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Human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic Era and the country's geostrategic location along the Silk Road connected it to the cultures of the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia. Through the ages the land has been home to various peoples and witnessed many military campaigns, notably by Alexander the Great, Arab Muslims, Genghis Khan, and in the modern-era by Western powers. The land also served as a source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Mughals, Durranis and others have risen to form major empires.
The political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotaki and Durrani dynasties in the 18th Century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in the "Great Game" between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the 1919 Anglo-Afghan War, King Amanullah and King Mohammed Zahir Shah attempted modernization of the country. A series of coups in 1973, 1978 and again in 1979 was followed by a Soviet invasion and a series of civil wars which have since devastated much of the country.
Main article: Name of AfghanistanThe name Afghānistān (Persian: افغانستان, [avɣɒnestɒn]) is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, which is documented in a 10th-century geography book called Hudud ul-'alam. The root name "Afghan" has been used historically in reference to the Pashtun people and the ending suffix "-stan" means "place of" in Sanskrit. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to the "place of Afghans" or "land of the Afghans". As per another interpretation, the name "Afghanistan" comes from "Upa-Gana-stan" which means in Sanskrit "The place inhabited by allied tribes".
Main article: History of Afghanistan
The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. It has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire and the Islamic Empire.
Many kingdoms have also risen to power in what is now Afghanistan, such as the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Hephthalites, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Kartids, Timurids, Mughals, and finally the Hotaki and Durrani dynasties that marked the political origins of the modern state.
Pre-Islamic period
Main article: Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan
Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization.
Bilingual (Greek and Aramaic) edict by Emperor Ashoka from the 3rd century BCE was discovered in the southern city of Kandahar.
After 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further south to India, west to what is now Iran, and towards Europe via the area north of the Caspian. The region as a whole was called Ariana.
One of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Buddhism was widespread in the region before the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
The ancient religion of Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BCE, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenid Persians overthrew the Medes and incorporated what is now Afghanistan (Arachosia, Aria and Bactria) within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered.
Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived to the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the area as one of their eastern most territories until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Indian Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty.
The Mauryans brought Buddhism from India and controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until about 185 BCE when they were overthrown. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest of the region by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from the Greco-Bactrians and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The Indo-Greeks were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.
During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region, but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in modern Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish in what is now Afghanistan. The Kushans were defeated by the Sassanid Persians in the 3rd century CE. Although various rulers calling themselves Kushanshas (generally known as the Indo-Sassanids) continued to rule at least parts of the region, they were probably more or less subject to the Sassanids.
The late Kushans were followed by the Kidarite Huns who, in turn, were replaced by the short-lived but powerful Hephthalites, as rulers. The Hephthalites were defeated by Khosrau I in 557 CE. However, in the 6th century CE, the successors to the Kushans and Hepthalites established a small dynasty in Kabulistan called Kabul Shahi.
Islamization and Mongol invasion
Main articles: Islamic conquest of Afghanistan and Mongol invasion of Central Asia
Between the 4th and 19th centuries the northwestern area of modern Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name as Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh) are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. Arab Muslims brought the message of Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 AD and began spreading eastward, some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. The people of what is now Afghanistan were multi-religious, which included Buddhists, Zoroastrians, worshippers of the sun, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and others. The Zunbil and Kabul Shahi were defeated in 870 AD by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence into south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power.
Built during the Ghurids era, the Friday Mosque of Herat or Masjid Jami is one of the oldest mosques in Afghanistan.
What is now Afghanistan became one of the main centers in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. By the 11th century Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni had finally Islamized all of the remaining non-Muslim areas, with the exception of the Kafiristan region. The Ghaznavids were replaced by the Ghurids who expanded and advanced the already powerful empire. In 1219 AD, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khorasanian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan.
The destruction caused by the Mongols depopulated major cities and forced many of the locals to revert to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khilji dynasty controlled the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush, until the invasion of Timur who established the Timurid dynasty in 1370. During the Ghaznavid, Ghurid, and Timurid eras, the region of what is now Afghanistan produced many fine Islamic architectural monuments as well as numerous scientific and literary works.
Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, arrived from Fergana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty, and from there he began to seize control of the central and eastern territories of Afghanistan. He remained in Kabulistan until 1526 when he and his army invaded Delhi in India to replace the Afghan Lodi dynasty with the Mughal Empire. From the 16th century to the early 18th century, the region of nowadays Afghanistan was contested between three kingdoms: the Khanate of Bukhara in the north, the Iranian Safavid dynasty in the west, and the remaining area to the east was ruled by the Mughal Empire. With the Uzbeks decisively defeated by the Safavids, the area was later on only contested between them and the Mughals, in which the powerful Safavids kept clear domination in most of the territory.
Hotaki dynasty and Durrani Empire
Main articles: Hotaki dynasty and Durrani Empire
Mir Wais Hotak, seen as Afghanistan's George Washington, successfully rebelled against the declining Persian Safavids in 1709. He overthrew and killed the Iranian Georgian governor over the region, Gurgin Khan, and made the Afghan region independent from Persia. By 1713, Mir Wais had decisively defeated two larger Persian armies, one was led by Khusraw Khán (nephew of Gurgin) and the other by Rustam Khán. The armies were sent by Sultan Husayn, the Shah in Isfahan, to re-take control of their eastern most territories, in the Kandahar region. Mir Wais died of a natural cause in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who became a suspect of treason and then killed by Mir Wais' son Mahmud. Knowing that the Safavids were heavily declining, ridden by civil strife, foreign interests and attacks by their arch enemy the Ottomans, Mahmud led his Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan, captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself briefly king of Persia. The Persians rejected the Afghan invaders from the very start, and after the massacre of thousands of religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family, the Hotaki dynasty was ousted and banished from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.
Mir Wais Hotak, considered as Grandfather of the Nation
In 1738, the Iranian military genius Nader Shah and his Afsharid forces captured and destroyed Kandahar, the last Hotaki stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotaki at which point the incarcerated 16-year-old Ahmad Shah Durrani was freed and made the commander of Nader Shah's four thousand Abdali Afghans, joining him in his invasion of India. After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, the Afghans chose Ahmad Shah Durrani as their head of state. Regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan, At their brief peak, Durrani and his Afghan army conquered present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Delhi in India. He defeated the Indian Maratha Empire, one of his biggest victories was the 1761 Battle of Panipat.
Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire and viewed as Father of the Nation.
In October 1772, Ahmad Shah Durrani died of a natural cause and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah, who transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776. After Timur Shah's death in 1793, the Durrani throne passed down to his son Zaman Shah followed by Mahmud Shah, Shuja Shah and others.
The Afghan Empire was under threat in the early 19th century by the Persians in the west and the British-backed Sikhs in the east. Fateh Khan, leader of the Barakzai tribe, had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. After his death, they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1826. The Punjab region was lost to Ranjit Singh, who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in 1834 captured the city of Peshawar. In 1837, during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass, Akbar Khan and the Afghan army killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during the Great Game was initiated.
Western influence
Further information: European influence in Afghanistan and Reforms of Amānullāh Khān and civil war
Following the 1842 defeat of the British-Indian forces and victory of the Afghans, the British established diplomatic relations with the Afghan government but withdrew all forces from the country. They returned during the Second Anglo-Afghan War in the late 1870s for about two-year military operations, which was to assist Abdur Rahman Khan defeat Ayub Khan. The United Kingdom began to exercise a great deal of influence after this and even controlled the state's foreign policy. In 1893, Mortimer Durand made Amir Abdur Rahman Khan sign a controversial agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line. This was a standard divide and rule policy of the British and would lead to strained relations, especially with the later new state of Pakistan.
British and allied forces at Kandahar after the 1880 Battle of Kandahar, during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The large defensive wall around the city was removed in the early 1930s by the order of King Nadir.
After the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community and, following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey, introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923.
Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, who reigned from 1933 to 1973.
Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in November 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernisation but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a Hazara school student.
Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports and other vital infrastructure. In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan.
Marxist revolution and Soviet war
Main articles: Saur Revolution, Soviet war in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and History of Afghanistan (1978–1992)
In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents of the communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahideen against government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA government. Meanwhile, increasing friction between the competing factions of the PDPA — the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham — resulted in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet members and the arrest of Parchami military officers under the pretext of a Parchami coup.
Outside the Arg Presidential Palace in Kabul, a day after the April 1978 Marxist revolution in which President Daoud Khan was assassinated along with his entire family.
In September 1979, Khalqist President Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated in a coup within the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. Distrusted by the Soviets, Amin was assassinated by Soviet special forces in December 1979. A Soviet-organized government, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions, filled the vacuum. Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal in more substantial numbers, although the Soviet government did not expect to do most of the fighting in Afghanistan. As a result, however, the Soviets were now directly involved in what had been a domestic war in Afghanistan.
The PDPA prohibited usury, made statements on women's rights by declaring equality of the sexes and introducing women to political life.
The Carter and Reagan administrations supporting of the anti-Soviet forces (mujahideen) as early as mid-1979 and estimates of between $6 and $40 billion worth of cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, were provided by the United States and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan.
The 10-year Soviet war in Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of over 1 million Afghans, mostly civilians, and the creation of about 6 million refugees who fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran. Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties, the Soviets withdrew in 1989 but continued to support Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah until 1992.
Foreign interference and war
Main articles: Civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992) and Civil war in Afghanistan (1992–1996)From 1989 until 1992 Najibullah's government tried to solve the ongoing civil war without Soviet troops on the ground but with economic and military aid. Najibullah tried to build support for his government and tried to portray his government as Islamic, and in the 1990 constitution the country officially became an Islamic state and all references of communism were removed. Nevertheless the Najibullah did not win any significant support and with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Najibullah was left without foreign aid. This, coupled with the internal collapse of his government, led to his ousting from power in April 1992.
After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement under which all the Afghan parties were united in April 1992, except for the Pakistani supported Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar started a bombardment campaign against the capital city Kabul which marked the beginning of a new phase in the war.
Saudi Arabia and Iran supported different Afghan militias and instability quickly developed. and conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war.
Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos. Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little security from murder, rape and extortion. An estimated 25,000 people died during the most intense period of bombardment by Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and the Junbish-i Milli forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum, who had created an alliance with Hekmatyar in 1994. Half a million people fled Afghanistan.
