like the polling that pretty much everybody wants to see out of the new hungry so ... I will


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The following programs are simple ways for you to support Saint Andrew Romanian Orthodox Church every time you shop, at no cost to you. You have just to register in the program and a percentage of money you spent when shopping will be transfer to the church.
Please contact us if you have any question: email@example.com
Thank you!
Amazon Smile
1. To register for Amazon Smile you have to open smile.amazon.com in your browser using the following link: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-4570443
After registering, Amazon Smile header should look like:
2. Every time when shopping on Amazon please navigate to smile.amazon.com instead of amazon.com. Product prices are identical but Saint Andrew Church will receive 0.5% of you spending only if buying using smile.amazon.com.
Giant Food Rewards
Starting October through March, Saint Andrew Romanian Orthodox Church will have the opportunity to earn cash through Giant A+ School Rewards Program.
You can use any of the following options to register your card:
1. Fill up the following online form: Giant Rewards A+ Form.
2. Send an email at firstname.lastname@example.com containing your name and your Giant Membership card number and we'll register the card for you.
3. Go to www.giantfood.com/aplus and click "Register my card" in Customer section. Saint Andrew Church ID# is: 09190
4. Dial 1-877-275-2758 to register your card over the phone.
After you register your card, each shopping trip at Giant using your GIANT Card earns CASH for our Church! Each month, the amount of CASH awarded will be updated on the Giant website. You can track the amount of points you earn for our church by checking your grocery receipt and online when you create an account at giantfood.com. Our church will receive a check at the end of the program.
Attending to this simple process makes a HUGE difference to our Church. We need your support. Please be sure to register your card to benefit Saint Andrew Romanian Orthodox Church using ID# 09190
Also, don't forget to encourage your friends and relatives to do the same!
Saint Andrew Romanian Church Group ID is 500022954.
Ways to help the church using e-Scrip program:
1. By registering your Safeway Membership Card. Register your grocery shopper cards and/or debit & credit cards. When you use registered cards and shop at participating merchants, a portion of your purchases are automatically donated to our group! Click Here
You can register your Safeway card:
1. By submitting the following online form: Online Safeway Form
2. By sending your Name/Safeway Crd#/Email/Zip Code/Phone to email@example.com
3. By bring the next form to the church: Printing Form.
2. By buying Gift Cards at eScrip Online Mall
You'll find hundreds of your favorite name brand stores, and our group earns while you do your online shopping! Click Here
3. By registering your debit or credit card to eScrip Dining
Contribute up to 5% of your entire bill to our group when dining at any of the thousands of participating restaurants across the country. Click Here


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Girne Municipality continues to work on improving the road traffic signs throughout the city. With the 2017-2018 Education Year commencing, work is underway to improve the road lines near to Karaoğlanoğlu Elementary School and Oğuz Veli Middle School, as well as clearing the rainwater gulleys in preparation for the arrival of autumn rains.
Güngördü: Autumn preparations are in progress
Girne Mayor, Nidai Güngördü said that the road signs of the roads were made in the areas where public schools are to be opened on Monday 18th September and that work had begun to be prepared for the rainfall during the autumn period by clearing the rainwater gulleys on the sides of the roads.
Categories: Information, Road Safety, Road works


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Enter your search criteria into the boxes below, then click the search icon or press Enter. In the What box, enter the job title, keywords, or job posting number. In the Where box, enter a city, state or zip code. In the Within box enter the number of miles around the location entered. If either the Where or Within boxes are going to be used, then both boxes are required. To narrow your search results, use the "Refine Search" filters on the left by selecting a category. The number next to each filter indicates the number of results currently in the system using that filter, plus your current search criteria. If zero jobs meet the criteria, the filter will not display for selection. Results do not include indeed.com jobs. Filters can be removed by selecting the link you want to remove in the "Filtered By" section. Searches can be saved by entering a unique name in the Label field and selecting the "Save search as" button.
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Store Driver I: Middletown, DE (728228)
Last Updated: 2020-06-03
Employer: The Sherwin-Williams CompanyLocation: Middletown, DE
Sherwin-Williams is the largest paints and coatings company in the world. With $15.8 billion in sales, more than 4,100 stores, and 140 manufacturing and distribution centers worldwide. Our 60,000 employees across the globe are diverse, innovative and passionate. With a variety of rewarding and challenging…
Process Engineer (727415)
Last Updated: 2020-05-28
Employer: ClariosLocation: Middletown, DE
What you will do:
Focus on the design, implementation, operation, control, and optimization of an industrial process. Continue evaluation of the safety, quality, and efficiency of the process, making and implementing proposals to improve the process when needed.
