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That's no typo: The name of Ferrari's latest thunderbolt is LaFerrari, with the article lewdly rubbing against the proper noun. It's a great name.
First, note the anapestic gallop: la-fer-RAR-eee. For a company whose symbol is a black horse this is a trick worthy of our beloved Dante. Please observe, too, how it's a name that doesn't give a damn about Anglophones. Is it "the LaFerrari," which parses as "the the Ferrari"? Away from the factory gates, English dog.
In tune with a Latin ear, the name italicizes exclusivity and rarity. Ferrari has said it would build 499 of the hybrid hypercars in the next two years, and no more. Prices vary with markets but the conversation starts at 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million). Or started. LaFerrari's order book was filled within weeks of its debut at the 2013 Geneva auto show.
Now, it is true that to American ears the name is just a tiny bit hard to take seriously. It would be a good name if you were the best tango instructor in Boca Raton. LaFerrari dances with Fifi or no one.
And yet in the presence of the car it's hard to sustain bemusement. Holy hell. What a spectacle, a blood-red vase with black flowers, a robot lover. This is the first Ferrari hypercar designed in-house, without styling atelier Pininfarina, and in this and other ways it is a technical manifesto of the company's future direction. Note the absence of heritage cues. LaFerrari was designed in collaboration with Ferrari's F1 mastermind, Rory Byrne, and the carbon-fiber chassis are baked in the same autoclaves as the race cars. The designer of record is Flavio Manzoni, though aero management—that is, satisfying the demands of engine induction, cooling, and downforce—dictated the larger contours.
LaFerrari makes beauty out of technical necessity with a shape that is an erotic entanglement of the air around it, wrapped in red silk sheets.
And, of course, it's fully mega in the ground-effects department. There are active underbody flaps at front and rear diffusers, an underbody aero vane, and most conspicuously, LaFerrari's hyperkinetic rear wing that swivels into the airstream in mid- to high-speed cornering, and also doubling as a high-speed air brake. All of these aero appliances actuate independently but operate synchronously to provide real-time aero balancing, front to rear, side to side, and up to 800 pounds of road-gripping downforce. And it will suck the meat from your face. Active aero is just one of many semi-automated, integrated systems—the amazing E-Diff is another—that toil away quietly lap after lap without the driver being much aware of it. The KERS regeneration scheme, scavenging electrons during braking and anytime the V12 is producing more power than required, needs no special button or e-mode to engage. It's always on. The traction-control algorithms are poetry, and LaFerrari's tires-on-fire, hip-swaggering corner exit is how babies are made.
These cars aren't sold to your run-of-the-mill Ferrari idiots, mind you. They are handed out as rewards to lifelong clients, connoisseurs and Friends of Enzo, people well known to the firm and to Chairman Luca di Montezemolo. This practice has been institutionalized with each of Ferrari's era-defining hypercars: the F40 (1987), the F50 (1995), and the Enzo (2002). I was in the chairman's office in Maranello, Italy, in June when he waved a letter from a certain irate king of a certain oil-rich world power, an unrequited LaFerrari suitor.
I'm not discounting the possibility of theater on the boss's part, but am I loving the show.
"For all LaFerrari's hyper-optimized engineering, the scourging of every gram, the one thing designers took as a given was a big ol' naturally aspirated V12, a legacy power plant chosen for no better than emotional, which is to say irrational, reasons."
We are in Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy. The sky is red here, and good-natured joshing about the latest Formula One results is met with, ahem, stony stares. Sorry. Neither is Ferrari taking anything for granted in the highly esoteric business of building four-wheeled fighter planes.
Please enjoy the following pornography: LaFerrari is a full carbon chassis and body car, 43.9 inches high, a bit narrower than the Enzo, with similar wheelbase and length, and the whole smash is built to Formula One specs. Mounted longitudinally behind the passenger cell is the 6.3-liter, naturally aspirated 65-degree V12 engine, a fiery dragon's heart generating on its own 789 hp. This is an evolved version of the engine in the F12 Berlinetta, internally lightened and reinforced to sustain its soaring, flame-splitting 9,000-rpm peak horsepower. Forget your curling iron? No problem.
Bolted to the southern end of the rear transaxle is an oil-cooled 161-hp, AC synchronous electric motor, the centerpiece of the hybrid kinetic energy recovery system (HY-KERS). Total system output: 950 hp and 664 pound-feet of electrified, triphammer torque, unspeakably smooth and refined, which when pumped through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and the (brilliant, incomparable, secret-of-it-all) torque-vectoring rear differential and thence to the foot-wide bastards in back produces interesting inertial effects. Zero to 124 mph in under seven seconds and 186 mph (300 kph) in 15 seconds.
Yeah, drink it in, the machine-ness of it all. Just a tick under 3,000 pounds, LaFerrari stores its lightning quite near its center of mass, in a 132-pound refrigerated lithium-ion battery pack transverse to about the driver's tailbone.
Due largely to its battery, LaFerrari's center of mass is 1.4 inches lower than the Enzo's. In the interests of further reducing mass, LaFerrari dispenses with actual seats; rather, occupants' backsides are snuggled into couch-like contours in the carbon structure. Instead of a seat adjustment, a lever to the driver's right positions the pedal assembly, and the steering column moves the nearly square steering yoke fore and aft. Starfleet, at last.
There are many things that make LaFerrari an incomparable road-car experience, but high on the list is the neuro-mechanical connectedness between man and machine the racecar-like, fixed-seat arrangement creates. That, and having a Ferrari V12 sawing away at nine grand a couple inches from your nethers.
LaFerrari is the last of a trio of dawning-tech hybrid hypercars in the past year that have disrupted what is possible in a sports car performance: The Porsche 918 Spyder, which I drove on public roads in Germany's Eifel Mountains last fall on the very day it set the Nurburgring lap record of 6:57 seconds; and the McLaren P1, built by some very polite androids in Woking, Surrey, U.K., a car that I drove on an asphalt wasteland at Dunsfold, in the U.K., the Top Gear tarmac. Neither venue allowed me to drive the cars very hard or for very long except to report that they were both savage.
For LaFerrari I was favored with a closed test session at the company's test track at Fiorano (I am fully assured of your best wishes for me in light of this information).
LaFerrari's predecessor, the celestial Enzo, dispatched the 3 kilometers and 12 turns of Pista di Fiorano in 1 minute 25 seconds. According to the company, LaFerrari does the deed in 1:19. This is consistent with the car's primary sensation on track, which is having easy mastery of this hellacious acceleration and tail-sweeping power exiting out of corners, really unprecedented in a road car, and the only challenge is how hard you can grit your teeth to hold your foot down. Down-track distances at Fiorano just dissolve in a hectic watercolor blur of red, yellow and green and corner-to-corner acceleration.
The results of the car's carbon-ceramic brakes, the rear wing's aero braking and the HY-KERS regen effect is stupendous, dead steady, drama-free threshold braking to hang you from the seat harness like your parachute snagged in a tree. LaFerrari operates in a realm of physicality and pace reached only in hard-core production-based race cars, with full aero and slicks. After a half-hour I was sweating like a waiter.
Purists may find it appalling that one such as myself could handle the car, but the truth is, LaFerrari is effortless. The electrically assisted steering is luxury-car light but needle sharp. Throttle response is just plain mind-expanding but gas-pedal travel is long enough to be easily modulated.
Once you get used to the phenomenal velocities, you can sashay the tail around corners around like it was any other track-day toy. I spent most of my time with the dynamics mode selector, the manettino, set to CST Off, deactivating the car's protective failsafes, and never felt threatened.
Montezemolo has made the difficult but necessary case that even as next-generation Ferraris get faster, the performance has to be safely accessible to the enthusiast driver of ordinary talents and reasonable will to live. In the case of a 950-hp, 3,000-pound LaFerrari, and the cars that follow, that means a significant amount of electronic mediation between the driver and the road. It really can't be helped.
As for any alleged lack of driver involvement, maybe. But hurtling down Fiorano's main straight, punching up through the gears—HAAAR-bang! HAARRR-bang!—staying flat on the gas around that lazy left-hander while climbing through 160 mph, trusting only in the car's ground effects to keep you from skittering wide of the mark in a seven-figure car. It's pretty involving.
And the sound, the pitched notes of a Ferrari V12 with its tender bits in a wringer, headers glowing. Forget about it! Well, here we have come to the end of it, the prime mover in this drama. For all LaFerrari's hyper-optimized engineering, the scourging of every gram, the one thing designers took as a given was a big ol' naturally aspirated V12, a legacy power plant chosen for no better than emotional, which is to say irrational, reasons. Who says you can't build a Ferrari hypercar without a macho V12? They do.
Another engine, a smaller, turbo'd engine like the McLaren's or Porsche's, might have been squeezed for more power but it would never rock the Kasbah like the almighty bark of a red dozen.


