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Quantum Leadership Live Workshop – Feb 8th, 2014
9-12pm, Sat, Feb 8th, 2014
Third St. Center in Carbondale.
We are being challenged to transition from competition, scarcity and violence to a new paradigm of collaboration, sufficiency and compassion. Develop the capacity to generate this new world through the strength of your inner game, and harness "quantum leadership" in your life and service. This will transform your understanding of what it means to lead. Highly interactive, and relevant for leaders from all sectors and levels of experience.
The Abundance of Enough Workshop Download
Learn the 3 pathways to personal and collective abundance that aligns with an ecologically sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just world.
Recorded live on Jan 29, 2012. Two mp3 files to download.
The Future of Local Food – and Money
Recording of the live teleseminar that took place April 27, 2011 with Woody Tasch of Slow Money and Brook Le Van of Sustainable Settings.
You will receive an mp3 download and a link to stream on your computer.
If you need help with how to use either of those I am happy to assist 🙂
Deep Community Telesummit Recordings
Three transformational one-hour recordings to download and/or stream (listen by clicking a button.)
I want to get these into as many hands as possible – to spread the messages in these dialogues – so yes, they're FREE!
If you would like to make a donation of any size to help me develop the next teleconference – on sustainability and the Slow Money movement – please select an amount below before checkout, or click "Pay by check" on the checkout page to send a check.
You are very welcome to download the recordings without making a donation.
Enjoy and many thanks!


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peer-to-peer fundraising
Are you a Habitat supporter who is passionate about helping to build homes and communities? If so, you can engage your friends, family, and colleagues in our exciting work in improving the lives of families in Northern Ocean County.
The people who know you want to support you, and in turn, we want to thank you for supporting our vision. Together, we have the ability to effect great change in the lives of families in need of decent housing.
Northern Ocean Habitat now offers an easy way to fundraise using our completely customized donation pages just for you.
For every person willing to take action, there is a network of caring people who want to help. Thanks to volunteers like you, we are getting closer to our vision of a world where everyone has a safe, affordable place to call home.
We are happy to answer any questions and offer technical support to help you get started. Please contact firstname.lastname@example.com or call (732) 228-7962 if you require assistance.
I have seen so many good deeds – people helped, lives improved – because someone cared. Do what you can to show you care about other people, and you will make our world a better place.

subset: commoncrawl


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Here's a quick question: Are you in a rut when it comes to your culinary adventures? If so, and if you're willing to be just a tad adventurous, then it's not hard to find incredibly delicious food at unbelievable prices in Nashville. My family has been in this exact rut, so I've been doing some research and have discovered 3 great, locally owned ethnic eateries that are now on our "quick dinner out" short list. Samurai on Elliston Place, and Korea House and Kien Giang, both on Charlotte Avenue.
These are small mom and pop places, easy to overlook among all the big, splashy names that dot the restaurant landscape in Nashville. But trust me, all three are real contenders who hold their own by offering tasty, authentic dishes at inexpensive price points, and boast a loyal following of happy fans, to boot.
Samurai got sushi right before most of us even knew what sushi even was. Tucked in among the likes of the Gold Rush and Elliston Soda Shop over on Elliston Place, Samurai is known by serious sushi followers as the place to go.
I grabbed a follow sushi lover and we headed to Samuri. As we sat down, I saw the most gorgeous plate of sushi being delivered to the table next to me. With a small modicum of etiquette, I politely inquired if I might take a quick photo.
Each plate that arrives to your table is a work of art. Before other sushi houses got into creative sushi, adding cream cheese, strawberries and such, Samurai had perfected their rolls. And FYI, the rolls that everyone raves about (that you must try!) are the Choo-choo, Volcano and Dragon rolls. We loved every bite, for what it's worth. It is a hole in the wall, but beloved by so many devotees.
SB Insider Tip: This is a really small hole in the wall. Sort of a throw back to the 70's. Either go early or late, but go during the off hours.
Korea House
The only reason I even know about the Korea House is because of Deb Paquette, chef extraordinaire of Etch. In her Faces of Nashville interview, when asked about her favorite restaurant, Korea House was her immediate response.
It's always interested me to see so many local chefs eating lunch at the dive-type ethnic restaurants on Charlotte Avenue. What I found so curious about Korea House is that it was completely packed. So packed, that our impatient party went next door to Mothers for a quick beer. Call us desperate, since Mothers is one of the the last bastions where you can actually smoke. (I was raised in a smoking house, however, so the place felt vaguely familiar.) But, I digress …
Korea House is fabulous. The menu has many offerings–some pretty pedestrian, and some, really out there, like tripe. (Uh, no thanks.) To start we ordered the seafood pancake, which was amazing! It was served steamy hot and serves four adults and more. Chocked full of shrimp, it was gobbled up so fast, we didn't manage to get a photo to share. (Clearly, we were starving after our wait.)
Another dish that gets high marks on presentation is the Dolsot Bibim Bab. Made with assorted vegetables and beef and topped with rice and a fried egg, it is served at your table in a hot pot. This was my favorite dish, by the way. (Just about anything with a fried egg on top is a friend of mine!)
SB Insider Tip: You can bring your own wine in for a nominal fee. If you forget your wine, Costco is a block away.
Kien Giang
Not that I saved the best for last, but I must say that Kien Giang continues to be my favorite. Characteristic of most Vietnamese restaurants is a nod, on their menu, to their French heritage, where you'll find delicious coffees, crepe-like appetizers and delicious sandwiches delivered with crusty French bread.
Kien Giang offers tons of menu items, most of which are accompanied by fresh herbs and vegetables. When I visited, I really enjoyed a dish that looked, for all intents and purposes, like an omelette. It's called Banh Xeo, and it's actually a light and crispy crepe filled with shrimp, pork and veggies that you slice, wrap in lettuce, basil and mint leaves and dip in a sweet and spicy sauce. (Apologies, SB friends, for not having a photo to share here either. Bad move on my part to go for lunch with the gas tank on empty. Trust me and order it when you go–it's incredible!)
SB Insider Tip: Kien Giang only takes CASH! No plastic accepted.
As you make your plans for dinner out, consider trying one of these not-so-familiar but oh-so-satisfying gems in Nashville. With chopsticks in hand, get ready for some fun!
For more information about these restaurants, click on any of the following links to visit their corresponding review page on Urban Spoon: Samurai, Korea House and Kien Giang.


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Iranian lawmakers impeached the country's labor minister on Sunday over his controversial appointment of an official implicated in the deaths of prisoners. The move highlights a power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his conservative rivals in parliament ahead of the June presidential elections.
Out of 272 present lawmakers in the parliament on Sunday, 192 voted against the labor minister, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami. The chamber has 290 seats.
The lawmakers are angry over the labor minister's decision to appoint Saeed Mortazavi as head of Iran's social security fund. A parliamentary probe in 2010 found that Mortazavi, then chief Tehran prosecutor, was responsible for the deaths of at least three anti-government protesters who were tortured.
In response, Ahmadinejad turned the tables on his conservative opponents and accused parliament speaker Ali Larijani and his relatives of misusing power. Ahmadinejad played a barely audible videotape showing Larijani's brother, Fazel, in a meeting where he allegedly sought a bribe in return for ensuring the support of the speaker and another brother, Sadegh Amoli, who is chief of judiciary.
Larijani denied the charge saying he has no business relation with his brother. He accused Ahmadinejad of having a "Mafia-type" attitude and disregarding the country's dignity, law and ethics. "It was a good thing that you showed this to let people to learn about you character," he said.
The dispute was seen a way to damage Ahmadinejad ahead of presidential election in June. Under the law, Ahmadinejad cannot run for another term, but his opponents say he is trying to impose a hand-picked successor on them.
For the first time in the country's history, the parliament grilled the president in March 2012 over the alleged mismanagement of the nation's economy. They also questioned Ahmadinejad about his decision to dismiss an intelligence minister in May 2011 - a move seen as a defiance of the country's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The minister was reinstated later at Khamenei's instruction.
Since then, many of Ahmadinejad's former supporters have started backing his conservative opponents.


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. . . it's real.
I asked for permission to convert Lost Hall of Tyr to the Dungeon Fantasy RPG. As Andrew Hackard indicated, the negotiations were painless. For now, though, plans only include the single item.
More details and cool stuff will be discussed as things develop, but I can confirm:
- The adventure will be mildly de-Norse'd, in keeping with the generic nature of the DFRPG
- There will be 8 pre-gen characters
- The wilderness travel rules I wrote will be converted to DFRPG
- The short section on grappling will also be converted to DFRPG, and will reap the benefit of years of play and learning
- The bestiary will be converted to DFRPG; I'm already working on some thoughts and layout options
- The map will be modified to give an actual location and travel direction to the Lost Hall
The original Lost Hall adventure was designed as a demonstration of the Dungeon Grappling rules for 5E. It was also designed to be jammed into a single, one-shot, two-to-three hour game at GenCon 50. Certain liberties can be taken with a design like that that are not appropriate for a modular adventure to plunk into an existing campaign.
So it's going to get better.
That's all I have to say about it for now . . . but I've got the Dragon Heresy Introductory Set Kickstarter to launch at 10am Central today. That's an entire game in the same world as Hall of Judgment, and you can also imagine that I will be needing to focus and write more support material for that.


