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Palin mocks Obama and Rove in CPAC speech
- Former Alaska governor accuses Obama of failing to lead
- She says the GOP needs to turn away from Washington consultants
- Palin reprises her folksy%2C down-home %22hockey mom%22 theme
OXON HILL, Md. — Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin mocked President Obama, GOP consultant Karl Rove and the mainstream media in a folksy speech to a gathering of conservative activists outside Washington Saturday.
During her address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, Palin accused Obama of failing to lead, instead maintaining a permanent campaign approach of demonizing the opposition.
True leadership, she said, means "ending the poisonous practice of treating members of different social, ethnic and religious groups as different electorates, pandered to with different promises." If all men are created equal, as the Declaration of Independence states, Palin said, then there are "no Hispanic issues or African-American issues or women's issues — there are only American issues."
The former Alaska governor also mocked Obama's proposals for stricter gun rules, tying the issue to conspiracy theories about the president's own citizenship. "More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President — should have started with yours."
But Palin also turned on Republican leaders such as Rove, who President George W. Bush once called the architect of his electoral victories. Rove has recently said Republicans need to choose candidates who are more "electable" and less ideologically contentious.
"The last thing we need is Washington, D.C., vetting our candidates," Palin said. "The architects can head on back to the great Lone Star state and put their names on some ballot."
Palin's speech was full of the kind of down-home humor and references to her life as a "hockey mom from Wasilla" that made her a star during the 2008 election season. Her biggest applause line Saturday was a double-entendre about the Christmas gifts she exchanged with her husband, Todd. She said he bought her a gun locker to put on a truck, and she bought him a gun. So, "he's got the rifle, I've got the rack," she said.
While the crowd stood and cheered at the line from a country song, Palin took a Big Gulp soda from behind the lectern and sipped from a straw, noting that it was OK since New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was not around. Bloomberg, an independent, has tried to ban the sale of large-size sugary sodas in the Big Apple, a move that drew outrage from the soft drink industry and civil libertarians who charged it was an overreach of authority.
Palin's selection as the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008 ignited the Republican base, and her speech at the Republican convention — her first major national appearance — made her an instant hero to conservatives. But during the campaign she appeared at times confused or unprepared, and Democrats pounced on her gaffes.
After the campaign, Palin remained a force in Republican politics, and in several 2010 campaigns, her endorsement was critical in raising the public profile and the fundraising efforts of conservative candidates. Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was scheduled to give the keynote address at CPAC Saturday night, introduced Palin on Saturday, saying, "I would not be in the U.S. Senate today if it were not for Gov. Sarah Palin."
In 2010, Palin signed on as a commentator with Fox News, but that relationship ended at the beginning of this year. She has since seen her public profile wane.
She toyed with the idea of a possible presidential campaign in 2012, but ultimately decided not to run.
Follow @singernews on Twitter


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John Prescott
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- Political Affiliation:
- Labour Party
John Prescott, in full John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull, (born May 31, 1938, Prestatyn, Wales), British politician who served as deputy leader of the Labour Party (1994–2007) and as deputy prime minister under Tony Blair (1997–2007).
Prescott came from a working-class family; his grandfather was a coal miner and his father a railwayman. After leaving school at age 15, Prescott worked for two years as a trainee chef and then as a steward (1955–63) on Cunard Line passenger ships. He became active in the Labour Party and the National Union of Seamen. In March 1966 he stood unsuccessfully for the House of Commons constituency of Southport. Three months later he helped to organize a seamen's strike, although Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson condemned the "tightly-knit group of politically motivated men" behind the strike. He went on to attend the University of Hull, where he received a degree in economics and economic history in 1968.
Despite Wilson's rebuke in 1966, Prescott was nominated for the safe Labour constituency of Hull East, which he won in 1970. Prescott displayed many of the traits common to the party's left wing during this period, notably his opposition to British membership in the European Community. By 1981, however, he had begun to distance himself from the far left. In 1983 he backed Neil Kinnock's campaign for the party leadership and was rewarded with a place in Kinnock's shadow cabinet. In 1988 relations between the two men came close to a breaking point when Prescott unsuccessfully challenged Kinnock's incumbent deputy, Roy Hattersley, for his job.
After Labour lost its fourth successive general election in 1992, Kinnock and Hattersley stepped down, and Prescott stood again for the deputy leadership. He was defeated by Margaret Beckett but soon established a rapport with Labour's new leader, John Smith. In the fall of 1993, Smith entrusted Prescott with making a speech to close the debate on reforms to the party constitution. Prescott's passion swayed a number of undecided votes, and he was deservedly given the credit for the victory.
When Smith died suddenly in May 1994, Prescott ran for both leader and deputy leader. Tony Blair won the leadership easily, but Prescott defeated Beckett for the deputy leadership by 57 to 43 percent. Prescott's robust manner, working-class roots, and trade union background provided an ideal foil for the middle-class, Oxford-educated Blair, and he quickly proved an indispensable ally to the party leader, supporting Blair in his policy initiatives and launching a campaign to overhaul Labour's organization and increase its membership.
When Labour swept into power in 1997, Prescott was appointed deputy prime minister and secretary of state for the environment, transport and the regions. At the head of this new "super ministry," Prescott helped broker the Kyoto Protocol, implemented reforms to the British transportation system, and formed regional development councils. He also oversaw the creation of the post of a directly elected mayor of London. While campaigning for the 2001 election, Prescott brawled with a protester who had thrown an egg at him. The incident brought embarrassment to the party, but opinion polls showed that voters approved of his handling of the matter. After Labour's landslide victory at the polls, Prescott lost his super ministry as part of a cabinet reshuffle, but he remained deputy prime minister and retained oversight of regional issues.
Increasingly, he was called upon to mediate between Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. The relationship between Blair and Brown, who were once close friends, often became contentious, and it was Prescott who brokered truces between Labour's two most powerful leaders. After Labour scored another victory in the 2005 election, the strife between Blair and Brown became more pronounced, and Prescott continued in his role as peacemaker. A pair of events in April 2006 sealed Prescott's political fate, however, and his profile within the Blair administration was greatly reduced. Labour's weak performance in local elections resulted in a cabinet reshuffle that stripped Prescott of his portfolio, and that same week he admitted to a two-year affair with one of his female aides.
When Blair announced his intention to step down in 2007, Prescott followed suit, and the two left office together on June 27 of that year. His 10-year term made him the United Kingdom's longest-serving deputy prime minister. Prescott remained the member of Parliament for Hull East, though he maintained a low profile on the Labour backbench. In 2008 he published his memoirs, Prezza, My Story: Pulling No Punches. He chose not to stand for reelection in the 2010 general election. Later in 2010 Prescott was made a life peer.

subset: commoncrawl


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This week began with high winds and rain as we were hit with what was left of hurricane Matthew. I think there were quite a few folks in these parts who had to change their Thanksgiving dinner plans when they lost power and couldn't cook their turkeys. Thankfully my parents didn't, and we enjoyed a delicious feast on Monday afternoon at their place. There is nothing like a turkey dinner with all the trimmings!
This week's wrap up is a bit late. We decided to take a more intentional sabbath this weekend. Friday was a preparation day of sorts, catching up on laundry, preparing easy meals ahead to eat today, and tying up loose ends in various areas of life. It was a nice feeling to wake up this morning and wonder what we were going to do with our day. Turns out we decluttered, cleaned, and organized our family room. So much for intentional rest. But actually it did feel restful in the sense that it was our choice to tackle it. It wasn't a pressing item on our to do list, just something we fell into as the day unfolded. And, man, does it feel good to have that done!
The girls went away out of province with grandparents last night and are due back this evening. I'm sure we'll hear all the fun details of their overnight adventures when they get home! PJ and Little Mister and I went out for supper last night at a popular local seafood joint…probably our last feed of clams for the season. They were soooooo good! Little Mister loved the hand cut fries, but when he started shovelling in the clams they came back out even faster. He wasn't a fan. I think he was disappointed they weren't chicken nuggets.
Favourite one-on-one moments this week:
C-Bear and I are reading through Plutarch's Life of Pyrrhus this term; hence we have learned the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. In her Canadian history book this week she was reading an account of the heroes of the Long Sault. We learned that this battle was a strategic victory for the French and a Pyrrhic victory for the Iroquois. I must say, I was pleased that I knew what that meant. (I had never encountered the term before. I guess I'm not up to speed with my war lingo.) But I was even more pleased that my 10 year old knew what it meant!
We finally harvested the remnants of our garden's goodness this week. Boo and had a great time together, pulling carrots and beats and onions, scrubbing them all, and laying them out to dry. It felt good to get our tiny garden ready for winter (and ready for what we'll plant next spring).
Now for a one-on-one moment I overheard the other day. Belle (age 6) and Little Mister (age 2) were playing nicely together while I was doing lessons with the older girls. Belle says, "Ok. You have to listen carefully because you have to narrate back to me. Once there was a girl named Mary. And the fairy appeared to Mary and said…" At this, Boo looks up from her work and says, "A fairy??? It wasn't a fairy! It was an ANGEL!" It was all I could do to keep a straight face.
From my journal of thanks this week:
- 2km hike on a new trail and spontaneous Thanksgiving pop-in and chit chat with good friends
- gifted leftovers for supper on such a busy evening
- the way God provides in surprising ways when we act in faith
- thankful that simple things make my kids soooooo happy
- laughs and great conversation with my geek (I mean GREEK) study group (No, we're not learning Greek together. We are studying the Greek epics…currently reading through Homer's Iliad. I love that I have found a group of moms who enjoy the challenge of such literature and value the time to talk about ideas together. On to books 16-21 for our next gathering.)
On our nature walk this week we collected seeds of all shapes and sizes. We hiked about two kilometres on a trail that runs along a river. I am so loving not being restricted by a stroller! At the close of the week we talked about how seeds get dispersed (by plants themselves, with the help of animals or birds, by water, and by wind). Then we took a look at the seeds we had collected and tried to determine what mode of dispersal would likely fit each of them. And then, of course, we spent some time sketching our seeds in our journals. I am really enjoying separating our nature walks and journaling times this year. We aim for a walk at the beginning of the week and spend time sketching in our journals on Friday. So far it's working great for us and we are actually doing nature study weekly! I hope we can keep it up.
Keeping company today at Joyous Lessons and linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly wrap up.


