text:
Reconstructing ancient history is not easy to do. Just ask a paleontologist: No matter how many dinosaur skeletons or Neanderthal skulls scientists dig up, they still can tell only a small part of the story of what life on Earth was like millions, or even thousands, of years ago.
Which makes it particularly amazing that over the last half-century, cosmologists (and I'm happy to count myself among them) have reconstructed the history of the entire universe all the way back to seconds after the Big Bang that sparked it into existence 13.7 billion years ago. And it is not just a rough reconstruction. We know exactly what the infant universe was made of and what it looked like in those earliest moments.
That's pretty impressive detective work, but we are still not satisfied. Now the push is on to peer back even farther, to a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. This will help us address the deepest questions about our place in the cosmos: How did it all begin? Is our universe the only one? And if not, why this universe rather than some other one?
Distant Light of the Past
Studying the universe's past presents a challenge similar to studying the Earth of long ago: Over time, things change. For living things, flesh decomposes and bone turns into fossil. For cosmic things, many particles that came out of the Big Bang—such as electrons, protons, and neutrons—have been processed in the cores of stars. The trick to understanding the past is finding artifacts that have remained largely intact over vast spans of time. In this area, cosmologists are much more fortunate than paleontologists, because the universe harbors many particles whose identities have remained unchanged for billions of years.
The most obvious of these relics are particles of light, or photons. When we view an image of a stunning galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope, we are actually looking at a snapshot of history. If the galaxy is 2 million light-years away, then we are viewing it as it was 2 million years ago because that is how long the light traveled, undisturbed through vast stretches of empty space, before it reached us. Over the last few years, Hubble has given us views of infant galaxies as they were just 500 million years after the Big Bang, allowing cosmologists to see how quickly the raw materials from the newborn universe coalesced into stars and then galaxies and then clusters of galaxies.
The most valuable photons are even older, dating back to only 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Before that time, the universe was an opaque fog, so hot and dense that photons could not travel very far before bumping into other particles and changing direction. But then the universe cooled sufficiently for electrons to stick to nuclei and form stable atoms. The resulting gas—almost all hydrogen and helium—was transparent, allowing photons to zip freely through space at last.
Many of those photons have traveled undisturbed ever since, and in 1964 a bunch of them landed on a radio antenna set up by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs in New Jersey. They had accidentally discovered the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang.
In the years since, satellites such as Planck and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have mapped these photons and provided a fantastic view of the 380,000-year-old universe. By studying subtle fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background, cosmologists have determined the total amount of energy in the universe and how the form it takes has changed over time. Matter (both ordinary atoms and the invisible stuff called dark matter) once dominated the universe, but today it constitutes only a quarter of the content of the cosmos. The rest is a strange, anti-gravity substance known simply as dark energy.
Probing the Nuclear Inferno
The cosmic microwave background is a powerful tool, but cosmologists can call on even older relics, ones that penetrate the opaque, photon-trapping fog and bring us all the way back to the first seconds of the universe's history. Those relics are atomic nuclei, forged in the primordial fires of the Big Bang.
In 1948, George Washington University graduate student Ralph Alpher and his adviser, physicist George Gamow, theorized that over the course of its first few minutes, the universe was so hot and dense that it behaved like a nuclear fusion reactor, cooking the primordial soup of protons and neutrons into heavier atomic nuclei: deuterium or "heavy hydrogen" (one proton and one neutron), helium (two and two), and lithium (three and four). Their theory, known as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, included detailed predictions of how much of each element would have been produced in the roughly three minutes of nuclear reactions.
Amazingly, we can test the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis theory by finding the primordial deuterium, helium, and lithium that remain today. Just as paleontologists hunt for fossils in isolated caves and dry rift valleys, cosmologists have identified relatively untarnished parts of the universe where atomic nuclei have remained largely undisturbed since the earliest times. Important targets are dwarf galaxies like I Zwicky 18, where stars did not ignite until recently, leaving most of the galaxy's material intact. Deuterium, helium, and lithium nuclei each absorb and emit light in a unique way, allowing scientists to point telescopes at I Zwicky 18 and determine the abundances of ancient nuclei very accurately. The observed amounts of these elements are just what Alpher and Gamow's theory predicts.
Think about what that means: Sitting here on Earth, cosmologists extrapolated our understanding back 13.7 billion years, to a few seconds after the universe began. We used that understanding to make predictions about the current universe—and we were right. We may not know for sure whether it will rain tomorrow, but we do know exactly how protons and neutrons bounced around like Super Balls in the nuclear inferno of the Big Bang. This will surely go down as one of the most impressive accomplishments of the human intellect.
And yet cosmologists want to do better still. The goal is to discover relics that predate even Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. At the moment that's not quite possible, but there is one promising candidate: dark matter, the dense but unseen stuff that holds galaxies together.
Artifact or Worthless WIMP?
At first, dark matter may seem a strange choice. We have never directly detected it, and we do not know what it is made of. But we do know that it doesn't seem to interact very much with anything—which, for the cosmic paleontologist, is a great asset. (The lack of interaction is why dark matter is dark: Light has no effect on it.) According to leading theoretical models, dark matter stopped interacting with the rest of the primordial particle soup very early on, about 1/10,000 of a second after the Big Bang, when the temperature of the universe was over 100 trillion degrees Fahrenheit (today it averages –455°F).
Theorists' leading candidate for dark matter is the weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP. Experiments in deep underground facilities, like the Soudan mine in Minnesota and the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy, are searching carefully for wimps. At the same time, physicists are trying to create wimps directly at particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva.
If these efforts succeed, we can measure the properties of wimps and then play the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis game all over again, this time with dark matter. We could predict precisely how much dark matter would be left over from the early universe and compare it with the amount we measure today. Then there are two possibilities: Either the prediction matches reality, and we can rightfully claim to understand what the universe was doing a scant fraction of second after it began; or the prediction fails, and we have to develop new, deeper theories to address the error.
Even if dark matter fulfills cosmologists' wildest dreams, our quest will be far from over. It may sound good enough to get to within 1/10,000 of a second after the Big Bang, but theorists believe a lot of interesting things happened before then, most notably a rapid expansion of the universe, called inflation, and of course the instant of the Big Bang itself—the equivalent of tracing evolution all the way back to the origin of life.
The closer we get to that point, the better we will understand how our universe came to be, and whether other universes could have formed in the same manner. One way or another, we will keep coming closer to understanding the very beginning of time.
Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech and a DISCOVER blogger. His book on the Higgs Boson is