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THE 100 Premieres on Wednesday March 19. But Binghamton's CW and Roberson Museum and Science Center want you to see it before it premieres.
100 guests will enjoy a pre-screening of THE 100 Thursday, March 13 in Roberson's Digital Planetarium. Screening times are at 6pm and 7:30pm. 50 passes are available for each screening.
Tuesday – Thursday 9am – 5pm
Friday: 9am – 9pm
Saturday and Sunday: 12pm – 5pm
Viewers are invited to pick up a set of passes for the advanced screening at Roberson. Please note there is a limit of two passes per person.
Below is a trailer for THE 100

subset: commoncrawl


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Former leader of Mexico drug cartel killed by gunman in clown costume
LOS CABOS, Mexico – Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, the eldest brother of Mexico's once-feared Arellano Felix drug clan, was shot to death in the Baja beach resort of Los Cabos by a gunman wearing a clown costume, authorities said Saturday.
Relatives of Arellano Felix confirmed his identity at the scene of the crime at a rented beach house, the attorney general's office in Baja California Sur state said in a statement.
A photo from the scene showed his body sprawled on the tiled floor of the open-sided, beachfront house, covered by a sheet.
An official of the Baja California Sur state prosecutor's office said Saturday that the killer wore a clown costume complete with a wig and a round red nose. The official was not authorized to be quoted by name.
The motive for the attack, and the gunmen's disguise, are still under investigation.
Known for its violent and brutal control of the drug trade in the border city of Tijuana in the 1990s, the arrests or death of most of the seven Arellano Felix brothers have reduced the cartel to a shadow of its former self.
Now aged 63, Arellano Felix was already in prison when the gang rose to its height.
"He was never really part of the leadership of the big organization, mostly because he was in jail (in Mexico). He was arrested before they became what they really became," said John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego who co-wrote a 2003 indictment against the Arellano Felix cartel leadership.
The elder of the Arellano Felix brothers was arrested in 1993 in connection with the murder of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo and served a 10-year sentence for weapons possession. Mexican officials were concerned that he would return to drug trafficking after serving his Mexican sentence and asked their U.S. counterparts to seek his extradition as he neared completion of a sentence on the unrelated weapons charge.
"The Mexicans were very concerned he was going to get out," Kirby said.
Kirby said he found enough evidence to bring charges on the 1980 drug case and he prepared the extradition request.
Arellano Felix was extradited to the U.S. in 2006 to face California charges stemming from a 1980 case in which he allegedly sold cocaine to an undercover police officer in the United States.
He was sentenced by a U.S. judge to six years in prison on drug charges but was granted parole, released and deported back to Mexico in 2008.


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I found these tracks in the road and asked some experts what they think it is. Some suggested Caracal and Serval, but most were of opinion that it is Civet. I really wanted to see what it was, and I hoped that it was Serval… I would love to see Serval on the farm, or at least know they are here.
First I tried to find a side game-track which I thought it would use, but no luck. In the end, I resorted to putting my trail-cam on the main farm road, where I saw the tracks for several days on the same path, going on for almost a kilometre. I don't like putting my camera up where there could be more people-movement, however, it seems it blended in well.
The first night I had the camera up on this spot, I found the mystery animals tracks the next morning, on the road just out view of the camera. Frustrating.
I, however, decided not to move it but keep it there as I was sure it was going to walk the road again as it did before and I was right… African Civet.


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MONTREAL – It wasn't the worst beating ever seen in the octagon, but UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre thoroughly dominated challenger Nick Diaz en route to a clearcut unanimous-decision win.
The title fight headlined Saturday's UFC 158 event at Montreal's Bell Centre and aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FX and Facebook.
St-Pierre's intensity was evident from the moment he stepped into the cage. Diaz taunted him from the other side of the octagon, and there was no touch of gloves.
As the grudge match kicked off, Diaz walked forward with punches, but St-Pierre answered with kicks to the leg and then scored a takedown just seconds into the opening round. Diaz quickly rolled and turned as he looked for opportunities on the floor, but St-Pierre patiently controlled the positioning as he transitioned from side to side and looked for a chance to take his opponent's back. Diaz defended well as he turned to create space, but it was complete positional control for St-Pierre throughout the frame.
A frustrated Diaz lunged at St-Pierre well after the bell, but referee Yves Lavigne prevented any contact.
Diaz again fired punches from distance to open the second, and St-Pierre briefly obliged with a few crisp counter punches before driving in for another takedown a little more than 30 seconds into the round. Diaz worked to his knees but found no room for submissions or an escape. A stronger St-Pierre simply out-muscled Diaz while keeping him tight to the mat.
Diaz finally scrambled up with one minute remaining, and the pair traded on the feet until the bell. Diaz failed to gain any momentum, and he was once again pulled away by Lavigne at the bell.
St-Pierre worked a crisp jab to open the third, and Diaz responded with his trademark taunts. However, St-Pierre stuck with the gameplan and scored another takedown. This time Diaz simply crawled to the fence and climbed to his feet, where he again looked to trade. Diaz found some success with a big right to the body and several slapping kicks to the legs. He also defended a handful of takedowns, but none of it fazed St-Pierre, who continued to fire in several crisp jabs.
With one minute left, St-Pierre took a look at the clock and seemed to be tiring as Diaz bloodied up the champ's nose with a few straight punches. St-Pierre scored another takedown to gain control of the momentum, and Diaz took another swing from his back well after the bell, which prompted a disqualification warning.
As the championship rounds opened, Diaz again found a way to defend the takedown. However, he still found it difficult to outstrike the straight, technical blows of his opponent. Diaz put his hands by his waist to bait St-Pierre, but the champ simply dropped him to the floor and continued his positional domination.
Down four rounds to none, Diaz again looked to strike in the final frame. St-Pierre was unable to score an early takedown, but when Diaz slipped on a high kick, the action again returned to the floor. Diaz scrambled up with less than two minutes remaining, but he couldn't capitalize on the feet. St-Pierre scored one final takedown in the final minute, and he rained in a few elbows before the final bell.
After an epic pre-fight build up that included much bad blood, Diaz raised St-Pierre's hand in a nice show of class. St-Pierre returned the favor shortly after, but the winner was evident, and the champion was awarded a clean sweep on the judges' cards, 50-45 across the board.
"I didn't want to fight with him in a boxing range because he's the best boxer in mixed martial arts, and his jiu-jitsu is amazing," St-Pierre said. "When you fight a guy like this, it's almost impossible to get ready for them."
And despite the pre-fight trash-talk that colored the matchup, St-Pierre said he harbored no ill will toward the challenger.
"He did a great job promoting the fight," St-Pierre said. "Nick Diaz is a good guy. … I never took it personal."
With the victory, St-Pierre (24-2 MMA, 18-2 UFC) ties UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes with the most octagon wins in the promotion's history with 18. Meanwhile, a dejected Diaz (26-9 MMA, 7-6 UFC), who returned from a 13-month drug suspension following a second failed test due to marijuana, hinted he may be done with MMA.
"I think I'm going to have to just kind of figure out if I want to keep doing this," Diaz said. "To be honest, I don't think I've really got it anymore."
Complete UFC 158 results include:
- Georges St-Pierre def. Nick Diaz via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45) – retains UFC welterweight title
- Johny Hendricks def. Carlos Condit via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Jake Ellenberger def. Nate Marquardt via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 3:00
- Chris Camozzi def. Nick Ring via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Mike Ricci def. Colin Fletcher via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Patrick Cote def. Bobby Voelker via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Darren Elkins def. Antonio Carvalho via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 3:06
- Jordan Mein def. Dan Miller via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 4:42
- John Makdessi def. Daron Cruickshank via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Rick Story def. Quinn Mulhern via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 3:05
- T.J. Dillashaw def. Issei Tamura via KO (knee and punches) – Round 2, 0:26
- George Roop def. Reuben Duran via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
For complete coverage of UFC 158, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.
Matt Erickson and Ben Fowlkes contributed to this report on-site in Montreal.