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Bad rye whiskey? Sadly, there is such a thing as bad rye; usually, the juice is so young, it has no nuance or subtlety, and all you get is fire and unpleasant fruity flavors. But enough about the not-so-good stuff. Let's talk instead of the stars of the budget-rye universe.
Good rye should be spicy, somewhat fruity, and a little more rugged than bourbon. A common analogy is to compare rye bread to corn bread, and use that comparison to point out the differences between rye and bourbon. (The analogy is imperfect, but it's a reasonable starting point.)
Rye is so hot right now that it's hard to find good 750-mL bottles for less than $20. So today I'm setting the limit around $25. Here are my 6 top picks, plus a few honorable mentions.
Rittenhouse Rye (100 proof, $23)
You knew I'd start here. And why wouldn't I? Even though Rittenhouse's price point has risen along with its star, this rye is still a great value. (Though I miss the days when I could get it for fifteen bucks.)
Rittenhouse is spicy, like you want a rye to be, with light woody notes from the barrel and hints of cocoa, vanilla, and caramel. There's something to the finish that almost suggests pastry. Rittenhouse is great on the rocks and in cocktails. It's the backbone for my favorite Old Fashioned, for example, and it's also excellent in a Manhattan. (The proof is high enough that you can be generous with the vermouth, and the drink won't get too sweet.) I also love Rittenhouse in a Boulevardier, the whiskey-based variation on the Negroni.
Old Overholt (80 proof, $18)
Overholt is a little milder and softer than Rittenhouse, and it's a good rye for anyone who is used to drinking bourbon or very smooth Scotch. (Rye nerds might want something a bit more pungent.) Overholt is light and herbal, only mildly woody, and with a fruity aroma. Overholt appears in an episode of Mad Men, when Don Draper mixes an Old Fashioned for a hotelier he meets at a wedding. However, in that era Overholt was still a 100-proofer. I'd love to try some, if any of you find it at an estate sale or something.
Pikesville Supreme (80 proof, $19)
Most rye in the United States is produced in what's called the Pennsylvania style (also known as Monongahela style), based on a style common in early American rye distilling, when most rye was made in Pennsylvania. Pikesville is perhaps the last known example of another style: Maryland. This type of rye is lighter and grassier than the Pennsylvanians, and also smoother and somewhat sweeter. Pikesville, like Rittenhouse, is made in Kentucky by Heaven Hill. For those of you who can find it, it's a good bargain.
Redemption Rye (92 proof, $24)
The next three ryes on the list have two things in common: First, they're all distilled at MGP Ingredients in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and bottled by people who didn't distill it. (I have no problem with this, but I do wish companies would be more transparent about it. In the end, however, I honestly doubt very many consumers other than whiskey geeks give a rat's ass.)
Next, they all have a 95% rye mashbill, which is quite high for a rye whiskey. (By law it must be 51% or higher.) But they're different ryes. I'll talk a little about why.
First, Redemption. Spicy, rich, fruity, and mildly sweet, Redemption simply tastes more rye-forward than, say, Rittenhouse or Overholt. Some people don't like it for that very reason, but though I still prefer Rittenhouse's better balance, I still really enjoy Redemption's rye punch. Redemption is about 2 or 3 years old; it's hard to pin down the bottler on exactly how old. I think it's fine on the rocks, but it's better as a mixer.
Riverboat Rye (80 proof, $24 for a 1L bottle)
Younger sibling to Redemption, Riverboat is aged for a mere two years. It's the same stuff that's in the Redemption bottle, but it's younger and unfiltered. A retailer in Rhode Island told me once that it's also aged entirely on the bottom racks in its warehouse, but I can't verify that independently. The same whiskey aged at different locations in the same warehouse can taste different thanks to temperature variations. Riverboat is definitely a young rye; it's good in cocktails, but not your best choice for serving neat.
George Dickel Rye (90 proof, $23)
The difference between this and Redemption and Riverboat is that the Dickel Rye is finished with the same charcoal filtering that Dickel Tennessee Whisky gets. Dickel is smoother and easier to sip than Redemption or Riverboat. It's not as spicy as other ryes and it presents some citrus and a bit of soot from the charcoal.
Honorable Mentions: Great Not-Quite Budget and Hard-to-Get Rye
There are some great ryes out there that just barely miss the $25-and-under mark...or that are simply unavailable right now. Sazerac (the 6-year-old variety, also known as Baby Saz), for example, costs about $30 in my market. I love it for, well, for Sazeracs, but it's also great on its own, either neat or on ice. And it makes a lovely Old Fashioned. Bulleit Rye is another product of Lawrenceburg, Indiana. In California you might find it for $22, but most other places, it can clock in at $30. It's rich and peppery, with some fruitiness. It complements the Bulleit Bourbon really well somehow, even though it's made in a different distillery and a different state.
One rye that I really miss is Wild Turkey 101 Rye; it's sadly (mostly) off the market. I was buying it when Rittenhouse was on a shortage, and it quickly became my second favorite rye. And I was getting it for about $21, so if it were available, I'd list it here.
Share Your Picks!
Tell me, what is your favorite rye whiskey under $25? What would you add to this list?


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Hearing Aid Repairs
All our Hearing Aids come with a 12 month manufacturers warranty. Outside of this warranty we offer a full repair service. For all our hearing aids outside their warranty we offer a fixed price repair of £60.
To take advantage of this service, we would ask that you download the following form, complete it and send it in with the faulty product. We will then contact you via email on receipt to confirm the repair times and that there are no unusual issues that cannot be resolved within the fixed price scheme.
Please note that there may be an additional charge for severe physical damage to the hearing aid. If for any reason this fixed price repair cannot be honoured, we will contact you before carrying out any work to agree any additional costs.
We will provide details on how to pay for the repair at this time and you may choose to go ahead and have the item repaired or have the item sent back to you.
To discuss any queries surrounding the repair process or an existing repair update, please contact us on 0800 032 1301.
Please note that at this time we can only offer a repair service for our own hearing aids.


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If you are looking for event staff for E-Commerce Expo or other Marketing exhibitions or fairs, Golden Goose Events is your Hostess Agency! Get in touch and we will send you a quote within 24 working hours.


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• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 stalk lemongrass, smashed and roughly chopped
• ½ bunch cilantro, leaves chopped, stems reserved
• 1½ T curry powder
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• ¾ cup dry white wine (preferably Sauvignon Blanc)
• 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, ½ diced, ½ cut into thin batons
• 1 T freshly grated ginger
• 1 small carrot, cut into thin strips
• 1 stalk celery, cut into thin strips
• 6 lb. fresh mussels
In a small pot over medium-high heat, combine the coconut milk, lemongrass, cilantro stems, curry powder, and cayenne pepper; simmer 3 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let rest for 20 minutes. Strain the liquid into a large pot, discarding the lemongrass and stems; add the wine, diced apple, ginger, carrot, and celery. Bring to a boil. Add mussels, cover, and cook until they open. Toss cilantro leaves and apple batons into the pot and serve immediately.
This recipe was originally featured in "Daniel's Dish: Mussel Bound."


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Way back in 1993, there was an episode of "The Simpsons," in which Grandpa Simpson wrote a letter to the White House. Apropos of nothing, ol' Abe wanted the president to eliminate three states from the union because there are "too many states nowadays."
Grandpa added in his letter, "I am not a crackpot."
I thought of this while reading the latest missive from the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre, who had a lengthy opinion piece in the Daily Caller yesterday, explaining why Americans should be terrified enough to want to buy lots and lots of firearms.
During the second Obama term, however, additional threats are growing. Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States. Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, and though the states on the U.S./Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last.The president flagrantly defies the 2006 federal law ordering the construction of a secure border fence along the entire Mexican border. So the border today remains porous not only to people seeking jobs in the U.S., but to criminals whose jobs are murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping. Ominously, the border also remains open to agents of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Wait, it gets worse. LaPierre also envisions mass looting, debt riots, and the collapse of law-enforcement agencies. It's the kind of news you don't hear from President Obama -- who, of course, wants to disarm you for his own nefarious purposes -- and his "'mainstream' media enablers."
And then there's LaPierre's kicker: "These are perils we are sure to face -- not just maybe. It's not paranoia to buy a gun."
"Paranoia"? Who said anything about "paranoia"? This is simply a piece from a powerful right-wing lobbyist warning of Latin-American gangs, terrorists, and rioters, each of which are coming to attack you -- "not just maybe." Why would anyone think this sounds like "paranoia"?
Perhaps for the same reason Abe Simpson understood he might sound like a "crackpot"?


