text:
- Description
The Promaxima P-1300 Incline Chest Press is an advanced weight lifting machine with quality you can feel.
- ABS Seat & Back Protective Dishes- Seamless Upholstery
- Ergonomically formed and positioned custom rubber hand grips
- Five Position Seat Adjustment
- Bright Red Colored Pull Knobs
- Form Fitted Weight Stack Shields
- Custom Made Rubber Feet
- 5lb add on weight system
Dimensions 68"H. x 51"W.x 71"L. 300 lb weight stack Unit Weight 630lb
- Additional Information:
Additional Information
Name Promaxima P-1300 Incline Chest Press - New condition new Brand promaxima Warranty FRAMES 2" x 3" x 11 gauge base and up rights, 2" x 2" x 11 gauge steel tubing welded in to place. Component parts are constructed of high tensile strength ¼"steel. Lifetime warranty against weld failure, bending and cracking of material. Rubber bumpers included for quiet impact. LINEAR BEARINGS Specially designed high strength machined linear bearings to give a smooth and comfort action when lifting. Sealed to prevent dust and moisture. 10-YEAR WARRANTY GUIDE RODS 1 ½" Solid steel harden chrome plated rod is used for exact alignment and lifting. 5 YEAR WARRANTY DIMENSIONS 60" HIGH X 36" WIDE X 72" LONG. Total weight 500lbs. Included are safety requirements and charts. UPHOLSTERY Heavy commercial, bacteria resistant, 40 oz, Naugahyde. Full 3" high-density foam padding with ¾' plywood base. FINISH All frames are run through a 4-step state of the art POWDER COAT PROCESS that provides the highest quality painted finish available.
- Reviews


text:
Good morning everyone. I have been a little remiss in my blog postings. I posted a couple of cards at the beginning of the week – Christmas cards – for a couple of challenges I am now Design Team for – ABC Christmas Challenge and The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge.
This means I will have a significant stash of Christmas cards by the end of the year, so I hope you will join us there.
I managed to get time in my craft room yesterday, and made three cards for separate challenges, so I hope you will bear with me for the bunch of photos, and as the lighting currently is quite poor – despite a light box – I did struggle with them, but I hope you can enough for what I was trying to achieve.
As Christmas has been on my mind for the above challenges, I decided to add just one more for the CASology Challenge , using the colours from CAS Colours and Sketches, and adding into the Christmas at Sweet Stampin' Challenge:
Here is a little close-up:
I used a stamp from Paper Artsy, and coloured with Copics. The sentiment is on two separate blocks to add to the 'funky' feel of the card, and the two outer strips are coloured with Copics, and cut to add as you see. I left quite a bit of the image white, so try to maintain a clean and simple look, as the image is quite a large one at six a a half inches tall.
This second card was inspired by The Color Throwdown Challenge, to use Grey, Purple, Lavender, and Kraft:
I turned to me Altenew 3D flowers for this, die-cutting them and then colouring with Copics. I did put the uppermost level as white initially, but then coloured it grey, which I prefer, but leaving the middle stamen white. Those leaves – my goodness – loving those leaves, I must say.
My third and final card for today:
The colours were inspired by the photo inspiration at Pinspirational – the greys and whites, along with the stripes. An Altenew stamp and die set, and Altenew inks, and also dry embossing the Gradient Stripes Cover Die into the white background:
Once again, the lighting not brilliant, but I hope you see the stripes.
This card will also be entered into:
Watercooler Challenges – anything feminine goes
Clean and Simple on Friday – CAS dry or heat embossing
The Flower Challenge – anything goes with flowers

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Real Property Taxes – Honolulu, Oahu – Tax Calendar
November 8, 2013
We have arrived in November, an extremely busy time for the City and County of Honolulu Real Property Assessment Division. October 1 is the "date of valuation" for the 2013-2014 tax year, and the County assessors are now busy preparing property values that will be mailed out to taxpayers on December 15…just in time for Christmas!
Taxpayers and property owners on Oahu should be aware of the following real property taxation dates:
|September 1
|Deadline for filing dedication petitions (Forms available)
|September 30
|Deadline for filing exemption claims (Forms available)
|September 30
|Deadline for filing tax credit applications (Treasury Division)
|October 1
|Date of Valuation
|October 31
|Deadline for dedication approval/disapproval
|November 1
|Deadline for reporting changes affecting exemptions (Form available)
|December 15
|Assessment notices mailed
|January 15
|Deadline for filing appeals (Forms available)
|February 1
|Certified assessment roll sent to City Council
|June 15
|Tax rates set by City Council
|June 30
|End of tax year
|July 1
|Beginning of tax year
|July 20
|First-half year bills mailed
|August 20
|First-half year payments due
|January 20
|Second-half year bills mailed
|February 20
|Second-half year payments due
For property owners considering an appeal of their assessments, the two most important dates are December 15 and January 15. If you are going to appeal, you have to do it in that 30-day window.
If you decide you want to appeal your assessment, the chart above has links to the forms you'll need. If you're having trouble, send me an email and I'll get you pointed in the right direction.
General information about your Oahu property, including its assessed value and other tax data can be found at this website: http://www.honolulupropertytax.com
Questions or comments? Please leave them in the comment box below, I would be happy to clarify and/or expand.
Aloha, Chris
In property taxation disputes, the legal process by which an owner may challenge either an ad valorem taxation assessment or a special assessment.
1. The official valuation of property for ad valorem taxation.
2. A single charge levied against a parcel of real estate to defray the cost of a public improvement that presumably will benefit only the properties it serves, e.g., assessment for the installation of sidewalks, curbs, or sewer and water lines.
3. A determination of the amount paid by or to the owners of real estate to defray the cost of a public improvement that is presumed to benefit the properties it serves in an amount at least equal to the cost of the improvement, e.g., assessment of benefits and/or damages for public sewer or water lines.
assessment date (date of valuation)
The status date for tax purposes. Appraised values reflect the status of the property and any partially completed construction as of this date
1. The head of an assessment agency; sometimes used collectively to refer to all administrators of the assessment function. (IAAO)
2. One who discovers, lists, and values real property for ad valorem taxation.
property tax
Any tax that is imposed on persons on account of their ownership or possession of property and is measured by the number of units, the value, or some presumptive evidence of number of units or value, of such property. Note: This tax is generally, but not necessarily, intended to be a direct, proportional ad valorem tax.
tax exemption
Total exemption or freedom from tax; granted to educational, charitable, religious, and other nonprofit organizations. Partial exemptions from ad valorem tax are granted to homesteads in some states.
tax rate
The factor used to calculate the total tax for a property, typically expressed in dollars per $100 or $1,000 (mills) of assessed value. The tax rate can be calculated by dividing the total amount of the taxes for a community by the total assessed value of all properties in the community.
Source for all definitions: Appraisal Institute, The Dictionary of Real Estate Appraisal, 5th ed. (Chicago: Appraisal Institute, 2010).


text:
Enjoy a FREE Cole Haan Bag with any American Airlines Brand Store personal order purchase totaling over $75!
This item has a production time of 7 business days.
Minimum order quantity is 1.
Production is calculated on business days and doesn't include transit (shipping) time.
Domestic Transit Time is 2 Business Days. International Transit Time is 3 Business Days.
We have thousands of additional items that we can provide in bulk, including completely
custom orders and special requests for corporate orders.
Click below for more information, or just email us at
8am - 5pm Central Time
Satisfaction Survey
Privacy policy
Terms of Use
Copyright 2023 Overture, LLC. All rights reserved.