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Color-Ado Caprice
A Bright Bow Tie From The Rockies
Those who grew up in the '50s and '60s will tell you that they built hot rods to go fast, and crafted customs to attract the ladies. Times may have changed, but a recent poll seems to indicate that women still prefer the long, smooth lines and comfy cabin of a custom to the loud pipes and cramped quarters of a rod.
At least that's the case for Alisa Potestio, the only woman we surveyed. Alisa's husband Eddie is an upholstery guru, car builder, and owner of Eddie's Rods and Customs in Pueblo West, Colorado. When he told Alisa that he'd let her pick the next shop project, she immediately knew she wanted something custom-oriented. After seeing a friend's '66 Caprice she narrowed her focus on what that car should be.
A nationwide search for the perfect starter vehicle led Alisa and Eddie right back to Pueblo, where a "good from far, but far from good" Caprice was found and purchased. John "Large" Largent then whipped up concept art for the project, kicking off a whirlwind eight-month buildup to get the car ready for its debut at the 2002 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas.
Despite the short schedule, Eddie and Alisa didn't cut any corners. They separated body from chassis, had the frame blasted and coated by Sentry Powdercoating in Canon City, then set to work assembling the suspension using Energy Suspension bushings and a Ride Pro airspring system from Air Ride Technologies. Master Power disc brakes--complete with drilled and slotted rotors--found their way onto all four corners, along with 17x8 Colorado Custom Slotted Slater wheels and BFGoodrich rubber. Meanwhile, Performance Associates was busy rebuilding the '86 TPI engine and mating it to the original Turbo 400 automatic. A Fluidyne radiator and MagnaFlow exhaust also made it onto the chassis before all was said and done.
The Caprice's crisp, clean lines were what attracted Alisa in the first place, so there was little reason to radically alter them. The biggest change was recessing the headlights a few inches and adding a one-off grille from Carriage Works. Thurman's Paint and Body then removed the door handles and excess trim, filled the cowl vents, and repaired rust and damage with patch panels from Classic Industries. D&S Paint Center mixed up the striking PPG paint--a custom hue that Eddie and Alisa call Huntress Orange in reference to the car's new moniker.
Eddie's primary business is upholstery, so it's no wonder he pulled out all the stops when it came to the Caprice's cabin and trunk. Starting with a quartet of bucket seats from Interior Supply and Service, Eddie custom crafted just about everything else, including the full-length console, door panels, and dash extension. All of it was covered in chamois-colored UltraLeather and wheat-colored UltraSuede, with Palomino wool carpet laid below. Body-matched paint added some contrast to the dash, along with Auto Meter gauges and a Colorado Custom steering wheel. Painless Wiring supplies juice to the many accessories, including the Hot Rod Air climate controls and killer sound system (Pioneer stereo, Kicker amps and subs, Infiniti speakers) built by Al's Creative Auto Sound. The entire interior was insulated using materials from Bonded Logic, the company that also provided the car's display space at SEMA.
Alisa's Caprice made the indoor show rounds before hitting the street in the summer of 2003. Needless to say, she's thrilled with it. "I love the look--the custom-mixed color, the beautiful interior, and the fact that I had a huge part in the design and building of it," Alisa said. That's great, but we're curious to know whether cool threads and stunning paint can attract guys in 2004 as well as they lured girls in the '60s. Hmm...we may have just answered that question ourselves!


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A little over a week ago, Dell's Data Center Solutions (DCS) group marked its fifth birthday. As Timothy Prickett Morgan explains in his article subtitled, "Five years old, and growing like a weed":
DCS was founded originally to chase the world's top 20 hyperscale data center operators, and creates stripped-down, super-dense, and energy-efficient machines that can mean the different between a profit and a loss for those data center operators.
This team, which now represents a greater than $1 billion dollar business and has expanded beyond just custom systems to include standard systems built for the "next 1000," all started on a simple napkin.
From napkin to "Frankenserver," to today
Ty Schmitt who was one of the original team and now is the executive director of Dell's modular infrastructure team within DCS, explains:
This was sketch I made over drinks with Jimmy Pike late one night after visiting a big customer on the west coast. We we were working on a concept for a 1U system for them based on their requested requirements. As you can see by the date (Nov 2006) it was actually before DCS became official … we were a skunk works team called "Sonic" consisting of a hand full of people. We wanted to take an existing chassis and overhaul it to fit 4 HD's, a specific MB, and SATA controller. When we got back to Austin, I modified the chassis in the RR5 machine shop (took parts from several different systems and attached them together) and Jimmy outfitted it with electronics, tested it, and it was sent to the customer as a sample unit.
This first proto was described by the customer as "Frankenserver" and was the beginning of the relationship we have with one of our biggest customers.
A little over five years later, Dell's DCS team has gone from Frankenserver to commanding 45.2 percent revenue share in a market that IDC estimates at $458 million in sales last quarter. Pretty cool.
Extra-credit reading:
- Dell's bespoke server unit pushes over $1bn of tin – The Register
- IDC starts tracking the hyperscale server market – Barton's Blog
- Dells Data Center Solutions group turns Four! – Barton's Blog
- Dell's "Custom Tailor" to Internet Stars turns three — Expands to serve the next 1000 – Barton's Blog
- A Data Center that fits in the Overhead Bin – Barton's Blog


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Burnt Orange Round Paper Clay Pendant, small
1 left in stock
Get ready to fall in love with this gorgeous hand-crafted paper clay pendant light! With a paper mâché affect, this artisanal one-of-a-kind light will add a certain je ne sais quoi to any room in your home.
Measures: 12"dia x 8"h
Socket Wattage: LED bulb only, 10 watts maximum
Materials: paper clay
Features 6 ft. white cotton cord with white metal dome canopy, 4"dia x 2"h
Bulb not included
Paola Paronetto is an Italian ceramicist who works with paper clay. Her collections include decorative, everyday objects that are designed for those who love to surround themselves with refined, individual artisan pieces.


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Bombay Cats and Burmese Cats, Bombay and Burmese Cattery, Ashland Kentucky
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After a decade-long hiatus, Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss launched her quest to return to Palo Alto politics Monday when she announced that she will be running for the City Council this year.
Though she won't be running as an incumbent, Kniss won't have to worry about name recognition or steep learning curves. A veteran of both the school board and the City Council, she served as Palo Alto mayor twice, in 1994 and in 2000, and already has three successful council elections under her belt.
"I'm excited to announce this and very pleased at the possibility of serving in Palo Alto again," Kniss said in an email announcing her candidacy. "I have missed the local contacts and connections that exist in our city politics."
Kniss told the Weekly that she decided to run for council about three days ago. She said she was weighing a run for state Senate, where another former Palo Alto Mayor Joe Simitian will reach his term limit this year. But she ultimately decided that she doesn't want to move to Sacramento.
"Palo Alto is far more, frankly, interesting," Kniss said, adding that she feels she can make a greater difference on the local level than in the Capitol.
Though her latest term on the council ended in 2000, Kniss has been a familiar presence at City Hall, routinely attending council meetings to recognize community volunteers, welcome new mayors and thank outgoing elected leaders for their service. Her visits have gone beyond the ceremonial. A Caltrain board member, she hosted a meeting in Palo Alto last year to update city officials and community members about Caltrain's financial state and its electrification plans.
Her resume also includes memberships on the board of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, the Association of Bay Area Governments, and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. She has twice served as president of the Board of Supervisors, most recently in 2010, and serves on boards of the both the state and national organization of county supervisors.
Kniss was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2000. She was re-elected in 2004 and 2008.
She has chaired health and land-use committees on the Board of Supervisors and, in August, was reappointed to chair the Health Steering Committee at the National Association of Counties. She also chairs the Health and Human Services Policy Committee at the California State Association of Counties.
With her announcement, Kniss became the first person to enter the council race. Mayor Yiaway Yeh and Councilmen Pat Burt, Sid Espinosa and Greg Schmid are all concluding their first terms on the council this year and none have indicated thus far whether they plan to run for reelection.
The council race will be one of many issues voters will be asked to decide on in November. In addition to voting for United States president, Palo Alto residents will also consider whether Palo Alto should allow marijuana dispensaries to set up shop in the city. They may also be asked to approve a bond to pay for a new public-safety building and for major renovations to two local fire stations.
If elected, Kniss would be the second sitting council member to have two framed photos of her hanging in the Council Chambers (Larry Klein, a three-time mayor, also holds that distinction).
Kniss was also a leading driver behind 2010's Measure E, a ballot measure that moved the city's local elections from odd years to even years. The change, which voters approved by a two-to-one margin, was pitched as a move to both save the city about $200,000 every two years and to increase the number of voters (because local elections, after the change, coincide with state and national elections).
"Voters are much more engaged, especially in a presidential year, and the buzz of running is always a bigger buzz," she told the council in June 2010.
Kniss said that if elected she would emphasize three areas: infrastructure, including a "Health and Wellness" element in the Comprehensive Plan (the city's land-use bible), and sustainability.
"An over-worked word, but a message we need to continually push for in this very aware and responsible community," Kniss said of "sustainability."