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The DMU 50 combines more than 20 years of experience, proven technology and low investment costs in the 5-axis portfolio of DMG MORI. On this basis and enhanced in all respects the bestseller has moved into the next round. This compact DMU 50 3rd generation sets new standards in 5-sided to 5-axis simultaneous machining. With its extended swivel range, more powerful spindle and its innovative cooling concept the world premiere guarantees a competitive edge in a multitude of branches. Its areas of application range from training, to general mechanical engineering, jig construction and on to include applications in demanding branches such as the aerospace, medical and automotive industries.
While redeveloping the DMU 50 3rd Generation DMG MORI has managed to harmonize the modern appearance of the design with user-friendly operation. The large, smooth opening door to the work area, for example, with a width of 876 mm ensures unrestricted access from the front, even in combination with automation solutions. The table also has an ergonomic loading height of 800 mm. The optimum accessibility of the DMU 50 3rd Generation even encompasses maintenance components such as the control cabinet, fluid box, oil mist separator, heat exchanger and cooling unit.
Travel paths of 650 x 520 x 475 mm and workpiece weights of up to 300 kg mean the new DMU 50 3rd Generation covers a wide range of components. Its new NC swivel-rotary table with an enlarged swivel range of −35°/+110° boosts this versatility. A rapid traverse of 42 m/min and 30 rpm in the swivel-rotary axis ensure the dynamics for 5-sided to 5-axis simultaneous machining. In addition to the 15,000 rpm speedMASTER motor spindle, the user can also choose between motor spindles with up to a 20,000 rpm. Also available as an option is an expanded tool magazine with up to 120 pockets. There are 30 tool pockets in the standard version.


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Analy Boys JV FootballAdd to Cart Add to Lightbox Download
On April 02, 2021, the Analy JV football team played an away game against El Molino High School of Forestville, CA. This is likely the last Apple Cup game ever as the two schools will be merging into one unified school next year.
- Filename
- 20210402_03346.jpg
- Copyright
- @NorCal Images 2021
- Image Size
- 1083x1354 / 1.2MB
- https://www.norcalimages.com
- Contained in galleries
- 04/02/21 Analy v El Molino


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Fruit-form containers became popular in Eastern Europe in the 18th century, possibly as a result of trade from Turkey (see Jewish Museum, Accession Number JM 34-51). Some spice boxes from Eastern Europe in the 19th century were in the shape of flowers, like this object (e.g. Jewish Museum, Accession Number JM 34-51; Israel Museum, Accession number B86.0098 ; 124/549). CAI 030 seemingly comes out of this trend. It does not have a large opening for spices. Considering its small size and its material—the relatively cheap copper alloy—it was likely made for less affluent customers.
Spice Box
14.6 cm (height) x 5.4 cm (diameter) (5 3/4 x 2 1/8 in)
Eastern Europe
spice boxes
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Jewish decoration and adornment
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Adath Israel Collection
Adath Israel Museum, Middletown, CT


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SeaWorld Orlando brings Antarctica's penguins to Florida
ORLANDO — There's nothing quite like being among a huge colony of cold-weather penguins as they plunge into the water in fine torpedo-like fashion, waddle to and fro and chatter with one another. For starters: It's really noisy.
"If you listen close, each species has a different type of vocalization," says Mike Boos, vice president of zoological operations at SeaWorld Orlando.
Some make dolphin-style squeaks, others honk with gusto, and many let out sounds reminiscent of Chewbacca. On top of that, they are quite curious. "They all greet you in their own unique way," he says. "They just want to come over and see what you're doing."
Typically, people have to travel to far-flung locales to score this type of quality time with Gentoo, King, Adelie and Rockhopper penguins. But come May 24, when SeaWorld opens its new Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin attraction, they need only to head to Orlando.
By then, 245 web-footed fowl will have moved into their fancy new abode: a 6,125-square-foot habitat kept at a brisk 30 degrees. But what's more impressive is what's missing: the glass partition that typically separates guests from the animals. Instead, only a 2-foot-high rock wall will keep the penguins from hopping into the crowd.
With a footprint of nearly 4 acres, this new "realm" of 50-foot glaciers and hand-blown icicles also includes an underwater viewing area, a high-tech ride, a restaurant and a gift shop that collectively create the wow factor. It's the largest expansion project in the park's history, and USA TODAY got the first look inside.
Cooled off
"Antarctica is a huge, vast and sometimes alien world that most humans have never seen in person, nor will they ever get to," says Brian Morrow, senior director of attraction development and design at SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment. So with painstaking detail, SeaWorld has replicated it.
Once inside the ride area, things start to feel much more frozen tundra and much less hot, humid Florida. It's all thanks to a sophisticated system that zaps the moisture from the air and cools the space. Guests are slowly acclimatized to the real cold of Antarctica via air chilling, air movement and air recycling as they move through decreasing temperature chambers that prep them for the chilliest temps at the end of the ride.
The heartwarming story begins with a pre-show on large screens featuring digitized mother and father Gentoo penguins and their newly hatched chick, Puck. Then, it's decision time when the line splits into two lanes. Opt for the wild expedition if you're seeking twists, turns and bumps, or the mild expedition when, for example, you bring your toddler along. Notably, nearly everyone can ride this gentler option; they just need to be able to sit up on their own.
Once guests hop aboard the eight-person, circular-ride vehicle (which juices up by resting on floor-mounted charging units while in place), the hyper-realism ends and the reverie begins. Giant fake ice droplets dangle from the ceiling. A rainbow of pastels reflects off nearly every surface. And an original score of infectious orchestral music pumps through the speakers.
The sleek vehicles themselves add to the awe. "They don't ride on tracks," Morrow says, which allowed engineers to create 32 different ride scenarios. Plus, not only do riders see the world through Puck's eyes, but they also feel his harsh environment (read: blizzard-like conditions) and experience his movements, too.
"When he stumbles, your vehicle follows that," Morrow says. "And when he slides across the ice, you feel that, too."
When guests step off the ride, they are smack-dab in the middle of a drafty penguin habitat. To add to the chill factor, about 5 tons of snow will be pumped in daily. Plus, the room next door has space for visitors to gawk at the birds from a different angle: A 144,300-gallon tank gives the penguins plenty of room to dart about like miniature Ryan Lochtes.
Every last detail has been carefully orchestrated — even the lighting will mimic that of Antarctica, letting the penguins know when it's time to breed. "Since the Antarctic seasons are opposite of those in Orlando, we will be going into the winter season when the attraction opens," Boos says. "Guests will experience several hours of bright light, but also dimmed light. During the Orlando winter, it will be bright in the penguin habitat for almost 20 hours a day."
This, he says, is a big reason why SeaWorld has such a successful breeding program. Since 1990, SeaWorld Orlando has hatched 452 chicks from seven different species of penguins.
'The Next Chapter'
So, how do the penguins feel about their new open-forum environment?
"They are very accustomed to seeing guests," Boos says. The noise level won't bother the animals, either, he says, since they are fairly rowdy themselves.
After exiting the penguin habitat, the Expedition Café is a few steps away. The menu, which is several notches above typical theme-park fare, includes a mix of crowd-pleasing, cooked-to-order and quick-serve meals ($7 to $10), such as chicken and vegetable stir fry and lasagna with freshly baked breadsticks. Many of the dishes incorporate "freshies" (aka, herbs grown in the cafe's hydroponic garden). Outside, dome-shaped Quonset huts were built in true Antarctic base-camp style. With picnic tables and shade, they make for a good mealtime spot.
Overall, it's clear that SeaWorld has kicked it up a notch. "Antarctica tells a very different visual story of scale, realism and detail yet to be seen at SeaWorld," Morrow says. "It's really the next chapter for our company."
Duncan Dickson, who teaches theme-park management at the University of Central Florida, agrees. "All 10 of our major theme parks create a synergy in the region," he says. "It is the reason we attracted 56 million visitors last year. With all the new attractions in the parks, we should have a year that takes us back to the (pre-recession) summer of 2008."
If you go...
Cost: Single-day gate admission is $89 plus tax for adults and $81 plus tax for children (ages 3-9). Pass members receive a one-time, front-of-the-line access pass to Antarctica from May 28 to June 30 by registering online at seaworldparks.com/orlandopassmembers.
Extra penguin time: Starting in June, Penguins Up-Close tours give guests a behind-the-scenes look at the animals. (Seasonal price starting at $59 ages 10 and up, $39 ages 3-9 plus tax. Park admission is not included and is required.)
Attire: If you plan to stay in the chilly penguin habitat for more than five minutes, bring a jacket along.