A section of Kabul during the civil war in 1993.
Southern and eastern Afghanistan was under the control of local commanders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and others. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a political-religious force. The Taliban took control of Kabul and several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan in 1994 and they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders.
In late 1994, most of the militia factions (Hezb-i Islami, Junbish-i Milli and Hezb-i Wahdat) which had been fighting in the battle for control of Kabul were defeated militarily by forces of the Islamic State's Minister of Defense Ahmad Shah Massoud. Bombardment of the capital came to a halt. The Islamic State government took steps to open courts, restore law and order and initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections. Massoud invited the Taliban to join the process but they refused and rejected the idea of a democratic system.
Taliban Emirate and the United Front
Main articles: Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001) and Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
The Taliban's early victories in 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses which led analysts to believe the Taliban movement had run its course. The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Map of the situation in Afghanistan in late 1996; Massoud (red), Dostum (green) and Taliban (yellow) territories.
On 26 September 1996, as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. The Taliban seized Kabul on 27 September 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam issuing edicts especially targeting women. According to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), "no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment."
After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on 27 September 1996, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum, two former enemies, created the United Front (Northern Alliance). The United Front included Massoud's predominantly Tajik forces Dostum's Uzbek forces, Hazara and Pashtun factions under leaders such as Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Haq and Abdul Qadir. The Taliban defeated Dostum's Junbish forces militarily by seizing Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. Dostum subsequently went into exile.
The Taliban committed systematic massacres against civilians in northern and western Afghanistan (e.g. the Mazar-i-Sharif Massacre
President Pervez Musharraf – then as Chief of Army Staff – was responsible for sending tens of thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and bin Laden against the forces of Massoud. In 2001 alone, there were believed to be 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting inside Afghanistan.
Taliban religious police beating an Afghan woman for removing her burqa in public.
From 1996 to 2001 the al-Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were harbored by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Bin Laden sent thousands of Arab recruits to fight against the United Front.
Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only leader of the United Front in Afghanistan. In the areas under his control Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women's Rights Declaration. The fighting also caused around 1 million people to flee Taliban controlled areas.
On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two Al-Qaeda Arab suicide attackers inside Afghanistan and two days the September 11 attacks were carried out by the Al-Qaeda organization. The US government identified Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organization as the perpetrators of the attacks and demanded that the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden. The Taliban refused to comply with the U.S. demand to hand over Bin Laden and in October 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched as a new phase of the war in Afghanistan. During the initial invasion American and British forces bombed Afghanistan and worked with ground forces of the United Front (Northern Alliance) to remove the Taliban from power and dispel Al-Qaeda.
From 1990 to September 2001 400,000 Afghan civilians died in the wars in Afghanistan.
Recent history (2002–present)
Further information: War in Afghanistan (2001–present), Taliban insurgency and Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people. The Taliban's forces also began regrouping inside Pakistan, more coalition troops entered Afghanistan and rebuilding of war-torn began.
Recent history (2003–2008), including US President's jet
Shortly after their fall from power the Taliban began the Taliban insurgency to take back control over Afghanistan. Over the next decade ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them and Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world due to a lack of foreign investment, government corruption and the Taliban insurgency.
Meanwhile Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures and on December 7, 2004 the country changed its name to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Attempts were made, often with the support of foreign donor countries, to improve the war-torn country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan armed forces and police. In the decade following 2002 over five million Afghan refugees were repatriated to the country in the last decade, including many who were forcefully deported from Western countries.
By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in many parts of the country and US President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would deploy another 30,000 U.S. soldiers to the country during in 2010 for a period of two years.In 2010 Afghan President Hamid Karzai attempted to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban and other groups but these groups refused to attend and bombings, assassinations and ambushes intensified.
After the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many prominent Afghan figures were assassinated and the Afghanistan–Pakistan border skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistani-based Haqqani Network took place across Afghanistan. The United States warned the Pakistani government of possible military within Pakistan if the government refused to attack these forces in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as the United States blamed rouge elements within the Pakistani government for the increased attacks. and the Pakistani Army began to intensify their attacks against these groups as part of the War in North-West Pakistan.
In anticipation of the 2014 NATO withdrawal and a subsequent expected push to regain power by the Taliban, the anti-Taliban United Front (Northern Alliance) groups have started to regroup under the umbrella of the National Coalition of Afghanistan (political arm) and the National Front of Afghanistan (military arm).
Main article: Geography of Afghanistan
A landlocked mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest, Afghanistan is described as being located within Central Asia or South Asia. It is part of the US coined Greater Middle East Muslim world, which lies between latitudes 29° N and 39° N, and longitudes 60° E and 75° E. The country's highest point is Noshaq, at 7,492 m (24,580 ft) above sea level. It has a continental climate with very harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast (around Nuristan) and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January is below −15 °C (5 °F), and hot summers in the low-lying areas of the Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin in the east, and the Turkestan plains along the Amu River in the north, where temperatures average over 35 °C (95 °F) in July.[citation needed]
Despite having numerous rivers and reservoirs, large parts of the country are dry. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world. Aside from the usual rain falls, Afghanistan receives snow during winter in the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, and the melting snow in the spring season enters the rivers, lakes, and streams. However, two-thirds of the country's water flows into neighboring countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan. The state needs more than US$2 billion to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly managed.
Landscapes of Afghanistan, from left to right: 1. Band-e Amir National Park; 2. Salang Pass in Parwan Province; 3. Korangal Valley in Kunar Province; and 4. Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province
The northeastern Hindu Kush mountain range, in and around the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, is in a geologically active area where earthquakes may occur almost every year. They can be deadly and destructive sometimes, causing landslides in some parts or avalanche during winter. The last strong earthquakes were in 1998, which killed about 6,000 people in Badakhshan near Tajikistan. This was followed by the 2002 Hindu Kush earthquakes in which over 150 people of various regional countries were killed and over 1,000 injured. The 2010 earthquake left 11 Afghans dead, over 70 injured and more than 2,000 houses destroyed.
The country's natural resources include: coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, rare earth elements, chromite, gold, zinc, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, marble, precious and semi-precious stones, natural gas, and petroleum among other things. In 2010, US and Afghan government officials estimated that untapped mineral deposits located in 2007 by the US Geological Survey are worth between $900 bn and $3 trillion.
At 652,230 km2 (251,830 sq mi), Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country, slightly bigger than France and smaller than Burma, about the size of Texas in the United States. It borders Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far east.
Main articles: Demography of Afghanistan and Afghan diasporaAs of 2012, the population of Afghanistan is around 31,108,077, which includes the roughly 2.7 million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan and Iran. In 1979, the population was reported to be about 15.5 million. The only city with over a million residents is its capital, Kabul. The other largest cities in the country are, in order of population size, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, Lashkar Gah, Taloqan, Khost, Sheberghan, Ghazni, and so on. Urban areas are experiencing rapid population growth following the return of over 5 million expats. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the Afghan population is estimated to increase to 82 million by 2050.
Ethnic groups
Main article: Ethnic groups in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a multiethnic society, and its historical status as a crossroads has contributed significantly to its diverse ethnic makeup. The population of the country is divided into a wide variety of ethnolinguistic groups. Because a systematic census has not been held in the nation in decades, exact figures about the size and composition of the various ethnic groups are unvailable. An approximate distribution of the ethnic groups is shown in the chart below:
Ethnolinguistic groups of Afghanistan
Main article: Languages of AfghanistanPashto and Dari (Persian) are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Both are Indo-European languages from the Iranian languages sub-family. Persian has always been the prestige language and a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication. It is the native tongue of the Tajiks, Hazaras, Aimaks and Kizilbash. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns, although many Pashtuns often use Persian and some non-Pashtuns are fluent in Pashto.
Other languages, including Uzbek, Arabic, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi and Nuristani languages (Ashkunu, Kamkata-viri, Vasi-vari, Tregami and Kalasha-ala), are the native tongues of minority groups across the country and have official status in the regions where they are widely spoken. Minor languages also include Pamiri (Shughni, Munji, Ishkashimi and Wakhi), Brahui, Hindko, and Kyrgyz. A small percentage of Afghans are also fluent in Urdu, English, and other languages.
Main article: Religion in AfghanistanOver 99% of the Afghan population is Muslim: approximately 80–85% are from the Sunni branch, 15–19% are Shi'a, and roughly 3% are non-denominational Muslims. Until the 1890s, the region around Nuristan was known as Kafiristan (land of the kafirs (unbelievers)) because of its non-Muslim inhabitants, the Nuristanis, an ethnically distinct people whose religious practices included animism, polytheism and shamanism. There are small minorities of Christians, Buddhist, Parsi, Sikhs and Hindus. There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan who had emigrated to Israel and the United States by the end of the twentieth century; only one Jew, Zablon Simintov, remained by 2005.
Main articles: Politics of Afghanistan, Presidency of Hamid Karzai and Constitution of Afghanistan
Afghanistan is an Islamic republic consisting of three branches, executive, legislative and judicial. The nation is currently led by Hamid Karzai as the President and leader since late 2001. The National Assembly is the legislature, a bicameral body having two chambers, the House of the People and the House of Elders.
National Assembly of Afghanistan in 2006.
The Supreme Court is led by Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi, a former university professor who had been a legal advisor to the president. The current court is seen as more moderate and led by more technocrats than the previous one, which was dominated by fundamentalist religious figures such as Chief Justice Faisal Ahmad Shinwari who issued several controversial rulings, including seeking to place a limit on the rights of women.
According to Transparency International's corruption perceptions index 2010 results, Afghanistan was ranked as the third most-corrupt country in the world. A January 2010 report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that bribery consumes an amount equal to 23% of the GDP of the nation. A number of government ministries are believed to be rife with corruption, and while President Karzai vowed to tackle the problem in late 2009 by stating that "individuals who are involved in corruption will have no place in the government", top government officials were stealing and misusing hundreds of millions of dollars through the Kabul Bank. Although the nation's institutions are newly formed and steps have been taken to arrest some, the United States warned that aid to Afghanistan would be reduced to very little if the corruption is not stopped.
Elections and parties
Main articles: Elections in Afghanistan and List of political parties in Afghanistan
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Everyone Orchestra ft.
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Claude Coleman Jr. (Ween)
Vernon Reid (Living Colour)
George Gekas (The Revivalists)
Josh Schwartz (Turkuaz)
Remember Jones
Natalie Brooke
Everyone Orchestra is a masterfully conducted, fully spontaneous explosion of live music created by a rotating cast of world renowned musicians and led by conductor Matt Butler. Each show is 100% unique, as a carefully curated lineup of performers is guided through high energy, creative, danceable grooves and beautiful songs that you won't believe are created on the fly under the creative leadership of Matt's cues and improvised whiteboard directives.Unlike other one-off "super jams", Everyone Orchestra does not borrow from other artists' song lists, but rather draws on the funky, jazzy, soulful, electronic, and Americana roots of the musicians who come together in a consistently stunning display of raw talent and imaginative improvisation. Audience engagement also sets EO apart; fans are brought into the magic on-the-fly when Matt turns his whiteboard around to share a hand written theme for the next song (you might see "Funk in A", or "Space Jam"), or a chorus for the crowd to join in the rhythm. Having conducted members of bands ranging from the Grateful Dead to The Meters, Ween, King Crimson, Phish, Jane's Addiction and hundreds more, Matt Butler has mastered the art of drawing the best and most multi-dimensional talents of performers from all genres and backgrounds, pulling the sounds together in an extraordinary cohesive experience that you don't want to miss
Gypsy Sally's
3401 K Street NW
Washington, DC, 20007

