text:
The art of modern economics turns into the pure magic now: how to make it enough for everybody, when there is not enough left.
We are hitting Peak of Everything.
It is time for a reflection point today: we will post some charts, some quotes from our previous articles and you can draw your own conclusions as usual.
The basis for our weekend university will be our article from September 6th, 2010.
"Investing in Lithium: Looking for Catalyst. With traders coming back from holidays, it is time to look at the potential catalyst to reward us for our patiently acquired collection in Gold, Silver, Copper, Zinc and Lithium.
One of the major catalyst which can trigger redistribution of liquidity is on the chart above. We have a Sell signal in long term Treasuries. Maybe, our Treasuries Bubble is really ready to pop this time. Bear market, upcoming crash and Deflation are so much advertised now that it is time to take a contrarian approach again and take the side of the FED.
As you remember, you can never find any investment advise on this blog - you are always welcome to read our travel notes - but today we have to warn you particularly. Our investment thesis has a one, but mortal flaw - if we are wrong and Deflation will beat the FED with Mr. Bernanke and his shareholders - we do not know what to do. And the most dangerous part of it is that it will not be important any more even for us. US Corp does not have a luxury of "lost decades" like Japan - it will be teared apart by internal and external forces, when the coming war will be seen as a relief even by the population sacrificed in it. It is history; but we will not go there.
We will share one free, but very expensive advise here - before the end of the world, time will come to pay your bills and not once. Let's concentrate on our circle of competence: what we can change and try to position ourselves in case if somebody will manage to get all of us from headlines about Deflation and into the Inflation stage.
We will be looking at the signs - footprints - left in the charts, volume and direction will be the confirmation of our ideas and you can always make your own opinion."
It is not the dream any more, when people like Warren Buffett are backing the idea of Electric Cars with their money.
It is not the dream any more, when people like Warren Buffett are backing the idea of Electric Cars with their money.
We will start with a joke, which is so close to the truth...
We can talk about a lot of things, we can try to search for the trends and even find them, but the magic will come true only if the liquidity will be coming in the sectors and particular Plays we have chosen.
Our Call on Treasury Bubble is ongoing and now the Double Top in Long Term US Treasuries is confirmed. Even recent announcement about QE 2.0 did not change the picture here. Record outflow from equity funds and into the bond funds by retail investors are confirming that the next blood bath is already in the making. After the Dot.com bust and Real Estate Crash, investors who are looking for safety will be creamed again.
When this picture will be apparent and Inflation will make headlines - after first hitting your grocery bills and insurance premiums - bursting Treasury Bubble will provide the redistribution of liquidity in search for the yield and protection of the principal value eroded by Inflation.
This flood of freshly minted money by the FED out of thin air will raise the boats, we need to find the sectors, which will benefit the most. When the relative value of the amount, which investors are willing to pay for those assets, will make it not only for the lost purchasing power of that FIAT currency they will be priced in, but also will provide a premium and the return at the real rate adjusted for the inflation.
We will be searching for the bottle necks, where the most powerful economic forces of Supply and Demand will be driven by changing perceptions with creation of the new markets and shifting Demand with very limited and Non Elastic Supply in the best case.
"On the chart above we have another powerful formation in case of confirmation of our Sell Signal in long term treasuries. TLT could be signaling the formation of a double top with a very strong reverse pattern, which means higher yields and lower treasury prices. It means that FED is ready to QE 2.0 Among the anecdotes from the market place, explaining this technical footprint in the market, we will mention:
1. China is selling Treasuries and buying into the Japan and Korean bonds.
2. Serious talk on CNBC about 100 year bonds.
3. Record low yields in treasuries with record high corporate cash balances.
4. Corporations like IBM and Johnson&Johnson among others issuing record low yield bonds and slashing their interest payments.
5. M&A activity in growth sectors: BHP and Potash, Dell and HP bidding war for 3Par, deals in the Gold sector and Lithium.
6. Record outflows from equity funds into bond funds. Investors are primed for another blood bath - this time in "safe" bonds.
7. China holding record amount of treasuries and US Dollar denominated assets is the interesting combination with idea of national security, but we do not bank on Crash - gradual collapse in US Dollar will do the trick: 7% inflation in the real terms will slash the debt by almost 50% within next eleven years."
It looks like that the party for the green fellow was a very short lived and now all FIAT currencies are ready to come back to the game of whose currency is the worst one. Money performs the function of the store of value and means of exchange. US Dollar has lost its status as a store of value long time ago and charts of Gold and silver are screaming below about it.
Next blow will come, when US dollar will be excluded from the means of exchange: Brazil, China and Russia among other countries more and more are making transactions in their national currencies excluding dollar altogether from the transaction. US Corp. has enjoyed the status of its currency as the Reserve one for too long and made too much reckless and arrogant decisions to destroy it. The most ironic in this situation is that it is main goal of the FED now to debase US Dollar in order to bring Inflation.
We have called it The End of Money before:
Next blow will come, when US dollar will be excluded from the means of exchange: Brazil, China and Russia among other countries more and more are making transactions in their national currencies excluding dollar altogether from the transaction. US Corp. has enjoyed the status of its currency as the Reserve one for too long and made too much reckless and arrogant decisions to destroy it. The most ironic in this situation is that it is main goal of the FED now to debase US Dollar in order to bring Inflation.
We have called it The End of Money before:
"We have the very strong complications with FED engaged in QE in a situation, when Federal Reserve is as federal as Federal Express. In absence of Gold - as the base for the monetary system - with it's external disciple, we have a traders paradise, when Enron is auditing itself. Arthur Anderson has not saved the shareholders of Enron and collapsed with it's client - today in our monetary system nobody even pretends to be sane any more.
Last few weeks we are hearing a lot of voices about the currency war, when all governments are trying to debase their currencies again each other. So far they are all successful in driving Gold up against all Fiat currencies.
US Dollar will have it's own destiny here: General Bernanke is winning his war against deflation. US corp. With it's total obligations above 100 Trillion dollars will have to debase it currency not only against Gold on par with other Fiat currencies, but also against other fiat currencies. We will remind you the basic math about inflation economics and the value of Debt.
"7. China holding record amount of treasuries and US Dollar denominated assets is the interesting combination with idea of national security, but we do not bank on Crash - gradual collapse in US Dollar will do the trick: 7% inflation in the real terms will slash the debt by almost 50% within next eleven years."
All our observations above - about QE, the source of liquidity and value of US Dollar - must be confirmed by the Real store of Value: Gold and Silver - they are two monetary metals performing the function of money and ultimate currency for thousands of years. Both charts are screaming about debasing of FIAT currencies now.
"Gold will be go much higher from here, it will not be the straight line, but every set back will provide an investment opportunity in Gold and Silver space.We will share with you our thoughts and companies we like and you will be cautioned to make your own DD as usual.
Next stage will be fight for the resources and M&A activity at all stages of investing in Gold mining cycle. With rising Gold price and inflated paper Majors will shop for juniors to buy time and gold in the ground. Jim Puplava will be a very good narrator to all our travel maps and reports about our journey. With rising gold, price price of physical gold will become even more prohibitive, we do agree with Jim that people will start to buy gold mining shares again with their easy to run discount brokerage accounts."
Silver, finally, acts like a true monetary metal and made a multi year break out to the upside. This confirmation was very important:
"Next couple of weeks will be very important for Silver and Gold market: all announcements by Obama about new economic initiatives should confirm Bernanke's "We will use everything what is necessary". It should translate into sell off in treasuries, lower Yen against the US Dollar and lower US Dollar against the other currencies. Silver should break out to the upside above USD 20/Oz confirming Gold upside move. There is always a risk of open market operations in Gold and Silver markets to show that the FED is in control of inflation situation. It will provide another buying opportunity. Triggered selling addressing "lower risk of economic recovery" will be met by buyers diversifying out of FIAT currencies in the new credit expansion cycle. Word inflation first will come to you with your grocery bills and insurance premiums and later in the headlines. If you can understand Australian language you can check their press and BOA Cash Rate of 4.5% and Inflation which is already there with official 3.1%.
"Gold bears always mention Silver non-confirmation of the recent Gold Bull Run - and they are right up to the certain point. Gold performs its function as a real wealth preservation in both Inflationary and Deflationary environments. Silver, with its industrial usage in electronics, needs more conviction that the FED will win its battle against Deflation Death Spiral and Inflation will be in the headlines for years to come. It is time for us to write up on our Silver squad from our Summer 2010 Top Picks."
Now Silver is catching up with Gold and you can have a few laughs with this cartoon explaining the Silver Short Squeeze, but it is very close to the truth and drama unfolding behind the curtain. Whether the Wikileaks will change rules and definition of The Game forever or not - one conclusion is very clear and safe to make: the world has changed and the markets and its participants can not be manipulated forever, we are at the tipping point.
Be careful with any investment decisions here, based purely on this cartoon, or a price tag for Silver or medical terms used - the most important message is that story is getting out into the public space and we are indeed at the tipping point now. After latest Jobs number QE 2.0 is already a history, time is to be ready for the QE n+1.
"Story about market manipulations in gold and silver, about which gold bugs have been talking for years, makes its way into the mass media in Europe as well now. JP Morgan is an interesting party of this game - there are some reports that is holds one of the largest derivative books and some have even suggested that the bank was engaged in gold market manipulations to artificially suppress the gold price. We do not expect earth shattering revelations from this trial - the all FIAT monetary system is a ponzi scheme - but hot heads will be more careful in the future.
If these accusations will be confirmed, the mere fact of such manipulation can drive Gold and Silver prices much higher - buyers will demand the physical delivery of both metals. As Warren Buffett has put it - "When the tide will be gone - we can see who stays without the trunks". Silver market just can not provide delivery on all contracts including futures and ETF - it will be the Mother of Short Squeeze. Do not bet your farm on it, but we are moving into the right direction. We will address you to the Jim Puplava and his interviews with Erick Sprott and David Morgan.
Silver and Gold in the ground - Junior mining companies with solid projects will be the next game in town now. M&A activity will drive valuations in this sectors.
Today's call - from the World Bank "to debate the return of the Gold Standard" - we are finding just fascinating and it would be unbelievable just a few months ago. We can expect some tree shaking and corrections now in Gold and Silver markets, but they will only provide more buying opportunities to those who seeks ones."
The real party is here, reflected on the chart above, it is the Junior Mining sector. You can find stories about companies we follow on this blog, please do not take anything as an investment advise, but only as an introduction and our travel map. You have to make your own journey, we can provide the ideas and our travel notes, but you have your own destination, your own schedule and your own taste for sightseeing. We will mention here the companies we are following, some of them we will be accumulating further, some have risen enough to warrant some profit taking and move down the food chain where the money will be going next.
Sector is very volatile - it is the place where you have to know what you are doing. We have our own GPS on this journey - we are following "so called smart money".
"What is the common sense in the so different investment situations: when Erick Sprott buys into Avino Silver, Silver Wheaton buys into Revett Minerals, Lukas Lundin buys into NGeX Resources and invest more to keep its stake in Sunridge Gold, Panasonic buys into Tesla, Tongling buys into Canada Zinc Metals and Nova Gold sells 50% of 1 mil NON 43-101 historical resource of gold at Shotgun for shares of TNR Gold and significantly increase its position in that company? All these situations are common only in one, but very powerful in investment world thing: industry and/or company insiders are buying in. Can they be mistaken - yes, by all means - but we like to follow the "smart" money."
Our list here, which is for our and your own homework - if you like our ideas about the good time on the road - will be the following: TNR Gold, Goldstone Resources, Revett Minerals, Avino Silver, NGeX Resources, La Quinta Resources, Golden Band Resources, Fortuna Silver, Esperanza Silver, Mines Management, Bitteroot Resources, Max Resource, Copper Fox Metals, Cornerstone Resources, Kootenay Gold, Yamana Gold, Bravo Gold, Bravada Gold, Almaden Minerals, Sunridge Gold.
Most of these stocks have already enjoyed QE party and we had fun with the most of them after summer napping time, others are still in consolidation patterns and some are the clear underdogs - further investigation and DD in the management, properties and potential catalyst on the company level could show, who of them can have the next run.
All those QE exercises, which we have discussed above, will unleash a very powerful force of Inflation all around the world. The new most powerful trend in 21st century will be the Energy or lack of it to drive the world and its population forward. All recent progress is based on relatively cheap energy available to us for the last one hundred years. The chart above is from the latest groundbreaking revelations of International Energy Agency - it shows to us that we do not have that luxury any more. Cheap oil is gone - according to the IEA - and "Crude Oil: fields yet to be found - is the politically correct way of saying Oil Shortage. We have now Population Growth multiplied by Peak Oil and Inflation, which will push all prices higher.
"It is very interesting - now IEA is talking about Peak Oil and that we had the Peak Oil already in the production from conventional sources in 2006 (read: Cheap Oil is gone). The admissions are groundbreaking for Energy Security, Electric Cars mass market and strategic commodities - it is the same magnitude of change as an invitation from the World Bank to discuss Gold standard - the real messages are still muted among different facts, but they are there, in the report from IEA! Unbearable truth must be impossible to hide any more - when will we start to act with the same scale as the problem we are facing in the nearest future?"