text:
Acoholism, Alaska, Alcohol, Anchorage, Confirmatin bias, Drinking, Flagstaff, Perception, prejudice
I just walked into my hotel. Its almost 3:00am here in Anchorage. I immediately walked into the gift shop and grabbed two sodas, a bag of Cheetos and package of skittles. Perhaps it was my clumsy movements. Perhaps it was the hour. My tunnel-vision stare, perhaps? Either way, I'm sober enough to know the night clerk had me pegged for drunk. He had that particular air of one who is humoring the completely addled for just so long as it takes to get them on their way. Fair enough, I thought. Yes, indeed, I did just close down a bar, and I'm at least 2 sheets (if not 3) to the wind. Perhaps I deserve the condescension.
Fair enough.
I recall once, when I briefly worked at a cabin resort, a particular school teacher used to come and stay with us. She would down a fair bit of wine and then fail to use out one pay-phone correctly. We were in the middle of Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona, and Cell Phones simply didn't work there, so that pay-phone was her only option. Having been told that the pay-phone wasn't working, I would ask her what message she received on trying to dial out. If she could remember it accurately, I could tell what the problem was; whether it was her card, a wrong number, or something else entirely. I knew the messages, and I knew what they meant. What I didn't know what how to get her to take the message seriously in her state. She would just tell me the card didn't work. When I asked what the specific wording of the message had been, she would look at me, weaving a little, and say; "It says it didn't work." In the end I let her use the house phone, because I just couldn't unscramble the problem she had without her at least telling me what the message had been. I could clearly see that she thought me an illiterate ass for asking her questions she thought she had already answered. I, for my own part, wondered if should would even understand me when she was sober.
Mutual contempt is a mutal solace, I suppose.
Anyway, I reckon I thought about her much as the man at the hotel desk must have thought about me.
But I'm not just a drunkard! I'm so much more!
So, must many people have thought to themselves as they were treated as just another drunk by someone somewhere. It's easy to consider yourself worth more than your own slurred speech and your blurred vision, but it's a bit more difficult to think of a complete stranger who is clearly exhibiting such conditions as anything more than the sum total of his drunken idiocies.
It's an odd thing. Those of us that do drink are bound to drink to excess at some point in our lives. And drinking in excess, none of us are particularly dignified. Yet some get pass, and others don't. What makes the difference?
I can think of nights playing beer frizbee in grad school, vomitting in the sink of the basement beneath my friends apartment complex. Or was that another friend that did that? I don't remember really. It's been 20+ years and quite a few amber ale's since that night. Still everyone was a friend there that morning. We were drunk, yes, but we were human. We saw each other home and we called to make sure everyone was okay the next day. We would never have mistaken each other for mere drunks.
My Dad drank a glass or three of Christian Brothers' Brandy every night since pretty much the age at which I was old enough to notice (Okay, sometimes it was E&J). I never thought of him as a drunk, net even the night that he drove home at the wee hours of the morning and sat in the car inexplicably as I waited for him to come in. I finally went out to find him crying. He'd blown a bit more on the slot machines than either he or Mom normally allowed themselves to do that evening, and it bothered him a great deal. "I think I'm an alcoholic," he said. I could hardly believe my ears. It was a couple hundred dollars he'd lost that night, hardly enough to blow the mortgage, but Dad was genuinely disturbed by the night's events. That he'd driven home was another cause for concern, but I never could tell just how far under the influence he had been that night. Perhaps I didn't want to. I can still count on one hand the number of times I thought my father was actually drunk, and I never thought of him as a drunk, but that night he called it himself. Perhaps, the nightly brandy mattered more than any of us thought it did.
…at least until the next day when the conversation that night was simply forgotten.
Whatever the damage done to our bank accounts, father had worked out a solution. Whatever had frightened him about his own drinking, he had worked out a solution to that too. He was prepared to face the day squarely, and I saw none of the doubt from the night before. I think I talked to him about it, but I don't remember the details of the conversation. I suspect I was all too happy to find my way past the memory of that night. In fact, I don't think I ever saw him drunk again.
Though I certainly did see the brandy. Just a glass or two every night.
If I cut my father an ounce of slack, I certainly didn't cut that same slack for my neighbor. She too had a glass of something on the rocks every night after work. I recall her telling me about how her ex-husband stank of alcohol even when he was sober. She added this to the list of complaints about his abusiveness and general worthlessness. She told me all of this as she drank her own nightly glass of hard liquor, and you bet your ass I noticed. I thought of her as a worthless drunk, someone who buried herself in a glass every night.
Harsh, I know.
A double standard, I also know.
I knew my father. I knew his goals and his values as well as his frustrations, and I knew his weaknesses as anyone who has ever loved another knew them of those they loved. Falling down drunk, he would always be the man I most admired in life. Of my neighbor, I knew mostly frustrations. I knew her to be a pain in the ass at best and a complete fuck-up at worst. I of course knew this mostly from the talk of my parents, and from my own encounters with her. It was easy to think of her as a mere drunk
I also knew that she had a Masters Degree in Archaeology, that she had raised two daughters despite an ugly divorce and who knows what else the woman had dealt with in her life. I think about that now and realize I should probably have found my way to giving her a little more credit than I did at the time. That she was capable of serious study was a mystery to me, and I never saw any of her struggles with a trace of empathy. She would always be a drunk to my eyes, even if she were sober, and my father never would be, not even when he was in fact quite drunk.
So what makes the difference between a drunk and a person?
I reckon that's a good deal of the distinction itself, knowing the person in the first place, or at least having enough in common to imagine the person in the first place. Without that, it's all too easy to think of someone who is actually drunk as someone whose drunkenness is a fairly complete personal account.
My neighbor in Fort Defiance always struck me as a drunk. I could recount the many irritations he inflicted upon me during my time on the Navajo Nation, not the least of them being his threats one afternoon to burn down the house with me in it. I learned of these the next day when his brother forced him to apologize to me. All I had noticed was that he was shouting something at me from outside. I had already written him off that day. Didn't even realize the drama that was unfolding out there.
That same neighbor once told me that he was going to hitchhike to Flagstaff and get a job. This was well into the morning. He had awoken me on a work night, quite drunk and very depressed, and somewhere in the midst of telling me all his woes, this neighbor announced his great plan for turning his life around. I can't remember what I said, but apparently I did express some doubt. He was quite offended. Asked what I meant by that,I felt fairly flat-footed for a moment. I fished around in my brain and finally came up with one thing which while very true was not nearly as judgemental as the thought that probably led to the comment in the first place. I knew that strategy wouldn't have worked for me. I wouldn't be able to just hitchhike into a town, totally broke, and land a job just like that. So, I said so. My neighbor was happy with that response. He took it as a sign of respect, and in a sense it was, albeit one which was quite consistent with the disrespect that had triggered my skeptical comment to begin with.
I did notice that he never actually hitch-hiked into Flagstaff and got a job.
Neither did I.
Not like that anyway.
I always thought of that neighbor as a drunk. I knew him to be a person, even cared about him, I suppose, but I never quite shook the sense that his life had been claimed by liquor. That neighbor used to sober up from time to time, and then he'd REALLY be a pain the ass. Mostly, he'd need a ride to work, because when he was sober he would inevitably get a job. When his brother (who lived next door) stopped giving him rides, the man would turn to me. I remember one summer, I would return from an effectively 16 hour day, starving, with a couple chapters yet to read so I could teach the next day and sure enough he wanted a ride to work. Oh how I wished his brother would give him a ride.
…or that he would go back to being a drunk.
Now there is a damning thought!
But I had it just the same.
And sadly, that wish did come true.
Damn me anyhow for wishing it!
Years later, I lived in Flagstaff. I used to go to a bar named Charlie's once every week or two, mostly to watch a bluegrass band named Second Harvest. Loved their music! A friend of a friend once sneered at the place, describing it as a gay bar. I always figured it was a place where gay people would be welcomed, but not so much a dedicated gay bar. Just the same, it was my drinking establishment of choice.
I recall one night watching as a brand-new security guy glowered at two men dancing together. It was a spectacular display. Not them. HIM. The look on his face was one of utter contempt. I could just imagine him thinking of reasons to eject them, reasons he never quite acted upon. He did, however, find cause to eject one elderly Navajo man, an individual who though quite drunk had been sitting harmlessly in a corner. As the 'drunk' was escorted out and onto the street, I couldn't help but wonder at the numerous college students boisterously enjoying their own states of inebriation throughout the bar. Some of them were even native, but they were dressed as college kids. They fit, so to speak. Many of those still in the bar were well past the drunkenness of the man put outside, but they were young and they were middle class.
They weren't drunks. They were just drunk.
He was a drunk, at least as far as security was concerned that night.
They would probably think of him the same way if he had been sober.
Years earlier, I had already encountered that same privilege one weekend when I was doing research in Farmington, New Mexico. I came out of an Arby's one afternoon to find an empty six-pack of beer in the back of my 'tribee' (tribal vehicle). It was a good thing I noticed before someone else did, but I couldn't help wondering at the thought process of whoever put it there. Did he think he was going to get a Navajo in trouble? Would he have done it had he realized it was a white guy driving the truck? Or maybe it was someone who noticed the white driver, and thought to generate some trouble for the guy clearly out of place. I believe this was the same weekend a waitress invited me to a bar. She made a point to tell me it was where "our kind of people" hung out. I still wonder if she would have invited me had she knew where I lived, where I worked, or what kind of vehicle I was driving?
On a side note, I once walked into a random bar in Farmington. It was a short walk from my hotel, so I thought I'd skip over and drink a beer or three before going back for the evening. No sooner than I entered when I realized I was the only white guy in there, and several people where staring at me in not so friendly ways. Had I been with someone it would have been different. I would still have been a white guy, yes, but I would have been their white guy. I'd done that once or twice before. It works. In this instance I was alone and feeling very much like an intruder at that particular moment. What was I to do? Try to tell people I'm one of the good guys? Hell, I wouldn't have listened to me. Why should they? I also figured if I turned around and headed out immediately that would set off all kinds of red flags. If I stayed too long I figured someone would cause trouble. Maybe I could talk my way out of it; maybe I couldn't. So, I sat down and ordered one beer.I drank it and left. As I headed out, I could swear I saw the bartender nodding, as if to tell me I played that one right.
Okay, that last story is probably all manner of confirmation bias, but anyway, that's how I felt at the time. And I'm still feeling a little buzzed, so I'm leaving it on the page, against my better judgement of course.
My better judgement begins on the other end of a long sleep.
I lived briefly on the south-side of Chicago. By briefly, I mean 3 years, minus the summers. In any event, it was long enough to begin to recognize some of the homeless people in the area. Maybe it was my long hair but one fellow always insisted on trying to sell me incense. I bought a pack. (Think I gave it to a friend of mine.) It should come as no surprise of course that many of these people appeared quite often to be under the influence of something or other. It would be easy to think of them as mere drunks.
One moment stands out particularly in my mind. Some young men in their twenties were talking to one of the homeless individuals. This one was often very drunk. In fact, he was often incapable even of asking for change. When he was that far into his liquor, the man would simply hold out his hand and groan, or mumble something he might have thought of as speech but which no-one but him could really parse. Anyway, the young men, were chatting and laughing. It was almost friendly, but not quite.
One of the young men asked quite loudly; "Do you remember me?"
Swaying a bit, the man slurred out a 'yes'.
"Who am I."
His answer? "YOU!"
Now THAT was a mike drop if I ever saw one.
So, what do all these stories add up to? Hell, they probably add up to porridge as far as I can tell. I've been drinking. Remember! But if I may take a moment to try and sense the make of the matter, I would guess they start with one obvious fact that drinking begets all manner of foolishness. All manner of terrible things happen once people start tipping those damned bottles. I'm fortunate enough to be one of those people who can stop after 2 or 3 beers and simply call it a night (many can't), else I might have a lot more interesting stories.
…or perhaps others would have the stories about me.
More to the point, I'm often struck by the perception of drunkenness. Where drunken behavior is concerned, we can tolerate an awful lot from our own kind, however we choose to identify them. Strangers get far less patience. Cross a few social boundaries and the benefit of the doubt wears thin very quickly. Often as not, race and class can provide all the boundary one needs to think of someone not just as a drunk person but as nothing but a drunk, someone whose total value as a human being can be summed up in their smell, their slurred speech, and in whatever other foolishness they have brought with them.
Sometimes, you don't even need that kind of boundary.
A few hours ago, I sat next to a man about my age, my ethnicity, and near as I can tell about the same economic status as my own. He was eating soup and struggling to get his head under control while the house band at Humpy's played its last tune of the night. He was chatting quite a bit, though I couldn't make any sense of it. Nobody else was in ear-shot. I still don't know is he meant to be talking to me, or if he was talking to an old love, an imaginary adversary, or perhaps even his own guardian angel. Either way I thought of the man as a drunk. He was a bit further into his cups than me, to be sure, but I don't figure that quite explains the distinction. To me, meeting the man under such circumstances, he was simply a drunk, no more and no less. I on the other hand was just drunk, and there was a difference.
At least until I hit the hotel desk.