subset: commoncrawl


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Perfection in International Representation
Benchmark Travel Representations supports and produces extensive Sales, Marketing & PR solutions for national and regional tourism organizations, international destination management companies, hotels and hospitality companies. We work with organizations to ascertain ground-breaking and novel travel marketing solutions for their brands.
We are an organization teeming with creative ideas and solutions. We have the requisite expertise to make sure you succeed in the Indian market.
Our corporate structure and business model is equipped to extend a host of benefits and solutions to our clients. We reach out to our business partners assuring them of a powerful brand name, excellent repute, and the backing of a respectable organization.
We are enthusiastic about our line of work and take great delight in what we do. Through our concerted efforts, with a highly specialized team of experts and professionals, we share viewpoints and best practices, to deliver the right solution to our clients, making us a superior pick and a discerning international representation company of choice!


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If you're new here, you will want to sign up for my newsletter to get FREE dating ebooks and mp3s along with exclusive seduction tips and videos. Thanks for visiting!
Here's an article by Love Systems' Nick Savoy on how to attract women during the Holiday season…
The holiday season is coming! It's not just about stress and travel - it's also a GREAT opportunity to attract women. Here's some tips specifically for this time of year.
*** 5 Proven Holiday PUA Secrets ***
1. Holiday shopping is a GREAT way to meet women.
The usual Daytime Dating system that most men use will also work just fine at the mall during the holidays. But if you're shyer, there's another way. Approach a woman you're attracted to with something like: "My sister says she needs a new purse for Christmas. What's in style these days?"
The transition from this is easy; ask her to help you pick one out. Be near a purse store when you start the conversation and save your receipt. Or ask her what she's doing and then "realize" you're both doing your holiday shopping at a lot of the same stores, so why not do it together?
Check out out these Love Systems resources for more help:
Day Game Advice~~> CLICK HERE
Approaching & Transitioning Tips~~> CLICK HERE
2. Holiday shopping also makes a great low-commitment date - especially within your social circle.
Ask a female friend to try that new sushi restaurant with you, and she might think it's a date and be on the defensive right away. Doing holiday shopping together won't come across the same way. There is always fun, silly stuff you can do together at the mall - build a bear, get silly photographs taken together, try on ridiculous outfits together, and so on.
It's a great chance for her to get to know you and realize just how attracted to you she really is.
Learn more about social circle game by clicking here…
3. A party is not a nightclub.
Most of the time at a holiday party, you won't want to go "direct" or "indirect". People at parties are supposed to meet each other and usually have at least one thing in common (whatever it is that brought you to the same party). So a smile and a "Hi, I'm Joe" works just fine.
Don't only be talking to attractive women at a party. That turns you from "social" to "sleazy or desperate." And this fits into my next point…
4. Be a social connector.
You know that social status is very important to women. It's easier for Seth Rogan to attract women than it is for Seth the Next Door Neighbor. And it's not because of his looks.
You're probably not going to become a celebrity overnight, but you can have exactly the same attraction from women at any party you go to, just by being the guy who knows everyone. Introduce people to each other, even if you just met them five minutes ago. Women will notice that you're the center of attention and be intrigued.
(If you've got the 11 Essentials Home Study Course, the DVD and lesson you want to use for this is #4: Social Proof. That's what makes you a rockstar any place you go, even if you don't know anyone. Learn more about 11 Essentials here.)
5. Take Action.
All the best knowledge in the world won't do anything if you don't use it. There's a reason why some guys who joined the Love Systems community are living the life they always dreamed of, while others haven't made as much progress.
Get out there. Meet women. Fix your sticking points.
-Nick Savoy
Want to learn more about how to pickup women from Nick and Love Systems? I recommend starting out *HERE*.
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iSuppli sunk its teeth into the BlackBerry Storm to see what the sum of its parts is really worth. According to its analysis, the Storm costs RIM about $203 to make. Verizon Wireless is selling the Storm for $199 (after rebates). Apple's iPhone 3G costs about $174 to make and sells for $199/$299.iSuppli's analysis of device components is revealing in the most peeping-tom sort of way. Being able to see what the devices actually cost the manufacturers to build, and then compare them to the MSRP and actual selling price gives us a good idea of who's making what on their hardware.
The difference between $203 and $174 may not sound like a big deal, but multiply that by the millions of units sold and there's clearly a significant dollar value involved. The iPhone 3G 8-GB model is clearly a more profitable device to make than the Storm if you compare the cost to make it and its retail price.
Why does the Storm cost more? Remember that the iPhone 3G has many of the same components as the original iPhone. Apple was surely able to negotiate for better prices based on that, and, in fact, the 3G iPhone costs less to make than the original iPhone. The Storm is RIM's first-generation touch device. It also has a very expensive processor inside from Qualcomm that costs $35 per phone. The Storm is able to work on both CDMA and GSM/EDGE networks. Having both sets of radios inside certainly adds to its cost.
None of these dollar amounts includes the cost to develop, market, ship, and support the devices.
We also don't know under which terms Verizon has purchased the Storm from RIM, nor the terms under which AT&T has purchased the iPhone from Apple. Not knowing the whole story can only let us guess at who's really making more money. The fact remains, however, that the Storm costs more to make than the iPhone.