All those QE exercises, which we have discussed above, will unleash a very powerful force of Inflation all around the world. The new most powerful trend in 21st century will be the Energy or lack of it to drive the world and its population forward. All recent progress is based on relatively cheap energy available to us for the last one hundred years. The chart above is from the latest groundbreaking revelations of International Energy Agency - it shows to us that we do not have that luxury any more. Cheap oil is gone - according to the IEA - and "Crude Oil: fields yet to be found - is the politically correct way of saying Oil Shortage. We have now Population Growth multiplied by Peak Oil and Inflation, which will push all prices higher.
"It is very interesting - now IEA is talking about Peak Oil and that we had the Peak Oil already in the production from conventional sources in 2006 (read: Cheap Oil is gone). The admissions are groundbreaking for Energy Security, Electric Cars mass market and strategic commodities - it is the same magnitude of change as an invitation from the World Bank to discuss Gold standard - the real messages are still muted among different facts, but they are there, in the report from IEA! Unbearable truth must be impossible to hide any more - when will we start to act with the same scale as the problem we are facing in the nearest future?"
If you look at the chart above, you can hardly think that we are on the edge of Deflation and another economic collapse. Even with anemic growth in Developed countries Oil is making new highs after the crisis. It is not about US Corp all the time any more - Asia and emerging countries in general are making its call on the oil markets now.
"IEA World Energy Outlook 2010. It s hard to overstate the growing importance of China in global energy markets. Our preliminary data suggest that China overtook the United States in 2009 to become the world's largest energy user...Prospects for further growth remain strong, given that China;s per-capita consumption level remains low, at only one-third of the OECD average, and that it is the most populous nation on the planet, with more than 1.3 billion people."
"We will not join those who suggest to panic - that time has come in 2008 and is gone already - it is too late to panic. We need to put all resources together and move forward like China is doing now.
GE with its purchase of 25000 Electric Cars is the first, but very important step in electric cars mass market creation.
There is a technology available to us to preserve our way of life: Electric Cars - any shortcomings like price, range and others, written and posted on every corner by mass media under the light from the Kerosine lamps - will be nothing compare to Oil Shock and the matter of survival with Oil price above 100 USD/barrel again. Technology will deal with a lot of things: battery price, range, safety - Nissan Leaf and GM Volt are already on the streets today! U.S. grid, which needs modernisation by all means, even in its today's state can support recharging of 50 million EVs overnight. Start-Ups like DBM Energy from Germany can move our expectations from Lithium technology further even today - what would you say about 375 mile rage on one charge?"
All those fundamentals, we have discussed above, are moving Lithium ETF now confirming our macro view on this micro cap sector.
"Time is to come to the most important sector for us now - Lithium and Rare Earth Elements. We are using above SQM as a semi proxy for the sector. Stock shows very strong move to the upside this summer even considering deflation scare and dreadful August for the most markets. For us it is an indication that institutional money are positioning themselves in this sector.
"We have been proudly running Gold Bull for nearly ten years now: Gold first, than Majors and follow up on Junior side. We were always wondering about Future of Energy and have collected some great memories on Uranium Run, Solar and Water plays. Gold Bull has years to run, but we are searching constantly for new Macro trends - it is very interesting to find out what will be the next Bull which will come out of these rubbles in case we are right and Inflation will be the answer to the Deflation war scenario. It is time for Lithium to come into picture.
Lithium is the leveraged play on Peak Oil and rising Oil price with coming Inflation. Sector is very small and market is even more smaller - everything is ready for the parabolic move in case of supporting fundamentals.
Recent Oil Spill shows the real price for Oil and leaves no doubt for us that there will be no more cheap oil: offshore drilling is costly now, it will be even more costly later. Relatively cheap Oil is in the hands of state owned companies in not so friendly to U.S. places. Oil squeeze will come from diminishing production rates and rising Inflation. The move will be even more explosive than in the Gold market - in the end only minority of people is effected by the gold price even now, Oil is the underlining of all Western Energy Diet. It is not sustainable. Emerging markets are taking more and more share of world wide production, oil producing countries are spending more at home. If you account all cost to produce, deliver and protect Oil supply to U.S. corp the price is already above 150 USD/barrel."
"This year we have a staggering number of reports and warning on the looming Peak Oil situation. It takes time for reality to settle in, particularly, when nobody knows what to do with it. We have put REE in the headline and only few months ago we would have to explain, what is it all about - now suddenly everybody is talking about REE and stocks involved in Rare Earths are all making new highs. It takes a crisis for us to realise that fundamentals are driving the real trends. Sudden realisation that China controls more than 90% of REE market and their reserves maybe will last only for another twenty years, created the catalyst in the market place. What will it take to realise that we are running out of cheap oil? Another crisis?
We are talking here about the powerful mega trend Inflation multiplied by Peak Oil situation - we have to move and readjust our society. Our Energy diet is not sustainable any more. We are lucky in a sense that there is technology available to us to survive the Oil Shock if we will all move fast - Electric Cars. It is our Next Big Thing and at the heart of this disruptive technology lie strategic commodities: REE and Lithium."
The sector is very small - now is the time to find and pick up value among the hype, backed by strong shareholders and based on solid portfolio of Lithium and REE properties. Headlines from China, Jim Puplava and James Dines are moving REE into the mainstream in the investment space now and Lithium will get its recognition one day as well. Only few companies left without strategic investors in the sector, when even only this catalyst can bring the transformation to the junior from a holding company into actively pushing into production developer. It will bring multiples to the dormant valuation.
We will provide some links for the further homework here:
Our Top Picks from Lithium Bull: Rest Before The Charge have already enjoyed a very active M&A season, out of the two - Rodinia Lithium has already secured strategic investor and only International Lithium left for dating now. Among the strategic suitors are the same faces - people with money vs others with debt.
"We have another deal in Lithium space - Rodinia Lithium has attracted strategic investment from Chinese Shan Shan. Last week Canada Lithium has announced investment with Black Rock affiliated company - big money managers and Lithium end users are coming into the sector now.
Today first GM Volt is rolling off from the factory line and CNBC is on air from the GM to highlight this event all the day. Peak Oil revelations will bring more and more people to the realisation of the fact that Electric Cars are the way forward now. More than 6000 people test driven Chevy Volt during recent promotion sessions and many thousands more attended Nissan Leaf Test Drives all across the country.
It is the very beginning, but this new trend can be changing our lives very fast - Electric Cars are coming on our drive ways now.
In this light - of strategic importance of Lithium and REE for the new disruptive technology for the electrification of our transportation system - this transaction shows again that China and other asian countries are again way ahead of any North American corporations in realisation that secure supply of Lithium and REE will be the cornerstone of the post carbon economy.
We are happy for the company and its shareholders, but only few Lithium projects left out there and majority of them have secured major strategic interests from Chinese, Japanese and Korean companies. Sadly, situation with REE did not provide lessons to anybody. Where are GE, GM, Ford, Corning, Dow, 3M, Boeing and Du Ponts of this world? Will we all be at the mercy of Lithium Opec one day?
On our M&A radar screen here we have left only one company in Lithium space open for strategic partnerships - International Lithium Corp. to be spun out from TNR Gold. We hope that they are dating somebody interesting as well for their IPO."
With all that excitement about Electric Cars and our positioning for the mega trend among Lithium and REE plays, time is to ask the question - where will electricity come from? Answer is simple - "from the socket on the wall" and this joke will be very powerful driver for the Electric Cars - basic infrastructure is already there, we have a lot of walls with electric sockets.
Electricity will be the next drive in the Energy mega trend play. It is the most convenient form of energy, which can be easily transferred from the production side to the consumer, transformed into mechanical work or other forms of energy. Now we have means to store it - and here Lithium will come into play one more as a part of the Utility Storage System in the Smart Grid, making integration of different alternative sources of energy possible and providing opportunity for distributed local generation energy systems.
You can not step twice in the same river, but Mr Market sometimes provides us with a time machine, when you can buy almost the same value or even increased one at the depressed by the external events valuation in the market place.
The only thing different will be you and your ability to act this time in a bold fashion. All the charts provided show you this opportunity in 2008, when the world was coming to the end, our loyal readers know about it from numerous observations on this blog. It was the same with Gold and Silver juniors, now it is with Lithium and Uranium plays. Chart above is signaling that Uranium sector is ready to move again and China with its plans to increase Nuclear generation capacity from 10 Gw to almost 120 Gw by 2020 will not let this market nap for a long time.
In the days ahead we will revisit these ideas further and today we will address you to the Jim Puplava and James Dines and our initial hit list for DD and search for the survivors among the rubbles of the correction in the uranium market: JNR Resources, NuPower Resources, UraniumSA, Stella Resources, Consolidated Abaddon Resources, Anglo-Canadian Uranium, Cornerstone Resources.
Copper chart above tells us that decoupling is already in action - by the Copper price action, there is no Deflation and no lack of credit - we will be talking about China again here. The real drive for commodities is the Negative Real Rates, we remember when FED started raising the rates in 2003, but the party in Gold, Silver, Copper and Zinc have only started, then Uranium and Potash made headlines as well. At some point move in Copper was more impressive than in Gold and Zinc just exploded upside in 2005. Now we have Goldman Sachs talking about Copper shortage, Credit Swiss put 10000 $/t target price and today Chinese companies are searching the Globe for M&A deals.
It will be all about growth, urbanisation and Energy: Electrification of transportation will demand a lot of power to be produced and new power distribution infrastructure to be developed. Copper will go into Electric Cars motors and those sockets on the walls need to be connected.
"First Uranium, then Potash - Now Copper and Lithium. Friedland pointed out that the while the world mined 585 million tonnes of copper metal from 1900 to 2008, it will need to mine 600 million tonnes of copper in the next 20 years alone, assuming 3 per cent global economic growth.
''Frankly, those of us in the business have no idea where this metal is actually going to come from,'' he told delegates.
But more importantly, Friedland reckons that the forecast need for 600 million tonnes of copper over the next 20 years not including the demand to come from the ''phenomenon'' of electric cars. He believes that hybrid cars are old news. The world will shift its car fleet over to lithium battery-powered electric over the next 20 to 30 years or so, waving goodbye to reliance on Middle East oil supplies at the same time.
Good news for those chasing lithium as the next big thing. But don't forget copper, Friedland added."
We are looking for M&A activity in this sector among familiar faces: TNR Gold, Lundin Mining, Copper Fox Metals, Sunridge Gold, NGeX Resources, Cornerstone Resources.
"We are wholeheartedly agree with CIBC: Be Long What China's Short. M&A will drive this sector activity and we have just a few quality juniors with large copper deposits to go after. In this report, we found particularly very interesting the different valuations in the takeover scenarios, presented overall picture of Supply and Demand and qualities, which Chinese buyers are seeking in the potential partners.
Los Azules emerges in this light as a very important Copper deposit with a lot of upside in its valuation among the leaders in this particular quality, relatively high CAPEX requirements, but in the solid middle or to the higher band in a lot of different investment metrics compare to the other juniors in the analysis provided by CIBC."
Zinc and Lead are still not on the radar screens of investors with Copper taking all attention now, these two metals are driven by the same dynamic as Copper and we can argue even, that Supply side here could be more constrain.
It is all about China and its growth again and it is about cars. China became the largest auto market in the world and you need a lot of steel and old fashioned Lead batteries to power this bull. For lithium market's explosive growth we need 20% of Electric Cars by 2010, the rest will be still with conventional batteries for a while.
Here our primary plays are again M&A candidates with different angles: Lundin Mining with its Cobalt play at Tenke Fungurume and Canada Zinc Metals with its Chinese investor on board Tongling.
The reason behind the-long-time-due correction in the overheated markets is China and its Inflation. Everybody is rushing to sell today - we will send you back to the 2002, when the previous cycle of Higher Nominal Rates has been started. Study the charts of Gold, Silver, Copper and Zinc for starters - the keys to the commodities super-cycle are real growth in Emerging Markets and Negative Real Rates. The US Dollar party will be very short lived, even green buck can not take seriously all those talks about QE "not debasing dollar value". Now with "crashing markets" and "non-existing" Inflation in official statistics General Bernanke can chop every tree in the DC area for his QE games, problem will come later when the price of Oil will be too expensive to run his choppers to drop the bucks.
As per Inflation - just jump across the pond - UK is the indicator of things to come after QE and universal bailouts. Inflation there is above 3% and will "stay now at elevated levels throughout 2011" And it is when they have already students on the streets after first austerity measures. Who will dare to try it at home?
Canada Zinc Metals in this sense, is a very interesting indicator with Chinese Tongling taking its stake above 36% in the company during this financing. We guess they have some clues about the real state of the Chinese economy and why do they need one of the world's top zinc deposits in Canada, into which they are buying with premium to the market price."