How you will do it:
- Develop best practices, routines and innovative solutions…
Home Health Aide (HHA) (727231)
Last Updated: 2020-05-27
Employer: Bayada Home Health CareLocation: Middletown, DE
While the world is cautioned to stay home in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, BAYADA's mission to safely keep people there has never been more important. Without home care, our clients-the most vulnerable population for COVID-19-risk infection and hospitalization, at hospitals with already-strained resources.
With the…
Cook (727178)
Last Updated: 2020-05-26
Employer: Chick-Fil-A of North DoverLocation: Middletown, DE
Full Time 40+hours wkly 6AM-3PM
Must be available Fridays and Saturdays
Advancement Opportunities, Meal Discounts, Great Environment, and Sundays Off
Restaurant Team Member – Cook, Kitchen Staff, Food Prep Requirements & Responsibilities
We are looking for applicants who exhibit the following qualities:
Consistency and Reliability
Cheerful and Positive Attitude
Customer Service Cashier (727177)
Last Updated: 2020-05-26
Employer: Chick-Fil-A of North DoverLocation: Middletown, DE
Our Customer Service Cashiers are the face of our company and are the first step in providing quality service and hospitality to our guests.
The cashier's responsibility is to continually interface with guests to provide quick, friendly, and accurate service.
Prior customer service, cashier, or restaurant crew member, team…
RME Maintenance Technician (727018)
Last Updated: 2020-05-23
Employer: Amazon.com Services Inc.Location: Middletown, DE
About Maintenance at Amazon
Operations is at the heart of Amazon's business. We are known for our speed, accuracy, and exceptional service. Our buildings deliver tens of thousands of products to hundreds of countries worldwide, every day. Reliability Maintenance & Engineering (RME) are the business partners that work…
- Registered Apprenticeship


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The debate about shared web hosting has gone on for years. Now, I have conclusive evidence that shared IP hosting has the potential to ruin your website's rankings. What you are about to read is my first-hand account of not one, not two, but three of my domains losing their rankings because of shared hosting. I will show you how I discovered, and recovered from Google IP blacklisting.
I remember when I first started doing SEO professionally some years ago I read some opinionated articles where SEOs were advising against using shared web hosting. This theoretical advice was issued on the grounds that Google was in the mode of discriminating against websites based upon their IP address. The argument was that if an IP address had been linked to dubious activities of some sort, search engines would blacklist it and all websites hosted on it.
Having read up thoroughly on the matter, I found plenty of compelling counter arguments; Search engines would not bias in this way because they had enough intelligence to realise shared hosting was a reality for millions of businesses worldwide. It would therefore be nothing less than pure stupidity to blacklist 500 websites because one site on the same IP was a rotten apple.
I fell into this latter camp of SEOs. I gave search engines credit for being fair and intelligent. Wrong move. Search engines are not fair or intelligent.
I ordered an SEO web hosting package from Ideastackhosting.com and received WHMCS access with 10GB disk space, 100GB bandwidth and access to 10 C class IP addresses. They effectively set me up as a reseller whereby I could set up, manage and designate an IP address to any number of domains with different CPanel accounts.
I bought the hosting because I wanted to make a mini blog network using three different PR 4 domains that I aquired some months earlier on GoDaddy Auctions. The aged domains had strong, natural backlink profiles. I've taken a snapshot from Majestic of one of my sites just as an example.
Before setting up the SEO hosting, my domain's name servers were pointing at Knet Hosting, a company I have used for years and trust greatly.
After I set-up the three new Ideastack SEO hosting accounts, each with unique C class IP addresses, I changed the name servers and migrated the sites over to their new homes.
A couple months later I noticed that new content was not being indexed by Google from any of the three sites. In fact, most of the previously indexed content was no longer appearing in the SERPs even if searching for the URL itself through the search bar.
Having checked all the obvious things like robots.txt and .htaccess I decided that I should submit Google sitemaps for each of the sites. Shockingly Google was unable to verify any of my websites using either the header tag or file upload method. Google simply wouldnt access the sites, insead throwing upan error.