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"Subscription-based? No, no — you want to get between the buyer and seller so you can get a cut of that transaction." That was what most venture-capital firms said to us when we went out to raise funding for Newmediary, a provider of online directories for e-businesses, in the autumn of 1999. Back then, everyone was thinking "transactions, transactions, transactions," which made our first round rather difficult.
It was a tough sell, but we knew we were right because my partners, Frank Hertz and Steven Cohn, and I understood the ins and outs of our market. We had launched comparable products in the business services space, tested extensively with our audience and built an executive team that had "done it before." Eventually we found VC firms that understood our business, trusted our knowledge of the space and were ahead of the curve in their thinking about business models in the New Economy.
Nevertheless, it surprised me that so many financiers were concerned about the "Old Economy" stigma of our subscription-based model. Instead of recognizing it as a proven, effective, scalable and recurring revenue stream, it was seen as "behind the times." The whole experience got me thinking that even in the Internet Age, there is no such thing as a "new" business model.
The Business of Business Models
There are only three kinds of business models: transaction-based, subscription-based, and advertising-based. Each has its place, and some companies utilize all three. Application service providers take a hybrid approach, charging per-user monthly or annual subscription fees and per-transaction usage fees. Most "new business models" are really just new customer-acquisition and marketing strategies.
A company's business model should be obvious, not "determined" like a corporate identity. If companies don't thoroughly understand their industry and the customers that comprise it, they are likely to pursue a strategy that is doomed to fail. During the past year, it's become obvious to us that all parties – investors, customers and the public markets – tend to favor companies that recognize and adopt one, or some combination, of the big three.
This is complicated by a harsh reality: the Internet is no longer a medium for experimentation. Those forgiving days when companies could morph themselves from news site to search engine to content aggregator to portal – employing a new business model with each iteration of the Web site – are largely over. Refinements in customer-acquisition strategy and marketing approaches will be tolerated and even supported to some degree, but dramatic re-inventions are usually punished. What start-ups now face is extreme pressure to be right the first time.
Know Your Marketplace
The company I helped found, Newmediary, is a subscription-based business, providing publishers and portals with private-label online directories that help them extend their brand and create recurring revenue streams. We deploy, host and fully support these directories for our partners (including customer support, telesales and marketing), then split the subscription revenues with them.
Our team had a long track record in publishing, directories, classifieds and Yellow Page strategies. That meant we knew not only our model but the dynamics of our marketplace. It was fragmented, it was confusing for buyers, and price wasn't the key differentiating factor. Providers were looking for exposure, not simply requests for proposals (RFPs), and – most important – negotiations always took place offline in a face-to-face environment.
So, rather than attempt to change the behavior of our entire target audience or impose a "transaction" model on an inappropriate market, we created a platform that facilitated the deal-making process while still providing value and a scaleable, recurring revenue stream.
Putting Your Model to Work
In marketplaces and exchanges, customer acquisition manifests itself as liquidity. For portal and content sites, it's all about traffic — can you generate enough activity on your site to produce significant revenues from subscriptions, transaction or advertising? The question, therefore, isn't "Which business models work?" but rather "What is the most rapid and inexpensive customer-acquisition strategy?" In the earlier stages of Internet commerce, the focus was on building and marketing new brands. This, as everyone now knows, proved an exceptionally expensive and often unsuccessful strategy. The market will no longer bear lavish brand-building expense for little immediate pay-off.
Instead, Newmediary chose to leverage already established brands through a private-label strategy. By giving our platform to publishers like CIO, Upside and Fast Company – publications that already had a large and loyal following of buyers and advertisers – we knew we could help our partners create a large subscription base at a much lower acquisition cost. To bolster activity within each directory site, Newmediary made it technically possible to share buyers or RFPs across all partner sites, creating a network that maximizes the flow of business leads and fosters a vibrant environment that far exceeds what each publisher could create individually.
We also created a comprehensive partner-support strategy that executes complete telesales, customer support and co-op marketing programs on their behalf. Instead of directly marketing the Newmediary brand, we help partners market and support these private-label extensions to their brands, because our success depends solely on the success of our partners.
The Path Not Taken
For Newmediary and many other players in the B2B space, advertising is not a viable brand-building strategy — it's too expensive and too late for most companies to launch new brands in this market. Instead of holding onto an impossible dream of successful brand creation, start-ups should consider aligning themselves with established brands that provide built-in, low-cost access to their target audience.
Don't worry about needing a splashy brand-building effort to win venture backing. You can get the attention of quality VC firms without advertising in the Industry Standard or paying for placement on major portals. And once you do get their attention (ideally with the help of your board members), they will be far more interested in hearing about a solid business model made more viable by smart strategies for acquiring customers at lower cost.
Since our official launch in April 2000, we've signed 25 partners – both established and emerging players, including IDG's ITworld.com, UpsideToday.com, Fast Company, internet.com and many more. Across the Newmediary network of partner sites, we've registered more than 17,000 service providers to date and given them access to more than $200 million in RFPs. These are true signs that our model is working. And the best is yet to come. Soon we'll be closing our Series C round of funding, which will enable us to grow our telesales and co-op marketing efforts more aggressively. All our efforts — and the fruits of our efforts — have taught us one very clear lesson: It's not about the model — it's how you drive the model.


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Relational Database Services (RDS) offered by AWS can make hosting a DB much easier but present some new challenges when trying to perform automated benchmark or compliance scans. When it comes to the continuous monitoring requirement for FedRAMP, many of our clients run into issues when setting up their Nessus scanner. One of the most consistent reasons we hear is "I can't scan RDS, there's no actual host there, just a database in the cloud." Indeed, this is true, if you scan your AWS subnet that holds the RDS instance endpoints you'll return zero live hosts. However, not all is lost. Today we'll review the steps needed to configure a Nessus policy that will run compliance benchmarks against an RDS database.
You'll need two pieces of information before configuring the Nessus scan, the RDS endpoint URL or IP address and the master database username/password. The first piece can be found in your AWS console under RDS -> Databases -> Database_name. The second should be stored in a trusted password manager and hopefully not in an Excel sheet on your desktop.
With this information in-hand, head over to your Nessus management page and configure a new "Advanced Scan" policy.
The first thing we need to do is start stripping out the "vulnerability" scan part of the policy. Under settings go to "Discovery" -> "Host Discovery" you want to DISABLE ping. This is the number one issue we see with CSPs and their scans. RDS instances won't respond to an ICMP ping even if a security group that allows it has been attached to the instance. Because of this, Nessus will ping then skip over the IP by default when it doesn't respond. We're not setting up a discovery scan, so disable this.
Next, browse to the "Port Scanning" page right below the "Host Discovery" page and modify the port scan range. Pull the default value of "default" and instead substitute whatever port your database is running on (default values are 3306 for MySQL, 1433 for MSSQL, 5432 for Postgres and 1521 for Oracle). Again, this isn't a vulnerability or discovery scan but a targeted compliance scan. No need to let Nessus scan another several thousand ports that won't be open.
Next, we'll configure our scan credentials and benchmarks. Add your username and password under the "Credentials" tab.
Under the "Compliance" tab, pick your benchmark. Today we'll be using the MySQL 5.7 CIS Level 1 but any of the CIS or STIG benchmarks will fire against RDS hosts.
And you're done! Save the policy and head over to create a new scan. Nothing special on this side, simply pick your policy, add your endpoint addresses and scan away!


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2.5% (Cash Rate)
Heritage Bank
Heritage Building Society was established in 1981 and is Australia's largest building society. It is based in Toowoomba, Queensland and mainly operates in the Darling Downs region. It has a strong community focus and has around 130 retail outlets across southern Queensland.
The information supplied below is linked directly to the banks website and therefore is as up to date as the banks rates.
Heritage Bank rates table
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Home | Contact | About Us | Legal Information


