text: The Metropolitan Police Department's Harbor Patrol Unit wants boaters to respect the water and to practice important safety measures. In particular, boaters should know that boating under the influence is strictly prohibited on DC's waterways. Boat owners and gusts are also reminded of the critical importance of personal flotation devices—or PFDs, for short. The following information should help ensure that everyone can safely and responsibly enjoy time on the water.


text:
As I note in The Reactionary Ayn Rand, she favored a dictatorship of wealth in her life and work, not least in her two main novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (originally, ironically, titled The Strike):
Rand's [ostensibly] irreproachable characters take their principled stands against adult corruptions of various sorts…but also ultimately on behalf of the anti-democratic rule of wealth – entirely reminiscent of the first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay: "Those who own the country, ought to govern it."
So Rand's false either-or choice is this: choose life or death; righteousness or immorality: an ideal benevolent dictatorship of wealth or an inevitably fatally corrupt democracy. She attacks an indefensibly corrupt elite on behalf of a nonexistent elite whose closest manifestation in reality is another version of an indefensibly corrupt elite. Totalitarian ostensibly benevolent corporate elite rule versus totalitarian malign governmental elite rule. The choice is as false as could be, of course, but Rand presents the former as freedom and goodness, and the latter as slavery and rot by way of psychological comparisons that often resonate strongly with youth sick of being governed by often highly imperfect, and in fact highly unprincipled, school and family and religious structures, and who also may see big corporate money as a key to freedom.
Rand is symptomatic and emblematic of the current diseased socio-political structure – an understanding that totally eludes everyone involved with the article below.
Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism
By Harriet Rubin
New York Times
One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; it ranks 388th on Amazon.com's best-seller list. ("Winning," by John F. Welch Jr., at a breezy 384 pages, is No. 1,431.)
The book is "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand's glorification of the right of individuals to live entirely for their own interest.
For years, Rand's message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled "do-gooders," who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed. Gore Vidal described its philosophy as "nearly perfect in its immorality."
But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now say, it gave form and substance to their inchoate thoughts, showing there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.
"I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.'s that 'Atlas Shrugged' has had a significant effect on their business decisions, even if they don't agree with all of Ayn Rand's ideas," said John A. Allison, the chief executive of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the United States.
"It offers something other books don't: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete," he said.
One of Rand's most famous devotees is Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose memoir, "The Age of Turbulence," will be officially released Monday.
Mr. Greenspan met Rand when he was 25 and working as an economic forecaster. She was already renowned as the author of "The Fountainhead," a novel about an architect true to his principles. Mr. Greenspan had married a member of Rand's inner circle, known as the Collective, that met every Saturday night in her New York apartment. Rand did not pay much attention to Mr. Greenspan until he began praising drafts of "Atlas," which she read aloud to her disciples, according to Jeff Britting, the archivist of Ayn Rand's papers. He was attracted, Mr. Britting said, to "her moral defense of capitalism."
Rand's free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father's pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood, where she peered through a gate at the set where the director Cecil B. DeMille was filming a silent movie, "King of Kings."
He offered her a ride to the set, then a job as an extra on the film and later a position as a junior screenwriter. She sold several screenplays and intermittently wrote novels that were commercial failures, until 1943, when fans of "The Fountainhead" began a word-of-mouth campaign that helped sales immensely.
Shortly after "Atlas Shrugged" was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic's comment that "the book was written out of hate." Mr. Greenspan wrote: " 'Atlas Shrugged' is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."
Rand's magazine, The Objectivist, later published several essays by Mr. Greenspan, including one on the gold standard in 1966.
Rand called "Atlas" a mystery, "not about the murder of man's body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man's spirit." It begins in a time of recession. To save the economy, the hero, John Galt, calls for a strike against government interference. Factories, farms and shops shut down. Riots break out as food becomes scarce.
Rand said she "set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and to portray "what happens to a world without them."
The book was released to terrible reviews. Critics faulted its length, its philosophy and its literary ambitions. Both conservatives and liberals were unstinting in disparaging the book; the right saw promotion of godlessness, and the left saw a message of "greed is good." Rand is said to have cried every day as the reviews came out.
Rand had a reputation for living for her own interest. She is said to have seduced her most serious reader, Nathaniel Branden, when he was 24 or 25 and she was at least 50. Each was married to someone else. In fact, Mr. Britting confirmed, they called their spouses to a meeting at which the pair announced their intention to make the mentor-protégé relationship a sexual one.
"She wasn't a nice person, " said Darla Moore, vice president of the private investment firm Rainwater Inc. "But what a gift she's given us."
Ms. Moore, a benefactor of the University of South Carolina, spoke of her debt to Rand in 1998, when the business school at the university was named in Ms. Moore's honor. "As a woman and a Southerner," she said, "I thrived on Rand's message that only quality work counted, not who you are."
Rand's idea of "the virtue of selfishness," Ms. Moore said, "is a harsh phrase for the Buddhist idea that you have to take care of yourself."
Some business leaders might be unsettled by the idea that the only thing members of the leadership class have in common is their success. James M. Kilts, who led turnarounds at Gillette, Nabisco and Kraft, said he encountered "Atlas" at "a time in college life when everybody was a nihilist, anti-establishment, and a collectivist." He found her writing reassuring because it made success seem rational.
"Rand believed that there is right and wrong," he said, "that excellence should be your goal."
John P. Stack is one business executive who has taken Rand's ideas to heart. He was chief executive of Springfield Remanufacturing Company, a retooler of tractor engines in Springfield, Mo., when its parent company, International Harvester, divested itself of the firm in the recession of 1982, the year Rand died.
Having lost his sole customer in a struggling Rust Belt city, Mr. Stack says, he took action like a hero out of "Atlas." He created an "open book" company in which employees were transparently working in their own interest.
Mr. Stack says that he assigned every job a bottom line value and that every salary, including his own, was posted on a company ticker daily. Workplaces, he said, are notoriously undemocratic, emotionally charged and political.
Mr. Stack says his free market replaced all that with rational behavior. A machinist knew exactly what his working hour contributed to the bottom line, and therefore the cost of slacking off. This, Mr. Stack said, was a manifestation of the philosophy of objectivism in "Atlas": people guided by reason and self-interest.
"There is something in your inner self that Rand draws out," Mr. Stack said. "You want to be a hero, you want to be right, but by the same token you have to question yourself, though you must not listen to interference thrown at you by the distracters. The lawyers told me not to open the books and share equity." He said he defied them. " 'Atlas' helped me pursue this idiot dream that became SRC."
Mr. Stack said he was 19 and working in a factory when a manager gave him a copy of the book. "It's the best business book I ever read," he said. "I didn't do well in school because I was a big dreamer. To get something that tells you to take your dreams seriously, that's an eye opener."
Mr. Stack said he gave a copy to his son, Tim Stack, 25, who was so inspired that he went to work for a railroad, just like the novel's heroine, Dagny Taggart.
Every year, 400,000 copies of Rand's novels are offered free to Advanced Placement high school programs. They are paid for by the Ayn Rand Institute, whose director, Yaron Brook, said the mission was "to keep Rand alive."
Last year, bookstores sold 150,000 copies of the book. It continues to hold appeal, even to a younger generation. Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who was born in 1958, and John P. Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods, who was 3 when the book was published, have said they consider Rand crucial to their success.
The book's hero, John Galt, also continues to live on. The subcontractor hired to demolish the former Deutsche Bank building, which was damaged when the World Trade Center towers fell, was the John Galt Corporation. It was removed from the job last month after a fire at the building killed two firefighters.
In Chicago, there is John Galt Solutions, a producer of software for supply chain companies like Tastykake. The founder and chief executive of the company, Annemarie Omrod, said she considered the character an inspiration.
"We were reading the book," she said, when she and Kai Trepte were thinking of starting the company. "For us, the book symbolized the importance of growing yourself and bettering yourself without hindering other people. John Galt took all the great minds and started a new society.
"Some of our customers don't know the name, though after they meet us, they want to read the book," she went on. "Our sales reps have a problem, however. New clients usually ask: 'Hey, where is John Galt? How come I'm not important enough to rate a visit from John Galt?' "

subset: commoncrawl


text:
so, it's been a while. ever have one of those periods where you feel as if all your creative energy has been zapped? i've felt like the wind has been sucked out of my creative sails. and while summer is ALWAYS welcomed with open arms, i also blame our loosy-goosey lifestyle for my absence here and my lack of creativity. with everyone home 24/7, every ounce of energy in my body was spent meeting kids' needs and keeping our house afloat. there just wasn't room for much else. and i don't want you to think i'm complaining, truly i'm not. i know it's a season of life, and it will pass much more quickly than i'd like. BUT. it's draining. i am tired. of cleaning up spills for the millionth time and picking up toys just to have them thrown around 4 seconds later, and laundry and dishes that i just can't seem to stay caught up with.
summer was fun and great and beautiful and there was so much togetherness. but it was also overwhelming and intense and and there was so. much. togetherness. we did some wonderful things, but i kind of felt like I had to referee my way through the days (just being real here). why did I not get a whistle in june?!? and please tell me i'm not the only one who would have benefitted from one!?!
we are back in the swing of things with school, and as my days feel a bit lighter (with b in 1st and c in pre-k), so do i. i'm all for the ease of summertime, but really, i love some structure to our days. i think the kids and i all thrive on some sort of routine, rhythm, and predictability. and as we're completing our fifth week of that, i feel myself coming back to earth. and to this place. and that feels good.
here a few shots from sweet summertime.