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We have lived in our house (together) for almost two years.
The backyard is GORGEOUS. There is a big section of open land that runs up a hill behind us.
It makes for a nice mini-oasis in a big city.
The guy at the top of the hill owns it all and he won't build on it.
The backyards on our block and the next over face this "meadow" and, like us, don't have fences either (because it is too pretty to block). Unlike us, most of them don't have dogs.
So morning, evening, and late evening you can find us taking the dogs out. Keeping track of them as they run pell mell here and there, sniffing out phantom squirrel trails, and hitting the potty (sometimes) OUTSIDE the lines of our yard. Oh no!
Or they might end up disappearing from view, going MIA, or "friending" all the neighbors sitting outside on their decks (who may not like ENORMOUS DOGS in their yard at night). All this causes much tromping, hollering, and venturing out at all hours, up the hill, through the meadow, and over to the next block (if necessary).
But it was worth it for the view. Riiiight?
Honestly? I couldn't keep my eyes on all four dogs, much less leash them all, or give up an hour to take them out one-by-one – three to four times per day.
The entire ordeal (especially in the morning) became downright exhausting.
I say all this in hopes that when I tell you WE GOT A FENCE! It will truly reverberate into your brains how ECSTATIC we really are over such a simple thing.
We have an adorable gate on the side of the house (we will be getting back gate too).
It's only about four feet in height.
We still have our view since it's a shorter fence.
Anna is wondering…what the heck that is?
And why she can't take off running?
Fred says…it's a FENCE to keep me in. And mostly that is true. See Fred is not off-lead trained and he is the WORST at seeing you look away for a second and taking off. He found the front of the house, and crossed the busy street faster than I could BLINK. Holy Moly!
Salem doesn't seem to mind it. But then again, she is ten years old. Snoozing is more her speed.
And Brownie barely moves from the back porch.
So now you are updated on our new editions (fence and dogs). And can you believe Brownie is two years old now?
I, also, updated the Furry kids tab if you want to take a look.
Hope your Sunday in the City is as awesome as ours….


text:
David Dickson
Correspondent, SciDev.Net
A few years ago, South Africa decided to stop complaining about what is often called the Digital Divide separating developed and developing countries, and to start talking instead about what it described as the Digital Advantage.
The upbeat tone, emphasising the potentially transformational contribution of ICTs to development rather than the disadvantages they can create, sums up the optimism that has been a dominant theme of discussions here in Lisbon over the past two days.
The 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT has been the fifth in a series of annual meetings. Each has provided an opportunity for ICT specialists and stakeholders from both Africa and Europe to explore ways of working together (next year's meeting is likely to take place in Cairo, Egypt).
Earlier meetings focussed largely on the potential and proposals for collaboration. In contrast, this year's was able to include concrete success stories showing how effective collaboration is already taking place – and beginning to make an impact.
One example was the launch of the UbuntuNet, part of the AfricaConnect project, which provides enhanced data exchange between researchers in the two continents (as well as in African countries themselves).
No-one pretended that difficulties – or perhaps one should say challenges – in promoting collaboration do not exist.
Barend Taute, of the CSIR Meraka Institute in South Africa, summarised these to the final session of the forum as including "funding, diversity, travel, timelines, cultural peculiarities, languages, policy and regulation, vested interests, infrastructure and human capacity".
Quite a list.
Set against this, however, is growing political will. European governments in particular – and to a lesser extent, their African counterparts – seem convinced that, for a variety of reasons, closer collaboration on ICT projects between the two continents is desirable.
From the European point of view, this is partly based on the awareness that ICTs can significantly boost the impact of conventional aid projects (for example, in areas such as health and agriculture) by increasing the efficiency by which services are delivered.
But as participants in the meeting continually stressed, Europe and Africa also face common interests in working on ways that ICTs can contribute towards socioeconomic development, providing scope for genuine partnership.
Of course, the playing field remains far from level.
Many African countries, for example, still have a long way to go in building up their own capacity to handle and develop ICTs effectively. One speaker criticised universities who continued to turn out engineers who seem to know more about Newton's laws of motion than how computer networks work.
The need to ensure that ICT projects are genuinely based on social need was also frequently referred to. Calls for more "bottom up approaches" and "people-centred solutions" became familiar.
And funding remains a problem. Despite increasingly funding from the European Commission, many African governments (and, it was said, some development agencies) continue to insist that ICT development is the responsibility of the private sector, ignoring the extent to which public investment is required to build the necessary capacity and infrastructure.
But if the Lisbon meeting heard numerous pleas for greater awareness by policy-makers of the need to invest in ICT projects, it also provided numerous examples that can be waved in the faces of these same policy-makers to illustrate the gains that can be generated by doing so.
Or, as Taute put it in the final session: "here are already enough good success stories to make us happy about what we are doing. The potential Digital Advantage for the continent is so big and inspiring that we can only be positive about it."
This blog post is part of our 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT blog, which takes place 28-29 November 2012, in Lisbon, Portugal. To read news and analysis on ICTs please visit our website.


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Now showing items 1-1 of 1
Two New Species of Chondrostoma Agassiz, 1832 (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) from the Ceyhan, Seyhan and Goksu Rivers in the East Mediterranean Region of Turkey
(Central Fisheries Research Inst, 2017)
Chondrostoma toros sp.n. was described from the Goksu River. It was distinguished by a slightly arched lower jaw with a well-developed keratinized edge; a slightly developed keel in front of the dorsal-fm origin; lateral ...