text:
Donor gives Purple Heart to stabbing victim
Associated Press
WAUKESHA — The Waukesha girl who was stabbed 19 times, allegedly by two classmates who thought her death would please a fictional online character, has received a special gift.
The 12-year-old girl is out of the hospital and has been recovering at home. Her family had asked that well-wishers send her purple hearts, reflecting her favorite color and shape. She was inundated with paper hearts from around the country.
Now one anonymous donor has given her the real thing: a military Purple Heart. The medal is awarded to veterans who are wounded or killed in action.
The girl's family said Tuesday the medal came with a card that read, "The only heart I could find! Be strong!"
The girl's family has asked that her name not be revealed.


text:
Hope that Santa was good to all of you. This week, we're wrapping the top stories from all across Ars into a single, tidy package. Enjoy!
From Cinepak to H.265: a brief history of video compression. Today's video-rich Internet wouldn't be possible without highly efficient compression. Ars rewinds the history of digital video compression to help understand how we arrived at the land of YouTube and Hulu.
How to obtain and install an SSL/TLS certificate, for free. Anyone operating a server on any scale should want a digital certificate to encrypt data between clients and services, whether for personal, office, or public use. Ars tells you how to obtain and install one, for free.
Verizon: $350 ETFs are a good thing, and they help the poor. Verizon tells the FCC that its new jumbo sized early termination fees don't even compensate the telco for the total cost of VZ's latest lineup of smart phone devices. The statement comes in response to an FCC letter of inquiry on the matter.
3D high-def movies coming to your living room on Blu-ray. Get ready for the 3D movie revolution to come your your home theater next year. The Blu-ray Disc Association has approved a final spec to deliver high def 3D movies on Blu-ray discs. If you don't want to spend the cash for 3D hardware, it is thankfully backward compatible with today's Blu-ray drives.
App Store success several times what Apple likely expected. The success of the iPhone App Store surprised everyone, even Apple itself.
Intel reveals next-generation Atom details. Intel has revealed the launch specs for the first-ever line of x86 products that contain both a GPU and CPU on the same die. Pine Trail, the next-generation Atom platform, will pave the way for future integrated CPU/GPU parts from both Intel and AMD.
Microsoft barred from selling Word, has plan for workaround. A federal appeals court has told Microsoft it needs to stop selling Word on January 11, 2010 due to its patent-infringing support for editing Custom XML.
Apple allegedly preparing devs for mystery demo in January. Apple may be planning to demo a device that's larger than an iPhone in January of 2010, according to the latest rumors. In fact, some developers may already be preparing their apps for it.
Satellite TV to FCC: we're special, don't make us open up. DirecTV says that the new FCC push to bust open video should only apply to cable; satellite is plenty competitive already. Also, a tale of woe from a Comcast subscriber illustrates just why some common video decryption standards are needed.
Has Atari gone Chaotic Evil over D&D publishing rights? Atari is facing a lot of legal drama over the way it has conducted itself lately concerning its Dungeons & Dragons game publishing rights.
Comcast settles P2P throttling class-action for $16 million. Comcast got itself in hot water when it decided to use reset packets to slow down BitTorrent traffic back in 2007. Now, the company has settled a class-action lawsuit in Pennsylvania, promising to pay out $16 million to affected users.
Big Music: damn the numbers, give us antipiracy laws anyway. If P2P use is declining or holding steady without new "antipiracy" laws, are those laws still needed? Music trade groups say yes.
From Australia to the UAE: why games get the banhammer. We're all used to hearing stories about games being banned in different countries, but what will actually get a game banned outside of the USA? The answers might surprise you.


text:
I'm thrilled to announce that my ArtFire Studio is the featured studio collection this weekend on ArtFire.
You can see 12 items from my ArtFire studio in this collection here.
What's really cool is this video montage of my collection featured on YouTube.
Many thanks to AndreaDesigns and the ArtFire Crazy Train Guild for this honor.
To view my entire ArtFire Studio, click here.


text:
Jessamyn Duke thought at the time she might be getting the short end of the stick, but she wasn't quite sure.
Immediately after eating a second knee from Miriam Nakamoto (2-0) at Friday's Invicta FC 5 event, Duke (2-1) thought there was a good chance she was grounded, making the knee illegal.
But with veteran referee John McCarthy running the action, she also second-guessed herself in the heat of the moment. It wasn't until later, in the back after the knockout loss, that she and her team were sure they had a pretty good reason to be upset at how things went down.
On Monday, Duke and her team filed an official appeal of the loss with the Missouri State Office of Athletics, Duke today told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). Now she awaits the commission's response and what she hopes is her loss to Nakamoto being flipped to a no contest.
A little over midway through the first round against Nakamoto, Duke took a knee to the head along the fence and quickly dropped to her knees. While her knees still were on the ground, Nakamoto landed a second knee to the head – an illegal one. McCarthy at that point pulled Nakamoto off and waved off the fight.
The official ruling was a knockout win for Nakamoto – with McCarthy saying the second illegal knee was inconsequential because Duke was out from the first one.
But as Duke and her team see things, if the first knee was the one that ended the fight, why didn't McCarthy move in to stop it at that point?
"What you see pretty clearly is that after the first knee, 'Big' John McCarthy stepped forward to observe the action, like he would any fighter that's injured – if they're stunned, they're going to step forward and look at the action," Duke said. "But he did not move in to stop the fight – the fight was on, the fight was still going, as it should be. There are plenty of fights where a fighter gets stunned and the referee gets really close, but they don't stop it – they give the fighter a chance to fight through. That's what he was doing.
"But instead of following it up with a legal shot, she followed it up with an illegal knee to my head. That's when I collapsed and went down – and then Big John jumped in and pulled her off of me and called the fight. That's when it kind of contradicts what the official statement was – that it was the first knee that ended the fight, because quite clearly it wasn't."
Duke said the appeal is nothing personal against McCarthy, a referee she said she respects. But if she's going to have a loss on her record – her first as a pro – it appears she would much rather it be from a loss that didn't leave such a bad taste in her mouth.
"I honestly believe 'Big' John is one of the best referees out there today," she said. "But he is human, and that's why we have commissions and officials so if a bad call is made, we can appeal it. It's nothing personal. He made a mistake. I think he made an error in judgment. Maybe he thought he stopped it after the first knee, or intended to. But the fact is, he didn't and an illegal strike was thrown. That's why we're contesting it."
Duke said she was stunned by the first knee, but that she wasn't completely out. In fact, she said, she was getting ready to try to recover from the knee by going after a takedown when the second knee came.
That's how she knew she was still with it enough to keep going, not knocked out from the first one, as the official ruling said.
"As soon as it happened, I was like, 'S—. That was a knee, and I took it,'" Duke said. "Instantly, my thoughts shifted to, 'I need to finish the takedown, I need to grab her legs.' And then, bam – that's when it hit me. I didn't see it, but I knew right away it was a knee. I knew I was stunned, but I was like, 'You took a hard shot – now finish the takedown.' That's what my arm was doing, and that's about the time I got hit (with the second one)."
Duke said it's not in her nature to make a fuss over what her instinct told her at the time may have been an illegal knee. Instead, she went to the back and that's when she was immediately approached by other teams and fighters telling her camp that there might be grounds for an appeal.
"Even initially from the moment it happened, I thought, 'I think my knees were down. Maybe they weren't. Surely they would've called that,'" she said. "It wasn't until we got back to the warmup area that we got bum rushed by people saying, 'They showed that replay – you need to go get a commissioner. You need to appeal that – it was pretty blatant.'
"I don't want to be a poor sport. I don't want to be the fighter that, after taking a knee to the skull is like, 'I was fine!' only to find out later that wasn't the case. I'd rather suck it up and be a good sport and shake my opponent's hand, thank her and thank her coaches, and then later, when I can see some footage, then I can definitively say, 'OK, that was a bad call.'"
And with that knowledge firmly in place, the written appeal was filed. Now Duke awaits the result.
Invicta FC 5 took place at Ameristar Casino in Kansas City, Mo., and aired via online pay-per-view. Check out the video below of Duke's Monday interview with MMAjunkie.com Radio.
For more on Invicta FC 5, stay tuned to the MMA Events section of the site.
MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino's Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by "Gorgeous" George Garcia, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian "Goze" Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.


text:
One of our most popular designs, Vermont Evergreens last long after the holidays to bring nature inspired décor to your home all year long.
The VERMONT EVERGREEN is available in several tree heights.
The beauty of a New England forest is captured with brilliant clarity in this Vermont Evergreen tree, one of our most iconic designs. As in nature, each of these trees is unique: they're handmade by Simon Pearce artisans to showcase the purity of our materials and honor the regal yet rough-hewn essence of an evergreen. Collect multiples to create your own shimmering forest or give one as an elegantly elemental gift.


text:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Pretzel bars for sweet and salty fans...
Just saying the name of these Cranberry Pretzel Cashew Bars sent Jeff into a tizzy - lots of his favorite flavors all packed up in a tidy little bar. He was none too happy to find out most of them are being sent into the office for the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day!
To provide a sturdy, crunchy base, I blitzed loads of salty pretzels in the food processor to finely crush them - you could also do this with a zip-loc bag and a heavy rolling pin. Brown sugar and liquid gold, a.k.a melted butter, are combined with those crumbs so they all stick together - to provide a little extra strength and prevent sogginess, a bit of beaten egg white is then mixed in.
Once the crust was partially baked, we scattered the hot top with chewy dried cranberries and lightly toasted cashews. To glue those two to the top of the pretzel base, a bit more butter and rich brown sugar are brought to a boil and poured all over the top. It may look like there is not enough, but just do your best to evenly pour it over the top. Once the pan goes back into the oven, the heat will melt the mixture again and it will bubble and spread to all the naked nooks and crannies.
To dress up the slab of bars, we drizzled the top with melted fine-quality white chocolate and once given enough time for it to set, sliced them into neat squares. The caramel layer on top is sweet, the pretzel base is salty, the cranberries add chew (and a bit of sweet tartness), while the cashews add crunch and a nutty punch. Simply put? A p-a-r-t-y in the mouth! The drizzle of white chocolate was a wonderful contrast, but if you dig bittersweet chocolate more, don't let me stop you from loading it on instead. If you really want to add a fancy (and expensive) twist, exchange those cashews for roasted macadamia nuts to highlight their buttery crunch.
While I've expressed our love for leftovers to you before, some days we just want a simple fluffernutter or another kind of "plain" lunch. Since there are just two of us here, I'll often seek out recipes that only have two servings or can be modified to be for such occasions, just like this Penne with Spinach, Cherry Tomatoes and Gorgonzola Sauce I made for dinner tonight!
Use your favorite large pasta shape that resembles a tube - we used a whole-wheat penne for us, but you could also use a ziti or rigatoni pasta. While the pasta takes a dip in boiling water flavored like the sea, we tossed halved plump cherry tomatoes into a skillet, along with crushed red pepper for kick and a bit of minced garlic. Once you can smell the garlic, half-and-half and a few tablespoons of crumbled Gorgonzola cheese is stirred in. Gorgonzola can be pretty pungent and in-your-face, so you could swap that out with a more mild blue or even an ingredient like cream cheese to keep the flavor subtle, yet still retain a good mouth feel.
Gorgonzola can be iffy with Jeff - sometimes it flies under the radar and he gobbles up whatever dish it is in, other times he will turn his nose and doesn't enjoy the taste. However, this dish tonight passed with flying colors - so fickle! I liked the freshness the cherry tomatoes brought and there was plenty of that creamy sauce to go around. Feeling extra ravenous or need to serve more than two? You could easily scale this recipe up to serve what you need. Quite speedy to make, I almost wish I did double the recipe because I would have been quite satisfied with having another portion of this for lunch tomorrow!
10 comments:
That treat sounds interesting. It's all new to me to make a pretzel base but I think I would like it. I like this time of the year and all those treats that you try before the Xmas season.ReplyDelete
my taste buds are screaming just reading this post--both recipes sound delicious!!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous9/24/2008 08:08:00 AM
I made that pasta a few weeks ago and just loved it. It was so good. It did heat well the next day for leftovers--sometimes I find cream-based pastas turn gluey, but not this one!ReplyDelete
I'm impressed you're starting your holiday baking testing already. I'm impressed you do testing of recipes at all! I'm just a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal.
I'm going to try the pretzel bars. That sweet and salty combo really gets to me.ReplyDelete
Helene - Me too... this is the fun part!ReplyDelete
TTFN - Thanks!
Jen - Good to know!
Mary - Enjoy!
Both of these look so good, Joe! I know I've saved that pasta recipe from CL. Now I can't wait to try the Pretzel bars.ReplyDelete
Pamela - Thanks!ReplyDelete
I love the pretzel bar idea but how much sugar and butter do you use?!ReplyDelete
Elizabeth - Click on the link at the end of the post, under "recipes", to read how much you need.ReplyDelete
Oh lolz. Sorry, I didn't read carefully. Thanks!!!ReplyDelete


text:
BK Electronics' subwoofers are clever bits of kit, and in a function-leads-form way you could be forgiven for confusing their products with a couple of other brands. A veneered cabinet enclosing some air and made of thick MDF, plus a panel with an amplifier and connections on it, are going to breed this sort of look.
In my opinion, a real indicator of cunning enlightenment - and true of any brand of sub that has this - is the use of both high- and low-level inputs at the same time. It isn't the 'more-is-better, it'll be louder and go to eleven' thing. It is about the Low Frequency Effects, or LFE, channel from your processor.
Missing out on bass
A movie's sound engineer will put bass in there as he sees fit during the mixdown, but if the recordist who made the soundtrack material has created stuff with deep frequencies in but the mixer doesn't suss it, the LFE channel doesn't get the bass and the movie is less exciting as a result.
It has been happening since the days of Lion King. Check out the partridges under the elephant feet in the beginning. They missed them out in the rears! And the elephants' footfalls only boom in the woofer channel sporadically. So, using both inputs is about picking up all the LF information, and creating better bass by sending all that was recorded in that passband to the woofer.
Of course, you do need to have the levels of these two inputs separately controlled, and this means twice as many knobs as normal, which is why it's not often done. So, when you find a sub with this feature, it's almost always a good sign, and means a brand which knows its onions.
The passion of the driver
Another good sign of this BK XLS200MkII is the mad-looking driver. Like the one on the REL, it is hugely heavy-duty and has a big top suspension surround.
The enclosure sits on stubby feet with its driver pointing downwards, and the look is 'woody cube'. Yet despite its small size this box throbs with passion. It drops with a bizarrely deep extension and, despite a small cubic capacity, seems to hold a melody and make some decent dynamics.
Forty minutes into Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, an axe whumps into a table - and this woofer loved it. When the gang head to the isle of Tortuga around the 48-minute mark, there's a massive, bassy swell in the soundtrack. And whaddyaknow?
The XLS200 loved that, too.
We say...
This BK is bogglingly potent for its size and absurdly good value for money. Just think: you could have three or four of these for the cost of the bigger ones in this group...


text:
About King George - San Francisco Hotel
Located one block from Union Square, the King George is a charming boutique hotel with a European-style ambiance and exceptional service. Relax in newly-renovated rooms and suites, enjoy a glass of wine in Winston's Lounge and host a meeting in 500 sq. ft. of event space.


text:
(visited by Peter Scharfenberg)
22-Jul-2006 -- This particular confluence point (CP) is located at the water of the Davis strait that separates Greenland and Canada, nearly 14 km from Greenland's coast, west west north (WWN) of Sisimiut/Holsteinborg. For more details see the 1:250 000 map "saga map No. 8, Sisimiut/Kangerlussuaq".
It was Saturday, July 22nd, 8.00 p. m. when we were let on board of the passenger ship "Sarfaq Ittuk" (#5) at Sisimiut/Holsteinborg harbour (where the first 180 km part of our hiking tour ended - for details c. f. CP N67/W53). The ship was heading north for Aasiaat/Egedesminde. Obviously the route could be assumed to bring us close to the point of desire. Thus it was a question of the weather and light, whether or not we would see land. Over the daytime, the visibility was less than 1 km, but the deep hanging clouds lifted a little bit during the evening hours.
At 10.30 p. m. we achieved our best position, 450 m from the CP, according to the GPS (#4). This deviation has had absolutely no effect on the views #1 to #3, while view west did show only water, anywhere. View east (#1) is probably the most interesting one. The mountains with the white tops in the middle of the picture can be assigned to the 1448 m "Aqqutikitsoq", just the same mountains as already shown as view #7 in connection with CP N67/W53. The photo made for the view north (#2), despite smaller pieces of ice, displays spots of islands, too small to be identified. Even the view south (#3) shows land, but this could be due to the wide angle of the camera lens.


text:
After carefully making our precarious 5 mile exit from Nutallburg, the next stop on our West Virginia ghost town tour was Thurmond – aka the place that seemed like the easiest to find out of the multitude of dubiously mapped options.
Unlike Nutallburg, Thurmond was bustling epicenter of train travel and commerce, seeing more transportation of coal, rather than the manufacturing of it. Formally incorporated in 1900, the town was named for Confederate Captain William Thurmond, who was offered 73 acres of land along the river as a good will gesture for just $20. The C&O railroad was routed through the area shortly after, but the town was slow to grow with only one house constructed at the time. It was not until Thomas G. McKell of neighboring Glen Jean negotiated with the railroad for a branch up Dunloup Creek, that Thurmond became the boom town it was known to be, with the line becoming one of the railroad's busiest branches. Despite this growth of business for both parties, McKell and Thurmond became bitter enemies.
Like Nutallburg, and the most of the area's ghost towns, Thurmond is accessible via a long, winding, narrow road – but this one is paved almost the entire way, so it at least feels like you're supposed to drive a car on it. To get to Thurmond, you have to start out in the aforementioned Glen Jean, which was actually the bigger of the two towns at the time – Thurmond was viewed like its suburb. Unlike McKell, Captain Thurmond was a staunch Baptist with a distaste for drinking and gambling, thus imposing a town-wide ban on both. His prosperous neighbor, however, decided to take advantage of this, first, by taking over the western bank of Thurmond and reclassifying it as a Glen Jean, despite it being 7 miles away (I love how that was even a thing that was possible), and then promptly building the imposing, and now legendary, DunGlen Hotel to host a feast of vice, including dancing, drinking, gambling and prostitution. (Fun fact: the Dunglen was said to host the longest lasting poker game in history, lasting 14 years! The only reason why the game stopped was because the hotel burned down.) The hotel quickly thrived and thus began the lifelong hatred between McKell and Thurmond.
When reading accounts of past visitors, one gentleman recalled stepping over a dead body when he first got off the train in Thurmond. There were also many stories of frequent shoot outs, usually from poker games gone awry. There was also a saying from locals that lasted decades, "The only difference between Hell and Thurmond is that a river runs through Thurmond." Despite the feuds and the sketchy reputation, Thurmond still prospered. Fifteen passenger trains passed through town a day – its depot serving as many as 95,000 passengers a year. The town's stores and saloons did remarkable business, and its hotels and boarding houses were constantly overflowing. However, this prosperity was brief. As the automobile was becoming more popular, the highway took more and more business away; and with the advent of diesel locomotives, and less coal coming in from local mines, the town began a steady decline.
The local vice began to curtail, as well, with the passing of Prohibition in 1914, effectively ending McKell's prized red light district. In 1922, a large fire destroyed parts of Thurmond, and finally the DunGlen Hotel was set ablaze in 1930. Shortly after, the rest of the town was a slowly collapsing house of cards until the town became a virtual ghost town (save for a handful of residents) by the 1950s.
When finally reaching Thurmond after miles of narrow road, we entered the town via a tight two-lane bridge, with one narrow lane for cars and the other for train travel, which I was grateful to not have to share with an locomotive. To our surprise, there were a few workers out and about doing some sort of work on the tracks. It was unclear where we were allowed to park, or if we were even supposed to be there, so we kept driving along the road next to the tracks.
The town has a few of its commercial buildings and train station still standing next to the tracks, looking like an old western town straight out the movies…but in the South. There are also several residential buildings still in tact, precariously hanging on the hillside behind the tracks. As we continued to drive, surveying the buildings around us, our paved road turned to gravel, and the only stopping point seemed to be when our car got stuck. With no where to turn around, we had to back up for a fairly long stretch of curved road, hoping that the construction workers wouldn't notice our idiocy (or get hit) – but for the duration of our visit, I never saw them so much as glance at us.
Like the rest of the New River Gorge ghost towns, the town is property of National Park Service. The train station was turned into an information center, but was closed at the time of our visit, and some of the commercial buildings housed a display in their windows of some old photos of the town. The tracks, however, are still active, with a few trains passing through daily. Thurmond is also still trafficked by Amtrak. While it is not a regular stop (it was discontinued as a stop in 2006), trains will stop there if someone is on the platform or if a passenger on the train requests the stop. To date, Thurmond is the 2nd least used station, just after Sanderson, Texas.
With not much poking around to do along the tracks, we proceeded up the hill to see what was left of the houses behind us. Most of the houses were cleaned out with nothing left inside aside from peeling paint and rotting wood. Sadly, no signs of gambling or prostitution. We did come across one questionable barn that looked like something large and menacing broke its way out of. We also ran across a lone chicken that somehow found its way to Thurmond. Maybe he's connected to the barn?
Despite the seeming desolation, Thurmond is not quite a ghost town just yet. According to a 2013 census, the population is holding steady at a stubborn 5 people. Where they were located, I'm not entirely sure, since we did poke through most of the houses, but perhaps that better explains our chicken friend's existence.