text:
Up to [NetBSD Developer Wiki] / wikisrc / users
Request diff between arbitrary revisions
Keyword substitution: kv
Default branch: MAIN
web commit by schmonz: Remove some cruft from my user page.
Thus concludes this experiment.
Try again as "makefile" format.
Try a little makefile fragment.
Extract the table to my own ikiwiki site, and point there.
Use icons for yes/no.
Add more known results of qmail-run + rc.d-boot.
Start tracking reports of qmail-run working (or not).
web commit by schmonz: I believe I can web edit
Attempt to show more than 10 items when there are more.
Archive yes, feeds no.
Maybe inline like this?
Try aggregating my talks and blog posts and inlining them here.
Add another qmail blog post.
Add blog post about the QMAILREMOTE patch.
Say more about my NetBSDoings.
Remove comments and edits added with OpenID to find and fix config hole.
web commit by http://schmonz.livejournal.com/: next, edit any old page using previously-logged-in OpenID!
I seem to be having more time for wikistuff.
Update my status, remove test comments.
Commence note-taking from pkgsrcCon 2014.
We don't have ImageMagick (yet?). Try again in a less cool way.
Add my face, if we enabled the img directive and have ImageMagick.
Test commit.
Remove Perl 5.18 test failures and other temporary stuff.
Track state of lang/perl5 test results.
Some ideas for what to do with tomorrow's valuable time.
web commit by http://schmonz.livejournal.com/: OpenIDs can also edit "users/*" now. Wrap lines to prove it.
Done testing, remove vestiges from my personal page.
web commit by schmonz: test log_accum with new Reply-To location, via web commit as schmonz
web commit by schmonz: test log_accum with -w (really this time) and -x turned on, via web commit as schmonz
web commit by schmonz: test log_accum with -w and -x turned on, via web commit as schmonz
test log_accum with -w turned on, via cvs commit
test log_accum with -x turned on, via cvs commit
test log_accum without new options turned on, via cvs commit
web commit by schmonz: seems fine
web commit by schmonz: test
web commit by schmonz: one-liner
web commit by schmonz: it's the wiki's todo list now
web commit by schmonz: update for rename of users/schmonz/todo/done.mdwn to wiki/todo/done.mdwn
web commit by schmonz: update for rename of users/schmonz/todo.mdwn to wiki/todo.mdwn
web commit by schmonz: I can put TMPL in my page, it's something about templates I can't web-edit
web commit by schmonz: test edit with template tags included -- can I save?
web commit by schmonz: Clean up my user page (from iPhone)
initial import of TNF wiki content
Initial revision


text:
In the latest news and analysis…
Climate fast
The BBC reports that the Philippines' delegate to the UN's COP 19 climate change summit in Warsaw has announced he is going on hunger strike until conference participants make "meaningful" progress:
"In an emotional speech, Yeb Sano linked the 'staggering' devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan to a changing climate.
'In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home, I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate, this means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this Cop, until a meaningful outcome is in sight.'
'What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness, the climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness right here in Warsaw,' he said."
Presumption of guilt
The Financial Times reports that UK Home Secretary Theresa May wants to strip terror suspects of their citizenship, thereby rendering unconvicted people "stateless":
"The home secretary is already able to strip passports from those with dual nationality and has repeatedly said British citizenship is a 'privilege, not a right'. Since coming to office, she has exercised this power on at least 16 individuals alleged to have links to terrorist groups.
But the Financial Times understands Ms May has asked officials to find a way of overturning international human rights conventions which prevent individuals with only one citizenship being made stateless."
Deep-sea mining
Radio Australia reports that civil society groups in Papua New Guinea are taking the government to court over a Canadian company's license to establish the world's first seabed mine in PNG waters:
"The license was granted under the former [Michael] Somare government to the Canadian company Nautilus for its Solwara 1 mine.
[Stop Experimental Seabed Mining in the Pacific's Wenceslas Magun] says the group's advisors – which include scientists and lawyers – have 'clearly indicated that there is going to be damage to the ecological system'.
'Nobody knows what the impact of the damage is going to be to the marine ecosystem because no one has ever done seabed mining in the world,' he said."
Euphemism for war
Boston University's Andrew Bacevich expresses concern of the apparent "militarization of U.S. policy in Africa":
"For Army leaders, Africa spells opportunity, a chance to demonstrate continuing relevance at a time when the nation's appetite for sending U.S. troops to invade and occupy countries has pretty much evaporated.
Thus, we have U.S. Army Africa, or USARAF, the latest in the Pentagon's ever-growing roster of military headquarters. The mission of this command, which describes itself as 'America's premier Army team dedicated to positive change in Africa,' manages to be at once reassuringly bland and ominously ambitious. On the one hand, USARAF 'strengthens the land force capabilities of African states and regional organizations.' On the other, it 'conducts decisive action in order to establish a secure environment and protect the national security interests of the United States.'
One might hope that successfully accomplishing the first half of that mission — U.S. troops training and equipping African counterparts — will preclude the second. More likely, however, such efforts will pave the way for 'decisive action,' a euphemism for war."
History of failure
The Center for Global Development's Kimberly Ann Elliott writes that economic sanctions had a 1.5% success rate in the 20th Century and are even less likely to work in Iran:
"Across all 204 episodes and 170 case studies analyzed, there were only three cases deemed fully successful when the issues at stake involved core national interests on both sides. And in all three of those cases, the target of the sanctions was heavily dependent, both economically and for security guarantees, on the sanctioning country.
None of those cases bears any resemblance to the situation that the United States and its allies face with Iran today. As I explained in this Foreign Affairs essay last week, the economic sanctions against Iran are already imposing serious economic costs on the country and tightening sanctions further is likely to create more problems than it solves. Avoiding negotiations and waiting for sanctions to force Iran to raise a white flag would delay a resolution and increase the humanitarian impact on ordinary citizens in Iran."
Black Bruins
The Huffington Post reports on the stir caused by a spoken-word video in which UCLA student Sy Stokes calls his university, which has more national athletics championships than black male freshmen, an "institutionalized racist corporation":
"According to the school's enrollment statistics, African-Americans make up 3.8 percent of the student population. In the video, Stokes points out that black males make up 3.3 percent of the male student population, and that 65 percent of those black males are undergraduate athletes. Of the incoming men in the freshmen class, only 1.9 percent of them were black.
'We certainly recognize that the low numbers of African Americans and other underrepresented students on campus does lead to a sense of isolation and invisibility,' [UCLA's Janina Montero] said in her email statement. 'It is difficult to eliminate this painful imbalance without considering race in the admissions process.' "
Poverty tourism
Business Day's Sipho Hlongwane slams a faux shanty-town tourist resort in South Africa as an example of postmodern racism:
"And now you too can experience this, for R850 a night!
This, incidentally, is more than most South Africans living in informal settlements see in an entire month. According to the latest census data, only about 15% of black South Africans are considered middle and upper class. The large majority do not make more than R1,400 a month. A whopping 61% of black people live on less than R515 a month. About 87% of white South Africans are considered middle class or above. There is some improvement, but it is at snail's pace — the reason why the problem is so entrenched is apartheid.
But instead of critical self-examination that might lead many people to accept their own complicity in the oppression of their fellow citizens, this is what we have. Reducing the pain of poverty to an experience, that you can dip in and out of for more money than those poor shack dwellers have in a month."


text:
This week I hit the 45-49 age group (as a runner, I think in age groups). When I hit 40, it was no big deal. I didn't feel old and it was kind of cool to now be considered a master in running. Not quite as cool as being a Jedi master, but still pretty good. At the very least it gave me yet another chance to win something at a race (overall, age group and the master's award). However, the next level of master (grand master) does not arrive until 50. As such, 45 does not give me much-other than having survived another year despite a history of bad decision making involving ladders and roofs.
Having seen other men fall into middle aged stupidity, I was a bit worried that when I hit 45 I would suddenly be unable to prevent myself from doing one or more of the following:
- Taking shirtless photos of myself using a cell phone and a mirror, then taking out a creepy Craig's List ad.
- Buying a red sports car.
- Buying a huge SUV.
- Getting a big, gold medallion and a white disco suit with a "big V chest vent."
- Stockpiling Viagra.
- Letting my hair grow out to allow for a "comb over."
- Quitting my job to "find myself."
- Buying clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch to look "young and cool."
- Hitting on stewardesses.
- Running around town naked, yelling about how death is chasing me.
- Taking a nap.