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On the issue of removing her head scarf after wearing it for over five years, a close friend of mine was hesitant - and it was not on religious basis. It was rather over the issue of facing the different audiences she has: the conservative audience and the liberal one. It made me think of my audiences and whether I "perform" in a certain way to each one. In September 2011, Egyptian writer Ahmed Elesseily published an article in Al Tahrir newspaper called "Revolution of Girls", in which he said that the duty of Egyptian "girls" (including those in their twenties) in our society is to please her audiences who are constantly watching her. I caught myself again thinking whether I do that, and again, I thought of the performances that are required of us and the effort we put into perfecting our roles. This has nothing to do with my love of theatre, but we – Egyptian women – are always on stage.
We are not on stage because we are appreciated, no, on the contrary, we are on the podium because we are threat. All of us are a threat: those who conform and those who don't. In either part of the stage an Egyptian woman is standing on – conformist, non-conformist, or that shady part in the middle – she is always under the scrutiny of her audience.
Those of us who conform, for whatever reason, are always made aware of our audiences so as to keep us in check. Those of us who don't conform, on any level, are also conscious of this audience which does not accept us because we are challenging it all the time. This audience is a constant presence which shapes our behavior and attitudes - and of course our self image. We are always being made aware of our gender and of being watched and judged because of it, and so we end up "performing" accordingly in either of two ways: how this society wants to see us or how we force this society to see us.
Egyptian artist Bassem Yousri's wall installation "Parliament of the Revolution". Image: Bassem Yousri. All Rights Reserved.
During the 18 days of the sit-in before toppling Mubarak, Tahrir Square felt like a gender bias free zone. Women felt safe in Tahrir, and were not constantly afraid of being harassed. They joined young men in the sit-in, staying for days away from their homes, in a society which places curfews on fifty year old women and not on men. For eighteen days, Egyptian women were just "Egyptians". Even the violence of police forces against the protestors did not separate them from the masses as women. However, once Mubarak was ousted, and the collective wave of those who were revolting retreated to see how things would change, women became women again. Things were losing momentum and people were still under the illusion that we were being protected by the army. Yet, during all the important events of the past year, when the same collective wave of revolting moved again - this time against the dictatorship of SCAF - women became just "Egyptians" again. Once this tsunami of revolution swept the streets, there were no longer any audiences watching women in the periphery of these revolutionary waters. There was only a purpose: to fight, bear the losses in lives as best we might and keep on fighting.
We have always been in the margins. Except for now, except for the times when we are in the middle of a protest or in a sit-in, when we become centre page along with all the 'words' with no distinction between genders. In taking to the streets in such a manner, there are no "performative acts" and there is no audience. The role which the society takes as the ultimate supervisor of women has no place in the middle of a protesting mass. However, there is a wider audience which exists outside of this and it grows like a cancer. This cancerous audience judges those protesting first collectively, and then judges them based on gender whenever specific cases of women make it into the media.
Of all the women who were arrested on the 9th of March and subjected to these "virginity tests", it was only Samira Ibrahim who filed a lawsuit against army officials. At the time when Ibrahim's lawsuit was a popular issue among the revolutionaries, another young Egyptian woman made it into press: Aliaa ElMahdy. ElMahdy posed naked and posted it on her blog as an act of free artistic expression. While the Egyptian national media virtually ignored Ibrahim's case and the outrageous act of army officials, they fed on ElMahdy's photograph, mentioning that she did not just pose naked, but was also a member of April 6 Movement - SCAF's chosen scapegoat. As a result of which, Samira Ibrahim's story, which would have turned more people against army rule, was ignored by the public. The conservative society which condemned ElMahdy, would also have been outraged at the virginity tests. The media's unequal coverage of the two women's stories ensured that patriarchal society would remain on the side of the dictatorship.
During the events of the Parliament last December, the army's ruthless behaviour towards girls and women was documented in hundreds of videos, images, testimonies and tweets that were circulating on the internet, but none of them made their way into the national media. The veiled woman who was jumped on and kicked by at least five military personnel and stripped to her bare torso showing her blue bra, was blamed not only for going out to protest, or out in the streets when she is a woman, but for wearing an abaya (a long black dress-like garment worn by some veiled women) with snap fasteners and not wearing a top under the abaya. The story of Azza Hilal Sulieman, who was beaten an inch away from death for trying to help the Blue Bra girl, never made it to national media. The army's attack on women last December was a reaction to knowing how powerful women are in the streets. To get rid of this portion of protestors, the army humiliated women in ways that would break them as "women".
Egyptian women were outraged, and on Tuesday the 20th of December 2011 they filled the streets - not just in anger against the violence, but calling for the end of the brutal military rule. My friend Bassem Yousri, a visual artist who lives very close to Talaat Harb Square, heard the sound of the marchers before even seeing them. "I ran to the balcony to see and I couldn't see anything; the voice of the women was so loud, it shook "wust Elbalad" (downtown) and I couldn't even see them," he told me. Yousri went down and joined the hundreds of men, some of whom were holding hands and forming a cordon of humanity around the women: young men, boys and old men from different backgrounds, chanting with them and moving as one body.
Artwork on display in the exhibition. Image: Bassem Yousri. All Rights Reserved.
Yousri's work on the Revolution is being shown now in Egypt as part of a group exhibition entitled Shift Delete 30 where none of the artists are women. Yet, as part of Yousri's wall installation entitled "Parliament of the Revolution", a life size illustration of ElMahdy stands wearing a blue bra and behind her a woman in niqab stands showing her hatred, silently and ominously speaking out for women who are suffocating. Yousri's work is a cynical portrayal of the elections and the political crisis of military rule in which the only female presence is one that is the sole object of vision to the patriarchal audience: the woman as a sexual object. Even within the frame of the revolution and under the pretence of freedom, the patriarchal audience watches women through the lens that keeps it in power. As long as women are viewed as such, then things haven't changed; the dynamics of the theatre are still there, the fourth wall is still there and there is no negotiation of the power structures.
Revolting has given space to those who are oppressed to fight, to liberate pressure and suppression, and in this space there was suddenly no reason to oppress those around oneself. Once a person has come to feel the force of that wave, the one that will push you to a shore where you are released, there is nothing in you that would make you put someone else in that position. When women went out on December 20th they were angry at what we were subjected to; but more importantly they were calling for an end of a dictatorship. Even when the attack on the revolution becomes gendered, the revolutionary collective remains as it is: unbiased.
But when revolting is over, do we go back to performing in the margins, trying to shift our positions for a breath? Where do we go in those intervals when the majority of the nation prefers to live in the comfort of the lie that is SCAF's honesty? Now that we've taken a break from the performative act, I feel that there is no going back. There is fluidity in defining the performer and those watching. There is also an awareness of the difference between both states so that the performer becomes aware of the politics of such a performance and so becomes more powerful. After all, there is no text to follow, and no director; it is as it has always been: us and them. And we are in a position to create change; we are the providers, they are just sitting there as receivers of the effects of a tradition that has kept them from their own humanity.
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(HealthDay News) -- A temporary tattoo may seem like a harmless alternative to the permanent option, but even a temporary tattoo has potential side effects, experts say.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says these side effects could include:
- Redness where a tattoo is applied.
- Blistering skin.
- Formation of red skin lesions.
- Loss of skin pigmentation.
- Greater sensitivity to sunlight.
- Permanent scarring.