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← Back to TrapCall.com
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Learn how to blacklist callers and block spam so you'll never be harassed again.
Frequently Asked Questions
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See all 18 articles


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What is/are the best Simulation-based game(s) you've ever played for PC? I've owned/played: The Oregon Trail SimEarth SimCity 2000 SimCity 3000 SimCity 4 Sim Ant Sim Tower Spore Roller Coaster Tycoon + expansions Catz (Made by P.F. Magic) And out of all of them I think SimCity 4 is my favorite one. Spore is good, sure, but once you enter space mode it just gets really repetitive and the expansion for Spore is a joke. I don't know if it counts as a sim-game but I've heard the Black and White series was really good.
1 - i never play sim games 2- just got pc like 5 months ago and really onlyplay stuff like skyrim on it
>>4483 Offtopic but Morrowind > Skyrim
>>4482 Have you tried Alpha Centauri? Not sure if it is what you are looking for
>>4494 I've read up on it. I wasn't sure if the Civ type games counted because they're more strategy than sim but I am curious about AC. I've played Civilization on the SNES, a little of II on the Playstation years ago and own Civilization IV.
>>4482 How about trying dwarf fortress?
>>4513 Not into Roguelikes.
>>4482 Sand box
>>4515 ?
anno 1404
>>4482 I don't know if you'll consider it simulation, but Sword of the Samurai (http://store.steampowered.com/app/327950/Sword_of_the_Samurai/) let´s you play a samurai. You can wander around disguised as a ronin, try to assassinate your enemies, marry, take quest and so on. It is different. The mini games were pretty addictive
>>4581 >$6.99 on Steam ftp://18.104.22.168/Dos/Games/Games%20Collection/Sword%20of%20the%20Samurai.zip >Free
>>4585 >Should probably read a guide for jumping into a game next time... There's like almost no documentation in-game from the start about how to do the mini-games. I'll look into it more later. Thanks for the suggestion though chum. I recommend checking out that ftp server I linked. There's a TON of DOS games on it you can download right off the bat. The owner also has Amiga stuff if you go up a couple of directories (with an emulator of course).
The world is slowly growing. Annoyingly there's no feature to snap a pic of the whole world map, just what's visible. So I had to piece it together individually which is why it looks so autistic.
>>4482 For me, it's SimGirls
>>4820 >those faces
gitlfriend construction set


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ISAACS BROTHERS. William C., Sam, and John Childress Isaacs, Panhandle settlers and ranchers, were the sons of Joseph C. and Mary (Jack) Isaacs, who moved to Bosque County, Texas, from their native Alabama in 1857. Will, the oldest, was born on December 4, 1853, in Alabama and moved to Bosque County with his parents at the age of four. There Sam was born on January 26, 1864, and John in 1866. Their father served as a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The boys were largely self-educated. Sam in 1877 reportedly attended the first school at Buffalo Gap in Taylor County. That year he began working near Abilene for the Half Diamond H Ranch, which was owned by his brother-in-law, Alex Martin. In 1883–84 he worked as an outside man for the Hashknife Ranch under John N. Simpson in the Concho country around San Angelo. John, the youngest brother, attended school for a time in Comanche County.
In 1883 Will and John Isaacs were employed by the Apple Ranch, located at the junction of Quartermaster Creek and the Washita River, in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) about sixty miles from the Texas border. The next year Sam was hired by Mallalay and Forbes, who were also grazing cattle on Cheyenne reservation lands. Both outfits moved their herds across the Panhandle to New Mexico in 1885 after the federal government ordered all cattlemen to vacate the Indian Territory. John Isaacs, after a brief stint with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Cattle Company, worked on ranches in Arizona. Will and Sam remained with the Apple and Mallalay-Forbes outfits in eastern New Mexico. Sam participated in several drives between Endee and Caldwell, Kansas, where the Forbes headquarters was located. In 1886 Sam, who was in charge of the Mallalay-Forbes cattle at Endee, wintered on Palo Duro Creek about twelve miles above the T Anchor Ranch. There he constructed one of the Panhandle's first picket houses. In 1889 he drove the Mallalay-Forbes herd to Red Deer Creek near its junction with the Canadian River in Hemphill County. Among the Panhandle ranches he frequently visited were the LX and the Turkey Track. He also knew Robert Benjamin (Ben) Masterson of the Long S.
In January 1892 Will Isaacs married Mary K. Brainard, Canadian's first schoolteacher and the sister of rancher Edward H. Brainard. The next year he and Sam purchased a 30,000-acre ranch and 4,000 cattle, which bore their Circle and a Half brand. In 1906 the brothers helped establish the Canadian State Bank, with Ed Brainard as president, Will as vice president, and Sam as cashier; Will subsequently was president for several years. Their partnership lasted until 1912, when they divided the property among themselves and operated independently. Will continued ranching until 1928, when he sold 8,085 acres to Lewis Webb of Gray County. He died on May 18, 1934. Mary Isaacs remained active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and social affairs in Canadian until her death on October 12, 1950. The Mary B. Isaacs school in Canadian is named for her.
Sam, whose ranch consisted of 13,371 well-stocked acres, served as a director of the Canadian Building and Loan Association and helped establish Canadian's Masonic lodge. He married May Louisa Stevens of Kansas City on August 6, 1907, and for years they provided high-school boys with room and board at their two-story brick home on Main Street, in exchange for the chores they did around the house. Sam was a charter member of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society and was one of the founders of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum at Canyon; he liberally supported both institutions. He retired after leasing his ranch in September 1942, and died on September 28, 1943.
John C. Isaacs returned to the Panhandle from Arizona in 1890 and worked two years for the T Anchor Ranch, earning the nickname "T Anchor Kid." After working briefly for the Frying Pan Ranch, he established his own ranch in 1893 on Needmore Creek, east of Canadian. He married Viola Bloom of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, on June 1, 1898, and they had four children. Along with his brothers, John helped organize the Canadian State Bank and the Canadian Building and Loan Association, both of which he served for years as a director. He also was a past president of the T Anchor Reunion Association and the Panhandle Old Settlers' Association. He died on October 22, 1937, and in 1986 the ranch on Needmore Creek was still being operated by his heirs.
Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of Panhandle Pioneers (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945). Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939). Lester Fields Sheffy, "Sam Isaacs," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 19 (1946). F. Stanley [Stanley F. L. Crocchiola], Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).
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All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and "Fair Use" for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law.
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If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Handbook of Texas Online, H. Allen Anderson, "ISAACS BROTHERS," accessed May 29, 2020, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fis08.
Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Modified on April 10, 2019. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Call for Papers: Texas Center for Working-Class Studies
Events, Symposia, and Workshops
Hi all! You may be interested in this call for papers I received from the Texas Center for Working-Class Studies at Collin College...
Katy Jennings' Ride
Scholarly Research Request
I'm doing research on Catherine Jennings Lockwood, specifically the incident known as "Katy Jennings' Ride." Her father was Gordon C. Jennings, the oldest man to die at the Alamo...
Texas Constitution of 1836 Co-Author- Elisha Pease?
Ask a Historian
The TSHA profile of Elisha Marshall Pease states that he wrote part of the Texas Constitution although he was only a 24 year-old assistant secretary (not elected). I cannot find any other mention of this authorship work by Pease in other credible research about the credited Constution authors...


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Our Voyager Application Suite
The Voyager HUB application suite helps simplifies daily tasks, making navigation easier to manage. One place for the navigational tools and services your crew use everyday.
"With Voyager FLEET INSIGHT, I have the data and analysis I need to understand our navigation requirements and to optimise our navigational spend. As a purchasing professional working in shipping, this information has been invaluable to me."
Helikon Shipping
"Using Voyager MONEY means that we can optimise cash flow and increase our financial controls while reducing the costs of getting cash to our masters and crews. We are delighted with the security and simplicity of the Voyager MONEY solution as well as the personal and focused service we receive from our local, dedicated Account Manager."
"Our business requires the highest levels of customer service. Working with GNS gives us a supplier with the global scale to meet the requirements of our operation together with easy to use and reliable software on board and 24/7 global support."
Global Marine Services
"GNS's data-led approach to compliance management and pricing that support increasingly more efficient navigation were key to our decision to work with them."
EDT Offshore
"Voyager Fleet Insight is providing our shore-based management team with better visibility of fleet activity, chart and publication inventories and order requisition requirements, to help us ensure the fleet is fully compliant and provide greater clarity on navigation expenditure and budget management."
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"The most important thing for us is safe transportation of our cargoes globally. We wanted a solution that would really enhance bridge operations and support our crews in improving safety and efficiency onboard, Crew feedback on the GNS solution during our trials was exceptional across all areas in particular ease of use and simplicity, as well as the sophistication of the tools provided. GNS's Voyager solution has become a great tool for us."
Siam Lucky
"Our vessels required a navigational solution that ensured safety and compliance onboard. GNS supplies us with an integrated navigation solution to nine of our 21 gas carriers. Providing its state-of-the-art SEALL touchscreen ECDIS, Voyager planning and navigation management software as well as the ENCs."