text:
Click to read my short story, Changed, in The Cynic Online Magazine!
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Liddell's Ghost
First Date
Ghost Walk
M R James
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'There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,' wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), 'something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails'. Dickens would no doubt agree, […]
M R James's Suffolk
The macabre beneath the landscape is not dispelled by nearness to the sea. What Henry James knew, and described in English Hours (1905) – the strangeness present on a flattened seashore – M R James (no blood relation, although the two were acquainted) expressed in two of his best-known ghost stories: Oh, Whistle, and I'll […]
A Warning to the Curious
Here's a real festive treat. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy!
Lost Hearts
I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I've never fully been able to answer. Lost Hearts, an early tale which apparently James didn't much care for, and which only appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary to […]
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth
Here's a real treat to conclude the series of Christmas ghost stories that I've been posting for the last few weeks – the BBC adaptation of The Tractate Middoth from just a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed they do another one this year!
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text:
Lesson: Interfaces
Understand Interfaces and be able to use them when appropriate.
Just as a class is a description of an object, an Interface is a description of a class. An Interface defines the fields (variables) and methods that a class must provide (public access) to users of the class. The Interface does not define how a class derives the value of a field or the result of a method, only that a class that implements an Interface must expose that Interface's fields and methods. As such, the Interface defines a public facing API that the class must provide. Interfaces are also called Contracts, in that the Interface defines a contract or agreement (in terms of the fields and methods exposed) between a class and users of that class. Classes may extend only one (parent) class but classes may implement any number of interfaces.
One power of Interfaces is that any class that implements an Interface can be used where ever that Interface is defined as a required data type. This concept is best explained by an example.
A simplifed view of the PIDController class in the FRC library shows a constructor that takes two classes as input, a PIDSource object and a PIDOutput object. PIDSource and PIDOutput are both Interfaces. Digressing for a moment, a simplified PIDController needs two things to perform its function. An input or process control value that will be used by the PIDController to compute an output value, which must be sent to some other class for action. Now in many cases the input value will come from an encoder (counts) and the output value will go to a motor (power). You could define the PIDController class constructor as Public PIDController(Encoder enc, Motor motor). There are two problems with this. First, the PIDController class and the Encoder and Motor classes have not agreed on how data will pass between the Encoder and PIDController class and how data will pass between the PIDController and Motor class. The second issue is that the PIDController as defined will only work with Encoders and Motors. What if we wanted to use some other classes as the input and output objects? Interfaces solve both of these problems.
The simplified PIDController class constructor actually looks like this: Public PIDController(PIDSource source, PIDOutput output). PIDSource and PIDOutput are Interfaces and they define what fields and methods are required for any class that wants to act as a PID source or PID output object. These Interfaces define the contract between the PIDController class and any class wanting to act as a PID source data provider or a PID output data consumer. The example Interfaces look like this:
A class implementing the PIDSource Interface must provide a method defined as double pidGet(). That method must return the current input value to be used by the PIDController. Since any class passed into the PIDController constructor for input must implement the PIDSource Interface, the PIDController now knows what method to call on the source object reference variable to get the input value. For instance, the Encoder class implements PIDSource and as such must provide the method pidGet() along with its other methods. When pidGet() is called, the Encoder returns the current tick count. So an Encoder object can be passed to the PIDController constructor. But so can any other class that implements PIDSource. A class implementing the PIDSource Interface would look like this:
Any class that implements PIDOuput must provide the pidWrite(double value) method. That method when called, will take the passed value and perform some action with it. The PIDController knows that any class implementing PIDOutput will have the pidWrite() method and so it knows how to send the output value it has calculated from the input, by calling the pidWrite method on the output object reference variable. A class implementing the PIDOutput Interface would look like this:
For instance, the Motor class implements PIDOutput and provides the pidWrite(double value) method and sets it's motor power from the value. So a Motor object can be passed to the PIDController constructor as an output object. But so can any other class that implements PIDOutput.
A simplified PIDController class would look like this:
An example of using these classes:
The key here is that the single implementation of the PIDController class can handle both the custom source and output classes as well as the standard encoder and motor classes.
Classes can implement more than one Interface along with any other fields or methods they wish. Interfaces are very powerful and allow a class expecting an Interface (like PIDController) to work with any number of other classes that implement that Interface.
Note that Interfaces only define the expected fields and methods to be exposed by the implementing class. The actual implementation (code) is contained in the class implementing the Interface.
Like many things in Java (and other languages), this is a basic introduction to Interfaces. There is a lot more to Interfaces which you can read about here. Here is a video on interfaces. This lesson should be enough to understand Interfaces and use them in your robot code.


text:
Articles by Hilary Palmén
Hilary Palmén has been helping development teams make fabulous things for over two decades. She has spent more than ten years working as a product team member in large organizations (e.g., Microsoft Corporation) and more recently has worked as a UX consultant at Bunnyfoot.
How Was It for You?: Helping People Describe Their Experiences
Usability study participants may choose words from a list to assist their feedback. Produc-ing one set of words for an entire user population proves challenging. [Read More]


text:
The novel 'Echoes from the past' started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled 'The birthday'.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them 'Echoes from the past'
Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I'll never forget.
One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.
Except for the bad guys.
Get it here: https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4


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QUNU, South Africa — Big guns fired a salute in the rural village where Nelson Mandela grew up and military servicemen marched stiffly behind his casket on a winding dirt road Sunday as South Africa said goodbye for the last time to the man who reconciled the country in its most vulnerable period.
Several thousand guests, some singing and dancing, gathered in a huge tent at the family compound of the anti-apartheid leader, who died Dec. 5 at the age of 95 after a long illness.
Guests included senior South African officials, veterans of the fight against white rule and foreign diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Patrick Gaspard. Britain's Prince Charles, entrepreneur Richard Branson and former Zimbabwean prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai were also there.
Mandela's portrait was placed behind two rows of candles in the white, dome-shaped marquee. Outside, South African honor guards from the army, navy and air force marched in formation. Mandela's casket, covered by a national flag, was transported on a military vehicle to the tent, where pallbearers carried it on a red carpet into the tent where guests awaited.
After the funeral ceremony, a smaller group of guests was to attend Mandela's burial at a family grave site on the estate in Qunu, a rural village in Eastern Cape province.
The burial will end 10 days of mourning ceremonies that included a massive stadium memorial in Johannesburg and three days during which Mandela's body lay in state in the capital, Pretoria.
Mandela's casket arrived at the family compound from the capital on Saturday. It was accompanied by an enormous convoy of police, military and other vehicles.
Mandela spent 27 years in jail as a prisoner from apartheid, then emerged to lead a delicate transition to democracy when many South Africans feared that the country would sink into all-out racial conflict. He became president in the first all-race elections in 1994.
While South Africa faces many problems, including crime, unemployment and economic inequality, Mandela is seen by many compatriots as the father of their nation and around the world as an example of the healing power of reconciliation.


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The Griffith Observatory is an icon of Los Angeles, a national leader in public astronomy, a beloved civic gathering place, and one of southern California's most popular attractions. Home to great hiking trails and many movie shoots, the Observatory is located on the southern slope of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park, just above the Los Feliz neighborhood. It is 1,134 feet above sea level and is visible from many parts of the Los Angeles basin.
Hall of the Eye
Inside the Observatory, this exhibit illustrates the nature and progress of human observation of the sky and the tools used for that exploration. This exhibit gallery focuses on how people have observed the sky and the often profound impact those observations have had on people and society. Each of the four The Hall of the Eye exhibit areas chart the key developments that have further evolved our ability to help our eyes see farther, fainter, and beyond. See other exhibits at the Observatory here.
Samuel Oschin Planetarium
With its spectacular Zeiss star projector, laser digital projection system, state-of-the-art aluminum dome, comfy seats, sound system, and theatrical lighting, the 285-seat Samuel Oschin Planetarium Theater is the finest planetarium in the world.
Theater Shows
- Centered in the Universe – takes you on a journey of cosmic exploration and discovery
- Water Is Life – leads you on a search for water – and possibly life – beyond Earth
- Light of the Valkyries – reveals the wonders of the northern lights
- Time's Up examines the fundamental nature of time through the prism of false claims regarding the end of the world in late 2012
For more show information click here.
Special Events
- Triumph of the Dream film screening is a documentary that explores the human face of the Mars Exploration Rover mission that landed two rovers on Mars in 2004. After the film, join director Norman Seeff for a lively discussion. August 2 at 7:30 p.m.
- Griffith Observatory holds this exciting, free program on the first Friday of every month in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater called All Space Considered. Join the Observatory's staff as they examine and explain the most-talked-about subjects in astronomy and space science. Seating is first come, first serve. August 3 at 7:30 p.m.
- NASA Curiosity rover lands on Mars and staff will present NASA's live coverage of the event, provide commentary on the mission, and answer questions in a free program. The Observatory will be open for this event until midnight. August 5 at 9:00 p.m.
- Free public star parties are held monthly with the assistance of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society and the Los Angeles Sidewalk Astronomers. They are a chance for the whole family to look at the sun, moon, visible planets, and other objects, to try out a variety of telescopes, and to talk to knowledgeable amateur astronomers about the sky and their equipment. August 25 from 2 – 9:45 p.m. For more event information click here.
Zeiss Telescope
The Griffith Observatory is one of the premier public observatories in the world. One of the principal reasons is the presence and regular availability of high-quality public telescopes. Griffith wanted the public to have the opportunity to look through a telescope, which he felt might broaden human perspective. Mounted in the copper-clad domes on either end of the building, the Zeiss and solar telescopes are free to the public every day and night the sky is clear.
Free Public Telescopes
Free public telescopes are available each evening the Observatory is open and skies are clear. Knowledgeable telescope demonstrators are available to guide visitors in observing. Please be aware that the demonstrators must cut off the line for each telescope to enable all viewing to be completed by 9:45 p.m.
Stellar Emporium Gift Shop
The Observatory's brand new gift and book shop offers a cosmic array of Observatory insignia items, as well as astronomy and space-themed books, gifts, clothing, toys, and other items. Operated by museum expert Event Network, the gift shop is located on the new lower level. You may also shop at the Observatory's online store.
Cafe at the End of the Universe
Whether you are looking for a cool drink, a full meal, or a delicious dessert, the Observatory's new cafe is conveniently available to serve you. Operated by world-famous Wolfgang Puck, the cafe is located on the new lower level.
The mission of Griffith Observatory is inspiring everyone to observe, ponder, and understand the sky. Enjoy your visit!
WHAT: The Griffith Observatory
WHERE: 2800 East Observatory Road | Los Angeles, CA 90027
WHEN: Tuesday – Friday | 12:00 pm – 10:00 pm | Saturday – Sunday | 10:00 am – 10:00 pm | Closed Mondays
- Admission to the Observatory building and grounds is free
- Parking is available in the parking lot or on the adjacent roads
Dear reader,
I appreciate your support and feedback. Please respond to this article now by leaving a comment and/or "liking" it. For exciting, up to date events in Los Angeles, subscribe to this blog via email. You can also share this article with friends and family and visit my Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages.
Thank you for visiting!
Mr. Events.