text:
Audio & Transcript of Oral Arguments, First Circuit Court of Appeals, September 7, 2012
Oral arguments made in the appeal filed by Boston College to challenge the district court ruling concerning the PSNI subpoena filed under the US-UK MLAT for the oral history archive known as The Belfast Project.
No. 12-1236
Petitioner – Appellee
Movant – Appellant
Oral Arguments
First Circuit Court of Appeals
Boston MA 7 September 2012
Sitting for the court: the Honourable Juan Torruella, the Honourable Michael Boudin and the Honourable Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson.
12-1236 In Re: Request from the United Kingdom Oral Arguments 9/7/12: Download
Attorney Jeffrey Swope (*JS*) makes the oral arguments for Boston College
(In progress…)
Jeffrey Swope (JS): May I reserve one minute of my ten for rebuttal, Your Honour?
Judge Torruella: You may.
(JS): Thank you.
This appeal is from an order that required Boston College to produce confidential academic research materials in response to a subpoena issued by the Commissioner of The United States under a multilateral treaty with the United Kingdom. Now the materials were confidential oral history interviews gathered from individuals who participated or were affiliated with the IRA in The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Now the description that I've just given will sound familiar to this court because two members of this panel were on the panel that decided a case that could sound like that same case in July.
This is not that case. This is a very different case. Boston College was not a participant in that appeal and the subpoenas that were at issue are different subpoenas.
The first subpoenas that were the issue in what I'll call In re: Request of the United Kingdom, which is how this court referred to the district court decision, was for the transcripts of two named individuals – specifically named individuals.
The subpoenas that are at issue in this case, issued a couple of months later to Boston College, were not so specific as to interviews. Rather they described a subject matter which was: any information in all of the oral history transcripts that relates to the abduction or death of a victim of the unrest in the 1970's.
By definition, therefore, somebody had to make a decision about which transcripts had relevant, responsive material in them that fell within the scope of the government's subpoena. The district court undertook an en camera review of over a thousand pages of those transcripts and at the conclusion of that determined that eight of the twenty-four transcripts that the district court reviewed – all or some of those transcripts should be produced. It's from that order that we appeal.
And we appeal because we say the district court in making that relevance judgment did not follow the instructions of this court in a 2004 case, In re: Special Proceedings, that says when you're dealing with materials that have first amendment implications for news gathering or for academic research and the freedom of information and the analysis of academic issues, courts should review these subpoenas with "heightened security". And it defines "heightened security" as making sure that the materials that are provided are quote "directly related" to the subject of the subpoena. And it's our contention that as to these eight transcripts that were produced that were not directly related.
Judge Torruella: To what extent are the cases, the ones you've just mentioned, controlled by Branzburg?
JS: They're not, Your Honour, because this court considered Branzburg and said, in the words of Justice Boudin, that in this circuit there is an additional amount of protection for these kinds of research materials. And the court said it's not clear whether this is constitutionally required or prudential but that extra protection is the imposition of this direct relevance.
So this court has actually decided that in In re: (Ed: Special) Proceedings – the question that Your Honour just asked me and in…
Judge Boudin: Are you talking about Judge Lynch's opinion?
JS: No. I'm talking about In re: Special Proceedings – the 2004 case.
Judge Lynch's opinion in In re: Request of the United Kingdom cites the In re: Special Proceedings decision in a couple of places and doesn't question its conclusion. It doesn't cite it on this issue but it cites the case so the court was obviously aware of In re: Special Proceedings.
Judge Thompson: Counsel, do you agree that this is an abuse of discretion reviewed by us?
JS: Yes, I do. And I understand that that sets a high bar, Your Honour.
Judge Thompson: And so your basic argument is that the court abused its discretion in making its determination as to what transcripts were relevant?
JS: Directly related.
Judge Thompson: Directly related…
JS: Correct.
Judge Thompson: …and responsive.
JS: That's correct. Now requiring…this court's requirement in In re: Special Proceedings that when you're dealing with these kinds of materials they be directly related in order to compel production is not a privilege.
Boston College never argued that there was an academic researcher's privilege. And this court, in the In re: Request of UK decision by Judge Lynch says there is no privilege that allows academic researchers to deny evidence to government investigators in criminal matters. We never argued that. That holding does not affect our argument.
Judge Torruella: Does the treaty, I don't remember the dates, does the treaty precede or is it after the cases that you have just referred to? Which date would the case be?
JS: Both were in 2004. Well, the operative MLAT, as it is called, is in 2004 but there was similar language in an earlier version of it so that the language about multilateral treaties, multilateral assistance, in criminal proceedings has been used before 2004.
That was not the issue in In re: Special Proceedings. In re: Special Proceedings had to deal with disclosure of video tapes in Rhode Island that had been part of a…
Judge Torruella: Yes. My question really goes to: does that treaty take the power away from the court to engage in that balancing test?
JS: No, it does not Your Honor, for two reasons. First is that under Article 8 Subsection 2 the treaty expressly says that requests for subpoenas issued under this has to follow local law so it does not oust local law.
Secondly, even if it tried to oust local law, it would be astonishing to think that the United States, by entering into a treaty, could turn judges enforcing subpoenas into simple clerks that simply stamp papers.
And Aubrey v. Madison decided that question long ago. In the Ninth Circuit case that is cited in In re: Request of the UK expressly says that it rejects any argument that the treaty could make it a matter simply between the executive and the law enforcements officers to issue subpoenas. The court said the government's position leads to the inescapable and unacceptable conclusion that the executive branch and not the judicial branch would exercise judicial power. That issue, which has not been argued by The United States in this case, if it were argued, I think the answer's clear under that Ninth Circuit which is, all of these cases have odd names…it's In re: 340 Broadway, or something like that.
The other important point about In re: Special Proceedings is that it, like this case, was connected to a criminal proceeding. At various points this court has expressed more protection for academic research in civil matters, the Cusumano case and others, (and the Bruno case) but those cases also apply, the In re: Special Proceedings arose in and the protection of direct relationship was stated in the context of a criminal proceeding.
Now the specifics of how "directly related" works, gets into the details of the transcripts that are the subject of this proceeding.
We have filed with this court a record that has, under seal and ex-parte because they are protected at this present time we argue, the particular transcripts that show what the abuse of discretion was in ordering production.
I can't get into that in open court obviously but I can point to two things in open court: one is that the district court expressly said that only one of the interview transcripts sent was responsive to the subpoena. And then said there's one other that if broadly read, that description about the abduction and death of a victim, there's one other that might be considered responsive.
Well, right there you have the evidence that the court has not applied, although it states that it understands the direct relevance test, that it has not apply that.
One other transcript that is even further proof is a mistakenly labeled one. The interviewers had mistakenly labeled one other person's interview as that of one of the ones the judge ordered. When that was brought to the judge's attention he said I'm not going to change my order. So that had nothing to do with any finding. Thank you, Your Honour.
Judge Torruella: Thank you.
Assistant US Attorney Randall Kromm presenting oral argument on behalf of The United States of America:
Judge Torruella: Mr. Kromm, Good Morning.
Randall Kromm (RK): Good Morning. May it please the court: Randall Kromm representing The United States.
With due respect, the government just simply disagrees that In re: Special Proceedings and particularly the language from that case on which BC relies here has any relevance with respect to these or any survives has any vitality with respect to these materials in the wake of the most recent decision addressing the very same materials by this court. What this court had to address there…
Judge Torruella: So that case is resolutely counter, basically, is what you're saying?
RK: Well not simply as a matter of the legal interpretation of the interests as they apply to these materials or the law as it applies to these materials, this court has already decided that.
Now again, it's a different subpoena, but it's the same body of work, the same interests are asserted.
Judge Torruella: Different parties.
RK: Different parties. But the same interests and the same body of work and the first amendment arguments based on the same principles in our view it simply is…so on all fours…there's simply no… it's inescapable that the decision there applies equally here.
And the reason is: In re: Special Proceedings – the point there there was some language in the case – it's just that this court has been more protective in a series of prior cases where there's a first amendment right at issue. But in this court's prior decision, with respect to these materials, the court said, distinguished, that line of cases including In re: Special Proceedings and said that this case, these materials, this request, is more more similar to the central facts of Branzburg in that Branzburg itself controls.
I don't think the court could've really been any clearer in suggesting that, to the extent being any difference between it's prior cases and Branzburg, by saying that Branzburg controls here and it's the requirements of Branzburg that apply here that, to the extent those other cases were more protective in other circumstances, they don't apply here. And I think that is pretty straightforward just from the way that it distinguishes those cases.
But the court goes a little further than that in which it also cites the EEOC vs University of Pennsylvania case which specifically raised the issue about whether there was a heightened relevance standard. The issue to there the EEOC was seeking documents having to do with the tenure process. They were opposed on the grounds, the first amendment grounds, of impingement upon academic materials. And the specific assertion was there was a heightened standard of relevance; they had to be especially relevant, not directly relevant, but there was a heightened standard of relevance. The Supreme Court said it did not.
This court cited that case with approval in its most recent decision saying, noting that that case had rejected a requirement that there be a judicial finding of particularised relevance beyond a showing of relevance, ordinary relevance. And then went later went ahead to refer to that case several more times in the decision.
So in our view, the central point here, which was there was some supplemental relevancy required, simply isn't true with respect to these materials
Judge Boudin: You still haven't the solved question with either one or two of the rulings as to whether even a regular relevancy test was that including the example given at the end by your Brother. (Ed Note: "Brother" – a polite and acceptable reference to opposing counsel used in Massachusetts courts.)
RK: Right. There was a mention of a case that was mislabeled. And I think, again this is an interesting case and I think it's also important to note this was a case in which there were ex-parte materials submitted by both sides and without objection. Not only does the government not have those materials, so it's not in the position to argue as to whether something was mislabeled or was not, but my Brother is also not in the position to have the information solicited from the government and that the government submitted to help the court understand the full scope of the subpoena or what the meaning of the subpoena was. As it has been described, the subpoena was very broad: any and all materials relating to the abduction of Jean McConville.
The court asked for information from the government to be submitted ex-parte regarding the investigation in the UK that could help us understand what was really being looked for. And it took that into account. So the court knew what neither of the individual parties knew in totality as to what was really at issue here – what was really being sought and what the materials that Boston College had really said.
And under the circumstances here we really don't think there's evidence from the public part of the record that shows that the district court did anything wrong or misunderstood what it was doing. I think the court was clear in attempting to explain in a public way a case involving alot of non-public information that the materials had different degrees of connection to the central facts of the McConville case.
But that it believed, having taken it upon itself to review a thousand pages or more of material, and it also explains how it educated itself on the geographical and historical aspects of The Troubles, in order to understand better what would be relevant. Having taken that upon itself it believed this was the correct universe.
We haven't seen anything to suggest that the district court didn't discharge that obligation with all the information that it had properly and taking into account what the true scope of the investigation was that it didn't find what was relevant in an ordinary sense of relevance.
And again, we don't have the materials so there is a point at which the court will make it's own determination but from the public pronouncements we don't think those show that the court misunderstood…
Judge Boudin: Mr. Kromm, this is a rather difficult position to try understand the rationale if the original rationale rests on the notion that one person is being interviewed or one person has a connection.
Turns out that's a mislabeling. What do you suggest we do (to) understand the rationale?
RK: Again, from the public, we know what the district court thought as it trying to do. It was trying to inform itself as to what could possibly be relevant to the investigation as it knew, in a way that even Boston College does not, what the investigation was. If it was clearly wrong, I mean, an abuse of discretion could have occurred. We just have no basis on the public statements of the court to think that that happened.
I also think, and we pointed this out in our brief, that there is perhaps a heightened kind of abuse of discretion here where Boston College asked for this process. The government did not. I mean the government would've objected to the idea that the court would sort of be a gatekeeper in the process. Boston College chose to let the judge take on quite a serious task of going through and making the decision about what would be the documents that would be produced. And I think, we cite to a case where this court has said, in that circumstance an entity is hard pressed to say that the district court abused its discretion in fulfilling the obligation that it asked the court to take on.
But again that's not to say there couldn't be an extreme circumstance. It's just on the public record we don't see evidence of that, that the district court misapprehended relevance in the general sense or….
Judge Torruella: So what could we do? We read everything that the district court read and make up our own minds? Or what?
RK: Well I think presumably, I know materials have been submitted materials ex-parte by both parties. I presume this court will review those and see within the specific kinds of objections, presumably, they pointed to the most significant documents that they believed showed the court misapprehended it's obligation. We've pointed to the documents that we think show what the district court was thinking about when it did and said what it did.
And I guess the court does have to make a determination on the basis of that whether it represents the…
Judge Boudin: Well, a lot of the arguments are in fact dependent on a special relevance requirement. You make particular arguments with respect to a couple but they wouldn't satisfy even ordinary relevance tests. But most of it turns on the issue you've already addressed.
RK: I think if there aren't any more questions those are the points I wanted to make and we rely on our briefs Thank you, Your Honours.
Judge Torruella: Thank you. Mr Swope?
JS: Thank you, Your Honour. Very briefly: Mr. Kromm said that the In re: Request of the UK distinguished In re: Special Proceedings on this issue of "directly related". It did not. That argument was not made by the appellants in In re: Request of the United Kingdom.
Judge Boudin: I think the suggestion is the language the court used in the decision would make it harder to argue for a special relevance test.
JS: The court, the decision did not address it.
Judge Boudin: But…
JS: I take your point.
Judge Boudin: Judge Lynch's opinion set forth a rationale which doesn't leave too much room for that argument.
JS: But it does allow because it's not a privilege. It does allow the court to say the government will still get directly related materials. Nothing would be denied to the government. That's our point.
Judge Torruella: Thank you.