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Category talk:Fundamental
All articles, it seems to me, in this category should be categorized under themes (directly or indirectly), with the possible exception of "List of categories" (which I'm not sure what the use of -- is it meant to replace Wikiquote:Category schemes)?
So here is my suggestion:
- Move Famous last words to Last words (notability is implied in wikiquote, and "famous" is really a bad word here) and recategorize under Themes
- Split Famous tongue twisters to pages like English tongue twisters, categorize under Category:Tongue twisters which would be categorized under Themes.
- Categorize Advertising slogans under Themes.
- Categorize Epitaphs under Themes.
- Redirect List of categories to Wikiquote:Category schemes
- Recategorize Category:People under Category:Main page
- If all the above are done, this would leave in this category only Category:Lists and Category:Science fiction.
- Recategorize Category:Main page under Category:Fundamental: this means the top-level will have two categories: Fundamental (which would be thought of as "Content categories") and Wikiquote (which would be thought of as "Process categories").
I believe all these suggestions will finally bring coherence to the "top-level" of the wikiquote category schemes. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
- I think that 1-4 are obvious good ideas: (A) "Fundamental" itself is rather artificial, so "Themes" is better; (B) I concur that "famous" is superfluous; and (C) our tongue-twister list is getting huge. I'll have to think about the others, simply because I don't recall offhand where we left Category organization, and I know it'll take me some time to ponder these points. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
- I intend to implement 1-4 within a week, if there are no objections. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 16:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
- No objections on my part. It seems to be a good idea. ~ Kalki 19:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- Re (1): Wikiquote may implicitly imply "notable", but "famous last words" does not connote the same thing as "notable last words". I haven't looked at that page; in which group does it fall? 121a0012 04:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
- That was the point of "famous is a bad word": I did not say it means the same thing -- I meant to say it shouldn't mean what it means right now, because we fame is a POV concept (as opposed to notability, which is NPOV if vague). Just like we do not have a category famous people because everyone should be notable, and we do not categorize based on fame :) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
- No, I think you missed my point. "Famous last words" has a distinct meaning; it does not mean the same thing as "last words which happen to be famous" or "last words of famous people". I took a look at the article, and it seems to be rather a mish-mosh of Famous Last Words, Last Words of the Famous, and Last Words of People Alleged to be Notable Who I've Never Heard Of. 121a0012 01:34, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
- That was the point of "famous is a bad word": I did not say it means the same thing -- I meant to say it shouldn't mean what it means right now, because we fame is a POV concept (as opposed to notability, which is NPOV if vague). Just like we do not have a category famous people because everyone should be notable, and we do not categorize based on fame :) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
- But all are "Notable last words". Every "Famous last word" :) is "Notable", but not vice-versa. And I doubt you could find a meaning for "Famous last words" which is NPOV... ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 05:35, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
- 1-4 are done now. I am going to take 5-7 to a more appropriate venue. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
- Discussions in the rest of the suggestions is moved to Wikiquote talk:Category schemes#Reorganizing top-level. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Mixing fundamental categories, or not[edit]
I notice a few subcategories cross the lines between Fundamental categories, e.g.:
- People included in Themes
- Productions included in Themes
...just to name a few. This has led to some odd situations, such as:
- Britons are in the United Kingdom but Americans are not in the United States
- Category:War includes War criminals but not Military leaders
I think the distinction between fundamental categories is very useful, and continuing to mix them up will render them useless. I have done it myself, and now consider it a mistake. Instead, we can use "see also" in a theme category to indicate related categories of people or productions (works). Before I attempt to "clean up" the situation, does anyone else have opinions on this? ~ Ningauble 18:28, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- Returning to this a few weeks later, I still think it would be a good idea to clean this up. There are a dozen or two crossovers. I will go ahead and sort them out. ~ Ningauble 15:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


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Over the cold winter on the sofa nights, ITV, Britain's main commercial broadcaster, ran a documentary series featuring the activities of the City of Westminster's Register Office where births, deaths and marriages are recorded. It was a distracting little show, a funny and touching fly-on-the-wall human interest fest for a chilly midwinter's evening that helped the digestion and wasn't too taxing on the brain. There is something rather dignified and valiant about the ordinary people – the hatch, match and dispatch squad – who deal daily with the relentless cycle of life that we must all face and the relentless cycle of emotion that goes with it. Veteran registrar of 28 years, Patricia Gordon, confessed that she was none too comfortable with the notion of civil partnerships. But, through friendship and by example, fellow registrar Tommy helped her see the light; now she can't wait for him to find his own soul mate so she can do the honours. And guess what? Patricia officiated at our Civil Partnership in 2008. Here is she doing the business:
Thank you for changing your mind, Patricia.


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As part of a project, i want to make a panel where i can drag shortcuts from the desktop onto the panel and have them retain their functionality in the panel (they can still be clicked to open their intended program). I'm quite new to java programming, and while i've been googling for ways to do this, i haven't been very succesfull in finding good desriptions. I'm using netbeans, and my intent so far has been to use a jpanel from netbeans and make it drag and drop capable and add a snap grid to it.
Does someone have any suggestions on how i can do this? or if it's even something a beginner to java should be trying to do as one of his first projects.
I'm open to suggestions, if for example it would be a better idea not to try and use the preset jpanel or anything of the like.


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Today's guest on the Mystery November tour is Jane Isaac with her book The Truth Will Out.
1) Where is your home town?
I live in rural Northamptonshire, UK with my husband and daughter where I can often be found trudging over the fields with my dog, Bollo.
2) How long have you been writing?
On and off, all of my life, but I only discovered fiction writing in 2007. I completed my first crime thriller, An Unfamiliar Murder, in 2009 and have never looked back.
3) What is your favourite sub-genre of mystery?
I have a deep fascination with the twists and turns of police procedurals and love the thrills and excitement of psychological thrillers like Before I Go To Sleep, so I try to combine both these elements into my novels.
4) Where is "The Truth Will Out" set?
Action is divided between the UK Midlands and the Scottish Highlands.
5) Can you introduce us to Eva?
Eva is a headstrong young woman who dropped out of university and is trying to pick up the threads and make something of her life. The book opens with her witnessing an attack on her best friend, Naomi, over Skype. They share a secret which, fearing she might be next, prevents her from calling the police. Instead she calls an ambulance and flees to the Scottish Highlands where we watch her story unfold.
6) Tell us about her friend Naomi.
Naomi and Eva were childhood friends. What Eva doesn't realise when she leaves is that Naomi was not only attacked, but also murdered. Naomi is a nice girl from a good family who got mixed up in something she shouldn't have. Something which brought about her downfall and continues to threaten those close to her.
7) Who is running the investigation? Does she already know Eva?
Detective Inspector Helen Lavery investigates the murder of Naomi Spence. Initially she has no knowledge of Eva, although it isn't long before they become acquainted.
8) What made Helen choose to be in the police force? Does it have a link to this case?
Helen is a widow, battling the demands of singlehandedly raising teenage sons while managing the murder squad. She followed in her late father's footsteps to join the police force and, with the aid of the accelerated promotion scheme, moved through the ranks quickly to the role of DCI. But Helen isn't interested in targets and management meetings. Managing murder investigations, catching the really bad guys was all she ever wanted to do; something which occasionally leads her to adopt unorthodox methods in order to track down a killer. In The Truth Will Out she pushes herself to the limit and eventually brings the threat of murder to her own door. Let me share my blurb with you:
"Everything's going to be okay."
"What if it's not?" Suddenly, she turned. For a split second she halted, her head inclined.
"Naomi, what is it?"
She whisked back to face Eva. "There's somebody in the house… "
Eva is horrified when she witnesses an attack on her best friend. She calls an ambulance and forces herself to flee Hampton, fearing for her own safety. DCI Helen Lavery leads the investigation into the murder. With no leads, no further witnesses and no sign of forced entry, the murder enquiry begins.
Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. But as Helen inches towards solving the case, her past becomes caught up in her present.
Someone is after them both. Someone who will stop at nothing to get what they want. And as the net starts to close around them, can Helen escape her own demons as well as helping Eva to escape hers?
9) Tell us what you are working on at the moment.
I am currently preparing my latest book, a crime thriller called Before It's Too Late, set in the very picturesque Stratford-upon-Avon, for publication next July.
10) Where can readers find out more about you?
I love to hear from readers and writers. Give me a shout at my website www.janeisaac.co.uk .
The Truth Will Out is available at Amazon UK and Amazon Com .