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GTC Aeolus
The GTC Aeolus is an Allied Terran-designed cruiser. It boasts more turrets in total than any other canon cruiser in the GTVA arsenal. Both the GTVA and the Neo-Terran Front use several of these vessels in FreeSpace 2, and the FreeSpace 2 Demo places another in the hands of the GTVA. The FreeSpace 2 tech description states that production was discontinued two years prior to the Second Shivan Incursion, and only 24 were produced. However, the tech description was never made available to the player in the game, making its reliability debatable. In-game references warn of this ship's formidable anti-fighter weaponry.
|The GTC Aeolus
FS2 Demo Tech Room Description
The biggest, baddest, and meanest cruiser EVER. The Aeolus will smack you up.
FS2 Tech Room Description
The GTC Aeolus is the first cruiser class ever produced by the RNI shipyards orbiting Laramis II. Only two dozen of these cruisers were put into service in GTVA fleets, with production ending in 2365. Allied Command assigns Aeolus-class ships primarily to guard slow-moving convoys against fighter and bomber wings, as these cruisers are severely out-gunned by most capital ships in service today. Their flak and AAA turrets serve as marvelous deterrents to smaller craft, however.
Developer Notes
Name Origin
In Greek mythology, Aeolus was the ruler of the nation of Aeolia, and had the power to control the winds. He was supposed to live in an island in Southern Italy, now called Lipari.
Canon Ships
22 of the 24 Aeolus cruisers are named. Over half of them are destroyed over the course of the FreeSpace 2 campaign, many on the side of the Neo-Terran Front. Named cruisers are:
- GTC Adamant (destroyed)
- GTC Agrippa
- NTC Alexandria (destroyed)
- GTC Ascendant (simulated)
- GTC Ashaton (simulated)
- NTC Camisard (destroyed)
- NTC Epigoni (destroyed)
- GTC Ertanax (destroyed)
- NTC Hellespont (destroyed)
- NTC Liberty (destroyed)
- NTC Loyola (destroyed)
- GTC Malta (destroyed)
- NTC Mylae (destroyed)
- NTC Retribution
- NTC Righteous (destroyed)
- NTC Saharan (destroyed)
- GTC Sparta (destroyed)
- GTC Stalwart
- GTC Templar (destroyed)
- GTC Vigilant (destroyed)
- NTC Vindication
- GTC Zanthar (simulated)
|RNI Shipyards
|Yaw, Pitch, Roll
|30.0 s
|Max Velocity
|N/A ms-1
|Max Afterburner Velocity
|N/A ms-1
|38 000
|{{{10}}} m
|FreeSpace 2
|Turret Type
|Terran Huge Turret
|Standard Flak
|Anti-Fighter Beam
|Small Green Beam
Modding Resources
|The GTC Aeolus in FS2_Open 3.6.10
- $POF File: cruiser2t-01.pof
- Textures: ctile1( /c), ctile2( /c), ctile3( c/), ctile4(a/b/c), ctile5( /c), tbody(2/A), carmA, damage
MediaVP 3.6.10:
- $POF File: cruiser2t-01.pof
- Textures: Aeolus-HTL, Trition_HTL_Turrets, AeolusTurrets, Damage, Aeolus-HTL_debris, Doctile6A, nameplate
Proposed by: ??? on ???
First WIP Post: ??? on ???
First In-Game Model: ??? on ???
Completed In-Game Model: ??? on ???
Final Corrections: ??? on ???
Veteran Comments
Look upon its armament, ye fighter pilots, and despair. The Aeolus is the second most effective cruiser in the game, thanks to its array of flak guns and AAA beams that make attacking it a daunting prospect. The Aeolus will make mincemeat out of an unprepared fighter wing, and going one-on-one with it at short range is a very effective method of commiting suicide. Its anti-capital capability is good for a cruiser with two SGreens; however, the mounting scheme, and the SGreen being the woefully inefficient piece of junk that it is, the Aeolus will make most warship kills by bathing them in flak fire. This is actually surprisingly effective.
It's pretty hard to overestimate the effectiveness of this cruiser... it has, by far, the best anti-fighter capability of any cruiser in the game, and nearly the best of any ship in the game. As far as I'm concerned only the Deimos really outdoes it in that respect. The Aeolus, however, is no super-warship; like all cruisers, it's really ineffective in an anti-capital respect, though superior to most other cruisers. The missions of FreeSpace 2 are cruel to the Aeolus and do not show its full potential. For example, in Clash of the Titans II all of the cruisers were severely damaged, even though at full strength Aeoli can fight off ~ 12 bomber wings and survive. In Their Finest Hour (which also causes many people to doubt the GTVA Colossus) many allied warships failed to have their beams armed, decreasing both their capital-ship weaponry and their anti-fighter defenses.
While the Aeolus is feared by many as the most powerful anti-fighter cruiser in the game, I must say that it is not. Despite the fact that it has many flak guns (which other Terran cruisers have a complete lack of), the Aeolus has only two anti-fighter beams, while the GTC Leviathan has four. It is not flak that kills people, rather it makes the screen pulse red. This probably gives people the illusion that it is more dangerous than the Leviathan. It is not. Beams are what do the damage; the Leviathan is the triumphant anti-fighter cruiser.
The Aeolus is just about the only FS2 ship that can reliably take down a single fighter. That doesn't sound like much, but one competently-flown bomber can find and exploit a weak spot in almost every other ship. However, despite the Aeolus' fearsome reputation, it can be overwhelmed by a thought-out attack. If you go into FRED and do some testing, you'll notice that it only takes a wing or two of Medusas to kill this 'badass' ship. The exact number depends on the difficulty level, as the bombers' AI is better on higher difficulty.
I have to disagree with the third comment. The Aeolus's small structure allows just about all flak guns to fire at one target. Despite AAA beams doing the most damage, 6 flak guns on one fighter will wear your shields down very quickly and tear through your hull even faster. Plus the Leviathan can only fire a one or two AAA beams at a fighter, depending on its position. The Aeolus, is the best cruiser to deal with fighter attacks.
Similar to the Ravana, this ship can fire through its own hull when using its SGreens. This can be observed when the Aeolus engages a Target that is off to one side.


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Cruise #s 34 & 35- 5 Night Western Caribbean & 4 Night Bahamas Cruise onboard "Disney Magic"- November/December, 2013
For the 1st time out of our first 35 cruises we did 2 back to back Cruises on the same ship, the "Disney Magic". This is a great option on Disney if you don't want to just do one of their 3, 4 or 5 Night sailings... if that's too short combine them like we did & voila, a 9 Night Cruise! :-) FYI, this was our 2nd time sailing with Disney & like last year it was great! For a big ship line they're definitely above the rest when it comes to food, service & of course their famous Entertainment! Check out our full review of our time onboard the "Magic" here: http://nancyandshawnpower.com/reimagined-disney-magic-review/Read More


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Things That Should Exist is a column by James Trickey. Things suggested are not always good ideas.
I'm back after a while without doing anything and for that I am sorry. I just have been really struggling with ideas because some people already had to go and invent everything useful or cool because they had the idea first. But I am finally back with an idea that probably already exists thank to some annoying company, or it might not in which case this will be an amazing idea.
Now, as you can probably guess this invention right here is a phone, just like any smartphone or tablet that can be found in any phone shop in the country at the moment. But, as the title suggests, this is a phone that sits on your wrist the whole time. So I'm imagining a phone with straps just like a watch that allow the phone to sit comfortably on your wrist. With the help of Paint I will try and get my ideas across.
So as you can see there with the help of the OG iPhone as a tester it's basically just a phone that you can wear like a watch and as I said already it might exist somewhere but to be honest it should still exist which is what this column is about.
But if not, then think of the advantages to this.
Firstly it will never fall out of your pocket because it's on your wrist. I mean when was the last time your watch fell off without you noticing? Plus, this phone is going to be a lot more noticeable if it comes off your wrist due to the weight difference and the noise it will make when it hits the floor and dies.
Secondly it would also just be incredibly fun to play games on something that is attached to your wrist. It would be like you were a half-robot person with a screen in your wrist! and no the Fallout games stole this idea from me. But it's still awesome.
So that's about it for this week. I hope that you all try and actually invent one of these things and if they already do then make them better. I'll see you next week with a brand new idea.