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Source: www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au
Air New Zealand will invest more than NZ$100 million (currently about AUD79.2 million) to upgrade its Boeing 777-200ER fleet of eight aircraft so it can offer the same cabin features as its larger 777-300ERs.
Air New Zealand Deputy chief executive Norm Thompson says the upgrade will ensure the carrier continues to deliver the most innovative product and technologies to passengers on its international network.
Work is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2014 and the aim is to complete it with a year. The upgraded 777-200ERs may well help in the Australia-New Zealand commercial agreement with Virgin Australia.
B777s are increasingly a favoured workhorse of the world's international airlines. Qantas has none (having chosen some years ago not to buy any) but its new commercial alliance partner Emirates is the world's largest operator of the aircraft type.
Air New Zealand's first B777-200ER entered service with the airline in 2005 and the type has proven highly efficient throughout the airline's network. The 304-seat 777-200ER aircraft currently operate various international routes.
"With the introduction of the 777-300ERs over the past 18 months and the arrival of the 787-9s in mid 2014, the 777-200ER fleet will be upgraded to align the product across all of the three long-haul fleet types," Thompson said yesterday.
"We will be delivering the latest technology to our customers, including the Inflight Entertainment System developed in conjunction with Panasonic which will bring the latest in technology with improved resolution and capacitive touch monitors to all seats in the aircraft."
The new system, called Panasonic eXlite will have improved system performance along with significant weight savings through better component design and architecture. Air New Zealand will be the launch customer for the new system on the 777-200ER.
As well as the new IFE system changes, Thompson says the upgrade will introduce the new elements of the Air New Zealand brand refresh seen in the interiors of the 777-300ER and A320 domestic aircraft.
This will see the Business Premier seats on the 777-200ER upgraded to match that on the 777-300ER, and the complete replacement of the Premium Economy and Economy seats.
"Air New Zealand was the first to deliver a lie-flat sleeping experience to our Economy customers through our hugely successful Skycouch product, and we are excited about enabling many more customers to experience this on our 777-200ERs," Thompson added.
Written by : Peter Needham


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How We Work
The Nordic Stage Fight Society educates performers and teachers in the art of dramatic combat. We offer workshops, personal training and certification tests.
We support our students by providing educational and social environments where failure is an acclaimed and accepted part of a learning process. We strive to see the individual within the group, and support these individuals in their journey of becoming an adept performer in dramatic combat.
We support our members by providing them with information and discounts to workshops. We offer additional discounts when deemed necessary (for instance to compensate for long distance airfare, because of a country's financial situation, or in special cases where student economy makes it impossible for the member to otherwise participate in the workshop).
We support our mentor students (apprentice teachers) to become the best teacher they can be, with the skill and mindset to develop and keep developing their own, individual style of teaching the NSFS curriculum. We support our mentors by giving them our complete trust in the shaping of our future certified teachers, and thus in the shaping of our future society.
We support our teachers by providing them with a forum of fellow teachers where they can exchange ideas, inspiration, and continue to develop their individual pedagogical styles as well as dramatic combat as an art form. We give them our full trust in upholding the good name and reputation of the NSFS, by standing for quality, edge and range.


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But cellphones have changed storytelling forever. Writers have had to adapt.
In the world of cellphones, it's hard to delay characters from interacting with each other - so often as soon as someone learns something new or dangerous, they go to inform the protagonist, but are stopped - and then viewers just watch as we know full well the hero is diving head-first into peril. Cellphones basically eliminate the possibilities of this - unless you get creative about why a cellphone isn't working.
And those scenes (where a nemesis is removing of disabling a cellphone) always seem a bit contrived - HOWEVER, I'm certainly not above it. Do you think anything will happen to Casey's cellphone while he's chatting with Barney? (probably!) Think this will be the last time it happens in the script? (probably not!)
|Struggling with jet lag and his professional relationship with Howard,
Casey looks to make necessary changes in Why'd you do it?
- King Street Capers (updated Mar. 11)
- General comics (updated Mar. 12)
- Tomb of the Undead (updated Mar. 13)
- Dinosuars (updated Mar. 7)
- Sketch Gallery (updated Jan. 17),
- Fundraising Faux-Pas, or the
- Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)
Check out Accursed Dragon, and see some of the other neat stuff that's being said about graphic novels at the academic level now! You can find them in the classroom as a learning aide, but you're also able to MAJOR in the style, as well.
Accursed Dragon
Ryan Smith
Accursed Dragon.com
Click to read more.
This week I've started reading Accursed Dragon by Ryan Smith, and I'm liking it a lot. I've had this on my reading list for ages - and now I'm mowing through it. What I'm especially impressed with is that each page tells a little gag - which is great writing. It's a constant pleasure to see the narrative continuously propped up with pleasant breaks, while the pacing and serial story telling flow together seamlessly. It's definitely worth checking out!
The Graphic Novel Trend
Harper Academic
Harper Academic.Blogspot
Click to read more.
Reading the review of The Cartoon Guide to Genetics got me thinking about a huge trend we've noticed in the academic department: graphic novels. In fact, most of the books that teachers were really excited about (especially teachers of boys) at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference were graphic originals or adaptations. So I thought I'd share a few of our graphic books that the teachers I've met seem to really love.
Yes You Can Now Major In Comics Literature
Rich Johnston
Bleeding Cool.com
Click to read more.
As an English professor (Professor Jeremy Larance)at a relatively small public university in West Virginia, West Liberty University, I often try to find ways to sneak comics and graphic novels into my courses. For several years now, for example, I've used V for Vendetta as the culminating text in my British Literature course, because—let's be honest—there just isn't a better example of a modern-day Byronic Hero than Alan Moore's V. Some scoffed, but my decision was ultimately validated by the fact that The Longman Anthology of British Literature now includes an excerpt from that graphic novel in its section of contemporary British fiction, just a few hundred pages after James Joyce's Ulysses.


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RingWorm Clear claims to provide an all in one solutions to clear current fungal infections, whilst addressing the root cause of the the attack to ensure that future outbreaks do not occur. It inhibits the spread of the fungus as well as prevents it from reproducing, killing the infection.
59 User Reviews
The following is an in-depth product review for RingWorm Clear. This is a quality product, which ticks all of the boxes in terms of quality, research and results. This is by far, the best product we have reviewed for eradicating fungal infections, providing soothing relief and preventing future outbreaks.
RingWorm Clear claims to provide an all in one solutions to clear current fungal infections, whilst addressing the root cause of the attack to ensure that future outbreaks do not occur. It inhibits the spread of the fungus as well as prevents it from reproducing, killing the infection. Furthermore, its skin healing benefits enable the skin to regrow and renew leaving the skin soft and healthy. Read on to find out more about RingWorm Clear and whether it stands up to the claims.
Recommended use for adults is to apply a thin layer to cover the affected area twice a day – once in the morning and once at night.
Possible Side Effects
After our thorough research, we determined that there were no side effects associated with this product.
RingWorm Clear is offered in a variety of packages, including single bottle and 2 to 6 bottle supply quantities. On their website the regular list price for a single bottles is $49.95. However, huge discounts are available for multiple purchases. The 6 months supply is the best value with a saving of over $220.
RingWorm Clear comes with a strong 60-day money back guarantee. If you are dissatisfied with this product at any point during the two months following the purchase date, the manufacturer allows you to return any containers for a full refund – even if they are opened. All the customer is responsible for is the shipping cost to return the product. The generous return policy makes the multi-bottle packages that they offer a tempting deal, as you will be able to send them back if you decide you do not like them. We should also mention that the customer feedback and excellent customer reviews leave us in no doubt that this is a significant effective product with huge benefits for clearing ringworm, symptom management and prevention of future outbreaks.
Compared to the other ringworm products that we have reviewed, it seems that RingWorm Clear is one of the best on the market (perhaps even THE best!). It contains the most effective clinically proven key ingredients – for providing a total care solution for treating ringworm It tackles the root cause of infections providing an all-in-one solution designed to help clear tough infections and prevent future outbreaks. RingWorm Clear contains no additives, preservatives or synthetic ingredients, and their money-back guarantee is impeccable. Furthermore, their rave customer reviews and testimonials confirmed what we already thought – this is a great product with many happy satisfied customers. If you are looking for a ringworm solution, this is probably the best value you will get for your money.
Click here to learn more about our Top Ringworm Products.


