Datasets:

haritzpuerto

/

the_pile_00_Pile-CC

like 0

Celebrating Love on St. Valentine’s Day (hint: he was a bachelor) It is St. Valentine’s day. He was a saint – a confirmed bachelor in love with the divine – who illegally married Christian couples. Risky business in his time. Is it an accident that Governor Christine Gregoire of my State, Washington, just signed into law the right of same sex couples to marry? Defending the right to celebrate romantic love in the face of repressive societies marches on. Saint Valentine, the near-myth goes, was beheaded. Opponents of same sex marriage are after Gregoire’s head too. While today we celebrate Cupid’s arrows, I want to celebrate whatever might have inspired Valentine himself to the single life. We can’t consult him (if there was a him), so I’m free to riff on these other flavors of the open heart. A long life and many loves have taught me that the heart simply wants to love. It’s actually indiscriminate – given it’s head, so to speak, the heart would pour out love in great effulgent song. In fact, music, drama, stories, art, dance all vibrate our hearts. We laugh, cry, hold our breath, worry and wonder as the stories unfold. We show up en masse to be moved in this way. The heart without someone or something or somewhere to love ends up lonely and sad. We think we lack someone, but I think the lack is of a receptacle big enough to receive all we have to give. I’ve noticed this with all my human loves. When they end, part of my grief is my heart’s confusion about where my love goes now. It shrinks back into its little hole in the chest and waits for another occasion to run out the door, arms flung wide. Sometimes you encounter a love that lasts a lifetime – in your own coupling or seeing another’s. It’s sweet and tender from beginning to end. We all go to weddings and cry because our hearts recognize themselves in the willing mutual surrender – if only for a moment – to another fragile being. When our friends first fall in love, we congratulate them, sometimes squealing like teenagers whispering at their hall lockers. What is it that so loves love? That heart of our hearts that simply wants to pour out in wild abandon. My heart – like yours – has been on a long journey. Since my partner of 27 years died, I’ve bumped along like so many confused people later in life, regressing to teenagers to run romance around the block one more time or pondering why they are alone. I’ve had some unforgettable experiences, and some I’ve resolutely forgotten. I developed an ideal that I call “bonded yet free.” Can one be both madly in love and wholly oneself? I think that’s a koan, not a blueprint, but my life isn’t over so I hold it as a possibility. So much has been written about the expectations and projections and fears and pains of giving our hearts to romantic love. No need for more on that! Let’s move on to the singularity of love. Over time I noticed that I was happy most of the time just being single, free to follow my intuitions and instincts. Yet in a coupled society, be it straight or gay, my happiness as a single felt out of place. About five years ago I found a book called Quirky Alone. It celebrated those of us who are so ourselves that even when we partner we are two quirkies getting it on. Still, “quirky alone” felt like having a chip on my shoulder in a coupled society. I often said in those days, “Anyone I partner with would actually have to make my life better and every day I like my life more so every day the bar goes up.” Did I really really mean it? Here are some thoughts single people have in a coupled society: Someday I’ll meet “the one”. I just have to… want it more… let go and let god… expunge my resentments from past relationships… resolve my issues with the parent of the opposite sex… be willing to surrender… to change… to let someone else lead…give up being Peter Pan and grow up… let love in… learn to ballroom dance or fish or scuba dive or ski… edit my profile on OK Cupid… get out more… lose weight… move to another city. You’re avoiding love… you have inner work to do that can only be done in a relationship… don’t give up… don’t settle… keep the faith. I began to question what actually was wrong with being single? Especially at my age when there are no kids to raise. I wondered if my intermittent desires to partner arose precisely from the fact that most of my friends are coupled. Did I want to have a partner just so my coupled friends would think, “Let’s have the So-and-Sos over for dinner,” so I’d feel more normal. I started calling couples “Salt and Pepper Shakers” – at least the ones who always go around together. Recently I found a book called Singleism about the social stigma of being single. It spoke to me so loud I thought someone would tell me to turn down the radio. It confirmed what I’d begun to think. What if nothing was wrong with me? What if for whatever reason I am designed to be unattached to one person so I can live something deeply real about me: I love loving and I express that love through friends and communities. I receive friends into my heart and with some I can pour out my heart in a way I’ve never done in a romantic relationship. I see the needs of my beloved – friends, groups and communities I care about – and invest my creativity in finding ways to make life better for a wider circle. For several years after my partner died I prayed for someone to come and love me, support me, admire and adore me, to see me and want me and be there as I wobbled. Who doesn’t want that? The answer always came back: your singleness is precisely what I want from you. I want your longing to drive you not into couple-dom but into service. I’m no saint (Valentine or Vicki) but I now see that single isn’t an exclusion from normal society nor is it a disease, an unfulfilled state, a failure to really love, a reflection of my selfishness or not measuring up. It’s not “quirky alone” even. It is a way of life that supports my soul. I love who I go to sleep with. I love who I wake up with. I love how my heart pours into writing and speaking and leading and friend-ing and creating and philosophizing and beauty and comedy and evolving in wisdom. I suspect that many people in long term relationships have – by my age – have evolved to this state of self-love and self-expression. Their marriages rest in companionship rather than rise in eroticism. Perhaps even some coupled people envy my singleness but loyalty and fear of reprisal keeps them mum about it. Would I like to be fully met by another being who is also fully single, also wedded to him/herself. Always. Would I like some of the services of partnership, like help around the house and affection and a live-in playmate and support when my courage flags. Always. Can that happen outside romance? I’m beginning to think that for me it only happens outside romance. So let me today celebrate this love in me, you and all of us. It is not incomplete, second-fiddle, sloppy seconds or almost ran. It is our nature. For me this is closer to agape than eros – I don’t want to turn these feelings into sex. Let me celebrate how juicy and sexy and sensual and delightful and freeing it is to be single without any background noise of “Don’t worry, some day you will meet someone.” Such deeply thoughtful words! Thank you for sharing them. I think as we get older we broaden our definition of loving and discover that love is everywhere if we choose to open our hearts. Since many women wind up without partners it behooves us to discover our strengths and that we can be loving even without a mate. And yes, it is nice to have a life partner to share the daily routine. A dear friend of mine who has unfortunately passed away thought we could consider living together when our spouses were no longer in our lives. I think that would work for me only if the other person also valued the need for solitude in the everyday, There are so many arrangements possible. Perhaps dinners with other single friends, or sharing of housekeeping tasks – cleaning parties! Each of us needs to find that balance of solitude/connection that feeds our souls. It sounds as if you have done that beautifully. I enjoyed a long, quirky, often frustrating and occasionally humiliating slog of being single. Then I finally “met someone” – one more “someone” – and, against all odds, I actually got the guy! More than 20 years later, we’re still playing sophomoric pranks and dreaming up new ways to drive each other nuts, in all the ways you can be nuts. I suspect many people confuse romance with infatuation, and that the fun of romance can live on long after the drama of infatuation fades. There’s quiet space where infatuation used to fill my head with the scratchy sound of worry.:”Will he call? Does he really like me? Will I have a date for New Years Eve?” Now, my head is buzzing with thoughts of how to please him, how to be loving to our extended family, how to plan fun things that will enrich us and fulfill us. I didn’t marry a perfect man, I’m not a perfect person, and we don’t have a perfect marriage. He’ll never buy me a mink or a Rolex and we’ll never live in a McMansion, but… we do have our moments. For my 60thy birthday he took me para-sailing and speed-boating on the Mediterranean. That’s the right kind of drama for me! I enjoyed a long, quirky, often frustrating and occasionally humiliating slog of being single. Then I finally “met someone” – one more “someone” – and, against all odds, I actually got the guy! More than 20 years later, we’re still playing sophomoric pranks and dreaming up new ways to drive each other nuts, in all the ways you can be nuts. I suspect many people confuse romance with infatuation, and that the fun of romance can live on long after the drama of infatuation fades. There’s quiet space where infatuation used to fill my head with the scratchy sound of worry.:”Will he call? Does he really like me? Will I have a date for New Years Eve?” Now, my head is buzzing with thoughts of how to please him, how to be loving to our extended family, how to plan fun things that will enrich us and fulfill us. I didn’t marry a perfect man, I’m not a perfect person, and we don’t have a perfect marriage. He’ll never buy me a mink or a Rolex and we’ll never live in a McMansion, but… we do have our moments. For my 60thy birthday he took me para-sailing and speed-boating. Now, that’s the right kind of drama fro me! Welcome. Below you will find a biography of Vicki Robin (and tribute to her coauthor Joe Dominguez) and links to her past work with the New Road Map Foundation and her current work teaching about Money, Happiness, Enough and Community. Please click the links and explore the world Vicki has ... Continue reading → Revised and Updated for the 21st Century New stories, stats and examples. Updated advice on saving and investing. New coauthor: Monique Tilford, 20-year leader in sustainable consumption field. In this global economic crunch, the perennial and practical wisdom in Your Money or Your Life is even more relevant.