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Suneco LED Lighting is a professional manufacturer and supplier of LED Street Light, Solar Street Light. If you want to buy solar street light, buy street light, and buy LED Street Lights, you've come to the right place.
Buy Solar Street Light from Suneco LED Lighting.
Complete Solar Street light Buying Guide
LED solar street light. Image Source: Suneco LED Lighting
The world is now shifting towards the use of renewable energy.
The need to conserve the environment and the high cost of other sources of energy are just some of the reasons behind this push.
Solar energy is one of the most popular sources of renewable energy. It has a wide range of application both in the commercial and business premises.
One application area of solar energy is in street lighting.
This energy is used to power a wide range of streetlights. Private residential areas and public institutions are depending on solar energy to illuminate their streets.
Common Application Areas Of Solar Street Lighting
Some of the areas where you are likely to find solar street lights include but not limited to;
• Public street lighting
• Park lighting
• Roadway lighting
• Dock lighting
• Fence lighting
• Sidewalk lighting
• Farm and ranch lighting
• Perimeter security lighting
• solar street lights residential
Advantages Of Solar Street Lighting
The fact that solar street lighting has become a go-to choice for many people is not by a coincidence.
There are several reasons why individuals and organizations are falling for this street lighting technology.
Here are the main advantages of solar street lighting:
1. Stable Supply of Power: LED solar street lighting fixtures are very stable.
They are immune to unpredictable incidences such as power outage and blackouts.
You can use them continuously without expecting any form of interruption.
2. Zero maintenance costs: Solar street lights require minimum maintenance cost.
Once you install them in your compound, you won't have to worry about the regular maintenance services.
You won't need to replace the lights every now and then.
3. Minimum disruption: A solar street lighting fixture exist as an independent unit.
They don't require installing voltage lines or digging trenches that will accommodate cables.
4. Back up- As opposed to the popular notion, solar street lights aren't affected by bad weather.
A single solar streetlight has a battery backup that can store enough power to be used during cloudy and rainy days.
5. Distributed light: LED solar streetlights exist in a distributed network. They are not connected to each other.
The main advantage of this is that a problem in one fixture won't affect other street lights.
6. Green energy: Solar power is a green source of energy.
It is 100% natural and does not cause any kind of environmental pollution.
By choosing to install solar street lights, you will be making a contribution towards conserving the environment.
7. Cost reduction: Solar street lights are pocket-friendly.
They attract minimum operational costs.
First, they do away with the electricity bills. With the installation of solar streetlights, you will be spared from paying high energy bills.
Apart from the bills, traditional street lights also attract high maintenance expenses.
8. Renewable energy: Solar is a renewable form of energy.
Its supply is unlimited and it will never be exhausted.
Solar energy is unlike oil and coil whose supply can easily dwindle.
9. Self-controlled: Solar street lights can operate with minimum supervision.
The fixtures can automatically turn themselves on and off thanks to their daylight sensing technology.
They also come with the hour preset feature which gives you control to set the running hour of the street light.
Guidelines For Buying LED Solar Street Lights
Now that you are aware of the benefits of solar street lighting, it is time to make a big move.
You need to purchase and install the streetlights.
Buy Solar street light is quite expensive. They require a huge capital investment.
Don't be in a rush to purchase and install them. Instead, take your time to analyze various key issues.
Here are the main factors that you should consider when installing LED solar street lights:
1.Design and Technology
Solar streetlights come in a wide range of designs and technologies.
You need to get one whose design will match with your needs.
An appropriate design will deliver the best results as you need.
It will also save you from paying extra money on something that you won't need.
The size of the fixture also falls under this factor. You need to choose the right size of the LED solar street light.
If you aren't sure, it is always advisable to seek help from experts. They will inspect the location and give you appropriate advice.
Some of the issue that can determine the design, size and technology that you should choose include:
• Solar duration
• Humidity
• Dust level
• Weather condition
• Latitude
• Temperature ranges and
• Wind speed
A proficient technician will look at these factors before recommending the best LED solar street lights.
2.Battery Position
Illustrating battery position on pole.
LED Solar streetlights have different battery positions.
They are:
• Underground
• On the ground
• On the roof of the pole
• Hanging on the pole
• On the top of the pole
There are several factors that you may consider before deciding on the positioning of the battery.
They include the security of the area, size of the battery, convenience, material used and the terrain of the area.
3.Control Techniques
Carefully consider the methods of controlling the solar streetlights.
Do they use smart lighting features or are they manually controlled and monitored?
With intelligent street lighting system, you will be able to control all the solar street lights from remote locations.
The system gives you the power to turn the lights on and off over a set period of time. You can also control the dimming of the lights.
Smart control street lights give you the ultimate convenience.
You can control everything regarding the solar street lights right from the comfort of your house.
The intelligent system also helps to manage the energy consumption of the streetlights.
You can reduce the brightness or even shut down the streetlights when they are not in use.
4. Type of Streetlight Poles
Streetlight pole. Image Courtesy: the lighting resource
Obviously, you will fix the LED solar street lights on the poles.
There are various features of a solar streetlight pole that you need to consider before installing one.
The main factors include:
– Mounting height
– Type of luminaire selected
– Wind speed
– Terrain
– -Material of the pole
– Pole style and finishing
– Pole shape
Choose the right pole that guarantees to serve you well.
There is no doubt that LED solar street lighting is the way to go.
If you are yearning to light up your streets and driveway, consider installing street lighting fixtures.
This guide will help you to do everything right and protect you from regrets.
Buy solar street light from Suneco LED Lighting and import solar street lights residential to your home.


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2017 (on-going)
Singapore, Singapore
Shanghai, China
Product Designer
User Research
Light Novel & Web Novel is a huge market in East Asian countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan & China).In Japan alone, Light Novel is accounted for 23% of the domestic paperback novel market (2011).
Recent trend studies have suggested that consumers from many Western markets have developed a keen interest in Light Novel & Web Novel. However, the English translations remain somewhat inadequate, they heavily rely on scanlation & translation groups, with infrequent releases and problematic format between original language and English.
BaoSiao works closely with prominent, up-and-coming as well as aspiring Light Novel and Web Novel authors to translate their works into English effectively and distribute to the Western audiences.
The Shanghai-based startup aims to take a major stake in the industry that could be accounted nearly 0.5 billion dollars in the publishing industry.


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Threads Made Easy in Visual Basic
Desktop-as-a-Service Designed for Any Cloud ? Nutanix Frame
Multithreading can be challenging. Using a lot of threads can make an application much more difficult to debug and buggier. The Parallel FX Library was created to make your life a little easier. Now the features that were in a separate download are part of the .NET Framework 4.0, and they can add a little zip to your application with a lot fewer headaches.
Everyone wants substantial performance increases and when needed programmers often turn to multithreading. However, if you follow the basic mathematics of Amdahl's law and Gustafson's law then you know that just chunking the work by adding threads does not produce linear increases in performance. Use threads sparingly but use them more safely with the features presented in this article.
Preparing Your Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Environment
Figure 1 - Make sure the target framework is .NET 4.0
The Parallel extensions used for the demo are in System.Threading.Tasks, so add a reference to this namespace in your project using an Imports statement.
Using Parallel.ForEach
Parallel.ForEach has several overloaded versions that accept an IEnumerable(Of T) collection and an Action generic delegate. The method executes a
for each operation and iterations may be run in parallel. The following fragment uses the Shared
Enumerable.Range method and generates a range of numbers from 1 to 1000. The LINQ query selects just the even numbers and the
Paralle.ForEach method uses a Lambda expression to write the contents to the console in parallel. Figure 2 shows all of thread spun up for this statement.
Dim data = Enumerable.Range(1, 1000) ' Implicit line continuation - No line continuation. Yeah! Dim evens = From e In data Where e Mod 2 = 0 Select e Parallel.ForEach(evens, Sub(i) Console.Write(i.ToString() + ", ")) Console.ReadLine()
Figure 2: Threads galore for Parallel.ForEach
It is worth noting that the order of the data is not necessarily preserved, which is a consideration if you are using


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A true luxury ride is one that has the capability to double as a mobile office. With that in mind, BMW is now offering in-car connectivity via a 4G LTE device as a part of their accessory program. The BMW 4G Car Hotspot LTE is designed to work with any new or existing BMW model's phone dock, marking the auto company's first foray into mobile Internet technology, is powered by the car's battery and functions as a router capable of being used by up to 8 passengers at a time. The device also features an adjustable connectivity range from 3-meters to about 10-meters.
Related: BMW Has Staged the Fastest Christmas Song (Video)
[via BMW Blog]
Also Watch


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Sponsored Listings:
Albert Craig (Postmaster) email@example.com
1221 E Central Ave
La Follette, TN 37766
La Follette, TN 37766
The La Follette Post Office is located in the state of Tennessee within Campbell County. This location serves 18,850 La Follette residents with a median income of $26,394. It's estimated that approximately 30,087 packages pass through this post office each year.


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Dallas, TX, July 25, 2005—The Dallas Museum of Art will present an exhibition which investigates the rich historical interplay between the art of Asia and the West. The exhibition East Meets West opens Aug. 7 and is on view through Nov. 27 in the Focus Gallery.
The exhibition pairs objects of sculpture, painting and decorative pieces from the East and West, revealing the creative interaction between the artists of the two worlds.
Artistic exchanges occurred as historical boundaries widened, first in antiquity and again after the Renaissance. As eastern Asia opened up to the West, prominent artists like Edgar Degas and James McNeill Whistler began to explore the visual styles of the Orient. At the same time, Asian artists created works for the European market.
"The emerging 19th-century trade between Asia, Europe and America hastened a vibrant exchange of fine arts and decorative arts at that time," said Dr. Anne Bromberg, The Cecil and Ida Green Curator of Ancient and South Asian Art of the Dallas Museum of Art. "It led to a rich visual mix—on both sides of the equation."
That historical development could be considered an early movement in the creation of the "Global Village" of the modern world, since both Asian and Western artists today are able to work in a worldwide cultural context.
Paired pieces in the East Meets West exhibition will show how the discovery of Asia by the Greeks during the reign of Alexander the Great influenced Asian Buddhist art, which began to reflect Greek and Roman styles. In the 17th century, Spanish Colonial artists adopted Japanese art types like folded screens. From a Gandharan Head of Buddha to a 20th-century Mark Tobey painting recalling Japanese calligraphy, visitors will be able to see the effects of many profitable artistic meetings between the Western and Eastern worlds.
One of the outstanding works in the exhibit is the contemporary artist Mariko Mori's Burning Desire, a large image on glass that shows the artist as a Tibetan Buddhist holy figure, encircled by flames. The work is on loan from Cindy and Howard Rachofsky.
East Meets West was organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by Dr. Bromberg.
About the Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art, established in 1903, has an encyclopedic collection of more than 23,000 works, spanning 5,000 years of history and representing all media, with renowned strengths in the arts of the ancient Americas, Africa, Indonesia and South Asia; European and American painting, sculpture and decorative arts; and American and international contemporary art.
The Dallas Museum of Art is the anchor of the Dallas Arts District and, in all its vitality, serves as a cultural magnet for the city with diverse programming ranging from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary readings, dramatic and dance presentations, and a full spectrum of programs designed to engage people of all ages with the power and excitement of art.
The Dallas Museum of Art is supported in part by the generosity of Museum members and donors and by the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas/Office of Cultural Affairs and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
The Dallas Museum of Art is located between St. Paul and Harwood streets, just south of Woodall Rodgers Freeway. The DMA charges a general admission fee of $10 for adults, $7 for senior citizens and $5 for students with current school identification. DMA members and children under 12 are free.
General admission is free for all on Thursdays after 5 p.m. and the first Tuesday of the month. Hours are Tuesday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The Museum is closed Mondays, New Year's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. For information during business hours, call 214-922-1200. For a calendar of programs, news of family activities, or to view images of works from the DMA's permanent collection, visit DallasMuseumofArt.org.


