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Thugs invade lodge, rob of items worth K1.4m: Arrested
Heavily armed criminals in the night of July 29th attacked Chichi Lodge in Nkhotakota district and went away with assorted items worth K1.4million.
Nkhotakota Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) Kaitano Lubrino confirmed the development and added that they had arrested three people in connection with the incident.
However, the spokesperson refused to disclose details of those arrested, adding doing so would jeopardise their investigations as they were still hunting for more suspect.
Lubrino said the thugs who put on masks were armed with metal bars, panga knives and big sticks.
He said they managed to break into the manager's office, various rooms and bar after they had tied three watchmen with ropes.
"After breaking in they stole four plasma screens, a Malawi Savings Bank cheque worth K46,000.00 for Nkhotakota District Council, cash amounting to K32,000.00, home theatre, driving licence, five mobile phones, one laptop and one National Bank ATM card.
"In total, all stolen items are worth K1.4 million," said Lubrino.
During the occurrence of the incident, office manager identified as Bansily Chokotho, 35, from Jumbe village, Traditional Authority Somba in Blantyre district was off duty.
"One of the customers who lodged at Chichi managed to escape and alerted staff of another nearby lodge. The support staff from this nearby lodge together with the lodger established that the armed criminals had stolen the stated items. We are therefore appealing to the general public to bring forward information about these criminals or anyone offering for sale these items," he said.
In a related development, 12 people were arrested on July 29, 2012 for entering into Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve and illegally sawing planks.
"Game officials were tipped that there were 12 people residing in the reserve and are illegally sawing planks. The game officials responded by going to the site at midnight where they found them fast asleep and arrested them. They will all appear before court after one of them identified as Steve Mwanda admitted to have recruited the other eleven to do the job," Lubrino said.Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :


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Nothing says summer like bubbles! Somehow we use A LOT of bubble solution in our house, the cheapest way to use it is to make it with simple household ingredients. Rarely, do we have glycerin around the house, but I found this recipe worked just as well!
What you need:
8 cups of water
2 cups dish soap ( We used blue Dawn- I'm no sure why it looks greenish)
1 cup cornstarch
2 Tablespoons baking powder
Mix ingredients in that order in a large bucket or container. It looks a little cloudy and clumpy but if you stir it gently the cornstarch and baking powder will dissolve, it will have the color of whatever soap that you use. Let sit for 30-60 minutes ( if you can!) Solution is good for several days. It still worked 6 days later, but the bubbles seemed to pop faster. It will likely look similar to the container below. You can double or triple it easily (I made three batches below because we had company over!)
We used these giant bubble wands from the dollar store! But you could easily twist a coat hanger into a loop shape or use a small bubble wand you may have around the house.
Kathryn Clements is a PreK teacher, mom to fraternal tween twin girls, and wife to a technology-loving husband. For fun she loves to read, explore new museums or parks, and go on day adventures with her family!
Amber is the proud homeschooling mother to four beautiful children, Damian (27), Rosaleigh (13), Carlyn (10), Naomi (7), and a wife to her loving husband, Chancellor. Her family also includes four cats.
She loves being a stay-at-home mom and feels blessed to be able to care for her children full-time and provide them with so many opportunities through Metro Detroit Mommy. In addition to Metro Detroit Mommy, Amber has a passion for hosting karaoke and trivia with L Sharp Productions. She enjoys the Metro Detroit nightlife especially, singing, dancing and meeting new people.

subset: commoncrawl


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Architecture of Sinan
This section of the "Sinan'a Saygı" site relates to works spanning from April 2006 to February 2007. During preparation trips for the Sinan Excursion Map project, we visited all of the works of Sinan in Istanbul and Thrace. While creating the excursion map we referred to various calligraphic manuscripts to determine which works to include (such as Tezkiretü'l Bünyan, Tezkiretü'l Ebniye, Adsız Risale and Tuhfetü'l Mi'mârin). During these trips we compiled sketches and photographs to create a database of visual information, which served as a foundation for the Sinan the Architect: Work of Arts section; we also systematically took notes of details regarding each work of art. Intense research of bibliographic resources regarding Sinan the Architect was then carried out. This section has been made possible through such work and will soon be uploaded to this site, featuring Sinan's work in Istanbul, Thrace, and greater Anatolia.
At this point, we would like to send our gratitude to the numerous researchers who haved helped establish our valuable bibliography. We would also like to ask for your contributions to help further develop and keep this section up to date.


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I don't know if you are aware of this, but the inner solar system has a visitor.
This cosmic guest traveled from the icy depths of space and now basks in golden sunshine. These colorful wanderers intrigue humanity, causing us to blame our misfortunes on these uninvited guests. Wars… famines… sacrifice… are these symptoms of some malignant presence?
I'm talking about Comet Lovejoy! A strange green blob, easily visible in the northern night sky.
There's some speculation that Comet Lovejoy may continue to brighten. Right now, I believe Comet Lovejoy is around magnitude 3.8. If you know where to look—Comet Lovejoy will appear as a dim star. Not very impressive, I must admit. I remember Comet Hale-Bopp, which was the first comet I ever observed. What year was it? 1996? 1997? Doesn't matter, the point is, Comet Lovejoy may appear to be a little disappointing…
You have a telescope or binocular.
I encountered some technical difficulties while searching for Comet Lovejoy. I scanned a few maps eight hours before venturing outside, so needless to say, I didn't exactly know where to look.
A binocular can bail you out of a jam. If the object is bright enough (which it was), all you need to do is scan a particular patch of sky and hope for the best. I know, I know, very scientific. Good news: my suspicion of where Comet Lovejoy proved to be correct.
My binocular resolved a fuzzy ball—it was Comet Lovejoy.
The binocular I used was a Orion 10×50, so my power was limited. I was still impressed with the view, despite the lack of telescopic magnification. Comet Lovejoy looked like a hairball—of the feline variety. I observed a scraggly wispyness, wrapped in a diffuse sphere. No tail was visible.
Comet Lovejoy is famous for its distinct greenish hue. The color is impressively apparent (with long exposure photography or very dark skies). Guess what? If you were unfortunate enough to inhale a whiff of Comet Lovejoy—eyes would bulge from your face—as noxious fumes dissolve the delicate walls around your cells. Just kidding. Kind of. Comets are notoriously poisonous: sunlight cooks up nefarious chemicals, resulting in a greenish bloom, or coma. Diatomic carbon atoms are easily excitable and emit the telltale glow as they simmer into a less energetic state.
Ultraviolet radiation brings out the worst in everything.
Do you want to know how to find Comet Lovejoy? Click—here.


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One law we need desperately is truth-in-bill-naming. One more piece of special-interest, greed-head legislation called the Something Something Reform Act and we're going to have to get the dictionaries to redefine "reform."
How about: "Reform: Special usage, Texas only. Way to rip off the public for the benefit of a private corporation."
"Reform" (actually deform) of the Consumer Protection Act/Deceptive Trade Practices Act gives additional license to the worst kinds of businesses that operate in Texas. It's back to "buyer beware." If you get ripped off or even severely damaged by some sleazy business, don't bother trying to get your money back--much less any other compensation.
Southwestern Bell bought itself the sweetest little monopoly you ever did see--with our money. According to Tim Curtis of Texas Citizen Action, "Southwestern Bell had this deal bought and paid for before the session started.
"The only adjustments to their plan made by the other side--and that included little guys like us up to AT&T--were because we had arguments so persuasive and powerful they had to ameliorate some things just to cover their political butts."
The Southwestern Bell bill was supposed to bring competition (ha ha) to local phone service. It does things never done or even contemplated in any other jurisdiction, such as requiring other competitors to build their own phone lines. The bill is a sham--an absolute barrier to competition.
When the federal courts broke up AT&T several years ago, the courts recognized that the captive customers had an investment in telephone infrastructure--we bought it, we paid for it. Rates had been set all those years so that consumers paid for building the phone lines. In recognition of that investment by the public, the courts gave us competition and told AT&T, "You gotta share your lines."
In Texas, there is no recognition at all that public rates have been set over the years for capital investment or that we have been forced to invest in that infrastructure--there's no recognition that we played a part at all.
"We get nothing to pay us back," said Curtis. "We're getting shafted, our investment taken from us without returning a damn dime or even an opportunity for competition."
You want to know what this session was like? Consider the case of Richard Weekley, a big-time real estate developer who owns shopping malls and--along with his brother--a big housing company. Weekley appeared in Austin as president of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the folks who were going to "reform" our tort system, Governor George Dubya's pet project.
Imagine my surprise when The Wall Street Journal listed Weekley as one of this session's biggest "winners." I'd have listed him as the session's biggest "over-reacher." When you behave so badly that one of the three top officeholders in Texas describes you as an "ass" and points out that tort reform would have been even more pro-bidness without your able assistance, I'd say "winner" was a little strong.
This "new, dynamic leader" of the tort-reform movement came into Austin like Attila the Hun, as though he owned the place or was buying it in some kind of Wall Street deal. He tried to put several provisions into the "reform" package that directly benefited his own businesses.
One said that if you are a landlord, you have no responsibility for third-party acts. That means that shopping-mall owners, like Weekley, could take down their parking lot lights and fire their security guards, 'cause who cares if some lady gets mugged in a dark parking lot?
Another clause said that if you file suit for construction mistakes, you lose--and what's more, you have to pay the other side's court costs. Say a builder has been using some cheesy materials that fall apart after 10 years. No responsibility falls to the builder--you have to sue the manufacturer. Even the Journal suggested that this "winner" stay home in 1997.
On another note, you will notice that we've been having another go-round in the debate about "values." The latest episode is Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's speech in Hollywood, blaming bad movies and gangsta rap for the decline of civilization.
"Hypocrite!" shriek the lefties. A charge not without merit, as the senator limited his criticism to movies made by and starring your more Democratic types, carefully leaving out such distinguished purveyors of violence as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, Republicans both.
Indeed, Die Hard With A Vengeance, easily the most mindless glorification of violence currently on display, was bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch, the Republicans' sugar daddy. Murdoch has contributed more dreck to American culture than most, but Dole chose to aim his fire at Time-Warner, which gives money to Democrats.
I have listened to an awful lot of conservatives blame "liberal values" for everything from Snoop Doggy Dogg, who doesn't strike me as a liberal, to the drowning of Susan Smith's children in South Carolina. I have no idea what conservatives mean by "liberal values," but I know what I think conservative "values" are: greed and selfishness.
And, judging by this session of the Texas Legislature, greed and selfishness are taking over.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Copyright 1995 Creators Syndicate, Inc.