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Comunicados à imprensa
Fortinet FortiGate Virtualized Security Available for VMware Cloud on AWS
Provides secure application mobility and consistent policies across enterprise hybrid clouds
John Maddison, senior vice president of products and solutions at Fortinet
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- Launched today with initial availability in AWS US West Region (Oregon), VMware Cloud on AWS brings together VMware's enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) software and elastic, bare-metal infrastructure from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to give organizations a consistent operating model and application mobility for private and public cloud.
- The FortiGate VM enables an existing VMware-based private cloud to securely extend to the public cloud with site-to-site connectivity, cross-cloud segmentation, and consistent security policies for customers of VMware Cloud on AWS.
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As enterprises transition to hybrid cloud infrastructure, 51-percent of recent survey respondents indicate that security remains a top challenge. FortiGate VMs provide VMware Cloud on AWS users with a combination of advanced threat intelligence from FortiGuard Labs with the industry leading security operating system, FortiOS, delivering complete security control, workload visibility and management across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Enterprises can now move workloads from the data center to the AWS public cloud securely without jeopardizing policy visibility.
Fortinet virtualized security has long been available to global enterprises and service providers running VMware vSphere, providing visibility into east-west traffic in virtualized data centers and private clouds. With FortiGate VM for VMware Cloud on AWS, organizations can expand their on-premise network to AWS with secure site-to-site VPN connectivity and Fortinet Security Fabric visibility capabilities for application mobility. Organizations can ensure that an application running on vSphere has the same security posture throughout the hybrid cloud, regardless of whether the application is on-premises or in VMware Cloud on AWS, while providing proper segmentation of users and data between clouds.
VMware Cloud on AWS technology partners enable customers to deploy the same proven solutions seamlessly in both the public and private cloud. VMware simplifies the deployment and eliminates the need for partners to refactor solutions for VMware Cloud on AWS. If a partner solution works on-premises in a VMware vSphere® environment, it will easily support VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware technology partners complement and enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS service and enable customers to realize new capabilities.
Supporting Quote
"VMware Cloud on AWS provides customers a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud offering that gives customers the SDDC experience from the leader in private cloud, running on the leading public cloud provider, AWS," said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president, products, Cloud Platforms Business Unit, VMware. "Solutions such as FortiGate VM enable IT teams to reduce cost, increase efficiency and create operational consistency across cloud environments. We're excited to work with partners such as Fortinet to enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS capabilities and empower customers with flexibility and choice in solutions that can drive business value."
Additional Resources
- Read more on the Fortinet Blog about how seamless hybrid cloud security is critical for VMware Cloud on AWS customers.
- Read more about Fortinet's Cloud Security Solutions.
- Follow Fortinet on Twitter and LinkedIn, and Facebook.
About VMware Cloud on AWS
Delivered, sold and supported by VMware as an on-demand service, and running on elastic, bare-metal AWS infrastructure, VMware Cloud on AWS is powered by VMware Cloud Foundation™, the unified SDDC platform that integrates vSphere, VMware vSAN™ and VMware NSX® virtualization technologies. With the same architecture and operational experience on-premises and in the cloud, IT teams can quickly derive business value from use of the AWS and VMware hybrid cloud experience. For more information on the VMware Cloud on AWS partner ecosystem, visit: https://cloud.vmware.com
About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. Fortinet empowers its customers with intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements of the borderless network - today and into the future. Only the Fortinet Security Fabric architecture can deliver security without compromise to address the most critical security challenges, whether in networked, application, cloud, or mobile environments. Fortinet ranks #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide and more than 320,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.
Copyright © 2017 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ® and ™ denote respectively federally registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet's trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard, FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCloud, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP, FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiCarrier, FortiScan, FortiAP, FortiDB, FortiVoice and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements or certifications herein attributed to third parties and Fortinet does not independently endorse such statements. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, nothing herein constitutes a warranty, guarantee, binding specification or other binding commitment by Fortinet, and performance and other specification information herein may be unique to certain environments. This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve uncertainties and assumptions, such as statements regarding technology releases. Changes of circumstances, product release delays, or other risks as stated in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, located at www.sec.gov, may cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this press release. If the uncertainties materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Fortinet assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, and expressly disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.


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AnarchistNews.org & Decolonize the World:
Columbus Day 2012 marks the 520 year anniversary of the genocidal and ecocidal project of Empire building and colonial expansion that began with the conquistador invasion of this continent and continues to this day through the daily violence and exploitation of global capitalism.It also marks the 20 year anniversary of the first American Black Bloc which disrupted the 1992 Columbus Day Parade in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood.
This year during Columbus Day weekend, a West Coast Anti-Colonial, Anti-Capitalist convergence is being organized in San Francisco. As a contribution to this effort, we are calling for friends and comrades to gather at 2pm on Saturday, October 6 for a rowdy march through the heart of the city's financial district.
We will honor the memories of all those who fought back and resisted the onslaught of empire over the past five centuries by unleashing the power of our own resistance in the very heart of capitalism on the West Coast. We are proud to stand in solidarity with others whose fierce struggles continue to hold off the machinery of domination and exploitation.
We draw inspiration from the countless struggles of indigenous resistance to capitalist projects of development and expansion: from the mountains of Black Mesa, where elders fiercely protect their way of life in the shadow of a coal mine, to the rebel autonomous municipality of Chéran in Michoacán, México where both the repressive forces of the state and the drug cartels have been expelled while loggers infringing upon indigenous territory have been chased off communal lands, to the far north of Canada where indigenous peoples block roads and disrupt plans for expanding resource extraction while students and radicals in Montreal riot outside the gates of the Plan du Nord summit. These brave fighters motivate us to spread the fires of resistance in the ongoing struggles against colonialism and capitalism.
It is also fitting that October 7 marks the 11 year anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, another brutal example of colonial domination's recent manifestations. We invite all those who stand in opposition to Empire and in solidarity with the struggles of the Afghan people to join us on this march.
The Anti-Colonial, Anti-Capitalist March will gather at Justin Herman Plaza for a rally at 2pm and the march will begin at 3pm sharp. Stay tuned for additional details and ways to get involved.
This action is part of the Decolonize the New World 2012: West Coast Anti-Colonial, Anti-Capitalist Convergence in San Francisco during Columbus Day weekend. The convergence is being called for by Decolonize and Anti-Capitalist comrades in the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area.
For more information please visit www.decolonizethenewworld.noblogs.org


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Something Wild
Mary Ann Robinson, a young woman living in The Bronx, New York, with her neurotic, overbearing mother and kindly but ineffectual stepfather, is raped while walking home one night. Keeping the attack to herself, Mary Ann runs away, seeking to lose herself in Manhattan by renting a seedy flat and taking a job in a dime store. Overwhelmed by people's hostility and her own despair, Mary Ann tries to jump off the Manhattan Bridge, only to be stopped by Mike, a garage mechanic who takes her back to his modest basement apartment nearby. At first appreciative of Mike's kindness, Mary Ann becomes terrified when he refuses to let her leave. Is Mike really Mary Ann's rescuer – or is he another rapist?
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Trafford Publishing USA PRESS RELEASE –
Psychology of Arab Management Thinking! – By Majid Al Suleimany
Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph Heller
Majid Al Suleimany presents new study in Arab management
'Psychology of Arab Management Thinking' offers firsthand look into Middle Eastern thinking
MUSCAT, Oman – In his new book "Psychology of Arab Management Thinking: Arabian Management Series" (published by Trafford Publishing), author and analyst Majid Al Suleimany explores the management styles that he believes helped lead to the events of Arab Spring.
"This is a no-punch-held-back book," Al Suleimany says. "It critically reviews and assesses with deep soul searching analysis the management styles and approaches of the Arab world, especially in Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) vis-à-vis the international companies operating in the international arena."
An excerpt from "Psychology of Arab Management Thinking":
"As Arabs work is worshipped in our Religion – so what went wrong here? Especially in Management circles? Why are we behind the rest of the world, despite all our riches, potentials and resources?
This is a no punch held back, no barrels held, no stiff, no frills play – but to be as blunt, frank, open, honest and sincere as far as possible – so the book can be a learning experience and process for this generation – and future to come – especially after the recent Arab Spring uprisings!"
Al Suleimany knows his book fills a critical need. "Little is known of Arab management styles," he says, "especially as written from the inside by an Arab himself as an experienced professional local HR and management expert, advisor and counselor."
"Psychology of Arab Management Thinking"
By Majid Al Suleimany
Hardcover | 7 x 10 in | 486 pages | ISBN 9781426998065
Softcover | 7 x 10 in | 486 pages | ISBN 9781425182731
E-Book | 486 pages | ISBN 9781426982705
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
About the Author
This is the first book under the Arab Management series by Majid Al Suleimany. His second book in the series, "A Cry for Help!" is also available. Both books predicted of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Keyword 1. Majid Al Suleimany
Link: http://bookstore.trafford.com/Products/SKU-000133144/Psychology-of-Arab-Management-Thinking.aspx
Keyword 2. Psychology of Arab Management Thinking
Link: http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Arab-Management-Thinking-Arabian/dp/1425182739
Keyword 3. new book
Link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/psychology-of-arab-management-thinking-majid-said-nasser-al-suleimany/1016944458
Keyword 4. Arab Spring
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/arab-spring/
Keyword 5. http://www.majidbooks.com
Link: http://www.majidbooks.com
For more information about this or his other books, visit www.myown-ebooks.com and www.majidbooks.com