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So what do you say? What would happen if all religions would disappear?
|AnimeGalleries [dot] Net
|AnimeWallpapers [dot] Com
|AnimeLyrics [dot] Com
|AnimePedia [dot] Com
|AnimeGlobe [dot] Com
So what do you say? What would happen if all religions would disappear?
Waiting for
Season four of Sherlock
The new Hobbit movie
Season five of Game of Thrones
New episodes of Downton Abbey
While it is true that religion is capable of instigating wars, I don't think all wars are caused by religion. Even if are religions were to disappear, it would still be impossible to eradicate wars.
I honestly don't believe it would make too big of a difference.
We humans will find something else to fight over, some other reason to mask the greed behind war.
Some wars are started due to religious/cultural differences, however it's usually down to individuals or governments wanting more power.
So, I don't think it would benefit anyone for religions to be eradicated. It would just make life boring.
~Favourite Anime/manga~
Ouran High School Host Club
Death Note
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi
Junjou Romantica
Naruto Shippuuden
Code Geass
Fruits Basket
Hourou Musuko Wandering Son
Sora to Hara
Kuroko no Basuke
Shingeki no Kyojin
Currently reading: Bleach and Naruto Ship, Shingeki no Kyojin, Kuroko no Basuke.
Currently watching: Space Brothers, Golden Time, Kuroko no Basuke, Silver Spoon, Magi and Mobile Suit Gundam.
I'd say things would not change much. We'd find something to fight over. On the other hand religion has started plenty of wars in the past so who knows.
Gero Server Guru
Neither, I think things would be pretty much the same. Wars have always been caused due to a number of factors: Materials and resources, religion, alliances and political differences. I think the main cause of war would be (and arguably currently is) focused around acquiring fossil fuels such as Oil and other resources.
"The truth is far darker than you could ever imagine" -The Chronicles of Gyzra
Please give feedback on my artwork here so I can improve: http://www.animeforum.com/showthread...ighlight=gyzra
Thank you. =]
I think more war because some religions say its bad for them to have war you know... and if that religion was eradicated (I USED A BIG WORD) They might try to start something or whatnot >.>
Sword Art Online
<3 Kirito and Asuna <3
Quote: "Its easier to be yourself then to be something your not"
Religion has only ever been an excuse for war. We'd still go to war even if religion didn't exist. It's simply human nature. As such peace will never be achieved.
Religion is like a gun. People get killed with guns, but seldom by guns. It generally takes someone firing the bullet.
Take Al Quaeda's terror campaign, for example. They're a bunch of religious fanatics is what they are, but people like that don't sprout out of the ground for no reason. They exist as a direct reaction to proxy warfare between the US and Soviets during the cold war and the international meddling that went around during the time.
Hey look, Japan made a movie about me!
Depends on the religion. Being part of a certain religion is like being part of a race, and as long as there is what we call "race", there would be "racial discrimination". And the conquest by who thinks is the best race, have been a cause of war.
But indeed, religion is not the only reason for war. War is rooted from the nature, not only of humans, but also of every living organism struggling for survival. Thus, life on Earth is a survival of the fittest. Bitter but real.
If all religeon disapeared, alot worse things could happen then nations warring with eachother. At least what alot of people think is that people will go crazy with no purpose in life and/or in other words "rape loot and pillage". Haha, But on a serious note. I realy wish that world peace was a possible thing. It seams the more higher up in life you get, as in popularity and power, the more corrupt humans tend to become. Ofcource this is no way every case, and also its just one opinion. Shoot now im all depresed, only death can set us free! Later!
Last edited by Explorer Oak; 03-22-2012 at 05:41 PM.
Religions don't start wars.
People do.
No power in the 'verse can stop me...
Religion would not be considered to be such an instigating factor if the followers of said religions would just be nice to everyone else not of their religion. I'm not saying be a "goody two shoes", just civil in an "agree to disagree and leave it at that" context.
My Bubblegum Crisis fan-site --> The Bubblegum Crisis Sanctum (a work in progress)
and my humble blog --> The Writing Desk
--> My AF album
Pet Shop Story and Dragon Story ids: webowers, wbowers
A good deal of wars would have not happened, all I'm saying.
人類は調和したのか?VY2V3 = Me | Kagamine Len Act 1 = You
While our new religion-free world will not be poisoned by war alone, there will definitely not be any sort of world peace. Many people who refuse to do certain things due to religion, will no longer have that chain. There will be more crimes committed, I am sure. There will no longer be fights over religion and lots of people's lives will be spared (as much as I hate to say it, I believe there are still people out there show ill not hesitate to kill you because you are "the devil's child" or something of that manner). But, like @Sallyandro said, we'd find other reasons to go to war. There will be other things that take the place of religion. A lot more people would be scared of death as well, don't you think? Without religion you can't say there's a heaven to look forward to, can you?
I doubt it change mostly our current status of wars and such it all depends on back reasons such as, ideas, and whatnot... half the time religion is not involved at all but that's how I see it
The third eye of love♥ Koishi Komeiji ♥ Closed eyes of love
Let us seek that side.
I'm very much anti-religion, but I'm leery of blaming religion for war. Wars are fought over resources.
However, I notice that religion is used to justify a lot of these terrible things, and therefore I think it deserves blame anyway.
Last edited by Aulos; 03-22-2012 at 11:36 PM.
~Made by me~
Hmm. War can still happen without religion though. but I highly believe, without religion. There isn't much peace in the world too.
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By nature human beings are cruel and unforgiving creatures with a high sense of territory ownership. Yes it is often the case in some areas within the world that religion does start these wars however what you need to remember is that people who start wars in the name of their god are extremists and end up having nothing to do wi the religion because at the end of the day all religions promote peace and goodwill to the rest of humanity and says nothing at all about declaring a world war. Also what you need to consider is the fact that since raw physical resources continue to decline the need for such a commodity for modern civilisation to continue will start wars for the resource such as oil which ironically uses a lot of oil in products like petrol and the like or in some cases water in many 3rd world countries.
The outcome would be the same with or without religion, human beings a flawed by nature. Whether we fight for religious freedom of for freedom from oppression. Truth of the matter is animals fight as do we humans.
If the war isn't over religion then it could be over natural resources or politics. There is no easy road to peace.
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It wouldn't change anything... I'm not religious and I sometimes think pretty much 95% of religious people are quite unreasonable. But that also goes with politics and much more. I also think most of what the govt. tries to do now is unreasonable.
When you are blocked by a belief that what you are doing is correct because of what something way back in history said is ok then you're kind of being unreasonable since well, the whole entire world has changed since then... Smh... The whole world will never be at peace be over religion or over the fact that Bob had a larger ice cream scoop than Tim.
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Baggett, TN, 1802-1843, Bible Records
Slaveowners name: Granberry Baggett (My 5th Great-Grandfather)
Name(s) of slaves: Harry b: 1808; Boy b: 1810; Jim b: 1829; Moll b: 1832; Duck b: 1835;
Dinah b: 1837; Isaac b: 1839; Winny b: 1843.
Birthplace of slave(s): apparently all were born in Robertson Co., Tennessee.
Color of slave(s): Black
Source Document: Ganberry Baggett's Bible
State: Tennessee
County: Robertson
Year of Source Document: copywrite on Bible is 1812
How to access Source Document: A copy of the Bible is located in the Baggett Family File in the Gorham-MacBane Public Library, Springfield, Tennessee.
Contributed by: "John Shelton" firstname.lastname@example.com
Created: 26 December 1998 | Updated: 28 Jan 2000
Webmaster and AfriGeneas Slave Data Collection Archivist: Valencia King Nelson,
Copyright © 1999, 2000 by AfriGeneas.
May be used for any non-commercial purpose as long as this notice
and the name of the submitter remains on any copied material.


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I'm really not looking forward to my cycle ride in London today because of the speeding motorcyclists, and the fact that they will 'push you out of the way' 'because they're bigger'.
They won't leave decent space between us either. Then, with the black ice, they could skid into you.
Motorcyclists are reknowned for reckless speeding and yet, Boris sticks them with vulnerable users. On the TV yesterday, I saw that a lawless speeding motorcyclist went into a horse and rider. But no, Boris is happy that they ride two feet from horses and cyclists.
As a horse rider, also, we need motorcyclists to quietly go past us, leaving us lots of space. A horse can get frightened, but no, motorcyclists, ignore that despite the Highway Code. Few have respect for vulnerable road users. Their bad attitude, I expect, will cause accidents, deaths and more roadrage.
I also feel sorry for cyclists who haven't got a mirror to double check who's behind them and for parents cycling with their young kids. It will push more cyclists off the road into cars, causing more congestion.
I will be affected by this, as I go on the worst roads in London, (Aldgate/Whitechapel/Bow towards the Olympic Stadium where motorists already illegally use the bus/cycle lane, and we now have to put up with motorcyclists.
It's not that we can even avoid the 'worst areas' by taking public transport, as public transport won't take your bike unless it is a fold up. So cyclists have to have to buy 2 bikes or just use one fold up bike, which often isn't practical. Cyclists are being penalised for choosing the healthy and environmentally friendly option. It is no wonder the EU are coming down on the UK for not doing much for global warming.
This stupid 'motorcyclists-in-bus lanes' law is made even though it isn't compulsory for cyclists to wear helmets, it's only recommended. Surely helmets should be made compulsory before they allow motorcyclists in bus/cycle lanes?
Remember, it's a trial, but 'many cyclists will have to die' in this time, in order for the trial to end. (That's how it works doesn't it?). If cyclists don't die, it will continue. If they don't die, it is because they 'get off their bike or walk on the pavements, or it's just down to luck'.
I wonder how they cope in Amsterdam with the motorcyclists? I don't know how it works there but it would be interesting.
As Boris, has 4 kids, will he give up cycling as they could be without a father, if he gets killed by a motorcyclist. It will be all his fault too.
Roll on the next election. I wonder if I will be alive then?
Update 7/1/09 There is a Tfl Survey on this issue. See my links under Survey.


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Grand Ayatollah Shirazi has stressed in his post-Fiqh lesson, today, on the occasion of the occurrence of Eid al-Ghadeer that this Eid is not an event nor a cause but an entire human culture by all means and aspects.
The Grand Ayatollah has made those remarks in the presence of seminary students of post-fiqh lessons, stressing that Imam Ali avoided wars and blood shedding.
His eminence has also referred to the fact that the Ghadeer culture can be found in the heritage and lives of those who followed Imam Ali including Mirza Muhammad Taqi al-Shirazi, the one who led the Iraqi revolution against the British colonialists.