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All Hallow's Eve Is More Than Candy and Playtime For Some Members of Society.
Halloween comes and goes for most of us. But for members of Wicca--one of the fastest growing religions in the world--the season of Samhain is a magic time.
The Halloween Sabbat (celebration) concludes for Wiccans on November 1 with the final turn of the year-wheel. Mother Earth nods a sad farewell to the god who will be reborn at Yule (December 20), and the life cycle begins anew. This is a time to honor the Earth Mother, remember the Ancients, and revere the Horned god of the Hunt.
According to the Celtic Almanac, the Wiccan year begins following Halloween. The seasonal scenario that follows is reminiscent of the earth goddess and dying-god cults of ancient civilizations.
* The next season is Imbolc and marks the recovery of the goddess after giving birth to the god.
* The Spring Equinox (Ostara) marks the first day of Spring. The goddess awakes as the days grow longer and the light overtakes the darkness. The goddess fills the earth with fertility.
* Beltane celebrates the transformation of the boy god into manhood. He is filled with lust for the goddess and lies with her in the grass. The earth becomes pregnant with her vitality. Crops begin to grow. Flowers bloom.
* Litha (midsummer) arrives as the powers of nature escalate. The Earth Mother is filled with fertility. Wiccans practice numerous kinds of magic during this season.
* The next season is Lughnasadh, the time of the first harvest. The Wiccan god begins to lose his strength as the Sun rises higher each day. The nights grow longer. The god begins to die.
* Mabon is the completion of the harvest. The Wiccan god suffers death, draws back into darkness, and waits to be reborn at Yule.
The Wicca year-cycle described above is similar to concepts held by early pagans who viewed the natural world with awe and superstition. Ancients watched the changing of the seasons and wondered about the life and death of crops. They perceived such natural processes as mystic, and developed fertility cults with gods and goddesses who died and were reborn. The worship of the earth's "spirit" as a mother, and the incarnation of the earth's fertility forces within dying gods and goddesses, developed into one of the most widespread forms of paganism in antiquity.
Whether it was Inanna of the Sumerians, Ishtar of the Babylonians, or Fortuna of the Romans, every civilization had a sect of religion based on the embodiment of the earth's spirit as a caring mother-goddess. The Egyptians worshipped Hathor in this way, as did the Chinese, Shingmoo. The Germans worshipped Hertha as the great Mother Earth, and the apostate Jews idolized "the queen of heaven." In Greece, the queen of the Olympian goddesses and Mother Earth was Hera. Before her was Gaia (Gaea), the creator-mother earth, and beneath her were many other earth goddesses including Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite, and Hecate.
The principal idea was, and evidently still is among Wiccans, that the Earth is a sentient being. The ancient and universally accepted idea that the "living Earth" was also a fertile mother was conceptualized in different ways and in various goddess myths and images throughout the ancient world. In The Golden Asse, by second century Roman philosopher Lucius Apuleius, the spirit of the earth was perceived as a feminine force that could express itself at various times and to different people within the goddess mothers. Note how Lucius prays to the earth spirit:
The earth spirit responds to Lucius:
One could assume, based on such texts, that a single spiritual source (or realm) energized the many goddess myths. Likewise, in the ancient Hymn, To Earth, The Mother Of All, Homer illustrates how the earth-spirit was universally involved in the affairs and lives of nations. Through Homer's dedication to the earth we discover how far-reaching and omnipresent the mother-earth spirit was thought to be:
From these and other ancient records, it is obvious that the earth was more than an agricultural or herbaceous facility to the pagans. She was the personable and "eldest of all beings," the "holy goddess," the "bountiful spirit," the all-nourishing mother of men who manifested herself within the popular idols and mother goddesses.
Modern Wiccans and neo-pagans perceive the earth similarly, often referring to the earth as Gaia--a living, caring entity. We are told that people are just one of Mother Earth's species, not her dominators. She provides the living biosphere -- the region on, above, and below her surface where created things, both physical and spiritual, live. During the Samhain sabbot (Halloween), pagans celebrate the time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, a period when those spirits beneath Gaia's surface can more easily communicate with the living.
Wiccans might find it interesting that many Christian theologians agree with the idea that the physical earth contains spiritual forces. For instance, in the Book of Revelation, chapter nine and verse fourteen, we read of "the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates." Likewise, in Job 26:5, we find "Dead things are formed from under the waters." The literal Hebrew translation says, "The Rafa (fallen angels) are made to writhe from beneath the waters."
Additional biblical references indicate that the earth is a kind of holding tank, or prison, where God has bound certain fallen entities. (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6) That such fallen spirits seek to communicate with, or participate in the affairs of humanity, is defined in Scripture. The Hebrew people were warned that earth spirits pretending to be gods might seek communion with men, and, when the witch of Endor communicated with the same, they ascended up from "out of the earth" (1 Sam. 28:13). It would seem therefore, based on such Scriptures, that the dynamic or energy behind the earth-goddess-spirits of Halloween is indeed real, and, according to Christian doctrine, identical with the legions of fallen spiritual forces bound within the earth.
As in antiquity, those who practice modern paganism are guilty of worshipping "devils" (Rev. 9:20). The dogma once embraced and that continues through such earth-centric paganism as Wicca is defined in scriptures as the "doctrines of devils." The Apostle Paul said, "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils" (1 Cor. 10:20).
In Acts 7:41-42 (Jerusalem Bible), it describes those who worship idols as joining themselves to the "army of heaven" [stratos, the "fallen angel army"], and Psalm 96:5 concludes, "all the gods of the nations are idols" (elilim, LXX daimonia [demons]). Thus, pagan images, such as those that represented the ancient gods and goddesses were "elilim" (empty, nothing, vanity), but behind the empty idols were the living dynamics of idolatry and spiritual objects of pagan adoration: demons.
Because the Bible clearly defines such goddess worship as the homage of demons, and since demons are eternal personalities that desire the worship of humans, it is fair to characterize Wiccan deities, including the god, goddess, and Horned god of the Hunt, as neo-pagan titles attributed to demon spirits.
The New Testament tells the story of presenting the Gospel to pagans. It records conversions to Christ and the abandonment of earth-centered goddess cults. So powerful was the spread of the early Christian faith that pagan religions that had dominated the Middle East for thousands of years, crumbled. The cold embrace of Mother Earth could not match the magnetic warmth of the love of God. In fact, the last recorded utterance of the oracle at Delphi seems to indicate the spirit of the Olympians understood he was no match for Jesus. From Man, Myth & Magic, we read:
"Apollo delivered his last oracle in the year 362 AD, to the physician of the Emperor Julian, the Byzantine ruler who tried to restore paganism after Christianity had become the official religion of the Byzantine Empire. 'Tell the King,' said the oracle, 'that the curiously built temple has fallen to the ground, that bright Apollo no longer has a roof over his head, or prophetic laurel, or babbling spring. Yes, even the murmuring water has dried up.'"
The worship of Diana in Ephesus was another stronghold of earth-centered goddess cults. Dianic witchcraft was the greatest unifying religion among all pagan people up to that time. It took 220 years to build the massive temple to Diana in Ephesus. Yet when Paul preached the Gospel of Jesus to the Ephesians, "Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed" (Acts 19:17-20).
May we with joy declare such a life-changing Gospel and not be ashamed "of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. 1:16).
Credit to Raiders news update