The DNS method worked in so far as verifying ownership but Google still refused to crawl the website throwing up the following error "URL timeout: DNS lookup timeout".
At this point it dawned on me that something was seriously amiss.
I attempted to force Google to look at my sites by inputting the URL into Google Translate and making it translate the site into a foreign language. Instead of getting a foreign translation, I got another error; "Sorry, we are unable to access the page you requested:"
To eliminate any possibility of the issue being location specific I tried to use a bunch of other online crawlers/spiders such as W3C to access my site. There were no problems what so ever. The finger remained squarely pointed at Google.
Submitting a support ticket to the hosting company, I made them fully aware of the issue. In response they changed the hosting server and switched off the firewall. From my WHMCS I checked to ensure IP blacklists were empty and chose new C class IP addresses for each domain.
None of the above had any impact. I concluded that Google had not just blacklisted the IP address but at least six of the IP addresses that I had been issued with my SEO hosting account!
I threatened Ideastack that I would going to take my business elsewhere. They were helpless because they too couldn't make Google crawl the site anymore than I could.
As a final point of enquiry, and to confirm my conclusion I did a reverse IP lookup to see what other sites were sharing web space with mine. I discovered a real mixed bag including some porn sites! In case you want to check this yourself, you can. Here's the IP: 220.127.116.11
Conducting my Google translate test on other sites revealed by the revearse IP lookup, I realised that the vast majority, like my sites, were inaccessible by Google Translate. The few that were accessible or should I say 'translatable' were using CDNs like CloudFlare which essentially means they share more than one IP addresses and more than one hosting company.
My next test was looking at the subnet. I wanted to find out if all websites on the entire subnet were experiencing this issue too or if it was limited to IP addresses exclusively. Many sites on the subnet had no issues what so ever. This simply confirmed the blacklisting was IP address specific.
While still trying to combat this very strange issue, Google's PR update swept through, reducing each of my PR 4 websites to PR0, probably on account of them not being accessible.
Ultimately, I abandoned Ideastack and migrating my three websites back to their original hosting with Knet where I has a VPS. Within 48 hours all three sites were fully indexed in Google. Not only this, but I was also able to verify their ownership in webmaster tools and also Translate them immediately after the domains resolved. Rankings bounced back 100% and I'm confident my Page Rank will return upon the next PR update.
In conclusion, "Bad neighbors" really are an issue that deserves serious consideration when it comes to choosing web hosting for any website.
Although my experiences were specific to "SEO hosting", it doesnt necessarily mean that the problem lies in SEO hosting per se. SEO hosting is really no different than any other shared hosting except with SEO hosting you get to choose our IP address while with standard shared hosting you don't.
Why the IPs are blacklisted we can't be certain. Could it be the porn sites or some other dubious SEO related activities that Google doesn't agree with, we'll never know. All we can know for certain is that Google is actively blacklisting IP addresses for one reason or another. And as this is the case, we all should approach shared hosting with caution.


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CBD Oil Coffee – Gourmet coffee beans would be the yummy step most critical to making that morning cup of coffee. Whether your choice is a regular or decaf, coffee beans would be such small beans that when earth, boiled, and seasoned to perfection, create our early morning encounter much more exciting and lively. Obviously, not 1 coffee bean could ever suit everybody, however thanks to java bean manufacturers, there's a java bean suited to every taste. Round the world, the options connected with a fantastic java bean is decided by the collections of the people served. However, there are a couple of choices that are worldwide.
Each gourmet coffee beans have been made from chosen Arabic coffee beans. Just Arabic coffee beans possess the caliber essential for gourmet coffee beans. Arabic coffee beans have been grown in selected large, dry, and warm zones across the world. These circumstances allow for the ideal Arabic coffee bean that's ideal for gourmet coffee. The reverse is true of this Robust bean. The Robust java bean isn't the exact same high caliber as the Arabic and consequently isn't appropriate for gourmet coffee beans.
Each gourmet coffee beans have been handpicked. Gourmet coffee beans are constantly handpicked in the peak of ripeness to assure they arrive fresh to the coffee drinker. Machinery hurts the delicate java bean. Consequently, the only choice is to replicate each and every bean. Though handpicking takes significantly more time and effort, the java bean manufacturers think that the consumer deserves only the best.