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With the YouVersion app you can follow along with the sermon, engage with Scripture, take notes, and even save their own personalized copy for future reference.
We've included the Announcements for your reference and also included links so you can give on-line or submit prayer requests.
- Simply open the App on Sunday Morning
- Tap on More, in the bottom righthand corner.
- Tap Events and our Live event will be listed.
If you would like to view the event later be sure to save the event.
To download the latest YouVersion App
click on the pictures above or the link below.


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Now that the 52 week challenge is almost over, it is time to think about what I want to do in 2012. One of the projects I have in mind is a block of the month club.
My plan is to post a block (or two) once a month, with directions on how to make it. I would also like to feature various projects along the way that can be made with the blocks, starting with simple one block projects, up to using all the blocks in a sampler quilt.
The blocks that I make will be made with cotton solids from the kona and bella lines by Moda and Robert Kaufman. I will be offering BOM kits in my fabric shop with pre-cut pieces, patterns, and project ideas. Of course if you like, you can also use fabrics you have on hand, and just follow along on this blog. You can make your blocks in a rainbow of colors as I will be, or stick to two or three colors if you prefer.


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A high taper fade is a men's haircut with the sides trimmed gradually shorter, starting at 2 inches maximum from the top of the hair down to the sides of the head. Guys everywhere are hooked on this versatile fade because of the incredible contrast it creates when combined with any hairstyle!
High-tops, combovers, man buns, quiffs, high and tight haircuts, and any other edgy cut you can think of – all of these were proven to result in a strong and neat look when paired with a high taper fade. Zayn Malik's spiked hair, Adam Levine's undercut, and Channing Tatum's brushed-back tresses are only a few examples of how this stylish fade has been effective and trendy!
Sharp definition is best achieved with dense hair since most of the sides will be trimmed off, and this would allow for more versatility in styling. Use strong hold styling products like gels and pomades to maximize the benefits of this clean and crisp cut.
Stop the hesitation and check these popular high taper fade haircuts for the modern stylish man!
#1: Grey Curly High Taper for Older Men
A curly high taper is a good and easy style to maintain for older men. The curly top has been disconnected at the front to keep a heavy fringe but blended at the back. It has been tapered around the edges for a tidy finish and will grow out well. This is a pretty low-maintenance cut, a trim every 4-6 weeks will be enough to keep it tidy. To give a natural finish, a styling powder or a low sheen paste will work.
#2: Fresh High Taper for Wavy Hair
#3: High Top with a High Taper Fade
Those flat top fades are a match made in heaven with shaved sides! This taper fade haircut is all about that top design.
#4: Taper Fade Hairstyle on Straight Hair
One of the styles that go well with a tapered fade is a fluffed up top, great for building up texture.
#5: Hard Part with a High Fade
The smooth shave comes perfect with an abrupt part continuing on with a mini faux hawk.
#6: Quiff with a High Fade
The duo that never fails to impress! Sport a masculine look while keeping it chill.
#7: Afro Haircut
The difference in hair volume is astounding wherein the skin fade accentuates the bodied 'fro and vice versa.
#8: Skin Fade
A bald fade is one of the most popular hairstyles for men nowadays. Perfect for spring and summer but still awesome all year 'round!
#9: Taper Haircut with Waves
There is so much to style even if you have a considerably short hair cut. Stylist Dario did a wonderful job on the waves and layers on this fade.
#10: Curly Hair
If you're tired with having a full on curl party, having shaved sides is the next big thing for you. Management comes easy without sacrificing style.
#11: Mohawk
A great center piece is what a graduated fade really needs.
#12: High Top Fade Comb Over
Manage your pompadour by putting it over a side. Mousse it up and gel it down and you've got yourself a dashing look.
#13: Taper Fade with Long Hair
Q&A with style creator, Gustavo Melendez Castro
Traditional Barber @ All-Star Clippers Barbershop in Houston, TX
How would you describe this look?
The high taper is versatile fade that can be rocked with every hair texture and all hairstyles – from waves to side parts, or a man-bun as, as pictured above. What I love about it is that you get the best of both worlds. From the front profile to the client, you get the feel of a mid/high skin fade but around the ears, you still have a crisp line up. Longer hair with a side part makes an awesome fade with hair on top.
Any advice for someone considering it?
Try it! You can't go wrong with this one. Whether you're wanting a fohawk, a buzz cut, or a contour, this fade pairs nicely with them all. To execute this cut properly some of the bulk hair from around back the ear needs to be taken down, adding a slimmer front profile to your head. Of all the tapers it's the longest lasting one so you're getting your money's worth but since it is a taper if you decide you want to try a different look, you can do so in little time and the transition is easy.
#14: Short Crew Cut
Q&A with style creator, Titi Ngo
Barber @ Trims Barbershop in Hamilton, ON
How would you describe this look?
I describe this look a classic, unique hairstyle. This specific comb-over haircut with a mid-bald fade is a nice cut for someone that wants a new trendy look but at the same time have a professional look.
My favorite thing about this haircut is the "blurry" effect on the fade. How I achieved a "blurry" fade is by using the corners of my clippers while fading to give the fade a grainy look to it. I just love how the overall haircut came out to be.
Any advice for someone considering it?
I recommend people that are looking to have this taper fade haircut is you always gotta style your hair with products especially with this comb-over haircut. You rather a nice volume well hold together comb-over than just letting it flap over to the side. Everybody has different head shapes if you have a wider head shape I recommend the highest part of the fade a longer length. Leaving longer hair like this creates a unique appeal. When receiving a comb-over haircut you want that box overall look. Depending on your hair thickness and whether you like more of a shiny look or matte look but I recommend using clay for a strong hold and matte finish, pomade for medium hold and medium shine, and cream for medium hold and matte finish. When styling your hair and you want more volume I suggests blow-drying your hair on the hot setting first than touch it up with cold setting to activate the volume touches on your hair.
#15: Slick Back Taper Haircut
Q&A with style creator, Viry Valenzuela
Stylist @ DBK Salon in Toronto, ON
How would you describe this look?
This is an undercut fade, low maintenance, and trendy, and it is easy to style. My favorite thing about this look is that it is very stylish and versatile.
Any advice for someone considering it?
It is very important to use styling products such as pomade or gel. This haircut is great for any face shape and easy to style if the hair is straight.


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On last Thursday, B.M.M.O. Consulting attended a networking event sponsored by Ms Career Girl. This event was very informative and gave some great financial tips. We wanted to share this information with you, so that you can go from being young and chic to mature and elegant. Set yourself up so that you can live the same life today, tomorrow and forever! Make decisions today that will allow for an even greater tomorrow.
Use your credit wisely – You should only carry a balance that is 30% of the total allowance. Also, find out what day the credit card reports to the credit bureau are due and pay your bill before that day, even if its early, this keeps the balance that is reported to the bureau down, thus providing higher credit scores.
Savings – If your company offers a 401K and matches it, contribute at least up to what the company will match. Pay yourself 20% of your income each pay period; the goal is to have 3-6 months of your income saved in case of job loss. Diversify your savings: keep a regular savings for emergencies, a portfolio of investments if you decide to retire early and a 401K for retirement. Your 401K should be used for long term investing, but if you have come into a situation and need to pay off a bill, only use your 401K if the total of the bill is more than the amount it would cost you to borrow including the 10% penalty.
Insurance – There are two types of life insurance, term life and whole life. Whole life provides better benefits. Term life insurance is only for a set period, after you pass that time period you are no longer covered. Whole life allows you to build a cash benefit amount that can be withdrawn for a low repayment interest. Essentially you don't eve have to pay it back, it's your money, but it is wise to do so. This money can also be used for emergencies that come up, at no penalty.
Housing – Housing expenses should account for 35% of your income. Every year you should meet with your insurance agent and make sure all of your coverage is up to date with changes that have occurred over the past year.
We hope that we have provided you with good tips to stay financially savvy. Please post any additional tips or comments you have.