text:
Iran's fingerprints in Fallujah
WASHINGTON — Four years ago, al-Qaida appeared to have been destroyed in Iraq. This week, fighters from the group captured Fallujah, a city where hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded in the last decade fighting the jihadists. How did this stunning reversal of fortune happen?
Like everything else about Iraq, this is a tragic and confusing story. But two points seem clear: First, the Obama administration, in its rush to leave the country, allowed the sectarian Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to undo many of the gains made against al-Qaida; and second, Iran has waged a brilliant covert-action campaign that turned Maliki and Iraq into virtual clients of Tehran — and in the process alienated Sunnis and pushed them toward extremism.
"What is tragic is that Iraq's slide toward an Iranian axis and civil war were not only predictable but indeed predicted by Iraq experts within the U.S. government," laments one former U.S. official. "Iraq's current meltdown and its grave implications on U.S. national security interests were entirely avoidable."
The greatest irony of all is that Iraqis voted in March 2010 to dump Maliki in favor of an alternative slate headed by Ayad Allawi, a pro-American former interim prime minister. In the horse-trading that followed, however, Maliki and his Iranian sponsors (bizarrely backed by the U.S.) ended up forming a new government, with Vice President Joe Biden, the architect of U.S. policy (if that's the right word), proclaiming all the while that "politics has broken out in Iraq."
Maliki's new government has played a particularly vengeful sort of politics. The government reneged on promises to pay the Sunni tribal militia that Gen. David Petraeus had mobilized in 2007 and 2008 to battle al-Qaida in Fallujah and other areas of Anbar province. Many Sunnis, fearing that Maliki's Shiite government was simply a tool of Iran, began turning back toward sectarian warfare.
The covert campaign in Iraq was directed by Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and it included a range of different Shiite figures around Maliki. This ability to ride many horses at once is a mark of Suleimani's operating style. The Iranians also benefit from intelligence relationships that in some cases date back 40 years.
Iran has drawn its cards from a full deck of Iraqi militias. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who allegedly helped plan a 1983 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, now directs the IRGC-backed insurgent group known as Kataib Hezbollah. Qais al-Khazali, charged with kidnapping and killing U.S. Marines in Karbala in 2007, runs an IRGC-allied insurgent group known as Asaib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous. A third Iraqi Shiite militia is known as the Promised Day Brigades. At Iran's covert direction, fighters from all three militias have been sent to Syria to battle Sunni rebels there.
Iran allegedly has been able to use Iraq as a staging ground for operations to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad thanks partly to Hadi al-Ameri, the Iraqi minister of transport. He headed the Badr Brigade, a pro-Iranian militia.
The sectarian cleavage in Iraq has widened since the U.S. departed. With Iraqi Shiites pulled toward Iran, Sunnis were drawn back toward the jihadist orbit — especially after Syria lurched into civil war. Al-Qaida fighters relentlessly moved across the porous border, and last year proclaimed themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This new jihadist magnet has drawn about 10,000 foreign fighters, many with European passports.
Al-Qaida's resurgence in Anbar has been chilling. Last week hundreds of fighters surged into Ramadi and took over police and gas stations there. Ramadi was largely cleared this week, thanks to Sunni tribal fighters. Fallujah will be harder to liberate. Maliki has heeded American advice not to allow the Iraqi army to storm the city, which would alienate the Sunni residents. Meanwhile, the Iraqi parliament has voted to put Sunni tribal fighters back on the payroll. But tragically, a new war to drive al-Qaida from the Euphrates Valley is beginning, just a few years after the terrorist group appeared to have been crushed there.
New Iraqi elections will be held in April. It's a mark of Iran's tactical skill that Tehran is said to be abandoning Maliki and searching for a new client. America is picking up the slack, once more supplying Maliki with advice and weapons. The Iranians, it must be said, play the Iraqi game with a finesse and staying power the U.S. has never matched.
Write to Ignatius at email@example.com.


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I swam for my life, I swam in the Olympics, and now I want dignity for all refugees
This is my call, for us all to take a stand now, together, under that name we share, refugee - Yusra Mardini Image: UNHCR/Gordon Welters
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Taboo IV: The Younger Generation (1985)
Taboo 4, Romanian subtitles
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Prurient man gives romantic wet cunnilingus to his naughty wench.
Sis Swap - Misbehaved Bullies Have To Give In To Their Enemies Sexual Desires To Keep Their Secrets
Your stepsister gives you a blowjob while you work. My stepbrother is very tired from work so he better relax
Mom and Step Son, Best Scenes from a Short-Film
Favorite milf gives sweet takes in the mouth prick to her prurient man.
Step Dad and not daughter
Favorite wench does slippery sucking dick to her prurient man.
Mommy Needs Him (Modern Taboo Family)
Lustful husband gives sweet eating quim to his naughty hussy.
Beautiful hussy gives romantic messy blowjob to her lascivious paramour.
Favorite slattern gives sweet muddy blowjob to her lascivious husband.
checking out stepsis pussyfucked in taboo trio with busty stepmom
Naughty huzzy gives romantic sucking penis to her prurient lover.
Gorgeous wench gives slippery muddy blowjob to her lewd lover.
Granny's pussy heals all sickness
American Taboo 4
Girl upset her husband and got rough anal sex
Step family
Sexy Vacation with My Hot Step Aunt - Jane Cane
Incredibly forbidden story with naughty hospital staff


text:
What if I told you that Bioshock Infinite was the mostly deeply Christian game I've played in recent memory?
Because it was. And despite the patience I choose to extend toward Breen Malmberg, the man who returned the game, claiming that it would have forced him to commit "extreme blasphemy," I cannot let his be the only voice Christian voice commenting on the title.
Of course, the game can be read on so many different levels. It is as complex or as simple as you want it to be. You can read it as a failure in its attempt to comment on game violence through violence. You can read it as a foolishly simplistic attempt at documenting the history of bigotry and racism. You can even read it as a gigantic, apathetic "MEH"; insisting that no ideological group has ever done anybody a damn lick of good.
It is, of course, all of these things—these shortcomings—and more. But in a more radical fashion, I want to share with you the myriad ways that this violent, AAA shoot-em-up has perfectly captured the subversive spiritual energy that first gave bloom to Christianity, the religion in which I was raised.
It's not even a question of digging deeply. The game threw it in your face before you even picked up the controller.
Spoilers for BioShock Infinite follow.
I mean honestly, a game that is bent on exposing the failures of institutional religion? This criticism may strike at the heart of American, cultural Christianity but it actually lies at the heart of true Christianity. There was no fiercer critic of decrepit religion than Jesus himself. As if oft pointed out, he was not killed by the sinners, he was killed by the religious leaders of his day. So in our age, the customs that bring life in one generation are always decaying by the next, and we must not grow so fearful of losing the baby that we neglect to throw out the bathwater.
Complicit in this criticism is a man (and yes, Mr. Malmberg, Booker Dewitt is his own man, though we are more like him than we may care to admit), wracked with guilt over his past misdeeds, who cannot find any way to atone for his sins but by more violence. This feedback loop where brokenness begets brokenness? In Christianity we call it sin. Not merely deeds, but a state of separation; and not just from "God," but from the meaning of life itself.
"This feedback loop where brokenness begets brokenness? In Christianity we call it sin."
Booker's meaning of life ends up being a girl, Anna or Elizabeth, whatever you'd like to call her. Elizabeth enters the story as a Macguffin, ("Bring us the X") but as we grow to know her, she changes the story, in more ways than one. He loves her. Only, he doesn't know why. Doesn't yet know she is his daughter. And here, love is portrayed not as Hollywood romance, but as mystery. Love as terror.
"Are you afraid of God, Booker?"
"No, I'm afraid of you."
Christianity never painted the loving God as a tame God. He was a mystery beyond any of our conceptualization. One Biblical writer helped us to see somewhat clearer when he penned: "No one has ever seen God, but when we love one another, his love is seen through us." Although loving a concept of God is easy enough for most Christians today, the true prompt of our religion is a commitment to love him by loving the most terrifying among us. Terrifying not because we don't understand each other, but because we do.
Finally, integral to the story is the critique of symbolic baptism. Not only, the story insists, is it entirely ineffectual at actually wiping away past guilt, it actually redirects the negative energy into something far more terrifying. Sans baptism, Booker is a drunk. With it, he becomes a monster.
"Sans baptism, Booker is a drunk. With it, he becomes a monster."
This is entirely reasonable. A splashing of water was never going to bring redemption. So why is the imagery so powerful? Because the real meaning of baptism, even in Christianity, is far, far darker.
Remember Inception? Dom Cobb, chief inceptor, leads a rag-tag crew into the mind of a wealthy businessman, constructing a dense and elaborate plot, leading the subject on a wild-goose-chase to create a single moment, and plant a single thought.
Hold that thought.
Bioshock Infinite is ambitious in ways that make talking about the game a daunting task. Should we start with the themes of religion? Racism? Populism? Oh, not enough? What about quantum physics, time travel, and alternate realities?
Some have suggested that by the end of the game, the story has begun to tear itself apart. They're so right.
The dream is collapsing.
But what if it was not about constructing a watertight plot at all? What if the entire game was constructed in order to bring us to a single moment?
What would we find in that moment?
In fiction, the villian exists so that we can project our own internal conflicts onto an external source. We do not know how to deal with our own issues, but if we can witness the defeat of a villain we can avoid our interior pain, angst, and confusion a little while longer.
This is nowhere more the case than in video games. Not only is the villain stopped, he is stopped by us, the hero.
What would happen if we realized that we were both the hero and the villain?
How would we then be stopped?
At the heart of Christianity is the steadfast insistence that we are all beautiful, but we are so, so far from perfect. We all are, and can be, heroes. We all are, and can be, villains.
"Baptism is actually far more bizarre than we realize. It is a symbol—get this—not of cleansing, but of drowning. It means that something in us is dying."
And as it all spun out of control for thousands of years, we tell the story of how God came down to earth as a person, telling us to love one another before dying a very violent death. And we conjecture that his death had great signifance. In fact, we toy with the possibly insane notion that he actually showed and made a way for us to be free from our sin. By dying.
Baptism is actually far more bizarre than we realize. It is a symbol—get this—not of cleansing, but of drowning. It means that something in us is dying.
Something is being smothered.
"I have been crucified with Christ." - St. Paul
After taking us by the hand to show us the failure, not just of religion, but of any utopian vision, Ken Levine and team must now show us their version of a satisfying ending.
Smother. Smother. Smother.
We kill the villain, and he is us.
What we find, as the last, haunting notes ring out, is a vision that far more closely resembles Christianity than many of the shadows that have falsely claimed the label in our lives. It is redemption through death. Atonement through sacrifice.
And after the credits roll, we are left, as in Christianity, with merely a hint that something more lies beyond. That death is, perhaps, only the beginning.
Comstock's cult has as little to do with the heart of Christianity as hate-groups like Westboro Baptist do. Indeed, it is as far removed from the teachings of Jesus as the anti-religious comments I'm sure to receive are from the thoughtful and generous atheism I've witnessed in certain of my friends.
"It is redemption through death. Atonement through sacrifice."
My own spiritual journey has led me to believe that the mysterious universal(?) that we recklessly refer to as God is far more inclusive than I had ever fathomed, and yet, the road to redemption is a road that leads, perhaps, to a type of death. Ken Levine has, in many ways, failed to craft the perfect game, but I believe he has done something even more important, he has spoken as a prophet.
As I come to these conclusions, it may very well be the result of pre-formed thought patterns; synapses in my brain, firing off in the darkness; looking for connections where there are none. Or perhaps we're all onto something.
He who has ears let him hear.
Jordan Ekeroth is just a guy. He writes for Gamechurch.com and spends a lot of time wondering if he drinks too much coffee. Follow him on Twitter .