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ALERT The MDF has a monthly Prune of all Members that have Zero Posts to their Accounts to Free up Resources. However Just 1 Single Post will keep your account open indefinitely.
Grey ghost Amphibian for equinox 800/600
Please feel free to post topics about metal detector headphones here.
MDF Auction - Metal Detecting Headphones
MDF Auction - Metal Detecting Headphones
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Grey ghost Amphibian for equinox 800/600
Hi has any one tried the grey ghost Amphibians out I am thinking of getting some But i have Tony Eisenhower custom made equinox waterproof headphones People have said they are a tight fit And hurt the head after a few hours But on me pertfect fit And the sound is pretty good also But there is a new toy in town for the Nox And i was thinking of trying the grey ghosts out They weight 430 grams. I have been told My headphones off Tony are 350 grams So i dont think I will notice that Plus the grey ghost have volume Does any one have both these headphones Any way if any one has any input It would be a great help On whether i should try the grey ghosts out Thanks To any one with any advice Cheers guys Max
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I might be tempted if somebody else tries them out first. I loved the ordinary Grey Ghost sounds on my CTX but the replaceable cables were absolute rubbish, the way that I used them anyway. I wouldnt spend so much money on them unless I was convinced that they would last. Anyway I have grown quite attached to Bluetooth and haven't noticed any problems with lag so I would prefer a decent pair of waterproof Bluetooth headphones, which so far I haven't seen.
Well worn Equinox 800 x2
Nice (temporarily) shiny new one x1
Nice (temporarily) shiny new one x1
Hi fred To stop the problem with the headphone wire On my Tony Eisenhower headphones I bought from the USA I did this to my cable as it started to get tangeled all the time Pop this in youtube in the brackets And you will understand what i mean ( Custom Anti Tangle Headphone Wire Sheathing/Sleeving ) I used 15mm sleeve This is handy to know Even if it was not your problem Works on small earbuds also If you was going to have them wired I find on some targets The bluetooth headphones Have slight lag Not on coins like a pound But on little stuff I like to be wired I think i will wait for comments before i buy any As the headphones i have are pretty good I also have the Sennheiser Momentum Free, Wireless Bluetooth Headphones Which bring the plus + icon up But there Just not as good as wired There is some sennheiser CX Sport Bluetooth In-Ear Wireless Sports £110 on amazon waterproof Which bring up the plus + icon When i find some waterproof one's Which bring the plus + icon up at a great price I will drop them on here Thanks for your reply from Max
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Binoy Kampmark
Yes, the Cathars held the material world to be evil and bad, created by demons. At the same time, they put their faith in God, the holy and the possibility of perfection.- Jean Baudrillard, Der Spiegel Interview, 2002.
The enemy is our own question embodied
And he will hound us, and we will hound him to the same end- Theodor Däubler
A Time Magazine issue released immediately after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, shows the figure of the al Qaeda leader with a red cross marked on his face. Erasure, liquidation, a figure expunged. The magazine issue strikes a note of triumphalism -- the United States had finally gotten its man in the preferred state: dead. But this was no conventional death. Nothing regarding bin Laden's deaths (for he has died several times) has been 'conventional'. From the moment the Twin Towers were attacked on September 11, 2011 and assimilated into the symbolic language of apocalyptic terrorism, the entire 'war' (itself necessarily a questionable state) became an image, be it through the terrorist response itself, or the reaction of the security state. The execution he was administered was not the equivalent of a head on a stake outside the Tower of London. Nor did it resemble the display of the Anabaptist Jan Bockelson's remains, exhibited in cages hung from St. Lambert's Church, Münster in 1536 as a reminder of what happens to those who challenge a powerful order. It was a digitalised public execution that was filmed, programmed, and streamed live to the White House. The only thing missing in the images of a stunned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and fellow grim faces in the situation room were the mandatory additions viewers bring to see a film: buckets of popcorn, super sized soft drinks. Pizza, however, was provided.
The very execution was engineered in circumstances of controlled deception. From the moment of its planning, the mission to kill bin Laden was concealed from both ally and foe alike. The Pakistani authorities may well have been kept in the dark till the penultimate assault on the military compound harbouring the leader. [1] Left reeling, the Foreign Ministry could only claim that the information American forces had obtained had come from their offices. "It is important to highlight that taking advantage of much superior and technological assets, [the] CIA exploited the intelligence leads given by us to identify and reach Osama bin Laden." [2] That he had already been declared dead on numerous occasions prior to his killing on May 1 also showed on the one hand the irrelevance of the revelation, and on the other, the dangers to the credibility of the US security forces. What is proposed here is a detailed examination of that death, its meaning, its relevance, and its representation in the broader technological scape of modern war and its intersections with justice. How can the digitised murder of a designated terrorist be framed within the context of modern justice?
The exceptional death
Within a democratic context, or to be more exact, in a context where the rule of law is said to apply, doctrines of exceptionality have been carved out. [3] Legal purgatory is the site in history in which revisions, modifications and abridgments can be made to a subject's rights to reflect the nature of that emergency and the threat. This "state of exception" is a juridical-political category where illegality and legality blur before the justification of emergency. [4] The nature of such an approach is reflected by legalistic arguments put forth by advocates of torture who have effectively enhanced its use in a discursive manner precisely because expectations in terms of security can no longer be "mapped". [5] States can, in that sense, deal in the currency of torture, the erosion of the subject's will [6]. The global manhunt for an exceptional terrorist, extraordinary rendition or illegal interventions are based not, as theorists M. Hardt and A. Egri explain, "on a priori framework, moral or legal, but only a posteriori, based on its results." [7]
Bin Laden effectively became a constituted species of homo sacer, a figure who follows a trend in many societies where various offenders are privileged by labels of exceptionalism that allow for their eradication. For "here was an object called by this solemn adjective, homo sacer, which might be violated without any nefas [deadly crime]: a man whom anyone might slay with impunity." [8] Bin Laden, like his followers, were the exceptions that had to be targeted in a global war, all of them "like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning." There could be no waiting before "perils" as they drew closer. [9]
Students of the evolution of that term find that "sacer" was rendered exceptional from the idea of the sacred -- the sacrum -- beings or entities considered to be the property of a deity. The killing with impunity of a designated homo sacer was an atavistic throwback in which such a figure is considered an object of taboo, a being to be disposed of without legal penalty. Biologically, such a subject remains human, but legally, he exists as a non-person who can be struck down and killed. Such a being is "cursed and consecrated at the same moment." [10]
Return of legitimacy (or simulated justice)
The extra-judicial killing of bin Laden took place in what has been termed the simulacrum of justice. [11] US Attorney General Eric Holder explained to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the raid on bin Laden's compound was decidedly lawful, "as an act of national self-defense." The slain leader as "head of al Qaeda, an organisation that had conducted the attacks of September the 11th. It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field." The same views were expressed by Senator Lindsey Graham, prominent South Carolina Republican. The raid "was justified as an act of national self-defense" against "a lawful military target". [12]
Holder is being disingenuous, crediting bin Laden with legitimacy as a combatant previous denied him, adopting the language of justification after the fact in a manner echoing what Hardt and Negri have described as, "The reinforcement or reestablishment of the current global order is what retroactively legitimates the use of violence." [13] If he could be captured, well and good, though there would always be a menacing question mark as to whether this would ever be feasible. If he was killed, so be it. "It was a kill-or-capture mission," Holder explained. [14] The entire field of engagement, in Holder's language, is deemed a legitimate military zone of combat, though it has always been a qualified legitimacy -- one where military rules are circumscribed to allow for the killing of illegal combatants.
In the simulacrum, al Qaeda is paradoxically legitimised as a combat organisation with leaders as targets yet devalued before the law which has been de-activated in its operation. In a sinister fashion, the Justice Department, the Pentagon, and the White House, have become artists and poets of sorts, in the sense that Jean-Paul Sartre interpreted their role, the creators of "derealised" worlds that attempt to transcend the world as perceived. [15] Since the Bush Administration, it was made very clear that the organisation was not legal at all. It was deemed an absentee from the field of jurisprudence, a vanishing point where law retreats before the dictates of righteous, retaliatory force. The Geneva Convention of 1949, for instance, states that a prisoner "can be validly sentenced only if the sentence has been pronounced by the same courts according to the same procedure as in the case of members of the armed forces of the detaining power." This provision, in a decision of the US Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, was deemed inapplicable to members of the organisation. [16]
In effect, the United States was waging war against a phantom, a spectral entity that had to be named in order to be denuded of protections guaranteed under international law. The military order of November 13, 2001 made it clear that "it is not practicable to apply in military commissions under this order the principles of law and the rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases in the United States district courts." [17] For the purposes of the law, in fact, al Qaeda remains hollow, a figment of the imagination, the occupant of a legal purgatory that legitimises all that is done against it. As then White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales explained in a memorandum to President Bush in January 2002, "As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war. It is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war that formed the backdrop for GPW [Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Aug. 12, 1949 U. S. T. 3316, 75 U.N.T.S 135]." As Gonzales continues to explain, "The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians." [18]
The entire program of torture implemented by the United States during the Bush administration suggested the transcendent nature of US policy against international law. International law could be confronted with a parallel legal system, denying the operation and reach of conventions and shaping new systems in opposition to international norms. [19] Paradoxically, it has been pointed out that the creation of this parallel system has made the capture of alleged terrorists even more problematic precisely because "rigging the rules in favour of the hunters actually helps the hunted avoid capture." [20]
In such a parallel juridical system, measures undertaken against al Qaeda are lawful in their entirety, a decidedly perverse realisation once one realises that the organisation is by its nature diffuse, with its structure imbued with a media driven personality that has assumed the aura of black magic. In structural terms, the organisation tends to employ something resembling a matrix network, enabling it to adopt asymmetrical warfare or what has been called 4th generation warfare. [21] Membership of such groups supplemented by indirect sources of funding, make units and targets hard to pin point. [22]
To target the organisation, and its late leader, suggests a Disneyland of justice at work -- or, to be more exact, a Hollywood-styled justice with a cinematic essence. "Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the 'real country ... Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make-believe that the rest is real." [23] The compound where both bin Laden and a woman were purportedly slain, and the deception against the Pakistani security forces, suggest that the entire territory of American engagements in the 'war on terror' -- killer drones, search and destroy missions -- is law's Disneyland, a robotic simulated zone of warfare where technological simulation has annexed human agents. "The future of air power," declares The Economist with confidence, "is likely to be unmanned." [24] In other words, such devices will be entirely stage directed from control centres, furthering a process described by the French cultural theorist Paul Virilio as the elimination of the distinction between the human body and technology, the triumph of automation. [25]
Such devices are even set to become smaller, with the RQ-11B Raven made by AeroVironment of Monrovia in California effectively providing the users with a mobile set of binoculars. Like the eyes of a live war, the eyes of a war that is fought through the screen, the Raven continues the American legacy of bringing simulation to the field of combat. [26] "With drones, operators sitting in front of computer monitors in Virginia and Nevada can target enemies halfway around the world. When their shift is done, drone operators retire to their suburban homes." [27] Such operators are themselves cogs in an enormous entertainment complex that has transformed the US military machine, a video game industry that has militarised society in blurring civilian leisure time with military work time. The video game has in fact become a "pedagogical project of U.S. war practices". [28] In the use of such games "in our playtime, in our leisure time," as noted by Nina Huntemann, "we're engaging in fictional conflicts that are based on a terrorist threat and never asking questions." [29]
Even more strikingly, the drones are themselves representatives of legal exceptionality, operating against targets in countries against which the United States has not declared war. The United States is not at war with Pakistan, which is ostensibly one of Washington's key allies, but has struck targets in Pakistan since 2004 in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). After the election of the Obama administration, the attacks were stepped up. Advisor on human rights to the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, has argued that the nature of such attacks is "not only a violation of Pakistan's territorial sovereignty, but it's also a plain extra-judicial killing." [30] Such express statements do not, however, conceal an implicit acceptance of such strikes by the Pakistani leadership.
In the Abbottabad compound, we were also witnessing a battlefield version of simulated justice. As criminologist Pat O'Malley points out, there are various new forms of "simulated" justice that are becoming popular. Justice is being monetized, and technologies governed by "risk-based" assessments. "I am policed, judged and sanctioned but no one has seen me, nor have I been 'sensed' in any human way. In key respects, I have not been there: my electronic trace has been there and that is what registers for the purposes of governance." [31] The governance of terrorism, for its control, has merely to be registered as a trace and no more. It becomes a digital imprint that has its apotheosis in a cinematic broadcast for those who wish to see the slaying of a stylised cartoon villain. No one really sees him other that those behind the cameras, the individuals who man the observation devices.
The literature on surveillance and its links to simulation began developing in the 1990s. In 1996, William Bogard was already describing the convergence of simulation and surveillance, where authorities would start to delve into the world of the image. [32] While the book itself is marred with various problematic aspects in terms of methodology, it notes the vital tendency in telematic society to produce hyperrealities without the public's awareness. [33]
Simulated justice takes various forms. Under the Obama administration, it has increased with the use of drone warfare and increasingly more remote forms of killing that exclude judicial forms of apprehension in favour of summary expediency. This is surveillance that culminates in termination, and it is surveillance that has been globalized, the 'war on terror' having no specific geographical location or demarcation in terms of engagement.
Western societies have assimilated the panopticon as the ideal surveillance model -- we are all under scrutiny, however culpable, however innocent. [34] The extensive use of CCTV surveillance cameras in Britain beginning in the 1990s, demonstrated the temptation for authorities to use intrusive and politicised means of surveillance in order to control the population and to justify the needs of a good society. [35] As D. Lyon observed in a study from 2001, "Everyday life is subject to monitoring, checking, scrutinizing. It is hard to find a place, or an activity, that is shielded or secure from some purposeful tracking, tagging, listening, watching, recording or verification device." [36] The killing of bin Laden is the penultimate moment when all of these elements come together -- tracked, tagged, listened to, watched recorded, and verified. It should hardly be surprising, given the use of the camera as a surveillance device, that the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar shuns it. To be filmed and photographed is to be verified.
The Death of Death
Bin Laden's presence has been that of a disseminated, viral media phenomenon, a being constituted and reconstituted through various strategies of representation. "Indeed, the effects of his audiovisual presence in the U.S. (and more broadly 'Western') media are directly tied to the structural absence of his body." [37] Substitute forms of his demise have taken the place of an object that would have, originally, possessed an aura of the original. [38] The scepticism of the death of such a figure as bin Laden is entirely understandable, precisely because global society, or rather Western society, has become sceptical of death itself. Bin Laden dies again as he has in numerous instances before, a spectral being with an infinite capacity for regeneration. He exists in order to be killed; he dies merely to survive.
Death, certainly in its Western social context, has become invisible, a world where it is no longer "tamed" in the sense meant by Philippe Ariès. [39] The medieval conception of death was ordered -- life was a staging point, a mere transition to the afterlife. (An argument might be made that many al Qaeda operatives follow this line of thinking.) The ceremonial process of death has been eliminated, replaced by bureaucratic measures and observances. It is highly medicalised and sanitised. "In the hospital, dying is removed from the moral and social fabric of the culture. It becomes redefined into a technical process that is professionally and bureaucratically controlled." [40] From the moment a person dies, to the moment of burial and cremation, the bureaucrat and manager intervenes, de-personalising the process. In a society where the aging process is reviled, death, in effect, ceases to exist. It becomes, unbelievable. This, added to the fact that we, as Arthur Koestler claims, do not ever believe that we will die, compounds the problem. Death, in short, has died.
How then, to kill bin Laden in a post-death world? How, indeed, to implant the realisation of his death upon spectator, viewer, and public? One must not merely kill the physical being but the representation of that being, to die in that representation. There are two forms where this can take place: the cinematic form of murder where the event is filmed, digitally streamed and compressed. The second is that of a killing confirmed and 'texted' in cyberspace itself.
Digital Murder and The Rock
In a sense the first format fitted perfectly in the way bin Laden has existed as a hyper-real being, being butchered before camera, 'live' as the Navy SEALs were filming the operation for the White House and the Pentagon. Al Qaeda's most spectacular operation -- the plane attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City in September 2011, was itself a 'live', streamed experience, and it became, by virtue of that spectacular saturation, the 'exceptional' event.
The SEAL unit that was supposedly engaged in the exercise of apprehending bin Laden was watched as if it were a film crew equipped with cameras and materials. "In operations like this, our source says, soldiers and pilots often carry helmet cameras, and screens in situation rooms can carry live images of all of them." [41] According to White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, Obama had been playing golf, but returned for a round of macabre Sunday viewing. "Gathered in the White House Situation Room, members of the group held their breath and barely spoke as they waited to see whether a carefully crafted yet extremely risky plan would succeed". [42]
