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- "They are only numbers. Numbers on paper; once you understand that... it's easy to make them behave."
- ―Master of Coin Petyr Baelish
Several different types of currency are used in the world's various economies.
The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros have a uniform system of coinage based on the "Gold Dragon" coin. The different cities and nations across the Narrow Sea in Essos use their own various local currencies.
The Seven Kingdoms
The coinage used in the Seven Kingdoms is based on the Gold Dragon coin, which has two common smaller denominations: Silver Stag coins and Copper Penny coins.
- When he became Hand of the King to Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark was shocked to learn from Master of Coin Petyr Baelish that the Iron Throne was an astonishing 6 million Gold Dragons in debt. Approximately half of this debt was to House Lannister, the wealthiest noble house in Westeros due to the many gold mines they control in the Westerlands. Renly Baratheon explains to Eddard that Robert doesn't put much thought into financial matters, saying that Robert dismissively refers to it as "counting Coppers".[1]
- Robert Baratheon ordered a Tournament to celebrate the appointment of Ned Stark as Hand of the King. The prize money offered included 40,000 Gold Dragons to the winner of the joust; 20,000 to the runner-up of the joust, and 20,000 to the best archer. Ned Stark considered the total prize money of 80,000 Gold Dragons to be an extravagance the crown could not afford, but Robert ordered it anyway.[2]
- During the tournament, Lord Baelish wagered Renly Baratheon 100 Gold Dragons that Ser Gregor Clegane would win against Ser Loras Tyrell in the joust. Baelish mused that 100 Gold Dragons could buy a dozen barrels of expensive Dornish wine, or a very high-end prostitute from the pleasure-houses of Lys.[3]
- When Arya Stark is hiding out in King's Landing slum district of Flea Bottom after her father's arrest, she asks a local baker for a loaf of bread, and he says that it costs three Coppers.[4]
- When Ros is stressing to the prostitute Daisy that Petyr Baelish's brothel in the capital city of King's Landing is a very high-end establishment, she says that "this isn't some five Copper bawdy house".[5]
- When Littlefinger leaves for the Vale of Arryn and Tyrion Lannister is named the new Master of Coin, he jokes that Tyrion will do well if he just keeps a "low profile". Tyrion remarks that if he had a Gold Dragon for every time he'd heard such a joke about his dwarfism, he'd be richer than Baelish, but Baelish points out that the Lannisters are indeed richer than he is.[6]
- Later, Tyrion reads through the financial records Littlefinger left, and is disturbed to learn (as Eddard Stark previously did) that the crown is millions of Gold Dragons in debt. Littlefinger always publicly acted like a financial genius able to make money out of thin air, but he balanced the realm's books every year by borrowing vast sums of money. Bronn points out that much of this is owed to Tywin Lannister, yet now his own grandson King Joffrey Baratheon sits on the throne, though Tyrion chides that Tywin isn't the kind of man to forget a debt. Worse, however, Tyrion points out that they still owe millions of Gold Dragons to the Iron Bank of Braavos. He warns that if they cannot pay back their debts to the Iron Bank, first it will stop giving out loans to the Seven Kingdoms, and ultimately it will start supporting rebellions against them.[7]
- Lord Selwyn Tarth offered a ransom of 300 Gold Dragons for the safe return of his daughter Brienne. This sum is considered a very formidable ransom for a nobleman, even one belonging to a major noble House.[8]
- Tywin asks Varys how large of a bounty they have to put on the head of Sandor Clegane in order to make common soldiers stupid enough to dare attacking the formidable warrior. Varys suggests 10 Silver Stags, and Tywin responds to make it 100 Silver Stags.[9]
Beyond the Wall
The Free Folk living north of The Wall have a hardscrabble, survival-based economy, with little settled agriculture. As a result, Free Folk villages that the Night's Watch encounters are more interested in directly useful things that they can barter for, such as weapons, furs, or fine wines, and usually not coinage, which has little inherent use to them.[10]
There are many different systems of currency in the eastern continent, particularly in the merchant city-states known as the Nine Free Cities.
The Free Cities and Slaver's Bay
Unlike Westeros, much of the economy of the cultures in Essos is based on slavery. As their name implies, the city-states of Slaver's Bay are the heart of the international slave trade. While feudal serfdom is the social norm in Westeros, the laws of the Seven Kingdoms specifically outlaw slavery there. Payment in slaves is frequently used as a form of barter in Essos. Some of the Free Cities are also economically engaged in slavery, but this varies among the different city-states. Some such as Volantis (which is closest to Slaver's Bay) are heavily reliant upon slavery, but others such as Braavos (founded by former slaves who fled Valyria) have banned slavery.
Qarth is a major trading hub located next to the Straits of Qarth, through which all east-west ocean traffic must pass. In practice, Qarth is the furthest east on the continent of Essos that merchants from Westeros have been known to travel, and is thus at the extreme east of the mapped world to men in Westeros (Asshai and the Shadow Lands are located further east, but they are half-legendary to men in the Seven Kingdoms). They are also heavily involved in the slave trade.
Otherwise, each of the nine Free Cities as well as the cities of Slaver's Bay have their own unique minted currencies:
- Honors are round gold coins, used in Meereen, Volantis, and Qarth. Different cities use different variants of the Honor coin, as the Meereenese Honor and the Volantene Honor have different designs on them.[11]
- The Volantene coin that Mero holds in "Second Sons" appears to be silver, not gold. It isn't clear if this means that Volantene Honors are not made of gold, or that this is a sub-denomination of the Volantene Honor. Talisa also mentions people in Volantis using "coppers" even though the "Copper Penny" is a coin used in the Seven Kingdoms - but it isn't implausible that just as the Gold Dragon has sub-denominations made out of cheaper copper metal, Volantis also has copper coins which are a sub-denomination of the main, gold currency.
- The coins of Braavos are square-shaped, and made of simple iron. They are minted with the image of the Titan of Braavos on them.[12]
The special coin that the assassin Jaqen H'ghar, one of the Faceless Men of Braavos, gave to Arya Stark is explicitly not normal currency. It is round and does not resemble a normal square Braavosi coin. Instead of "currency" it is a special token that the Faceless Men give to their allies or those they feel indebted to. Jaqen instructed Arya to present it to any man from Braavos if she needed help, and they would know this meant she was a friend of the Faceless Men.
The Dothraki are said to "not believe in money", instead taking what they want through raiding.[13] The two resources they actually have on the plains of the Dothraki Sea are miles upon miles of grass, and horses.[14] What material wealth or precious objects they possess have been acquired through raiding surrounding nations such as the Free Cities, Slaver's Bay, or Lhazar, or raiding other Dothraki hordes to take their plunder.
The Dothraki do not so much function on the barter system, as they use the honor system: they frown upon "trade" but honor the exchange of gifts, such as tribute. Long ago the Free Cities decided that it was often less destructive to just give the Dothraki massive tributes in gold, finished products, and slaves, than to try to fight them off - though a Dothraki horde might still attack if they find the tribute insufficient, or if they just haven't had a good fight in a while. The Dothraki will not reciprocate these "gifts" on an immediate quid pro quo trade system. However, they will as a rule keep their word to eventually give a gift which they have promised, though they will do it in their own time.[15]
In practice, if a Dothraki horde has a particular need for a resource that it cannot obtain through direct raiding, i.e. new armor and weapons, they will resort to actual "barter" by trading slaves they have captured in return for finished products from the Free Cities or Slaver's Bay.[16]
- Bronn: "I've never borrowed money before, I'm not clear on the rules."
- Tyrion Lannister: "Well, the basic principle is: I lend you money, and after an agreed upon period of time, you return it, with interest."
- — Tyrion Lannister and Ser Bronn discuss the realm's debts to foreign banks.[src]
Each of the Nine Free Cities has its own bank, for depositing and lending money. The largest bank by far is the Iron Bank of Braavos, which is as large and wealthy as the banks of all the other eight put together.[17]
When King Joffrey succeeded Robert, backed by his mother Cersei and grandfather Tywin Lannister, House Lannister was really attempting to found a new dynasty and supplant House Baratheon. A problem House Lannister encounters once Joffrey is in power is that essentially, half of the 6 million Gold Dragon debt was owed to themselves, and with Robert dead he can't pay Tywin back. This does not erase the mounting war debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos, particularly given that most of the realm (beyond the Crownlands, Westerlands, and a narrow strip of the southern Riverlands) does not acknowledge Joffrey's rule.
Even after the slaughter of the Starks at the Red Wedding, the huge expenditures on the war, combined with the already shockingly high debts at the end of King Robert's reign, have left the crown so heavily in debt to the Iron Bank that even Tywin Lannister is concerned.[18]
In the books
The coinage used in the Seven Kingdoms is based on the Gold Dragon, and its various denominations, chief of which are the Silver Stag and Copper Penny. As their names suggest they are made of these precious metals, and are based on the inherent value of the metal (the "gold standard") not theoretical value (not a "fiat currency", based on an abstract value, like banknotes).