text:
Gangsta Rap Swap Meet Proprietor Wan Joon Kim Has Died
In the history of Los Angeles hip-hop, many names loom large: Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Quik. But there's another, lesser-known name that nevertheless played a big role in the early years of L.A. rap. Wan Joon Kim opened a swap meet stall in the now-famous suburb of Compton in the mid-1980s. He sold some of the earliest work of those stars at a time when few knew them and fewer stores would sell their music. Many never forgot him. Kim died Wednesday at the age of 79.
Wan Joon Kim didn't intend to become the godfather of gangsta rap; in the beginning, his son Kirk says, he just wanted to support his family. Kim escaped North Korea on a fishing boat, and the family eventually wound up in the U.S. in 1976. Kirk Kim says at first his parents sold a random assortment of stuff at swap meets to make ends meet. Then: "Somebody was selling hip-hop CDs at one of these swap meets. My dad saw an opportunity. He saw these big lines in front of there, and he said, 'I'm gonna try this.' "
The Kims rented a stall in Compton's first indoor swap meet. The nascent artists they carried included Ice Cube and singles Eazy-E put out on his fledgling label. Those two would go on to become part of N.W.A., a legendary group whose Straight Outta Compton album put Compton — and gangsta rap — on the global map.
Cycadelic Music Corner became a pilgrimage for anyone wanting the latest in gangsta rap. Because Wan Joon Kim and his wife, Boo Ja, had a close relationship with local musicians, they often got the hottest music first. Kirk Kim says his dad didn't always understand the language of the rhymes, so Kirk's sisters would translate.
"He'd always ask them, 'What are these guys talking about? Why are these guys so angry?' And they would pretty much interpret certain songs, and it catches to him and he'd be, 'Oh, I like this.' "
He understood the emotion, if not the words. Over the past few years, despite the rise of digital music, fans have continued to travel to Compton to visit the Kims, whom many called Pops and Mama. Kirk Kim says his mother treated customers like they were her own children — including critiquing their style.
"Some of these people come back with their own kids, and they always ask 'How's your mom? You know, she used to always make me pull up my pants.' "
Wan Joon Kim died after a three-year battle with cancer. But the quiet man's legacy lives on in the many friendships he formed and the hometown music he helped make famous.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
It's been another week of bad press for President Obama; Errol Louis, Lynn Sweet, Dylan Byers and Terence Smith assess the coverage.
Good information. Lucky me I discovered your website by accident (stumbleupon). I've bookmarked it for later!
This is the perfect webpage for everyone who really wants to find out about this topic. You understand so much its almost tough to argue with you (not that I personally will need toÖHaHa). You definitely put a brand new spin on a topic that has been discussed for decades. Wonderful stuff, just great!
Awesome article post. Really Great.
After looking over a handful of the articles on your blog, I truly like your way of blogging. I saved it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back in the near future. Please check out my web site as well and let me know your opinion.
A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment. I think that you should publish more on this topic, it may not be a taboo subject but generally people don't speak about such topics. To the next! All the best!!
Hi I am so thrilled I found your web site, I
really found you by mistake, while I was searching on Yahoo for something else, Nonetheless I am here now and would just like to
say thanks for a remarkable post and a all round interesting blog (I also love
the theme/design), I don't have time to read it all at the minute but I have saved it
and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the fantastic
I couldnít refrain from commenting. Exceptionally well written!
Very nice article. I certainly love this website. Continue the good work!
You've made some good points there. I looked on the net for more info about the issue and found most people will go along with your views on this website.
Hi, I do think this is an excellent web site. I stumbledupon it 😉 I will come back yet again since I saved as a favorite it. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to guide other people.
Very good info. Lucky me I came across your website by accident (stumbleupon). I have book-marked it for later!
A fascinating discussion is definitely worth comment. I do think that you should write more on this subject, it might not be a taboo matter but usually people don't discuss these subjects. To the next! All the best!!
Aw, this was an incredibly good post. Taking a few minutes and actual effort to create a top notch articleÖ but what can I sayÖ I put things off a lot and don't seem to get nearly anything done.
Good info. Lucky me I recently found your website by chance (stumbleupon).
I've book marked it for later!
Excellent site you've got here.. Itís difficult to find excellent writing like yours nowadays. I really appreciate people like you! Take care!!
Excellent write-up. I certainly appreciate this website. Continue the good work!
I think this is among the most significant info for me.
And i'm glad reading your article. But wanna remark on few general things, The website style is
great, the articles is really excellent : D.
Good job, cheers
It's hard to come by well-informed people on this subject,
however, you sound like you know what you're talking about!
A fascinating discussion is worth comment. There's no doubt that that you should publish more on this issue, it may not be a taboo matter but usually people don't discuss these subjects. To the next! Many thanks!!
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this article plus the rest of the site is also really good.
Thanks on your marvelous posting! I quite enjoyed reading
it, you're a great author.I will remember to bookmark your blog
and will come back later on. I want to encourage you continue your great
posts, have a nice day!
my website: travesti caçapava
This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger.
I've joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your wonderful post.
Also, I have shared your website in my social networks!
Hello! I simply would like to offer you a huge thumbs up for your excellent information you have got here on this post. I will be coming back to your web site for more soon.
Actually no matter if someone doesn't understand after that its up to other users that they will
help, so here it occurs.
Spot on with this write-up, I honestly believe that this website needs a great deal more attention. Iíll probably be returning to see more, thanks for the info!
We stumbled over here coming from a different website
and thought I may as well check things out. I like what I see so i am
just following you. Look forward to looking over your web page
Everything is very open with a very clear clarification of
the challenges. It was truly informative. Your website is
useful. Thanks for sharing!
I was very happy to find this page. I wanted to thank you for your time just for this fantastic read!! I definitely appreciated every part of it and i also have you saved to fav to check out new information in your blog.
I could not resist commenting. Exceptionally well written!
Aw, this was an exceptionally good post. Spending some time and actual effort to make a superb articleÖ but what can I sayÖ I procrastinate a whole lot and never seem to get anything done.
Can I just say what a relief to discover somebody who truly knows what they're talking about on the net. You definitely know how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More and more people ought to check this out and understand this side of the story. I was surprised you are not more popular since you surely have the gift.
Howdy! This post could not be written much better! Looking at this post reminds me of my previous roommate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this information to him. Fairly certain he'll have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!
Iím impressed, I must say. Seldom do I encounter a blog thatís both educative and amusing, and without a doubt, you have hit the nail on the head. The problem is something that not enough people are speaking intelligently about. I'm very happy that I stumbled across this in my hunt for something concerning this.
I want to to thank you for this good read!! I definitely loved every little bit of it. I've got you book marked to check out new things you postÖ
This website definitely has all the information I needed about this subject and didnít know who to ask.


text:
Jawbone on Thursday published an open letter to Up owners, announcing a refund program for dissatisfied owners of the company's step and sleep tracking armband.
The $100 Up was released in early November. The band is meant to measure the steps you take, monitor your sleeping patterns, and wake you up at the ideal moment through vibration; it connects to an iPhone app to store your tracked data. Some folks, however, found that their Up units died suddenly within the first week of use. Jawbone has been replacing afflicted Ups for free—though some customers end up with replacement bands that suffer a similar fate.
In Thursday's letter, Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman writes that he considers the failures some Ups have exhibited "unacceptable," and offers the company's "deepest apologies." By examining the returned bands, Rahman says, Jawbone "found an issue with two specific capacitors in the power system that affects the ability to hold a charge in some of our bands." Additionally, he says that the company is "fixing an issue with syncing related to the band hardware."
Because the Up "has not yet lived up to expectations—including our own," writes Rahman, "for whatever reason, or no reason at all, you can receive a full refund for Up… even if you decide to keep your Up band. We are so committed to this product that we're offering you the option of using it for free."
The refund program starts Friday; full details are available at Jawbone's website. Rahman writes that "this program is simply meant to offer peace of mind"; customers can continue using (or buying) the Up, and know that they're safe should the product fail.
And fail it might. Travis Bogard, Jawbone's vice president of product management and strategy, told Macworld that company is "still digging into the differences between bands that are working great and those that aren't, so we're not at the point where we can say here's the root cause that we've pinpointed." So while the company knows the core issue is related to capacitors, it's not yet certain why some fail and others don't. "We have not announced a date for starting production again" with new or updated internals, Bogard said.
Some customers have also complained about the Up's cap (which covers the plug you use for syncing and charging), and some have complained about the iPhone app's feature set. Said Bogard, "We're definitely looking at all feedback. We're iterating on the software… We're replacing bands or caps. Our support policy has been very liberal" in terms of offering free placements.
Bogard emphasized that while Jawbone is taking the dramatic step of offering refunds even if you choose to keep your Up, that the majority of Up owners haven't reported any complaints. That said, "even one complaint is more than we want to have." In explaining the refund offer, Bogard said, "We think people generally want to and will do the right thing. Fortunately, we're in a position as a big company to be able to do this type of thing, and we think it's the right thing to do for our customers.
When asked about the potential impact to Jawbone's bottom line, Bogard said, "We don't look at this from profitability; we look at what's the best thing to do for the customer. Profitability will sort itself out if we do those things right."


text:
Nokia announced that its highly anticipated N8 smartphone started shipping this week, amid reports last week of delays in shipping the device to those who preordered the phone. The N8 is Nokia's latest attempt to regain its share of the smartphone market lost to the iPhone and Android phones, but the device has several shortcomings that would put off prospective buyers.
The N8 is Nokia's flagship device, and it took its sweet time to arrive on the market. It was announced in April, and took almost six months to move to shipping status, eons in the world of technology. During this time, we have seen a new iPhone, several highbrow Android phones, and a flagship BlackBerry phone (see how they all stack up against each other).
Now, finally arriving in the hands of those who preordered it, the N8 will have to prove whether Nokia still has the edge in the smartphone market. But just like every other phone out there right now, the N8 packs a punch, yet it has some pretty damning shortcomings. Let's explore both.
What's Wrong With The Nokia N8
It's underpowered: It runs on a 680MHz ARM 11 processor, which is behind with the times compared to most high-end smartphones the N8 is competing against, which have 1GHz processors. The N8 also comes only with 256MB of RAM memory, compared to double this amount on the iPhone 4, Motorola Droid X, or the T-Mobile G2. The slower processor coupled with the lower amount of RAM can make the N8 slow and unresponsive when demanding applications are run – which leads us to problem no. 2.
Symbian^3 is no match to iOS and Android: The OS was not designed with touchscreen use in mind, and it deeply rooted in the times when smartphones had a numerical keyboard and a couple of feature buttons. When it started launching smartphones with touchscreens, Nokia tried to revamp its OS, and bring it up to date. The N97 was one of the first attempts, which wasn't very well received, and early hands-on reviews of the N8 with Symbian^3 are not favorable either. As for apps, the Nokia Ovi store has around 5,000 apps working with the N8, whereas the iOS App Store is host to more than a quarter-million apps, and the Android Market to almost 100,000.
You can't get it cheap with a contract: Nokia did not secure deals with U.S. carriers to subsidize the price of the N8, so you can't get it in the $200 range with a two-year plan, as with all the other top-end smartphones out there. Instead, you will have to pay around $550 for a N8, and then use your current AT&T or T-Mobile plan with it, and there's no Verizon or Sprint version of the N8 at the moment.
What's Cool About the Nokia N8
It has a great camera: 12-megapixel Carl Zeiss optics with autofocus and Xenon flash is enough to make any iPhone user green with envy. It can also shoot HD videos (720p@25fps), and uses geo-tagging for your photos, it has an ND filter, and face and smile detection, too – you might as well just put your compact camera up for sale on eBay. Oh, and there's a front-facing camera for video chat as well (VGA 640×480 resolution), plus a dedicated camera button on the side.
HDMI and FM goodness: When it comes to playing the HD videos you shot with the N8, the phone has miniHDMI-out and composite capabilities, and it can output Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI. Music lovers will appreciate that the built-in FM radio tuner can also transmit music on the phone (to use for example wireless in your car). The phone also comes bundled with all the cables and adapters you need to connect it to your TV or stereo set, which is always a plus.
Free GPS navigation: The N8 comes bundled with Nokia's Ovi Maps GPS navigation software, which unlike the system Google bundles with Android phones, has all the maps preloaded, so it's not entirely dependent on 3G reception.
Does the Nokia N8 get the thumbs up from you, or is the iPhone and Android phones more up your street? Sound off in the comments.
Follow Daniel Ionescu and Today @ PCWorld on Twitter.