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Field Trips
Field trips are part of Elm Middle School's curriculum, and all students are required to attend.
At the start of each school year the Elm administration provides parents with a list of planned trips, along with the total cost for each student.
Parents are expected to pay the cost for each of their children. The school offers a payment plan to assist with costs.
In recent years, field trips have included a visit to Chicago's Navy Pier to watch an IMAX film, curriculum-based tours of Chicago landmarks, a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry, an outing to Drury Lane Theatre to watch a performance of "A Christmas Carol" and a visit to the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Permission Forms
To participate in field trips, students must provide the school with a signed permission form.
► 7th-Grade Field Trip Permission Form | 2019-20
► 8th-Grade Field Trip Permission Form | 2019-20


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"Hey there, Garoe," Manzi said. It was after dinner. She'd found Garoe sitting under the same tree as before. He was looking at the stars. Manzi sat beside him. "What'cha doin'?" she asked without taking her eyes off the stars.
"Stargazing," Garoe answered.
"Oh." Manzi paused for a moment. "I thought you were really brave during that chase. I think you probably saved our skins, at least until Antonio showed up." Manzi turned to look at him and was nearly startled when she saw him doing the same.
"I knew there was danger." Garoe looked down at his silver amulet as he spoke.
Manzi had never paid much attention to it before. It was raw silver to be sure. It had a black, jagged swirl on its center and it hung around Garoe's neck by a black cord.
"Where'd you get that?" Manzi asked.
Garoe looked back to the stars before he answered. "My father told me it was a gift from my mother. It warns me of danger."
Manzi was almost afraid to ask her next question. But she did. "Where are your parents?"
Garoe looked down for a moment without lowering his head. Then he looked back at the stars. "I do not know where my mother is." He looked Manzi in the eye. "My father… he abandoned me."
Manzi felt tears in her eyes. She remembered when her own father left the pride after a quarrel with Antonio. "Why?" she asked Garoe.
Garoe closed eyes and shook his head. A tear trickled out of the corner of his uncovered eye. "I am not sure. I think… to protect me."
"What are you talking about?" Manzi blurted, crying herself. "How can abandoning you protect you? What kind of father was he?!"
Garoe unexpectedly flashed an angry glare at Manzi, something she'd never seen. Then, Garoe looked away.
"I'm sorry," Manzi said after a while. She moved closer to Garoe.
He did the same.
They stayed there for several more minutes, in silence.
* * *
"Blast you, Saka!" Qymaen growled, pacing the jungle floor. He spat Saka's name with distaste. Qymaen was on edge enough as it was. Now, Saka was going to come back in the dark?
Qymaen had good night vision, but his nerves were in high gear.
He was about to dismiss a wafting scent as a figment of his imagination when a loud rustling in the bushes grabbed his attention.
Instinctively Qymaen pounced at the sound. To his surprise, he made physical contact. He and the other body rolled uncontrollably through the brush. They stopped with Qymaen on top, pinning the other on its belly, as he stood over its back, his paw pressed on its head.
"Identify yourself, intruder!" Qymaen barked.
"Get off me!" the feminine voice shot back. She flipped herself over and kicked Qymaen off. Both animals circled each other, not daring to turn one's back to the other.
Qymaen saw that his opponent was a caracal, smaller than him, easily defeated as far as he was concerned.
The caracal narrowed her glowing green eyes and bared her teeth. She lowered her front half down, in a fighting stance. "Ya wanna have a go?" she snarled.
A memory snapped to the front of Qymaen's mind…
"We're friends, right?" Qymaen smiled as he spoke in his young voice.
"You bet!" the caracal kitten replied. "Let's play!"
"I'll beat you!" Qymaen taunted.
"Not if I can help it!" the caracal lowered her front half into a play bow. "Ya wanna have a go?"
"Calypso?" Qymaen asked in disbelief.
The caracal stood erect in surprise. Her large, tufted ears swiveled forward as she cocked her head in confusion.
"Is it really you?"
The caracal seemed even more confused. "Who are you?"
Qymaen looked earnestly at the caracal, growing more and more certain. "It's me: Qymaen."
The caracal gasped, raising her head, revealing a hooked claw hanging from a vine around her neck. "Qymaen?"
Qymaen nodded, breaking into a smile.
Calypso beamed and ran to him. "Oh my gosh! It's you! What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean 'me?'" Qymaen asked, so excited he could hardly stand himself. "What are you doing here?"
Calypso laughed, rubbing against the cheetah for a moment. "I don't know."
"I'm glad you're here," Qymaen said.
"It's so good to see you!"
"Nini tukio huku?"
Qymaen and Calypso looked up at the voice to see Saka. He stood with a wildebeest calf carcass at his feet.
Qymaen, slightly embarrassed at what Saka may have seen, quickly explained. "This is Calypso, Saka. We've known each other since we were cubs."
"This is the first I've heard of that." Saka snorted. He didn't give Qymaen a change to reply. "What's she doing here?"
"Well, I actually was just trying to find out." Qymaen looked at Calypso.
Calypso shrugged. "I was just looking for food."
"Aren't we all?" Saka asked sarcastically, his reptilian eyes glancing at his dinner. He bent down and ripped off a huge mouthful of the wildebeest.
"But what are you doing so far away from the desert border?" Qymaen pressed.
Calypso looked away from Qymaen and walked in that direction.
Qymaen, curious, and sensing what was going on, followed her.
"Yeah!" Saka's vibrating voice shouted after them. "You two go work this out. Don't mind me!"
Qymaen looked over his shoulder and glared at him from under his skull mask. "Shut up."
Saka responded by scowling and ripping off another bite. He crunched loudly and while the meat stained his dark amber scales with more blood.
Qymaen flicked his tail with annoyance as he ambled after Calypso.
The caracal stopped near a clearing. The moonlight streaked her reddish-tawny pelt. "The desert wasn't good to me after you left, Qymaen," she said. She turned to face him. "After I heard rumors you were dead, I had to look for you."
"I'm all right." Qymaen's smile was visible under his mask.
"But you have enemies." Calypso looked away. "Murali, his bodyguard Katan, Zareb the Wanderer."
Qymaen snorted at the names. "Zareb doesn't bother me. He's just a bloody zebra.
"But he's a powerful, bloody zebra," Calypso said, her glowing green eyes looked with Qymaen's amber eyes. "He could kill you as easily as a lion could."
Qymaen chuckled and shrugged his tall shoulders. "The only reason I pick on him is because Murali hates him for scarring his 'beautiful' face."
"Murali? You still work for that Dark Liger?"
Qymaen's eyes shifted nervously. "Well, occasionally."
"Qymaen, he's dangerous!"
"He doesn't scare me."
"Then, why do you work for him?"
Calypso's question surprised Qymaen. He didn't know how to answer. "I am sorry I left," he said finally. He rubbed his chin over Calypso's smooth brow. "But after my father died, I was an outcast."
"Because of 'the serpent,'" Calypso finished. "I know."
Qymaen knew she referred to the strange, jagged stripes that bordered his tail. They were so thick; they only left a small, curving shape on the side of his tail that was the same color as his fur. The serpent marking was as much a sign of evil as it was rare. Only three cheetahs in recorded history ever bore it. Qymaen was one of those three.
"Just because you have it, doesn't mean you need to stand for it," Calypso continued.
"No one else seems to think that," Qymaen said before he changed the subject. He looked at Calypso. "I am glad to see you, Calypso."
Calypso rubbed against Qymaen's chest. "As am I, Qymaen. As am I."


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Johnny Rockets
3131 M St. NW (Wisconsin Ave. NW) Send to Phone
202-333-7994 | Make Restaurant Reservations | Order Now!
OpenLunch & Dinner daily
- Parking lot
- Dress code: Casual
- Kid-friendly
* Click here for rating key
: If you could turn the clock back a few decades, you'd be eating at a place like Johnny Rockets. You'd listen to the jukebox, eat underdone fries and overdone burgers and sip Cokes or milk shakes. And that's just what today's twenty- and thirtysomethings are doing. This is really a glorified soda fountain, offering a big dose of nostalgia plus casual eats for every generation. You'll find more than just burgers: club sandwiches, BLTs, hot dogs, chili dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches are also on the menu. Service may be disjointed and slow; on the other hand, the place is not about haute cuisine. A good destination for a slow trip down memory lane. Also located at Union Station Food Court, 50 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC, 202-289-6969; and 11000 S. Hayes St., Pentagon City Mall, Arlington, VA, 703-415-3510.
Enjoy a meal al fresco at these restaurants with patios.
Wine of the Week Review by GAYOT