That being said, sometimes possession is an abstract concept. Thus someone being paid thousands of Gold Dragon coins will not have to physically carry them around, but will be presented with official financial documents declaring the transaction (much as a knight might find it difficult to carry around on his back a castle he has been granted, but can carry around a sealed charter as proof of the land grant). Still, even large sums used in accounting - ranging into the tens of thousands of Gold Dragons - are supposed to represent physical gold coin reserves.
Reflecting real-life medieval practice, the currency of the Seven Kingdoms is not based on a decimal system, but grew haphazardly out of many centuries of rival coinage systems becoming integrated, so the exchange rate between different denominations reflects tradition and not abstract sense. Each of the original independent "Seven Kingdoms" minted their own money, but the coinage system was unified under the Targaryen dynasty after the War of Conquest 300 years ago. The Targaryen Kings did not completely "nationalize" the minting of coins, as private mints also exist, but coinage is primarily minted by the kingship and is certainly regulated by it.
The denominations most commonly encountered are, in descending order:
- Gold Dragons - equal to 210 Silver Stags, or 11,760 Copper Pennies (56 X 210 = 11,760).
- Silver Stags - equal to 56 Copper Pennies
- Copper Pennies - also commonly encountered in the "Halfpenny" coin worth half a Copper Penny, and the "Copper Star" which is worth 8 normal Copper Pennies.
There are a few other regional coins worth different combinations that might be encountered from time to time, (a "Groat" equals 4 Copper Pennies, etc.) but these three are the most common.
Barter is, of course, still common on an everyday level.
The books contain many more examples of different kinds of coins and the relative price of different purchases. During the War of the Five Kings food prices are sent skyrocketing in King's Landing: six copper pennies for a melon, a silver stag for a bushel of corn, and a gold dragon for a side of beef or six skinny piglets were all considered to be shockingly high prices relative to their normal value. The shortages resulted from the war's disruption of trade routes, particularly that House Tyrell closed off food shipments along the Roseroad when they declared for Renly Baratheon, along with the loss of food shipments from the Riverlands, which had declared for Robb Stark (the Reach and the Riverlands being the two main breadbasket regions of the realm). The shortages were compounded by the influx of refugees from the Riverlands seeking the safety of the capital city, which overburdened its already strained food supply, eventually leading to major food riots by the starving peasants.
In the first of the Tales of Dunk and Egg prequel novellas, set ninety years before the War of the Five Kings, it is mentioned that a man could live well on three Gold Dragons a year - though relative prices may have changed in subsequent generations. Supporting this notion is that in the Tales of Dunk and Egg, Duncan sold a knight's palfrey for 750 Silver Stags, which is about three and a half Gold Dragons. In contrast, during the War of the Five Kings, Jaime Lannister advises Brienne of Tarth that a single Gold Dragon (210 Silver Stags) is a good offer for a knight's palfrey. Thus the Gold Dragon apparently underwent significant Deflation in the past ninety years, though the devastation caused by the War of the Five Kings (combined with foreign debt from King Robert's reign) leads to the rapid monetary Inflation which Tyrion noted in the food markets.
In the Seven Kingdoms, there is no particular cultural or religious rule against moneylending. Indeed, the Faith of the Seven has been known to lend money to the kingship. Thus, by the time of King Robert Baratheon, the crown owes a vast amount of accrued debt which was lent to it, mostly by House Lannister, the wealthiest noble landholders on the continent.
Robert Baratheon's massive public debts, largely the result of his own inept financial leadership, total approximately six million Gold Dragons. This debt is roughly divided between three million owed to House Lannister, two million owed to the Iron Bank of Braavos, and one million owed to the Faith of the Seven.
A point made in the books is that the crown of Seven Kingdoms actually was not in debt immediately after Robert's Rebellion. While there had been some war debts (King's Landing had to be extensively repaired after its sack, etc.), the Mad King had been hoarding gold for so long that such expenses were paid off. Tywin Lannister even remarks that the gross income of the crown has increased to something on the order of ten times what it was under the Mad King, due to various improvements in administration and an improving economy during the long summer years. Thus it is all the more shocking to Eddard Stark when he is informed that the crown is 6 million Gold Dragons in debt, highlighting just how much Robert Baratheon was beggaring the realm with his many expensive jousts. Indeed, Tyrion Lannister is skeptical that even Robert's expensive tournaments and overall bad management could have produced such massive debts given the strong gross income levels, leading him to suspect that Littlefinger has been embezzling massive amounts of money from the treasury.
Each of the independent "Seven Kingdoms" minted their own different local currencies until they were all united by Aegon I Targaryen in the War of Conquest three hundred years before the War of the Five Kings. The Targaryens standardized the currency throughout their new unified realm, enforcing the Gold Dragon/Silver Stag/Coppy Penny system. Little has been mentioned so far of pre-Conquest currency, but the Kingdom of the Reach minted gold coins known as "Hands", featuring the hand-sigil of House Gardener on one side and the face of the king whose reign they were minted in on the other side. Surprisingly, quite a few Hand coins remain in circulation, even though new ones ceased being minted three hundred years ago. A gold Hand coin is only roughly half the value of a Gold Dragon coin. However, gold Hands are also roughly the same size, weight, and shape as a Gold Dragon, which may lead the unwary to confuse them. Olenna Tyrell keeps a chest of old gold Hands in her carriage, and uses them when she needs to pay toll-takers on the road whom she feels have been rude or insulting, in order to dupe them into taking only half of what they request. Dorne wasn't even conquered by the Targaryens, and only entered the realm through peaceful marriage-alliance one hundred years ago, thus it is probable that their own local currency may be even more prevalent than the Kingdom of the Reach's three hundred year old currency.
In the early months of the War of the Five Kings, after Robb Stark is declared King in the North, the idea is suggested that the new Kingdom of the North (and Riverlands) should mint its own coinage. When Prince Bran Stark is holding a harvest feast at Winterfell attended by several Northern lords, Lord Wyman of House Manderly proposes that he will fund the creation of new mints to produce coinage for Robb's kingdom (as House Manderly controls White Harbor, the North's only city and port, and is therefore fairly wealthy due to its maritime commerce). Soon afterwards, however, the ironborn betray the Starks and attack the western coasts of the North, seizing Winterfell itself, thus the plan to make their own coinage is apparently put on hold to deal with the more immediate threat. The plans to make their own Northern coinage were rendered moot with the death of Robb Stark and destruction of his army at the Red Wedding. The proposed mints apparently never began production, as there is no mention of new Northern currency in the books.
See also
- ↑ "Lord Snow"
- ↑ "Lord Snow"
- ↑ "The Wolf and the Lion"
- ↑ "Baelor"
- ↑ "The North Remembers"
- ↑ "Walk of Punishment"
- ↑ "Walk of Punishment"
- ↑ "The Bear and the Maiden Fair (episode)"
- ↑ "The Laws of Gods and Men"
- ↑ "The North Remembers"
- ↑ "Second Sons (episode)"
- ↑ "Second Sons (episode)"
- ↑ "Lord Snow"
- ↑ "The Kingsroad"
- ↑ "Lord Snow"
- ↑ "The Pointy End"
- ↑ "Walk of Punishment"
- ↑ "The Lion and the Rose"


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Merced, CAHome Menu
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Merced offers a strong command of its regional market, being clearly dominant in retail sales for the region between the Fresno and Modesto market areas. New retail and office tenants entering the market will be part of the undisputed center of the region.
The market is growing and improving, with Merced County projected to have rapidly rising income levels over the next decade. In addition, the City offers development incentives such as the Enterprise Zone, and Redevelopment in selected areas.

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- 3 Beds
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Opportunity knocks!! Here is the home you have been waiting for, located on the east side of town with great mountain views and just a short walk to all of the shopping, dining and entertainment on Harrison Ave. Situated on 2.5 city lots, the huge back yard is the perfect place for summer BBQs and outdoor living. This home has been well maintained over the years and features updates like newer roof and gas wall heater. Get out your paintbrush and create instant equity!
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When it was discovered that New York Times reporter Jayson Blair's work was shot through with plagiarism, fraud, and fabrication, the BBC described the affair as "the biggest scandal in the history of America's most distinguished newspaper." As is now widely known, the Times found inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and outright lies in 36 of 73 reports penned by Blair.
Still, the Blair scandal is hardly as significant, or unusual, as the BBC's report on the matter suggested. The Times, in fact, has a long history of misleading the public through selective coverage and the reporting of outright lies and falsehoods. This is especially the case whenever a left-wing tyrant or budding dictator has found himself in need of a friend in the media. In late 1957, for instance, as Marxist revolution swept Cuba, the Times published a series of influential reports by Herbert Matthews lionizing a young revolutionary leader named Fidel Castro. The Castro program, the Times reported, "amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic, and therefore anti-Communist."