text:
For those of you following our Ralph Wiggum #1 contest, the final variant cover hits newsstands today! That's five out of five!
A winner will soon arise…why not make it you?
And for those of you not following the contest, why the heck not?
Grab this opportunity to be immortalized Simpsons-style in the pages of your favorite Bongo comic!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
By Carl Safina and Elizabeth Brown
When Captain Cook almost literally stumbled upon Australia's Great Barrier Reef—it reached upward and clenched his ship—its size awed him. When the first orbiting astronauts looked down on their home planet, the Great Barrier Reef's size awed them too. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest structure made by living things. How big? It is roughly the size of Montana. Among the world's most biologically rich places, it contains over 2,500 individual coral reefs and around 400 different coral species. (The entire Caribbean has about 60 coral species!) It is home to more than 1,500 fish, 4,000 mollusks, 240 birds, and a diversity of other species. A truly magnificent site of global importance!
In 1981, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee declared Australia's Great Barrier Reef a "World Heritage Site" because of its outstanding universal value.1The 'World Heritage Site' designation is supposed to result in management that minimizes the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. But, in recent years, Australia's desire to expand its commodity ports, for the exports of coal and natural gas, seems to have become more important than protecting the health of the reef. Over the last few years, the Australian government has rapidly approved numerous developments of coal and gas port terminals within the reef; despite concerns that it is degrading the reef and harming the ecosystem.
When new ports are developed or ports are expanded, it requires the dredging [or removal] of bottom sediments to make room for large vessels to operate. This makes the waters very turbid or muddy. Highly turbid waters can limit the amount of light corals receive, and since light is needed for the corals' symbiotic algae to generate food for them, this can cause corals to starve. As well, since dredging churns up the sediments, it can release toxic materials. There is evidence that this has stressed many of the native animals, leading to disease outbreaks seen in fish, shellfish, and crustaceans in recent years.2The critically endangered dugong (sea cow), as well as sea turtles and in-shore dolphins have also declined within the reef.
Because of the new ports terminals, there has been an expansive increase in shipping activity within the Great Barrier Reef. This is of concern because ships generate a lot of underwater noise, which is now recognized as a serious threat for many marine species3. Many species, like dolphins and whales, use sound to navigate, feed, and communicate. Human-made noise from ships can disrupt these activities or cause them extreme stress, sometimes leading to stranding events.Great Barrier Reef, Australia.Various Coral species.Credit: LCDR Eric Johnson, NOAA Corps.
The Australian Government is supposed to thoroughly assess all these threats through their environmental impact process before any developments within or around the Great Barrier Reef are approved. However, Australia has downplayed many of the threats, not adequately assessed them, and completely ignored some [like shipping noise].
Australia's management [or lack thereof] of port developments has caused great concern among environmentalists, the international community, and users of the Great Barrier Reef. Because of these concerns, in 2012, the World Heritage Committee called on Australia to have an independent review conducted of their management of the Port of Gladstone – a major multi-use port in the southern area of the Great Barrier Reef that has been greatly expanded. They also recommended Australia halt all new development plans that could affect the outstanding universal values of the Great Barrier Reef.
As asked, Australia did commission a review panel to look into concerns over the management of the Gladstone Port early this year. But, the so-called "independent" panel experts all had conflicts of interests with the current Gladstone port development projects…
So as one might guess, the review panel basically concluded management of the Gladstone port had been adequate. They failed to address many of the concerns raised by the World Heritage Committee. And on top of that, they senselessly recommended giving management responsibilities of the port to the Gladstone Healthy Harbor Partnership – a group that is not yet funded or actually functioning4.
Australia continues to give the go-ahead for the development of several new coal and natural gas ports within the Great Barrier Reef, and thus the continued destruction of the reef seems inevitable. Soon, the World Heritage Committee may declare the Great Barrier Reef a 'World Heritage Site in Danger'.5 Like us, I am sure many of you are asking, how can Australia let this happen?
Please make a personal point to write to the Hon. Greg Hunt, Minister for the Environment at email@example.com , calling on the Australian government to respect and protect the Reef which is the unique environmental heritage of all humanity. Tell Minister Hunt that the world is watching as the Australian government allows the destruction of this priceless jewel by the resource industry. Please make a personal point to write to President Obama with letters of protest for allowing the US Export/Import Bank to fund corporations which are actively destroying the Reef. The most immediate need is for a moratorium on any and all development in the Great Barrier Reef so that internationally recognized, independent scientific experts can undertake a thorough investigation into the damage and potential damage as requested by the World Heritage Committee.
1. Untied Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage List: Great Barrier Reef http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/154
2. Report on disease outbreaks in Great Barrier Reef by Dr. Matt Landos. http://www.gladstonefishingresearchfund.org.au/#/reports/4565752703
3. Convention on Biological Diversity Scientific Synthesis on the Impacts of Underwater Noise on Marine and Coastal Biodiversity and Habitats: http://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/sbstta/sbstta-16/information/sbstta-16-inf-12-en.pdf
4. Independent Review of the Port of Gladstone http://www.environment.gov.au/topics/marine/great-barrier-reef/port-gladstone-review
5. World Heritage Committee Decisions http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/4959