text:
½ cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1-1/2 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons nondairy creamer
½ cup chopped pecans
½ cup chopped candied fruits (citron/cherries combination)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together shortening, sugar, vanilla and egg until light and fluffy. Stir together flour, baking soda and nutmeg. Add it with the nondairy creamer and mix well. Stir in nuts and candied fruit. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets. Press down lightly. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.


text:
Dragons Intrigue Metallic Dragon Backflow Incense Burner
From Fantasy brand Nemesis Now's giftware collection, this Fantasy Dragon Backflow Incense Burner would be a welcome addition to any alternative home! Curled over the top of a bubbling geyser, this Dragon's stares inquisitively. A small metal tray is hidden at the top where a small incense cone cane be placed. Cast in the finest resin before being hand-painted, this piece would be perfect for anyone who loves these mythical beasts.
Metallic Dragon Backflow Incense Burner
Cast in the finest resin.
Lovingly hand-painted
Size 21.5cm
Due to the planned Royal Mail strikes there may be delays with your deliveries.
CWU members are taking national strike action in December 2022. We're sorry for the disruption this is likely to cause you.
Strike action on the following dates:
The CWU has formally notified Royal Mail they plan to call on their members who collect, sort and deliver parcels and letters to take national strike action on Friday 9 December, Sunday 11 December, Wednesday 14 December and Thursday 15 December 2022.
Here are a few things to consider while you wait for your order:
- We ship on business days, Monday - Friday, excluding national bank holidays.
- For all UK orders, we offer free standard delivery, which is usually sent via Royal Mail. This service normally delivers in 3-5 days, depending on location.
- Any orders placed on a Saturday, Sunday and after 2pm on a Friday will mean your order will be dispatched on Monday.
- As soon as your order is dispatched, you will receive a confirmation email with a tracking number.
ORDER TRACKINGWe rely on a global network of shipping partners (DPD, Parcelforce) as well as local postal services (Royal Mail, Evri) to get your order to your doorstep as soon as possible. As soon as your order is dispatched, you will receive a confirmation email with a tracking number.
|Delivery Schedule
|Cost Per Shipment
Royal Mail Standard
|3-5 working days, Monday - Saturday
STANDARD DELIVERYWe offer a free Royal Mail standard delivery for all orders. Orders will normally arrive between 3-5 working days. This applies only to mainland UK postal addresses.
TIMING OF ORDERSWe process orders in our warehouse from 9am to 2pm Monday to Friday. Therefore, if your order is placed on a bank holiday, after 2pm, late on a Friday or on the weekend, please expect a delay. Standard deliveries will normally arrive in 3-5 working days.
INTERNATIONAL ORDERSWe're sorry, but due to the high cost of customs duty and additional taxes, we currently do not offer international shipping.
BANK HOLIDAY DELIVERYOver national UK bank holidays, delivery will be delayed. Orders will be fulfilled on the next working day and will take 3-5 working days to be delivered.
We have a 30-day return policy, which means you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return.
Returns accepted in line with our returns policy


text:
Welcome Visitor
7-day Free Trial
- Access to everything
- Cancel any time
I could spend hours and hours poring through the documents available here.— Dick Eastman
Researching your family history is like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. The more pieces you have, the more complete picture you can create. At Fold3 we want to help you build your family picture by providing you pieces that have never been available on the internet before.
Through our partnerships with organizations such as the National Archives, Fold3 features images of original documents containing information and stories about your ancestors and the times in which they lived.
- Military records from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War
- Naturalization records
- Personal Histories
- and much more
Create your family history picture today. Start your Fold3 free trial now.


text:
I love Imaginative Play, it's wonderful watching children make sense of our world through pretending. It also develops a number of skills including social skills, language and creativity.
We've been focusing this week on Construction Imaginative Play. Here's our collection of activities, toys and resources for children that love imaginative Play and love diggers!
- Porridge Oats Construction Site Activity – Find out about how to do our fun, Sensory activity here..
- Roll it Riley by WOW Toys – a fun toy to help with constructive imaginative play, read our review here..
- Construction Saver Pack (Winslow Resources) Read our review of this resource that shows that imaginative Play doesn't have to stop for dinner time!
- Make and Colour Cars and Trucks (B Small Publishing)- A brilliant activity book where children can create their own vehicles for imaginative Play, read our review here…
- Giant Road Jigsaw (Orchard Toys) – Read what we thought of this fantastic Jigsaw puzzle that allows children to create their own road to play with!
- Best Construction Themed Books for Kids– Our selection of 14 wonderful books for young children, perfect for digger fans!
- Legoland Discovery Park Manchester– find out about our visit and our favourite bits here..


text:
Tag Archives: legally justified
Shouldn't Other Lives Matter too?
Recently there have been Blacks Lives Matter demonstrations throughout our nation due to the disproportionate numbers shootings of Black people by police. There have also been retaliation shootings and killings of law enforcement offices. Black communities for decades have complained that far too often law enforcement have used excessive lethal force (guns) targeting Black people… Continue reading