In covering for Castro, the Times and Herbert Matthews were simply following a blueprint established decades earlier by another Times man, Walter Duranty. As the New York Times' chief correspondent in Moscow, Duranty established his reputation as the world's leading newsman while covering the rise of Josef Stalin. His later coverage of Stalin's First Five Year Plan garnered a Pulitzer Prize. During the same period, though, Stalin's brutal regime was carrying out a terrifying genocide.
In the early 1930s, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent victims were deported to Siberia's uninhabitable hinterlands and abandoned to their fates. Millions more, possibly 10 million, starved to death in their ancestral homeland, surrounded by fertile land that once served as the breadbasket of Europe. In a scandalous infamy far worse than the Blair episode, Walter Duranty, in the pages of the New York Times, said the genocide didn't happen — even though he and the Times knew that it did. For both Duranty and the Times, casting Stalin's "workers' paradise" in a favorable light was more important than telling the truth that the Soviet government was murdering millions of innocents.
Thanks to much hard and thankless work by Ukrainians and others around the world, the truth about the terrible genocide in the Ukraine has gradually become known to a wider circle. Now, not only has the Times begun distancing itself somewhat from the work of Walter Duranty, but the Pulitzer board is reviewing the case with an eye toward the unprecedented revocation of Duranty's Pulitzer Prize. As the sordid tale of Duranty's career in Moscow illustrates, such a move is long overdue.
The Devil and Duranty
Walter Duranty was born in late Victorian England to a family of some wealth. He attended, for the most part, the finest schools, first at Harrow as a boy, and later moving on to Cambridge. Despite possessing a fine mind and academic capability, Duranty ended his higher education prematurely, preferring instead a more exciting life as a poor vagabond frequently journeying between New York and Paris. That he was tapping into the seedy underground world of both cities can be inferred from the fact that during this time he met and befriended Aleister Crowley.
Crowley believed himself to be the Anti-Christ and called himself "Beast 666." He devoted himself to studying the occult and practicing Satanic magic, but, by the end of the first decade of the 20th century, had fallen into a funk. No longer sure of himself, he was on the verge of giving up his life-long quest for evil. It was then that Crowley met Duranty. The new relationship invigorated Crowley, who recovered from his depression and rededicated himself to a life of depravity.
The two men became friends and partners, sharing an interest in the occult, in drugs, and in the affections of Jane "the Scarlet Woman" Cheron. It was now 1913, and by the end of the year Crowley, assisted by Duranty and another partner named Victor Neuberg, began the elaborate Satanic rituals Crowley dubbed "the Paris workings." These rituals were designed to evoke the Roman gods Mercury and Jupiter, whose analogues in the Greek Pantheon are Hermes and Zeus. The first of 23 ceremonies, composed of pagan, Satanic rituals and chants mixed with homosexual encounters between the participants, took place on December 31, 1913. Duranty, serving as "priest," administered what Crowley termed a "sacrament," the key component of which was a homosexual act.
The War Correspondent
At this time, Duranty was leading a sort of double life. When not participating in Satanic perversion, he was on the lookout for a vocation, preferably something that would employ his considerable, if still unpolished, literary skills. A few months before the "the Paris workings," Duranty and a companion walked into the offices of the Paris bureau of the New York Times and introduced themselves to bureau chief Wythe Williams. Duranty and his partner, a photographer, proposed a story on a French aviator who intended to fly upside down in an airplane, a feat many thought impossible. Williams was not enthusiastic about the idea, but the pair persisted, finally winning the assignment. The next day, Duranty submitted his first manuscript to the Times. Though badly written, Williams largely rewrote it and had it published. This initial, modest success motivated Duranty to seek regular employment with the Times as a journalist. Though at first frequently rebuffed, his perseverance won the day. "He finally talked himself into a position," Williams recalled, "because he talked so much I could no longer refuse him and arranged with the Times to give him a salary."
When World War I broke out in 1914, the still inexperienced Duranty was kept by the Times in Paris, rather than sent to the front with the more seasoned reporters. Still, there was plenty to report on in wartime Paris. The biggest story by far came on January 30, 1916. That night, as Duranty sat at a street-side café, German zeppelins appeared over the city. The monstrous, gray airships dropped their payloads of bombs on horrified citizens as police and fire crews scrambled to extinguish lamps to obscure targets. Still, a number of German bombs fell in a heavily populated sector of the city. Duranty secured a cab and arrived near midnight at a nightmarish scene of destruction. His report on the aftermath in the Times exhibited the easy and lucid but dramatic style that marked his later work and contributed to his journalistic success.
If wartime Paris provided material for Duranty's first serious work as a reporter, it also provided opportunity for his first sellout of journalistic principles. In the summer of 1917, Duranty was asked to write a false report to aid the Allied propaganda effort. The circumstances of this request, as Duranty biographer S.J. Taylor records, have been lost. But Duranty himself felt strongly enough about the episode to record the incident. "I was young and inexperienced," he recalled, "but I had to decide the question alone." He decided to write the story, penning a report about a fictional battle in which the Allies repulsed a German submarine attack. He "fancied," he wrote later, that on occasion "a noble end" justified "somewhat doubtful means." More significantly, Duranty's willingness to fabricate the news, supposedly to achieve "a noble end," would make him particularly useful to the Times when it came time to conceal Stalin's crimes.
Duranty Goes to Moscow
After the war, Duranty continued to work for the Times, in Paris and around Europe. During this time he frequently reported on happenings inside Russia in relation to the Bolshevik (i.e., Communist) takeover there. Western journalists were not allowed in Russia then, and most of Duranty's reporting, like that of his colleagues, was produced while outside the border. His early work on Russia was notable for its anti-Bolshevik stance. Taylor records that, in Duranty's opinion, at least for a time, Bolshevism was "a compound of force, terror and espionage, utterly ruthless in conception and execution." Unfortunately, Duranty purged anti-Communism from his articles as soon as the opportunity to gain entry to the Soviet Union presented itself.
By 1921, the Communist tyranny in Russia had resulted in a food shortage and famine that took, in Duranty's own estimation, the lives of "5,000,000 or 6,000,000 including deaths from disease." The Soviets sought help from foreign relief agencies. One of those that agreed to help was the American Relief Association, but its assistance was predicated upon the Soviets allowing Western journalists to report from within Russia. Immediately, the Times sent Duranty to Riga, Latvia, where he was to attempt to get a visa for entry into the Communist state. Once there, a Soviet press officer told him that he had been rejected for entry into Russia because of his past anti-Soviet bias. Determined to reverse this decision, Duranty wrote a puff piece on Soviet dictator Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP). Lenin had contrived the NEP as a step back from the repressive "War Communism" that had brought about economic stagnation and famine. The main objective of the NEP was to reintroduce into the Soviet system, in a manner controlled by the state, some elements of a market economy in an attempt to recover the economic ground lost under "War Communism." The NEP was tantamount to an admission by the Bolsheviks that Communism, as an economic system, was a dismal failure. Such criticism as this, justified though it was, did not make it into Duranty's report. When it was finished, Duranty's work on the NEP in the Times apparently met with favor in Soviet circles, and Duranty was in.
Now that he had gained entry to the Soviet Union, the old Duranty who had been skeptical of the Bolshevik regime was quickly replaced with the new Duranty who was willing to heap praise on the Communists. On January 18, 1923, he provided his readers with a glowing critique of Stalin and the Soviet system:
[D]uring the last year Stalin has shown judgement and analytical power not unworthy of Lenin. It is to him that the greatest part of the credit is due for bringing about the new Russian Union, which history may regard as one of the most remarkable Constitutions in human history. Trotsky helped him in drawing it up, but Stalin's brain guided the pen.
In the coming years, Duranty would cement his reputation as the leading journalist in Russia and the top journalistic expert on Russian affairs by covering such important events as Lenin's death and the rise to power of Stalin, whom Duranty referred to as "a remarkable personality."
In 1928, the Stalin regime adopted the first of the Five Year Plans. The plan's goal, as stated by party propaganda, was to "catch up and bypass the capitalist world." The plan called for rapidly developing industry, especially heavy industry, which the commissars pledged would grow by 330 percent. Stalin intended to finance this expansion by collectivizing the USSR's agricultural sector. By confiscating the land and assigning the peasants to collective farms, the Soviets hoped to increase agricultural output by 150 percent. From this output they expected to reap a bloody profit sufficient to finance their dreams of industry.
The drive for completely collectivizing agriculture, Stalin and his henchmen realized, would be resisted by those peasants who had been farming their own meager holdings and retaining what profits could be made. These "kulaks" thus became enemies of the state, and Stalin, in a chilling proclamation, called for the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class." This order led to deportation, famine, and genocide, primarily in the Ukraine.