The java retail stores worldwide concentrate on supplying the coffee drinker just the best for the valued clients. Coffee retail stores offer technical java to their many clients: each with their own personal tastes and favorites. Together with the technical coffee is your flavored gourmet coffee. With flavors like Vanilla Mocha and Minty Caramel Chocolate, gourmet coffee stores enjoy tantalizing their coffee drinkers. Many coffee shops will produce unique titles for their own gourmet coffee bean. Then, once called, will pack the coffee bean within an appropriately labeled bundle.
Gourmet coffee is big business. Worldwide, millions of coffee drinkers purchase their very own coffee for private use, or else they opt to attend a popular coffee shop to buy their everyday cup of coffee. Either option brings billions of dollars annually to java manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and stores. Maintaining hot flavorings and java types enables the coffee sector to remain on top of their clients wants; in nature, keeping up with hot trends in java, enables the coffee sector to produce extra millions every year in coffee and coffee products.
The key element in any fantastic java is how much you really enjoy your coffee when you eat the item. If you're happy with the coffee business supplies you with, then you will continue buying their merchandise. Whether you want natural or flavored, whole beans or ground, Dark or light, solid or smooth, the coffee sector will certainly give you a java bean which will tantalize your awareness and keep you returning for more.


text: MSN Search general manager Ken Moss reports via the MSN Search Weblog that MSN responded to the porn-related subpoena from the Department of Justice with aggregated data. No personally identifiable information was supplied to the government. I expect Yahoo and AOL to weigh in on what, exactly, they provided at some point as well.


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Go Pro 4 Black – unhappy experience
Thought for the day…" Genius is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration".
"You miss 100% of the shots that you do not take".
They say that hindsight is always 20/20, and with hindsight I would not have bought the GoPro Hero 4 Black. There are lots of brilliant videos on Youtube and the net made by GoPro cameras, but I guess that the new GoPro Hero 4 Black is not going to be producing so many of them.
I purchased the latest version of the camera recently, but was dismayed to find that it has a problem. Not just a problem but a serious one. After a short time, it gets hot and cuts out automatically (to save further damage to itself). The user manual warns you about this, and I have now read a good number of reports on the internet about problems caused by overheating. And of course, the plastic case that you use most of the time just makes matters worse, as it stops airflow around the camera, resulting in an even hotter camera. So GoPro have produced an action camera that does record in 4K (as the advertising says) but a camera that gets so hot that it cuts out after a few minutes recording.
An email to customer services at GoPro got a useless reply, which just restated what the user manual said. GoPro are suggesting that users take short video clips, and then let the camera cool down between filming. Hardly practical if you are doing action sports, as you cannot really pause your action sport for a couple of minutes just to let the camera cool !! That is a guarantee that the action moment will be missed.
But what is sad is that GoPro know of the problem, (even describing it in the user manual) and must be aware of all the complaints on the internet about it. That said, it seems that the GoPro 4 SILVER is fine, and works well, just that the top of the range Hero 4 BLACK has the overheating issue.
What would I do now if I was running the GoPro company? Admit that the units have a serious problem and recall them and offer a full refund. Customers can forgive a lot if they see that a company is trying. Mistakes do happen, but to keep selling items with a known problem is just not on. Probably bad for business in the long-term too, as selling a product with a known fault is not going to encourage loyalty or improve your company image.
So I will send more emails to GoPro in the hope that they will do the honourable thing and offer a full refund. I do not intend to limit my action sports to just a few minutes !!
No problems with the Fuji X-E1 camera, which continues to produce fantastic still photos (with no overheating problems!!). Two examples below to show how good the camera is. First photo was taken recently in Pembroke (Wanaka), New Zealand.
And another photo from the archives…early morning in autumn in the hills of Norway…..another Fuji X-E1 photo….
http://www.qualitysparesort.com http://www.qualityresortnorefjell.com
More photos from a paradise holiday destination – Seychelles
Thought for the day…."It is the road that you take that decides your destiny, not your destiny which decides which road that you take".
" You are not wealthy until you have something that money cannot buy".