There is a striking parallel here, and something that would not have been lost on Jean Baudrillard. [43] In the 1996 film The Rock (dir. Michael Bay), an elite team of marines takes control of the once notorious prison facility off San Francisco. General Hummel intends to hold over 80 hostages who are on a tour of the island, while arming rockets with nerve agent designed to force the transfer of money through a slush fund for soldiers who died in unacknowledged special operations for the United States government. The threat to destroy San Francisco with the gas looms. A specialist team is sent in to apprehend (read eliminate) Hummel. The unit is attached with devices that enable the entire scene to be recorded. The cameras eventually go off -- the sudden loss of visibility immediately leads to a presumption that the mission has failed. [44] The unit has been ambushed and massacred -- there are only two survivors: the chemical specialist Goodspeed and Mason, a former SAS operative jailed without a prison record for almost three decades for possessing US state secrets.
The hostage takers eventually begin squabbling amongst themselves. Hummel only pretends to be a mercenary -- he never intended to liquidate a million people or kill the hostages. The authorities, in contrast, fully intended to kill all on the island, including the mercenaries and hostages, a situation that would have implicated them in the very murder that they were accusing Hummel of plotting. They also intended to destroy the pardon promised to Mason in assisting them in providing the blueprint of the Alcatraz prison complex. The spectators of digital justice are complicit in the very spectacle they seek to avoid: murder in real time.
There is also a curious twist between The Rock and the fate of bin Laden, a reversal of roles with similar principles in operation. The marines are killed, and an individual who did not legally exist -- in this case Mason -- a juridically erased subject -- becomes an indispensable instrument against 'terror'. The hostages were, in effect, saved with the assistance of a ghost, a being with no legal presence, and no identification records with the FBI. But the authenticated heroism, as recognised by the FBI, will go to Stanley Goodspeed, indispensable in disarming the rockets equipped with the nerve agent. The reason is elementary: so that justice will be done, Mason is reported as deceased to the FBI -- "vaporized" Goodspeed assures the Director of the FBI James Womack. Womack had every intention of keeping Mason a legally dead being, a true homo sacer of the establishment. But he is foiled.
Cyber deaths and social media
The second appropriate site of such a demise would seem to be cyberspace. In the absence of spiritual life, simulated communities underpinned by technological advances come to the fore. Social media satisfies a curiously religious urge in the secular world, where love, desire, and hate is digitalised. Bin Laden's death can be experienced effectively in the cyber community where he was arguably kept alive, the social media world, the media world, precisely because of his cinematic existence. It is rapid, intoxicating, connected, a congregation of typing fanatics who prefer to strike keys rather than converse, to formulate a dialogue in the absence of the body. Virtual communities exist then to promote virtual standards. They choose, through the machine process, to believe, to adapt to different identities, to assume new lives in cyberspace.
This is a dangerous world, one rife with charlatanism. Frauds thrive in cyberspace: the obese woman who presents herself as a delicate, eroticised slip, lithe and eager to please her caller; the hungry paedophile keen to represent himself as a friend of similar age; the young Syrian lesbian activist who turns out not to be a Syrian based in Damascus let alone lesbian, but merely a middle-aged American Edinburgh University student by the name of Tom MacMaster. [45] The only manifestation of the spirit world now is the very mechanism of representation marked by the Internet, from Facebook to Twitter.
Images of the dead bin Laden were always going to be regarded with a degree of suspicion -- the simulacrum, as it were, provides its own processes, its self-rationalising order. Just as his life is demonstrably a media phenomenon, so was bin Laden's death. To be killed then requires an understanding of dying in cyberspace. For one thing, bin Laden's death was 'tweeted' -- becoming a representation of social media, a demise texted into existence. "Social media optimisation company SocialFlow analysed 14.8 million Tweets sent in the hours after bin Laden's death and found, among other fascinating data, that the Tweet by Rumsfeld chief of staff Keith Urban that got the ball rolling was retweeted more than 80 times within one minute after it was sent, and that by the 3-minute mark, it has led to more than 300 reactions." [46]
In a practical sense, the US authorities were left with the dilemma of how to dispose of the body. To retain a body with such politically galvanic potential would be dangerous, immediately compelling authorities to dispose of it. But to discard it with such urgency and without ceremony might also be equally precarious, inflaming Muslim opinion. Islamic burial ritual requires the washing and draping of the body prior to burial. [47] On May 2, bin Laden's body was placed on a flat board and allowed to slide into the North Arabian Sea off the U.S.S Carl Vinson. The excuse given by the U.S. authorities was one of necessity. To have not buried him within 24 hours would have violated Islamic law. Nor were there countries willing to take the body for burial within that time. [48]
Leor Halevi of Vanderbilt University was consulted by Time Magazine on the appropriateness of the ritual. What Halevi observed was the sheer ordinariness of the burial, as ever, another statement of the absurd. Bin Laden, in short, was being normalised, his mythological propensities to live beyond the sea neutered by an ordinary burial ceremony observed by cautious authorities. Rites were offered "in strictest conformance", with the body being washed and place in a white sheet. [49] Nor did the rituals for those who died in battle have to strictly accord with conventional deaths. "The rituals for those who died in battle according to Halevi are different; they don't require the person to be buried in a shroud or someone to say a prayer." [50] The authorities were taking no chances.
The death of reputation
From a Western technological context, bin Laden's death has to be seen as something that supposes erasure, one that entails the destruction of his body and his mythology. In other words, it had to be total, with every vestige of a living legacy obliterated. "First we hunt you down. Then we blow a hole in your face. Then we dump your body in the sea where no one can find your grave. Then we destroy the last thing left of you: your reputation." [51] To be left in tatters, it is imperative that the image of warrior, of leader, be shredded. Humiliation is the foundation of the strategy, and it is only fitting that, having assumed various roles in the demonology of the West, he should now assume his final theatrical position as a dead man who died the cowardly death.
Obama's counter-terrorism coordinator Brennan insisted that the slain leader had "engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in." During the encounter, "there was a female who was in fact in the line of fire that reportedly was used ... to shield bin Laden." The implications here are that bin Laden is himself the thespian who not merely dies as an actor on a set, but is a fabrication of his very own heroism, an unbalanced figure who hides behind female human shields, who steps into and out of various roles typical of an actor's paradox that involve nature while being distant from it. [52] He is, in some ways, the man who lived the moment he played to the last in the true manner the Russian theatre theorist Konstantin Stanislavski intended acting to be. "Each time [the role] is recreated it must be lived afresh and incarnated afresh." [53] By the time the actor steps on the stage, a third, fused role has been created -- what is termed the artisto-rol.
The strategy of discrediting bin Laden was an open one. British Prime Minister David Cameron highlighted the assault as being not merely against bin Laden's body. "The myth of bin Laden was one of a freedom fighter living in austerity, risking his life for the cause as he moved around the hills and mountainous caverns of the tribal areas. The reality of bin Laden was very different: a man who encouraged others to make the ultimate sacrifice while he himself hid in the comfort of a large expensive villa in Pakistan, experiencing none of the hardship he expected his supporters to endure." [54]
The directors of the execution were, however, not always clear about the account they were providing their consumers. Even in those moments of death, the manner of that representation was brought into question. Initially, the woman slain in the assault along with bin Laden was said to be his wife. Brennan subsequently corrected this account, and claimed that no human shield had been employed. [55] It subsequently turned out that bin Laden's wife had been injured but not killed in the fight.
Final deaths; simulacral justice
One cannot kill an organisation like al Qaeda, a strategy as ineffective and mounting a war against a franchise. To that end, bin Laden's life as a terrorist leader became personalised, a subject of the terror imaginary. The personalised subject gives the false impression that a tactic can become a person. "The Americans' war is focused on a visible object, which they would like to destroy. Yet the event of September 11th, in all of its symbolism, cannot be obliterated in this manner." [56]
The killing of bin Laden was undertaken in stages. First, he was deprived of a legal status, and rendered a homo sacer. In order words, he was legally dead before he was actually slain, a non-legal subject who would never seriously be taken before a court. During the years he was hunted, he underwent several transformations, dying a number of times in the context of media reports and disembodied representations, before being gunned down in Abbottabad. In being slain, his final death -- before digital cameras and in cyberspace -- took place. In his final artisto-rol, the al Qaeda leader did, indeed, die. The Obama administration, as the executing director, called the outcome just and necessary. It also deemed it necessary to erase the fallen leader's reputation.
In the final analysis, is it possible to affect justice within the simulacrum, where the subject that is placed under surveillance becomes muddled with various technologies that encourage scopophilia -- the love of the gaze? [57] The gaze levelled at the mission to kill bin Laden has various symbolic and cultural parallels. The beautiful Greek hunter Narcissus, as John Elsner points out, does not merely conflate the ideal with actual (what is imagined with the object itself), but also the nature of viewing -- "how much the beholder imposes on the autonomy of the viewed." One, in short, is colluding with the image of reflection, and blinded to that very fact. [58] The terrorist being shot without trial is, in truth, exposing the very moral bankruptcy of those initiating it. Again, in Baudrillard's terms, the war being undertaken by the US was being prosecuted "as if they are defending themselves against a wolf pack. But this doesn't work against viruses that have already been in us for a long time. There is no longer a front, no demarcation line, the enemy sits in the heat of the culture that fights it." [59] With bin Laden's killing, that virus has not merely infected the host, but possessed it.
[1] Kamran Yousaf, "Abbotabad Raid: Pakistan Upset about being kept in the Dark," The Express Tribune, May 4, 2011.
[2] Pakistani Foreign Office, "Death of Osama bin Ladin-Respect for Pakistan's Established Policy Parameters on Counter-Terrrorism," Press Release, PR. No. 152/2011, May 3, 2011, available at: http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2011/May/PR_152.htm (accessed on May 23, 2011).
[3] The rule of law is discussed by the constitutional lawyer A.V. Dicey involving governance by regular rules as against arbitrary wishes; equal accountability by all before the law; the protections afforded by the common law rather than a Bill of Rights: Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (London: Macmillan, 1889, first ed. 1885).
[4] Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
[5] See Matthew Hannah, "Torture and the Ticking Bomb: The War on Terrorism as a Geographical Imagination of Power/Knowledge," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96, no. 3 (Sep., 2006): 622-640.
[6] A good overview of the jurisprudence on this is Jeremy Waldron, "Torture and Positive: Jurisprudence and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House," Columbia Law Review 105, no. 6 (Oct., 2005): 1681-1750.
[7] M. Hardt and A. Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 30; noted in Hannah, "Torture and the Ticking Bomb," 635.
[8] These words from W. Warde Fowler, "The Original Meaning of the Word Sacer," The Journal of Roman Studies 1 (1911): 57-61, 58.
[9] George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2002, 2-3, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/200020129-11.html (accessed on May 30, 2011).
[10] Fowler, "Original Meaning," 58.
[11] See Laura Pitter, "Guantánamo's simulacrum of justice," Guardian, Feb 21, 2011. Jean Baudrillard's preferred use is to describe it as simulation where "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal": "The Procession of Simulacra."
[12] Quoted in Nedra Pickler, "Holder Concerned About Revenge For Death of Bin Laden," Washington Times, May 4, 2011.
[13] Hardt and Negri, Empire, 30.
[14] Pickler, "Holder Concerned About Revenge For Death of Bin Laden."
[15] This adaptation derived from Rhiannon Goldthorpe, Sartre, Literature and Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 54; and for a discussion of the idea by Jean-Paul Sartre, see Saint Genát, comédien et martyr (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 340-1.
[16] "Geneva Convention not for al-Qaeda, U.S. court says," CBC News, Jul 15, 2005. For a further discussion of the limits prisoners have to challenge their status as "enemy combatants" see the US Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004).
[17] Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (London: Granta, 2005), 79.
[18] Alberto R. Gonzales to President of the United States, Decision Re Application of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War to the Conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban 2 (Jan. 25, 2002), noted in Brian J. Foley, "Guantanamo and Beyond: Dangers of Rigging the Rules," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 97, no. 4 (Summer, 2007): 1009-1069, 1011.
[19] Foley, "Guantanamo and Beyond," 1011.
[20] For a discussion of the parallel system, see Foley, "Guantanamo and Beyond," 1011.
[21] R. H. Schultz and A. Vogt, "The Real Intelligence Failure of 9/11 and the case for a Doctrine of Striking First," in R.D. Howard and R.L. Sawyer, eds., Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (Guilford, Conn: McGraw-Hill Dushkin, 2004), 405-428.
[22] D.B. Skillicorn, "Social Network Analysis via Matrix Decompositions: al Qaeda," Aug 2004, Queen's University, at 1, http://research.cs.queensu.ca/~skill/alqaeda.pdf (accessed on Oct 12, 2011).
[23] Richard Ferrell, "Will, Kate & Osama: Jean Baudrillard on Royal Weddings & the Death of bin Laden," Numáro Cinq, May 4, 2011, http://dgvcfaspring10.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/will-kate-osama-jean-baudrillard-on-royal-weddings-and-the-death-of-bin-laden-an-essay-by-richard-farrell/ (accessed on May 10, 2011).
[24] Technology Monitor, "Joining the drones club," The Economist, Aug 15, 2011.
[25] J. Armitage, "The Kosovo War War Did Take Place: An Interview with Paul Virilio," in J. Armitage, ed., Virilio Live: Selected Interviews (London, Sage, 2001).
[26] See Technology Monitor, "Joining the drones club."
[27] Editors, "Remote-control Warfare," The Christian Century, May 18, 2010, http://christiancentury.org/article/2010-05/remote-control-warfare (accessed on May 22, 2011).
[28] David Leonard, "Unsettling the Military Entertainment Complex: Video Games and a Pedagogy of Peace," SIMILE: Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education 4, 4 (Nov, 2004): 1-8.
[29] M. Barron and N. Huntemann, Militarism and Video Games: An Interview with Nina Huntemann (Boston: Media Education Foundation, 2004), noted by Leonard, "Unsettling the Military Entertainment Complex," 1.
[30] Suzanna Koster, "Drone Wars: Pakistan Tacitly Allows Drones to Strike," Global Post, Oct 10, 2011.
[31] Pat O'Malley, "Simulated Justice: Risk, Money and Telemetric Policing," British Journal of Criminology 50, no. 5 (2010): 795-807, 795.
[32] William Bogard, The Simulation of Surveillance: Hypercontrol in Telematic Societies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
[33] See also William Bogard, "Welcome to the Society of Control" in Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson, eds., The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).
[34] For a discussion of the panopticon and surveillance systems, even prior to September 11, 2001, see Roy Boyne, "Post-Panopticism," Economy and Society 29, no. 2 (May, 2000): 285-307.
[35] Pete Fussey, "Control and Community: The Spread of Surveillance in the Post-Industrial City," PSA, Feb 2011, http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2009/Fussey.pdf (accessed on May 29, 2011). For a note on the dystopian and utopian themes in the literature on surveillance, see N. R. Fyfe, "Zero Tolerance, Maximum Surveillance? Deviance, Difference and Crime Control in the Late-Modern City," in L. Leeds, ed., The Emancipatory City? Paradoxes and Possibilities (London: Sage, 2004): 40-56. For a novel study on the limitations of the panopticon metaphor in contemporary surveillance studies see Marion Brivot and Yves Gendron, "Beyond Panopticism: On the Ramifications of Surveillance in a Contemporary Professional Setting," Accounting, Organizations and Society 36, no. 3 (Apr., 2011): 135-155.
[36] D. Lyon, Surveillance Society: Monitoring Every Day Life (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001), 1.
[37] Jonathan Sterne, "Enemy Voice," Social Text 96 25, no. 3 (Fall, 2008): 79-100, 79.
[38] See Binoy Kampmark, "The Spectre of Bin Laden in the Age of Terrorism," CTheory 25, no. 3 (2002), http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/ctheory/articles/2002/no116.txt.
[39] Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: Knopf, 1981).
[40] David Wendell Moller, "Fear and Denial of Death," from Life's End (Baywood Publishing, Inc., 2000).
[41] Henry Blodget, "President Obama Watched Live Video Of Bin Laden Raid As It Happened," Business Insider, May 2, 2011, http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-watched-live-video-of-bin-laden-raid-2011-5 (accessed on Jun 2, 2011).
[42] Erica Werner, "Osama Bin Laden Dead: Obama, National Security Team Watched Raid In Real Time," Huffington Post, May 2, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-obama-team-watched-raid_n_856699.html (accessed on Jun 1, 2011).
[43] For a useful overview of Jean Baudrillard's Gnostic position, notably on terrorism see Jonathan Smith, "The Gnostic Baudrillard: A Philosophy of Terrorism Seeking Pure Appearance," International Journal of Baudrillard Studies 1, no. 2 (Jul, 2004), http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol1_2/smith.htm (accessed on June 21, 2011). For valuable criticism of Baudrillard, see Christopher Norris, Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals and the Gulf War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992).
[44] For similarities of live situation rooms being depicted in cinema, see Patriot Games (dir. Phillip Noyce, 1992), where the President Jack Ryan, played by Harrison Ford, watches the covert operation in real time.
[45] Esther Addley, "Syrian Lesbian Blogger is Revealed Conclusively to be a Married man," The Guardian, Jun 13, 2011.
[46] Robert Quigley, "Visualizing the Spread of bin Laden Death News on Twitter," Geokosystem, May 8, 2011, http://www.geekosystem.com/bin-laden-death-news-twitter/ (accessed on May 29, 2011).
[47] A.R. Gatrad, "Muslim Customs Surrounding Death, Bereavement, Postmortem Examinations, and Organ Transplants," British Medical Journal 309 (Aug 20, 1994): 521, and available at: http://www.bmj.com/content/309/6953/521.full.
[48] Chris Lawrence, "'No Land Alternative' prompts bin Laden sea burial," CNN, May 2, 2011.
[49] Words noted in Chris Lawrence, "'No Land Alternative' prompts bin Laden sea burial," CNN, May 2, 2011.
[50] Christie Choi, "Did Bin Laden's Burial at Sea Follow Muslim Law," Time Magazine, May 5, 2011, http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/05/did-bin-ladens-burial-at-sea-follow-muslim-law/ (accessed on May 20, 2011).
[51] William Saletan, "The Myth of Bin Laden," Slate, May 4, 2011, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2011/05/ the_myth_of_bin_laden.html (accessed on May 7, 2011).
[52] See the analysis in Denis Diderot, The Paradox of Acting, trans. Walter Herries Pollock (London: Chatto & Windus, 1883).
[53] Konstantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares (London: Methuen, 1988, orig. 1936), 19.
[54] Statement available at Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "Prime Minister: 'While Bin Laden is Gone, the Threat of Al Qaeda Remains'" May 3, 2011, http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=PressS&id=591331982 (accessed on May 19, 2011).
[55] Reuters, "Bin Laden's Wife not killed in Raid, White House Says," May 2, 2011.
[56] Baudrillard interview with Der Spiegel, "This is the Fourth World War," No. 3, 2002, available at: http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/spiegel.htm (accessed on Jul 1, 2011).
[57] For the element of watching, see David Lyon, "9/11, Synopticon and Scopohilia: Watched and Being Watched," in Haggerty and Ericson, eds., The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, 35-54.
[58] John Elsner, "Naturalism and the Erotics of the Gaze: Intimations of Narcissus," in Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Greece, Egypt, and Italy, ed. N. B. Kampen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 247-61, 249.
[59] Baudrillard, Der Spiegel Interview.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, RMIT University, Melbourne.