To carry out the "dekulakization" campaign and force the peasantry onto the collective farms or "kolkhozes," the Kremlin dispatched brigades of loyal Communists and Komsomol (Young Communist League) members to the Ukraine and to other agricultural areas to organize and enforce the effort. These fanatical party functionaries used whatever means necessary, up to and including the frequent use of lethal force, to expropriate the land from the peasants and force them to labor on the collective farms. Those unfortunate enough to be deemed kulaks — the official definition was sufficiently vague so that nearly anyone could designated as such — were the first to come under fire.
Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny noted that "the 'dekulakization' process reached its high point in the winter of 1929-30." Kulaks who resisted were simply shot. Most of the remainder were forcibly relocated to Siberia and the Arctic. "Hundreds of thousands of peasants and their families," Subtelny writes, "were dragged from their homes, packed into freight trains, and shipped thousands of miles to the north where they were dumped amidst Arctic wastes, often without food or shelter." Approximately 850,000 peasants were removed in this way. Many did not survive the journey. Many more died of exposure and related ailments shortly after being abandoned in the inhospitable wilderness.
Those allowed to remain in their ancestral homelands also suffered the confiscation of their property and livestock. Predictably, a fierce resistance developed. This resistance was principally a homemade scorched-earth policy. Rather than relinquish their assets to the state, the peasants did what they could to destroy them. Professor Nicholas V. Riasanovsky of the University of California at Berkeley notes that "from 1929 to 1933 in the Soviet Union the number of horses, in millions, declined from 34 to 16.6, of cattle from 68.1 to 38.6, of sheep and goats from 147.2 to 50.6, and of hogs from 20.9 to 12.2"
In response, Stalin determined to destroy the population through starvation. Soviet agents actively worked to enforce strict collection quotas on agricultural production, leaving little or nothing for consumption in the Ukraine and other affected areas. In conjunction with this, the GPU (a KGB precursor) was ordered to ban "by all means necessary the large-scale departure of peasants from the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus for the towns. Once these counter-revolutionary elements have been arrested," the order continued, "they are to be escorted back to their original place of residence."
Without food, and without an ability to seek relief by leaving the region, a terrible and brutal famine developed. In testimony to the San Francisco regional hearing of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine in 1987, Ivan Kasiianenko, who in 1932 at the time of the famine was only a boy, described in a chilling account the horrors he witnessed:
My father was always on the run during the day and would only come at night. We had nothing; they had taken everything from us. They came with their pikes, poked around, asked questions and grabbed my mother by the hair. They tore off my mother's earrings and her cross. We children cried, but nothing helped. No one paid any attention to our tears.
They locked our mother in the basement. So there we were, five of us children with me the oldest, and our father nowhere to be found. They came back to see if they had missed anything and found one egg that had not been taken. They took it away....
After two weeks they let mother out of the basement. But what could she do when there was nothing to eat? In March or April 1933 they took our cow. The first to die was my youngest sister, then another sister. Then my brother and a third sister died at the same time. Father died and was buried on Holy Thursday. Mother died two days later, and they threw her in a hole on Easter Sunday. I remember how a neighbor came and comforted me, saying that although my parents had gone, they had died on holy days, Holy Thursday and Easter. It was a terrible time for me. I was starving myself, to such an extent that I could not walk.
Ivan Kasiianenko's testimony goes on at length describing the grisly horrors he witnessed, from "starving people on the verge of death" to "even mothers, [who] sometimes lost their sanity and turned into animals who smothered their own children and ate them."
At the height of the famine, Duranty was living in relative comfort in Moscow with his mistress, Katya, and enjoying the acclaim that results from winning the Pulitzer Prize. He was given that prestigious honor in 1932 for his reporting on developments in Russia during the previous year. "Mr. Duranty's dispatches show profound and intimate comprehension of conditions in Russia and of the causes of those conditions," the official announcement of the award enthused. "They are marked by scholarship, profundity, impartiality, sound judgement, and exceptional clarity, and are excellent examples of the best type of foreign correspondence." In the very acceptance of his award, however, Duranty put the lie to the myth of his impartiality. "I learned to respect the Soviet leaders," he said, "especially Stalin, whom I consider to have grown into a really great statesman, and their [the Bolsheviks'] planned system of economy, despite present imperfections."
During this period, Duranty worked hard from his Moscow quarters to dismiss and belittle reports that the Soviet regime was engaged in a campaign of genocide. Both Duranty and the Times knew the truth, of course. In an absolutely incredible admission, Duranty confessed that his writings reflected the official Soviet line. As Soviet expert Leonard Leshuk notes in his recent book US Intelligence Perceptions of Soviet Power, 1921-1946, in June of 1931, Walter Duranty "admitted to A.W. Klieforth of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin … that 'in agreement with The New York Times and the Soviet authorities' his official dispatches always reflect the official opinion of the Soviet regime and not his own." That is, the New York Times, the most powerful, most respected news organization in the United States, served as a Soviet mouthpiece. Undoubtedly, the Times was much more effective than Pravda, the Moscow-based Communist newspaper, at burying the truth, since the Times was much more highly respected, was supposedly impartial, and had a much wider readership in the West.
And Walter Duranty, based in Moscow, was the Times' key propagandist popularizing the lie that there was no genocide in the Ukraine. On November 11, 1932, the Times published a front page report from Walter Duranty entitled "All Russia Suffers Shortage of Food; Supplies Dwindling." Through clever semantics the report minimized the tragedy in the Ukraine by claiming that all Soviet citizens faced the same difficulties. But more to the point, Duranty dismissed the prospect of famine altogether. "There is no famine or actual starvation, nor is there likely to be," he wrote.
The very next day the Times published a follow-up report in which the celebrated reporter, parroting the official Stalinist propaganda, blamed the food shortage on the peasants themselves. In a report headlined "Food Shortage Laid To Soviet Peasants," Duranty wrote that "the food shortage must be regarded as a result of peasant resistance to rural socialization, or, perhaps more accurately, as a result of the measures taken to overcome that resistance. The measures have proved effective and the resistance has been overcome...." Still, Duranty placed the blame most squarely with the peasants rather than with Soviet policy because, he wrote, "food production dwindled as the peasants killed their livestock and abandoned the production of surplus food stocks." This was shockingly false. The root cause of the food shortage was the Soviet government's systematic oppression of the peasants, its outright murder and deportation of the most successful "kulak" farmers, and the brutal, state-sponsored and organized theft of all remaining peasant assets.
The worst whitewash of the famine perpetrated by the New York Times with the help of Duranty came in the spring of 1933. During the height of the famine, a young British traveler named Gareth Jones spent three weeks walking through the affected region. After his trip Jones, who had once been secretary to British Prime Minister Lloyd George, announced to the world, at a press conference in Berlin and a lecture in London, that he had seen starvation on a massive scale. According to Eugene Lyons, a Western reporter with left-leaning sympathies, the head of the Soviet Press Office, Constantine Oumansky, demanded that Western journalists based in Russia denounce Jones' report, under penalty of losing their credentials. "The scene in which the American press corps combined to repudiate Jones is fresh in my mind," Lyons wrote in his book Assignment in Utopia. "It was in the evening and Comrade [O]umansky … consented to meet us in the hotel room of a correspondent.... There was much bargaining in a spirit of gentlemanly give-and-take, under the effulgence of Umansky's gilded smile, before a formula of denial was worked out." According to biographer S.J. Taylor, Walter Duranty was one of the reporters to attend that meeting. In Duranty's subsequent report repudiating Jones, published by the Times on March 31, 1933, Duranty wrote that "there is no actual starvation, or deaths from starvation," and, though "conditions are bad … there is no famine." Moreover, he crassly dismissed hardships caused by Soviet policy. "[T]o put it brutally," he wrote, "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs...."
The omelette the power elite on both sides of the Atlantic hoped to concoct included normalizing relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. On November 17, 1933, the still-new administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt granted full diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union, despite the massive campaign of genocide underway there. The deal was brokered from the Soviet side by Foreign Minister Litvinoff, who traveled to Washington earlier in the month aboard the steamer S.S. Berengaria. The only Western journalist on board for that trip was Walter Duranty.
Diplomatically, Duranty was little more than a sidelight to the proceedings, but his reporting from Russia certainly facilitated the normalization of relations. Almost certainly, if the true nature and scale of the Soviet genocide in the Ukraine had been truthfully reported, the Roosevelt administration would have found it impossible to grant diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. Indeed, Stalin himself congratulated Duranty for his reporting not long after the normalization of relations. "You have done a good job in your reporting the U.S.S.R.," the dictator told Duranty on Christmas Day, 1933.