Voyeurism is a sexual interest in or perversion of spying on girls in public or engaged in private sexual behaviors without them being aware of it. The most popular voyeur observes girls from a stealthy distance and involves the use of a regular digital camera or hidden spy cams to record video or photos on public beaches or undressing in bathrooms or in showers, dressing rooms, dorm rooms, public gyms, shopping malls, peep-holes, two-way mirrors, and even on the street. The Candid Board offers you daily updates of original voyeur photos and videos shared by our members! That means you get to see real voyeurism in action by those who love it best! See All of The Candid & Voyeur Board ... Sign Up & Join Us!

Optimistic but cautious: Is the HHS Strategic Plan recognizing life? Posted on November 25, 2017 About a month ago, the government released its draft for 2018-2022’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Strategic Plan. As reported by several pro-life news organizations, the draft seemed optimistically pro-life. The National Catholic Register did a pretty good job covering the possibilities in their article on the subject. Commonly cited is the draft’s repeated use of the language, “protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception,” and even its stated goal to “to improve health care outcomes for all people, including the unborn, across health care settings.” While it does seem that the draft is hopefully prolife, there is one giant nuance: In 1959, the year during which the first version of the pill was under review by the FDA, the medical definition of “conception” was quietly shifted from meaning “fertilization of sperm and egg” to mean “implantation of the zygote in the uterine wall.” These are wildly different. The background Up until 1959, the word “conception” meant the same thing in lay and medical communities: fertilization, the joining of the sperm and egg. This is supported by copious science and, not least of all, common sense. After all, the moment of fertilization results in a totally new genetic code, often a totally new sex, and sometimes even a new blood type (although the actual blood won’t be produced for a few weeks). This fusion between gametes (sex cells) is logically the creation of a new human. Throughout the 1950’s, Margaret Sanger was working closely with researchers to establish the necessary technology to create what would ultimately become “the pill,” the world’s first female oral contraceptive. The pill, called Enovid, was submitted to the FDA for review and by 1957 was approved to “regulate menstruation,” but its use as a contraceptive was still pending.[1] At a Planned Parenthood symposium in 1959, Sanger, among others, discussed two primary roadblocks to contraceptive approval: first, the public largely recognized the pill to be an abortifacient since it interfered with implantation of an already fertilized egg into the uterine wall, so the pill was experiencing social pushback; and secondly, a pill couldn’t be marketed as “that which prevents conception,” if it didn’t actually interfere until after conception already took place. It was at this symposium that Swedish Dr. Bent Boving suggested a simple solution explaining, “the social advantage of [the pill] being considered to prevent conception rather than to destroy an established pregnancy could depend upon something so simple as a prudent habit of speech” (emphasis mine).[2] That is, if the definition of “conception” could be shifted as little as a few days — from fertilization to implantation — then they could claim that the pill doesn’t interfere after conception, but rather prevents “conception” entirely. The FDA approved Enovid the next year. Within 5 years, after the financial success of the pill, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists “repositioned” their definition of “conception” to match Boving’s.[3][4] What it means for the draft There is some language in the proposed HHS draft pointing to concern for life at fertilization, but after 60 years of functioning under the definition of conception as implantation, it’s difficult to know what, exactly, the HHS means by their use of the term “conception.” Is their language choice of “fertilization” a poor linguistic choice that will be corrected in the plan’s final form, or is HHS really is working to return the definition of “conception” to its scientifically accurate meaning of fertilization? Although this thoroughly unscientific and clearly profit-oriented shift is known today, many organizations — mutually relying on one another — stand by the newer and arguably inaccurate definition. Perhaps most notably (and most powerful in the world of reproductive research and legislation), Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, the Guttmacher Institute (GI) relies on circular logic to affirm the assertion made by its founder. As recently as a 2005 article, GI states, “According to both the scientific community and long-standing federal policy, a woman is considered pregnant only when a fertilized egg has implanted in the wall of her uterus.”[5] It should be noted that federal policy is politically driven and, in this instance, relies on a shift in the “scientific” definition was never scientific at all. We can and should have hope that HHS is beginning to understand what science has made clear for years: that a unique human being is formed at the moment of conception. Naturally, as the department of Health and Human Services, they are charged with the protection of all Americans, including the unborn— even those who haven’t even made it to the safety of the uterine wall.

The 3D World of MATCLOUD – Mateusz Chmur The 3D World of MATCLOUD – Mateusz Chmura aka MATCLOUD is a freelance graphic and product designer based in Warsaw, Poland. Also expert in 2D and 3D, Mateusz likes mixing his creativity to reality are part the main ingredients of his fascinating art. The idea of “ART MATTERS” will always be present in all my works. All Rights to MATCLOUD All Rights to MATCLOUD All Rights to MATCLOUD All Rights to MATCLOUD All Rights to MATCLOUD All Rights to MATCLOUD All … http://ow.ly/2FyJmn

Project Description Approximately 40km long, the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) is a new four-lane, 80km/hr route along the south side of the Fraser River from Deltaport Way in southwest Delta to 176th Street (Hwy 15) in Surrey, with connections to Highways 1, 15, 91, 99, and TransLink’s Golden Ears Bridge. The route will take a significant step towards improving Metro Vancouver’s major road network. It will benefit commuters, the trucking industry and tourists by connecting primary gateway facilities as well as facilitating access to borders, the Tsawwassen ferry terminal and the BC Interior. SFPR will offer goods movers an efficient transportation corridor, while restoring municipal roads as community connectors by reducing truck and other traffic on municipal road networks in Delta and Surrey, improving quality of life for residents and local businesses. For questions about the South Fraser Perimeter Road Project, please contact the SFPR project at:

Danzas Aei Inc Company Name:Danzas Aei IncStatus:WorkState:VermontPost:05907-0149County:EssexCity:NortonAddress:P.O. BOX 149Phone:(802)822-5271Fax:unknownEmail:unknownContact Director:Jean HenryWeb site:unknownSIC code:4731 Industry group: Transportation Services, Business category: Arrangement Of Transportation Of Freight And Cargo, Subcategory: Arrangement Of Transportation Of Freight And Cargo Description:Danzas Aei Inc is a business categorized under arrangement of transportation of freight and cargo, which is part of the larger category arrangement of transportation of freight and cargo. Danzas Aei Inc is located at the address P.O. BOX 149 in Norton, Vermont 05907-0149. The Director is Jean Henry who can be contacted at (802)822-5271.Review: Freight Transportation Arrangement Was this article helpful? Yes -0 No -0Click here to Inform about a mistake6 Rating:

Blizzard on Max Clvl 60 Arguments Posted By: April 6, 2011 Bashiok returned to the forums this afternoon with a big bullet point list of arguments in support of the max Clvl 60 issue. There’s nothing *new* in his comments, but his restatements of the same old debate points are fairly lucid. Here’s part of the fan post that drew him in, and the start of his reply. …I’m concerned for D3 and the direction that it’s seems to be headed. Since they’ve made the level cap much lower and more obtainable, without a significant amount of motivation to continue playing a character past that point, many players will stop playing the game(especially once rerolling alts is boring). It comes down to how much return we’re getting for our efforts, and if we hit max level, we’re losing that portion of the benefit of continuing to play that specific character. All this being said, good, progressive endgame features can replace the subconcious feeling of needing to “level up”. It’s just a matter of WHAT they decide to do for endgame in D3. Frankly though, I don’t see PvP and collecting items being the answer. I don’t know what sparked the decision to lower the level cap in D3. I would actually be very curious to find out. Bashiok: Good discussion! It’s an old topic I know but there’s a lot of good points and counter-points being brought up. So just to reiterate some things and maybe draw it back to more specific bullet points of why a lower level cap is (we believe) better for the game: # We want each level to feel like a significant boost in power. You can think of the amount of power a character gains through leveling as a bucket of orange soda, and each level as a glass. We have to have an end-point and so we can only scale player power to that point. By having fewer glasses they can be filled more, and each one has more delicious thirst-quenching orange soda. Spread that same bucket out over 99 or 200 glasses, and each level is less satisfying (if not downright unnoticeable).[/blue] Click through to read the rest. Moar Bashiok’s reply: # We want level benefits to be as clear as possible. Some people have suggested “Well, let us hit level 60, but then keep giving us points after that.” which isn’t a solution, it’s the same problem except worse because there’s no actual tracking mechanism built in (ie levels). We also want to avoid providing level benefits at irregular intervals (although this may be unavoidable for trait points), as some people suggest “Let us level to 99 and just give us the rewards every few levels”. This goes back to the first point: We want each level to feel like a significant boost in power. Trait points may not come every level, but the sum of the other increases from leveling, we feel, are still very significant and maintain our intent. # Because of the extreme leveling curve in Diablo II, balance really couldn’t be adjusted around level 99 characters. This meant that the last 15 or so levels were not just minimal increases in power, but in most cases provided absolutely nothing to a characters ability to effectively complete Hell difficulty and get items, which did significantly improve their character. Instead, leveling to 99 became a status symbol more than anything. # We can have long term status symbols people can go for that are extremely visual, show to others the effort you’ve put in, but not attach that to something like a character level. Along with artisans, achievements, gems, runestones, and all the other various character customization progressions, we still have some surprises left in store on this front. # Balance isn’t a main point for a tighter level system, but it is one side benefit. With the sum changes and improvements to all of the core designs, we believe that we can have a more reasonably challenging game throughout (as we can fairly clearly know how strong someone should be at any point in time) without attempting to create “challenge” through cheesy tactics. # The game paces out progression very well through all of the various customization systems, which are far more interesting and important to an end-game character, as opposed to chasing a number. I’m sure I’m leaving out a good point or two. The real bottom line is that we understand people like having those long term goals, and those feel good to chase and eventually achieve, but we do not feel one needs to be character level, and in fact making character levels a long term goal brings a great many negative effects with them (keeping in mind our goals for how important each level should feel). We do not doubt that people will feel good about chasing the long term goals of building the perfect character, getting a playtime intensive achievement, leveling up an artisan to max, or any of the other many individual long term progression systems the game offers. Incidentally, I’m solipsistic enough to take credit for this resurgence, since I IM-taunted Bashiok about retiring from D3 to work full time on the sparkledragon game, before posting the earlier “drought” news item. Clearly my jibes bore this bitter fruit! As for the max Clvl 60 stuff… how about it? I agree with most of their logic, but I think the fact that they won’t just admit they’re going to up the max Clvl in the expansion(s) is silly, since that’s obviously behind their refusal to agree with the, “just let the exp keep increasing without any rewards” arguments. Thus they must use *only* achievements and other things, and can’t allow characters to earn a ton more exp now, just for fun, since that would conflict with the Clvl 70 max cap increase come the first x-pack. Rather than just doing both, which would be easier and more satisfying to both sides of the debate. Comments Well on the bright side (and I realize looking on the bright side of anything when talking about the gritty gothic goodness of Diablo 3 may not be appropriate) the droughts of info make the times of non-drought more enjoyable… Although it is kinda sad that they seem to be revealing at a far slower rate with this game than they did with Starcraft 2…