text:
Another tattoo design on the back, it requires amazing skills to make a full back tattoo impressive but not crowded
The tattoo in last post is a wall sculpture, and this tattoo is a wall painting of Buddha
This tattoo design is very cool. It got a wall sculpture inked on the back, which has dragons and taichi. This tattoo wins a gold award in a competition.


text:
Bluestripe Garter Snake
Scientific name: Thamnophis sirtalis similis (ROSSMAN 1965)
* Currently accepted name
* scientific names used through time
- Coluber Sirtalis LINNAEUS 1758
- Tropidonotus concinnus HALLOWELL 1852
- Eutainia sirtalis BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Eutainia dorsalis BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Eutainia infernalis — BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Eutainia pickeringii — BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Eutainia concinna — BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Tropidonotus bi-punctatus – DUMÉRIL, BIBRON – DUMÉRIL 1854
- Eutanaeia [sic] sirtalis – SHARP 1890
- Eutaenia sirtalis – COPE 1893
- Tropidonotus ordinatus var. sirtalis – DE GRIJS 1899
- Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis CONANT 1958
- Thamnophis sirtalis – ROSSMAN 1965
- Thamnophis sirtalis similis ROSSMAN 1965
Description: Average adult size is 20–26 inches (50.8-66 cm), record is 39.25 inches (99.6 cm). Adults are olive–brown to blue–black with a light blue mid–dorsal stripe. There is an additional light blue stripe on each side of the body occupying the 2nd and 3rd dorsal scale rows above the belly. Frequently there are light tannish fleckings on each side between the mid–dorsal and lateral stripes. The belly is uniform whitish–blue. The scales of the upper lip are outlined with black markings. The scales are keeled, and there are 19 dorsal scale rows at midbody. The pupil is round. Juveniles are similar to adults.
A. Top of the head
B. Underside of the head (chin and throat)
C. Front (face view) of the head
D. Keeled scales
E. Side of the head
Range: In Florida, the Bluestripe Garter Snake occurs along the Gulf coast from eastern Wakulla County in the panhandle south to Hernando County in the central peninsula. It is not found outside of Florida.
Habitat: Commonly found in pinelands, hardwood hammocks, cypress strands, prairies, and marshes.
Comments: HARMLESS (Non-Venomous). The Bluestripe Garter Snake is terrestrial and active during the day. It is frequently found along the banks of canals and ditches, and around houses in residential areas. After heavy rains, it is sometimes found at night crossing roads in search of food. It feeds on earthworms, small fishes, frogs, and salamanders. It is live-bearing. See Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis).
Comparison with other species: The Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) has yellowish-tan stripes and lateral reddish-tan fleckings, along with a uniform whitish-green belly. The Eastern Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis sauritus) is thinner-bodied, has light colored lateral stripes occupying the 3rd and 4th dorsal scale rows above the belly, and lacks black markings on the scales of the upper lip.


text:
Category: Dive Bars
A man's salon is his castle
July 18, 2017
Does anyone remember Crow Bar? Downtown DC? Epicenter for Couriers and Bikers in the 90s? There was a handsome Italian-looking dude there who always parked his hardtail Sportster with tall ape-hangers right outside the bar. Maybe he was the Crow Bar DC bartender or maybe he was at the bar — no he was definitely […]


text:
UMass Lowell will resume on-campus instruction, research and campus life for Fall 2020. View the plan for more info.
Edwin L. Aguirre
UMass Lowell and Northern Ireland's University of Ulster have forged a new research partnership to advance international collaboration in the fast-growing fields of medical device technologies, innovation and health care.
Research and development and manufacturing of medical devices — which range from everyday gadgets such as digital thermometers, glucose meters and blood-pressure monitors to advanced devices like pacemakers, defibrillators, insulin pumps, microchip implants, neuroprostheses and medical robots — will become even more important in the United States as the country's population ages and Americans live longer.
According to a recent article in the Medical Device + Diagnostic Industry magazine, the medical device industry is a driver of the country's economic growth, currently employing more than 400,000 people directly and 2 million indirectly. Its exports doubled between 1998 and 2008, to $33 billion annually.
UMass Lowell, along with UMass Worcester, operates the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2), which provides entrepreneurs with expertise in plastics engineering, medical testing and business management from faculty members and the M2D2 advisory board and help them secure funding for their ideas. M2D2 operates a business incubator for startups on the UMass Lowell campus.
The University of Ulster operates a similar center in Northern Ireland, the Multi-disciplinary Technological Centre for Healthcare (MATCH). Together, the partner institutions will work with successful medical device companies to create a system of best practices to help speed the process of getting new products from the idea stage to the market.
"Fostering international relationships with key allies is critical in positioning Massachusetts at the forefront of cutting-edge scientific research and business development," says Chancellor Marty Meehan. "This agreement between UMass Lowell and the University of Ulster represents a tremendous step forward for the global medical device industry, bringing experts on both sides of the Atlantic together to benefit both the United States and Northern Ireland."
"The research of MATCH at the University of Ulster has demonstrated that business model innovation is critical for bringing technology to the marketplace in health care," says Michael Brennan, Ph.D., senior lecturer on strategic marketing, entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Ulster. "The UMass Lowell and University of Ulster collaboration will explicitly research how entrepreneurs bring such technologies to the market in different ecosystems, share best practices and create opportunities for business development."
"Through this partnership, companies that work through M2D2 will have best practices to follow to move their products from concept to commercialization even more quickly," says UMass Lowell plastics engineering Prof. Stephen McCarthy, co-director of M2D2.
The agreement will expand opportunities in burgeoning fields in medical science such as nanomedicine, biotechnology and biomedical engineering. It will also foster cooperative graduate education, research and training programs at the two learning institutions that will result in joint publications, faculty and student exchanges and study-abroad opportunities.
The collaboration with the University of Ulster represents the latest addition to UMass Lowell's expanding network of partnerships with more than 95 universities in 40 countries.