The Truth Comes Out
For public consumption, Duranty was happy to deny the famine and thereby help the Times cover for the Soviets. Privately, though, he was willing to concede that the famine was real and disastrous. "In private conversation with British diplomats," writes Soviet expert Leonard Leshuk, "he [Duranty] estimated that as many as 10 million people may have starved to death." Similarly, in Assignment in Utopia, Eugene Lyons describes Duranty's estimates of the death toll following the latter's return from a trip to the Ukraine. Lyons writes that he and his wife, Billy, were dining with Duranty, Anne O'Hare McCormick (also of the Times), and McCormick's husband. Duranty, Lyons recalled, "gave us his fresh impressions in brutally frank terms and they added up to a picture of ghastly horror. His estimate of the dead from famine was the most startling I had as yet heard from anyone."
Despite the artful misrepresentations made by Duranty and many others who covered the Soviet Union during the famine years, the existence of this monumental crime would prove impossible to deny. Thanks to the tireless work of many Ukrainian-Americans and several groups representing Ukrainian immigrants to America, the genocide in the Ukraine has become more well-known, as has the shameful role of Walter Duranty and the New York Times in its cover-up.
Now, 70 years after the famine, a push is on to have Duranty's Pulitzer Prize revoked due to the slanted and partisan nature of his reporting and his role in covering up the man-made famine. In announcing earlier this year its campaign to have the prize revoked, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America noted that Duranty not only disregarded the famine in his dispatches but "called other journalists outright liars for reporting about Ukraine's Famine Genocide." The publicity generated by a new interest in uncovering this monstrous atrocity is having an effect. According to CBS News, "more than 15,000 postcards and thousands more letters and e-mails were sent to the Pulitzer Board" by concerned Ukrainians and others around the world asking that the prize be taken from Duranty.
As a result, a committee of the Pulitzer Board is undertaking a review to determine if the prize should be revoked. Calls placed by THE NEW AMERICAN to the Pulitzer panel seeking information on the status of the review have not been returned as of this writing. Still, the review is a step in the right direction. For its part, the New York Times remains proud of Duranty's Pulitzer, if one can judge by the paper's actions. Though it has posted a disclaimer on the prize indicating that "other writers in the Times and elsewhere have discredited this coverage," the paper has neither apologized for Duranty's lies on its behalf nor returned the prize.


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2016 has been a fairly decent year for cinema so far. I found it to be particularly strong in the independent cinema front or perhaps my taste is learning more towards more unseen releases. Either way I decided to put together a cliché list of my favorite films that I see throughout the year. Below is the second.
I discovered the musical and storytelling talents of Laurie Anderson back in 2010 and have been a huge fan ever since. Her avant-garde approach to composition and multimedia projects have made her an important voice in the independent art world. If your unfamiliar with her work, Anderson's most famous and accessible piece of music can be heard here:
If this gives you any indication of her unique artistic abilities, it is no surprise than when she announced a feature length film I was extremely excited.
Heart of a Dog takes traits of Anderson's previous works and combines them into a poetic exploration of image and emotion. The film travels down many philosophical avenues, but her beloved terrier Lolabelle is very much the heart of the film. The dog is used as a gateway to explore broader ideas about grief, death, art and the animal/human connection.
These ideas are presented through live action footage, animation, drawing and other fascinating experimental imagery. All the while Laurie narrates in her naturally soothing tone to take the viewer on a journey through her personal life in poignant and comical ways. Those who are used to Laurie's style will find themselves falling under her storytelling spell fairy quickly, others may take some time to adjust to the sporadic nature of the film.
I was incredibly moved by this slice cinematic poetry and it quickly became one my favorites films of the year. It's quite hard to define exactly what makes this film so affecting and think a lot of this is due to Laurie's mastery at melding together personal ideas and making them universal. Anyone who has tried to create, lost a loved one or owned an animal will surely walk away with something very touching and real.
In one particular sequence Laurie speaks about the little "squiggles things" we see in the corners of our eyes when we catch it in the right light. She relates this concept to that of a mini experimental movie that is created by the body and mind intended to capture the simple beauty of seemly inconsequential things.
Another hilarious scene finds Laurie telling the story of her live performance piece in Sydney, Australia were she used certain frequencies to perform to a crowd of howling hounds and yapping puppies. Her vocal delivery alone invites the viewer into her strange world of performance and dogs. There is something thrilling hearing an artist speak un-apologetically about her passions and art.
One of the reasons Heart of a Dog works so well is because of its intimacy. Laurie has a knack for making the film feel as though we are having a cup of tea with and old friend that seems to love discussing simple ideas with philosophical implications. When the film came to a close I felt like I had connected with Laurie on level that many filmmakers can only dream of achieving.
Heart of a Dog isn't a film for everyone, but getting to spend 75 minutes with an inspiring figure like Laurie Anderson makes it something worth cherishing.


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Settlement at Tarvin dates back to medieval times. Today the high street is in a conservation area and there is an award winning Community Woodland to the south of the village. The Tarvin Village Design Statement was put together by members of the community and shows the importance of the views over the countryside towards the mid-Cheshire ridge and the materials to be used in any new development. It also explains a wish to extend the Community Woodland as far as Austin's Hill.
Our Strategic Land and Planning team signed an option agreement on 4.6 hectares of agricultural land along Tarporley Road in March 2010. The site did not have a planning allocation and was designated as 'open countryside' in the Chester District Local Plan.
During the planning phase we consulted with local people, worked with the parish council, and held meetings with the Tarvin Woodland Trust, the Tarvin Community Youth Group and Tarvin Civic Trust to present and discuss our proposals for the site. In October 2011 about 180 people attended two public exhibitions at the Tarvin Community Centre that we had advertised locally, in newspaper adverts and leaflets posted to over 1,200 nearby homes. We also set up a dedicated website and telephone number to enable more local people to have their say.
We received support from and developed good relationships with different local groups and the parish council. We were complemented by both the Cheshire West and Chester Planning Officers and the Strategic Planning Committee on our thorough community engagement. The parish council, civic trust and woodland trust all wrote letters of support for our planning application, and the ward member stood up in favour of our proposals at the planning committee.
The Tarvin Civic Trust said that they are "not only impressed that Taylor Wimpey has read the Village Design Statement but delighted that relevant guidelines on community aspirations have been taken into account in drawing up initial plans."
Comments from local people on the specially designed feedback forms included, "The new proposals are an improvement; they demonstrate the developer has listened to local comments and feedback."
The outline planning application received a positive recommendation from Chester West and Chester Planning Officers before it went to the planning committee. In March 2012 the planning committee unanimously decided to award us outline planning consent. Our regional office, Taylor Wimpey North West, carried out further community engagement before submitting a reserved matters planning application in August 2012. We were granted full planning approval in December that year; again the committee's vote was unanimous.
We listened to the local people and made changes to our proposals and the development layout based on their suggestions. These included: making the village green a more prominent feature; reducing the number of larger four- and five-bedroom homes; removing a hedge along Tarporley Road to give visitors a view the proposed new village green; and promoting a 40 mph speed limit for the length of Tarporley Road.
The parish council wanted to develop additional car parking in the village centre. Although separate from our site, we helped the parish council to identify suitable land and open negotiations with the landowners. This land has now been put on the market for residential and car parking uses. As a result of our meeting with the youth group we also offered to make a financial contribution towards building a BMX track on open space elsewhere in the village.
Suggestions to expand the development area came from the community engagement process. We negotiated with the landowner to buy the field that lies between the main site and the A51 to the south so that we could extend the Community Woodland. The most appropriate way to manage the Community Woodland Trail in the long-term is being discussed.
We also brought a third piece of land under our control, which is on the eastern side of Tarporley Road. This land offers a suitable habitat for us to relocate the great crested newt population from the main site, which will allow us to change our design for the new village green in line with the community's wishes.


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Tuesday, April 8, 2014
At The Plate:
The Iowa Cubs are having trouble consistently scoring runs, one night they explode, the next they can't buy a hit, like tonight. The I-Cubs could only manage four hits, and one run in the loss tonight. Chris Valaika, and Chris Coghlan each finished the night going 1-for-4, and that was about it. Christian Villanueva continued his hot stretch, he went 1-for-3 with a double, and a run scored in the loss. The only RBI tonight belonged to Eli Whiteside, he was 1-for-3.
On The Mound:
Not a bad job at all from the Cubs staff, they are just in a position where they can't afford to make any mistakes. Chris Rusin had a much better second start, but fell to 0-2 on the season. Rusin worked six innings, giving up three runs, two earned (Baez error), he didn't walk anyone, and struck out five. Alberto Cabrera was decent out of the pen, he worked two innings, giving up one run on three hits, while striking out one. Marcos Mateo finished things up tonight by working one scoreless inning.
At The Plate:
An exciting home opener for the Cougars as they walk off in the 12th inning with a 4-3 victory. Jacob Hannemann has had a good start to 2014, he was 2-for-5 with an RBI, a stolen base, and a run scored in the win. Yasiel Balaguert, Daniel Canela, Trey Martin, and Carlos Penalver all finished the night going 1-for-5 as the Cougars could only manage six hits in the twelve inning victory.