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I started this blog in 2017 (okay, technically it was the end of 2016) as a three-year experiment. I planned to spend 2017, 2018, and 2019 with a very focused goal in mind–to double our net worth and become location independent. In an absolutely shocking turn of events, our family became location independent last year, mid-way through the experiment.
Our location independence looks a little different than I envisioned, but it's been a great decision for our family. We live in one place, in an idyllic small town in North Carolina just north of Charlotte. Mr. ThreeYear and I both work remotely. Our kids attend the great public schools here, and we travel as much as we can during breaks and summer. Most importantly, we are close to our family and the weather is a lot warmer.
Now that we've reached one goal (and it was, truly, the main goal), where does that leave us in 2019? Of course, we still have to double our net worth, and unfortunately we have almost 50% more to go, due to losing equity in our house and a market downturn at the end of last year.
But, because we know that we'll eventually reach that goal, and it's not quite as pressing now as it was when we thought we'd be leaving our jobs for several years, what should be our focus in 2019?
Each year of the experiment, I've picked a theme, a "word of the year," before it was a thing.
In 2017, I picked one new habit each month to get better at, so we could improve our productivity with investing and earning.
In 2018, I focused on spending 20% less, each and every month, at the grocery store, so we could save more.
In 2019, I thought about a lot of behaviors we could focus on. We want better relationships, better health. But we still struggle with over-spending, too. And our spending experiments have worked pretty well to change our behavior.
So 2019 is the year for money experiments.
Each month, we'll perform a different money experiment to see how we do.Continue reading "A Year of Good Money: Stop Eating Out"