text:
Written off by many as early as February, AFC Ajax managed to successfully defend their title with a remarkable run of victories that brought them their 31st Dutch championship. PSV Eindhoven, meanwhile, claimed their ninth Dutch Cup at the expense of Heracles Almelo.
Champions: AFC Ajax
Despite bolstering their ranks with midfielder Theo Janssen and attackers Derk Boerrigter and Kolbeinn Sigthórsson last summer, Frank de Boer's side initially suffered from injuries and a hectic schedule. In February they found themselves trailing leaders AZ Alkmaar by 13 points. But they dug deep, and where competitors AZ, PSV and FC Twente dropped points, Frank de Boer's side produced an incredible 14 straight victories to clinch their 31st title – and back-to-back crowns for the first time since 1996.
Cup final: PSV Eindhoven 3–0 Heracles Almelo
PSV won their ninth Dutch Cup by beating Heracles Almelo in the Rotterdam final. Heracles, who were contesting the first cup final in their 109-year history, denied PSV for a just over half an hour, but then Ola Toivonen broke the deadlock in beautiful fashion, flicking Zakaria Labyad's pull-back through his own legs to score. Dries Mertens' header and Jeremain Lens' chip decided the matter in the second half, delivering Phillip Cocu his first prize in his new career as a coach.
European places*
AFC Ajax – UEFA Champions League, group stage
Feyenoord – UEFA Champions League, third qualifying round
PSV Eindhoven – UEFA Europa League, play-off
AZ Alkmaar – UEFA Europa League, play-off
sc Heerenveen – UEFA Europa League, third qualifying round
Vitesse – UEFA Europa League, second qualifying round
FC Twente – UEFA Europa League, first qualifying round (via Fair Play)
*Subject to final confirmation from UEFA
Player of the Year: Jan Vertonghen (AFC Ajax)
The 25-year-old defender was made captain by De Boer this season, and grew into a reliable leader at the heart of the team. Imposing in the air, it was his forward surges, creating an extra man in midfield, which proved vital to Ajax's championship defence. The Belgian international has grown from a left-back into a dominant centre-half, and it is generally accepted that the former VK Tielrode, VAV Beerschot and RKC Waalwijk player is heading to one of Europe's top leagues.
One to watch: Adam Maher (AZ Alkmaar)
The 18-year-old Maher was elected Talent of the Year, an honour which will earn him the Johan Cruyff award. "He has been one of the most consistent this year, having been a key player for AZ in almost every match," Cruyff said. The two-footed Moroccan-born player is one of the uncapped members of Bert van Marwijk's provisional UEFA EURO 2012 squad, having broken through this term. Starting as a substitute, Maher quickly became indispensible and played in all of AZ's 34 Eredivisie matches, scoring five times.
Surprise package: Feyenoord
After a disastrous 10th-place finish last season, the traditional Dutch giants restored the natural order in the Netherlands by coming second, ensuring the traditional 'big three' of Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV formed the top three for the first time since 2004. Coach Ronald Koeman has done a sterling job with a team consisting mainly of players who came through the youth system while the 20 goals by Manchester City FC loanee John Guidetti added the extra push.
Leading scorer: Bas Dost (32)
Relegated: SBV Excelsior, De Graafschap
Promoted: FC Zwolle, Willem II
Number: 14
The 14 straight victories in the last 14 matches of the season brought Ajax their 31st Eredivisie crown, after fighting back from a 13-point deficit. It is not a club record however, as the Ajax of coach Stefan Kovács and legend Johan Cruyff earned 19 victories in row between 3 October 1971 and 26 March 1972. Between 9 April and 28 October 1995 Louis van Gaal's Ajax also managed 19 victories, but shared over two seasons.
"Now it falls on my toe – this plate just does not like me."
Ajax captain Jan Vertonghen after dropping the Dutch championship plate during a TV interview. Last season, he and Maarten Stekelenburg dropped the plate from the top of the players' celebration bus, denting it.
©UEFA.com 1998-2017. All rights reserved.


text:
Hewlett-Packard to Acquire Data Analytics Firm Vertica
Hewlett-Packard said today it had reached an agreement to acquire Vertica, a privately held, real-time analytics platform company based in Billerica, Mass. HP said Vertica will enhance its capabilities in real-time business analytics for large and complex sets of data. HP expects the acquisition to close in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2011. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.


text:
It's Friday night, the sultriest of the year so far. The rain can't make up its mind, and the air feels close and torpid. An appropriate feel for the onset of Memorial Day Weekend, when the summer season kicks off and the city becomes blessedly empty. The sticky weather is an ominous portent for the next three months: Summer is here, and Robert's school wraps up on Wednesday. Pray for us.
Luckily, the brothers like to spend hours on end tormenting each other. One of Robert's favorite hobbies is cutting TwoBert's feet out from under him while he "tweener toddles" around the room. TwoBert is eager to take a few steps on his own, but he still prefers to swing from his parents' clothing. This is a welcome change from the depilation, but since my shorts don't fit as well since the weight loss I spend lots of time with my pants at half-mast. (Or, for that matter, my mast at half-pants.)
The funny thing is that TwoBert's desire to stand is less motivated by walking than by the propulsion of objects. If he finds a ball near the couch, for example, he'll pull himself up just so he can kick it a few feet. (The ball, not the couch.) In the park, he swats his little soccer ball and scuttles off after it. And this obsession doesn't stop at the spherical: Last week my wife watched him conjure a game of floor hockey with a toy hammer and a baby carrot. If he can hit a curve ball, I'll be on Easy Street.
Speaking of which, Robert and I ripped a page out of the book of father/son bonding rites and went to our first baseball game together, at Yankee Stadium. As a Red Sox fan, I was ambivalent about taking the boy into the belly of the Evil Empire--especially since it was Cap Day, and every kid got a lid with the Yankee "NY" on the front and another odious corporate logo on the back. The idea of him wearing the thing gave me pause, but the alternative was a wicked sunburn and a gateway to skin cancer. I weighed the options measuredly--Yankee cap, or melanoma?--before I came to my senses.
We sat in my favorite spot—upper deck, just inside the fair pole in left field. This is clearly the best vantage point, because it's the crow's nest--the best view of everything. You can see right away whether a fly ball is a homer or an out. Besides, observing baseball from afar fuels the grandeur of the game. When you're detached from the action, you see 18 men playing America's Pastime. Up close, all you see is a bunch of millionaires dribbling tobacco and adjusting their goolies.
Robert built up his excitement all week, and on the subway ride he worked himself into a full-bore fervor ... which evaporated after about 15 minutes in the stands. He had a hard time understanding why the green dots wanted to score a run, and why the white dots wanted to stop them. He was hot, he was thirsty, he had to pee. I spent about $400 on lunch for two, and that bought me almost five innings until Robert had finally had enough. We were home in time for the last out.
They say that one of the true joys of parenthood is rediscovering life through the uncomplicated eyes of a child. And that's mostly true, although parents should be advised that the bat swings both ways: The mundane can seem utterly new and wonderful, but it can also be magnified into unbearable tedium. I suppose that can be a good thing; I gave his cap to Goodwill, and so far he hasn't missed it.


text:
Something has to beat the "The 'Wow' starts now" marketing campaign for Windows Vista. Director Marty Martin has stepped up to the plate, producing five conceptual TV commercial spots for Microsoft with a Canon 5D Mark II SLR in a tight three-day deadline. Come October 22, Microsoft is going to be launching a worldwide marketing campaign for Windows 7, and if it's anything like the videos Martin has come up with, we'll be quite happy. The ads aren't exactly crystal clear, but they definitely get a solid message across about Windows 7's features. Three of the videos have been uploaded to YouTube, so we've embedded them for you below.
istartedsomething, who first posted these ads, thinks these ads show Microsoft wants to take a much more product-oriented approach (almost like the "Rookies" ads) with the upcoming Windows 7 marketing campaign. That's fine with us, as we like what we're seeing so far.