text:
Sources of dubious (and not–so–dubious) news on the internet have been getting very excited for the past week or so about some skulls from Paracas in south-western Perú. According to these sites, the skulls have been shown to have DNA that proves them not to be modern Homo sapiens but something else. Depending on the slant of the site, they are the remains of either an unknown but earthly species or aliens. Some sites make comparisons with the Starchild Skull, which has been touted as a human/alien hybrid. So just how reliable is the news?
The skulls were discovered by the respected Perúvian archaeologist Julio César Tello (1880-1947) during excavations in 1927-8 on the northern side of the Cerro Colorado area of the Paracas Peninsula. In all, some 429 mummy bundles were recovered from two clusters at a site known as Wari Kayan, a large subterranean structure. The mummies were wrapped in cotton cloths, some of which were embroidered with wool to create elaborate patterns, which are among the best South American textiles ever found. The mummies were then placed in baskets in a sitting position, facing north; as with all South American mummies, their preservation is due to natural desiccation. Almost four hundred embroidered cloths were recovered. All the burials were of males and the quality of their grave gifts suggests that they were of high status; some have suggested that many of the men buried there had been brought for some distance to a special location, although this is not accepted by all.
Tello had previously excavated at Chavín de Huantar and recognised that there were cultural affinities between its products and those found at Wari Karan and suggested that the Paracas Necropolis Culture, as he called it, was related to the largely contemporary Chavín Culture. Comparisons have also been made between the later Paracas textiles and those of the Nasca Culture, suggesting another relationship. The pottery was largely plain and thin walled; it is very similar to ceramics found in the Cañete and Chincha Valleys, to the north of Paracas and is generally known today as Topará style. Similar pottery is also found in the earliest Nasca culture. It is generally accepted that the Nasca culture derives from the Paracas Necropolis Culture.
A Paracas Necropolis settlement has been found at Arena Blanca, in the coastal plain below the Cerro Coloarado. It covers an area of some 5- hectares, divided into twenty separate ditstricts, with buildings made from cobbles in dried mud. It inhabitants had cultivated plants, while cotton nets may be evidence for fishing. It appears to be contemporary with the earliest phase of burial at Wari Kayan and after its abandonment, was used as a cemetery by people of the Topará Culture. Further settlements are known in the Ica Valley to the south, where they span the entire period of the Paracas Necropolis Culture (conventionally reckoned to span 1-200 CE, although some prefer to place it earlier).
So far, so good. We have burials from a culture whose cultural affinities are well established and whose chronology is reasonably clear. Now for the part that has led to the recent controversial claims. Many of the high status burials of the Paracas Necropolis Culture have deformed skulls, which are usually believed to be deliberately induced using boards and weights. These result, in extreme cases, in skulls that are elongated into tall conical shapes. No two are alike and all are believed to have denoted high status in Paracas Necropolis Culture society.
The beginning of the controversy
For many years after their discovery, the Paracas Necropolis Culture burials were regarded as ordinary Andean mummies, whose high status males exhibit the cultural deformation of the skull practised by a number of pre-Columbian New World societies. Enter David Hatcher Childress, a well known promoter of some very Bad Archaeology indeed. In a 2012 book, The Enigma of Cranial Deformation: Elongated Skulls of the Ancients, co-written with Brien Foerster (described as a "Canadian-Peruvian anthropologist" by Amazon, although it would be more accurate to describe him as a tour operator), Childress suggests that the phenomenon is not one of cranial deformation. Quoting a nineteenth-century doctor, John James von Tschudi who claimed to have seen a seven-month term foetus with a head as elongated as its mother, Childress claims that this is evidence for a separate race or species.
What is not made clear is that they are quoting from the book Antigüedades Peruanas (1851) by Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustáriz (1798-1857) and Johann Jakob von Tschudi (1818-1889) or, rather, its 1855 English translation by Francis Lister Hawks (1798-1866), who also managed to "translate" the authors' names (as, indeed, does the original Spanish edition, where Dr von Tschudi is given the forenames Juan Diego!). Well, there's nothing wrong with that. Until one reads Antigüedades Peruanas and discovers that this is in a chapter dealing with racial typology and phrenology and that Tschudi is reinforcing a typology of three Amerindian races he first proposed in Archiv für Pysiologie in 1845. The type to which they attribute the elongated crania are described as Aymaran, and the presence of a large wormian bone at the parietal/occipital interface is said to demonstrate the primitive nature of this people: se halle en una seccion del género humano, un fenómeno anómalo constante que falta en las demas, pero que es característico en los animales rumiantes y carnívoros ("there is thus found in one section of the human race a perpetual anomalous phenomenon, which is wanting in all others, but which is characteristic of the ruminant and carnivorous animals" in Hawks's translation). Because of the high incidence of such bones among the indigenous peoples of the Andes, they are sometimes known as Inca bones.
The engraving that shows the foetal mummy (curiously found in the English translation but not in the Spanish original) does not depict the extreme of cranial deformation that Childress claims is genetic in origin: while the skull appears dolichocephalic, it appears to be entirely in the range of normal human foetuses. Moreover, although Rivero and Tschudi claim that it was found within the womb of a pregnant mother, the engraving does not show a foetus in a natural position, but in the position of a typical Andean mummy. It also appears to be wearing a kilt. In other words, there is a degree of deception in their account. It appears that Childress and Foerster cannot adduce any recent discoveries of neonatal or foetal mummies displaying supposedly congenital or hereditary skull deformation of this type.
Enter Lloyd Pye
Brien Foerster managed to persuade Juan Navarro Hierro, director (and owner) of the Paracas History Museum (sic: on the sign outside the museum, the name is given first in English, then, smaller, in Spanish) to part with some tissue samples. He claims that he did this because "[t]he only way to establish the actual age, and possible genetic origins of the Paracas people is through DNA analysis of the skulls themselves". Dating human tissue by means of DNA analysis is such a new technique that I can find no other use of this remarkable development in any other archaeological investigation. Of course, there is no such dating technique: this is Brien Foerster displaying his ignorance of archaeological dating techniques!
Where did he choose to send the samples? To some prestigious university department, well known for its work on ancient DNA? No. Instead, he chose to send them to Lloyd Pye (1946-2013), a crank who believed in ancient astronauts, the extraterrestrial origins of humanity and, worst of all, touted the "Starchild Skull" as an alien/human hybrid. Why? This suggests that, far from being a dispassionate researcher, Brien Foerster has a preconceived agenda and it's one that involves aliens. Although his original Academia.edu page lists his affiliation as "University of Victoria, Biological Sciences, Department Member", his association with the university is as a graduate, not a member of faculty. [Update 11 April 2015: he has a new page that more honestly describes him as an undergraduate.]
On his website, Brien Foerster makes a number of claims about the skulls from Paracas, citing Lloyd Pye as an authority. He refers to "5 physical factors, pointed out by Lloyd Pye and myself, which are not at all common to Homo sapiens", of which he lists two: "the presence of 2 small holes in the back of the skull" and "only one parietal plate, where there should be 2". This is backed up by a photograph, although it appears to depict a skull with no cranial deformation.
The "small holes" are the parietal foramina, perfectly normal features of the human skull (he does say that Lloyd Pye believed that they might be "natural", so why are they flagged up as a factor "not at all common to Homo sapiens"?). There are few photographs that show the top of the Paracas skulls, but it is obvious that the frontal bone (the bone behind our foreheads) is stretched enormously; it is also evident that the sagittal suture (between the two parietal bones) begins very high up on the skull on those few photographs that show this element. Either Brien Foerster is entirely ignorant of the normal features of the human skull, or he is deliberately deceiving a readership he expects of be ignorant of these features.
It gets worse
Just when you thought that this story couldn't possibly take off, Brien Foerster managed to put out a release on his Facebook page on 12 February 2014 hinting about initial results from his DNA tests. This is what has set the internet of dubious news stories talking excitedly. This is what Brien Foerster quotes:
Whatever the sample labeled 3A has came from – it had mtDNA with mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal known so far. The data are very sketchy though and a LOT of sequencing still needs to be done to recover the complete mtDNA sequence. But a few fragments I was able to sequence from this sample 3A indicate that if these mutations will hold we are dealing with a new human-like creature, very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans.. I am not sure it will even fit into the known evolutionary tree. The question is if they were so different, they could not interbreed with humans. Breeding within their small population, they may have degenerated due to inbreeding. That would explain buried children – they were either low or not viable.