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How Your GPS Can Save You Money & Improve your Road Safety
How a Sat Nav (GPS) System Can Save You Money & Improve Your Road Safety:
A sat nav (satellite navigation system) is a wonderful little device that goes in your car and uses GSP (Global Positioning System) to track your location in real time on an interactive map. Modern sat nav's can come with a massive variety of features that can improve your driving experience, increase your safety and can even save you money.
Most people aren't aware of this but sat nav's can actively save you money. These days you can pick up a decent sat nav from as little as fifty dollars which means they can easily pay for themselves over their lifetime.
One key way a sat nav can help save money is through their route planning capabilities. Through effective route planning a sat nav can plan your everyday driving to be more efficient and waste less time and gas. A savings of as little as one mile a day can add up to a decent amount of money over the year. Another great way route planning helps save on fuel is, it prevents you from getting lost. Getting lost may not seem that costly but in a lot of cases it can greatly increase the length of your trip. This is even more relevant when driving abroad- in foreign countries it can be very difficult to read signs or know where to drive on a different road system. There have been many amusing cases of people traveling around Europe ending up in the wrong country.
Speeding fines can be a costly surprise expense. It is very easy to be caught accidentally going a bit too fast in areas that you aren't familiar with. A sat nav can help with speeding fines in two major ways. Firstly most modern sat nav's have lists of fixed speed cameras and information on areas which are frequently used for mobile speed cameras. The sat nav will then inform you when you are nearing one as well as tell you the speed you should be going, which helps you avoid the unexpected. Secondly some sat nav's can also monitor your speed and will have data on the speed limits on various roads. Most sat nav's will have the ability to warn you when you are speeding, meaning it will stop you from getting a ticket.
Sat nav's can also increase the user's safety. One way they do this is by stopping you from speeding which statistically is one of the major causes of road accidents in the US. Sat nav's also allow you to concentrate more on the road while driving, by taking away some of the responsibility of navigating which can be fairly distracting when you're trying to look at street signs as you drive quickly past.
Some of the more fun features of sat nav's help to provide a more enjoyable ride rather than increasing safety or money saving potential. Sat nav's can come with a whole host of features from built in radios to location services, which allow you to find local businesses and places of interest.
In conclusion, sat nav's are a great investment as they not only make your driving experience more enjoyable and less stressful, they also make it safer, and can save you a small fortune over their lifetime.
This was a guest post by Sam Fisher on behalf of Teletrac the specialist in vehicle tracking system and fleet management solutions.


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So, the other night, Ted told Katy that she could read one book before she shut off the light and went to bed. Well, hours later, when we went in to check on her (before we went to bed), we found her snuggled under her Kermit the Frog blanket and clutching a very LARGE, LONG tome, fast asleep.
One book.... we didn't specify how long or big.... details, details.... way to work the system, Lil' Miss!


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Right now, I'm reading the book Signs of Life: A Memoir by Natalie Taylor. Like any story, it's events start with a life changing action. In this particular story, 24-year-old Natalie's husband dies suddenly. And she's 5 months pregnant.
Which made me think: if the unthinkable, unspeakable happened — would our family be prepared?
Estate planning is nothing anyone wants to think about, especially when you're 30ish. I've heard it countless times: estate planning is for 'old people.' But it should be something we all tackle. As parents, we are responsible for the nurturing and well being of our children. So if the unthinkable, unspeakable happened, you want to ensure your child continues to be nurtured… not thinking about it doesn't mean it won't happen.
Luckily, there are a few lawyers in my family. And the one who happens to be an expert on estate planning, just happens to be my mom. Here's the advice she gave me to share with you:
- Meet with an attorney. You may have seen commercials for do-it-yourself wills on television, but these one-size-fits-all documents don't necessarily speak to your situation. Trust document drafting to a respected legal professional.
- There are three documents you need to put into place. You'll want to create a will, financial power of attorney and health care advance directive. Most people have seen the movies and know what a will is. You may or may not be familiar with Financial Power of Attorney, which indicates who can handle your financial affairs if you become disabled or incapacitated, or a Health Care Advance Directive, which specifies who can make health care decisions on your behalf in the same situation.
- Consider a guardian. If both parents are gone, who will care for your child? This is a tough one, mostly because no one wants to think about anyone other than themselves raising their child. But what happens if you haven't indicated a guardian? The worst case scenario involves a lot of legal battles and/or child services. Consider similar parenting philosophies and select a person who would be willing to take on that very important responsibility. Be sure to talk with that person, too, before executing a legal document. Life isn't a movie … no surprises like in "Life As We Know It…"
- Look at your family finances. Sometimes weeding through the finances can be ugly (we spent how much at Target last month?), but knowing just how much money would be needed to pay off your mortgage and put your child through college is a good place to start when considering how much life insurance you'd need. Talk with a financial planner and implement a savings strategy.
- Trust Planning: A trust allows you to put your money into an account that can be managed by a trusted person to benefit your children so that it can only be used for them. If you set up a trust for your child, you need to think about how old that child should be when he or she has access to the money. Some parents think 27 is better age for access than 21.
These are tough decisions, but the alternative — in my opinion — is way tougher. Guess what Pat and I will be talking about this weekend? How about you?
During the fifth month of her pregnancy of her first child Natalie Taylor is devastated by the sudden death of her husband. Her journey with grief is chronicled in the memoir Signs of Life. Join From Left to Write on March 29 as we discuss Signs of Life by Natalie Taylor. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.


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Sheep on the road
Sheep startion roundup
Sheep in the yard
Ducks looking at something
Coming straight at me
Baby chick creating ripples on Virginia Lake Whanganui
The Australian coot chick is a subspecies of the Eurasian coot
Sheep gathered in the stock yard on the farm
Sleeping on the rocks at the coast
Baby native New Zealand fur seal just woken from his sleep on the rocks at the Kaikoura coast
no 1
No 2
no 3
no 4
Clydesdale Horse team pulling a vintage buggy (crop 1)
Erewhon station is a picturesque 35000 acre sheep & beef property nestled right amongst the Southern Alps of NZ. This Country provided a magnificent backdrop for the Lord of the Rings movie "The Two Towers". Edoras, the capital of Rohan, was located on Mt Sunday at neighbouring Mt Potts Station.
The Station includes a large Clydesdale Horse Stud and endeavour to use horses instead of vehicles. The work team are used regularly on the Station to do the cultivating work and in the wagon.
No 5
no 6
no 7
no 8
no 9
Bird in the tree
Working the land on a high country sheep station (crop 2)
Working the land on a high country sheep station
Grazing alone on the farm
Grazing alone on the farm
Beautiful Rough Coasted sable collie sitting by the swimming pool
Beautiful Rough Coasted sable collie sitting by the swimming pool


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Improve operational efficiency and reduce outage risk with optimized accredited data center training solutions. Uptime Institute's educational program offers complete fundamental and practical knowledge to industry professionals of all levels.
September 28 - October 2, 2020
Online Course
Courses included at this event:
* Existing clients may qualify for a discount
* Existing clients may qualify for a discount
Accredited Tier Designer (ATD)
Designed for facility designers, engineers, and project owners and provides instruction in the context of real-life designs on practical application of the Tiers.
Dates: September 28 - October 2, 2020
Language: English
Best Suited For:
- Engineers-of-Record
- Design-Build Team Senior Project Managers
- Project Owners' Senior Engineering Representative
- Licensed Professional Engineers with a design management role
Unable to attend this session? Visit the Uptime Institute Global Course Calendar to learn about other courses coming up in your area.


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Last Thursday I DJ-ed with my friends Nathaniel, Joel and Dyan at a club called Psychotic Reaction. We all played awesome songs but it was not very busy. I've recreated my set-list here so you can all dance to the songs now in your respective houses. These are just the songs I played. I can't remember what Nathaniel and Joel were playing as I was too busy getting drunk, dancing and enjoying myself during their fantastic set.
This is the set
Ride Your Horse by The Galaxies And The Regulars
Down In Mexico by The Coasters
The James Brown by The Henchmen
Scrooey Mooey by The Peels
Reincarnation by Kim Fowley
Cowboys Are Square by The Headcoats
Cool Britannia by The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Psychedelic Siren by The Daybreakers
Number One by The Ruttles
Big Bird by Eddie Floyd
How Is The Air Up There? by La De Das
Hey Baby by The Bristols
First Cut Is The Deepest by The Koobas
My Dear Watson By The Headcoats
Dirty Water by The Standells
So What by The Lyrics
Ca PlainePour Moi by The Headcoatees
Strychnine by The Sonics
Farmer John by The Premires
For God Sake Give More Power To The People by The Chi-Lites
Twenty Flight Rock by Eddie Cochran
Five Years Ahead Of My Time by Third Bardot
Der Feuerestuhl by Die Grazy Girls
The Clapping Song by Shirley Ellis
Fight Fire By The Golliwogs
Girls Just Want To Have Fun by Robert Hazzard
Highway 61 Revisited By Bob Dylan
When Will We be Paid For The Work We've Done - The Staple Singers
It wasn't quite in that order (I was drunk so I can't remember) We definitely ended with When Will We Be Paid... though.