text:
I've tried to interpret the browser page and some of the arrows. Do you plan that on each level of browsing (genre -> artist -> album f.e.) the whole content is displayed as tracklist? If yes, what does the arrow to the right of the tracks mean?
Last edited by q-stankovic; August 6th, 2014 at 04:19 PM. Reason: Added last question
The arrow adds the folder content or a track, or album to the playlist.
The browsing would be similar to how Asset (a upnp server) handles browsing, it works as you would expect, track listing or album listing at the right moments.
(the following thoughts are inspired by the widely used panorama/pivot ui-function in windows phone apps)
The phone design proposal shows that you could be able to swipe between the three main pages. That reminds of the music hub that comes with several apps and also with the new xbox music app. But as it seems in the proposal you could swipe between the three main pages even if you has navigated from one page, mainly the browser page, some levels deeper. In that case all possibilities and advantages are lost which are known from windows phone apps where this panorama and pivot function is placed on several places of the app. In the next sentences i would like to combine the description of the advantages with some general requests in regard to the phone design and further functionality.
Let's say you start browsing your library from the browser page that offers several views in form of a list and you go from a genre view down to the listing of genres and then from here to Hip-Hop where you will find a subset of your library. In the concept of first phone design proposal (as far as i understood it correctly) you still can swipe to playback and playlist page from that point of browser. Exactly here let me ask for three features i consider as useful and amazing:
1) Spoon wrote that on some level of browsing it will be displayed what is mostly expected by the user. And now it is indeed the question what a user would expect. I think there are three basic entities of a library that each user could and would expect: album artist, album and tracks. To continue with the example from above: wouldn't it be useful after choosing Hi-Hop as genre that all three entities would be listed? These three lists could be organized in a panaroma view from which you can swipe from one list to another: a list of all Hip-Hop artists, all Hip-Hop albums and all Hip-Hop tracks. A nice addition would be now to have the ability to sort all the lists by meaningful critera, f.e. alphabetically, by number of playcount or whatever else.
2) Not only that you would have a powerful library by using panoramas, but you also could use that to introduce advanced shuffling playback that i so far have only experienced in poweramp, an popular android music player. An example: Let's say you are in an album page from where you can start playback - in normal mode the playback goes through the sorted albums and plays the tracks in its origin order. But is also imaginable to offer different playback modes: shuffle albums and keep origin order of tracks; shuffle tracks and keep origin order of tracks; shuffle albums and tracks. Another example: you have choosen Jazz as genre and you swipe to the tracks page - from here you sort tracks and pla them in that order. But you also could start a shuffled playback that plays all Jazz tracks in shuffled/random order.
3) A further advantage of a panorama is that you also could add pages that displays some meaningful information related to the level you have reached. F.e. many apps in windows phone (when you have entered the area of one certain artist) not only show
the albums and songs of an artist but also artist related info like: biography, similar artists, artist images. These are as far as i know free available by a service like echonest.
Ok, these are just some thoughts basing of experiences in the windows phone universe and its apps. As long as the starting hub of three main pages is small (three pages only) i think a button from which you can come to the root from where you have started is enough. Maybe an additional button could be useful which jumps directly to playback page.
I hope for some feedback. Thanks for reading!
Last edited by q-stankovic; August 10th, 2014 at 02:09 PM. Reason: corrections/added another example in text
I think we are both reading from the same page...
it's an idiom. When people are reading from the same page, they say the same things in public about an issue.


text:
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Our Trip through the Dakotas, and the Girl who ate the Worm...
I'd never caught a fish in my life until last summer, when I went fishing for walleye with Jamie and his dad in Jamie's hometown of Center, North Dakota. It was the biggest fish any of us caught that day, so I was pretty pleased. Walleye costs $17 a pound when it shows up in our grocery store in Colorado, so we took some of our catch back home with us.
Last week we drove to ND for Jamie's 20th high school reunion. It rained continuously, for almost the entire drive there, and when we arrived just around sundown, a double rainbow stretched from one end of the skyline to the other, landing right in Center.
The next morning, I took a few photos of the garden in their backyard, and the fish pond full of bright orange goldfish. Their cat Peaches enjoyed stretching out in the sunshine on the cool, damp grass, and their dog Brittany was too eager for attention to pose for a photo. I got to bring a big bundle of rhubarb home with me from their rhubarb plant.
That afternoon we went fishing, and it was a perfectly warm and sunny day to be out on the Missouri River. I reeled in the first catch, but I left the de-hooking, re-baiting and cleaning to Jamie and his dad. We ended up catching plenty of small walleye and a couple of trout, although nothing very note-worthy in size. Jamie caught and tossed back the same fish three times before deciding to keep it, since the little guy seemed determined to eat the worm on his hook.
Which reminds me...
My junior year in high school, I was walking from the gym where I'd just finished band practice (yes, I was a band geek, although slightly cooler since I played percussion) back to the school building. The sidewalk between the two buildings ran along the back of the grounds, next to a field and playground where the elementary kids had recess. It had recently rained, and there were earthworms crawling all over the sidewalk.
I was walking with a guy, a senior, who for whatever reason, dared me to eat one. Of course, I dared him back, because that's just how you do things when you're young, stupid and trying to impress. I have no idea why it even crossed my mind to think I had to eat a worm to impress him - seems pretty weird now - but we both reached down, grabbed a worm, and popped it in our mouths.
By the end of the day, I was a legend at school... at least with the elementary kids. A little boy came running up to me and asked, "Are you the girl who ate the worm?" He was in awe.
My mom was horrified.
After a weekend of reunion parties, street dancing and meeting Jamie's former classmates, we left Center with two days before we needed to be home. So we took our time, stopping at Devil's Tower in the black hills of Wyoming and driving through the Badlands in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.
Wild bison roamed freely through the park, and we passed a single bison, possibly male, grazing by the side of the road. A few minutes later, we came upon a small herd of female bison with their calves. They appear tranquil, but can attack and charge if disturbed, so we took pictures safely from the car and moved on.
On the drive up, I missed a turn and we ended up taking a side road which, according to the map, should lead us back to the highway. What started as a paved road, though, turned into a bumpy, gravel washboard road, forcing us to drive 15 miles an hour. Thirty minutes later we still had not found the highway, and just when I was starting to think we should backtrack, there it was. But not before we'd crossed paths with a cow in the road playing chicken and a curious antelope studying us from the side.
The town of Medora, ND is a tourist trap, but I'd never been there before, so we made a point of stopping there for the night so we could see some of the area. Medora is known for the western musical it puts on every summer in the outdoor amphitheater, but on that night it was 45 degrees and raining, which made for a freezing cold experience! We bundled up in as many sweaters as we had brought, put on rain parkas and braved the weather. Popcorn and hot chocolate helped. I couldn't find the tennis shoes I thought I had packed, so as an alternative to flip flops, I had to put on two pairs of socks and wear Jamie's shoes to keep my feet warm.
My favorite place to visit there was the Chateau de Mores, which was the summer home and hunting cabin of a French aristocrat, the Marquis de Mores, and his family in the 1880s. After arriving in the Dakota territory and establishing a new town, he named the town after his wife, Medora.
The Marquis operated many business ventures, cattle and sheep raising, a meat-packing plant, refrigerated train cars for shipping the meat and a stagecoach line running from Medora, ND to Deadwood, SD, among other ventures. Business eventually waned, though, and the family only lived there for three years, until the meat-packing plant burned, leaving nothing but the chimney standing.
Guides are stationed at the house to explain the history in detail, and much (about 80%) of the original furnishings and personal belongings are still in the home. I loved the old-fashioned enamelware pitchers and bowls in each bedroom for washing. Only female servants lived in the house, while the male servants were housed in the hotel in town.
In the hunting room, a box was laid out for packing Medora's elegant hairbrush set, a gift from the Marquis, because 6 or 7 hairbrushes are so necessary on a hunting trip!
Down a path below the house were three more buildings for the barn, stable and the coachman's house, the horse corral and a root cellar dug into the grassy side of a hill. They were closed, so we could only peek inside the windows at the peeling wallpaper and crumbling furniture.
After spending a night in Deadwood, SD, we ended the trip with a drive through the scenic Spearfish Canyon region, stopping at Bridal's Veil Falls. From the road, you can't even imagine how pretty the falls are, but after climbing down the hill (tricky business in flip flops) and jumping a few rocks to cross a stream, you're standing at the base of the falls, looking up through the lush greenery, speckled with sunlight.
We lingered for a few minutes, then climbed back up the hill to the car. Jamie looked at me and said, "Well, I think it's the end of our trip. Are you ready to go home?"
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )


text:
I needed to find a good quality image of a Wyvern, the symbol of Wessex, ancient kingdom of the West Saxons. The best i could find was the image on the Wessex Flag, below, but it is poor quality and can't be scaled up. So i had to learn a bit about path tracing and scalable vector graphics.
Wessex Flag by Chrys Fear, found at fotw.net/flags/gb-wessx.html
I used a combination of the free open source graphics tools GIMP, Inkscape and Potrace to trace the shape into vector format. Even at the same size, it's already much better, saved here in PNG format:
The SVG is infinitely scalable and you can download it here: wessex-wyvern.svg
Here you can see the quality improvement:
Here is a close up of the eye, which took a bit of work to get the paths just right:
I needed the Wyvern to form part of the Bi Wessex flag. Here is what we are affectionately calling the Bivern!
The Bi Wessex flag is also available as SVG, should you want it: bi-wessex-flag.svg
If you need to improve the quality of an image, i hope you will feel encouraged that it is possible, with a little bit of effort and experimentation.