What to use for Boot Camp? I have a 2009 Mac Mini with only 1 GB of memory and have been running Win 7 with a loader. It works but is kinda slow. I'm thinking about going back to Windows XP. How would I go about making it genuine? I know SLP would be the way to go and usually what I would do but no BIOS for a Mac. Any one got any ideas? I even tried running Fusion or Parallels but with only 1 GB of memory, it's even worse! Upgrading the memory in the machine is not possible since it's not mine and our company is too damn cheap!

But there was one thing it was selling: some $22 billion in US Treasuries, a record 20% of its total holdings, bringing its US paper inventory to just $86 billion in December – the lowest since June 2008. It wasn’t just Russia: the country that has ever more frequently been said to be in the same camp as Russia – and against the US – namely China, also sold another $6 billion in Treasurys in the last month of 2014, which would have made its US treasury holdings equal with those of Japan, if only Tokyo hadn’t also sold over $10 billion in the same month. And while we know that Russia used at least some of the proceeds to buy gold, the bigger question is: just what is China buying with all these stealthy USD-denominated liquidations, and how much gold does the PBOC really have as of this moment.

Powered By: Innocent Frauds The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy Introduction The term ‘innocent fraud’ was introduced by Professor John Kenneth Galbraith in ‘The Economics of Innocent Fraud’, which was the last book he wrote before he died. He used the term to describe fraudulent concepts that were being sustained by the ‘conventional wisdom’ (a term he created in a previous book). The presumption of innocence by those perpetrating the frauds is characteristic of Professor Galbraith’s cynically gracious approach. This book reviews 7 ‘innocent frauds’ that I suggest are THE most imbedded obstacles to national prosperity. The first 4 concern the federal government budget deficit, the 5th addresses social security, the 6th international trade, and the 7th savings and investment. I begin with the innocent frauds of the budget deficit, because they are the most pervasive and most damaging to both the US and the rest of the world’s standard of living. Deadly Innocent Fraud #1: The government must raise funds through taxing or borrowing in order to spend. In other words, government spending is limited by the government’s ability to tax or borrow. Fact:Government spending is NOT operationally limited or in any way constrained by taxing or borrowing. Ask any congressman (as I have many times), or private citizen, how it all works, and he will tell you emphatically that: “The government, has to either tax or borrow to get funds to spend, just like any household has to somehow get the money it needs to spend.” Furthermore, borrowing in order to spend only delays the eventual taxation, or other income, that is needed to repay all the debt. They get this from the popular notion that the government, just like any household, must somehow first get money to be able to spend it. Yes, they have heard that it’s different for a government, but they don’t believe it, and there’s never a convincing explanation that makes sense to them. What they all miss is the difference between spending your own currency that only you create, and spending a currency someone else creates. The USD is the creation of the government. So to utilize this popular government/household analogy in a meaningful way, we need to look at a currency created by a household. One example of the right analogy would be parents creating coupons they can then use to pay their children for doing various household chores. And to make it all work, the children would be required to give their parents 10 coupons a week to avoid punishment. These coupons are now the new household currency. Think of the parents as ‘spending’ these coupons to purchase ‘services’ (chores) from their children. The parents, like the government is now the issuer of its own currency. Now you can see what it’s like when a household is the issuer of its own currency. Can you now see that the parents must first spend their coupons by paying their children to do household chores, to be able to collect the payment of 10 coupons a month from their children? How else can the children get the coupons they owe the parents to avoid punishment? Likewise, in the real economy, the funds we need to pay taxes must come from government spending (or government lending, which I’m saving for later). And, neither the government, nor the parents, from inception, can collect more of their own currency than they spend. So while our politicians truly believe government needs to take our funds either by taxing or borrowing for them to be able to spend, instead, the truth is: WE NEED THE GOVERNMENT’S SPENDING TO GET THE FUNDS WE NEED TO PAY OUR TAXES. Beware the shredder! Here’s an anecdote that shows the government doesn’t need our funds in order to spend. Consider what happens should you go to the Federal Reserve to pay taxes with actual cash. First, you hand over a pile of currency to the Fed as payment. Next, the Federal Reserve counts it, and then gives you a receipt and a thank you for helping to pay for social security, the interest on the national debt, and the Iraq war. And as you, the tax payer, leaves the room and closes the door behind you, they take that hard earned cash you just forked over and throw it in a shredder. Yes, they throw it away. Destroy it! Why? They have no further use for it. Just like a ticket to the Super Bowl. As you go into the stadium, you hand the man a ticket that was worth maybe $1000, and they tear it up and throw it away. And just like when the children pay their 10 coupons to their parents every month that were earned by doing their household chores, the parents don’t actually need those coupons for anything. So if government throws away your cash after collecting it, how does that cash pay for social security, and the rest of their spending? It doesn’t. Something else is going on. Just like with the household coupons- the parents are not collecting the coupons because they need them to spend. Now let’s look at what happens if you pay your taxes by writing a check. It’s almost the exact same thing. When your check ‘clears’, all the government does is change the number in your checking account (downward) when they subtract the payment from your bank balance. Do they actually get anything real? No, it’s not like they get a gold coin to spend. All they did was change a number in your bank account. Just like the household. When the children give their coupons to the parents, do the parents get richer? Of course not! Next question: “So how does government spend when they never actually have anything to spend?” Good question! Let’s now take a look at the process of how government spends. Imagine you are expecting your $1,000 social security payment to hit your bank account which already has $500 in it, and you are watching your account on your computer screen. You are about to see how government spends without having anything to spend. Presto! Suddenly your account statement that read $500 now reads $1,500. What did the government do to give you that money? It simply changed the number in your bank account from 500 to 1,500. It added a ‘1’ and a comma. That’s all. It didn’t take a gold coin and hammer it into its computer. All it did was change a number in your bank account. It does this by making entries into its own spread sheet which is connected to the banking systems spread sheets. Government spending is all done by data entry on its own spread sheet we can call ‘The US dollar monetary system’ . There is no such thing as having to ‘get’ taxes or borrow to make a spread sheet entry that we call ‘spending’. Computer data doesn’t come from anywhere. Everyone knows that! Where else do we see this happen? Your team kicks a field goal and on the scoreboard the score changes from, say, 7 point to 10 points. Does anyone wonder where the stadium got those three points? Of course not! Or you knock down 5 pins at the bowling alley and your score goes from 10 to 15. Do you worry about where the bowling alley got those points? Do you think all bowling alleys and football stadiums should have a ‘reserve of points’ in a ‘lock box’ to make sure you can get the points you have scored? Of course not! And if the bowling alley discovers you ‘foot faulted’ and takes your score back down by 5 points does the bowling alley now have more score to give out? Of course not! We all know how ‘data entry’ works, but somehow this has gotten all turned around backwards by our politicians, media, and most all of the prominent main stream economists. When the federal government spends the funds don’t ‘come from’ anywhere any more than the points ‘come from’ somewhere at the football stadium or the bowling alley. Nor does collecting taxes (or borrowing) somehow increase the government’s ‘hoard of funds’ available for spending. In fact, the people at the US Treasury who actually spend the money (by changing numbers on bank accounts up) don’t even have the phone numbers of the people at the IRS who collect taxes (they change the numbers on bank accounts down), or the other people at the US Treasury who do the ‘borrowing’ (issue the Treasury securities). If it mattered at all how much was taxed or borrowed to be able to spend, you’d think they’d at least know each other’s phone numbers! Clearly, it doesn’t matter for their purposes. From our point of view (not the government’s) we need to first have USD to be able to make payments. Just like the children need to earn the coupons from their parents before they can make their monthly coupon payments. We don’t get to just change numbers like the government does (or the bowling alley and the football stadium), and neither do our children. Our children have to earn or somehow get their coupons to make their payments just like we have to earn or somehow get USD to make our payments. So, collectively, at what’s called the ‘macro level’, where do we all get the funds to pay taxes or buy government securities? The answer, as previously stated, is that from inception, the funds to pay taxes can only come from government spending or government lending. And, as you now understand, this is just like it happens in any household