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Dear Pink & Fluffi Peoples...
ALL the Publicly Posted (FREE) Pages So Far can be found ***HERE***
I'm Presently working on Page 11 of the Strapford Pound (Over on My Patreon), I'm in the process of drawing the last few frames of the page, before I add the colours. :) After Page 11 is complete I will be moving straight on to working on Page 12 as well.
Thank you Sakari for your comment on my previous post, I have tried replying several times... But for some unknown reason, it appears I'm currently unable to leave actual comments on my own blog/site. :( In any case Sakari, I hope the Story Continues to Intrigue You. ;)
Page 7, 8, 9 & 10 Have been Posted in their Entirety on My Patreon.
New Pages will Continue to be Updated Here on K@T's Website / (maybe) DeviantArt / & Tumblr Pages, Although My Patrons on PATREON will ALWAYS have EARLY FIRST ACCESS to these Pages as soon as they are Created!
ALL the Publicly Posted (FREE) Pages So Far can be found ***HERE***
I Hope you all Enjoy, Pink & Fluffiness
If You Liked Viewing This Post, You May Also Enjoy:


text:
You know who else wanted to throw the baby out with the bath water? My Mommmm!! That was a Muscle Man reference. Errr...he's a character on the Regular Show.
Actually, Murray Rothbard also wanted to throw the baby out with the bath water. The "minor" detail he missed was...well...the baby. Neither the government...nor the BHL project...is all bath water. The government does a few things pretty well...and so does the BHL project. You know what the BHL project does well? Heterogeneous activity. It hedges its bets. It doesn't put all its eggs in one basket.
There's Peter Boettke...From Capitalism and Freedom to Free to Choose...and Andrew Cohen...States Must Do Bad...and Gary Chartier...Violence, Wars, and States...and Jessica Flanigan offers some interesting food for thought... Can you sell your future self into slavery?
You know which part of the BHL project consists of bath water? The part where Zwolinski banned me from commenting on his website. My comments are pretty much priceless...so not sure why Zwolinski would want to ban me. Well...unless value is subjective. Which would be a pretty good argument for allowing taxpayers to use their taxes to indicate which part of the government is the baby and which part is the bath water.
Yeah, pragmatarianism is on the rise.
You can compare my comment to the EconLog's comment policy. Or...you can just take my word for it that my comment did not even come close to violating their comment policy. According to the e-mail I received, the problem was that it was the 4th time that I had linked to the Wikipedia entry on Tax Choice.
Clearly they were willing to tolerate the first three times that I sneezed on them. But the fourth time was when they decided to put an end to my nonsense. Everybody has a breaking point.
Is the problem with me or them? Well...given that I've also been ejected from the Crooked Timber blog and the BHL blog...it would seem pretty straightforward that I'm the one with the behavioral problems.
It's not all that straightforward though because readers are perfectly capable of picking and choosing what they read. If people decide it's not worth it to read my comments...then nobody is forcing them to read my comments. They can easily "exit" from my comments simply by skipping over them. I have no problem skipping over comments. Who has a problem skipping over comments? Anybody who has difficulty skipping over comments will sacrifice a lot of their time to the Gods of the Internet.
The trick is understanding that...just because I might not find value in your comments does not mean that nobody will find value in your comments. The subjectivity of values forms the basis of tolerance. But moral arguments are not sufficient for tolerance. Just because somebody understands the moral arguments for tolerance does not mean that they will understand why taxpayers should be free to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to. People just don't understand why we should be tolerant enough to allow people to directly allocate their taxes.
Therefore, economics trumps philosophy. Well...maybe not...but that will be the subject of my next post. Unless my priorities change.


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Lifeguard Training Activities and Games PDF
Accessing our ebooks is as easy as 1-2-3
1. We email you an access code after you place your order.
2. You redeem the code on the VitalSource Bookshelf.
3. Enjoy!
Lifeguard Training Activities and Games is a complete resource for aquatics managers or lifeguard supervisors responsible for conducting site-specific on-the-job training for lifeguards. The compilation of games, skill drills, activities, and guidance enhances training and conditioning of lifeguards and creates a high-performing staff. Throughout the book, the focus is on keeping activities fun and engaging to promote participation and ensure your lifeguards acquire the skills they need in order to take action in an emergency.
The book contains more than 70 proven training activities divided into chapters by type of lifeguard skill. Each activity is short enough to be part of an in-service or class warm-up session. Most have variations, allowing for continued challenges of participants' performances through increasing levels of difficulty.
The drills, games, and activities improve lifeguards'
-general aquatic skills and physical fitness;
-surveillance, emergency response, and rescue skills; and
-teamwork and problem-solving skills.
With this knowledge and training, you will be able to develop and maintain a high-performing lifeguard staff. Certification as a lifeguard is the first step in the overall training process. The real training begins on the job, and the responsibility for that training is left to the aquatics manager or lifeguard supervisor. Lifeguard Training Activities and Games makes that training fun, engaging, meaningful, and practical.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Developing a High-Performance Staff Through Training Activities and Games
Chapter 2 Conditioning Activities
Chapter 3 Safety, Surveillance, and Scanning Activities
Chapter 4 Aquatic Rescue Skill Activities
Chapter 5 CPR, Emergency Response, and Risk Management Activities
Chapter 6 Team-Building Activities
Chapter 7 Special Activities
"Firmly grounded in theory, this book provides a stellar analysis of the influential role of perceived self-efficacy in athletic development and functioning. It is uniquely broad in scope, offering a masterful overview of the foundation, research, and application of self-efficacy theory in the field of athletics. Because of the scope and depth of coverage, this book is an invaluable resource for theorists and practitioners alike seeking an understanding of how beliefs of personal and collective efficacy contribute to the quality of athletic life. But it is about more than sports. The insights it provides can also serve one well in other life pursuits. This is a truly outstanding book that has the makings of a classic in the field of athletics."
-Albert Bandura
"The benefits of this book reach well beyond just sports. The techniques are easy to learn and represent tools you will use throughout your career..."
-Doody's Review Service
Sample Content
Interview with Sue Grosse on lifeguard training Sue Grosse discusses best practices for in-service training Sue Grosse discusses favorite lifeguarding games Sue Grosse discusses hiring tips Sue Grosse discusses the aquatic outlook for the next 5-10 years


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Showing 1 - 2 of 2
Report Health Care
Analysis of the New York State Medicaid Program and Identification of Potential Cost-Containment Opportunities
November 17, 2010This report identifies trends in expenditures and enrollment in New York's Medicaid program.
Report Health Care
No Easy Solution
November 17, 2010This report examines Medicaid spending in New York relative to other states and finds the program is big not just because New York is a populous state or it covers a lot of people. It recommends a multi‐year agenda to restructure service provision and the cost of care for the elderly and disabled.


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Suzuki RG50
The Suzuki RG50 was first released in Japan in January 1977 with a 50 cc air-cooled single cylinder two-stroke engine. It delivered 6,3 ps and was a simple and conventional motorcycle with a steel pipe frame, single mechanical disc brake at the rear and 17-inch wire wheels. An new model version with revisited graphics was presented in October 1978.
|Suzuki RG50
|Recommended Oil
|Suzuki ECSTAR 10w40
|Suzuki OR50
The RG50E was released in March 1979. It was a bit more exclusive model with star cast wheels. No technical modifications was made until April 1980, when a two stage power reed valve was mounted to the the RG50E engine, increasing the maximum power output to 7,2 Ps The model was sold under various names, in some parts of the world the model was known as the GT50, ZR50, or X-1.
As for all 50cc models, there were significant differencies between the models available in different parts of the world. In Finland, for instance, the maximum weight of a 50cc moped was restricted to 60 kg (132 lbs) and the maximum power output to 1,5 hp and maximum speed to 40 km/h.
Using the same mechanics but mounting smaller wheels, high bars and a turned-up seat on the frame Suzuki made even a custom model of the RG50 for the Japanese home market. The model was called Mame Tan 50E Custom. Overseas the model was called OR50.
The OR50 was exported from Japan in from 1979 to 1980. It was replaced in 1981 with a bit less chopper-like but still custom styled version of the same bike, the ZR50L. With larger wheels and looking more like the GS450L, it was quite conventional bike compared to the "almost-too-cool" OR50.
The design of the 1980 RG50E was all new, it took the twin style of its big brothers RG200E/GT200E/X5 and RG250E/GT250-X7. The wheel size was increased to 18 inches. A cheaper model, RG50T, based on the RG50/GT50/X1, was also introduced in 1980.
The 1981 year's RG50E got an anti-dive fork, introduced by Suzuki at its factory GP racer in 1979, and hydraulic disc brake. A cheaper RG50T model was released this year with drum brakes, wire wheels and a rear carrier.
The last air-cooled version of the RG50E was released in 1982 (March 24th to be exact). It was available in five different colors, the front mudguard was finished in metallic flake paint and the whole electrical system was upgraded. Finally, the water-cooled RG50 Gamma was released in December 1982 and the days of the air-cooled RG50E were counted.
Note: as mentioned earlier, the maximum power output of the 50 cc machines had huge variations in different parts of the world, depending of the regulations in each country. In some countries the maximum power output and maximum speed were restricted and in some countries the models were sold with pedals to meet the the valid regulations.