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Mt 21:28-32
You'll sometimes hear people say, "I just can't help myself".
Now, this phrase is used about a great many things. It might be said while eating not the first but the THIRD chocolate éclair, "I know I shouldn't, but I just can't help myself".
Or maybe while sitting slobbed out on the couch, "I know I should get up and do some exercise, but I just can't help myself".
But it's also used about more serious things, "I know I should help my wife more, but I just can't help myself"; or, "I know I should be more patient, but I just can't help myself".
I imagine many of us here have used this phrase many times, and maybe not that long ago.
And like all aspects of our lives, it's good to measure it against the standard of the Gospel –what would Jesus do?
Well, we know Jesus was God, and that even though He suffered and had His moments of exhaustion, he was nonetheless sinless. So to ask, what would Jesus do, is obvious, he wouldn't do what we do, he'd do better. He wouldn't say, "I just can't help myself".
The REAL question, however, is what would Jesus expect US to do? What DOES He expect us to do?
Because there is a mistaken view of human sinfulness that says we are powerless before sin, that says we can't do better, that says, "I just can't help myself".
If we say we can't do better, then we make Christ's call for us to repent and change meaningless. We say that His death of Cross is powerless to save us, powerless to win us the grace we need to do better –and that is the important point.
We sometimes think that our good deeds are done my our own power, but they're not, they're done by HIS power –but that's the good thing, because it means His power is available for us to rise in other things too, to do those things that truly LOOK like they are beyond us. They might be beyond us, alone, but they are not beyond Him.
Jesus gave us a very simple example in today's parable. A son, a good for nothing son, was asked a simple thing, to go into the vineyard, and he said no. He just couldn't help himself. He didn't offer any excuse, he just couldn't help himself.
BUT, after, he "thought better of it and went" –and that is sign to all of us that it is possible to 'think better of it' and do what we haven't yet done, to live how we haven't yet lived, to live better.
Don't we each have times we can recall when we ended up being better, doing better, than we said or thought we would –we were more generous, or patient etc.
St Paul tells us elsewhere how the words of the Lord came to him when he felt powerless, "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Cor 12:9). And Scripture repeats this promise to each of US, many times in many ways: His grace is sufficient for me and sufficient for you too.
That doesn't mean it's easy to be good,
it doesn't mean you won't fall many times while trying to rise,
but He does give us what we need –what we need to be good.
God asks us, commands us, to be good. And God does not ask us to do what He will not give us the grace to achieve –what we need is: to let go of our self, trust in Him and His grace, and so act.
None of us need to say, "I just can't help myself", because with the Lord, we can do ALL that He asks of us: we can be more considerate to our spouses, we can even be saints, and we certainly resist that third chocolate éclair.


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The clever folks at eColleges keep churning out some of the more interesting maps that explain where, how much, how popular, and other burning questions about colleges in America, all of it instantly understandable to a little kid — a great marketing tool for them and fun for the rest of us.
Their widely shared map, hair-raising for parents no doubt, showing the logos of America's 50 most expensive colleges, was released with an almost apologetic note that, "For the sake of the map, we can only take one school from each state. Meaning that some notably expensive schools have been left off our list such as New York University, Columbia University, Fordham University, University of Southern California, Claremont McKenna College, etc."
Now they've got a new one, a sort of map-as-history-lesson, that shows in animated format the spread of four-year public and private colleges across the United States, from a few tiny outposts on the East Coast in the 1600s, to finally reaching the bumpkins on the less-populated West Coast and proliferating there. Check out the video below.
And one of the more surprising bits about this latest map is that a whole lot of states have very very few college choices, relatively speaking, and a whole lot of states, especially in the East and Midwest, have a choice practically every few miles.
OK, that's an exaggeration. But check out this "motion map" of the proliferation of colleges east of the Mississippi River, compared to the relatively modest growth in the West, and the intense concentration in just a few areas of California.
Sure, much and probably most of this has to do with population. The West still has great expanses with small towns or no towns. But as eColleges map creator Mike Simmons explains in an email:
I'm really quite proud with the end product and I believe it beautifully shows the spread of 4-year offering colleges through time in our country. It's really wild to see how education grew as our country grew, but it's also amazing to see the high density of colleges in some areas while other states are much more barren.
Simmons manually gathered all of the data, he writes, "so it took quite a long time to get this to where it is today."
He tells L.A. Weekly via email that, "If you look at major metropolitan areas such as NYC, Boston, Chicago, and LA, you'll see they have tons of colleges while Wyoming only has about two. So, it could be the population density, but it could also be the culture of those communities. Does a child in Wyoming have the same access to education as a child in New York? Does median income of a state affect the number of colleges? I don't necessarily have the answer for these questions, but that's why I created the map… to spark these types of questions and interest from people who see it."
He adds:
I searched the founding dates and GPS coordinates of all 2,068 schools! Our team was also able to create both a video (which looks awesome in full screen) and a GIF to make it easily sharable.
Simmons says he is no scholar regarding why certain areas in the country are jammed with choices, but he notes that, "We see growth in the late 1800s… could this be from repercussions of the Civil War or our society becoming more industrial? We also see the spread of the nation's population westward, increasing the need for more higher education institutions. Also, Post WWII shows a huge growth in colleges. It's hard to say why colleges grew the way they did."
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.


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In a bright room in Derry, in the mid-afternoon, two men meet and immediately start speaking in riddles.
"Your idea of the miniature was good."
"Yeah, I just don't know how to get around the hugging thing."
"Is it possible that Stephen could embrace the shadow, or no?"
"I can't tell, because I'm not sure what the shadow is projecting on to."
"A wall, hopefully."
"Yeah, but if the shadow is 15ft high, what's he hugging?"
"You have to make him as big."
"It's tough to get him as big as the shadow unless they're the same size."
"So we need a miniature Stephen."
The first man is Sam Shepard, easily the most acclaimed American playwright of his generation (he turned 70 earlier this month). The second is Sean McArdle, who, as Shepard's prop master for eight years, has been helping to solve some of the challenges of his theatre: an exploding ceiling fan in 2009's Ages of the Moon, for instance, or a dead horse in 2008's revival of Kicking a Dead Horse, both for the Abbey.
Here, the two men are considering the death scene of Jocasta, mother and wife to Oedipus, in Shepard's fragmented new version of the myth, A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), which is being premiered by Stephen Rea's Derry-based company, Field Day. The conversation between the writer and the prop maker is no-nonsense and good-humoured, but, to the uninitiated, it makes even the riddle of the sphinx seem straightforward.
It also begs a similar question. If the morning of Shepard's career was defined by experimentation, guided by the fracturing culture of 1960s America and his jagged imagination, then moved into a noon of naturalism, tragedy and exploded American myths, what did an evening return to one of the crutches of western theatre suggest? As Oedipus himself wonders, but realises too late, what is he looking for?
Shepard was first introduced to Oedipus Rex by his frequent collaborator, the late director Joseph Chaikin, in the early 1960s at New York's Open Theatre, where Chaikin used the play's "recognition scene" as a tool for developing actors. "I was too young and arrogant to even dip into it," Shepard admits today. "I thought it was over my head, actually."
Some years ago, he attempted a straight adaptation ("it's just straightforward really," he realised, "it's about murder") but he gave up on the idea when he felt there was nothing to add to Sophocles. At Rea's invitation he returned to it, workshopping a fragmented version whose scenes dart through place and time, and that relies heavily on live music.
"That's why he calls it Oedipus Variations," says the show's director, Nancy Meckler, also a longtime associate of Shepard's. "It's not a 'well-made play'. Sometimes we're seeing what might have been speeches from an antique text, other times modern characters whose lives seem to be touched strangely by the Oedipus story."
As any psychiatrist will tell you, everybody's life is touched by the Oedipus story. Freud famously found in Oedipus a sexual archetype blown up into extreme proportions: the man who unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother. "I don't think that interpretation interests Sam," says Meckler. ("I'm not interested in the psychological aspect," Shepard says as soon as the idea is trailed.) Instead of the Oedipal complex, Shepard frequently refers to Oedipus's predicament. "The predicament," as Meckler puts it, "of not knowing your origins."
Just as Shepard's theatre is frequently engaged in the impossible search for authenticity, the deep roots that might make sense of it all, Oedipus Rex is often called the first detective story.
The city of Thebes is cursed with a plague and its ruler, Oedipus the King, must find the killer of the previous king in order to lift it. He looks for leads, follows clues, blinded to the fact that he is the target of his own manhunt. Shepard's play takes its title from a line spoken by the Chorus in a 1950s translation of Sophocles ("If the killer can feel a particle of dread, Your curse will bring him out of hiding") and one scene seizes on the detective genre explicitly. "They all tell a story," says a forensics expert as he inspects clues at the scene of a brutal roadside murder. "The story of what happened. The past."
Attractively parched
Sitting with a cup of tea in the bar of Derry Playhouse, his voice is attractively parched, hair brushed back as though standing upright in shock. You might expect Shepard to be elusive with the details. He rarely does interviews and it's surprising to hear that the night before we meet he took part in his first ever Q&A session for a production of his seminal play True West in Glasgow's Citizen's Theatre. ("It steered away from meaning, thank God," he exhales.)
In person, however, he is genial, quick to laugh and warmly forthcoming.
"It's the difference between reason and instinct, if you want to be intellectual about it," Shepard says of the detective scene. "That's what I was trying to set up. But the thing about Oedipus to me that is so incredible is that it doesn't have a plot. There's no story. It's just a situation. It's a predicament that the central character finds himself in. And the audience knows everything. He's totally guilty, as the audience knows, but believes himself totally innocent."
You could say that reason and instinct have been the twin forces through Shepard's career as a writer, the contradiction in the "cowboy poet".
"Oh, of course, yeah," he says. "You're continually asked questions having to do with the logic of something: 'Why is this here rather than this? What does this mean?' What's never taken into consideration is that you don't work that way as a writer." He laughs. "The person asking that question can't possibly know that you don't know."
In collaboration, then, Shepard prefers the company of instinctive artists. ("He's a very non-psychological actor," Shepard says of Rea, with earthy admiration. "He's not a Lee Strasberg actor.") It seems significant that Field Day's production reunites him with Rea and Meckler, who first introduced the men in early 1970s London, and both Meckler and Rea describe working with Shepard in exactly the same terms. They compare it to jazz.
When Shepard was directing Rea in the Abbey's Kicking a Dead Horse, the actor would frequently depart from the script during rehearsals. "Oh, I was just kind of thinking of John Coltrane and how he did that improvisation around My Favourite Things," Rea might explain. "It stuck with me for a while," remembers Shepard. "It came back to me when I was working with this thing. Why not just do variations on Oedipus? Why not just take off?"
Classic tragedy
Shepard will readily concede any influence on his writing, but where people see the fingerprints of classic tragedy in Curse of the Starving Classes, say, and Fool for Love, or Pinter's whisper of menace in Geography of a Horse Dreamer, or the vaudevillian existentialism of Beckett in Kicking a Dead Horse, they are slower to see the presence of Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando or film noir. "Equally important!" says Shepard. "Absolutely. Beckett was incredible but so was Jerry Lee Lewis. So was Little Richard."
Beckett, though, has become an intriguing touchstone, and Shepard reaches for one anecdote of Rea's, whom Beckett himself directed in Endgame, when Rea asked whether his character, Clov, really disappeared into the kitchen. "Beckett said, 'It's always ambiguous.' I thought that was the most fantastic thing. Beckett also had an idea about the 'mythological present'. That was a tense that he used. Which is quite extraordinary. It makes you gasp. When he says, 'I am', he's talking about eternity."
The "mythological present" might be Shepard's natural mode too. "I'm still trying to work out the difference between fate and destiny," he says. I know that destiny is the thing that you're written to do and fate is perhaps the thing you do with it, or vice versa. But the idea that, regardless of what you do, this thing has already come down; it is already written."
However you vary the telling, Oedipus, and his eternal predicament, will always be with us.
A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) is at the Playhouse Theatre, Derry, until Saturday. It is reviewed below