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Related Documents


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Menstruation or menses occurs at the end of a placental mammal's menstrual cycle. There are two types of menstruation:
- Overt menstruation, occurring in humans and great apes, in which some of the lining of the uterus is shed and expelled from the body;
- Covert menstruation, occurring in all other placental mammals, in which the endometrium is reabsorbed without being expelled.
Over the course of the menstrual cycle, the lining of the uterus builds up in preparation for implantation of a fertilized ovum. If no conception occurs, the thickened lining is sloughed off and flows out though the cervix and vaginal canal. The process of thickening then starts again for the next menstrual cycle.[1] If conception occurs, hormonal changes occur in the body that prevent menstruation from occurring.
Menarche is the onset of menstruation in an adolescent. This average age of menarche is twelve, but there is much variation. Amenorrhea is an unusual absence of menstruation and should be cause for medical consultation.
Differing Views on the Purpose of Menstruation Through History
A number of hypotheses have been put forth regarding the purpose or benefit of menstruation:
- The ancient physician Hippocrates held that menstruation was the body's means of purging itself of bad humors, based on his belief that an excess of blood in the body led to health problems;
- Margie Profet argues that menstruation was the body's means of purging the uterus and reproductive system of bacterial infection, based on the fact that menstrual blood contains an unusually large amount of macrophages, or immune cells;[2]
- Beverly Strassmann argued that the purpose of menstruation is energy conservation—that the endometrium is very energy-intensive, so it is more efficient to maintain it for only part of the time. "Endometrial economy," she argued, preserves the metabolic equivalent of six days worth of food for women.[3]
- Elsimar M. Coutinho argues that menstruation acted as a sign that a woman had failed to conceive in the past, and as such is now "obsolete" and should be "cured" by modern medicine.[4]
Overt and covert menstruation
Both overt menstruation and covert menstruation, the majority of the endometrium is reabsorbed. This leaves us with the question: why do humans and great apes experience overt menstruation? Some speculate that the sophistication and size of the endometrium required to support a human and great ape fetus. It may simply be too large to be reabsorbed, and the excess material is expelled via overt menstruation.[5]
Menstruation and the Bible
Under the Mosaic Law, a woman was to be put apart during menstruation:
And if a woman have an issue, [and] her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even. And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. And whosoever toucheth any thing that she sat upon shall wash his clothes, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. And if it [be] on [her] bed, or on any thing whereon she sitteth, when he toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even. And if any man lie with her at all, and her flowers be upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and all the bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean. Leviticus 15:19-24 (KJV)
Also, sex during menstruation was a forbidden form of sexual immorality:
And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. Leviticus 20:18 (KJV)
Max Neuberger, writing in his "History of Medicine" states:
|The commands concern prophylaxis and suppression of epidemics, suppression of venereal disease and prostitution, care of the skin, baths, food, housing and clothing, regulation of labour, sexual life, discipline of the people, etc. Many of these commands, such as Sabbath rest, circumcision, laws concerning food (interdiction of blood and pork), measures concerning menstruating and lying-in women, and those suffering from gonorrhea, isolation of lepers, and hygiene of the camp, are, in view of the conditions of the climate, surprisingly rational.[6]
An abstract for the L.L. Ben-Noun 2003 article in the European Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology entitled "What is the biblical attitude towards personal hygiene during vaginal bleeding?" states the following:
|To analyze biblical passages associated with personal hygiene during vaginal bleeding. According to the Bible, a woman who is menstruating or who has pathological vaginal bleeding is unclean. Anybody who touches such a woman's bed or her personal things is also regarded as unclean and should therefore, wash carefully. Sexual relations are forbidden within 7 days from the beginning of menstruation and during pathological vaginal bleeding. Seven days after the cessation of vaginal bleeding, a woman is considered as clean, and therefore, sexual contacts are permitted. From a modern perspective sexual contacts during menses are associated with the development of chlamydial and gonococcal diseases, the risk of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus infection, endometriosis and subsequent infertility.This report indicates that the roots of contemporary obstetric preventive medicine can be traced to Biblical times.[7]
Also, modern science has only very recently discovered that following such rules dramatically reduces the rate of illegitimacy.[8] CreationWiki sees the biblical injunction about a man not sleeping with a woman who is menstruating as one of the many examples of Bible scientific foreknowledge.[9]
- ↑ Menstruation and the Menstrual Cycle, from the US Dept. of Health and Human Services
- ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8210311
- ↑ Strassmann, Beverly I. (1996) "The Evolution of Endometrial Cycles and Menstruation", Quarterly Review of Biology 71, 2(June): 181-221.
- ↑ Elsimar M. Coutinho, Is Menstruation Obsolete?
- ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8693059
- ↑ Neuburger, Max. History of Medicine. Oxford University Press, 1910, Vol. I, p. 38.
- ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12475597?dopt=Abstract
- ↑ How Religion Promotes Confidence About Paternity
- ↑ http://creationwiki.org/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge


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Contract customer: General Dynamics jobs were 'seasonal'
LYNN HAVEN — Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officials cited seasonality as the reason for laying off 730 employees at the General Dynamics Information Technology call center in Lynn Haven over the next two months.
CMS, a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is General Dynamics' customer in opening the call center at the old Sallie Mae building last October, where about 1,500 employees were recruited to answer questions regarding enrollment in the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare.
CMS officials wrote in an email Thursday the jobs created to support ACA enrollment were "temporary in nature."
"Hiring under these contracts was seasonal in nature in order to support consumers shopping for health coverage from October 2013 through March 2014," the statement said. "After open enrollment ends, call centers operated by CMS contractors that have supported our effort to enroll millions of Americans in quality, affordable health coverage will be ramping down much of their activities."
CMS also indicated the call center will staff up and down over the year to "meet consumer demand" and "maximize operational efficiency."
Contractors ramping down activity are required to notify the public as required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act.
Under the WARN Act, an employer must provide at least a 60-day notice in advance of mass layoffs to all affected workers, the appropriate unit of local government and the state dislocated worker unit.CMS indicated General Dynamics is in the process of notifying affected employees, but officials with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity had not received a WARN notice as of Thursday afternoon.
Lynn Haven Mayor Walter Kelley said he received a message from General Dynamics regarding the layoffs Wednesday evening.
"It was a total surprise for me," Kelley said Thursday. "My heart goes out to all of them that got laid off. I know it's going to have an impact on the community."
Kelley said the city did not offer any incentives for bringing jobs to the area; he added he was not aware some of the jobs were temporary.
Kim Bodine, executive director of CareerSource Gulf Coast, said she learned some of the jobs were temporary through conversations with job seekers during the General Dynamics hiring process.
"We directed everybody who was interested in those jobs to the GDIT website," she said. "I do know that some of the jobs that were posted were temporary."
CareerSourceGulf Coast, formerly the Gulf Coast Workforce Center, hosted several job fairs with General Dynamics last summer, which led to the recruitment of 1,567 employees. The company hosted another job fair earlier this month in the hopes of hiring 200 additional employees, which led Bodine to believe local recruiters were not aware of any pending layoffs.
Bodine said the workforce center had no further involvement beyond the job fairs and was advised to direct job seekers to the General Dynamics website.
Both Bodine and Kelley were hopeful the busy hiring season in Panama City Beach would help those facing layoffs.
"We are going to work with those people in the hopes of absorbing them in the workforce," Bodine said. "It's always disappointing to lose jobs. … We do want them to know that we're here to assist them."


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The Five Hottest Rides In Real Racing 3
With Real Racing 3's stateside release right around the corner, we figured it might be fun to take a look at the game's extensive lineup of vehicles and pick out a few of our favorites. When a game has over 40 real-life vehicles to choose from, the competition is bound to come down to the wire. So in no particular order, we present to you the five hottest rides of Real Racing 3.
Porche 918 Spyder Concept
Planned for release in September of 2013, this beauty accelerates from 0-60 in a mere three seconds, can stop on a dime and starts out at a beefy 200mph. The most remarkable thing about this piece of motorized madness is that it in real life it burns up the track with Porche's first ever hybrid, 580 horsepower engine, buoyed by the aid of two electric motors outputting a healthy 243 horses apiece. But be warned, this beast is going to set you back almost $850,000 in in-game cash, so start saving your pennies early and often.
Pagani Huayra
If there were ever a car that epitomized high speeds and sleek design, this bad boy would take the cake. Its twin V-12 engine manages to produce a staggering 730 horsepower that to start top out at 222mph, but when upgraded can exceed 230mph. The Italian produced dream machine is also highly touted by the good folks over at Top Gear, having crowned it the fastest street-legal vehicle in the program's history, completing their coveted track in 1:13.8. As mind blowing as that may be, it also comes with a bit of sticker shock as well, because it will set you back 1.35 million big ones to park this in your in-game garage.
Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4
Though it may sound odd to say, the Aventador is a bargain relatively speaking, clocking in at only $597,700. Without question, it is one of the crown jewels of Real Racing 3's S Class. Originally put into production back in 2011, the vehicle's availability is extremely limited, with only 4,000 ever planned on being produced. The in-game model has a top speed of 217mph, and a 0-60 in an impressive 2.9 seconds, making it one of the highest performing cars under three quarters of a million dollars.
McLaren F1
Originally dubbed as, "…The finest driving machine, yet built for the public road," this extremely specialized vehicle was one of the most beloved and coveted sports cars ever produced. Despite production on the model ceasing way back in 1998, it is still thought by some to be one of the most perfected pieces of machinery on the planet. The $1.25 million price tag not only reflects the car's rarity, but also its performance as well. Starting out with a 234mph cap speed, you can only begin to guess how high it can go with the help of a few, albeit expensive, part enhancements.
Koenigsegg Agera R
Last, but most certainly not least, this Swedish supercar begins to blur the lines between vehicle and rocket. Don't let its sleek exterior fool you, because this slice of heaven is just as much about performance as it is about perception. Holding an impressive six different land speed records, this is the type of finely tuned excellence that can accelerate to 300kmh in only 14.53 seconds. Needless to say, but a top speed of 273mph is not going to come cheap. In fact, it is so expensive that it can only be purchased using 800 in-game tokens, not even cash! To put that amount into perspective, it would cost $99.99 in real life money to purchase 1000 race tokens, so watch your wallet. Perfection comes at an extremely hefty price.
Don't worry, this is just the tip of the gas-guzzling iceberg. There will be plenty more affordable hot rods awaiting you when Real Racing 3 launches later this week. Until then, keep those engines revving, gearheads!