that issues its own ‘coupons’. Imagine a new country with a newly announced currency. No one has any. Then the government proclaims a property tax. How can it be paid? It can’t, until the government starts spending. Only after the government spends its new currency is does the population have the funds to pay the tax. To repeat, the funds to pay taxes come from government spending or lending. Where else can they come from??? ***For those of you who understand reserve accounting, note that the Fed can’t do what’s called a reserve drain without doing a reserve add. So what does the Fed do on settlement day when Treasury balances increase? It does repos, to add the funds to the banking system that banks then have to buy the Treasury Securities. Otherwise, the funds aren’t there to buy the Treasury securities, and the banks will have overdrafts in their reserve accounts. And what are overdrafts at the Fed? Functionally an overdraft is a loan from the government. So, again, one way or another, the funds that are used to buy the Treasury securities come from the government itself. And because the funds to pay taxes, or buy government securities, come from government spending: The government is best thought of as spending first, and then collecting taxes or borrowing. And government spending is in no case operationally constrained by revenues. Yes, there can be and there are ‘self-imposed’ constraints on spending by Congress, but that’s an entirely different matter. And this all means there is no ‘solvency risk’ (the government can’t go broke in its own currency). A few years ago I gave a talk in Australia at an economics conference. The title was ‘Government Checks Don’t Bounce’. In the audience was the head of research for the Reserve Bank of Australia, a Mr. David Gruen. This was high drama. I had been giving talks for several years to this group of academics and had not convinced most of them that government solvency wasn’t an issue. They always started with the familiar “What Americans don’t understand is that it’s different for a small, open economy like Australia than it is for the United States”, and there seemed to be no way to get it through their perhaps overeducated skulls that at least for this purpose none of that matters. A spread sheet is a spread sheet. All but Professor Bill Mitchell and a few of his colleagues seemed to have this mental block, and they deeply feared what would happen if ‘the markets’ turned against Australia to somehow keep them from being able to ‘finance the deficit’. So I began my talk about how government checks don’t bounce, and after a few minutes David’s hand shot up with the statement familiar to all modestly advanced economic students: “If the interest rate on the debt is higher than the rate of growth of GDP, than the government’s debt is unsustainable”. It wasn’t even a question. It was presented as a fact. I then replied “I’m an operations type of guy so tell me, what is it you mean by the word ‘unsustainable?’ Do you mean that if the interest rate is very high, and 20 years from now the government debt has grown to a large enough number, the government won’t be able to make its interest payments, and if it writes a check to a pensioner that check will bounce?” He got very quiet, deep in thought, and said while he was thinking it through ‘you know, when I came here, I didn’t think I’d have to think through how the Reserve Bank’s check clearing works’ in an attempt at humor. But no one in the room laughed or made a sound. They were totally focused on what his answer might be. Again, this was high drama- it was the ‘showdown’ on this issue. David finally said “no, we’ll clear the check, but it will cause inflation and the currency will go down. That’s what people mean by unsustainable”. There was dead silence in the room. The long debate was over. Solvency is not an issue, even for a small, open economy. Bill and I instantly commanded an elevated respect, which took the usual outward form of ‘well of course, we always said that’ from the former doubters and skeptics. I continued with David, “Well, I think most pensioners are concerned about whether the funds will be there when they retire, and whether the government will be able to pay them”. To which David replied, “No, I think they are worried about inflation and the level of the Australian dollar”. To which Martin Watts, head of the economics department at the University of New Castle replied, “The Hell they are, David!” To which David very thoughtfully replied, “Yes, I suppose you’re right”. So what actually was confirmed to the Sydney academics in attendance that day? Government can spend what they want when they want, just like the football stadium can put points on the board at will. The consequences of overspending might be inflation or a falling currency, but never bounced checks. Government deficits can never cause a government to miss any size payments. But as long as government continues to believe this first of 7 deadly innocent frauds- that they need to get money from taxing or borrowing in order to spend, they will continue to support policy that constrains output and employment, and prevents us from achieving what are readily available economic outcomes. Deadly Innocent Fraud #2 With government deficits we are leaving our debts to our children. Fact:Collectively, in real terms, there is no such thing. Debt or no debt, our children get to consume whatever they can produce. This deadly innocent fraud is often the first answer most give to what they perceive to be the main problem associated with government deficit spending. Borrowing now means paying later. Fortunately, like all of the 7 deadly innocent frauds, it is also readily dismissed in a way that all can understand. Professional economists call this the ‘intergenerational’ debt issue. It is thought that if the federal government deficit spends it is somehow leaving the real burden of today’s expenditures to somehow be ‘paid for’ by future generations. And the numbers are staggering. But, fortunately, completely irrelevant. In fact, the idea of our children being somehow necessarily deprived of real goods and services in the future because of what’s called the national debt is nothing less than ridiculous. Last year I ran into former Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker of Connecticut and his wife Claudia on a boat dock in St. Croix. I asked Senator Weicker what was wrong with the fiscal policy. He replied we have to stop running up these deficits and leaving the burden of paying for today’s spending to our children. I then asked him the following two following questions to hopefully illustrate the absurdity of his statement: “When our children build 20 million cars per year 20 years from now, will they have to send them back in time to 2008 to pay off their debt?” “Are we still sending real goods and services back in time to 1945 to pay off the lingering debt from World War II?” Interestingly, it was Claudia who instantly grasped it, agreed with me, and asked her husband what he had to say to that. All he could say was he had to think about it some more. Of course we don’t send real goods and services back in time to pay off federal government deficits! And our children won’t have to do that either! In 2028, just like today, the living will consume their real output of goods and services, no matter how many US Treasury securities are outstanding. There is no such thing as giving up current year output to be sent back in time to previous generations. Our children won’t and can’t pay us back for anything we leave them- even if they wanted to. What the government deficits can influence, especially if not understood by the politicians, is the current year DISTRIBUTION of real output. Distribution is about who gets all the goods and services that are produced. But any distribution deemed unreasonable by the political forces at any time can be readily altered. Each year, for example, Congress discusses tax policy, always with an eye to the distribution of income and spending. Many seek to tax those ‘who can most afford it’ and direct federal spending to ‘those in need.’ And they also decide how to tax interest, capital gains, estates, etc. as well as how to tax income. All of these are distributional issues. In addition, congress decides who they hire and fire, who they buy things from, and who gets direct payments. Congress also makes laws that directly affect many other aspects of prices and incomes. This is all perfectly legal and business as usual, as each year’s output is ‘divided up’ among the living. None of the real output gets ‘thrown away’ because of outstanding debt, no matter how large. Nor does outstanding debt necessarily reduce output and employment, except when policy makers decide to take measures that do reduce output and employment. Unfortunately, that is currently the case, and that is why this is a deadly innocent fraud. So yes, those alive get to consume this year’s output, including the decision to use some of the output as ‘investment goods and services’ which serve to hopefully increase future output. And yes, Congress has a BIG say in who consumes this years output. And previous federal deficits that might alter distribution if left alone can be readily addressed by Congress and altered to their satisfaction. And those worried about paying off the national debt can’t possibly understand how it all works at the operational, nuts and bolts, debits and credits level. Both ‘money’ and ‘Treasury debt (securities)’ are nothing more than accounts on the governments own books. When a Treasury bill, note, or bond is purchased by a bank, for example, the government makes two entries on its spreadsheet we call the ‘monetary system’. First, it debits (subtracts from) the buyer’s ‘checking account’ at the Fed, and then it increases (credits) the buyer’s securities account at the Fed. As before, the government simply changes numbers on its own spread sheet. That’s all. And when the bonds come due and need to be paid, government again does simply changes two numbers on their own spread sheet- they debit (subtract from) the bank’s securities account at the Fed and credit (add to) the bank’s ‘checking account’ at the Fed. That’s all- debt paid! To repeat, paying off the national debt is but a matter of government subtracting the value of the bank’s maturing securities from one account at the Fed, and entering adding that valued to the banks other account at the Fed. Even briefer- to pay off the national debt the government changes two entries in its own spreadsheet- a number that says how many securities are owned by the private sector is changed down, and another number that says how many USD are being kept at the Fed is changed up. Nothing more. Debt paid, all creditors have their ‘money back’. What’s the big deal? And our children will be able to change numbers on what will be their spread sheet just as easily as we did. Though hopefully with a better understanding! But for now, the deadly innocent fraud of leaving our debt to our children to pay continues to drive policy, and keep us from optimizing output and employment. This is a price we and our children pay. We make do with less than what we can produce and high levels of unemployment, while our children are deprived of the real investments that would have been made on their behalf if we knew how to keep our human resources fully employed and productive. Innocent Fraud #3 Government budget deficits take away savings. Fact:Government budget deficits add to savings. Several years ago I had a meeting with Senator Tom Daschle and then Asst. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. I had been discussing these innocent frauds with the Senator, and explaining how they were working against the well being of those who voted for him. So he set up this meeting with the Asst. Treasury Secretary who was also a former Harvard economics professor and had two uncles who had won Nobel prizes in economics, to get his response and hopefully confirm what I was saying. I opened with a question: “Larry, what’s wrong with the budget deficit?” To which he replied: “It takes away savings that could be used for investment”. To which I replied: “No it doesn’t, all Treasury securities do is offset operating factors at the Fed. It has nothing to do with savings and investment”. To which he replied: “Well, I really don’t understand reserve accounting so I can’t discuss it at that level”. Senator Daschle was looking at all this in disbelief. The Harvard professor of economics Asst. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers didn’t understand reserve accounting? Sad but true. So I spend the next twenty minutes explaining the ‘paradox of thrift’ step by step, which he sort of got it right when he finally responded “so we need more investment which will show up as savings?” I responded with a friendly ‘yes’ after giving this first year economics lesson to the good Harvard professor and ended the meeting. And the very next day I saw him on a podium with the Concord Coalition- a band of deficit terrorists- talking about the grave dangers of the budget deficit. This third deadly innocent fraud was and is alive and well at the very highest levels. So here’s how it really works, and it could not be simpler: Any USD government deficit exactly EQUALS the total net increase in the holdings USD financial assets of the rest of us- businesses and households, residents and non residents- what’s called the ‘non government’ sector. So, for example, if the government deficit was $500 billion last year, it means the net increase in savings for everyone else combined was exactly $500 billion. To the penny. ***For those who understand reserve accounting, that net savings of financial assets is held as some combination of actual cash, Treasury securities, and member bank deposits at the Federal Reserve. This is economics 101. It is beyond dispute. It’s an accounting identity. Yet it’s misrepresented continuously, and at the highest levels of political authority. They are just plain wrong. Just ask anyone at the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), as I have, and they will tell you they have to ‘balance the check book’ and make sure the government deficit equals our new savings, or they have to stay late and find their accounting mistake. As before, it’s just a bunch of spread sheet entries on the government’s own spreadsheet. When the accountants debit (subtract from) the account called ‘government’ when government spends, they also credit (add to) the accounts of whoever gets those funds. When the government account goes down, some other account goes up by exactly the same amount. Yes, it’s that simple. In July 1999 the front page of the Wall St. Journal had two headlines. On the left was a headline praising the record government budget surplus, and explaining how well fiscal policy was working. On the right margin was a headline that said Americans weren’t saving enough and we had to work harder to save more. Then a few pages later there was a graph with one line showing the surplus going up, and another line showing savings going down. They were identical, but going in opposite directions, and clearly showing the gains in the government surplus roughly equaled the losses in private savings. There can’t be a budget surplus with private savings increasing (including nonresident savings of USD financial assets). There is no such thing, yet not a single mainstream economist or government official had it right. So watch this year as the federal deficit goes up and savings goes up. Again, the only source of ‘net USD monetary savings’ (financial assets) for the non government sectors combined (both residents and non residents) is US government deficit spending. And watch how the same people who want us to save more at the same time want to ‘balance the budget’ by taking away our savings, either through spending cuts or tax increases. They are all talking out of both sides of their mouths. They are part of the problem, not part of the answer. And at the very highest levels. Innocent Fraud #4 Social Security is broken Fact:Government Checks Don’t Bounce If there is one thing all members of Congress believe is that social security is broken. President elect Obama says ‘the money won’t be there’, President Bush used the word bankruptcy four times in one day, and Senator McCain says social security is broken. They are all wrong. And one of the major discussions is whether or not to privatize social security. That entire discussion, too, makes no sense whatsoever, so let me begin with that and then move on. The idea of privatization is that the social security tax and benefits are reduced and instead the amount of the tax reduction is used to buy specified shares of stock. And because the government is going to collect that much less in taxes the budget deficit will be that much higher, and so the government will have to sell that many more Treasury securities to ‘pay for it all’ (as they say). Got it? They take less each week from your pay check for social security and you get to use the funds you save to buy stocks. You later will collect a bit less in social security payments when you retire, but you will own stocks that will hopefully become worth more than the social security payments you gave up. From the point of view of the individual it looks like an interesting trade off. The stocks you buy only have to go up modestly over time for you to be quite a bit ahead. Those who favor this plan say yes, it’s a relatively large ‘one time’ addition to the deficit, but the savings in social security payments down the road for the government pretty much make up for that, and the payments going into the stock market will help the economy grow and prosper. Those against the proposal say the stock market is too risky for this type of thing, and point to the large drop in 2008 as an example. And if people lose in the stock market the government will be compelled to increase social security retirement payments to keep them out of poverty. Therefore, unless we want to risk a high percentage of our seniors falling below the poverty line, government is taking all the risk. They are both terribly wrong. The major flaw in this main stream dialogue is what is called a ‘fallacy of composition’, The typical textbook example of a fallacy of composition is the football game where you can see better if you stand up, and then conclude that everyone could see better if they only stood up. Wrong! They all are looking at what is called the micro level for the individual social security participants rather than looking at the macro level which includes the entire population. To understand what’s fundamentally wrong at the macro (big picture, top down) level, you first have to understand that participating in social security is functionally the same as buying a government bond. With the current social security program you give the government your dollars now and it gives you back dollars later. That is exactly what happens when you buy a government bond. You give the government your dollars now and you get dollars back later. Yes, one might turn out to be a better investment and give you a higher return, but apart from the rate of return, each is the same. Now that you know this, you are way ahead of Congress, by the way. And now you are ready to read about the conversation of several years back I had with Steve Moore, then head of CATO, now a CNBC regular, and one of the first to advocate privatizing Social Security. Steve came down to speak about social security at one of my conferences in Florida. He gave his talk that went much like I just stated- by letting people put their money in the stock market rather than making social security payments they will better off over time when they retire, and the one time increase in the government budget deficit will be both well worth it and probably paid down over time in the expansion to follow, as all that money going into stocks will help the economy grow and prosper. At that point I led off the question and answer session. Me: “Steve, giving the government money now in the form of social security taxes, and getting it back later is functionally the same as buying a government bond, where you give the government money now and it gives it back to you later. The only difference is the return”. Steve: “OK, but with government you should get a higher return than with Social Security which only pays your money back at 2% interest. Social Security is a bad investment for individuals”. Me: “OK, I’ll get to the investment aspect later, but let me continue. Under your privatization proposal, the government would reduce Social Security payments and the employees would put that money into the stock market”. Steve: “Yes, about $100 per