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> Golden Age of Forgotten Italian Tenors, Vol. I (2-The Record Collector 31)
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V1794. A NEW GOLDEN AGE OF FORGOTTEN TENORS ACTIVE IN ITALY 1940 – 1955, Vol. I, incl. Mario Binci, Mario Filippeschi, Danilo Cestari, Amedeo Berdini, Licinio Francardi, Leonida Bellon, Amerigo Gentilini, Pablo Civil, Vasco Campagnano, Achille Braschi, Augusto Ferrauto, Giovanni Breviario & Franco Corelli. (England) The Record Collector 2-TRC 31, recorded 1940-55. Booklet offers full discographical information, plus brief biographies by Alan Bilgora. Extremely Limited Edition, Final Sealed Copy!
"This two-CD set is the first part of a series dealing with 'forgotten' Italian tenors who flourished in the period 1940-55….What the records reveal is the amazing array of talent that existed in those years. All the singers have strong, clear voices and secure techniques that would have been welcome in any opera house. They are also masters of the various styles concerned, not only bel canto and verismo but also the Classical style as is evident from Licinio Francardi's singing of an aria from Il matrimonio segreto. Some are better than others and some can be criticised….The highlights for me included Binci's 'Nessun dorma', Breviario's 'Niun mi tema' (a true Otello voice), Campagnano's 'Celeste Aida' (a real tenore di forza), and Francardi's 'Spirto gentil', but there are many others."
- Richard Gate, CLASSICAL RECORDINGS QUARTERLY, Spring, 2011
"A few [of the above] singers may be familiar from their activities in the LP era, but it is surprising to find how many of them had also made 78rpm recordings that have, for the most part, been extremely difficult to find. Subsequently, in their original form, they are now fetching extremely high prices on international dealers' lists….many discs issued in Italy at that time and later, in the dying days of 78rpm recordings, have become extremely hard to find. In some instances they have proved to be of greater rarity than those earlier and now historic recordings made in that which has become euphemistically referred to as the 'Golden Age of Singing'. These are truly 'collector's items'….none of the recordings being made available on this collection will in any way duplicate the contents on a Pearl CD set devoted entirely those tenors who recorded for Cetra up until 1950….Without doubt, these CDs should make a welcome addition to the collections of anyone interested in the vocal standards of 'recorded vocal art' in the middle of the 20th century and, in particular, to lovers of the tenor voice."
- Alan Bilgora, THE RECORD COLLECTOR, 2010
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AGMA loves the Ken Burns documentary, "The Civil War". Originally broadcast in 1990, it was digitally restored to high definition for it's 25th anniversary in 2015.
PBS is airing it again.
For the 14 people in the US who haven't seen it and my friends in other countries, the series is nine 1 hour episodes that documents through still pictures and historian comments, America's horrific Civil War (1861-1865) that changed the course of the nation and lead to the end of slavery.
At least "officially".
AGMA was watching episode 1 a few days ago and a quote from Abraham LIncoln startled me out of my Facebook stupor.
Facebook stupor – you know, you're allegedly watching something on TV, but you're also surfing FB to see which member of the Bloated Pumpkin's family or inner circle committed treason today. The standard stuff.
So you're sort of watching the show on TV, but sort of not.
Well, this quote snapped AGMA back to the TV.
In a letter to Joshua Speed (who?) in 1855, Abraham LIncoln wrote:
"As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Sound familiar? Just replace Catholics with "any other religion but bat-sh*t crazy evangelical pseudo-Christians" and it's a match.
And I'm pretty sure we all know who the Know-Nothings are…
AGMA's a stranger in a strange land.
I'm a Yankee living in the South.
Raised in southwestern Pennsylvania, Civil War history was rich in my family. The Union side that is. My paternal grandfather's family all hailed from Mercersburg, a little town in south central PA. My dad's grandfather was a Union Civil War veteran who fought at the battles of Mercersburg and Gettysburg.
As an adult, I lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for 30 years. Ohio was part of the Union.
For those who have no idea exactly where Cincinnati is on a map, it's in the far southwestern part of Ohio, directly on the Ohio River. Kentucky, part of the Confederacy, is across the river.
That made for some interesting, complicated family and business relationships in the 1860's.
Because of it's proximity to the Confederacy, Cincinnati became a major stop on the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape to become free people in the North.
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati is a excellent museum dedicated to not only documenting the history of the Underground Railroad, but "it serves to inspire modern abolition through connecting the lessons of the Underground Railroad with today's freedom fighters. The center is also a convener of dialogue on freedom and human rights."
Then in 2006, AGMA moved to Georgia.
To some folks here in the South, the Civil War is still going on.
A short drive OTP makes that evident.
Side note: Atlanta is divided by the circle highway around it. You are either ITP (inside the perimeter) or OTP (outside the perimeter). ITP tends to lean more blue; OTP more red.
AGMA, of course, lives ITP.
Stone Mountain Park is a beautiful Georgia State Park about 15 miles outside of Atlanta. It was the site of the tennis, archery and track cycling events durin the 1996 Olympics. It has a beautiful lake, camp ground, golf course, hiking and biking trails, picnic grounds, and wonderful special events throughout the year.
It's also the site of the largest piece of exposed granite in the world.
Stone Mountain – get it?
And on that large granite outcrop is carved, 76 feet tall and 158 feet wide, the figures of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Generals Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson on their horses.
Ride 'em rebels!
The official address of the Park is 1000 Robert E. Lee Blvd. And the museum in the park that educates visitors and school groups about the geology, ecology and history of the park is in Confederate Hall.
AGMA wonders if they tell the school kids that the land around Stone Mountain, was the site of the rebirth of the KKK in 1915? Or if the docent explains the history behind the different versions of the Confederate flag?. That all still fly on Flag Terrace.
Are you starting to get the picture?
The War ain't over folks. General William Tecumseh Sherman's destruction of Atlanta and his devastating (for the Confederacy and Georgia) march to the coast might have as well happened only a few years ago.
I mean, we all saw Gone With The Wind right? It was awful. But at least Tara was saved…
Which brings me to why AGMA loves Atlanta.
During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and 60's, Altanta was spared most of the violence that occurred in other southern cities. A combination of progressive policies along with being the center of several major Civil Rights organizations, Atlanta was dubbed "The City too Busy to Hate".
And it still is.
Although not perfect by any means, Atlanta is pretty chill. Mostly ITP, but some OTP too…
It's a welcoming and very diverse city.
We are home to the Martin Luther King National Historical site, the Carter Center (gotta love Jimmy!), The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and one of the best Pride parades in the country.
Have you seen our permanent rainbow crosswalks?
Hubs and I went to breakfast at HIghland Bakery in the city the other day. (OMG they have the BEST cinnamon rolls!) The staff and customers were themselves a rainbow of diversity and, you know, it wasn't a big deal. To anyone. People were kind and courteous to each other independent of their color, religion or sexual preferences.
Kinda the way Abe envisioned it all working.
And I was overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude toward my newly adopted home.
AGMA initially didn't like living here. Too many memories left behind. And while I still long for my home of 30 years in Cincinnati from time to time, I recognize that Atlanta has made me into the woman I am today. A far different woman than I was in 2006 when I moved here. Stronger, more confident, more open, more engaged.
And AGMA crazy. Of course…
So let's not let the Know-Nothings have the last word. #Resist
Abraham Lincoln. Very smart man.