text:
In July, USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service will collect updated information on 2011 acres planted to corn, soybeans, Durum and other spring wheat in four states. It's been widely anticipated that USDA's June 30 acreage estimates would be suspect. Farm Futures market analyst Arlan Suderman says that the numbers released Thursday were based on surveys done in early June when many farmers remained hopeful that they could still get their crops planted.
"That simply wasn't the case for many of them," Suderman said. "Local USDA have been widely quoted saying that 6.3 million acres of North Dakota cropland alone will probably not be planted this year. Yet the June 30 data shows North Dakota crop acreage is only down by 1.5 million acres. So just in that one state alone there is a credibility problem."
Suderman says NASS recognizes that and is attempting to get it right by resurveying producers. Producers in Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota will be resurveyed in July. Suderman is a bit surprised that they are not resurveying in Indiana and Ohio where there were significant delays as well.
"We really have to question whether producers in early June knew what they were going to do at that point," Suderman said. "At least it'll be good to get updated data from that area and the trade will begin anticipating now that acreage will decline."
If the newly collected data justifies any changes, NASS will publish updated estimates in the Crop Production report, to be released on Thursday, August 11. Suderman says that could impact trade around that report.
"The August report typically is one of the more significant reports anyway because it is the first report where corn and soybean yields are reported based on actual field surveys," Suderman said. "So it's highly anticipated by the trade and tends to lead to very volatile trade both ahead of the report and following the report. This will simply increase the tension around that report and likely the volatility surrounding that report."
Suderman says that the surprise that NASS is only resurveying the four states in the Upper Midwest will continue to leave the trade somewhat skeptical.
"We really won't have the final acreage numbers until we get the end crop insurance data, probably in October," Suderman said. "So it's going to keep this big question mark over the trade throughout the growing season."


text:
zoobs wrote this in the forum 31 Jan 2015 : 09:01
Took delivery of my new Exclusive + yesterday and today I have no top display so the car cannot be driven!! I went to the garage this morning, the car started but there were three beeps and I noticed that the top display had not [more ...]
routemaster1 wrote this in the forum 18 Dec 2017 : 06:50
I've had a relatively minor issue with my car. The clutch pedal has not beern returning smoothly for a little while, and I suppose I had just got used to it. Yesterday I drove it for the first time in over a week and the clutch pe[more ...]
routemaster1 wrote this in the forum 29 Sep 2017 : 06:30
I have had my licence for 47 years and I have never had any issues in the UK. I did get an on-the-spot fine in Austria inthe late 90s, which was 300 schillings, ~£15.It has all changed this year. In Austria I was caught doing 64k[more ...]
routemaster1 wrote this in the forum 21 Oct 2017 : 07:56
Just found this. Interesting reading! - Click Here -
Villain79 wrote this in the forum 22 Nov 2017 : 09:20
Hi newbie to the page and saw this has been spoken about on another thread but my knowledge of cars is basic so need some guidance. My car is an 2006 C4 VTR+ 5 door. Noticed today my passenger side foot well is soaked. Looked on h[more ...]
routemaster1 wrote this in the forum 26 Aug 2017 : 15:22
Some photos of type H vans I found near Strasbourg in Eastern France last week. If anyone is interested I may be able to figure out the exact location.Also, there was this Citroen truck.
routemaster1 wrote this in the forum 28 Apr 2017 : 04:04
Just received a recall notification, Recall NYB. It doesn't appear on the database. It says 'the ancilliary drive belt tensioner may not conform to specification. This could cause a noise to be heard under certain driving conditio[more ...]
Site Disclaimer | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy |Contact Details | Car Warranty | Sitemap | RSS Feeds | C4 Insurance | Tutorials | Quick Facts | Used Car Guide | Re Call Info | Offers | Service Reviews | Technical Documents | Error Codes
Theme by e107wORks© With Graphics from: C6Dave Forum Icons by Axialis Emotes by Seb


text:
Hi guys,
I am new to the forum and hope you will welcome me.
I am the co founder of a recruitment business and urgently need some help for one of my clients who is seeking an Asterix Developer.
They require an experienced Asterix Developer with as many of the skills listed below. If you are looking for a new role or can help me find some who can please get in touch! - contact details are below. (also I will gift 10% of my fee to you or to a nominated charity if you provide me with a referral and the person is placed successfully)
PHP including Object Oriented PHP
* GIT or other version control
* BASH shell scripting.
* Web development skills: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, etc.
* General Linux system administration.
* A knowledge of SIP
* Asterisk installation, configuration and administration.
* General telephony knowledge (PBX, ISDN, traditional POTS, voice-over-IP, etc.).
The following skills are highly desirable:
* General experience of developing CTI applications (Computer Telephony Integration).
1st class company working on cutting edge projects and genuine leader and largest provider in their industry, grade A facilities and excellent working environment. Salary very competitive
For more information please get in touch with me on 07428 711 804 or email email@example.com


text:
Thursday, October 10, 2013
What are the risks associated with genealogy?
When I was a lot younger, I participated in what would be considered, some high risk activities, such as rock climbing, downhill skiing, and others. The risks of rock climbing for example, were somewhat obvious such as falling off the cliff, getting hit in the head with rocks and piton hammers and breaking various bones in my body etc. Skiing had similar obvious risks and some not-so-obvious. One of the most serious injuries I had from skiing, aside from sprains, crashes and torn ligaments, was a terrible sunburn on my face.
So, if we look carefully at genealogy, do we see any risks? Sometimes when I write, I am not being serious. But in this case, I really am writing about whether or not there are any risks, physical or otherwise, that can be associated with the practice of genealogy outside of the risks that are common with living life in today's world. For example, since genealogists tend to be older, there are all the risks associated with age, but are any of these risks increased by practicing genealogy? Granted if I leave my home and drive to a FamilySearch Center, I incur some risks, but those risks are the same regardless of my destination. I incur the same risks if I were going to a store or the doctor or where ever.
You could argue that genealogy increases your risk of carpel tunnel syndrome and other computer related injuries. But to the contrary, those risks are associated with the use of computers generally and the subject matter of the use has no bearing on results of the use. These non-associative risks also include things such as eye strain, headaches, fatigue and other natural results of using computers for long periods of time. I had the same issues working in a law office all day and sometimes into the night. I cannot point at any one of these types of risks that are unique to genealogy.
Does genealogy have any specifically related risks? In thinking about this question, I came to the conclusion that there are really no risks associated specifically with genealogy. On the other hand, there are some perceived risks that appear to be greater in certain areas of genealogical practice. Those risks fall into two categories: privacy concerns and identity theft concerns. The question to ask is whether or not there are any risks in these two areas that are inherent in the practice of genealogy as opposed to the risks of those who do not accumulate and share information about their families?
Can we identify any genealogical practices that increase our risks in compromising our privacy or increasing the incidence of identity theft? I can say with certainty that after searching and watching, I can find absolutely no authoritative studies that demonstrate any connection between genealogy and an increased risk of privacy loss or identity theft. There is not enough of a risk in any category incurred by genealogists to even begin to do a risk/benefit analysis.
For example, does exposing your private life on Facebook really have anything to do with genealogy? Remember, dead people have no privacy. Genealogy deals with dead people. To the extent that you publicize information about living people, you are really outside the scope of genealogy. There is one small issue, that is the tendency of banks and other financial institutions to use the inappropriate security questions involving your mother's maiden name or other such nonsense. Stupidity is always a risk no matter what you are involved in.
Perhaps you can think of some specific genealogy related risks. Let me know and I will discuss this issue some more in the future.
5 comments:
I agree completely, but (I know, here it comes) your writing suggests that all risks are negative. I risk sharing what I have with relatives with the hopes to get more information and some cooperation. Risking the info which may contain errors or at least disagreements can have a very positive result.ReplyDelete
Pounding your head against a wall is a possible risk...ReplyDelete
Being addicted the pursuit of information is a definite risk.ReplyDelete
One possible risk is finding out information that you are not sure you wanted to know. I recently found out that during the 1940 census my uncle, now deceased, spent time in Leavenworth. This was one family story I never heard about. Now I am trying to find out why he was in Leavenworth. There could be other scenarios(skeletons) that could come out of the closet.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 12, 2013 at 6:11 AM
I know a woman who got lyme disease by trying to get to some tombstones in an overgrown cemetery.ReplyDelete


text:
Illustration copyright 2000 by Nucleus Communications, Inc. All
rights reserved. http://www.nucleusinc.com
Ascites is the
buildup of fluid in the abdomen. Many diseases can cause ascites, including
liver disease and some cancers.
Ascites can be uncomfortable. The
extra fluid also can cause your belly to swell and make it hard for you to
breathe. The condition usually is treated with medicine and diet. But the fluid
may have to be removed with a needle for severe ascites.
Last Revised:
December 13, 2011
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine & Michel M. Murr, MD - General Surgery, Bariatric Surgery
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information. Your use of this information means that you agree to the Terms of Use. How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions.
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.