text:
NASCAR rail: Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at a glance
WHERE: New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, N.H.
WHEN: TV Start 12:30 p.m. ET
BROADCAST: TNT, live on Sirius satellite radio, channel 128
THE LOWDOWN: Drivers will get an opportunity to use a few of the skills they developed last week now that the series leaves the winding road course in California for the Magic Mile in New Hampshire. This course requires heavy braking and sharp turns, but as an oval the drivers will be back in their comfort zone. Teams in the top 12 in points are also aware that this is the first great test for the Chase, which is only 10 weeks away and will start on this very track.
Last 5 WINNERS:
2007: Denny Hamlin
2006: Kyle Busch
2005: Tony Stewart
2004: Kurt Busch
2003: Jimmie Johnson
Momentum is a remarkable thing. With an average finish of 18th in six previous road course races, Busch was not counted among the favorites last week at Infineon and when he qualified 30th, he certainly did not improve his odds. He got track position early in the race by having the right pit strategy, but he was able to hold the top spot by virtue of speed. Love him or hate him, Busch may very well be the best-rounded driver in the field at the moment.
1. Kyle Busch
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 14.7 in six starts
It really doesn't matter what Busch's past record is on any given track; he has to be a favorite every week until he cools off. Half of his New Hampshire races ended outside the top 10, but he won in 2006.
2. Jeff Burton
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 10.3 in six starts
Burton was not a factor during most of the Toyota / SaveMart 350k, but when the checkers waved he was cruising along in 13th to record his 22nd consecutive top-15 finish.
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 15.0 in six starts
A fourth in this race last year allowed Earnhardt to make a run at Chase contention. He was ultimately unsuccessful in 2007, but there isn't any doubt about him making the playoffs this year.
4. Carl Edwards
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 12.7 in six starts
Edwards seems to be taking a page out of teammate Matt Kenseth's book. Five of his last seven races in 2008 have ended in results of seventh or ninth and that is keeping him in contention for the Chase.
5. Jimmie Johnson
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 13.3 in six starts
Johnson swept victory lane at New Hampshire in 2003, but he has only one more top-five on this course. His fans shouldn't be too concerned, however; every other result except one has been a top-15.
6. Jeff Gordon
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 10.2 in six starts
Gordon's woes continue. After back-to-back finishes outside the top 10, he struggled all day at Infineon despite a third-place result. Loudon may provide some relief since he was second in both 2007 races.
7. Greg Biffle
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 11.7 in six starts
Five of Biffle's last six New Hampshire races have ended in top-15 results and when he was at his best he logged three straight top-fives. Lately, he's been near the top of his game, so expect another.
8. Denny Hamlin
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 6.5 in four starts
Hamlin is a flat track master who won this race last year. He was virtually unstoppable on the Magic Mile until he finished 15th in last fall's Sylvania 300, but that was his first result there worse than sixth.
9. Kasey Kahne
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 18.8 in six starts
Kahne's pole last week surprised the field, but he was not expected to run very strong and his finish of 33rd was not a shock. With two wins and a second in four races prior, however, he should bounce back.
10. Clint Bowyer
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 22.3 in four starts
Bowyer qualified for last year's Chase without a single victory to his credit, which had the media's tongues wagging. He shut them up in short order with a perfect race and a victory at Loudon last fall.
11. Tony Stewart
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 9.5 in six starts
Stewart overcame a dismal qualification last week at Infineon and was challenging for the lead, when his second-place car was sent spinning by a driver running fifth. You've gotta love road racing.
12. Matt Kenseth
Career average finish at New Hampshire: 8.8 in six starts
Kenseth fell out of the top 12 in points following his 30th-place finish at Martinsville in week six and he's been as low as 22nd, but six consecutive top-10s allowed him to claw back into Chase contention.
Average Running Position
New Hampshire, last three years
Rank Driver Average Place
1. Jeff Gordon 7.060
2. Tony Stewart 9.600
3. Denny Hamlin 10.319
4. Kevin Harvick 10.619
5. Jeff Burton 12.141
6. Ryan Newman 12.384
7. Jimmie Johnson 12.623
8. Mark Martin 12.628
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 12.662
10. Kyle Busch 13.016
11. Martin Truex Jr. 13.260
12. Reed Sorenson 14.076
13. Greg Biffle 14.551
14. Matt Kenseth 15.002
15. Carl Edwards 15.173
16. Brian Vickers 16.826
17. Kurt Busch 17.811
18. Clint Bowyer 17.832
19. Juan Pablo Montoya 18.248
20. Kasey Kahne 18.523
21. Casey Mears 19.151
22. Bobby Labonte 19.744
23. Elliott Sadler 20.463
24. David Stremme 21.409
25. Robby Gordon 22.924
Laps in Top 10
Last three years, short, flat tracks
(New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Phoenix International Raceway
and Martinsville Speedway)
Driver Laps in Top 10 Possible Laps
Jimmie Johnson 7,043 9,413
Jeff Gordon 6,740 9,413
Tony Stewart 6,382 9,413
Dale Earnhardt Jr 5,201 9,413
Kevin Harvick 4,855 9,413
Ryan Newman 4,456 9,413
Kurt Busch 4,454 8,801
Jamie McMurray 3,588 9,413
Kyle Busch 3,570 7,498
Denny Hamlin 3,272 6,086
Matt Kenseth 3,056 9,413
Kasey Kahne 2,976 9,413
Jeff Burton 2,726 9,413
Greg Biffle 2,650 9,413
Bobby Labonte 2,314 9,413
Carl Edwards 2,293 8,613
Clint Bowyer 1,932 5,586
Elliott Sadler 1,857 9,413
Brian Vickers 1,810 7,795
Martin Truex Jr 1,761 5,574
Casey Mears 1,149 9,413
Joe Nemechek 899 8,407
Michael Waltrip 844 7,689
Reed Sorenson 693 5,274
J J Yeley 593 5,574
Quality Passes
(Passing a car running in the Top 15 while under a green flag.)
Last three Years
Rank Driver Average # of Quality Passes Total Quality Passes
1. Denny Hamlin 37.8 151
2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 33.0 198
3. Tony Stewart 32.0 192
4. Jeff Gordon 31.2 187
5. Jimmie Johnson 31.0 186
6. Reed Sorenson 30.8 123
7. Kurt Busch 28.8 173
8. Martin Truex Jr. 26.5 106
9. Ryan Newman 26.2 157
10. Brian Vickers 26.0 130
11. Kyle Busch 24.7 148
12. Juan Pablo Montoya 23.5 47
13. Matt Kenseth 22.8 137
14. Kevin Harvick 22.7 136
15. Jeff Burton 21.8 131
16. Carl Edwards 21.7 130
17. Mark Martin 20.3 81
18. Kasey Kahne 19.8 119
19. Greg Biffle 19.3 116
20. Casey Mears 17.0 102
20. David Ragan 17.0 34
22. David Stremme 16.3 65
23. Johnny Sauter 15.0 30
24. Clint Bowyer 13.5 54
24. Bobby Labonte 13.5 81


text:
I remember so clearly the first time…
I was visiting Chicago in February 2001. Contemplating life. Contemplating moving.
I went to get a manicure on the referral of a friend. My nails were probably a good inch long above the free edge (a bit longer than they are now). I rarely let ANYONE touch my fingernails. I just didn't trust them – still don't. I HATE filing-happy manicurists in much the same way a lot of Black women hate shear-happy hairstylists, lol. My nails are natural! I feel like that abundance-of-filing-crap habit comes from doing acrylic or gel nails…and the like. So, NO, I do NOT want you weakening and splitting the shit out of my nails with your wretched emery board or buffing square. GO AWAY!
So this nail salon visit was RARE!
I took the train and got lost. After finally finding the correct building, I made my way to the elevator. My poor naïve soul happened to land an elevator ride with a young man reeking of weed. He was done. High as hell. And his half-opened eyelids ratted him out big time. In my wonderfully sheltered existence, I wasn't aware at that time, weed is not the "drug" that makes folks dangerous. So my ignorance made me skeptical and worried. He kept looking at me so I was absolutely certain I was going to have to fight him or something. I was so relieved when the elevator dinged on "my" floor…
..but why did this dude get off right behind me????….. slowly…. and head in the same direction I went. OH NO!!! HE'S FOLLOWING ME!!!!! 😦
We both went into the nail salon. The manicurist spoke to him…. he had a seat…..
oh. -__- no harm was to befall me. smh.
I sat and waited as she polished the client before me who had this STUNNING polish on her nails. So, I queried, "What color is that?"
"I'm not really a waitress."
"I'm sorry." WTH?! These people are weirdos! I didn't ask what she did for a living though. "No, I was asking what the name of that polish color was. I like it."
Turning and facing me with a chuckle, "That's the name of the polish. I'm Not Really A Waitress." Then she AND the manicurist laughed.
Embarrassed and still slightly puzzled….. "Really????"
That was my introduction to the wonderful world of OPI. LOL.
Their polish naming is probably more popular than their actual polish for most folks. I have since been in an unfaltering love relationship with "I'm Not Really A Waitress" and OPI. It's my favorite nail polish brand, barring none other that I've tried. My second favorite colors are "La Paz-itively Hot" for my toes, and "Cozu-melted in the Sun."
My love hasn't died.
My knowledge of weed…. well, now I understand. hahahahaha
OPI – "I'm Not Really A Waitress"


text:
Russell, Henry Norris
Russell, Henry Norris, 1877–1957, American astronomer, b. Oyster Bay, N.Y., grad. Princeton, 1897. In 1902 he went to Cambridge, England, to study. He returned to Princeton in 1905, was professor of astronomy there (1911–27), research professor (1927–47), and director of the observatory (1912–47). In 1947 he became research associate at the Harvard Observatory. Russell established a method of determining the dimensions of eclipsing binary stars. With Ejnar Hertzsprung he devised the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. His spectroscopic studies resulted in his development of a theory of stellar evolution. He wrote Determinations of Stellar Parallax (1911), Astronomy (1926–27), Fate and Freedom (1927), The Solar System and Its Origin (1935), and The Masses of the Stars (with C. E. Moore, 1940).
See biography by D. H. DeVorkin (2000).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Astronomy: Biographies