month, and only into approved, high quality stocks”. Me: “OK, and the US Treasury would have to issue and sell additional securities to cover the reduced revenues”. Steve: “Yes, and it would also be reducing social security payments down the road”. Me: “Right. So to continue with my point, the employees buying the stock buy them from someone else, so all the stocks do is change hands. No new money goes into the economy”. Steve: “Right”. Me: “And the people who sold the stock then have the money from the sale which is the money that buys the government bonds”. Steve: “Yes, you can think of it that way”. Me: “So what’s happened is the employees stopped buying into social security, which we agree is functionally the same as a government bond, and instead bought stocks. And other people sold their stocks and bought the newly issued government bonds. So looking at it from the macro level, nothing of substance has changed? All that happened is some stocks changed hands, and some bonds changed hands. Total stocks outstanding and total bonds outstanding, if you count social security as a bond, remained about the same. And so this should have no influence on the economy, or total savings, or anything else apart from generating transactions costs?” Steve: “Yes, I suppose you can look at it that way, but I look at it as privatizing, and I believe people can invest their money better than government can”. Me: “Ok, but you agree the amount of stocks held by the public hasn’t changed, so with this proposal nothing changes for the economy as a whole”. Steve: “But it does change things for Social Security participants”. Me: “Yes, with exactly the opposite change for others. And none of this has even been discussed by Congress or any mainstream economist? It seems you have an ideological bias towards privatization rhetoric, rather than the substance of the proposal”. Steve: “I like it because I believe in privatization- I believe that you can invest your money better than government can”. I’ll let Steve have the last word here. The proposal in no way changes the number of shares of stock or which stocks that the American public would hold for investment. So at the macro level it is not the case of allowing the nation to ‘invest better than the government can’. And Steve knows that, but it doesn’t matter, and he continues to peddle the same illogical story that he knows is illogical. And he gets no criticism from the media apart from the discussion as to whether stocks are a better investment than social security, and whether the bonds the government has to sell will take away savings that could be used for investment, and whether the government risks its solvency by going even deeper into debt. See how the deadly innocent frauds continuously compound and obscure any chance for legitimate analysis? And it gets worse yet. The ‘intergenerational’ story continues with something like this: “The problem is that 30 years from the there will be a lot more retired people and proportionately fewer workers. [that part’s ok] and the Social Security trust fund will run out of money [silly, but they believe it], so to solve the problem we need to figure out a way to be able to provide seniors with enough money to pay for the goods and services they need”. With that last statement they assume that real problem of fewer workers and more retirees, which is also known as the dependency ratio, can be ‘solved’ by making sure the retirees have sufficient funds to buy what they need. The real problem is, however, if the remaining workers aren’t sufficiently productive there will be a general shortage of goods and services and more ‘money to spend’ will only drive up prices, and not somehow create more goods and services. The story deteriorates further as it continues: “Therefore, government needs to cut spending or increase taxes today, to accumulate the funds for tomorrow’s expenditures”. And it gets even worse. Any mainstream economist will agree that there pretty much isn’t anything in the way of real goods we can produce today that will be useful 50 years from now. They go on to say that the only thing we can do for our descendants that far into the future is to do our best to make sure that they have the knowledge and technology to help them meet their future demands. So the final irony is that in order to somehow ‘save’ public funds for the future, what we do is cut back on expenditures today, which does nothing but set our economy back and cause the growth of output and employment declines. And, for the final ‘worse yet’ the great irony is that the first thing we cut back on is education- the one thing the mainstream agrees we can actually do that actually helps our children down the road. Should our policy makers ever actually get a handle on how the monetary system functions, they would understand that we can pay seniors whatever we want regardless of what the balance in the Social Security trust fund happens to be. They would realize the issue is equity, and possibly inflation, but never government solvency. They would realize that if they want seniors to have more income, it’s a simple matter of raising benefits. If they are concerned about the future, they would support the education they thought would be most valuable for that purpose. But they don’t understand so they won’t see it that way until they do understand, as the deadly innocent fraud of Social Security takes its toll. Innocent Fraud #5 Trade deficits are detrimental. Facts:Trade deficits directly improve our standard of living. By now you might suspect that, once again, the mainstream has it all backwards, including the trade issue. To get on track with the trade issue, always remember this: In economics, unlike religion, it’s better to receive than to give. Likewise: Imports are real benefits. Exports are real costs. In other words, going to work to produce real goods and services to export to someone else to consume, does you no good at all. Unless you get to import and consume the real goods and services they produce in return. And also remember: The real wealth of a nation is all it produces, plus all it imports, minus what it must export. And, therefore, a trade deficit increases our real standard of living. How can it be any other way? And the higher the trade deficit the better! Yes, the mainstream economists, politicians, and media all have the trade issue completely backwards. Sad but true. To further make the point, if general McArthur had proclaimed after WWII that since Japan had lost the war, they would be required to send the US 2 million cars a year and get nothing in return, the result would have been a major international uproar about US exploitation of conquered enemies. We would have been accused of fostering a repeat of the aftermath of WWI, where the allies demanded reparations from Germany that were presumably so high and exploitative they caused WWII. Yet for over 50 years, Japan has in fact been sending us about 2 million cars per year, and we have been sending them little or nothing. And, surprisingly (?) they think this means they are winning, and we think we are losing. Same with China- they think they are winning because they keep our stores full of products and get nothing in return. And our leaders agree and think we are losing. This is madness on a grand scheme! Now take a fresh look at the headlines and commentary we see and hear daily: The US is suffering from a trade deficit. The trade deficit is an UNSUSTAINABLE IMBALANCE. The US is LOSING JOBS to China. Like a drunken sailor, we are borrowing from abroad to fund our spending habits. It is all wrong. We are benefiting IMMENSELY from the trade deficit. The rest of the world has been sending us hundreds of $billion worth of real goods and services more than we send them, which they get to produce and export, and we get to import and consume. Is this an unsustainable imbalance? Why would it be? As long as they want to send us goods and services without demanding any goods and services in return, why should we not be able to take them? There is no reason, except a complete misunderstanding of our monetary system by our leaders. Recall from the previous innocent frauds, the US can ALWAYS support domestic output and employment with fiscal policy- even when China, or any other nation, decides to send us real goods and services that displace our industries previously doing that work. All we have to do is keep American spending power high enough to be able to buy BOTH what foreigners want to sell us AND all the goods and services we can produce as ourselves. Yes, jobs may be lost in one or more industries, but with the right fiscal policy there will be sufficient domestic spending power to be able to employ those willing and able to work producing other goods and services for our consumption. In fact, up until recently unemployment remained relatively low even as our trade deficit went ever higher. So what about all the noise about the US borrowing from abroad like drunken sailor to fund our spending habits? Also not true! Here’s what’s really going on: Domestic credit is funding foreign savings What does this mean? Let’s look at an example of a typical transaction. Assume you live in the US and decide to buy a car made in Germany. You got to a US bank, get accepted for a loan, and spend the funds on the car. So where do things then stand? You exchanged the borrowed funds for the car, the German car company has a deposit in the bank, and the bank has a loan to you and a deposit belonging to the German car company on their books. You would rather have the car than the funds, or you would not have bought it. The German company would rather have the funds than the car, or they would not have sold it. The banks wants loans and deposits, or they wouldn’t have made the loan. Where is the imbalance? The bank has a loan and a deposit, so they are in balance. The German car company has the $US deposit they want, so they are in balance, and you have the car you want and a car payment you agreed to, so you are happy as well. So there is no imbalance. Everyone is happy with what they have at that point in time. And the bank loan has funded the German desire to hold a USD deposit at the bank. Where’s the ‘foreign capital’? There isn’t any. The entire notion is inapplicable. Domestic credit funds foreign savings. We are not dependent on foreign savings for funding anything. Nor can we be.