text:
Specialty Use Battery Replacements and Rebuild Services
Select a Sub-Category Below to Refine Your Search:
MTO Battery is the industry leader in providing premium Specialty Use and Custom Battery Supplies and Services in the USA and around the world. If you need it, we can do it. Have a question or don't see what you need on our site? Call us and we will take care of you. There is almost nothing we can't help with when it comes to rebuilding or repairing batteries. Here at MTO, we endeavor to provide our customers with the best service and the best information as well. Here you will find the best rebuild and repair services that are available.
Look below and find the rebuild services that we offer.


text:
A Little Piece of Heaven
For over twenty years, guests have been referring to White Oaks Cabins as, " A Piece Of Heaven". White Oaks is on eighty-five acres of peaceful, wooded property, making it a perfect haven for nature lovers, hopeless romantics, or anyone seeking peace and tranquility. Our guests enjoy a quiet refuge that abounds with wildlife and wildflowers.
White Oaks Cabins is ideal for...
Fishing at Patoka Lake
The best of both worlds!
From White Oaks it is less than five minutes to amazing bank fishing on Patoka Lake. Little Patoka Boat Ramp is just a 10 minute drive from all cabins.
Also, minutes away you will find a casino, a water park, touring caves, boat rentals, swimming, canoeing, birding, an abundance of arrow head and fossils, hiking trails, petting zoo, winter snow skiing, grocery shopping and antiquing.
YES - there is much more than just this partial list to see and do. Our area is rich with other unique places to enjoy. Ask us and we will be happy to help you plan a perfect side trip during your stay with us.


text:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — On the heels of a major
drought and busy wildfire season, the American Red Cross today released its
official Wildfire App. The app puts lifesaving information right in the hands of
people who live in or who visit wildfire prone areas.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090108/RedCrossLOGO)
This free app—available in English or Spanish—is the fourth in a series
created by the American Red Cross, the nation's leader in emergency
preparedness, for use on both iPhone and Android platforms. The Wildfire App
comes after the highly successful First Aid, Hurricane and Earthquake Apps,
which have more than 1.2 million users.
"It is vital that people know what to do to help protect themselves, their
loved ones and their property from wildfires," said Scott C. Somers, Ph.D.,
member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council and fire management
expert based in Arizona. "App users have instant access to our 'Blaze Tracker'
features so they know what to do before, during and after wildfires and make the
critical decisions that can save lives."
This year, the Red Cross has launched 11 large wildfire relief
operations spanning 10 states. According to the National Interagency Fire
Center, as of October, wildfires have burned 8.8 million acres in the United
States this year.
The Wildfire App includes:
- The "Blaze Tracker" trio of features-which can be customized for alerts
specific to locations where they live, travel or have loved ones:
- "Blaze Warnings" which let users see areas where NOAA has issued
warnings that conditions are favorable for potential wildfires;
- "Blaze Alerts" inform users when a wildfire has begun within 100 miles
of any locations monitored;
- "Blaze Path" from
Inciweb.org which provides users with a current view of an
existing wildfire's perimeter, how it has spread and the fire's current
location when available;
- "Blaze Warnings" which let users see areas where NOAA has issued
- Comprehensive reporting of all wildfire activity for every geographic area
in the United States;
- Options to view the app in English or Spanish based on user language
- One touch "I'm safe" messaging that allows users to broadcast reassurance
to family and friends via social media outlets that they are out of harm's
- Locations of open Red Cross shelters;
- Simple steps and checklists people can use to create a family emergency
- Preloaded content that gives users instant access to critical action
steps, even without mobile connectivity;
- Toolkit with flashlight, strobe light and audible alarm; and
- Badges users can earn through interactive quizzes and share on social
"One of the reasons why the Red Cross has emerged as a leader in mobile
preparedness is our ability to provide users with location customization," said
Jack McMaster, president of Preparedness and Health and Safety Services for the
Red Cross. "Wildfire App users can receive notification of wildfire risk and
activity within 100 miles of locations that matter most to them – whether it's
the community where they live or the places where friends and loved ones live."
National Red Cross experts in health, safety and preparedness have thoroughly
reviewed and field tested the information and advice provided in
Red Cross apps. A
recent Red Cross survey found that apps have tied social media as the
fourth most popular way for people to get information during emergencies, making
the Red Cross app development effort even more important.
The Wildfire App can be found in the
Apple App Store and the
Google Play Store for Android by searching for American Red
Cross. Apps can help prepare people for disasters, but they are not a substitute
for training. Red Cross First Aid and CPR/AED training empowers people to know
how to respond to emergencies in case advanced medical help is delayed. People
can go to redcross.org/takeaclass for course information and to
The Red Cross responds to nearly 70,000 disasters each year and we help
people get ready to respond to emergencies by providing these apps for free. The
Red Cross needs the help of the public to continue this lifesaving effort.
People can make a donation to the Red Cross by going to
redcross.org, texting REDCROSS
to 90999 or by calling 1-800-REDCROSS.
About the American Red Cross:
The American Red Cross shelters,
feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40
percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides
international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their
families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on
volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For
more information, please visit
redcross.org or join our blog at


text:
Dusky Pygmy Rattlesnake
(Sistrurus miliarius barbouri)
It's Wednesday again, and that means time for my weekly post on the St. Johns River Eco Tours blog. This one finishes off the last of four posts dealing with the only dangerous snakes in central Florida. Hope some of you will enjoy checking it out and maybe sharing it here and there. Next week's post will probably involve something of the feathered persuasion. 🙂 In the meantime, here's the link to this one:


text:
A cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run in LaQuinta, near Palm Desert, on Tuesday afternoon.
Fifty-six year old Joseph Patrick Szymanski was killed while riding on Avenue 54 in La Quinta about 3 pm Tuesday afternoon. Firefighters pronounced him dead at the scene; his body was found lying in the bike lane, though authorities note that they don't know where he was when he was hit.
Tracey Salter of Merriam, Kansas woman was arrested an hour later about three miles away on suspicion of felony hit-and-run.
The article notes that a police spokesman didn't know if Szymanski was wearing a helmet. But unless he died of a head injury, whether or not he was wearing a helmet is irrelevant. And even if he did, there's no reason to believe it would have helped unless he was struck at slow speed.
After years of contentious debate, the draft bike plan passed the city Planning Commission with near-unanimous support from the cycling community. The only serious disagreement came from equestrians opposed to allowing bikes on off-road trails, updating a conflict that goes back to the earliest days of cycling.
According to the LACBC, the plan will now go to Mayor Villaraigosa's office for review before heading to the City Council in February for final approval.
Time to add Vail to your biking boycott list, after the schmuck driver who ran down a cycling transplant surgeon and left him lying critically injured on the side of the road — claiming it was a result of that new car smell — walks with a year's probation and a suspended jail term.
That's after the local DA declined to press felony charges because it could affect the driver's high income career; by that standard, every rich sociopath and over-privileged jerk who commits a crime should get off the hook.
And from the looks of it, it's possible that one just did.
Damien Newton talks to the Beverly Hills cop who seemed to suggest a correlation between cyclists and criminal activity; turns out he's one of us. And didn't mean it that way.
In non-wheeled human powered transportation news, Bikeside reports on the impatient hit and run driver who critically injured a Santa Monica pedestrian. And while we're on the subject, Dj Wheels notes that Moran Bitan, the 18-year old driver who killed a 16-year old Notre Damn High School cross country runner Conor Lynch, faces a pretrial hearing on the 27th at the Van Nuys courthouse.
And still no charges against Stephanie Segal in the alleged drunken hit-and-run death of cyclist James Laing in Agoura Hills this past October.
Nice KCET interview with L.A Bicycle Coordinator Michelle Mowery about riding the L.A. River; thanks to Bicycle Fixation and Flying Pigeon for the heads-up. Speaking of Flying Pigeon, they're getting four new Velorbis bikes just in time for Christmas. Or maybe you'd prefer a very cool and unique looking chainless STRiDA folding bike. Another street falls victim to the stupidest and most dangerous law in California.
Employees of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System buy a new bike and helmet for every first grade student at a local elementary school. CalTrans pushes for a bike lane to nowhere in Bakersfield. Berkley is the most dangerous California city of its size for cyclists, pedestrians and conservatives. Evidently, you can have a good ride in Sacramento, even without Lycra. Ross Del Duca continues his thoughts — started here — on divisions, divides and cultures that divide cyclists, or not. California releases the new standards for complete streets. The SF Gate discusses why and how to register your bike; in addition to the National Bike Registry and Stolen Bike Registry mentioned in the article, I like the free international bike registration program from Bike Revolution.
Something tells me this app intended for motorists will prove very popular with cyclists. A women's bike team can be run for just 5% of what it costs to run a men's pro team. Bike before breakfast to maximize weight loss and other health benefits. If you think you're tough, try racing 150 miles through the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter. The New York Times points out that there are laws against bad bike behavior. Philadelphia drivers love the city's new parking contraflow bike lanes. Just in time for Christmas, get an official crown of thorns helmet so you, too, can suffer like Jesus while you ride.
Finally, if you're going to ride your bike on the sidewalk in Santa Monica, leave your meth and crack pipe at home (scroll down to Monday). And a new study discovers the cause of San Francisco's traffic problems: cars.
Go figure, huh?
On a personal note, best wishes to LACBC's Aurisha Smolarski, who's moving on to pursue other career goals. In the 2-1/2 years she's been working with the bike coalition, I've watched Aurisha grow to become one of the city's most effective advocates for cycling, and a friend. She has arguably done as much as anyone to improve the state of bicycling in Los Angeles, often working quietly behind the scenes to fight for the rights of cyclists and set the stage for our budding biking renaissance.
She will be very missed.


text:
I'm not a huge fan of Halloween in general and never have been. The whole scary costume thing and gory decorations isn't something I embrace. Scary movies? Not me!
My tastes fall along the lines of cute and funny. I enjoy seeing little kids dressed up as princesses or cartoon characters. Keeping things light and funny is much more to my liking. Throw in some fall colors, the smell of apple cider and cinnamon, pumpkin carvings and there ya have it … I'm all in … fall fun!
In my last post, I already shared photos from my visit to an engaging pumpkin exhibit, but since it's Halloween, I felt compelled to share even more images from the pumpkin event.
Pumpkin Carvings
Visiting the Enchanted Pumpkin Garden in Carefree, Arizona, was my kind of autumn entertainment. These pumpkin displays are a delight for people of all ages, but especially for those of us on the mature side. To compliment the amusing display is an equally humorous newspaper.
Check out the Stem Enhancement Clinic …
(To enlarge photos in a gallery, click on any photo. To return to the post, click on the x at the top. To read the newspaper articles, you may have to zoom in via your internet settings. Sorry, I tried my best scanning the newspaper.)
The jail exhibit was comedic. While the sheriff bends over to pick up money on the ground, a mouse on a stick is lowered down to grab the jail keys from the sheriffs hip. Someone is trying to escape from jail with the help of his buddies!
I had the opportunity to visit the Enchanted Pumpkin Garden on three different occasions, and during each visit, I noticed more pumpkins carved and a few changes here and there in the scenes. Talk about creative, imaginative, and talented!
I really appreciate all the hard work that goes into putting on such an entertaining exhibit. The show ran from October 19-28 and every evening the pumpkins are collected by the local fire department and floated in the fountain pool … 1. to keep the carved pumpkins hydrated and 2. to keep them out of reach of javelinas.
Near the end of the exhibit, rumor has it, the night guard fell asleep in his truck and javelinas started noshing on the 693 pound pumpkin that the sculptors had yet to complete carving.
Every morning, the pumpkins are returned to their display/scene. The sculpted ones are sprayed with water periodically throughout the day to help keep them from dehydrating, but many do not last for the entire show. Thus, new pumpkins are carved regularly. Yep, it takes a lot of talented people to provide us with this free entertainment.
And a few more photos just for fun …
Happy Halloween everyone …. hope you enjoy YOUR kind of day!
(affiliate links)
Too Many PumpkinsLEGO Seasonal Set Thanksgiving Feast


text:
Now that the Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception multiplayer beta is underway, the Playstation Blog has a post up with a video from the developers along detailing what features you can look forward to.
In addition to a new set of boosters, the beta will prominently feature a new buddy system-one that will pair you with another player on your team at the start of every match. You'll gain cooperative bonuses for working together with your buddy and you can also elect to spawn on your buddy should you not want to randomly spawn. While you are automatically paired with a buddy-whether or not you work with them is up to you.
There's also a beta FAQ on hand detailing what you'll be able to use and unlock in the beta, along with a playlist schedule.
When does the Beta end?
The UNCHARTED 3 Multiplayer Beta will end on Thursday, July 14.
What modes and maps are available?
Throughout the three weeks of the Beta, we'll be rotating through a variety competitive and co-op gametypes, along with access to three different maps.
June 28 to July 3
Gametypes: Team Deathmatch, Plunder, Three Team Deathmatch, Hardcore, Co-op Arena
Maps: Airstrip, Chateau
July 4 to July
Gametypes: Team Deathmatch, Free For All, Team Objective, Hardcore, Co-op Hunter
Maps: Airstrip, Chateau
July 10 to July 14
Gametypes:Team Deathmatch, Plunder, Three Team Deathmatch, Hardcore, Co-op Adventure, Co-op Arena
Maps: Airstrip, Yemen
Apple MacBook Air Laptop
Powerful performance
The M1 chip delivers 3.5x faster performance than the previous generation all while using way less power. Get up to 18 hours of battery life.
Are you currently playing the beta? Be sure to talk about your experience in the comments!


text:
Crappy work incentives
I was trying to find the public bathroom at Macy's the other day -- no easy task in any department store; why is that? -- when I ran across the employee lounge, and this sign. It made me feel laugh, and then feel bad for laughing, because if nachos are the best thing about working at Macy's, well, that's just depressing.
(Sorry about the shoddy picture; no matter what they tell you, camera phones still kinda suck.) Anyway, it got me to thinking about lame positive-reinforcement incentive programs I've been an (unwilling) part of at jobs I've held. I was reminded of the pens and chocolate they used to hand out at the Wells Fargo Loan Origination Center -- a cubicle Hell if there ever was one -- neither of which, judging from both the desk drawers and waistlines of my fellow employees, anyone there needed. The incentives always felt like this strange wink-and-nod gesture from the management, as if to say "We know working here is horrible, and if you were anywhere else right now, under any normal non-work circumstances, you wouldn't be at all interested in these nachos. But if you eat them now, we promise you'll feel a little better about working here, at least for a minute or two."
What crappy work incentives have you been offered?


text:
Welcome to HBCSE, TIFR
Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) is a National Centre of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. The broad goals of the Centre are to promote equity and excellence in science and mathematics education from primary school to undergraduate college level and encourage the growth of scientific literacy in the country.
To these ends it carries out a wide spectrum of inter-related activities, which may be viewed under three broad categories:
- Research and Development
- Teacher Education and Science Popularisation
- Olympiads, NIUS, and other Students' Nurture Programmes.
HBCSE is the premier institution in the country for research and development in science, technology, and mathematics education. It is India's nodal centre for Olympiad programmes in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and junior science.