text:
Compute Engine provides machine type recommendations to help you optimize the resource utilization of your virtual machine (VM) instances. These recommendations are generated automatically based on system metrics gathered by the Cloud Monitoring service over the previous 8 days. Use these recommendations to resize your instance's machine type to more efficiently use the instance's resources. This feature is also known as rightsizing recommendations.
To learn more about the available machine types for VM instances, read the machine types documentation.
Before you begin
- If you want to use the command-line examples in this guide, do the following:
- Install or update to the latest version of the Google Cloud CLI.
- Set a default region and zone.
- If you want to use the API examples in this guide, set up API access.
- Read the Google Cloud console documentation.
Machine type recommendations are available free of charge. If you apply a recommendation to resize your instance's machine type, you are charged for the machine type that you choose.
Limitations and use cases
Machine type recommendations are currently not available in the following cases:
- VM instances created using App Engine flexible environment, Dataflow, Google Kubernetes Engine, or Dataproc
- VM instances with ephemeral disks, GPUs, or TPUs
- VM instances in the memory-optimized machine family
The recommendation algorithm is suited to workloads that follow weekly patterns, workloads that grow or shrink over weeks of time, workloads that persistently underutilize their resources, or workloads that are persistently throttled by insufficient resources. In such cases, 8 days of historical data is enough to predict how a change in the size of the machine can improve resource utilization.
The machine type recommendation algorithm is less suited to the following workloads:
- Workloads that spike infrequently (for example, monthly spikes) because 8 days of data is not enough to capture or predict the CPU fluctuations.
- Workloads that have very brief CPU spikes because recommendations are based on average CPU utilization over 60-second intervals. Recommendations might not be generated quickly enough to capture shorter spikes. See How machine type recommendations work for more information.
For workloads where cost is more important to you than performance, such as batch workloads, you can ignore recommendations to increase size.
In rare cases, you might see an error message when applying a recommendation. For example, a recommended machine type might be too small for the number of attached disks, it might not meet the resource requirements of your images or licenses, or it might not be available in a particular zone.
We also do not show recommendations if the estimated saving is less than $10/month.
How machine type recommendations work
Compute Engine monitors the CPU and memory utilization of running VMs and makes recommendations using the last 8 days of data. Compute Engine makes recommendations like the following:
If your instance has had low CPU utilization most of the time, Compute Engine recommends a machine type with fewer virtual CPUs.
If your instance has had high CPU utilization most of the time, Compute Engine recommends a machine type with more virtual CPUs.
If your instance hasn't used a large fraction of its memory, Compute Engine recommends a machine type with less memory.
If your instance has actively been using a large fraction of its memory most of the time, Compute Engine recommends a machine type with more memory.
Compute Engine might make recommendations to use either a standard or custom machine type. Note that there are some limitations in the amount of memory and vCPU available to a machine. In particular, increasing one resource might require increasing the other at the same time, to follow the specifications of a valid machine type. Also, Compute Engine only recommends machine types that are available in the zone where the instance is running.
See custom machine type specifications for details.
For cost difference estimations, the cost of an instance is based on the previous week's usage (before sustained use discount) and is extrapolated to 30 days. This is then compared to the recommended machine type monthly cost (before sustained use discount). For accurate pricing and details, read the pricing documentation.
Viewing machine type recommendations
Compute Engine makes recommendations available through the Google Cloud console. Recommendations are also available through the Recommender using the gcloud CLI or the API.
Permissions required for this task
To perform this task, you must have the following permissions:
recommender.computeInstanceMachineTypeRecommendations.liston the project
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.
Look at the Recommendation column to review recommendations for individual instances. You can also sort the column by amount of estimated savings. If there are no recommendations next to your instances, Compute Engine doesn't have any recommendations to make.
Use the
gcloud recommender recommendations list
command and specify the
VM instance rightsizing recommender.
gcloud recommender recommendations list \ --recommender=google.compute.instance.MachineTypeRecommender \ --project=PROJECT_ID \ --location=ZONE \ --format=[config | csv | default | diff | flattened | get | json | list | object | table | text | value | yaml]
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID: the ID of your project.
ZONE: the zone that contains instances to list recommendations for.
FORMAT: your preferred output format.
table, and
valuerequire non-empty projections.
The output of the
gcloud recommender recommendations list command includes
the following fields:
name: the name of the recommendation.
description: a human-readable explanation of the recommendation.
operationGroups: groups of operations that you can perform in serial order to apply the recommendation.
For more information, see the Recommender docs.
Use the Recommender API with the VM instance rightsizing recommender ID.
The following example bash script uses an access token returned by
Application Default Credentials,
for a
curl request. For information about about setting up Application
Default Credentials, see
Provide credentials for Application Default Credentials.
PROJECT_ID=my-project LOCATION=us-central1-c RECOMMENDER_ID=google.compute.instanceGroupManager.MachineTypeRecommender curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \ https://recommender.googleapis.com/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/locations/$LOCATION/recommenders/$RECOMMENDER_ID/recommendations
The response includes the following fields:
name: The name of the recommendation.
description: A human-readable explanation of the recommendation.
operationGroups: Groups of operations that you can perform in serial order to apply the recommendation.
For more information, see the Recommender docs.
When you create an instance, recommendations for the instance appear 24 hours after the instance was created. If you change the machine type of an instance, Compute Engine provides any further recommendations within 24 hours after the change.
After that, VM instance recommendations are refreshed at regular intervals throughout the day.
Changing machine types according to recommendations
If you determine that you want to apply the recommendations made by Compute Engine, you can change the instance's machine type directly from the recommendations screen, or manually step through the operations that are returned when viewing machine type recommendations.
Permissions required for this task
To perform this task, you must have the following permissions:
compute.instances.setMachineTypeon the instance
compute.instances.starton the instance
compute.instances.stopon the instance
recommender.computeInstanceMachineTypeRecommendations.updateon the project
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.
If a recommendation exists for an instance, it appears in the Recommendation column.
Click the recommendation text for the instance you want to resize.
A pop-up window opens with more detail and an Apply button to apply the recommendations to the instance. When you click this button, Compute Engine stops the instance, changes its machine type, and restarts the instance.
Optionally, you can also click the Customize link to customize the instance as you prefer.
Click the Apply button to apply the changes.
See Changing a machine type for information.
See Changing a machine type for information.
Dismissing and restoring recommendations
When you have finished using a recommendation, you can dismiss it from the console. Within the console, dismissing removes a recommendation from the total savings estimate and also minimizes the appearance of the recommendation so that it appears dimmed.
Acting on a recommendation through the console does not affect the list of or states of recommendations that are returned by the Recommender API. To manage the state of recommendations returned by the Recommender API, see Using the API.
Permissions required for this task
To perform this task, you must have the following permissions:
recommender.computeInstanceMachineTypeRecommendations.updateon the project
To dismiss a single recommendation from the console:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.
If a recommendation exists for an instance, it appears in the Recommendation column.
Click the recommendation text for the recommendation you want to dismiss.
A pop-up window opens with more detail and a Dismiss recommendation button.
Click Dismiss recommendation.
To dismiss all recommendations from the console:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.
Click the Dismiss all button.
To restore a recommendation:
In the Google Cloud console, on the VM instances page, click the dimmed recommendation text you want to restore.
A pop-up window opens with more detail and a Restore recommendation button.
Click Restore recommendation.
Using the monitoring agent for more precise recommendations
Cloud Monitoring offers a Monitoring agent that collects additional disk, CPU, network, and process metrics from your VM instances. To collect this data, install the Monitoring agent on your VM instances so it can access system resources and app services.
If the Monitoring agent is installed and running on a VM instance, the CPU and memory metrics collected by the agent are automatically used to compute machine type recommendations. The agent metrics provided by the Monitoring agent give better insights into resource utilization of the instance than the default Compute Engine metrics. This allows the recommendation engine to estimate resource requirements better and make more precise recommendations.
To install the agent, see Installing the Monitoring agent.
What's next
- Learn more about changing the machine type of an instance.
- Read up on what happens when you stop an instance.
- See how you can apply recommendations to managed instance groups.
- Review the Google Cloud console documentation.
- Learn more about the Recommender and its API
- Learn more about insights for machine type recommendation.


text:
As readers of this blog will be aware I recently had the joy of fracturing my right humerus during a pretty interesting trip to Sheffield. Unfortunately this impacted on another event that I had planned for in July, which was to join a voyage aboard a tall ship and sail around southern Norway with my older brother (as you do). I originally intended to post an entry highlighting the charity behind this adventure before I was due to sail, but owing to the accident the post has been a bit delayed and my participation in the voyage was negated to viewing my brother's awesome photographs on his return from said trip.
But all is not lost! Instead I'm going to quickly introduce the Jubilee Sailing Trust, the UK charity behind the sailing of two specially adapted ships that travel around the world, and highlight just why their work is so important.
The Jubilee Sailing Trust, a registered charity, was founded in 1978 by the intrepid Christopher Rudd. Christopher Rudd had, throughout the 1970's, been working with disabled and special needs children helping and training them to sail dinghies in sheltered waters. However, he thought that there was no reason that people with mixed physical abilities couldn't sail together and learn to sail properly in tall ships on the open sea. All that was required was careful consideration of the design of the ship and of the use of equipment. Furthermore Rudd believed that prejudices and misunderstandings between people with different circumstances in life could be broken down by the co-joining of sailing together, as part of a crew that relied wholeheartedly on each other for support, both emotional and physical. It took time but the idea gained traction and admiration from various individuals (including the Duke of York) and a pilot schemes with various ship designs was carried out and tested to see which type offered the best conditions.
Square rig ships suited the aspirations of Rudd and his idea best as it allowed numerous tasks of differing ability to be carried out simultaneously, which suits the varying physical needs that the crew will have. Although it was a tough to convince backers and funding bodies of the idea Jubilee Sailing Trust managed to design and build its first tall ship, the sleek and beautiful Lord Nelson, in 1986, which set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton to Cherbourg, France. It was clear within a few years of Lord Nelson's launch that demand outstripped the ability to cater for the growing number of would be crew-members. Thus the plans were laid down in 1992 to raise the funds to build a second specially adapted ship for the Jubilee Sailing Trust. Not only were disabled people going to enjoy having the chance to sail this new ship but they also had the opportunity to form a part of the build team which built the ship, from the keel up until the moment it was fitted with the living quarters.
The second ship was named Tenacious and set sail on her maiden voyage 1,548 days after her keel was first laid. Although differing in design somewhat from the Lord Nelson, Tenacious offered the same accessibility as her sister ship which guaranteed her ongoing popularity with people seeking an alternative to a holiday in the sun. It is perhaps somewhat surprising to learn that there can be a voyage crew of 40 people on-board alongside the permanent staff, but this is no lazy holiday as every hand is needed on board. You are expected to pull your weight and join in with the various timed watches and may be needed at a moments notice when the signal for 'all hands on deck' goes out. There are limitations as to how many wheelchairs are allowed on board however, but there is space for 9 or so on each ship.
The Jubilee Sailing Trust have not been idle in running their ships either as they are constantly at sea travelling Europe and the world and have, since 2000, taken part in many of the Tall Ships Races. The Sail Training International organisation help run the Tall Ships Races throughout various countries around the world and have offices in many countries throughout the continents. The organisation is dedicated to the development and education of young people regardless of nationality, religion, culture, gender or social background, and offer the chance to race tall ships in groups of up to 100 ships at a time between various locations. Jubilee Sailing Trust offers many options for the intrepid sailor, including taking part in the Tall Ship Races, single day cruises, relaxing voyages from the UK to the Canary Islands or even trips to Antarctica! The Lord Nelson is currently on a two-year globe-trotting trip as a part of the Norton Rose Fulbright Sail the World Challenge, which will see it take in 30 countries altogether and 50,000 miles with a mixed ability crew.
The Jubilee Sailing Trust offer the opportunity to join a ship for the full voyage or to join part for only a leg of a journey. My brother and I joined up for two weeks, to head from Fredrikstad in southern Norway and sail around to Bergen on the west coast of the country as a part of a cruise between legs of the 2014 Tall Ships Race. As a part of the crew you will be buddied up with either a disabled individual or with a physical able individual. It is your job to look after your buddy and vice versa. The cost of your participation in a trip is offset by 50% from funding but can still be expensive. There are many options available to help offset the costs, this can include sponsored fundraising or by doing sponsored challenges before the voyage.
The Jubilee Sailing Trust is still the only sailing charity in the world to offer physically and mental disabled individuals the chance to sail on the open sea as part of an active crew. Over 3o years of operation has seen the ships carry over 39,000 people on voyages across the world and have helped improve individual perceptions of learning disabilities and physical impairment. In particular people who take part in voyages have stated that they gain a greater understanding and awareness of different abilities by being partnered with and/or being grouped into a watch with mixed abilities. The effect of sailing as a unit can help highlight the value of working in a team as well as lead to deep personal development in areas such as health, social interaction and fulfilling aspirations. Further to this crew members often report positive self-esteem and a greater understanding beyond the stereotypes of disability (source).
Although I did not manage to join my brother in Norway and it's beautiful fjords and coastal waters, I have had the chance to do a day sail from my home town of Hartlepool, in the Lord Nelson, in a visit to the town just before it hosted the 2010 Tall Ships Races. I even managed to get half way up the mast, which was a fairly nerve-wracking experience at sea! One of the great experiences of that trip was being able to leave and enter my town via the sea, to feel like what it must have been like so many years ago when Hartlepool was a major fishing and industrial shipping town.
So I highly recommend reading more about this fantastic charity and opportunity to take part in something rather special. If you are looking to challenge yourself, help others, meet new people and explore new countries by sea then this is the perfect choice!
Find Out More
- Frequently asked questions on sailing with the Jubilee Sailing Trust can be found here. Please be aware that there restrictions in place regarding wheelchair size and occupant weight, alongside some disabilities that may mean that JST is unable to accept you as part of the crew.
- Find out about the range of options for sail adventures and how to fund your journey (with funding tips) here.
- Both the Lord Nelson and Tenacious have individual blogs, find out what they are up to here.