t felt strange not to start breakfast, hurry the others out of bed to catch the bus. But here he sat, snuggled with Dylan on the couch with early sunlight filtering through the living room window. Matt moved the infant to the carrier, stood up to stretch his legs and let out a full-bodied yawn. What a night, he thought, taking the carrier with him to the kitchen to stare at the note tacked to the fridge. He needed to call Ethan and Cassie's schools, let them know the Taylors wouldn't be coming in today. Then he needed to tell Ethan and Cassie they wouldn't be going, and why. Maybe he should have gotten more sleep, he decided, going back to the living room to use the telephone for the second time that morning. As if he could sleep with all this going on. Cassie padded into the living room just as Matt got off the phone. She went straight to the carrier, her sleepy eyes brightening at the sight of their new brother. "Yeah, I guess." Matt scratched the back of his neck, glanced at the clock. "Get dressed, will you, Cass? I'd like to leave in the next hour." "I thought you didn't work Mondays." "I don't. We're going to Beth's house for breakfast." At once, Cassie straightened, her face thoughtful and sober. "What about school?" "I called and let them know you and Ethan won't be coming in today." Cassie blinked, turned to gaze at Dylan with such heartfelt longing, Matt understood how much she wanted to keep their brother. "Nothing's settled, Cass. Beth and I want this family to talk about it, and see what everyone thinks." "Oh, Matty." Cassie's blue eyes held a sheen of tears. "I'd live in a cardboard box, if it meant we could keep him." "You won't have to-- not with the nice house Beth has. Hey, you're not going to start crying, are you?" With a deep sigh, Matt went to his little sister and gave her a gentle squeeze. "There's no reason to be frightened. Beth is trying very hard to make this work." "What if she finds out she doesn't like us, Matty? What if she changes her mind, and we have to give up Dylan?" The string of what-ifs piled into Matt's mind, burdening his heart until he had no choice but to throw them off. "If Beth hadn't spoken up when she did, we'd have already lost Dylan. We just have to wait and see what happens, Cass. But don't worry, God will take care of us." "You always say that." "Well, He always does, doesn't He?" "I suppose." Cassie gave a noncommittal sniff. The tears for the most part subsided, she went to change out of her pajamas. Matt took the carrier into the boys' bedroom, tugged the window shade and let it snap open to announce that morning had arrived. Almost at once, groans of protest filled the room. "C'mon guys," Matt pulled at the blanket covering Ethan and Ryan, "you got to sleep in late this morning, and now it's time to get up." "Oh, yes, you are. Now get up, before I haul you out of bed. You too, Ryan. C'mon, guys-- she's making breakfast for us." Heavy sleep blinked in Ryan's eyes and even the mention of food did little to wake him. Matt lifted Ryan from the bed, pulled off Ryan's pajamas, then dressed his limp little body for the day. The entire lot of them, Dylan not included, showed up in the living room in shirts and jeans. Gone were the Sunday long sleeves and ties, the pink barrettes and lip-gloss. Cassie had pulled her short hair into an everyday ponytail, while Matt had simply run his fingers through his still wet hair in an effort to save time. In a show of defiance, Ethan pulled on a smelly black shirt as he entered the living room, then went to change when Matt pressed the issue to its natural conclusion. Change, or be left behind. No matter how much Ethan complained, drug his feet and gave nasty looks, Matt knew the last thing Ethan wanted was to be left out of the decision. Everyone dressed, fed, pottied and diaper changed, Matt loaded the family into the extended cab pickup. The small ones in the back, Ethan and Matt sat up front. Hair tucked beneath a blue bandana, and donned in old jeans and a garden nursery T-shirt, Beth worked the night through cleaning the house of dust and cobwebs. Necessity made it easier to force aside the guilt that squeezed her heart every time she moved through an area that held a vivid memory of Luke-- the books he had piled into the corner of the second master bedroom, the squeaky hinge he was always promising to fix. Vacuuming the hobby room felt surreal, knowing Luke's "guy space" might soon hold children, and those children, not Luke's. Beth cleaned around the books, avoided the squeaky bedroom door by leaving it open, and busied herself with work until exhaustion made the grief more bearable. They would be here soon. The family that wasn't Luke's, but might soon be hers. They would step into this house, and into the rooms that others used to call their own. Only the former owners couldn't object, because they were buried in a cemetery beneath a cold headstone that both father and son shared. Enough, Beth thought. She had to keep moving, keep scrubbing and cleaning so she wouldn't have time to think. The first rays of the morning sun spilled through the East facing windows, coaxing Beth to leave behind the cleaning and get into the kitchen. She had promised Matt that breakfast would be ready when they arrived, and she didn't want to let him down. With every window thrown open, a crisp New Mexico breeze moved through the house, filling it with an excitement Beth had never before remembered. It simply wasn't the fresh air, but something else even more tangible. Maybe it was hope, a second chance at life within a family, a life Beth had thought forever gone. It seemed odd to be preparing food for so many, but it felt good, as though she had a purpose to do some real cooking, and not just the quick meals she fixed for herself. With only one at the table, the work never seemed worth it. After setting the scrambled eggs to low flame on the stove, Beth prepared the waffle iron, the mix, and every strawberry she had left in the refrigerator. Since this meal had been a favorite with Caleb, Beth reasoned it might go over well with Ryan. She hoped it would. Did the other two Taylor boys like waffles? Beth's fingers trembled as she cut the few strawberries she had into thin slices, hoping there would be enough to go around. If she had been thinking with a mind untainted from the pungent fumes of the industrial strength bathroom cleaner, she should have gone to the store, picked up a few things more sure to make the boys happy. Beth hurried around the kitchen, trying not to think about the time. They would arrive any moment. The sound of a vehicle pulling up in front of the house, sent shivers down Beth's spine. If she had any spine left, after the bravery it had taken to clean the house in the presence of her family of ghosts. Luke and Caleb were in Heaven, but that morning, Beth felt they had descended to follow her every move, to watch as she turned her back on them by joining another family. Grief filled Beth as she wiped her hands on the apron tied about her waist. She had to stop thinking like that. Her heart belonged to Luke and Caleb. Surely, they knew that. The doorbell rang, and Beth drew in a long breath to purge herself from the uncertainty clinging to her heart. She moved to the front entry, put her hand on the doorknob and prayed. The door opened, and four young faces-- Matt's included-- greeted her with solemn "hellos" and restive glances. The baby carrier hung from Matt's hand, Dylan stirring with the slight motion and the sound of voices. Cassie and Ryan stuck to Matt's side like glue when Beth invited them inside. Ethan wore a perpetual scowl as he followed Matt into the house, then slumped against the wall and folded his arms as though he were there out of protest. "Hope we're not too early," Matt said. His gaze went to her head, and she could tell he did his best not to smile. Suddenly remembering the bandanna, Beth tugged it off. "I must look terrible," she said, glancing to the entryway mirror. A smudged face with glaring red hair tied into a messy braid, stared back at her. "After a night of house cleaning, the place is presentable, but I'm afraid I'm not." She looked away from the sorry reflection, back to the Taylors. "If everyone is ready, I'll serve the eggs and start making waffles." No reaction from Ryan, Beth thought with a dismal sigh. Oh, well. So much for that. She showed them past the kitchen, invited them into the dining area where she had set the table for breakfast. Her eyes traveled to the carrier as Matt placed it on the table. The infant was looking about, his dark eyes going from one object to another. Ryan claimed the chair on Matt's right, and Cassie took the one on Matt's left. The small boy kept looking to Matt for assurance, while Cassie seemed content to just stay next to Matt. In a show of I-don't-care, you-can't-intimidate-me, Ethan took a chair directly opposite the others. Despite the almost hostile looks from Ethan, Beth felt her heart beating easier. Seeing them had that effect on her. She went into the kitchen, returned with scrambled eggs and a pitcher of milk. "I hope everyone came hungry," she said, pouring Ryan and Cassie each a glass of milk while Ethan helped himself to the eggs. "I haven't made Belgian waffles in a long time. In our house, they were always considered something of a treat." Ryan looked at her with cautious curiosity. "What are waffles?" "Don't tell me you've never had Belgian waffles." Beth opened her mouth in surprise. "Fancy pancakes with powered sugar and strawberries? No? None of you? Well, you're all in for a surprise. My little boy couldn't get enough of them." As Beth went back to the kitchen for the coffee pot, she hoped she didn't betray undue astonishment. Never had waffles? Of course they required a waffle iron, some patience to keep up with fast eaters and hungry stomachs, but still, hadn't their mom ever done that for them? Such a simple thing, and yet, it made Beth wonder what else Eve had neglected to do for her own children. The cooking went at a steady pace, the children eating as fast as Beth could turn out waffles. After letting the younger ones go first, Matt gulped down waffles with maple syrup, strawberries and powdered sugar. He kept saying "Thank you," whenever Beth gave him more, so she continued to feed him until he at last gave a satisfied smile, and a "Thanks, but I couldn't hold another bite." Ryan ate with a large sloppy grin, a milk mustache perched over his mouth and syrup dabbled on his chin. More than once, Matt cleaned Ryan's face, and kept urging the boy to use his napkin. With full tummies, the Taylors seemed more relaxed than when they first arrived. When Dylan stirred in the carrier, Beth looked to Matt for permission. "Go ahead," Matt smiled. "You've been dying to ask ever since we set foot in this house." "My clothes are dirty," she warned, but when Matt only shrugged, Beth got to her feet and moved around the table to pick up Dylan. "Who's the cutie-pie?" she cooed to the baby. Gentle hands lifted Dylan and he reached out and grabbed her bottom lip with tiny fingers. Large, dark eyes followed her mouth as it moved. "Such a sweet boy," Beth sighed, hugging the baby to her shoulder. "Has he eaten?" Matt nodded. "I fed and changed him before we left." Feeling more sure of herself, Beth pressed forward. "Would you like to see the rest of the house?" In unison, the children looked to Matt. "Okay," he said, scooting back the chair as he rose. "I told them it's all right to ask questions, so you've been warned." With Dylan in her arms, Beth felt she could brave anything, even the four anxious faces that watched her closely as she talked about the house. "This used to be