text:
In the good old days spoofing meant a Mad magazine article on a television show.
No longer. In the world of secure (and insecure) networks, the act of spoofing entails faking data to take advantage of network insecurity. And as some University of Texas students led by professor Todd Humphreys have shown, it is now possible to spoof a GPS system.
That is, the students created a device that sent false GPS signals to a ship, overrode the existing GPS signals, and essentially gained control of the navigation of an $80 million yacht in the Mediterranean Sea. Here's a video explaining how they did it:
The scientists who conducted the experiment — done with permission of the yacht's owners — say their ability to broadcast counterfeit GPS signals that triggered no alarms within the ship's navigation system highlights a serious flaw in transportation networks on land and sea. Some 90 percent of the world's freight moves by sea.
Moreover other semi-autonomous vehicles, such as aircraft, are likely similarly vulnerable.
The problem is not intractable. As this technical paper published in 2011 shows, there are some possible fixes. Nevertheless, it doesn't take too much imagination to figure out how, when most people carry a GPS enabled device in his or her pocket, that spoofing could pose a problem if not accounted for.


text:
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
RFE/RL official logo
RFE/RL Broadcast Region 2009
|Free Media in Unfree Societies
|1949 (Radio Free Europe), 1953 (Radio Liberty), 1976 (merger)
|Private, non-profit Sec 501(c)3 corporation
|Broadcast Media
|Prague Broadcast Center
Official language
|English; programs are also available in Albanian, Armenian, Arabic, Avar, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bosnian, Belarusian, Chechen, Circassian, Crimean Tatar, Dari, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek
|United States government
Interim Managers
|John Giambalvo, Nenad Pejic (since February 28, 2014);[1] Jeffrey Shell is Chair of RFE/RL's corporate board (since October 2013).[2]
Parent organization
|Broadcasting Board of Governors
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a state-run U.S. broadcasting organization that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed".[3] RFE/RL is a 501(c)(3) corporation that receives U.S. government funding and is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services.[4]
RFE was founded as an anti-communist news source in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe, as part of a large-scale Psychological Operation during the Cold War. RL was founded two years later and the two organizations merged in 1976. RFE/RL received funds from the Central Intelligence Agency until 1972.[5] During RFE's earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff.[6]
RFE/RL was headquartered at Englischer Garten in Munich, Germany, from 1949 to 1995. In 1995; the headquarters were moved to Prague in the Czech Republic. European operations have been significantly reduced since the end of the Cold War. In addition to the headquarters, the service maintains 20 local bureaus in countries throughout their broadcast region, as well as a corporate office in Washington, D.C. RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages[7] to 21 countries[8] including Armenia, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.[9]
- 1 Early history
- 2 Cold War years
- 3 1980s and the fall of communism
- 4 After the fall of communism
- 5 See also
- 6 References
- 7 Further reading
- 8 External links
Early history
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an organization that was formed in New York City in 1949. The committee was composed of an "A list" of powerful U.S. citizens including former ambassador and first NCFE chairman Joseph Grew; Reader's Digest owner DeWitt Wallace; former diplomat and the co-founder of Public Opinion Quarterly Dewitt Clinton Poole; and prominent New York investment banker Frank Altschul.[10]
Radio Free Europe received widespread public support from Eisenhower's "Crusade for Freedom" campaign.[11] In 1950, over 16 million Americans signed Eisenhower's 'Freedom Scrolls' on a publicity trip to over 20 U.S. cities and contributed $1,317,000 to the expansion of RFE.[12]
The NCFE's mission was to support the refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity while increasing exposure to the modern world.[13] The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile relations, radio, and American contacts.[10] Although exile relations were initially its first priority, Radio Free Europe (RFE) became the NCFE's greatest legacy.
The United States funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world.[14] RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means.[15] American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a war of ideas. The implementation of surrogate radio stations was a key part of the greater psychological war effort.[12]
RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a U.S. government-sponsored radio service initially intended for Germans living in the American sector of Berlin (but more widely listened to in East Germany).[16] Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal U.S. supervision, the station provided free media to German listeners.
In January 1950 the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim, West Germany and on July 4 of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia.[17] In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles".[18] Teams of journalists were hired for each language service and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from a network of well-connected émigrés and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles.[19] RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc publications and radio services, creating an impressive body of information that would later serve as a resource for organizations across the world.[20]
In addition to its regular broadcasts, RFE spread broadcasts through a series of balloon operations codenamed Prospero, Veto, Focus, and Spotlight. "Using Balloons To Breach The Iron Curtain", RFE/RL Off-Mic Blog From October 1951 to November 1956, the skies of Central Europe were filled with more than 350,000 balloons carrying over 300,000,000 leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter.[12] The nature of the leaflets varied, and included messages of support and encouragement to citizens suffering under communist "oppression", satirical criticisms of communist regimes and leaders, information about dissident movements and human rights campaigns, and messages expressing the solidarity of the American people with the residents of Eastern European nations. The project served as a publicity tool to solidify RFE's reputation as an unbiased broadcaster.[21]
Radio Liberty
Whereas Radio Free Europe targeted satellite countries, Radio Liberty targeted the Soviet Union.[22] Radio Liberty was formed by American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Amcomlib) in 1951.[23] Originally named Radio Liberation, the station was renamed in 1959 after a policy statement emphasizing 'liberalization' rather than "liberation".[24]
Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim on March 1, 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin four days later. In order to better service a greater geographic area, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions from Lampertheim with broadcasts from a transmitter base at Glória in 1951.[25] It also had a base at Oberwiesenfeld Airport on the outskirts of Munich,[26] employing several former Nazi agents who had been involved in the Ostministerium under Gerhard von Mende during World War II.[27] In 1955 Radio Liberty began airing programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan,[28] while in 1959 Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from a base at Platja de Pals, Spain.[29]
Radio Liberty expanded its audience by broadcasting programs in numerous non-Russian languages. By March, 1954 Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages.[30] By December 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting in 17 languages including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen (Azatlyk Radiosy), Uzbek, Tatar-Bashkir, Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, and other languages of the Caucasus and Central Asia.[24]
Cold War years
Radio Free Europe
RFE played a critical role in Cold War era Eastern Europe. Unlike government censored programs, RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist movements. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło.[31] Its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland's Poznań riots in 1956 arguably served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution.[32]
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 RFE broadcasts encouraged rebels to fight and suggested that Western support was imminent.[33] These RFE broadcasts violated Eisenhower's policy which had determined that the United States would not provide military support for the Revolution.[34] In the wake of this scandal a number of changes were implemented at RFE including the establishment of the Broadcast Analysis Division to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' autonomy.[35]
RFE was seen as a serious threat by Romanian president Nicolae Ceaușescu. From the mid-1970s to his overthrow and execution in December 1989, Ceaușescu waged a vengeful war against the RFE/RL under the program "Ether". Ether operations include physical attacks on other Romanian journalists working for RFE/RL, including the controversial circumstances surrounding the deaths of three directors of RFE/RL's Romanian Service.[36]
1981 RFE/RL Munich bombing
On February 21, 1981, RFE/RL's headquarters in Munich was struck by a massive bomb, causing $2 million in damage.[37] Several employees were injured, but there were no fatalities. Stasi files opened after 1989 indicated that the bombing was carried out by a group under the direction of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (AKA Carlos the Jackal), and paid for by Nicolae Ceaușescu, president of Romania.[38]
The Chernobyl disaster
For the first two days following the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, the official Eastern Bloc media didn't report any news about the disaster and no full account for another four months. The people of the Soviet Union became frustrated with inconsistent and contradictory reports and 36% of them turned to Western radio to provide accurate and pertinent information.[39] Listenership at RFE/RL "shot up dramatically" as a "great many hours" of broadcast time were devoted to the dissemination of life saving news and information following the disaster.[40] Broadcasts topics included "precautions for exposure to radioactive fallout" and reporting on the plight of the Estonians who were tasked with providing the clean-up operations in the Ukraine.[40]
Poland and Czechoslovakia
Communist governments also sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters. Although some remained on staff for extended periods of time, government authorities discouraged their agents from interfering with broadcast activity, fearing that this could arouse suspicions and detract from their original purpose of gathering information on the radios' activities. From 1965 to 1971 an agent of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Communist Poland's security service) successfully infiltrated the station with an operative, Captain Andrzej Czechowicz. According to former Voice of America Polish service director Ted Lipien, "Czechowicz is perhaps the most well known communist-era Polish spy who was still an active agent while working at RFE in the late 1960s. Technically, he was not a journalist. As a historian by training, he worked in the RFE's media analysis service in Munich. After more than five years, Czechowicz returned to Poland in 1971 and participated in programs aimed at embarrassing Radio Free Europe and the United States government."[41]
Other espionage incidents also included a failed attempt by a Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) agent in 1959 to poison the salt shakers in the organization's cafeteria.[42]
In late 1960, an upheaval in the Czechoslovak service led to a number of dramatic changes in the organization's structure. RFE's New York headquarters could no longer effectively manage their Munich subsidiary, and as a result major management responsibilities were transferred to Munich, making RFE a European-based organization.[43]
Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky would later recall secretly listening to the broadcasts despite the heavy jamming.[44]
During the Cold War, Radio Liberty gained a reputation as one of the most reliable sources of international and internal news in the Soviet Union. In Eastern Europe broadcasts were often banned.
Radio Liberty's audience expanded significantly during the Cold War, despite Soviet attempts to compete with Western media.
After failed attempts to out-compete Western media, the Soviet government turned its efforts towards blocking reception of Western programs. To limit access to foreign broadcasts, the Central Committee decreed that factories should remove all components allowing short wave reception from USSR made radio receivers. However, consumers easily found out that the necessary spare parts were available on the black market while electronics engineers opposing the idea would gladly convert radios back to being able to receive short wave transmissions.[45]
The most aggressive and extensive form of reception obstruction was radio jamming.[46] This was controlled by the KGB, which in turn reported to the Central Committee. Jamming was an expensive and arduous procedure, and its efficacy is still debated. In 1958, the Central Committee mentioned that the sum spent on jamming was greater than the sum spent on domestic and international broadcasting combined.[47] The Central Committee has admitted that circumventing jamming was both possible and practised in the Soviet Union. Due to limited resources, authorities prioritized jamming based on the location, language, time, and theme of Western transmissions.[48] Highly political programs in Russian, broadcast at prime time to urban centers, were perceived as the most dangerous. Seen as less politically threatening, Western music such as jazz was often transmitted unjammed.[49] The intensity of jamming fluctuated over time. During and after the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, jamming was intensified. The Cuban Missile Crisis, however, was followed by a five-year period when the jamming of most foreign broadcasters ceased, only to intensify again with the Prague Spring in 1968. It ceased again in 1973, when Kissinger became secretary of state. Jamming only finally ended after Gorbachev came to power by a decree to that effect on 29 September 1986.[50]
United States
During the Cold War RFE was often criticized in the United States as not being sufficiently anti-communist. Although its non-governmental status spared it from full scale McCarthyist investigations, several RFE journalists including the director of the Czech service, Ferdinand Peroutka, were accused of being soft on Communism.[51] Fulton Lewis a U.S. radio commentator and fervent anti-communist was one of RFE's sharpest critics throughout the 1950s. His critical broadcasts inspired other journalists to investigate the inner workings of the organization including its connection to the CIA. When its CIA ties were exposed in the 1960s, funding responsibility shifted to Congress.[52]
RFE/RL received funds from the CIA until 1972.[53] The CIA's relationship with the radio stations began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an exposé claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA's funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage.[6]
In 1971 the radio stations came under public spotlight once again when prominent U.S. Senator Clifford Case introduced Senate Bill 18, which would have removed funding for RFE and RL from the CIA's budget, appropriated $30 million to pay for fiscal year 1972 activities, and required the State Department to temporarily oversee the radio stations.[54] This was only a temporary solution, however, as the State Department was reluctant to take on such a significant long-term responsibility.
In May 1972 President Richard Nixon appointed a special commission to deliberate RFE/RL's future.[55] The commission proposed that funding come from the United States Congress and that a new organization, the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) would simultaneously link the stations and the federal government, and serve as an editorial buffer between them.[56]
Although both radio stations initially received most of their funding from the CIA, RFE maintained a strong sense of autonomy. Under Cord Meyer, the CIA officer in charge of overseeing broadcast services from 1954 to 1971, the CIA took a position of minimal government interference in radio affairs and programming.[57]