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Argo, the new movie from actor-director Ben Affleck, has mostly been getting raves—including a qualified but fairly strong endorsement from Slate's own Dana Stevens, who calls it "a rollicking yarn" and "easily the most cohesive and technically accomplished of Affleck's three films so far." But several reviews have also noted just how far the movie departs in certain respects from the historical record. In the movie's dramatic climax, Stevens writes, the "broadly accurate retelling of real events" gives way to "some fairly whopping dramatic license." Similarly, New Yorker critic Anthony Lane—who also enjoyed the film—found it a "bit rich" that the movie pokes so much fun at "Hollywood deceitfulness" only to end "with an expert helping of white lies." Former Slate film critic David Edelstein goes even further: NPR headlined his review "Argo: Too Good To Be True, Because It Isn't."
So just how accurate is Argo? And what are the white lies and dramatic whoppers the movie indulges in? We've tried to break it all down below. While it seems odd to offer a spoiler alert for a movie based on historical events, be warned that the rest of this post will discuss the movie in some detail. But you should also know that a lot of the most interesting details below aren't in the movie at all—because, it turns out, much of the stuff Argo leaves out is even better than what made it in.
The Premise
Argo's central, nutty storyline—in which the CIA establishes a fake movie production, complete with a full script and ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, in order to rescue six Americans stranded in post-revolutionary Iran—is 100 percent true, and pretty incredible. The movie is largely based on a terrific article by Joshuah Bearman published five years ago in Wired, which you should read. (The script also draws on a memoir by Antonio Mendez, the man that Affleck plays in the film.) As Bearman explained in a chat with Gawker readers yesterday, the person who first told him about the story was an independent movie producer named David Klawans, who hoped that Bearman would report it out and write up a "nice yarn" that "might help kickstart a movie." "Shockingly," Bearman said, "it worked." (Klawans is an executive producer of Argo.)
Canada's Involvement
The most disputed aspect of the movie's version of events has to do with Canada's role in the escape. 30 years ago, Canada received complete credit for the rescue, because the U.S. was worried about possible repercussions if CIA involvement was publicized. (They may also have wanted to maintain the plausibility of a similar ruse in future.) Argo corrects that version of events—or, rather, overcorrects it, downplaying the actual extent of Canadian involvement, which was considerable. The Americans were housed by two Canadians: the Ambassador Ken Taylor, and a Canadian embassy employee, John Sheardown. (In the film, all of them stay with Taylor; Sheardown does not appear at all.) It was Taylor who cabled Washington to begin the escape plan in earnest, and once the plan was decided on, Canadians "scouted the airport, sent people in and out of Iran to establish random patterns and get copies of entry and exit visas, bought three sets of airline tickets," and "even coached the six in sounding Canadian."
Almost none of that appears in Argo. Taylor himself has a major part, and is presented as a sympathetic and brave man who took great personal risks to save the Americans. But his actual role was even larger. He was "spying for the U.S. throughout the hostage crisis, at the request of Jimmy Carter." After some friends who attended the Argo premiere in Toronto described it to Taylor, he expressed concern "that we're portrayed as innkeepers who are waiting to be saved by the CIA," which is a pretty fair description of what the film depicts. Affleck made a small change in response to this criticism: A postscript that contrasted Taylor's 112 citations with the absence of credit given the CIA was rewritten to praise the Argo mission as a model of international cooperation.
The Escape
It's not Canada's involvement that has gotten the goat of some critics, though—it's the pulse-pounding trip to the airport that serves as the movie's climax. Affleck's version involves every conceivable complication—each one of them, as it happens, invented purely to make the movie more exciting. (And it works! The finale is thrilling.) In the movie, the U.S. government reverses its approval of the plan at the last minute, meaning there may be no tickets waiting for the Americans when they arrive at the airport. In fact, the plane tickets were purchased ahead of time by the Canadians. Airport security guards stop the Americans in the film, leading to a tense and terrific scene in which one of the Americans makes the risky decision to speak Farsi with the guards, a daring move that pays off hugely. Actually, though, the trip through the airport was "smooth as silk," as Mendez himself has written. Most improbably, the teams of carpet weavers that the Iranian government put to work repairing shredded documents (something they actually did!) piece together the face of one of the six Americans right as the group reaches the airport, and those carpet weavers relay the image to their higher-ups in time for armed men to chase down the departing airplane in a jeep and police cars. None of that happened.
The Fake Movie
Once Mendez got the go-ahead for the fake movie plan, he needed a real movie idea that his fake film company could pretend to have in production. In Argo, Mendez and the Oscar-winning makeup artist John Chambers—amusingly played by his actual doppelganger, John Goodman—go through dozens of scripts with a veteran Hollywood producer played by Alan Arkin (about whom more below), and Mendez spots a movie called Argo buried in the pile. In fact, Chambers thought of a script they could use soon after Mendez told him the idea. It was called Lord of Light, after the best-selling sci-fi novel by Roger Zelazny that it was based on. The Lord of Light script was part of a wildly ambitious scheme called Science Fiction Land, which would have been the first sci-fi theme park. In order to make that dream a reality, the script's author, Barry Ira Geller, managed to enlist support not only from Chambers, but from Buckminster Fuller, Ray Bradbury, Paolo Soleri, and Jack Kirby—who made production drawings for the film. You can see one of them below. (In Argo, Mendez commissions storyboards himself, which are quite different from Kirby's drawings.)
After Chambers showed Mendez the Lord of Light script, Mendez decided it needed a new name. He suggested "Argo" because it was part of his favorite knock-knock joke. "Who's there?" "Argo." "Argo who?" "Argo fuck yourself." This last phrase is given a different origin story in Argo and becomes a very funny running gag. Geller, by the way, still hopes to get Lord of Light made some day, and producer-director Judd Ehrlich is trying to get a documentary about Science Fiction Land off the ground.
Alan Arkin's Role
Among the major roles, the Hollywood producer played with great relish by Alan Arkin is the only one who is essentially fictional. Which is a bit ironic, since the character is himself presented as the embodiment of Hollywood bullshit. In Argo, Chambers tells Mendez they need a big-name producer to make the movie look legit, and he knows just the guy. In fact, Chambers brought in fellow make-up man Robert Sidell, who worked on E.T. among many other movies. The January 1980 Hollywood Reporter story that announced plans for Argo was headlined "Two make-up artists turn to producing with sci-fi 'Argo.' " Arkin has said he based his character partly on Jack Warner.
Ben Affleck's Role
Tony Mendez is, on the other hand, very much a real person, of course. But Affleck gives him a little bit of Hollywood-friendly backstory that seems to be fictional. The first time we see Mendez in Argo he's sleeping in a messy apartment all by himself; he and his wife are taking some time off, we soon learn, and it's suggested that he's lost some respect down at the Agency. Thus Affleck reinforces the feel-good quality of the story by providing a narrative of personal redemption as well: At the end, Mendez is a hero at work, and appears to reconcile with his wife and young son—who, in this version, helped inspire the sci-fi movie trappings of Mendez's exfiltration plan. The real Mendez had two sons and a daughter with his first wife, who died of cancer in 1986. In his memoir, The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA, he does not describe the kind of separation and reconciling that Affleck depicts. In fact, when he left for Tehran, his wife drove him to the airport.
You can watch Mendez talk about the actual mission in the clip below. It's from an episode of the Errol Morris series First Person that was devoted to Mendez and titled "The Little Gray Man."
How Much Scientology Made It into The Master?


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San Francisco police had closed Geary between Polk and Van Ness for a few minutes while they went inside the vacant Charlie's Hotel. About 20 officers in riot gear removed banners and other belongings. Police say those inside were going to be arrested for trespassing, but they found only one inside.
"The plan going forward to occupy it for as long as it's available to us and to keep it open for others that need housing and need shelter for as long as possible," said Jeremy Miller, a homeless activist.
Earlier, the tactical unit went inside another occupied that building Monday night, the Cathedral Hill Hotel, but after three hours of searching, they found no one inside.
The protest began with a march on Monday for World Homeless Action Day.
Sutter Health owns both of the occupied properties and operates the California Pacific Medical Center, which is planning a billion dollar health care facility at the Cathedral Hill Hotel site.
ABC7's Terry McSweeney contributed to this report.