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With New Years Eve just around the corner, I thought I might show this fun party set that includes everything you see here (except for the Love Trill, of course) for just 10L at the R&K Store. It seats 4 avatars and each seat has a few animations. The complete set is 42 prims.
R&K Store Happy New Year Set (10L)


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Ontario welcomes Avanti Wind, PowerBlades, Helukabel and Synergy Cables to its clean energy sector
The Ontario Clean Technology Alliance is generating manufacturing momentum across Ontario and members of the Alliance are attending WINDPOWER 2013 in Chicago this week to encourage expanding wind companies to join the community of international wind companies setting up shop Ontario.
While the Niagara Region of Canada is known worldwide for its magnificent waterfalls and associated hydro power, the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance is attending WINDPOWER 2013 in Chicago to announce a series of national and international wind investments by companies including Capital Power Inc., Enercon Canada Inc., Niagara Region Wind Corp. (NRWC), NextEra Energy Canada ULC, REpower Systems SE, Samsung Renewable Energy Inc., and TSP Canada Towers Inc.
These companies are manufacturing components and building an estimated 200 wind turbines that will soon dot the landscape in a swath extending throughout Ontario's Haldimand County and into the Niagara Region. They are attracted by an excellent wind profile and connections to existing transmission lines that carry power from Niagara Falls into southern Ontario's manufacturing heartland.
The wind power infrastructure investment is also made possible by the Province of Ontario's visionary Green Energy Act of 2009 that helped ignite growth in the production of clean and renewable energy. Since 2009, Ontario's Clean Energy Strategy is helping to build on the $27 billion in private sector clean energy investments attracted to Ontario. Ontario's clean energy sector has already created 31,000 jobs and over 30 clean energy companies have set up shop in the province.
"While the 230-megawatt industrial wind turbine project by NRWC is the Niagara Region's largest, promising 770 construction phase jobs through to 2014 and 110 more to maintain the turbine structures, the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance team is working hard to build on this momentum," says Valerie Kuhns, Sector Manager for the Niagara Region's Economic Development Department.
She cites three foreign companies – Denmark's Avanti Wind Systems, Helukabel USA, Inc. and Synergy Cables USA Ltd. – that have recently set up shop across Ontario as a direct result of Ontario Clean Technology Alliance investor pitches at international wind industry trade shows.
Kuhns' employer is one of eight municipal members of the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance that also includes the Southwestern Ontario Marketing Alliance, The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment.
Kuhns also points out that just last week, wind turbine manufacturer PowerBlades Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of German-based REpower Systems SE, chose Welland, also in the Niagara Region, as the site of a blade production factory that will serve the province's wind project needs as well as supply the rest of the North American market.
PowerBlades is currently looking for experts in the fields of logistics, purchasing, management as well as production workers and maintenance technicians. The new German-backed Ontario company will create about 125 jobs within its first phase and about 75 within its second phase of operations.
Ontario is Canada's largest province by population, and clean technology industries take advantage of an Ontario government economic growth strategy, backed by a comprehensive series of legislative, regulatory and policy initiatives specifically designed to support the expansion of clean, green industries.
About the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance
The Ontario Clean Technology Alliance offers a highly educated workforce, excellent growth opportunities, a low-risk business environment, and generous R&D tax credits that are the envy of other countries. The Alliance includes Durham Region, Halton Region, Ottawa Region, City of Hamilton, Waterloo Region, Niagara Region, Windsor-Essex, City of Guelph and the Southwestern Ontario Marketing Alliance. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada as well as the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment are also Alliance partners.


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Created by AVEN community on 11 August 2010
Unveiled at asexuality.org.
"Sometimes shortened to 'ace'. A person who does not experience sexual atrraction. Asexuality is a sexual orientation and is different from celibacy, in that celibacy is the choice to refrain from engaging in sexual behaviors and does not comment on one's sexual attractions."
– The Transgender Language Primer. See the full asexual definition.
Style Guide
This flag has four even horizontal stripes which are colored (top to bottom) black (#000000), grey (#A3A3A3), white (#FFFFFF), and purple (violet #800080).
The black stripe represents asexuality. The grey stripe represents other ace-spectrum identities including demisexuality and grey-asexuality. The white stripe represents allosexuality, and the purple stripe represents the asexual community.
About the Creator
The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) is the largest and most established online community for asexual people. It was founded by David Jay in 2001 to create public acceptance of asexuality and grow the community. The flag was designed through a series of votes on the AVEN forums.
Among the asexuals, The Guardian


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Everything Actioncast Ep 416 "Rick Grimes: Shadow Recruit"
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This week on the podcast, Zach, Chris, and Joe try out a new News format and dive into a Breaking Bad sequel movie, Jeremy Irons' character in the Watchmen HBO show, a Star Wars prequel prequel show, a Johnny Quest movie,The Purge TV show, Happy!, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and more.
- News: Breaking Bad is getting a Jesse sequel movie, Jeremy Irons is playing older Ozymandias in the Watchmen HBO series, Cassian Andor from Rogue One is getting a Disney+ prequel series, Chris McKay signs on to direct a Johnny Quest movie.
- Show and Tell: Chris watched Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Happy!, Joe saw The Nutcracker and The Four Realms and played some Red Dead 2 and Zach saw the season finale of The Purge, Eli Roth's History of Horror and the final Rick episode of The Walking Dead.
We want to hear your comments and feedback. Send them all to firstname.lastname@example.com. Also, be sure to subscribe, rate and review us in the iTunes music store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/everything-action/id368044198?mt=2) and follow us on twitter @evaction, Facebook (www.facebook.com/everything.action), Instagram (@everything.action) and Tumblr (everythingaction.tumblr.com)
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:55 — 106.6MB)
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I'm like the J. Jonah Jameson of Everything Action, writing and editing and constantly demanding pictures of Spider-Man.


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Articles in games
Keep your balance as you continue to drink more and more. Don't tip over or it's game over.
Take a few strokes!
The Tower: Participants roll a die in turn. The first to get a 6 drinks the schnapps. The next to get a 6 removes the coaster that was under it. The next drinks the small drink, the next removes the coaster, and so on.
The group of people sit in a circle, preferably around a table. One person starts the game by saying "Fuzzy Duck".
Frat Boy At Beer Pong
The way the game works is by proping the tray up on the ledge of the bowl and tossing the quarter in either the tray or the bowl.
You think you're a good bartender? See if you can handle everyone's order!
The basic idea of this game is that whenever you call a shot, and then sink it you then get to give your opponent two drinks, or if you are playing with teams then both members of the team have to drink twice.