On The Mound:
It was an outstanding night for the Cougars pitching, not just the results but who was pitching, very exciting. Nineteen year old Jen-Ho Tseng got the start and was very good, he just had one rough inning. Tseng worked five innings, giving up three runs on eights hits, while walking none, and striking out five. Gerardo Concepcion was the next arm on for the Cougars, and he was brilliant, working three scoreless innings, while walking none, and striking out three. Both Tyler Bremer, and Zack Godley each worked two scoreless innings out of the pen with Godley picking up the win.


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Three Ways to Engage Mobile for Retail Success Before Year-EndDecember 27, 2015
As you've no doubt seen, this holiday shopping season is all about mobile. With my respect for the power of technology, I'm glad to see retailers recognizing the impact mobile devices are having on shaping shopping habits.
In my first column in this series, I highlighted three consumer trends that will stick around: local goes social, personalization goes high-tech and the dissolving of lines of distribution. This article focuses on three ways to activate mobile before year-end to create localized, personalized interactions that lead to sales.


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Atlantis Quest (iPad)
Published by
Developed by
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DescriptionAtlantis Quest is a match-three puzzle with ancient Mediterranean theme. The object is to acquire sacred and mythical items from the ancient Greek, Babylonian, Carthaginian, Egyptian, and Roman civilizations to acquire direction to Atlantis. Once in the lost city you hope to claim the Golden Chimera.
Tile matching occurs when at least three with of the same tiles touch vertically or horizontally; once matched they vanish. There are some alternate tile forms, which require you to create matches on them without the ability to move them towards other pieces, such as locked tiles and bonus tiles.
To obtain the aforementioned items they first must be pieced back together. The broken bits of the item will be scattered on the grid where you will be matching tiles, once the item shard reach the bottom of the grid the will be obtained. After all the shards in a given level are in your possession you will progress to the city/area.
Certain bonus items will also be hidden in with the dross, these shovels, hammers, and timers will all provide you with help if you gain them. A hammer will remove any non-artifact tile, a shovel will undermine a column, and a timer will give you a little more time to complete a level.
There are no iPad user screenshots for this game.
There are 30 other screenshots from other versions of this game or official promotional screenshots.
Promo Images
Alternate Titles
- "Karthago" -- German title
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
There are no reviews for this game.
Critic Reviews
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There are currently no topics for this game.
InaccuraciesAtlantis Quest, among its many attributes, happens to feature a number of significant geographic anomalies, most notably in Greece. Sparta appears on the opposite end of the Peloponnesus than it actually inhabits, seemingly mistaken with Patra, while Athens finds itself not in Attica but in Epirus. Katerini is to the northeast of its actual location, Mytilene has hopped from the island of Lesbos to the mainland, and Arta has shifted so far to the Northwest as to exit the modern borders of the country. Perhaps the most glaring mistake is the placement of the ancient city of Troy, which isn't even on the right landmass, existing as it does in the Turkish province of Çanakkale.
Related Web Sites
- Atlantis Quest product page (Buy or demo Atlantis Quest from Playrix here. )
Kabushi (244698) added Atlantis Quest (iPad) on Dec 29, 2012
There are no game credits on file for this release of the game. Everything in MobyGames is contributable by users.


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The King of All Media says he's due more spoils.
Howard Stern's production company One Twelve has reportedly filed suit against Stern's satellite radio bosses in New York, claiming the shock jock was owed a bonus for delivering extra listeners when Sirius merged with XM in 2007.
Stern agent Don Buchwald also claims he's owed extra cash, The Wall Street Journal, E! News and New York Daily News reported.
U.S. & World
"Now that Stern has put the company on the map, brought in millions of subscribers, and helped it conquer its chief rival, Sirius has unilaterally decided that Stern has been paid enough," the lawsuit said, according to the News.
Stern reportedly scored a $500 million, 5-year deal to leave terrestrial radio behind for Sirius back in 2006. The lawsuit alleges Stern's production company was promised a premium in stock for breezing past Sirius' internal performance targets by more than 2 million listeners.
"If not for the dramatic success that Stern had brought Sirius, Sirius would not have been in a position to acquire its rival and the merger would not have happened," the suit said.
Patrick Reilly, a senior VP at SiriusXM, told E! News in a statement that while Stern was "a valued part of our company, SirusXM was "surprised and disappointed" by the lawsuit.
"We have met all of our obligations under the terms of our 2004 agreement with Howard, his agent and production company," Reilly told E!
After publicly flirting last year with leaving satellite radio behind, Stern confirmed in December he'd inked another 5-year contract with SiriusXM. He joked at the time that he'd re-upped for "$100 billion."
Selected Reading: WSJ, E!, Daily News


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Cabergoline is the generic name for Dostinex.
It was developed to treat medical problems that were connected to the prolactin hormone.
This hormone affects menstrual cycles in women and the fertility levels in men and women.
Bodybuilders now use Dostinex with steroids prone to raising prolactine levels in men.
Some also claims that Dostinex helps give them a rush at the gym.
Steroid users use substances like Deca Durabolin to increase muscle mass. Gynecomastia is a real danger with some of these steroids, and some men even experience lactating nipples.
Cabergoline might be cycled with steroids to avoid prolactin-related side effects. Unfortunately, this anti-prolactin drug comes with its own set of side effects.
Since Dostinex is intended to treat medical problems, it can only be used with a prescription.
We recommend cycling with natural steroid alternatives like DecaDuro, which would eliminate the need for a drug like prolactin in the first place. Buy legal steroids online here.
Table of Contents
The main ingredient, cabergoline, is a prolactin inhibitor.
It is used to treat an over production of prolactin in the pituitary gland. Having too much prolactin causes problems with menstruation and fertility.
Dostinex prevents the pituitary gland from producing too much prolactin.
Bodybuilders use this to their advantage as a way to control the effects that gynecomastia has on prolactin's effectiveness due to anabolic steroids.
Although Dostinex is only obtainable through a doctor's prescription, bodybuilders incorporate it into their regular supplement cycles. It is often used on the same cycle as anabolic steroids Tren and Deca.
The active ingredient is cabergoline. The inactive ingredients include lactose and leucine.
Dostinex is a prescribed to help women and men who have high levels of prolactin hormone in their bodies.
Too much of this hormone in women causes missed periods, the inability to become pregnant, and unwanted breast milk.
In men, high levels of the prolactin hormone cause a decreased sexual desire, the inability to perform, and enlarged breasts.
The cabergoline in Dostinex helps block the production of this hormone in the pituitary gland.
Since it blocks the production of prolactin, it effects the physique of bodybuilders. A bodybuilder's goal is to increase testosterone levels so muscle growth and size are easily increased.
Testosterone levels are able to increase once prolactin is blocked. Bodybuilders also use Dostinex because it can be used without limiting the benefits of anabolic steroids and supplements.
Most prescriptions are written for .25 mg twice a week.
However, a dosage can be increased up to 1 mg twice per week, depending on the levels of prolactin in the patient's body.
Bodybuilders often use these dosages when self-treating prolactin-related side effects.
An increase in dosage should not occur more than once a month, and never without the supervision and assessment of a medical physician.
Cabergoline is a prescription and should never be used without the supervision of a professional medical doctor.
It is important to note that it is best only when maintained for six months and loses its effects if used longer than two years.
You should never use Dostinex without the supervision of a medical professional because some of its side effects include kidney failure and severe allergic reaction.
Side effects are an unwanted response to Dostinex when taken in normal doses.
Although not all side effects are experienced by everyone, it is important to know the possibilities and discuss the risks with your doctor prior to beginning a regimen of using Dostinex.
Some of the common, less severe side effects include:
The following are serious side effect and you need to notify your doctor right away:
You need to seek emergency help for the following side effects which occur due to overdose:
Other side effects not listed here may be experienced by some people. If that is the case, seek the guidance of your doctor.
As with any prescription medication, it important that you discuss the risks and benefits of Dostinex.
Make sure you tell your doctor about any allergies that you have or any other medications and supplements that you are already taking.
Cabergoline is metabolized in the liver, therefore great caution should be used. You should also have your liver function monitored while using Dostinex.
If you are pregnant or plan on becoming pregnant you should not use Dostinex. If you do become pregnant while using it, inform your doctor immediately.
Women with high blood pressure, or other conditions such as preeclampsia and eclampsia should not use this medication.
Children under the age of 16 should never use Dostinex.
Interactions with other drugs may affect how Dostinex works. They may also increase the risk and seriousness of the side effects.
For these reasons and more, bodybuilders are turning to natural steroid alternatives in increasing numbers.
With a steroid like Trenbolone or Deca Durabolin, out of control prolactin levels are a distinct possibility.