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Dough is mixed with a unique, shafless mixing blade that ensures good dispersion of ingredients. Mixed dough is automatically discharged into a dough feed system or tub. In many facilities, the mixer is located on the floor above the main line: mixed dough is discharged into the dough feed through a floor chute.
2. Laminator
A sheeter and two gauge rolls produce a continuous dough sheet that is cut and then laid down on a continuously moving conveyor feeding the first gauge roll.
Achieve and maintain the desired thickness of a sheet of dough.
A pair of engraved rolls emboss then cut dough pieces from a continuous sheet.
5. Oven
Direct Gas Fired Oven: radiation heating plus optional turbulence
TruBake™ Oven: convection heating
Hybrid Oven: combines the most appropriate heat transfer method
- Crackers
Baker Perkins is a world leader in the supply of complete plants for the production of crackers. We offer a series of best-in-class unit machines in each key technology; more than a century of experience provides us with an unrivalled ability to combine them into profitable, efficient, flexible systems.
The Baker Perkins Vertical Cut Sheet Laminator is the choice of leading cracker makers throughout the world and provides the highest levels of quality and accuracy. Laminating gives a light, flaky, crisp texture to crackers which cannot be achieved in any other way.
For multi-purpose lines, a special configuration allows the laminator to be used for both laminated and sheeted products. Lines can be supplied for laminated or sheeted products - or both, if the unique Combination Laminator is used. There is also a version for soft dough products that can be used in place of a rotary moulder for dough with inclusions or where a lighter texture is required.
Baking is a vital process, and Baker Perkins' comprehensive oven range allows each specification to exactly match the end product. The Direct Gas Fired (DGF) Oven is usually specified for cracker baking as it is modular and offers great flexibility in baking characteristics.
Many of today's cracker systems use a Hybrid Oven. This features a DGF element at the start when the process is critical, and radiant heat without turbulence is preferred. The DGF module is followed by a TruBake™ section which allows major savings in bake time, capital cost and energy. It also provides significant quality, consistency and reliability benefits by creating a dependable and stable airflow within the chamber.
- Required Equipment
Mixing & Dough Feed Sheet Forming & Cutting
TruClean™ Vertical Cut Sheet Laminator
TruClean™ Combination Laminator
Baking & Handling
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View some of the many cracker types that can be made on Baker Perkins' cracker process lines.
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Biscuit, Cookie & Cracker Innovation Centres
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During my school years, I often found myself mentally wandering as I wondered when class would end so I could get on with my more bona-fide major; the pedantic studies of life. Today, an eager student in a class of 40 plus, like most, I sat there salivating for more, wishing class would never end! This was the third and last demonstration in the series The Fine Art of Kosher Cooking at De Gustibus School of Good Taste, located on the 8th floor of the world famous NYC Macy's, on Broadway and 34th.
David Kolotkin, Executive Chef for Prime Grill and Corporate Chef for both Solo and Prime Grill, taught the class today. His warmth, energy and passion for his art dazzled us all.. Chef Kolotkin's personable charismatic banter and marvelous talents, captivated our interests, as he explained the intricacies of the various dishes he prepared.
We sampled four enchanting culinary creations (brought, cooked and supervised by a mashgiach, directly from Prime Grill). One could clearly hear "oooooh," "woww," "heavenly." and other such cries of delight throughout the demonstration. The dishes consisted of: Smoked Salmon Mousse Filled "Latkas" (I'm not a fish eater, but I found the taste unbelievably delicious!), Chicken Liver Eclaire, Mustard Crusted Rack of Lamb with Celery Puree, Caramelized Onion and Fried Rosemary, for dessert the Chef prepared Baked Apple and Ginger Brown Betty. In short, a feast of ambrosia for the gods! Libation offerings were: Weinstock White by W and Baron Herzog Syrah. Hardly anything on the menu sounded conventional, nor was it commonplace in taste. As Chef David told one of the attendees, "I'm not a conventional guy!" Conventional or not, it all worked superbly well, a true testimony to Chef Kolotkin's's imagination and understanding the subtle nuances of flavor of the various ingredients. Truly exotic and daring, but with such a refined tasting palette, the mix of flavors was sheer artistry.
I'll share one recipe here; for the other three you'll have to wait for our – almost ready to go live website – thesupremegourmet.com.
Special Equipment
4 5ozs Souffle Ramekins
3/4 cup All Purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup margarine
1. -In a bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients and mix. Well.
2. -Wash your hands, cut the margarine into the dry ingredients by sifting until the mixture resembles wet sand.
Baked Apple and Ginger
2 tbsp margarine
4 tbsp sugar, plus an additional 4 tbsp
4 Fiji apples, small diced
1 1/2 tbsp All Purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1. -Pre-heat an oven to 350 degrees. lightly grease the ramekin using the margarine.
2. -Pour the 1st 4 tbsp of sugar into a greased ramekin and move it over the margarine by tillting the ramekin.
3. -When the 1st ramekin has an even coat of of margarine and sugar, pour the remaining sugar into the 2nd ramekin. Do the same for the remaining 2 ramekins.
4. -In a bowl, combine the remaining 4 tbsp of sugar and the last 4 ingredients. Stir until combined.
5. -Evenly fill the 4 ramekins with this mixture.
6. -Spoon 2-3 tbspof the streusel on top of the apples.
7. -Bake for 30 minutes until the apples are cooked and the streusel has browned.
8. -This is ready to serve.
Salvatore Rizzo, owns and operates De Gustibus. Its curriculum boasts a vast array of cooking classes in almost every style of cuisine. Sal, with his insight and understanding of cooking, asked Chef David some very interesting questions as did a number of those attending the class. Sal's smile is infectious and his skillful direction of the class amply enhanced it!


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Design submitted by Peter from the UK.
Peter says: This is Edge LCD, based on the original Edge design.
The machines sent an assassin back in time to the present to eliminate the leader of the resistance. The resistance countered and brought future tech with them. This future tech was replicated the best it could be using present day manufacturing methods. Edge was the first!
The time telling method is exactly the same as the original version, the 4 digit shaped ribbons express 4 digits. In this case the ribbons are replaced with a mirror LCD working in negative, the rest of the face has a mirror masking layer. The time is displayed by the darker areas which are illuminated when the backlight is activated. Above the LCD is a 3D shaped lens which has an extruded shape of the digits, this gives the display a hint of 3D gives a similar feel to the original version.
This design should appeal to the founders of the resistance, pioneers of the first cyborgs and bio-mechanically enhanced humans and of course your average Joe on the high street.
This design stands out from others due to its menacing looks, 3D effect LCD display and the strap mounted controls from the original. This design is totally feasible with todays technology and has twice as much internal space for the electronics as the original.


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Phone lines ready for NORAD Tracks Santa
December 24, 2012
(PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., AP) — Volunteers are pulling on their Santa hats, phone lines are in place and wall-size tracking screens are ready. NORAD Tracks Santa is primed for its 57th annual goodwill mission.
The first shift of Santa trackers starts taking calls early Monday at 877-HI-NORAD (877-446-6723), telling children — and some adults — when Santa is due at their house. The last shift won't end until nearly 24 hours later.
They'll also post updates online (www.noradsanta.org), on Facebook (www.facebook.com/noradsanta) and Twitter (twitter.com/NoradSanta).
The volunteers will work from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., home of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command responsible for protecting the skies over both nations, says its Santa-tracking rite was born of a humble typo in a newspaper ad in 1955.
The ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper invited children to call Santa but inadvertently listed the phone number for the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD's predecessor, also based in Colorado Springs.
CONAD officers played along, and word spread that this Cold War military command charged with guarding the U.S. against an attack by the Soviet Union was also telling kids where Santa was.
Since then, NORAD Tracks Santa has gone global, progressing through bulletins on AM radios and black-and-white TVs to updates on Facebook, Twitter and smartphone aps.
Last year, volunteers answered almost 102,000 calls, nearly 25 percent more than the previous year. They also answered more than 7,700 emails (noradtrackssanta(at)outlook.com).
The NORAD Tracks Santa website attracted 18.9 million unique visitors from 220 countries and territories during December 2011.
This year, the program had more than 1 million likes on Facebook and nearly 97,000 followers on Twitter days before the tracking operation got under way.


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Consumer Price Index figures for January are out.
CPI climbed 0.1% in January and 1.6% year-over-year, right in line with expectations.
Core consumer prices — a measure that strips out food and energy — rose 0.1% from the previous month and 1.6% year over year (again, in line with expectations).
"Retail gasoline prices rose 1% in January, but that was less than normal seasonality and should be converted into a 2% decline after seasonal adjustment," Morgan Stanley's Wieseman wrote clients ahead of the report.
"Continued softness in food prices should also restrain the headline CPI," he wrote.
CPI continues to be under close scrutiny from market-watchers as the Federal Reserve weighs the inflation rate in the context of its forward guidance on the likely future path of short-term interest rates.
See Also:


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Y'all know I'm not a fan of the works of E.L. James, but she's got some confidence.
Earlier this week it was announced that she'd be releasing a new book from the perspective of Christian Grey. You're probably thinking that we could have expected that. I guess that's true, but the kicker is that the book will be released later this month!
I've seen a number of authors announce new books via Twitter or Facebook or a press release, and each time the date was months into the future. I'm talking like nine or ten. And I see that as pretty normal because books are often announced before there's a final product. But I can't say that I've ever seen an author do this before. A couple of weeks is no time for publicity, though just about every book news site has already written about her new book. And it's also probably not a scary thought to do this when you've already sold 98625398916635 books, right?
I think this was an interesting move by James and her publisher, but at the end of the day there's almost no risk involved for her.
Oh, and Beyonce released an album a little while back in a similar manner. Now you understand the reference.
What do you think of James releasing a new book in her series from the perspective of Christian Grey with no time for publicity?
PS: It's already #1 on Amazon.
Have you watched my first YouTube video yet!? You can do so here.
On this day in 2014 I published How Important is a Creative Writing Degree?.