Situated just south of the Equator and in the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles are made up of 155 islands which were controlled by both Britain and France until independence in 1976. About 92 000 people live there (lucky them!), with many of them being employed in the main industry-tourism. Unlike the Maldvives, the Seychelles have some wonderful inland scenery too, ranging from deep valleys to tropical rain forest, which makes the Seychelles a far more interesting holiday destination. The beaches (some of which are said to be the best in the world) are uncrowded and extremely beautiful, the sea temperature perfect for swimming and diving (especially around the many coral reefs) and when you tire of sitting on the beach under a palm tree, the tropical rain forests are quite beautiful. Add to that some fantastic quality hotels and they are really a perfect holiday destination.
and another from the same area…..
http://www.qualitysparesort.com http://www.qualityresortnorefjell.com http://www.norefjellspa.com
Two from Oman, and bad news from Oslo airport
Thought for the day…." If stars give off light, then why is space dark? " " Does age come with experience, or experience with age".
Here is a photo of some chairs.These are not something that you will see many of in Oslo Gardermoen airport. I had the misfortune (and misfortune is the word) to travel through Oslo (code OSL) airport recently. The managers there have seen fit to take away nearly all the chairs in the departure/check-in area. What are passengers supposed to do when they are waiting??? Emails to OSL managers got a reply that the airport does not have space. Very interesting that an airport that does not have space for chairs does have space to put in weird 'sculptures' including one that looks like a bent penis (check it out with an image search!!). So an international airport in the capital city of Norway does not apparently have space for chairs (although I would disagree with this, there is PLENTY of space), but does have space for stupid sculptures that just take up space and do nothing for the comfort of passengers. But do not worry. The managers of OSL airport said in their email reply that they will 'review' the situation in 2017 when the new terminal extension opens. You did read that correct, they will 'review' in 2017. Meanwhile, the stupid sculptures remain and passengers are forced to sit on the floor due to the lack of chairs. Not some 3rd world country, but Norway, Scandinavia. I guess that the managers of OSL airport will be using the First Class lounges, and will not be sitting on the floor like other passengers are doing. A crazy decision to remove chairs made by managers who are clearly out of touch with the needs of normal travelling passengers. I invite these very same managers to come and sit on the floor for 3 hours until the check-in opens.
http://www.qualitysparesort.com http://www.qualityresortnorefjell.com http://www.norefjellspa.com
ANGER ! – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day.." Do stairs go up or down? " " Do coffins have lifetime guarantees? "
Just been reading about Banamageddon, and details of the serious disease that is affecting bananas worldwide. This disease is a fungus which affects the roots, and at the moment, cannot be contolled or stopped. Surprising to read that it is UGANDA which holds the record for the highest consumption of bananas each year, with each citizen there eating an average of 0.70kg each DAY. That means that each person eats around 240 kg of bananas a year. As bananas are some important in Uganda, the same word is used for both food and for bananas (matooke). And rather surprising that due to the high levels of Potassium (especially Potassium-40) that they have higher levels of radioactivity.
Despite the sunshine and warm weather, it was obviously an angry moment for this Croatian couple seen in Dubrovnik. Even if you do not speak Croatian, then you can imagine the words that are coming out of his mouth!
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Icelandic Fishing Village – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day…" Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience" (Mark Twain). " A fool and his money are soon partying'.
Saw a couple of interesting stories in the news. In Britain, Barclays bank is planning to cut 12000 jobs yet at the same time, is raising bonuses for investment bankers. According the British Guardian newspaper, the average bonus paid last year to investment bankers was over GBP 60 000 each. That will not be happy reading to the 12 000 Barclays staff who will lose their jobs. Also interesting in the news, again from Britain, is that the police there will be able to access people's private medical records online. So much for privacy and for the doctor-patient relationship. There is a good website on the internet which often reveals stories like these, usually very good reading, http://www.infowars.com Many of the articles are about things that they would probably prefer that you do not know.
Spring sunshine over an Icelandic fishing village for today's photo. Iceland has a small population, around 300 000 people and averages around 3 people per square kilometre. Its flag, a red and white cross on a blue background is said to represent the sea (blue), snow (white) and volcanoes (red). There are around 130 volcanic mountains on Iceland, several of them still active. The capital, Reykjavik is the world's most northerly capital. Interestingly, beer was banned in Iceland until 1989, prostitution became illegal in 2009 and strip clubs were banned in 2010. Another interesting fact is that Icelanders drink more Coca-Cola per person than any other nation.
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Capturing the moment – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day…." Aren't the 'good things that come to those who wait' just the leftovers from the people that got there first?"