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This week I sent the final draft of manuscript, Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia through a Spiritual Lens, to Abingdon for the their review and editing. The book is the outgrowth of the journey Linda and I have been on for more than ten years.
Dementia is seen in our society almost exclusively through a medical lens where the focus is on symptoms, lost capacities, and grief. Such a narrow lens contributes to the current fear, stigmatizing, and marginalizing of people with dementia.
The book seeks to broaden the lens by locating dementia within God's Story of creation, liberation, restoration, incarnation, and salvation. We are all more than our limitations, capacities, and losses. We are beloved children of God, created in the divine image, redeemed by God's grace, and incorporated into a new community.
I am honored that the Foreword is written by Warren Kinghorn, a psychiatrist and theologian, who teaches in both the Medical School and Divinity School at Duke. His short Foreword is worth more than the book itself!
The book should be available by August. The royalties from its sale will go to support ministries with people with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia and those who care for them.


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An Upscale Neighborhood
Willowdale is a dynamic and cosmopolitan urban center in the city of Toronto, situated in the district of North York. It is based east to Victoria Park Avenue, west to Bathurst Street, south to 401 freeway, and north to Steeles Avenue.
The Yonge Street shopping district which runs through the middle of the neighborhood is a interested mix of small retailers, big box stores, one-of-a-kind specialty stores, fast food restaurants, small shopping plazas and a large shopping center.
Willowdale Avenue provides additional convenience-type shopping and also accommodates a number of specialty service stores and professional offices.
The Willowdale neighborhood consists of single-family homes, condominium townhouses and high-rise condominium towers. Willowdale encloses many parks that are conveniently placed throughout the neighborhood.


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A seventeen-year-old girl named Jackie is the latest victim of the dreaded "liberal media bias," all because MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell dared to ask her about Sarah Palin's policies at a book signing on Wednesday.
The clip above has been featured on The O'Reilly Factor, and on Glenn Beck's radio show, making Jackie a minor conservative heroine. One YouTube poster asks, "Can't the young girl just get her book signed without being interrogated by MSNBC?" and Jackie herself apparently thinks Ms. O'Donnell's questions about Sarah Palin's support for the bailout were unfair. Here's how she frames the encounter on the blog Red, White & Conservative:
I noticed [O'Donnell] look down at my shirt then, she turned around blackberry in hand spoke to a man, thumbs tapping the blackberry (I don't remember if she called or not, she may have. But she was on her blackberry), then jotted down a quick note. Little did I know that note would be used against me. She told us she'd be walking up to us. You know like she just stumbled upon us. The shot began… I kept telling myself answer her question well, don't freak out. Well, I thought she'd ask me the same question. She asked the man beside me (who by the way is NOT my dad) the same question she had before we went on air. Myself on the other hand, not the same story. She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me "Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout" to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped. I asked her where she got her fact and she read her little note.
So was O'Donnell's Blackberry-tapping "craftiness," or just responsible fact-checking prior to asking a question? Several commenters on Red, White & Conservative call the question about the bailout an "ambush," but is it really so underhanded for a journalist to be prepared with information? O'Donnell doesn't really "interrogate" Jackie or go out of her way to humiliate her — she moves on relatively quickly to her next question — and while perhaps a teenager wasn't the most ideal person to talk to, Jackie's t-shirt did indicate some familiarity with issues. Jackie's reaction and those of her supporters mirror the anti-liberal-media attacks of Carrie Prejean and Sarah Palin, and echo the increasingly common conservative claim that the media is doing something immoral whenever someone on the right looks bad. Jackie writes,
In one day I met a role model, and met the liberal media and their crafty schemes. I fell prey to liberal bias, but I'd like to think I did an okay job. [...] But unlike Norah I didnt have my note cards with me. I was forced to think on the spot and answer a gotcha question. Her goal was clear, make this teenager look like an uneducated Palin supporting buffoon. To liberals, and the 5 people who watch MSNBC she succeeded. To conservatives, she was the only buffoon during that interview.
Maybe Palin fans think O'Donnell comes off like a buffoon for asking a teenager a legitimate question. But what's clear from Jackie's experience is that to some conservatives, a "gotcha" question is just one you don't have the answer to.
Palin Fan Responds To O'Donnell Interview [Politico]
The Day I Met Sarah Palin…And The Liberal Media [Red, White & Conservative]
Norah O'Donnell Grills A Young Girl For Her Support Of Sarah Palin [YouTube]


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Monkey KingdomCategory: Sneak Peeks & Trailers
Disneynature's Monkey Kingdom spotlights the gripping reality of a newborn monkey and its mother, struggling to survive within the competitive social hierarchy of the Temple Troop, a dynamic group of monkeys who live in ancient ruins found deep in the storied jungles of South Asia, alongside a rich cast of forest characters. Life is grand, food is plentiful and safety is assured if you're lucky enough to be born on the higher rungs of the Troop's social ladder. But this young mother and her infant find themselves in a constant state of hunger, dodging threats from higher-ranking monkeys determined to keep them on their assigned rung. It'll take a lot of ingenuity, hard work—and a little luck—if this little family hopes to change their place in the world.
MONKEY KINGDOM is in theaters in April 2015!


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In this sequel to the French action film, Banlieue 13, also known as District 13, there's more parkour and straight up ass kicking to the extreme in this film. Taking place 3 years after the events of the first, Ultimatum is a movie that really makes me wanna go back and watch the first. That's how good this movie was, it makes me wanna watch the first one (although I understood what was going on) just so I can connect the two and rewatch the second one. That's what's good with this film. Word.
In this film, David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli reprise their roles as Leito and Damien, the hard hitting cop and parkour specialist. In this movie (and I'm assuming it's a continued story from the first) there's still a District 13 in France,
comprised of thugs and gangsters from every major European nation. There's the Jews, the Blacks (Africans, I'm pretty sure), the Asians, and so on and so forth. In a symbolic representation of the tensions felt between races, this movie really speaks to race relations in a modern society, if left unchecked. With these problems plaguing the French government, the DISS (also known as the Department of Internal State Security) has some big plans for this district.
After busting some dumb thugs who see a man in heels and a wig and assume he's a woman, Leito (Belle) takes them out one by one with a medicinal gun. He drops them down this conveniently placed sewer grate and looks good all the while doing it. I don't think it means I'm gay that I found him to be attractive as a woman, I had no idea at first that he was a man, which I think is a bit of a bravo for the makeup crew on this movie set. The movie industry does wonders. Afer a job well done, Leito goes back to his flat and bangs his black girlfriend. Then he's kidnapped for a drug framing. And this is where the conspiracy starts.
While in jail, Leito calls on his best friend Damien to help get him out, which he thankfully agrees to. With some great parkour moves and some investigating of his own, Damien and Leito discover a plan that will rock all of District 13. Will they be able to stop the dastardly plan? It's all up to Damien and Leito and their French stunt skills.
What I really liked about this film was the realistic stunts. And the way those realistic stunts flow in between a well delivered plot with some good rapport and dialogue. Leito goes from shoving his foot down some punks' throats to Damien jumping effortlessly from building to building in order to save the day. And who knew that parkour could save someone's life? The last scene is quite mind blowing and full of adrenaline pumping destruction from every gangster in the film. Any scene between Damien and Leito is a natural conversation between friends, although I know nothing of the French dialect and its intonations. Just two friends destroying and having a good time doing it.
The idea behind the movie is pretty cool, and I've not seen that many French films before. Luc Besson has written some badass films in the past (Transporter Series, The Fifth Element, etc.) and this movie is no exception. You know that old stereotype about French being sissies? Watch this movie and tell me that to my face with a straight look. I was impressed with the wide ranging cast of ethnicities and the
deliverance in lines. There's a bit of that cheesily delivered lines, and some lines you wouldn't believe people in government wouldn't ever say, but this action movie doesn't go overboard. And that impressed me. With a movie like this that can keep you entertained at every turn with its fast paced filming and action, you can't do anything but want more of it. And that's exactly what I'm gonna do. Impress me some more France. I'm listening. A solid 7.3 out of 10.