The CIA stopped funding Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in 1972.[54] In 1974 they came under the control of an organization called the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB). The BIB was designed to receive appropriations from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds.[58] In 1976, the two radios merged to form Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and added the three Baltic language services to their repertoire.
1980s and the fall of communism
Funding for RFE/RL increased during the Reagan Administration. President Ronald Reagan, a fervent opponent of Communism, urged the stations to be more critical of the communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since the controversy over its alleged role in the Hungarian Revolution.[59]
During the Mikhail Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union, the radios worked hand in hand with Glasnost and benefited significantly from the Soviet regime's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming the radios' broadcasts, and dissident politicians and officials could be freely interviewed by the radios for the first time without fearing persecution or imprisonment.[60] By 1990 Radio Liberty had become the most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union.[61]
Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience from throughout the region.[62] The broadcasts allowed Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open a permanent bureau in Moscow.[63]
RFE/RL also played a significant role in the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which brought an end to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Following the November 17 demonstrations and brutal crackdown by Czechoslovak riot police, RFE/RL's Czechoslovak service reported that a student, Martin Šmíd, had been killed during the clashes. Although the report later turned out to be false – Šmid was alive and well – the story is credited by many sources with inspiring Czechoslovak citizens to join the subsequent (larger) demonstrations which eventually brought down the communist government.
Upon hearing about the story, RFE/RL did not run it immediately, but attempted to find a second corroborating source for the story, as per official RFE/RL policy. While a second source was never found, RFE/RL eventually decided to run the story of Šmíd's death after it was reported by several major news organizations, including Reuters, the Associated Press, and the Voice of America.[64]
In addition, Pavel Pecháček, the director of RFE/RL's Czechoslovak service at the time, was mistakenly granted a visa to enter the country by the Czechoslovak authorities prior to the demonstrations. He reported live from the demonstrations in Wenceslas Square, and was virtually the only reporter covering the events fully and openly in the Czech language for a Czech audience.[65]
After the fall of communism
In 1995, RFE/RL moved its headquarters from Munich to Prague. The Clinton Administration reduced funding significantly and placed the service under the United States Information Agency's oversight.[57]
RFE/RL ended broadcasts to Hungary in 1993 and stopped broadcasts to Poland in 1997. In the late 1990s RFE/RL launched broadcast to Kosovo in Albanian and to Macedonia in Macedonian.Broadcast to the Czech Republic proceed for three more years under the agreement with Czech Radio. In 2004 RFE/RL stopped broadcasting to Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Romania. However, on January 31, 2004, RFE/RL launched broadcasts to the former Yugoslavia in Serbo-Croatian (Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin).
RFE/RL states that its mission is to serve as a surrogate free press in countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. It maintains 20 local bureaus, but governments criticised often attempt to obstruct the radios' activities through a range of tactics, including extensive jamming, shutting down local re-broadcasting affiliates, or finding legal excuses to close down offices.[66] In many of these countries, RFE/RL and similar broadcasters provide more reliable domestic news than local sources.
RFE/RL says that its journalists and freelancers often risk their lives to broadcast information, and their safety has always been a major issue, with reporters frequently threatened and persecuted.[67] RFE/RL also faces a number of central security concerns including cyberterrorist attacks[68] and general terrorist threats.[69] After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, American and Czech authorities agreed to move RFE/RL's Prague headquarters away from the city center in order to make it less vulnerable to terrorist attack.[70] On February 19, 2009, RFE/RL began broadcasting from its modern new headquarters east of the city center.[71]
RFE/RL says that it continues to struggle with authoritarian regimes for permission to broadcast freely within their countries. On January 1, 2009, Azerbaijan imposed a ban on all foreign media in the country, including RFE/RL.[72] Kyrgyzstan suspended broadcasts of Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz language service, requesting that the government be able to pre-approve its programming. Other states such as Belarus, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan prohibit re-broadcasting to local stations, making programming difficult for average listeners to access.
In 1998, RFE/RL began broadcasting to Iraq.[73] Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi Intelligence Service, to "violently disrupt the Iraqi broadcasting of Radio Free Europe". IIS planned to attack the headquarters with RPG-7 from a window across the street. Czech Security Information Service (BIS) foiled the plot.[73]
In 2008 Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged his government to provide assistance to a rape victim after listening to her story on Radio Azadi, RFE/RL's Afghan service.[74] According to REF/RL in 2009, Radio Azadi was the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, and Afghan listeners mailed hundreds of hand-written letters to the station each month.[75]
In September 2009 RFE/RL announced that it would begin new Pashto-language broadcasting to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.[76]
The following month RFE/RL introduced a daily, one-hour Russian-language broadcast, broadcasting to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The program, called Ekho Kavkaza (Echo of the Caucasus), focused on local and international 'news and current affairs, organized in coordination with RFE/RL's Georgian Service.[77]
On January 15, 2010, RFE/RL began broadcasting to the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan in Pashto. The service, known as Radio Mashaal, was created in an attempt to counter the growing number of "pirate" Islamic extremist radio stations broadcasting in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. These pirate stations broadcast pro-Taliban messages as well as fatwas (religious edicts) by radical, pro-Taliban clerics.[citation needed]
Radio Mashaal says that it broadcasts local and international news with in-depth reports on terrorism, politics, women's issues, and health care (with an emphasis on preventive medicine). The station broadcasts roundtable discussions and interviews with tribal leaders and local policymakers, in addition to regular call-in programs.[78]
See also
- External program hours – comparison with some external radio broadcasters
- Operation Mockingbird and white propaganda
- Radio Free Asia
- Radio y Televisión Martí
- Alhurra
- Notes
- ↑ RFE/RL Appoints Interim Managers, RFE/RL, February 28, 2014
- ↑ Resolution Regarding the Boards of Directors of BBG-Funded Grantees, BBG, October 23, 2013.
- ↑ About RFE/RL - FAQs
- ↑ Broadcasting Board of Governors (official site)
- ↑ John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan R. Dee, 2012).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Mickelson 1983, p. 126
- ↑ Youtube.com
- ↑ RFERL.org
- ↑ RFE/RL Coverage Map
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Puddington 2003, p. 12
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 24
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Cummings 2008, p. 169
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 18
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 10
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 7
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 14
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 30
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 37
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 39
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 40
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 62
- ↑ Johnson 2010, p. 43
- ↑ Johnson 2010, pp. 37, 43
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Cummings 2008, p. 170
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 48
- ↑ Johnson 2010, p. 37
- ↑ Johnson 2010, pp. 49–64
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 110
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 80
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 241
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 87
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 94
- ↑ Griffith, William. "Policy Review of Voice for Free Hungary Programming, October 23-November 23, 1956" (PDF). National Security Archive. Retrieved 20 April 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Byrne, Malcolm. "The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents". National Security Archive. Retrieved 20 April 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 117
- ↑ Cummings 2008, p. 173
- ↑ Cummings, Richard. "Special Feature: The 1981 Bombing of RFE/RL". RFE/RL. Retrieved 17 April 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ "Voices of Hope" Hoover Institution exhibit on RFE/RL
- ↑ Parta, R. Eugene (2007). Discoverying the Hidden Listener. Hoover Institute Press Publication. p. 57. ISBN 978-0817947323.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ 40.0 40.1 Sosin, Gene (2010). Sparks of Liberty: An Insiders Memoir of Radio Liberty. Penn State Press. p. 195.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Lipien, Ted (23 June 2007), "Old spy scandals still haunting US broadcasters?", Spero News.
- ↑ Cummings, Richard, "The Best Spy Stories of the Cold War"
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 115
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 310
- ↑ Mikkonen 2010, p. 781
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 214
- ↑ Mikkonen 2010, p. 786
- ↑ Mikkonen 2010, p. 783
- ↑ Mikkonen 2010, p. 784
- ↑ Mikkonen 2010, p. 785
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 83
- ↑ "Historical dictionary of American propaganda", Martin J. Manning, Herbert Romerstein. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004. ISBN 0-313-29605-7, ISBN 978-0-313-29605-5. p. 51
- ↑ Broadcasting Board of Governors' Annual Congressional Budget Submission Reports http://www.bbg.gov/reports/budget.html
- ↑ 54.0 54.1 Puddington 2003, p. 196
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 209
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 210
- ↑ 57.0 57.1 Puddington 2003, p. 30
- ↑ Mickelson 1983, p. 153
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 254
- ↑ Puddington 2003, p. 287
- ↑ Sosin 1999, p. 209
- ↑ Sosin 1999, p. 216
- ↑ Sosin 1999, p. 219
- ↑ "Unraveling the Šmid death story," RFE/RL Off-Mic blog
- ↑ "Front Row Seat To The Revolution," RFE/RL Off-Mic Blog
- ↑ "Interview with RFE/RL Chief Jeffrey Gedmin" World Politics Review
- ↑ RFE/RL website Journalists in trouble
- ↑ Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2008
- ↑ The Prague Post, interview with RFE/RL President Thomas Dine, January 9, 2002
- ↑ The Prague Post, July 24, 2004
- ↑ RFE/RL Press Release February 4, 2009
- ↑ "Azerbaijan Bans RFE/RL, Other Foreign Radio From Airwaves" (RFE/RL)
- ↑ 73.0 73.1 "Czech Intelligence Reveals Iraqi Plot To Attack RFE/RL". RFE/RL. 30 November 2009. Retrieved 24 November 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Kathleen Parker "Mightier than the Sword". The Washington Post, November 21, 2008
- ↑ "Poetry from Paktia to Prague," RFE/RL Off-Mic Blog
- ↑ "Holbrooke: Deal with Taliban Propaganda Head-On," RFE/RL Press Release
- ↑ "RFE/RL Launching Russian-Language Show to South Ossetia & Abkhazia," RFE/RL Press Release
- ↑ "RFE/RL Launches Radio Station in Pakistan's Pashtun Heartland". RFE/RL. 15 January 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2010.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
Further reading
- Cummings, Richard (2008). "'The Ether War: Hostile Intelligence Activities Directed Against Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and the Émigré Community in Munich during the Cold War.'". Journal of Transatlantic Studies. Vol. 6, No. 2. Italic or bold markup not allowed in:
|publisher=(help)CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Holt, Robert T. Radio Free Europe (U of Minnesota Press, 1958)
- Johnson, Ian (2010). A Mosque in Munich. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Johnson, A. Ross and R. Eugene Parta (eds.), Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010)
- Machcewicz, Paweł. Poland's War on Radio Free Europe, 1950-1989 (Trans. by Maya Latynski. Cold War International History Project Series) (Stanford University Press, 2015). 456 pp. online review
- Mickelson, Sig (1983). America's Other Voice: the Story of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. New York: Praeger Publishers.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Mikkonen, Simo (2010). "'Stealing The Monopoly Of Knowledge?: Soviet Reactions To U.S. Cold War Broadcasting'". Kritika: Explorations In Russian & Eurasian History. Italic or bold markup not allowed in:
|publisher=(help)CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Puddington, Arch (2003). Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Sosin, Gene (1999). Sparks of Liberty: An Insider's Memoir of Radio Liberty. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Urban, George R. Radio Free Europe and the pursuit of democracy: My war within the cold war (Yale University Press, 1997), He was the director of RFE in the 1980s
Other languages
- Molnár, József (2006). A Szabad Európa Rádió a forradalom napjaiban - Autobiography. ISBN 963-9592-10-2.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
External links
This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (May 2014)
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, official website
- Hoover Institution Archives: Radio Liberty: 50 Years - Time Line
- Open Society Archives: Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute
- Wilson Center Digital Archive: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty Collection
- The Sig Mickelson papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives
- The Arch Puddington collection is available at the Hoover Institution Archives
- The Ferdinand Peroutka papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives
- Pals Radio Station Museum/
- The Cold War Leaflet Campaign of Radio Free Europe
- Documentary about RFE - Tell us your story
- Museum of the Radio Transmitter in Playa de Pals (shortwave radio Liberty station in Spain)
- European English Language Radio Stations
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, volume XII (Soviet Union, January 1969-October 1970)
- FRUS volume XIV (Soviet Union, October 1971-May 1972)
- United States Government Support of Covert Action Directed at the Soviet Union: Memorandum for the 303 Committee Washington, December 9, 1969 Mentions a FY 1970 budget of $13,130,000 for the Radio Liberty Committee
- Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- The short film 1956 Crusade for Freedom (1956) is available for free download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Radio Free Europe (1960) is available for free download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Eagle Cage (1960) is available for free download at the Internet Archive.
Lua error in Module:Coordinates at line 668: callParserFunction: function "#coordinates" was not found.sah:Көҥүл радиота
- Pages with broken file links
- Pages using infobox organization with unsupported parameters
- Articles with unsourced statements from April 2012
- CS1 errors: markup
- CS1 maint: ref=harv
- Wikipedia external links cleanup from May 2014
- Wikipedia spam cleanup from May 2014
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- Radio stations established in 1949
- 1949 establishments in New York
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
- Cold War organizations
- External services (broadcasting)
- United States government propaganda organizations
- Anti-communism
- Anti-communist organizations
- Central Intelligence Agency front organizations
- Russian-language radio stations
- Soviet Union–United States relations
- Companies based in Munich
- Prague
- State media