With natural steroid alternatives like Trenorol or DecaDuro, you needn't worry about having to cycle some Dostinex.Anti Prolactin DrugsBest Aromatase InhibitorsDostinexHCG SteroidHCG TestosteroneSteroid Cycle Support


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Tex takes at-bats for first time since injury in sim game
BALTIMORE -- The corner locker normally reserved for Mark Teixeira in the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards was instead occupied by newly acquired infielder Reid Brignac on Monday, a reminder that Teixeira still has not played a single game for the Yankees this year.
There is hope that could be changing soon. Teixeira announced on Twitter on Monday that he had his first at-bats since March at the Yankees' complex in Tampa, Fla., a good sign as he attempts to return from a partially torn tendon sheath in his right wrist.
"Felt good to get my first AB's since March. 1-2 with a double and a walk, I'll take it," Teixeira wrote, adding, "#Yankees in first place, I'll take that too!"
The at-bats came in a simulated game, according to manager Joe Girardi, who said that the report from Tampa was "really good news."
Teixeira has said that he hopes to be playing in big league games before June 1, but Girardi likened Teixeira's progress level to late February batting-practice sessions before Spring Training games begin.
"It's definite progress for him," Girardi said. "We want to see him have a lot of at-bats and see how the wrist responds to that. Today was the first step, so I'm really curious to see how he feels tomorrow."
Felt good to get my first AB's since March. 1-2 with a double and a walk, I'll take it. #Yankees in first place, I'll take that too!- Mark Teixeira (@teixeiramark25) May 20, 2013
Girardi said that Teixeira will continue to hit in simulated games for a while longer because it allows him to bat both left-handed and right-handed.
At the New Era Pinstripe Bowl charity golf tournament on Monday in Rye, N.Y., Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said that he does not believe Teixeira is out of the woods yet.
"But I know he feels really good," Cashman said. "I know he feels strongly that this is going to be successful and that's great. That's worth something, but at the end of the day, I've been disappointed before. So think the worst and hope the best."
In that worst-case scenario department, Cashman said that Teixeira's injury might be comparable to the lingering one that limited outfielder Brett Gardner to just 16 games and 31 at-bats last season.
"Brett Gardner had a wrist issue. Probably not the same one, but it can't be too dissimilar either," Cashman said. "He went through two rehabs where he came out in this category no problem. Batting practice, all that different stuff.
"And then he got through game one, and after two games, became sore. And then game over. Until [Teixeira is] actually rehabbing and in games, we'll hold our breath for a while. When he goes through his Spring Training and if it goes fine, then I believe that we're OK. I'm not going to count my chickens yet."


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|Africa North
|5 Dead, 379 Hurt as Protests Rock Egypt on Revolution's 2nd Anniversary
|[An Nahar] Protesters on Friday stormed a regional government headquarters and clashed with police as mass rallies shook Egypt on the second anniversary of a revolt that ousted Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
and brought Islamists to power.
Five people were killed and around 400 were maimed as demonstrations turned violent with protesters attacking a Moslem Brüderbund headquarters and police using tear gas against surging rallies.
State television said five people were killed during festivities between police and protesters in the canal city of Suez. Earlier, doctors at the Suez Hospital said that four people had died from live bullets during the festivities.
It was not immediately clear whether the dead were members of the police or civilians. The health ministry also said that the festivities have left 379 people injured across Egypt.
The security services fired tear gas canisters in various locations across Cairo, including outside the presidential palace, at protesters who blocked off main roads in their tens of thousands.
The unrest came on the second anniversary of a revolution that brought to power Islamist President Mohamed Morsi of the Moslem Brüderbund, and a day after festivities between protesters and police.
After the seismic political changes of 2011, the Arab world's most populous nation is struggling to find a balance between a leadership that boasts the legitimacy of the ballot box and opponents who accuse it of betraying the goals of the revolution.
Egypt is also in the throes of an economic crisis as foreign investment and tourism revenues dwindle, the Egyptian pound stands at its lowest level against the dollar and a budget deficit shows no sign of recovery.
Protesters stormed the governorate headquarters in the canal city of Ismailiya, entering the building, setting fire to a room used by security services and looting furniture and equipment, Agence La Belle France Presse reported.
Demonstrators had earlier set fire to the Brotherhood headquarters in Ismailiya, the news hound said, and black smoke billowed from the windows of the apartment housing the movement's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) offices.
In the Mediterranean city of Damietta, protesters surrounded the governorate building and blocked traffic in the area while in the Nile Delta city of Kafr el-Sheikh they stormed the courtyard of the building and clashed with police.
In Cairo, police fired tear gas at protesters outside the presidential palace, where violent festivities between Morsi's allies and foes in December killed several people.
Protesters outside the state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
building blocked traffic as marches swarmed the capital. Army and police forces were deployed to protect the building which houses the information ministry as well as state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
and radio.
Protesters set fire to tyres and blocked traffic in both directions on the 6 October bridge, a vital flyover that connects east and west Cairo.
Some protesters also blocked the underground metro at several stations in central Cairo, paralyzing the public transport used by millions every day.
Egypt's second city Alexandria was rocked by similar violence between demonstrators and security forces, witnesses said, reporting festivities in two neighborhoods between police and protesters who burned tires.
"The smoke is black, there is a lot of gas. There are people on the ground because they can't breathe," one of the protesters, who gave his name only as Rasha, told AFP.
The emergency services gave an initial toll of more than 100 injured in Friday's violence.
Thousands marched early in the day across Egypt, notably converging on Tahrir Square in Cairo -- the focal point of the 2011 revolution -- a day after festivities between police and protesters who attempted to pull down a cement wall blocking off the square.
|Posted by:Fred


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Many of my Enterprise customers use Adobe Digital Publishing Suite as a means to privately distribute marketing and sales enablement materials to their employees on iPads. Often, they have existing libraries of documents that they want to use as reference material in their folios, but they don't want to convert them to InDesign documents. The DPS help page for Hyperlinks suggests that you can use the HTMLResources folder to display PDF documents in your folio, and this works well. On iOS, DPS uses an embedded Webkit overlay to display HTML content, so I decided to look at what else I could display there. Clearly PDF was supported, but what about Office? (If you have my DPS Examples app installed on your iPad, and you're reading this blog on your iPad, then tap here to see examples of OfficeDocuments and how they appear in a DPS folio.)
Digging around in the Apple documentation for Webkit Overlays in iOS, I discovered a Technical Q&A Note that says you can display a wide array of document types, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers as well as PDF. All of these work in DPS when the folio is used on an iPad or iPhone. Be aware, though, that the Webkit preview doesn't perform precise layout on Word documents that use advanced layout features, and some spreadsheet appearances might get wonky. Test, and if necessary, convert to PDF using Acrobat, of course.
Let's see how all this works.
I have a folder of documents that I would like to display in my folio. The HTMLResources folder is a handy place to put these documents, since I will have a common location I can reference from anywhere in my folio, including buttons, hyperlinks, and hyperlinks in Web Content Overlays. To make an HTMLResources folder, all you need to do is to select the files you want to use in HTMLResources and zip them up. DO NOT put these files in a folder and zip the folder, unless you want to organize your references in a subfolder of HTMLResources. Also remember that it is an HTML Resources folder, so that all of your file names must be HTML friendly, or you need to escape the special characters when you write your hyperlinks. Notice in my example that all of the spaces are underscores so I know the filenames will be OK.
Once you zip up the files, rename the archive to HTMLResources.zip.
Now, we need to add it to our Folio. In the Folio Producer panel, navigate to the top level of the folio and choose Import HTMLResources Folder from the flyout menu and browse to your new HTMLResources.zip archive.
Now, let's make some buttons to display our files. While I will make buttons, you can also use hyperlinks to display the documents you have in your HTMLResources folder. Note: follow the guidelines in the help documentation for proper pathing to your assets, though. The path is different for hyperlinks vs anchors in HTML files.
In my example, I have included files of the following types: PDF, xls, xlsx, doc, docx and Keynote. The Webkit overlay also supports Numbers and Pages, and you can explore those on your own. I made a series of buttons as normal, and I assigned the "go to URL" action to them with the target URL being "HTMLResources/<name_of_my_document.xxx>" In the example below, I have the button called "docx iPhone" on my iPhone layout that points to "HTMLResources/1_Statement_of_work.docx"
I created buttons for each of the file types shown and made both iPhone and iPad layouts. The results are shown below (the .doc and .docx files are the same content, so I'm only showing one of each (tap images to show full size):
Starting state:
Word doc
Neat, eh? Oh, if you're wondering how I got the two devices in one screen shot, Reflection allows you to display two devices at a time simultaneously. Please remember that the ability to show these document types is a function of the Webkit implementation on iOS, and these documents will not display on your Android devices.
I hope that this set of files will continue to be supported in future versions of iOS. The ability to include these document types is a huge time saver for companies that need to include supporting documentation in their DPS apps, but don't want to have to convert them all to folios.