There is a very interesting story currently in the Scandinavian newspapers about Qatar Airways, and how they treat their staff. The articles are VERY interesting to read, and it is hard to believe that any company can treat its workers so badly. It seems that they are treated almost as slaves, with few rights and the staff seem to be in fear of their jobs. The most interesting article (in English) was in the Swedish Expressen newspaper. Here is the link –
It is a very interesting debate about whether people should book with any company which apparently treats its employees so badly. Years ago, I worked for a company that treated its staff so well that the staff stayed for a long time, worked hard and were happy to work for the company. Everybody benefitted, the company, the workers and the customers. So quite why Qatar Airways is treating its staff so badly is a mystery. I will certainly think long and hard before I book a ticket with them.
The photo today captures a relaxed and happy moment in Korea. The bright colours, happy expression and candid nature of the photo make this a great shot.
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What was he thinking? – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day…." You cannot have what you do not want"
" Your present is nothing but the future of your past. Whatever you do today will reflect in your tomorrow".
Digging deep into the photo archives (which go back many years) for the picture today. Today's picture is of an Iraqi boy. One of the advantages of compact 'bridge' cameras are the large zooms that many of them have. This photo was taken at around a 24X zoom, but even with the small sensor, the results were good. Bright light without any strong sunshine helped make this photo a great portrait shot. We can only speculate about what he was thinking, although the eyes say a lot. One of my favourite photos from Iraq.
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Going home at sunset – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day…" A nation of sheep breeds a government of wolves."
Did you know that the first digital camera was made by Fuji in 1988 (called the Fuji DS-1P), although engineers at Kodak had earlier made a camera that used a CCD (charge coupled device) ? Digital cameras had evolved as a natural extension of the technology that had been developed for recording television programs, such as the VHS tape system. In 1986 Kodak engineers made the first million-pixel sensor. Even Apple joined the race, producing the 'Apple Quick Take Camera 100' in 1994. At the other extreme, Fermilab built a 500 megapixel camera for use in telescopes, and the latest professional digital cameras are coming with 70mp sensors. Progess.
Sometimes you need to take a lot of shots of the same scene in order to get one good one. Today's photo is just one of those situations, as it needed a lot of shots before the fishermen were in the correct position. Timing was so important for this shot, which comes from Mindelo in Cape Verde Islands. End of another day.
As always, comments are welcome, just find the comments box below and write.
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Brunei mosque – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day….."Losers let it happen, winners make it happen, and others wonder what has happened."
I am still sorting out thousands of photos going back far too many years, but it is good to look back and remember some of the highs and lows of travelling. Easier to forget the sometimes unpleasant parts and remember some of the fantastic experiences. Things are changing so fast nowadays that many of those experiences are unrepeatable now, and the photos bring back the memories.
The photo today is from Brunei, which was hardly one of the most exciting stopovers that I did. If you are playing Trivial Persuit then it is good to remember that the capital of Brunei is Bandar Seri Begawan. Brunei has a population of around 415 000 people, with English and Malay being the main languages there. It became fully independent from the UK in 1984. About 90% of its GDP comes from oil and natural gas. The photo here shows the Ali Saifuddin Mosque.
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Facing forward – Not the Quality Spa Resort Hotel, Norefjell.
Thought for the day….." Follow your heart, but take your brain with you".
" Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day".
Did you know that the human face has 43 muscles in it? Or that it takes 17 muscles to smile whereas it needs 43 to frown? The face also contains the hardest part of our bodies (the teeth), the hardest bone in our bodies (the jawbone). The strongest muscle in our bodies (in relation to its size) is the human tongue. Humans are also the only animals to produce emotional tears. And also amazing is that the human brain is consuming about 20% of the total oxygen used in the human body. And on average, the skin is replaced every 27 days.
So here is a photo of a human face, a passenger in evening sunlight onboard a ferry. Bright sunlight and also light reflecting from the surrounding white surfaces gave great conditions for this photo. The wind from the moving ferry has produced an interesting hair style though !!
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We went down to a fancy London nightclub one rainy afternoon (which trust us removes all of the glamour) with the promise of seeing View21, an exciting step forward in the way we view television.
Designed in the UK for the UK market (go Team GB!), View21 is a "revolutionary" Digital TV recorder that leverages home broadband and "apps" to enhance your home viewing experience.
So what's onboard? Well twin Freeview HD Tuners stream and record content enabling you to watch live or recorded TV with ease. It was perfectly possible to watch one TV programme on the sofa, record another and watch one on your iPad all at the same time. Although I would question your ability to focus.