I am surprised that a geneticist would make this statement, but it is presented as verbatim, so we must assume that she/he genuinely wrote it. Let's analyse what they are saying. Firstly, that Sample 3A "had mtDNA with mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal known so far". That's a very far reaching statement. It means that the source of the sample is unrelated to any animal on the planet. Any animal. Think about that for a few moments. The clear implication is that this is a non-terrestrial life form. The only one not to be related to all other animals, be they Bryozoa, Porifera, Acanthocephala, Acoelomorpha, Brachiopoda, Chaetognatha, Ctenophora, Cycliophora, Entoprocta, Gastrotricha, Gnathostomulida, Hemichordata, Kinorhyncha, Loricifera, Micrognathozoa, Nematomorpha, Nemertea, Onychophora, Orthonectida, Phoronida, Placozoa, Priapulida, Rhombozoa, Rotifera, Sipuncula, Tardigrada, Xenoturbellida, Echinodermata, Cnidaria, Annelida, Nematoda, Platyhelminthes, Chordata, Mollusca or Arthropoda. Incidentally, we belong to the phylum Chordata.
Now, this statement troubles me. For a start, there is the skeletal morphology. This morphology shows that the owners of the Paracas skulls were Chordates; more than that, they belonged to the sub-phylum Vertebrata (or Craniata), as they possess a bony vertebral column; more than that, they were members of the superclass Tetrapoda, as they possess four independent limbs; more than that, they belong to the class Mammalia, as they possess hair (which can be seen on some of the skulls); more than that, the skeletal morphology demonstrates that they belong to the Primates, as do all apes, including humans, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs and lorises. In other words, far from possessing "mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal", they appear to be human. So what does the mtDNA sequenced from Sample 3A mean?
Well, our anonymous geneticist goes on to classify Sample 3A as "a new human-like creature". So it's not actually unrelated to the rest of the animal kingdom. That's a relief. However, it's "very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans", whatever that is supposed to mean. Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Denisovans (exact species not yet determined, although members of the genus Homo) are extinct hominins whose distribution was restricted to Europe and western Asia: one would not expect to find them in South America. If the mtDNA of Sample 3A really is "very distant from Homo sapiens", the only hominin so far known from the New World, does this mean that the geneticist considers it to be another species within the genus Homo or a member of an entirely separate genus? This is something I would expect them to give an opinion on and I find it curious that they apparently have not.
What is even more curious is the statement that "I am not sure it will even fit into the known evolutionary tree". This is worryingly ambiguous and can be taken in two ways. It might mean that Sample 3A derives from a species whose position in the hominin lineage cannot yet be determined, but which might one day. I suspect that this is not the intended meaning though. Given the thrust of the rest of the statement, I suspect that it is meant to imply that the mtDNA belongs to a species entirely outside the hominin lineage. In other words, it's leaving open the possibility that we should regard the sample as deriving from an alien. There does not appear to be any consideration given to the likelihood that the odd features of the mtDNA recovered are not "mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal" but a result of contamination (after all, the skulls were excavated in the 1920s and we do not know the conditions under which they have been stored, how much they have been handled, whether any procedures have been used to stabilise them and so on) or errors in the laboratory.
The statement ends with a very worrying pair of sentences: "Breeding within their small population, they may have degenerated due to inbreeding. That would explain buried children – they were either low or not viable." "[D]egenerated" is a very loaded term: it smacks of racialist theories and I am surprised that a scientist would use it. Be that as it may, it is true that inbreeding within small isolated populations will increase the likelihood of genetic disorders that will led to the eventual extinction of that population. However, it is quite ludicrous to claim that it "would explain buried children". Has this geneticist no knowledge of pre-twentieth century population mortality patterns? Before the development of modern medicine, infant mortality rates were high; in some societies, fewer than half of all live births would survive more than five years. The burial of children in the Paracas Necropolis Culture is a perfectly normal phenomenon that can be found in many human societies. To claim otherwise is deliberately misleading.
I find the entire statement released by Brien Foerster to be quite unprofessional. It makes unsubstantiated claims; it deals with preliminary results; it contains at least one outright untruth. This is not standard scientific procedure. Let us assume that the mtDNA sequencing has been done properly. The geneticist states that "[t]he data are very sketchy": so why release them, particularly when "a LOT of sequencing still needs to be done"? It is very unusual for a scientist to "leak" preliminary results in this way, unless they are very certain of their reliability. Doing it with "sketchy" data is inexcusable. Unless there is a hidden agenda…
Assessing the claim
There are so many problems with the statement posted by Brien Foerster, that it is difficult to see why anyone would take it seriously. For a start, it sits in glorious isolation from any archaeological data. The Paracas Necropolis Culture is not the product of some mysteriously isolated group of non-human creatures: its position within the broader cultural development of prehistoric Perú is well understood. The cranial deformation seen in mummies from the Wari Kayan cemetery fit into a known pattern, termed the Aymara deformity, which is produced by wrapping the skulls of infants tightly in circular bands. This exerts pressure along a transverse axis, through the mastoid region and the region just above the insertion of the nuchal ligament on the occiput. This can cause the skull to appear tri-lobed (as seen in the "Starchild Skull"), although the Paracas skulls exhibit a more conical deformity. The compression may disrupt the normal growth pattern of the skull, particularly along the sutures, and can produce a depression in the sagittal region, exactly as seen in a number of the Paracas skulls.
Altering the shape of the skull also alters its volume, despite Foerster's claim that it does not [edited 19.2.2014 by KJF-M]. Although small variations away from normal volume can be produced, they are not significant. However, while Foerster claims that the capacity of the skulls is too great for Homo sapiens, this is not the case: the Paracas skulls have an average capacity of 1600 cm3 and the human range is up to 1800 cm3 and they therefore fall well within the normal distribution range.
Secondly, the interpretation of the genetic information so far released is said by the scientist carrying out the sequencing to rest on "sketchy" data. Does this mean that further work may modify the interpretation? Is the geneticist allowing themselves a way of retracting the interpretation of further work shows the mtDNA to belong to a perfectly ordinary Amerindian type?
I was initially reminded of another DNA related story, the announced discovery of Bigfoot DNA in 2013 by Melba Ketchum. Although some early analyses of Brien Foerster's statements regarding the Paracas DNA implicated Melba Ketchum, this is not the case, although Foerster has said that he is working with her, while she has hinted that she has been working with elongated skulls. It thus appears that she is not the anonymous geneticist who wrote the bizarre statement posted on Foerster's Facebook page. As happens so often with this sort of work, Brien Foerster is asking for donations to carry on the work (the site shows as of today (15 February 2014) that one donor has given $1000, twenty have given $100, twelve have given $50, while there are 38 donations of smaller sums).
In summary, this is a non-story. There is nothing at all unusual about the population of the Paracas Necropolis Culture, apart from the extreme nature of the head-binding they practised. DNA or no DNA, they are fully human: every aspect of their skulls can be explained in terms of genetics (such as the large wormian bone) and culture (such as the cranial deformation). Any statements to the contrary contain a mixture of deliberate deception, ignorance of anthropology, lack of archaeological knowledge and jumping to wild conclusions using "sketchy" data. They are not evidence for aliens or an otherwise unknown hominin species.
Update 20 February 2014
There is a condition known as craniosynostosis, in which one or more sutures fuses early. The most common form is sagittal sysnostosis, which is found in about half all cases and suppresses growth in the lateral plane of the skull, compensated by a disproportionate growth in length, resulting in a long, narrow skull. In The Enigma of Cranial Deformation, Childress and Foerster publish a colour photograph of a skull from Camacho (Perú) showing exactly this form of sagittal synostosis, which they wrongly claim shows that the individual had a single parietal plate. As with all their other discussions of palaeopathology, all they show is their ignorance of the subject: they are completely unqualified to write an entire book on the subject if they can make such basic mistakes. It's a shame that the readers of their book are unaware of the depth of their ignorance.