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Craig Fortnam's most recent surfacing (as North Sea Radio Orchestra) was a Robert Wyatt tribute event back in June, accompanied by assorted European Canterbury-scene aficionados and former Henry Cow-ers. Increasingly, that Wyatt connection's cleaving more and more closely to his own work. It's not that he absolutely takes on board that Wyatt whimsicality, the covers work or the delightful melting song-rambles: it's more something about the lack of pomp, in particular in the tone of voice. Like Wyatt, Craig sings in an unaffected, unperformed manner – a delicate cupboard-voice, a step up from speech or chat, allowing itself to be frail but unsilenced: a singing style that's like a confidence quietly shared in the back booth of a pub.
While this has been evident in Craig's vocal moments with NSRO, it's always been more present in his smaller-scale singer-songwriter work as Arch Garrison, in which he's less sheltered behind chamber woodwinds and strings. Originally a trio including bass, subsequently trimmed to the two-man interplay between Craig and the delightfully welling, psychedelic-chapel keyboard work of James Larcombe, the upcoming English tour sees AG as Craig on his own – just his voice and artful nylon-string guitar, fingerpicked in a way which suggests a British answer to John Fahey's American Primitive style while drawing from classical, flamenco, African stylings and intents. New songs are promised, adding to Craig's existing repertoire of soft pushings and reflections on family, geological time, bereavement, and contact with one's surroundings.
Craig's tourmate is Emily Jones – a singer-songwriter who's a little further underground, with only a single 2014 debut album to her name compared to Craig's batch of projects (although she's also made marks via a split woodland-folkadelic album with The Rowan Amber Mill). That said, she's been making progressively bigger splashes this year; emerging from cottages in Cornwall and Salisbury for a growing number of concert appearances. This tour will be her biggest effort to date – six shows up and down the country bringing her feathery songs of hauntings and lovings which blur in and out of folk mythology and present day magic, accessible and human with a gentle wash of acid dreaming and folk baroque.
Along the way, there'll be various other meetings. In Hexham, it's just the two of them playing; but in Weston-super-Mare, they're part of the Winter Warmer event at the Sunfold Hotel, the Weston-super-Mare guest house which is emerging as an occasional local stronghold for music (thanks to the affable-evil presence of Steven Morricone, the more gonzoid of the two Scaramanga Six frontmen, as co-owner). Not only is Steven playing host, he'll also be spending time onstage maltreating the piano with his Steven Morricone Tyranny solo project, indulging self-confessed "straw man with a fist of ham" tendencies with a clutch of assorted Scaramanga songs (presumably his own more psychobilly offerings, though he's recently been straying into more obscure and theatrical art-rock set pieces with assorted flavours of Faust, theatre and radio art), plus some new solo stuff and the odd cover.
Also playing are Brum-born but Cornwall-settled duo We Are Muffy, in which The Lilac Time's Nick Duffy and Ambassadors Of Sorrow leader/frontwoman Angeline Morrison conjure up "poetic narratives of remembered and imagined pasts, combining vocal harmonies with unexpected instrumentation" – somewhere at the country-folk end of the Witchseason sound, with American banjos and fingerpicked guitar dissolving into more British concerns and storytelling styles.
In Hereford, Craig and Emily are playing with spooky sometime Omnia Opera/7shades singer Libbertine Vale, who sets aside the psych/prog electric trappings of her bandwork in favour of macabre a capella renditions of melancholic folk songs about oppression, cruelty and general perishing, albeit with "seeds of renewal". You don't get to see much of Libbertine outside of Birmingham and Herefordshire (where she contributes to the county's growing reputation for psychedelic folk and sundry hauntological business by co-running Unorthodox Paradox), and she spends much of her time on subversive textile art rather than on music, so it's best to catch her when you can. Especially since her solo act has, so far, resisted the pull of the internet – so no videos or soundclips here.
The Garrison/Jones booking at a Buds and Spawn night in Sheffield is supported by guitar-and-banjo-toting female harmony trio Little Robots. Though the latter have been going for about a decade, they're busy women with a host of other activities and a commitment to the moment, so actual recordings are intermittent. You can scoop up what there is from their Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages: doses of impeccable Appalachian/Yorkshire fusion.
In Oxford, the support act is "singer-songwriter-psychedelicatessen" Adam S. Leslie, as his Berlin Horse project, wrapping spiky, silly absurdities, Ray Davies echoes and moments of quirky beauty in unalloyed Pepper-flavoured lushness (like an old Puffin Books joke anthology with extra swirl, wit and Lowrey organ colour)
London is the only date for which Arch Garrison will be a twosome, with James Larcombe returning to the fold. They'll also be meeting up with Chlöe Herington. Temporarily disengaged from pumping regal bassoons and saxophones into the psychedelia of Knifeworld and Hirvikolari, from celebrating Lindsay Cooper in the Songbook project and from the three-headed avant-femme art-music project that her onetime solo outlet VALVE has become, she's promised to occupy herself in "rebirthing some very old stuff (the vaults have been unsealed!) and reworking some more recent."
There are no questions about the folky character of the Salisbury gig – it's being played with Emily and Craig sandwiched between Ian A. Anderson and Pete Aves. Ian's credentials are impeccable – a veteran British folkster of five decades standing, continuously active since the mid-60s, he's led the field in acoustic country blues, had a long spell as head of The Village Thing acid folk label, has been a concert promoter and a critic (in particular, as the leading light of 'Folk Roots' magazine. Now in his seventies, for the last couple of years he's been writing and playing solo again. This year's 'Onwards' album compiles, in his own words "fifty years of deathfolk, blues, psych-fi, trad and world twang."
As for guitarist/banjoist Pete, he too has been returning to solo work after the drying-up of work as regards his role in the currently slumbering High Llamas (and, more seriously, the uprootings and traumas of a divorce and spell of homelessness). Inspired by his recent travails, he's now turning out simple songs of reproach, road life, and thumbnail character sketches, mostly in an Anglo-American country-folk vein.
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Both Craig and Emily will also be heading down to Brighton on 21st December to play "little guest sets" at the Winter Wonderland concert headed up by Spratleys Japs, featuring yet another joyfully incestuous array of the British psychedelic stew that bubbles around Cardiacs (see passim…).
The event's already entirely sold out; but assuming that you can manage to prise a ticket from the cold, dead hand of a Cardiacs fan or an eager Brighton psychonaut, what you'll be seeing apart from Emily and Craig includes the "lo-fi arty ska" of Hot Sauce Pony, a raucous Brixton four-piece with a lineup including the Gilchrist husband-and-wife couple (singer Caroline and bass player Steve, the latter better known as Stephen Evens, as the "Stuffy" in stuffy/the fuses, as a one-tour Cardiac or as the kit-thrasher behind Graham Coxon) and onetime Rat The Magnificent guitarist Ross Davies. They've been touting around a Steve Albini-recorded debut album this year. North-western art pop duo Army Of Moths may have had to cancel, but another longterm Cardiacs affiliate, Matthew Cutts, will be spouting some kind of poetry.
Probably the big draw this year, though, is the resurrected Panixphere – the elusive Cardiacs-family thrash-rock band who've surfaced occasionally over the past four decades to play a frustrating brief handful of blasting sets and then immediately dipped back underground. Inasmuch as they've had much consistent about them, it's been Bic Hayes – the intermittently active, sputtering jewel of a guitarist/singer whose juddery, effects-laden playing (like Keith Levene invading a fiery Hawkwind lineup) has graced recordings and concerts by Cardiacs, ZOFFF, Levitation and Dark Star, Pet Shop Boys, Heidi Berry and Julianne Regan's short-lived Mice. In Panixphere, though, he's off the leash and free from the big concept or the psychedelic ritual. Historically, it's been a band in which to drink too much beer and play music much too fast, in snotty punk-metal tradition (albeit while test-bedding or providing an alternative vehicle for assorted Cardiacs and Levitation material, as well as crunchy cover versions of songs by XTC, Nomeansno and, if suitably distracted, early Genesis).
Now, however, Panixphere seem to be taking things a bit more seriously, announcing their return with a swishy verbal fanfare and too many capital letters. "A Three Piece. Three timelines. Formed in 1984. Re-imagined in 1992. Returning in 2020. Experience The Past, Present and Future, simultaneously, in PANIXPHERE – appearing LIVE for the first time in 25 years – preview titles from the FORTHCOMING album 'Cryptic', currently under construction and to be unveiled in 2020. This Show Is A Beginning."
While the lineup has previously included (at various points), Craig Fortnam, Cardiacs capo Tim Smith, Bic's Levitation/Dark Star bandmate David Francolini and mysterious south London 1980s festi-freaks "Little Hicky" and "Flat Hat', the revived version is a power trio including singing/shouting bassist Jon Poole (back for a second stint) and Cardiacs drummer Bob Leith. Here's a clip of an earlier Panixphere, complete with Tim Smith, banging about onstage in 1993. Whether they'll be any less unruly a quarter-century further on – well, it's possible but not guaranteed. All this talk of an album, though, suggests that for the first time ever they're thinking beyond the present, or following through on plans which have previously stalled in a shower of rude fat sparks.
As for the headliners, read here for a more in-depth account of Spratleys Japs' original life as a Tim Smith/Jo Spratley parallel-to-Cardiacs weird-pop studio project, half-hearted disguised as bizarre pond-scummed Anglo-American swamp rock; and of their recent Tim-less/Tim-blessed live revival, with Jo now fronting a selection of Brighton psychedelic luminaries. Still reanimating the original Smith material, they're now broadening out with their own new work as well as a couple of unheard Smith treasures.
With Jo now handling all of the vocals – and with Tim's fuming-friendly/baleful-brotherly presence restricted to an affectionate memory – the band have indubitably lost some of their original charismatic quirk and danger. In return, though, they've gained a greater access to the beauty behind the music's peculiar angles and gurgles, which refracted elements of glam, imaginary folk, tastes of post-Bostonian punkaroo (think Pixies, Throwing Muses, Breeders) and celestial Mellotron-classical through a skewed Smithian prism… and which still does, dropping it all off into a murky forest pool surrounded by tea-lights, traces of spontaneous ritual and the odd piece of trash. They're a warmer proposition than they were before – now unrestricted by that Cardiacs tradition of onstage aggro and awkwardness, Jo's now playing things more as a dancing priestess than the punkette muse she might have been before, blossoming even as the music does.
If all of this still seems compelling despite your lack of a ticket, word's coming through that the whole shebang's going to be live-streamed worldwide, in order to raise further funds for Tim Smith's palliative care. More details on the event page, with the streaming link here.
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Arch Garrison/Emily Jones tour:
- 'Winter Warmer' @ The Sunfold Hotel, 39 Beach Road, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, BS23 1BG, England – Wednesday 11th December 2019, 7.30pm (with We Are Muffy + The Steven Morricone Tyranny) – information here
- 'Weirdshire' @ The Babar Café, 31 Union Street, Hereford, Herefordshire, HR1 2BT, England – Thursday 12th December 2019, 7.30pm (with Libbertine Vale) – information here
- The Vault, 22-24 Hallgate, Hexham, Northumbria, NE46 1XD, England – Friday 13th December 2019, 8.00 pm – information here, here and here
- 'Buds & Spawn' @ The Dorothy Pax, Arch 17, Wharf Street, Victoria Quays, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S2 5SY, England – Saturday 14th December 2019, 8.00pm (with Little Robots) – information here and here
- The Library, 182 Cowley Road, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX4 1UE, England – Sunday 15th December 2019, 8.00pm (with Berlin Horse) – information here and here
- The Harrison, 28 Harrison Street, Kings Cross, London, WC1H 8JF, England – Monday 16th December 2019, 7.30pm (with Chlöe Herington) – information here
- The Winchester Gate, 113-117 Rampart Road, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 1JA, England- Tuesday 17th December 2019, 7.30pm (with Ian A. Anderson + Pete Aves) – information here and here
Wonderful Winter Wonderland Special 2019 (featuring Spratleys Japs, Panixphere + Hot Sauce Pony + Army Of Moths + Arch Garrison + Emily Jones + Matthew Cutts)
The Green Door Store, 2-4 Trafalgar Arches, Lower Goods Yard, Brighton Train Station, Brighton, BN1 4FQ, England
Saturday, 21 December 2019, 5.30pm – information here and here