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By Admin
This pretty girl is crazy about wearing blue jeans. She especially loves ripped jeans. She has many pairs of them, all colors and shapes. Today she just can't decide which of them she should wear. She loves all her ripped jeans but she should choose one pair to get dressed today. Would you like to give her a helping hand? Make her try on her ripped jeans and choose the pair you like best. After that, find a shirt to fit her blue-jeans and a pair of shoes! Don't forget to pick up some acc
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The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB graphics card is a brand new and slightly cut-down version of the GTX 1060 6GB card making it a great choice for playing games at 1920×1080. This $199 entry-level EVGA GTX 1060 3GB card is powered by Nvidia's Pascal architecture and it is a competitor to the $199 PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 on AMD's new Polaris architecture. As a competitor in this 200 dollar price range, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB promises excellent performance for virtual reality and for high performance HD gaming.
We reviewed the $259 EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB video card recently and it received BTR's "Good Value" award as best in its class when we compared it to the $299 GTX 1060 Founders Edition and we also put it against the $239 (and up) AMD RX 480. It is an excellent value for gamers looking to max out their games at 1920×1080 and at even higher resolutions. Now we see a new EVGA GTX 1060 3GB card that is priced $60 to $100 below the 6GB version costs while offering many of the same features.
These new 3GB GTX 1060 cards also feature EVGA ACX cooling technology. EVGA ACX runs cooler and more quietly than the Founders Edition.
The $199 EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs. the $199 PowerColor Red Devil RX 470
The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060s are quite small when compared with their competitors, the PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 and the RX 480. One or two fans serves the GTXes whereas the Polaris RX 4x0s use two or three fans. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is an excellent choice for the HTPC or small form factor PC enthusiast.
For a recap of Nvidia's Pascal architecture see our GTX 1060 Founders Edition launch article. This evaluation is focused on performance, and we will compare the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB against the 6GB Founders Edition of the GTX 1060 and against the reference and Red Devil RX 470. We will also compare the performance of 11 video card configurations including the GTX 970 OC, the GTX 960 OC, the 280X, and the RX 480 to try to determine if the GTX 1060 3GB is held back by its having only 3GB of vRAM.
The EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming Edition
The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB video card featuring EVGA ACX 2.0 cooling arrived with a retail price of $199.
This EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming is clocked the lowest of the five GTX 1060 3GB EVGA models which range in price from $199 to 259. It has a basic 3+1 Power Phase design and it uses a single 6-pin PCIe connector compared with the more expensive models which feature more robust power delivery with an 8-pin PCIe connector and better cooling systems.
All EVGA GTX 1060 3GB cards feature ACX fan technology with optimized swept blades, double ball bearings and a low-power motor that delivers more air flow with less power, unlocking additional power for the GPU. The fan will even shut down when the card is not under load.
Features of EVGA's GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Gaming Edition:
A major difference between the the GTX 1060 6GB and the 3GB GPUs, besides the amount of vRAM, is that the 1152 CUDA cores in the 3GB version is cut down from the 6GB version's 1280 CUDA cores.
It is interesting to see that Nvidia did not choose "Ti" as the designation for the GTX 1060 6GB to probably keep their future options open, nor did they use a suffix such as "LE", or even choose a "GTX 1055" naming for their entry level GTX 1060. Rather, Nvidia choose 3GB as the only way to differentiate a cut down 1060 with half the vRAM from the original GTX 1060 6GB. The Boost/base core and memory speeds are the same as is the amount of memory bandwidth so there should not be too much performance difference.
You can find out much more here. Here are the specifications and the details for the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming edition.
Here are the specifications for the reference Founders Edition of the GTX 1060 6GB:
The EVGA GTX 1060 3GB's card's base clock is 1506MHz and boost clock is 1708MHz. The boost we actually got first rose up to 2025MHz when a game would first start but would stabilize as the GPU temperature increased to around 1822MHz, or 114MHz higher than the guaranteed Boost for this entry level GTX 1060 3GB. Since the GDDR5 memory is not further overclocked by EVGA, we found that we gained some impressive performance by overclocking the memory clocks +400MHz, to 4404MHz.
From what we can see, the specifications of the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming Editon are impressive for a $200 video card, and our sample clocked higher than the guaranteed clocks.
Our EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming Edition came directly from EVGA to BTR as a sample, last Monday. EVGA wants to make it very clear that what they sent us is the same as what you can buy from any etailer. EVGA sent out this press release:
EVGA was one of the first graphics card companies to offer overclocked graphics cards, and since day one EVGA always delivered the exact same products to reviewers as well as customers. EVGA does not "fake" reviews or send out products with "tweaked" clockspeeds to reviewers. With EVGA Superclocked, FTW and Classified graphics cards, what you see is what you get.
Buyers are covered by EVGA's 3-year warranty with a further warranty extension available upon registration within 90 days of purchase.
EVGA PrecisionX OC Unlocks automatic overclocking
Our preliminary overclock appears to be stable and it looks pretty good so far, and we will follow up this evaluation with an overclocked-to-the-max EVGA GTX 1060 3GB versus the Red Devil manually overclocked to the max RX 470 4GB to see which one ultimately delivers the highest performance.
The EVGA PrecisionX OC works with Pascal architecture and now combines manual and automatic overclock tuning features to give the end user more options.
Includes Exclusive Features for EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB:
- DirectX 12 OSD Support – See the on screen display on DirectX 12 games.
- EVGA OC ScannerX Integration – Automatically find your optimal voltage/frequency curve!
- K-Boost Function – Maximize your clocks with this exclusive feature.
Learn more here.
Our Big Picture Test bed of Competing Cards
Our testing platform is Windows 10 Home 64-bit, using an Intel Core i7-6700K at 4.00GHz which turbos to 4.4GHz for all cores as set in the ASRock Z7170 motherboard's BIOS, and 16GB of G.SKILL DDR4 at 3000MHz. The settings and hardware are identical except for the drivers being tested.
We test 25 games and 2 synthetics featuring our newest 2016 games, Mirror's Edge Catalyst and Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and we are also including Ashes of the Singularity, Hitman, Total War Warhammer, and Rise of the Tomb Raider using DX12. We have also added Futuremark's DX12 benchmark, Time Spy, and will compare gaming performance with maximum settings at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440 resolutions.
This evaluation will pit the stock EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming edition against the stock and reference-clocked GTX 1060 6GB, and also against the PowerColor factory overclocked RX 470. Our bigger picture will further compare performance with the GeForce GTX 1070, the GTX 970 EXOC, the GTX 960 OC, and the PowerColor 280X, as well as versus the reference and Red Devil RX 480.
Let's take a closer look at the new EVGA GTX 1060 3GB Gaming Edition.


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Wiz Khalifa Mourns Death of His Sister
Wiz Khalifa is mourning the loss of his sister, Dorien "LaLa" Thomaz, who died of unknown causes at the age of 32.
The Taylor Gang mogul confirmed the sad news on Twitter. "The loss of my sibling has been the hardest thing Ive had to deal with," tweeted Wiz. "but wiith your prayers and well wishes my family will get though this."
The loss of my sibling has been the hardest thing Ive had to deal with but wiith your prayers and well wishes my family will get though this
— Wiz Khalifa (@wizkhalifa) February 24, 2017
Khalifa's mother Peachie Wimbush was by LaLa's side at the time of her passing. She honored her daughter with a touching quote from Sally Field's character M'Lynn Eatenton in Steel Magnolias.
"There was no noise, no tremble, just peace," she wrote. "Oh God(dess), I realized as a woman how lucky I am. I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life and I was there when she drifted out. It was the most precious moment of my life." Peachie added: "I have seen, heard, and felt every bit of your love."
Dorien was reportedly assigned male at birth. Through the years, her gender expression was that of a female and her obituary assigned her feminine pronouns.


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Cap/abandon a lvl2 hill with 50 archers, rose and lion dropped like a hookers knickers
Cap/abandon a lvl2 hill with 50 archers, rose and lion dropped like a hookers knickers
lol, medals are much easier to farm on the newer servers
I've been using 500 cav and 1 scout on NA47. I send 5-6 attacks using the capture/abandon method and pull 1-2 medals every wave. Rose/Lions/Cross are insanely easy to get. What I can't find are Honor medals. I've been spamming ballista waves on lvl 1-3 NPCS and even spamming lvl 1 NPCS with warrior waves. No luck so far. Any suggestions?
Please feel free to "Red Rep" me, I wants it!EPIC FIRETRUCKIN PHAIL!
no no, you just have to hit lvl 3-4 npc with bally a lot.
Sig by: Morgan
Evony Terms
Change lvl 5 flats into npcs, you get rose medals and lions and stuff from that, also cross medals.
For Honor medals/Courage medals/Lion Medals/Wisdom Medals (not sure about freedom medals), farm lvl 4 npc's and you get loads.
For Honor Medals/Courage Medals/Lion Medals/Freedom Medals/Wisdom Medals, farm lvl 5 npc's and you get loads.
For Justice/Nation medals, break a few 10's and the next 3 waves that you hit it with after that will get you a medal drop as far as i've seen. I've only broke about 25 or so 10's on NA47 so not 100% sure.
I'm sitting here atm on NA47 with:
147 Freedom Medals (Donated)
174 Wisdom Medals (Donated)
302 Courage Medals (donated 30 or w/e)
100 Honor Medals (Have donated 30 or whatever it is for quest)
84 Lion Medals (Have donated 50 or whatever it is for quest)
40 Rose Medals (Have not Donated)
48 Cross Medals (Have not Donated)
12 Justice Medals (Not Donated, neither a prinz yet)
11 Nation Medals (Not Donated, neither a prinz yet)
So yeah, changing flats into npc's get you medals AND npc's to farm. Farming the npc's get you medals AND resources. Win win situation.
Last edited by The Real Gilgad; 01-14-2013 at 07:28 AM.
In game name: Gilgad
Sig by: Morgan
Evony Terms
Sometimes a valley starts dropping medals, so keep on that one. Apart from being up every hour and letting lose on half a dozen valleys using a low loss method, see my previous on this, and accepting that it is a grind.
Scouting the right valleys is important IMO.
Last edited by Mackay131; 04-19-2013 at 08:54 PM.
Best wishes to those who were in ICECOLD, MERC, HONOR on 131, SOLACE on 144, thePack2 on 158