text:
I've been musing with John Fahey about Ben Affleck returning to blockbuster leading man roles by playing Batman, and I feel Affleck'll probably nail it.
I was, of course, initially disappointed by the casting announcement. But not for the same reason that most people who vented their spleen early on seemed to be disappointed/outraged. It seems harsh on the great Joseph Gordon-Levitt to have spent an entire bloody film being taught how to be the Batman by Christian Bale only to be shafted immediately by Warner Bros at his first chance to be the Batman. The hysteria surrounding Affleck's casting struck me as very odd; like many people were still stuck in 2003 and reeling from the awfulness of Gigli and Paycheck. Announcing Affleck as the lead in Batman Begins back then, well, yes – outrage entirely justified. But this is 2013, the second act of Affleck's cinematic life. Have people forgotten Hollywoodland, Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo only months after everyone loved him for accepting the Academy's snub to his directing with dignity?
Ben Affleck has much in common with the equally maligned Mark Wahlberg. They are not the greatest actors in the world, but they're certainly not bad actors. Yes, they can be acted off-screen by most any actor willing to stop yawning on set and make the effort. But that willingness to be out-acted is important, they provide an invaluable still centre. John C Reilly appeared at Trinity College a few years back and recounted bullying a theatre director into finally giving him the lead in a Restoration comedy, only to be bored silly on realising Congreve gave the best lines to supporting characters. Reilly's function was to hold the chaos of the comedy together by being the still centre; and he immediately returned to his comfort zone of playing one of the supporting characters upstaging the romantic lead. Wahlberg and Affleck have given memorable supporting turns (The Departed, I Heart Huckabees, Good Will Hunting, Hollywoodland), but as leading men they don't mesmerise; but that's not necessarily always bad. Argo couldn't support Goodman, Arkin & Cranston's scenery-chewing profane quipping without Affleck quieting it, and The Fighter's Bale, Adams & Leo OTT-competition would've gone into low-earth orbit without Wahlberg's stoicism grounding it.
And Batman is, to a large degree, cinematically a still centre. The complaint oft made of Bat-movies – that the villains always walk off with the film – is exactly the complaint you'd expect to recur if a character is a still centre enabling craziness around him. (Affleck suddenly sounds like a very good fit…) Batman's strength derives in part from his silence. Ninjas aren't chatty. He lurks in shadows, and pounces on people when they least expect it. Batman doesn't say much; he just appears and beats people up, that's what makes him intimidating – he's almost a pure physical presence to criminals, even those who never encounter him but whose imaginations he vividly inhabits. And in the comics even in the privacy of his own thought bubbles he usually thinks like Hemingway clipped some of the floweriness off of Raymond Chandler prose. And if you've read Jeph Loeb's Hush and Superman/Batman you'll note that a lot of Batman's dialogue is sarcastic commentary on Superman's problem-solving abilities. That sounds a lot like Affleck's main function in Argo.
But whither Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne? He can't very well play a billionaire playboy as a still centre, can he? Well, Christian Bale has hammered home the difference between private and public Bruce Wayne so this shouldn't actually be that major a problem. It would, after all, feel like a waste of everyone's time to have Robert Downey Jr play public Bruce Wayne the way he plays Tony Stark and then morph into terse earnestness for the other two parts of the Bat-persona. Affleck's performance in The Town is probably a good model for his private Bruce, and if Argo cohort Bryan Cranston really is playing Lex Luthor then life as public Bruce Wayne gets a lot easier for Affleck as he can bounce quips off a fellow billionaire with whom he has existing good comic chemistry. Even if Cranston's not Lex, Affleck has absurdly essayed an appropriately insouciant charm. Imagine a combination of Affleck's Click ad for Lynx, his role in Argo, and the end narration of Daredevil and you have his Batman.
And that's not bad. With the juvenile Zack Snyder directing it's
the Batman we deserve, but not the one we need right now probably the best we could hope for.


text:
Mee Mee is the largest baby product brand in India. Their aim is to make parenting enjoyable and stress-free. With their well-designed and quality products, Mee Mee ranks first among parents. All the products meet the requisite Indian and international safety standards. The products are a blend of age-old wisdom and modern innovations with no harsh chemicals. All the products are non-toxic and lead free with soft and round edges. Mee Mee's first priority is the safety of the kid.
One of Mee Mee's most important baby care product is baby wet wipes. Mee Mee has done a lot of research and came up non-alcoholic wipes that have the right amount of moisture to keep the baby clean and avoid rashes.
Another popular Mee Mee product is their feeding bottle. Mee Mee Milk Safe Feeding Bottle Advanced comes with Pro-Flo Technology. It is bite and tear resistant and has air ventilation system, which ensures that there is minimum air intake while the baby takes the feed. The bottle also maintains the vitamins of the feed.
With over 400 baby products, Mee Mee has something for babies of all ages. Their product range includes:
1. Skin and oral care: for maintaining your baby's personal hygiene.
2. Bath and grooming set: to ensure your child enjoys the bathing time and also puts his/her best foot when in public.
3. Feeding: to ensure you baby gets the nurtured love and not germs.
4. Diapers: to ensure happy times even when not at home.
5. Travel: for safe travel of your baby.
6. Sleep time: to ensure happy, comfortable, and cozy goodnight sleep.
7. Toys: for the explorers of the future.
Apart from the above they even deal with kids and maternity apparels. Great quality, affordable prices, and easy accessibility online and at all major baby stores make Mee Mee a one-stop shop to meet all your baby care requirements.Read Less
reviewed LuvLap StarShine Baby Stroller on Feb 23, 2018
LuvLap StarShine Baby Stroller is ideal for children between 6 and 24 months (up to 15 kgs). It come...Read More
reviewed Toy House Forward Facing Booster Convertible Car Seat on Feb 26, 2018
Toyhouse Forward Facing Booster Convertible Car Seat (bla...Read More
Already registered? Log in here


text:
In Access Manager, the Identity Server is responsible for authenticating users, building the user's role information, and distributing it to the various components. It also serves as the central point for components that request identity information.
This section of the Administration Guide describes the following topics:
Section 10.0, Configuring User Authentication and Federation
For conceptual information about Identity Server maintenance tasks, such as auditing, logging, and health monitoring, see Section VII, Monitoring Access Manager Components.
For conceptual information about Liberty and SAML, see the appropriate sections in Section IX, Appendixes.
This section of the administration guide is intended to help you understand and configure the Identity Server for authentication, and includes advanced topics. It is recommended that you first become familiar with the information in the Novell Access Manager 3.0 SP4 Setup Guide, which is intended to familiarize you with Access Manager and helps you understand how to perform a basic Identity Server configuration, cluster servers, set up a resource protected by an Access Gateway, and configure SSL. The Basic Setup and Administration guides are designed to work together, and important information and setup steps are not necessarily repeated in both places.


text:
Allan Meltzer had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the other day in which he argued that the Fed's exit strategy will fail. Here is an excerpt:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has explained his exit strategy to prevent future inflation. The Fed recently began to pay interest to banks on the reserves they hold in their vaults. Using this new tool, it claims the ability to get banks to keep the money instead of lending it out, thus containing the money supply and inflation.
I don't believe this will work, and no one else should.
Meltzer and I likely disagree on when the exit strategy needs to begin, however, we are in agreement that the strategy will not work. The banking system is currently flooded with excess reserves — over $1 trillion. Historically, that figure has been around $1 billion or less. Thus far this has not led to inflation because of the declines in velocity and the money multiplier (for more on this see here and here). It is only a matter of time before confidence re-emerges and banks start lending these excess reserves.
When this happens, monetary policy will have to respond by draining these reserves from system. It is possible to do so in one of two ways. The first way is to sell bonds through open market operations. The second way is the raise the interest rate that the Fed currently pays on reserves. While I have no doubt that the latter is possible, it is a much trickier assignment and only tackles the problem indirectly. If the problem is with reserves, the Fed should tackle the problem directly.


text:
We were 20 minutes out from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport when the pilot came on the speaker with the routine update for passengers. He dutifully reported the balmy conditions that awaited us – even at 10:30 at night, the temperature would be 80 degrees. I fly enough to know the temperature reading is usually followed with a report about the cloud cover, something central to a pilot's world, but not necessarily to mine. But this time the report made me pause: "Visibility is endless."
I looked out the window. It was dark. Really dark. I could see tiny lights on the ground that marked the outer band of development of this sprawling city. But mostly, I could see nothing. Endless visibility? Hardly.
Darkness and visibility don't go together. Or do they?
The practice of contemplative prayer invites us to quiet our minds, set our egos aside for a moment, and lean back (as Tilden Edwards says) into our spiritual hearts. But when we do – when we actually release the images and ideas and random thoughts that pop into our minds, what's left is darkness. Just me and my emptiness. And that doesn't feel great. The darkness we meet on the inside is far scarier than much of the darkness we face in our everyday lives. I long for the light of my thoughts, the brightness of my carefully constructed ego with all of its success and pride and satisfaction in what I've built around me. I grasp for ideas and solutions that flow through my mind, eager to climb back out of the abyss.
And yet when I'm able, for whatever reason, to let go, to release what I'm clinging to, to fall into that darkness within, I discover something incredible. That the visibility IS endless. In the darkness, I can see Love. In the darkness, I can see Peace. In the darkness, I can see New Life.
I'm grateful for the gift of the darkness. I'm grateful for the courage to let go and let the darkness close around me. Because when I release all I have collected to make me feel safe and loved and powerful, I discover true security, true love, true power in the arms of the Divine Creator and Lover of us all. Thanks be to God for the discovery of abundant life in the darkness.