text:
Even if today's tight-fisted economy has you hoarding coupons and attempting to make cappuccinos at home, you can still have a family vacation that's not a guilt trip. Here are tips from budget-smart travelers (including the GH team) that show you how to spend less money — without sacrificing an ounce of fun.
Hit the Pricey Spots Off-Season
You may dream of an island escape in frigid winter, but Vanessa Druckman, a Columbus, OH, food blogger and mother of three, has been heading to the Caribbean in sultry August for years. She and her husband, Steve — who were turned off by winter's crowds and high prices — join his family in luxe hotels like the Ritz-Carlton in Grand Cayman, happily lopping 20 to 30 percent off in-season rates. Druckman's own family usually needs just one room with two double beds and a crib. "Not only do we save a lot on hotel and airfare, but we love how secluded it feels. Nothing's crowded if you travel just before hurricane season starts in mid-August. It's hot, but no hotter than the East Coast or Southwest, and there's no better place to cool down than in that turquoise water," she says. "And we enjoy having snorkeling boats to ourselves instead of being wedged in like sardines." The family also shops for "pay for, say, three nights, get one free" hotel deals to stretch their dollars.
Tip to try: When searching hotel sites online (say, starwoodhotels.com, hilton.com, hyatt.com, and marriott.com), scan for what are called hotel specials or packages: These deals often include extras like museum tickets, airport transportation, and room taxes for free or a very small charge.
Try a House Swap
Kim Orlando, of Greenwich, CT, mother of three and the founder of travelingmom.com, is all about her annual two-week summer house swap with a family in Hermosa Beach, CA. She and her husband, Romano, and their kids head back to the Los Angeles area, where Kim and Romano used to live, to spend time at the beach and see old friends — and their swappers get to be a train ride away from New York City and its attractions. This past summer, the Orlandos booked a second swap with a new family through homeexchange.com, which charges about $120 for yearly membership. Beyond that, the stay is (delight-) fully free, and about half the swappers on the site also offer use of a car. "My husband was a reluctant house-swapper. He's a real Felix Unger type — he has a collection of pocketknives, which he hid before we left. But by the last house swap, he was saying, 'Here's the key, here's the car,'" says Orlando. "I always say the best thing about house swaps is that the ketchup, mustard, and beach toys are already there. And nobody wants to pay 40 or 50 bucks for breakfast. With a swap, you have a kitchen, and the kids have their own bedrooms, so there's less bickering."
Orlando recommends having several get-to-know-you phone chats with the swappers before you leave, and paying for your house to be cleaned at the beginning of your visitors' stay (so you don't have to mop while you pack) as well as at the end so everything will be shipshape for your return. Also, check with your own insurance company, but many policies cover exchange partners as invited guests and perhaps even as permitted drivers, and offer coverage as such. Another way to go: List your home on Vacation Rentals by Owner (vrbo.com), and when someone bites at your offer, scan the site for what's available out of town for a similar price and rent it for the same time period.
Tip to try: Want to list your home but don't live, say, by the beach or in a glamorous city? Play up your area's selling points: Being surrounded by woods, or being just a stroll from a historical society, may be precisely what thrills another homeowner.
Just Say No to Hotel Bills
...and camp under the stars instead. Unplugging from our high-tech world gives kids a memorable time communing with nature. Granted, it's not for everyone (it's a tad awkward to change a diaper in a tent), but those who are game will find themselves in a gorgeous setting, bonding over life's simple pleasures. And it's one of the best bargains in America. Instead of paying $200 or more per night in season at the Bar Harbor Inn in Bar Harbor, ME, you could stay in stunning Acadia National Park for about $20 per night — saving enough for at least a car payment! Beware, though: Popular parks, like Yosemite, can fill up months ahead of time in peak season. If you want to camp there between July 15 and August 14, for example, reservations open online or by phone on March 15 at 10 a.m. ET.
Tip to try: For guidance on how to pick a specific park, we asked Alexander Altvater, a ranger for the National Park Service at Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, NJ, for his advice; he suggests checking out your local state parks as well as national ones. His favorites: Villanueva in New Mexico, Dead Horse Point in Utah, and Custer State Park in the South Dakota Black Hills. Go to nps.gov for genuine National Park Service campsites, and check out stateparks.com, too.
Get Cooking
If you're renting a condo or cottage on vacation, cooking in is cheaper and cozier than dining out, and is a better way to share family time. Jean and Terry Rose, parents of six from Montclair, NJ, head to Bethany Beach, DE, for a week every summer with extended family, and each branch of the clan takes control of the kitchen for one night of the week, using favorite recipes they've brought along. "Shopping together at farmstands is also part of the fun for us," says Jean. Plus, at the dinner table you won't hear that "ka-ching!" in your head when the kids ask for another soda the way you would if you were dining out.
Tip to try: Prior to your trip, ask pals for favorite "new" dishes they've made recently, or visit goodhousekeeping.com/recipes for ideas.
Let Someone Else Do the Driving
It may not be as comfy as your car, but Greyhound offers reasonable fares — much cheaper than flying — and kids who travel with adults get 25 percent off; check greyhound.com for details. (Newer buses in the Northeast now have Wi-Fi.) Or take Amtrak, which posts Weekly Specials in the Deals section on its Website (amtrak.com) that can be booked online from Tuesday through Friday; we saw fares of up to 25 percent off.
Ask for a Concierge Floor
When booking a hotel room, "concierge floors often cost a little more, but sometimes a hotel will upgrade you just because you've asked. Either way, it's worth it," says Jean Chatzky, Today's financial editor and the author of The Difference: How Anyone Can Prosper in Even the Toughest Times. "These floors have lounges where you can get free breakfast, snacks, and sodas, plus hors d'oeuvres at night. They save my family a lot on food." (At Hilton hotels, ask for the Executive Floor.) Rates and restrictions vary by location, but the extra charge (from $30 up) can be well worth it if you're feeding a family.
Don't Leave Home Without...
...your ID cards. Students, people in the military, seniors, and even AAA members can get discounts on fares and even entrance fees at museums, theme parks, and more. Check out the Websites of your destination to see what kinds of discounts are possible before you visit for the biggest savings with the least disappointment.
3 More $mart Moves
You could save big on your next trip to some favorite destinations.
1. Disney Parks
Book a five-night, six-day Magic Your Way vacation package to stay at a Disney Resort hotel and get a $750 Disney gift card free to use during your vacation. And with "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day," if you volunteer with a participating organization, you get a free theme park day pass.
2. Hershey
Stay three nights at either The Hotel Hershey or Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA, and get the fourth night free, along with complimentary passes for that day to Hersheypark and all of its rides.
3. JW Marriott
Book two nights at the new JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa in Texas (it includes a six-acre "river experience" water park), and get the third night free — plus, kids under 12 eat free.
Related Video