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It's not difficult to feel good on a day like today. The sun is shining again during a week of glorious weather – and I've spent the entirety of the last week and a half doing things I love doing.
This roughly translates into being continually outdoors (in this case walking with Boris and his pet human) making the most of each and every single moment of my life.
What a great time it is to be living it.
As well as more familiar haunts lately I'm also getting to know entirely new parts of the UK and while I do I'm in wonderful company.
My new partner in crime and I seem to have unnervingly similar interests at times (I cant fault someone that fully gets a casual geeky Kobayashi Maru reference in conversation) and the more time we spend together the more these synergies become apparent.
I've managed to fall into the orbit of a truly like minded individual and any worries I might have had about bending myself or someone else around divergent interests when I found a partner have completely evaporated.
As well as being unrepentant nerds we're both extremely outdoorsy and both focused on continual self improvement.
It's not just discovering new places to explore and getting exercise together that's making me feel so at peace though.
Not only has being in a relationship that's reciprocal and genuine kept me on the straight and narrow with regard to health but it's made me realise how impoverished I previously was when it came to human contact.
I suddenly appreciate all its nuances acutely.
That's not to say I felt lonely in the past – or that I was in deficit with regard to human interaction or lacked great friends – but I now realise that there's absolutely zero replacement to be found for the feeling that you're not only in love but that you're being loved in return.
I have at times been accused of being a soppy git – and if this was a judicial statute with penal servitude attached I may well be doing porridge at her majesty's pleasure – but I honestly don't care.
I've come way too far in life to not appreciate everything good about my world – and at the moment it's full of all the things I wanted but never thought I'd be able to obtain.
It doesn't hurt in the least of course that while I walk hand in hand with my significant other she doesn't bat an eyelid while I munch on a bag of carrots.
As if all of this soppiness wasn't enough yesterday also marked something of a milestone – because (as regular readers may know) it represented 366 days since I hit my target weight on 24th February 2018.
Although in real terms I'm now a stone lighter than that day – I've now managed to maintain my weight for a staggering (at least to my mind) whole year without (major) incident.
This is the first time in my entire life that I've ever managed to do this.
I've lost significant amounts of weight many times in the past – but never so much and never for such a sustained period of time without immediately piling all of it (and more besides) back on again.
Losing weight (in some respects) is relatively easy mind you.
I know that this may sound like I'm trivialising it for those that still struggle but if you're like me (even though mentally it can be a real battle at times) and you're presented with a reward structure there is always a reason to succeed outside of just feeling physically and mentally better.
I like pats on the head.
In Slimming World you get pats on the head all the time if you're a good boy.
If you're not Slimmer of the Week then you can be Slimmer of the Month. Body Magic gives you bronze, gold and then platinum awards.
If you hit a weight loss milestone you get certificates as well as stickers (who doesn't love stickers?!) and people comment continually on how different you look.
For the luckier men in groups we can get also a Mr Sleek or MOTY award.
Maybe eventually we might even become the national (3rd) greatest loser.
I became the National MOTY 2018!
There's everything to play for, plenty to keep you motivated and I've experienced it all along the way.
For almost three years everyone I know (without exception) has had trouble recognising me as I rapidly changed shape – which was an addictive thrill quite like no other.
My clothes continually changed size and everything was a moving target.
Things were exciting and new all the time.
That's not the case when you hit target though – because the ever present buzz of success (or occasional low of failure) is soon gone.
In many ways the only options are to fail or… well… to fail… because 'winning' is basically normality – and your success is something others take for granted in their own lives because they are (mostly) already sober or fit and healthy.
Now you're just soberingly normal and without warning the pressure is really on.
Some will have you believe that your success is temporary – and if you listen to them it's easy to believe their opinions.
After all – you've failed before so what's stopping it happening again?
Now your journey has become the twin (often gruelling) battles of self belief and self perception and at times you find yourself waging war on a stage with only yourself present.
It can be very lonely no matter who is by your side.
The glamour of success has to be inside your own head and therefore a new internal struggle begins to view yourself and your life in a continually positive light.
You have to learn to erase years of self loathing and regrets and live in a new future of possibilities.
To enable this there have to be new challenges and new reasons to get up and each day you need to try just a little harder.
You can't stay still.
If you do then you stagnate.
One of my distraction techniques has been the drive to reach my diamond target member status – and yesterday (after a week and a half on what can only be termed 'holiday' outside of my normal routine) I attended Angie's Monday group and stood nervously on the scales.
If I'm perfectly truthful (whilst many consider me achieving this to have been a forgone conclusion) it was in doubt for me right up until the night before – and I was at the upper end of my current target range whilst standing on the scales in my pants at 3am after having absolutely zero sleep.
This is never good – as anyone that regularly weighs in will know.
You need to wear clothes for a start (society has many unreasonable expectations designed to thwart us) and also know that you're not going to be out of range when you step on.
There's an acceptable margin for error and all of us slimmers understand what their personal one is.
But you know what?
I only went and frikkin did it!
I weighed in a year after (in the last but one entry in my book – which now shows a complete record of my journey) bang on where I needed to be at EXACTLY TWENTY ONE STONE LIGHTER than when I started Slimming World in April 2016.
It's quite something.
I decided however that while the date is significant (I aimed for this day precisely because it's exactly a year) my Saturday group is all important to me – and when I accept my diamond target member certificate and badge I want to be there amongst them this coming weekend – so I declined the opportunity to take it with me when I left on Monday.
The Saturday guys made it all possible and I wouldn't have managed it without their support.
They've all lifted me up over and over again when I've felt like I was struggling and in my view proved to be the difference between a bad week and a good one many times.
Amongst their number (past and present) are many close friends now and I can't imagine what life would be without the structure Angie and this group have provided.
Things may be changing for me (who knows where my future lies) but this little session will always mean the world to me.
It's because of them for instance that I started using visualisations in the early days – and to pay homage to this habit I visited B&Q today and found a cement mixer.
It's not instantly visible in the upper right hand side of the top photo – but this hefty plant machinery is 70.2 kg.
My own loss is almost 134kg – making me a mind boggling TWO CEMENT MIXERS SMALLER THAN I WAS WHEN I STARTED.
So how did I celebrate this milestone?
Well – frankly (since it's been literally years since I had any) I decided to scratch an itch I've had for a long time and finally help myself to some Christmas cake.
Sure – it's not Christmas – and it's horrendously fattening but I don't care.
I loved every single little last crumb of it – and it doesn't matter because today I'm right back on plan.
This is the power of flexible syns.
You just accept whatever you've enjoyed – take it on the chin, forgive yourself if necessary and move right along.
No longer does a mouthful of food define me for ever.
No longer am I shackled to a fear that at some point I will inevitably backslide.
No longer am I the man that I was because my future is set in cement.
This is me internet.


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ContactOrnellas Rios da Silva, Adriana
The research lines of the eTIC group are focused on:
- The social, cultural and educational implications of the ICTs and the new literacies.
- STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics; CTEM in Catalan) education to foster inclusion and gender equity in the information society.
- The function of university research in the development of a just, sustainable global society.
By means of these lines, the group seeks to contribute, from the sphere of university research, to attaining goals 4 and 5 of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development proposed by the United Nations: SDG4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all; SDG5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.


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In challenging times, keep moving forward
When MFA closed its books on the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2017, we announced an after-tax profit of $10.2 million. That's a respectable return given the marketplace challenges that all of us in agriculture face right now.
The cyclical nature of agricultural isn't new. Like most Midwest farming operations, MFA's profitability rises and falls in tandem with commodity prices. But that doesn't mean we can be complacent. It's not good enough to say that a down cycle will run its course. We have to keep moving forward and seeking improvement to be sustainable for the long term.
MFA has been in business since 1914. We're proud of that longevity because it shows that we serve a purpose for our members, but a company that operates for such a long span also delivers some crucial lessons. From my perspective, time has proven that three core areas make MFA successful and will ensure our continued success. They are people, operations and financial strength.
It's not a coincidence that these ideas are covered in MFA's mission statement: We will generate profitable growth by empowering employees to provide value-added products, services and expertise for the benefit of our member-owners.
In this business, success is mutual, never one-sided.
When it comes to people, you may have noticed that our mission statement mentions both employees and our member-owners. That's important because our business is based on developing partnerships. That's where it all starts, and that is the real foundation of success for MFA.
On MFA's side of that relationship, we know that recruiting, hiring and retaining top-industry talent must remain a focus. We have stepped up efforts to deliver training to our workforce. As agriculture continues to evolve, our expertise must evolve with it.
From an operations standpoint, I will tell you that MFA is committed to long-term improvements. This past year, we opened the MFA Rail Facility in Hamilton in partnership with MFA Oil Company. That high-speed "loop-loader" will deliver efficiencies and marketing benefits throughout our grain system. We can't duplicate the handling speed and storage space we built at Hamilton, but we will continue to make improvements at key locations throughout MFA's service territory.
The products and services delivered by MFA continue to fulfill our mission to provide value-added products. From MorSoy and MorCorn to the latest technologies in crop protection, we know that our member-owners need long-term solutions that benefit their farms. That's something you have seen with MFA's precision programs. We were leaders in precision agriculture and developed programs that consider both profit and stewardship early on. The industry's current focus on putting the right product at the right rate, right time and right place has been MFA's goal for many years. We've also been a leader in the field crop data management that makes this approach possible.
In livestock, MFA's proprietary Shield Technology has given our member-owners an edge in production that other companies can't match. The MFA Health Track program continues to prove that our feed and health protocol can deliver better profits. This year we have a new partnership with ABS Global that adds another layer of value to Health Track calves. And we introduced PowerCalf, a data management tool that provides beef producers with information that will help drive profitability.
I mention here that we have been leaders in these areas because that's an essential function of your cooperative. It's an important part of our partnership with you.
When I see MFA at work in that partnership, I can say I'm proud to lead a company that possesses the level of talent and passion for agriculture that I see in our workforce. Our people live the values of the company. They operate with honesty and integrity, embrace innovation and know they are accountable to you and the whole MFA team.
With these values, MFA will continue to bring benefits to our member-owners and build financial strength regardless of uncertainties in the agricultural cycle.
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