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Wilderness FishingHave you ever had the feeling you wanted to be in the movie "A River Runs Through It"? We take you into areas where movies are made. You will see National Geographic Country with some of the most beautiful scenery along with incredible jet boating by our experienced jet boat pilots. This is our home country and our back yard. This is where we fish. Our wilderness.
NEW - Wilderness camps – Want to experience a camp out in the wild for a night or two? Inquire
Check out this incredible video and imagine it`s YOU. Full screen please. Enjoy...
Wilderness fishing takes place from late March until mid November on 2 different rivers. Inquire for details.
Some of the tours take you through wild canyons and rapids where bears, bald eagles, seals, deer and other wildlife are abundant, especially during late summer to early winter. Waterfalls are cascading down mountains and some peaks never see the sun due to the glaciers which cover them year round. We serve BBQ salmon or bison on the open fire with nobody else around. You will feel like you have stepped back in time.
Some may forget that they originally came here to catch fish – which many guests consider a bonus in such a beautiful environment. We often experience that guests feel young again when they help to collect firewood and split logs. We have to remind them they are the guests and not the other way around!
One of our wilderness adventures means a 110 mile expedition style day trip with a heated and fully covered custom built boat with a high powered jet engine. Our jet boat pilots are very experienced and run those waters on a regular basis. The day starts with the crossing of a 44 mile long lake and ends with the same. In between we run the wilderness waters. Another of our wilderness rivers requires to cross a lake half the size described above. Regardless of which rivers you fish, you will get an experience to remember for years to come.