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House hunting on Kailua Beach
With clear, blue skies and deep, blue ocean, Kailua showed its best face to visitors who turned out in droves for yesterday's Fourth of July parade in the morning and fireworks at night.
This post on Kailua beachfront property is for those who made a beach day of it and fell in love.
You really can't get much farther than a few minutes drive from the beach if you live in Kailua, but if you're hoping live right on the ocean, expect to pay at least $1.6 million.
For example, a beachside home at 10 Kaapuni Drive, listed at $1.699 million, is just a few houses away from the beach. If you don't feel like swimming in the ocean, the four-bedroom, three-bath home has a pool in the yard.
If you want your own private access to the beach, a home at 7 Kailuana Place is listed at $4.995 million and offers a beautiful view of the Mokulua Islands. This one is a five-bedroom, three-bath home in a gated community.
Want a home with a presidential suite? An estate at 572 C North Kalaheo once served as President Obama's vacation rental. This home is listed at $11.888 million and boasts 13 bedrooms. The beachfront property also includes a large pool with a built-in hot tub.


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Facebook is using its social-networking prowess to help prevent suicides in the United States and Canada.
The site is launching a service that will allow users to report a suicidal comment they see posted on Facebook using either a special "Report Suicidal Content" link or on the report links throughout the site.
The person who posted the worrisome comment will immediately receive an email from Facebook encouraging them to call the toll-free US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or to click on a chat session with a crisis worker.
Both options are available 24/7 and provide free, confidential counselling to anyone in need.
The Lifeline, which has answered more than 3 million calls since it was launched in 2005, is funded by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and administered by Link2Health Solutions, a subsidiary of the Mental Health Association of New York City (MHA-NYC).
Currently, the Lifeline already responds to dozens of people each day who have expressed suicidal thoughts on Facebook, according to a SAMHSA news release.
John Draper, the Lifeline's project director and vice president of crisis and behavioural health technology at MHA-NYC, said in the SAMHSA release that, "We have been partnering with Facebook since 2006 to assist at-risk users and are thrilled to launch this new service."
And according to Associated Press, lives have already been saved in this way: In July, for example, police intervened to help prevent a man from killing himself after a friend living in California alerted them to distressing postings on Facebook.
"Although the Lifeline on average handles 70 000 calls per month, we have heard from our Facebook fans and others that there are many people in crisis who don't feel comfortable picking up the phone.
About the new service
This new service provides a way for them to get the help they need in the way they want it," Draper added.
"Identification of those at risk is the cornerstone to suicide prevention," said Kelly Posner, director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute. "Facebook's innovative services enable concerned users, or 'friends,' to intervene immediately and initiate this life-saving identification process.
Reaching people through venues that they use and providing them with referrals is an important and encouraging step in the right direction."
Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Facebook, said the company is "proud" of the new effort. "The Lifeline's commitment to suicide prevention has enabled people on Facebook to get fast, meaningful help when they need it most, and we look forward to continuing our work with them to help save lives," he said.
And US Surgeon General Dr Regina M. Benjamin also applauded the launch of the service. "Facebook and the Lifeline are to be commended for addressing one of this nation's most tragic public health problems," she said in the release. "Nearly 100 Americans die by suicide every day – 36,035 lives every year. For every person who is murdered, two die by suicide. These deaths are even more tragic because they are preventable."
(HealthDay, December 2011)
Read more:
Adolescents vulnerable to suicide
Danger signals of suicide
Tips for facebook safety


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About Surya Rugs
With such high fashion in an affordable rug category, SURYA has truly created a new category of rugs to be used as accessories or "Decorative Rugs". Our rugs are designed for the consumer with discriminating taste in styles ranging from Traditional to Transitional from Contemporary to Tribal.
We work with top designers and constantly update our designs and color palettes to match and set the trends in design and fashion for the home.
With its strong focus on product development and innovative manufacturing techniques, SURYA continues to push the boundaries of color and design.
With over 25 years of commitment to excellence in quality and design, Surya continues to create a lasting impression in today's marketplace. With our innovative designs, rich textures and relentless attention to detail, Surya exceeds the highest standards of quality, color, design, and construction.
Product Information
- Area Rugs
- Animal Print / Wildlife Rugs
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- Flat Woven
- Hand-Carved Rugs
- Hand-Made Rugs
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- Hooked Rugs
- Indoor-Outdoor Rugs
- Jute Rugs
- Juvenile / Kid Rugs
- Leather Rugs
- Machine Made Rugs
- Modern / Contemporary Rugs
- Natural Fiber Rugs
- Printed Rugs
- Seagrass Rugs
- Sisal Rugs
- Transitional Rugs
- Wool Rugs


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Bush Radio is embarking on a pilot project to get feedback on our programmes. We need 10 to 15 people to form part of a listener group.
NB! You will need to be able to listen to one programme per day (Monday to Friday) for 15 days and have access to MXIT.
Listening to the station can be done via 89.5FM / www.bushradio.ndstream.net .
If you are interested in helping us improve the programmes you hear on the station send your name to the Listener Group co-ordinator via one of the following options:
Email: email@example.com
SMS/WhatsApp/call: 083 297 8602
BB Pin: 229420C0
Mxit ID: e.s.williams
You will be given more information as to how to participate.


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Comprehensive maintenance of properties
EULEN Maintenance relies on all the human, technical and material means to provide facilities with maintenance solutions tailored to suit the needs required by each customers and sector.
Engineering, constructions and installations
We undertake projects in a comprehensive way, from their analysis to their execution. Our professionalism and experience, together with the backing provided by the most demanding official certifications, guarantees the quality of our services.
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We provide global services that ensure an efficient and lasting maintenance of facilities by managing resources, optimizing consumptions and ensuring the optimum performance of manufacturing assets.
Elevator maintenance
We guarantee safety in elevators and escalators by providing comprehensive services of maintenance, replacement or assembly of new equipment.


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Venice was all floating fabulousness!
It felt like I was just getting to know the city, when it was time for me to leave. "What will you do there for an entire week? And alone?" my friends exclaimed before I left. I could easily have stayed another two.
I walked mostly. Through endless narrow calles, over innumerable pontes and onto picturesque campos presided over by stunning churches filled with unbelievable art. The clanging of bells from their companiles marking the time of day.
And when my poor feet could take no more, I hopped onto a Vaporetto for the long ride back 'home'.
Here is a shot clicked from one such ride back…Ponte di Rialto from the Vaporetto
And a few of my gondola shots;
More soon. Have a great weekend.