text:
EFA Color Finger paints 750 ml, white
EFA Color colours make life more colorful. The assortment offers everything a child's heart desires, from finger paints and school paints to paint boxes for the kindergarten or school use and of course the matching accessories.
- Excellent coverage
- Washes out of most textiles
- Bottle size ideal for kindergarten and preschool use
- Available in various assorted sets, in 7 individual colours à 100 ml jars or in 14 individual colours as 750 ml bottle
- 750 ml bottle
- Colour: white


text:
Vous pouvez actuellement acheter directement auprès de Wattbike dans les pays listés ici.
Si votre pays n'est pas disponible, vous pouvez toujours commander via votre distributeur Wattbike local.
Vous pouvez actuellement acheter directement auprès de Wattbike dans les pays listés ici.
Si votre pays n'est pas disponible, vous pouvez toujours commander via votre distributeur Wattbike local.
Dublin indoor cycling studio WattsUp opened in 2018 as an indoor cycling studio with Turbo Trainers. The studio was set up to give age group triathletes an easy and cost effective way to train with power. Over the next 18 months, the studio's members discovered a love for training with power and found themselves making big gains in their cycling performances. However, Cillian, WattsUp's owner and a keen triathlon participant, slowly found the Turbo Trainers to be quite limiting.
To gear up for a new decade, WattsUp cycling studio are now getting ready for the January Rush by becoming a fully fledged Wattbike studio. Moving away from rollers, the WattsUp team decided to turn their facility into a complete Wattbike studio after seeing first hand the benefits of training with power, and after learning about the Wattbikes' numerous features and associated benefits.
The WattsUp team announced the news on Instagram earlier this month:
"In the New Year, Watts Up studio is going to become a Wattbike studio. We have 12 Wattbikes coming in in December so we can set up and get the new layout ready for our re-launch in the New Year. We are really excited and can't wait for this! There is going to be no place like this in Dublin...[The Wattbike] is essentially the gold standard of indoor bikes. A lot of the track cycling teams, British Cycling, and a lot of rugby teams use them. They are really a solid piece of kit, and include a power, speed and cadence meter all in one. You also have your left/right leg balance and pedal analysis right on the screen as you're riding, so it ticks all the boxes in terms of maximising your training and getting the most out of yourself to bring your cycling up to that next level. Training on the Wattbike has been an absolute game changer for me, so this is going to be something you don't want to miss!"
Stay tuned for more, as we create a case study on the WattsUp team in the New Year to discover how they are redefining the indoor cycling landscape in Ireland together with Wattbike.
Inscrivez-vous à notre newsletter pour recevoir les dernières nouvelles, des offres exclusives, et plus encore...