text:
The 5 Biggest PR Blunders Of 2013
That makes a company's reaction to a mistake more important then ever. A hamfisted response to a crisis only intensifies the backlash.Paul Argenti, a corporate communications expert and professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business puts together an annual list of the biggest communication blunders of the year, which he shared with us. Advertisement
It includes everything from social media screwups to misguided ads and massive CEO flubs. Here are the top 5.
1. JP Morgan/Chase: #AskJPMJP Morgan's major 2013 blunder had it all: terrible timing, badly misreading the public, and a complete and utter misunderstanding of social media.
"JPM's marketing wizards decided to set up a Q&A on Twitter with superstar banker Jimmy Lee at the same time the bank was being hit with a $13 billion fine for its transgressions during the financial crisis," Argenti says. "After 24,000 tweets - arguably one of the fastest and most negative reactions to any major global brand on Twitter - they pulled the campaign and realized that maybe their reputation wasn't what it once was."The lesson learned: "Listen to your communications experts." 2. Lululemon: Shifting the blameAdvertisement
When asked on Bloomberg TV about quality control problems leading to excessive sheerness on its new yoga pants, Lululemon founder and chairman Chip Wilson suggested that it was due to heavy women rubbing their thighs together because the pants were too tight for them.
"How much more insensitive can a person be when faced with a relatively minor issue?" Argenti asks.The lesson learned: "Don't blame customers for your mistakes, and know when to shut up!"Advertisement
3. Chick-fil-A: Being unauthentic
Last year was pretty bad for Chick-fil-A after Dan Cathy's comments on gay marriage. But this year, it didn't do much better, Argenti argues."Companies can certainly have opinions about gay marriage or any other subject, but they should try to stick to their guns and remain true to their beliefs," Argenti says. "Instead, CEO Dan Cathy, who clearly supports the most traditional definition of marriage, decided to put the entire controversy back on the front burner by befriending Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride. This only served to remind us of Chick-fil-A's false Facebook accounts, its lies about the termination of the relationship with Jim Henson Co., and the entire Twitter controversy. It also called into question the veracity of Cathy's beliefs."Advertisement
The lesson learned: "Stick to your guns, and know when to fold your cards."
4. Carnival: Hiding at the topCarnival already had a disaster last year with the Costa Concordia. But when a ship lost power in February, CEO Micky Arison wasn't available. It had a lower-ranked CEO of the cruise line come out instead.Advertisement
"One of the most basic rules of crisis communications is that your top person needs to be on hand when things hit the fan," Argenti says. "Arison seems more concerned with tweeting about his Miami Heat rather than trying to figure out how to fix systemic problems with the company's fleet."The lesson learned: "Put your CEO front and center when you are in a crisis and under attack." 5. Obamacare: Inappropriate adsAdvertisement
"Trying to draw young people to a non-working website with online ads that are, at best, in bad taste ranks up there with the dumbest communications acts of the year," Argenti says. "Depending upon which state you were in, you were subjected to sexually suggestive ads that were degrading to women or spots that encouraged reckless behavior with young men standing on top of kegs."
It was the wrong message to send, he argues, inspired even worse fake ads from opponents of the law, and ended up drawing more focus on something that was already going badly.The lesson learned: "Keep your communications classy, and you won't have to worry about being attacked by fakers."Advertisement
- Govt may need to further extend tax return deadline if COVID cases continue to rise: Experts
- Rain clobbers Maharashtra, high alert in Konkan
- Delhi gets 10,000-bed COVID care centre; LG says it'll play crucial role in fight against pandemic
- ICICI Bank board to consider proposal to raise capital on Wednesday
- PTI tally of COVID-19 cases and deaths in India at 6:45pm


text:
To make Iowa elementary students better prepared for future academic and career opportunities, Des Moines Area Community College President Rob Denson and Drake University President David Maxwell have signed an agreement to improve competencies of future teachers in math and science.
The agreement creates the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Certificate for elementary education students who start at DMACC and pursue their four-year degree at Drake University. The Certificate is the first STEM agreement between a four-year institution and a community college in Iowa.
"We want Iowa teachers to have 21st century competencies in math and science so they can inspire and better engage their students," said Denson, who is on the governor's STEM Advisory Executive Committee. "This is a practical, important application of the governor's STEM initiative."
Drake University is one of only six STEM hub institutions in Iowa. Drake President Maxwell says this partnership will make a significant impact on Iowa education. "This initiative represents an important development that is sure to be followed by many other efforts to infuse math and science directly into classrooms across Iowa," Maxwell said. "As a result, elementary students will be better prepared for success in areas of critical national need."
The elective program will be open to DMACC students who then can transfer to Drake University to complete their four year degree and Certificate requirements.
"This is the sort of innovative solutions being sought and fostered by the governor's Stem Advisory Council," said Jeff Weld, executive director of the governor's STEM Advisory Council. "It's part of a larger effort to improve Iowa schools and prepare Iowa elementary students to be among the best educated in the world."
Participating students must take nine math and science elective credits plus another 10 or more. In addition, they must attend two STEM seminars on infusing math and science activities into classroom instruction.
Officials from Drake and DMACC say the special certification will make the elementary education graduates more marketable and more effective classroom teachers.
"This will be a highly sought special credential that demonstrates these elementary education students have the math and science competencies needed to excel in a 21st Century classroom," Denson said.
This initiative is part of the governor's efforts to encourage more Iowans to enter STEM-related careers.
There are 400 DMACC students currently enrolled in elementary education in the college's six campuses. All are eligible to enroll in the STEM Certificate program.


text:
Uh oh, your buggy is empty. It looks like it's time to get shopping!
$ 21.00 $ 25.00
$ 21.00 $ 25.00
We're so sorry that some of these sizes are sold out online. Complete a T.B.B.C. Track-Down form and we'll ask our retailers to contact you if they have your size in stock!
View our Privacy Policy
Please note that this sizing chart is just a guide and some items may run large or small. This will typically be noted in the product description.


text:
George Lucas wouldn't have killed Boba Fett, knowing what he knows now.
In addition to our first DVD report, there is so much more to the Return of the Jedi commentary where George Lucas discusses Boba Fett.
If he had realized (how popular Boba Fett would become), he wouldn't have killed him the way he did.
The Fetts play such a larger role with the prequels, (that) Boba's death "seems even more like a mis-step."
(Lucas) thought about letting him crawl out for the Special Edition, but decided not to, adding that, "Most people think he didn't die anyway."
"I still don't understand why people find him so damned interesting."
Source: Basil and Metropolis, Nightly.Net Forum


text:
Enter your model number or a part number and click "Search"
you r label (this end in arrow is wrong
placed filter in sideways...read more
water leaking out of refrigerator
In my specific appliance the water valve is located in the bottom right hand corner looking at it from the back. To get to it I remove the thin layer of cardboard the covers the back of the fridge. I...read more
Support studs were broken
Used pliers to remove the residual broken stud that was still attached to the wall of the refrigerator, and then just pushed the new part in place. The longest time was spent in removing the food an...read more
Broken ice maker
Unplugged faulty ice maker, removed two screws holding it to the refrigerator and took it out. Reversed the operation with the new ice maker and after a few minutes presto, we have ice....read more
oven did not heat up
Replaced the probe because that's what this site recommended.The oven still does not heat up....read more
Noisy fan
1. Removed the 7 nuts using the nut driver from the freezer back panel inside the freezer.2. Remove the back panel. The evaporator motor and fan are located above the coils.3. Unplug the w...read more
Running but not cooling off and frost in the back of the freezer
Unplugged the refrigerator. Removed the 4 hex head screws on the lower back panel at the back of the freezer. Used a blow dryer to defrost the pipes and area surrounding the thermostat. Unplug the ...read more
The plasticdrum was broken and would no longer crush or feed the ice through the door
removed screws,removed broken parts and installed new parts....read more
2 drawer undercounter beverage ref not getting cold enough. Wont get below 48°
Took drawers out by removing 2 screws on top of rail near front, then popped black plastic cover off in lower right inside cabinet...sensor just un plugged and new one plugged in easily...did not fix ...read more
Below are the most popular Electrolux models we have.
Enter your model number in the search box to find your model.
All brand logos are trademarks of their respective owners.
The PartSelect logo is a Registered Trademark of Atlantic Laundry Centres, Ltd.
Copyright © 1999-2020, Eldis Group Partnership. All rights reserved.


text:
Talk show host Andy Cohen (the man who can make big name celebrities do anything) just made all the Harry Potter fetishists' dreams come true. When Ralph Fiennes stopped by the Watch What Happens Live pajama party, Cohen made Voldemort read a little bit of Potter fanfic. It's utterly glorious.
[Via BuzzFeed]


text:
Yes, it is official, I am now an author. Yesterday I noticed that the Visualizing Data with Microsoft Crescent book is now listed on Amazon. I had been asked by Brian Larson if I wanted to collaborate on writing a book for the new report authoring tool and I of course immediately said 'YES'. I am also one of the technical editors of his other two books for Reporting Services and Delivering Business Intelligence for the new SQL11 release. There are four of us from Superior Consulting Services that are working on the new Crescent book and so far it has been a very enjoyable experience. I have been doing the blogging, tweeting, and presenting, so now it is on to something new and actually working towards a published book.
So some insight into the book, this book is going to cover the new reporting authoring tool 'Crescent' that is coming out in the next release of SQL11. This is a new Silverlight browser based reporting experience that will be part of the Reporting Services Integrated Mode configuration with SharePoint 2010. Not only will the book cover the reporting experience, but we will also go over the Business Intelligence Semantic Models (BISM) which is the new terminology being actively talked about now with SQL11. In addition to this there will be samples and videos that will provide a very in-depth learning experience so that you will be able to get up-to-speed and familiar with both Crescent and BI Semantic Models.
Now you might know that 'Crescent' is the code name provided to this new feature in SQL11 and next week during the PASS 2011 Summit we should be able to have an official name to associate with this along with a few other SQL11 items (maybe even the product itself – 2011 or 2012?). For the time being though this is the cover, but in the next week or so it should be updated to say 'Visualizing Data with Microsoft …'.
So for the time being all I can say is thanks to Brian for the opportunity, thanks to my family for their understanding, and I hope that everyone will enjoy the book (and videos). You can go ahead and pre-order your copy today Visualizing Data with Microsoft Crescent.