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Isis announced plans to roll out its mobile wallet nationwide later this year, following pilots in Austin, TX, and Salt Lake City. Created through a joint venture between AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the Isis Mobile Wallet uses near field communication (NFC) technology to allow consumers to pay, redeem coupons and present loyalty cards with a tap of a smartphone. To use it, consumers need an NFC-enabled smartphone and a SIM-based secure element.
"Over the past nine months, we have proven the power of an open platform, creating an ecosystem of literally hundreds of partners dedicated to making mobile commerce a reality," said Michael Abbott, chief executive of Isis. He said the company is incorporating feedback from its pilots into the next generation of the Isis Mobile Wallet as it prepares for national availability later this year."
Nearly 20 million smartphones in the market reportedly currently feature NFC technology, with millions more being shipped each month by AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US Inc. and Verizon Wireless, three of the nation's leading carriers.
Three dozen mobile devices across AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US Inc. and Verizon Wireless currently support Isis and support for iPhone, Windows Phone and Blackberry 10 is expected to be introduced later this year.
Consumers who activate the Isis Mobile Wallet can pay at retail locations that accept contactless payments. According to Isis, more than 100 national retailers have deployed or are deploying contactless terminals and experts project that 1.3 million locations in the U.S. will have contactless-ready payment terminals by yearend.
Coca-Cola's vending machines are among them. More than one-third of active Isis Mobile Wallet users in Austin have reportedly loaded a My Coke Rewards card into their wallet since the pilot began and 90% of them are new to the My Coke Rewards program.
"Working in partnership with Isis, we have been witness to the power of mobile payments and loyalty," said Rick Kanemasu, vending technology strategy, Coca-Cola North America Group. "Coca-Cola is engaging with new and existing customers as never before and we look forward to expanding nationwide with Isis later this year."
Isis learned from its pilot of Isis Mobile Wallet in Austin and Salt Lake City that, on average, active Isis Mobile Wallet users tap more than 10 times a month. Two-thirds of active users opted in to receive offers and messages from their favorite brands, following an average of seven brands.
Contactless acceptance nearly quadrupled to more than 4,000 locations in Austin and Salt Lake City. During the pilot, more than 80% of transactions took place at everyday spending locations such as quick-service restaurants, coffee shops, gas stations, convenience and grocery stores. Isis wallet users engaged in loyalty and offers tap up to two times more frequently than users who only make payments.
Last December, USA Technologies said up to 7,500 vending machines in Austin, TX, and Salt Lake City would be able to accept mobile payments using its NFC-enabled ePort devices through its new partnership with Isis.
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First version of LiveCycle Correspondence Management solution was delivered along with LiveCycle ES2 service pack 2.
Based on the customer feedback and requirements from various existing and prospective customers lot of new features have been added and existing features have been improved in Correspondence Management solution.
If you are an existing customer of Correspondence Management but are on LiveCycle version earlier to ES3 , Here are the 20 reasons why you should consider upgrading to LiveCycle ES3 Correspondence Management.
If you are a LiveCycle ES or LiveCycle ES2 customer and considering to buy and implement Correspondence Management as well , Here are the same 20 reasons why you should consider upgrading LiveCycle as well in order to make use of latest Correspondence Management solution.
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It's not often when a Ford Mustang is the conduit to someone taking ownership of a Chevy product, especially a Camaro. In the muscle car world, the brand rivalry is that of epic proportion and their relationship is equivalent to oil and water. But Leonard Borman, owner of Gearhead Performance in Dunedin, Florida, doesn't claim Blue Oval loyalty, nor is he a member of the Bow Tie faithful. What he is, though, is a muscle car fanatic and his quest for big horsepower put him behind the wheel of a '90 Mustang that belched out a relentless 980 rwhp. "I was driving the Mustang around one day when I smelled fuel," recalls Leonard. "Before I could make it back to the shop, the car was on fire. The main fuel line had broken and sprayed fuel all over the downpipe. Before the fire truck got there, the car had 20-foot tall flames coming out of the engine bay."
With the Mustang toast, he needed a new project to keep his blood flowing. "My first car was a '71 Camaro that my dad and I were restoring but never finished, so I ended up selling it," remembers Leonard. "Since then, I always wanted to build another second-gen—a Pro Touring car that I could drive anywhere, road race, and take out to an autocross."
Leonard and his cousin Brad Coomer made their yearly trek to the Turkey Rod Run in Daytona Beach, Florida, in hopes of finding a nice Camaro that would fit the bill. It didn't take long before they came across this '72. Brad did the haggling and got the owner to agree on a price that fit Leonard's budget. Excited about the new purchase, they were soon heading home with a new project car.
Leonard and his dad, Ed, wasted no time and got cracking on it. They decided on a Dart SHP small-block as the F-body's motivator. The duo left assembly up to the Dart crew, and they delivered a bored (4.00) and stroked (3.75) mill with Dart's "off the shelf" Pro 1 215cc aluminum heads. Mahle 10:1-compression pistons suffice for this street-friendly application. A Howard's Cam crank works in concert with a Howard's hydraulic roller cam and produces 0.550/0.580 lift and a duration of 248/ 254 at 0.050 inch. A Holley double pumper exudes fuel into the Dart single-plane intake manifold supplied by a Holley Billet HP mechanical pump.
Leonard passed on the supercharger and turbo power-adders but did incorporate a Zex 250 shot Nitrous System for some extra punch. An MSD programmable 6AL-2 ignition system lights the fire, while a B&M oil cooler keeps the fluid temps in check. A Tuff Stuff alternator keep the spark alive.
Aesthetics are high priority when it comes to the Pro Touring movement, so Leonard bolted up a March Ultra drive kit—not only functional, but a visual complement to the ProForm aluminum valve covers and ceramic-coated 1¾-inch Hedman headers.
Sans juice, Leonard claims the ensemble is worth 625 hp at 7,200 rpm and 555 lb-ft of torque at 4,800 rpm. Pulling stout horsepower numbers like those requires the proper drivetrain to back it up, so a TKO 600 transmission managed by a McLeod Street twin-disc clutch were called for duty. Connected by an aluminum PST driveshaft, a Moser rearend stuffed with a Detroit Trutrac and 31-spline axles evenly distribute power to the pavement.
Handling is a major part of this game too, so Leonard worked in CPP's (Classic Performance Products) 2-inch drop spindles bolted up to a set of Ridetech tubular A-arms up front. Out back, Ridetech's coilover system takes charge. All four corners employ Ridetech double adjustable dampers.
With business handled on the suspension end, Leonard knew the brake system would have to be nothing less than stellar. A little research led him to Wilwood Disc Brakes for a set of their six-piston brake calipers and 14-inch rotors up front, with a four-piston, 13-inch system out back.
Staggered in size, a set of Genuine Boyd Junk Yard Dog wheels with gray painted spokes reside on the corners–18x8's do diligence up front while 20x10's tally up the rear. Stem to stern, Nitto NT05 rubber grip the ground–245/40-18 up front and 275/35-20 out back.
Like so many of his Pro Touring counterparts, Leonard set his sights on building a car that would impress on the track yet offer a comfortable ride during extended driving excursions. A pair of black Sparco Chrono seats provide the pilot and passenger a solid, yet cushy scene and a Sparco Lap 5 steering wheel is a perfect blend to the race-inspired captain's quarters.
A Dakota Digital III second-gen instrument cluster keeps Leonard in the know and a Ridetech Tiger Cage provides extra safety and a handy means to hang the Crow four-point safety harness.
Leonard subscribes to the fact that the exterior is a major focal point when building an attractive muscle car so he called upon the talents of Tom Argue at Tom Argue Design in St. Petersburg, Florida, to lay down a custom concoction PPG gray pigment and charcoal stripe graphics. "Tom Argue is just about the best there is on this side of the country," remarked Leonard. "His work speaks for itself and he did a great job on my second-gen."
The Custom Works carbon-fiber RS bumpers add a nice touch to the Camaro Central billet grille.
With the ill-fated fire responsible for putting his Mustang out to pasture, Leonard's Camaro has been basically trouble-free. Well, there was that one time on the 2008 Hot Rod Power Tour in which Leonard got into just a little trouble when he decided it was his turn to lead the pack through the mountain roads. While making his move to the front, an officer in an unmarked police vehicle clocked him at 96 mph. That wouldn't have been so bad on a highway, but the road on which they were traveling had a posted speed limit of 45 mph. That maneuver almost landed Leonard in jail right on the spot but instead bought him a return trip back to "nowhere, Virginia," where the judge ended up slapping Leonard with a $1,200 fine.
He may have gotten slightly burned on the speeding deal, but thankfully the Camaro is still on the road doing what Leonard and his dad built it to do: road race, autocross, and provide a stellar means of transportation.