You can also access YouTube, Twitter and Flicker, with more apps planned down the line. Twitter integration was particularly clever. Instead of letting you add content to the Twitter via the device, which is pointless as you probably have a smartphone in your hand whilst you are watching the TV anyway, it simply allows you to tap into certain hashtags or lists. So if you are watching Mens Gymnastics (go Team GB!) then you can add that hashtag and watch comments from the Twittersphere scroll across the bottom of your screen like a news ticker. It's a smart way to integrate the constant stream of commentary.
You can share content from the iOS devices to the big screen but the functionality we paled in comparison to AirPlay both in terms of ease and ability – you can't push music or video. Still it's not a bad feature to have.
"We're thrilled to be bringing View21 to the market. From inception, we wanted this product to maximise opportunities for entertainment within the home. Through its twin HD tuners, users of View21 will be able to view HD TV and use it to control and watch content from their iPads. Through its integration with Apps such as Twitter and YouTube, watching TV at home will be a new experience – enabling viewers to interact and control like never before"
Christian Corney, Marketing Director
View21 will be available at www.view21.com and selected retailers. At launch, an iOS App is available for free with View21. For more information visit view21.com/


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Kamooneh had taken the liberty of charging the electric car with an exterior outlet at the school. Within minutes of plugging in the car, he says a Chamblee police officer appeared.
"He said that he was going to charge me with theft by taking because I was taking power, electricity from the school," Kamooneh said.


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TOPbookkeeper for Android / PC
Version : 3.114
Author : topbookkeeper.com
Rating : 5
Updated date : January 25, 2020
Category : Business
TOPbookkeeper overviewTOPbookkeeper is an outstanding product of topbookkeeper.com which has gained over 100 installs on the Google Play store. This app belongs to Business category and it is compatible with all Android devices supported Android 4.0.3. TOPbookkeeper APK file (0 bytes) is the application package kit of Twitter used on the Android OS. This APK file is created to help users who cannot download TOPbookkeeper on Google Play. You can freely sideload TOPbookkeeper APK for your Android and PC at Easydownloadapk without any doubt of malware attack.
Instructions to download and install TOPbookkeeper for AndroidFor the first time sideloading Instagram APK on Android smartphones, you need to enable the "Unknown sources" settings on your devices.
Unknown Sources on Android 7.0 and lowerOn Android 7.0 and lower, go to Settings>Security (or Lock screen and security/ Security & Privacy). Next, scroll down and toggle the switch next to "Unknown Sources". You will see a pop-up and then tap OK to continue.
Unknown Sources on Android 8.0 and higherOn Android 8.0 and higher, you need to grant permission to download unknown sources for each app/ browser. For most phones, go to Settings > Apps and Notifications > Advanced > Special App Access > Install Unknown Apps, then choose a browser that you usually use and switch the white "Allow from this source" to blue.
Steps to sideloading TOPbookkeeper APK on your Android mobiles:
- Head over to the website of Easydownloadapk.com, then search for the app you want to download.
- After choosing a desired one, select Download app button. You will see a pop-up warning on the screen, but don't worry, tap on Download to continue the process.
- Access the apk file that you've successfully downloaded and choose Install to start the installation.
- Finally, tap "Open" to start enjoying the app.
Instructions to download and install TOPbookkeeper for PCIn order to download and install TOPbookkeeper on PC/Mac/Windows xp.7.8.10, we need to use an Android emulator. In this instruction, we will use one of the most popular ones nowadays which is Bluestacks.
Method 1: Download TOPbookkeeper through an Internet browser on PC
- Open any Internet browsers on your PC and get access to Easydownloadapk.com
- Search for TOPbookkeeper and choose a suitable result.
- Click on Download app to start download the app file.
- After the file is successfully downloaded, open BlueStacks.
- Then, access the folder containing the downloaded APK file. Long-click on it to drag the file to the main interface of BlueStacks. Then, wait for the app to appear on Bluestacks.
Method 2: Download TOPbookkeeper through a browser of BlueStacks
- Launch BlueStacks, click on the up arrow More Apps to open Google Chrome.
- Access the website Easydownloadapk.com, search for TOPbookkeeper.
- Click Download app to start the apk download. Then, a warning will appear on your screen, don't worry, click OK to continue.
- After successfully downloading the file, click Install to install the app. Then, tap on Open to open the app in BlueStacks.