the home of a popular architect in the area," Beth said, showing them to the right side of the building. "His parents-in-law lived with him and his wife, so the layout sprawls out to the left and right, kind of like two separate houses, but with a common living room, dining area, and kitchen." As she talked, Ethan turned and looked through one of the three sets of glass double doors, lining the North wall of the adjoining dining area and living room, that offered a good view of the patio. Ethan jabbed Matt in the ribs, jerked his chin at the patio with an awed grin. Matt gave him a sharp warning look that even Beth couldn't ignore, then took a deep breath and continued to listen as she talked about the house. "There's two main wings and a master bedroom on each wing. This one, the one on the right, is my room." Beth invited the group inside to look around, then closed the door when Matt tugged at Ethan's arm to stay where he was. Beth moved on to the second bedroom on the right wing of the house. "This is-- I mean, was-- Caleb's room. I was thinking it might do well for the little ones, but then it occurred to me you might prefer to have the girls on one side of the house, and the boys on the other." Beth led them inside a neat single bedroom with soft blue walls and an empty crib by the window. "We could repaint the room to suit Cassie," Beth offered, leading them to the adjoining bathroom. They looked at the bathroom, the bedroom, then at each other. When Beth asked Cassie what she thought, Cassie smiled politely, but seemed at a loss for words. "Let's move to the left wing," Beth said, leading them through the dining area and living room, to the other side of the house. "This is the second master bedroom, the one the architect's in-laws used." Beth opened the door, showed Matt and his family inside. "I was thinking you might like this room, Matt. It has a master bath, of course, and you could be near the boys. The room next to this is the guest bedroom, and it has its own bathroom and a nice closet. I thought it would do for Ethan, and the hobby room beside that could be converted into a nursery for Ryan and Dylan." Looking intrigued, Ethan went to the glass double doors in the master bedroom and shoved them open, stepping out onto the small private patio that mirrored the one off Beth's room. "Hey, Matty, get a load of this." His face creasing in a conscious frown, Matt followed the teenager outside. Ryan stuck to Matt's side so hard, Matt finally lifted the boy into his arms, where the child seemed much more happy. With an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Beth coaxed Cassie onto the patio with the others. "That's a pecan tree," Beth said, nodding to the tree North of the private patio. Matt had already met that tree, having earlier buried Bailey beneath the shelter of its sturdy branches. Deciding not to mention that for Ryan's sake, as well as her own, Beth went on. "The see-through building to the right is a greenhouse, and then there's the tool shed, and then, of course, at the opposite end of the house is my patio." Beth moved down the patio steps from what she already considered as Matt's master bedroom, and onto the wide common patio that spanned between the two wings of the house. A Mexican-style breezeway traveled around the edge of the patio, while red brick paved the patio floor. The backyard had only nominal grass, for most of it was just dry dirt and gravel, but on the whole, Beth thought it didn't look too bad. "Well," Beth turned to Matt, each holding a little boy in their arms, "what do you think?" Matt blew out a heavy breath. "I don't know. It's all so... so big." "Luke had plans to remodel, and at first suggested we rent out some of the rooms--" Beth stopped, bit her lip to control the tremor in her voice. "I never wanted tenants, so Luke had his parents stay with us for part of the year. They move around a lot-- Luke's parents, I mean. After Luke died, they stopped visiting." Beth forced herself to swallow back the grief welling in her chest. "I'm afraid if we convert the hobby room into the boys' nursery, they won't have their own bathroom." Matt gave her an unconcerned smile. "They can use mine." "Is it all right if I look around on my own?" Ethan glanced to Matt, then Beth for permission. "Sure," Beth said, "but don't you have any questions for me, first?" "What's to ask?" Ethan shrugged. "You and Matty are getting married. I don't think it's a great deal for Matty, but me? I could get used to this." "Cass," Matt nodded to his sister, "would you take Ryan for a little while? I need to talk to Beth." With Cassie and Ryan tagging after Ethan, Matt called to them to stay near the house. "This place is amazing," Matt sighed, glancing about the patio, then through the double glass doors that looked back into the living room and dining area. "It's overwhelming. I don't know what to say." "Say 'yes,'" Beth smiled. Looking a bit skeptical, Matt turned to the private patio behind him, then at the one on the opposite end of the house. "Do you think it's enough distance between us?" "As long as we're careful, I think it'll be enough." Beth tried to sound as positive as she could, though she felt more uncertain than she sounded. "Right," Matt said with a drawn-out laugh. "You could be on the other side of New Mexico, and it not be far enough." The candid remark didn't surprise Beth as much as she thought it would. It didn't even shock her. Unnerve, yes, but she felt no shock. "What I said before-- about this marriage being in name only, still goes. But if anything happens to change that..." Beth bit her lip and felt herself blush at Matt's frank gaze. "We're going to need another talk before either of us does anything rash." "I'm not going to break down your bedroom door, Beth." "I didn't say you were." "I know where we stand," he insisted. "Don't worry, I won't do anything to change our agreement." "That's not what I meant, Matt." "Well, it's what I meant. You may have different ideas-- I don't know, and frankly, I don't want to know. I'm only staying here to raise the others, and to pay you back for your kindness." The Stetson had been left inside on the sofa, and Beth could easily see the dark eyes that flashed at her without concealment. "Don't try to get to know me any more than you already do, and don't wish yourself into my bed; I might not have the strength to turn you away, and then we'd both be sorry." In the shade of the breezeway over the patio, Beth cuddled Dylan closer. She felt as though she had been slapped, but in an odd twist, she could summon no anger or resentment. Matt had cut himself off, without any hope of even discussing the possibility of their relationship turning into something more precious. "Don't look at me like that," Matt leveled her a knowing glare. "I don't want your pity. All I want is what's best for the others. That's it." "All right, Matt. I won't talk about it any further." She patted Dylan's sleeper, then decided to take the infant into the house to give him his bottle. She had seen the diaper bag on the living room sofa, and started to open a patio door to go inside. "Beth." Matt called after her, and she turned to look at him. Never before did she feel so sorry for Matt, than she did at that moment. He thought so badly of himself, he refused to even consider his own happiness. "I didn't mean to bark at you." "You didn't," she said with a sigh in her voice. He swallowed, stared at the toes of his boots, then back at her. "The others need this to work, and I don't want to mess it up for them." "You haven't, Matt." He looked unsure. "You're giving up so much, and I have to jump down your throat." "Would you cut it out?" Beth offered him a smile which he accepted with only the faintest of half grins. "Stop beating yourself up. I'm not offended that you spoke your mind, and I think we understand each other well enough to do the next logical thing." "Which is?" "We need to get a marriage license." He scowled. "I thought you said logical." "Matt, a few moments ago you admitted the children needed this." "Yeah, yeah, I know." "We need a marriage license," she said, allowing the necessity of the situation to lend force to her words, "and we need to get married." "When?" "I was thinking later this afternoon, after the children have had a chance to voice any objections or concerns." Looking lost and more than a little bewildered, Matt let out a small groan. "Is it even possible to marry so soon? Isn't there a waiting period for the license or something?" "Do you need to wait, Matt?" "No, but isn't it the law?" "There's no waiting period in New Mexico. We can get the license and marry as soon as we want. And considering the things we need to set in motion to keep Dylan, why not today?" "Today." Matt sounded hesitant, but then his gaze shifted to the baby in her arms and he nodded in agreement. "You're sure about there not being any waiting period?" "I have a confession to make," Beth said, biting her lip and then wincing when she realized her lip had become sore. "Last night, I didn't only clean the house, I went online and did some research." "I see." A reluctant smile tugged at a corner of Matt's mouth. He took a deep breath, turned his head and watched the three children explore the back property. Matt's hair ruffled in the breeze with the look of a boy who wanted to play. Then his dark eyes turned on Beth, and the image of a child vanished-- but not so much, she still couldn't see the playful boy in those handsome features. "All right, Beth. I have to talk it over with the others, but I say let's do it." Not a very romantic way to put things, Beth thought, looking Matt over in his untucked shirt and faded jeans, but then, this wasn't supposed to be a romantic moment. Then why did a nervous-happy tingle insist on dancing its way to her heart? When he sighed, she couldn't help smiling. "Don't look so glum, Matt. You're not losing your bachelorhood, you're gaining a house with no mortgage and a roof that needs repairs." His brows went up in bemused delight. "No mortgage?" "See? You're interested." Smiling, she took Dylan inside, and left Matt on the patio to talk to his brothers and sister in private. Today. Matt thought it over, shut his eyes and prayed before talking to the others. He took in the farmland surrounding the property, the furrowed ground, the subtle smell of fertilizer that gave the definite impression of farm country. As Matt approached, he saw Ethan and Ryan crouched over an anthill, Ryan dipping a finger into the busy column before yanking it out with a shout of laughter. Cassie stood nearby, pushing the windblown hair from her eyes and waiting for nothing in particular. When Matt joined them, Ethan straightened and stared Matt in the eye. "Well?" Ethan asked. The irritation in the teenager's face annoyed Matt. "It's what you think it is. Unless you guys fight it, Beth and I are getting married." "I thought so." Ethan folded his arms. "Congratulations, I guess." "This is for the best, Ethan." "If you say so." Ethan turned to look at the anthill. "When's it going to be?" "Yeah, I guess it is," Matt caught the unspoken jolt of happiness from Cassie, "but Beth and I have a lot to get done before we can keep Dylan." The frown on Ethan's face deepened, but he said nothing. "Cass?" Matt addressed his sister. "Do you have anything you want to add before Beth and I go through with this? Like I said before, everyone in this family has to agree." "I agree," she said with a quick smile. The sentimental hope in Cassie's voice stopped Matt from probing further. Knowing Cassie, she was weaving romantic notions he would only have to deny. Much better to leave the whole thing alone, than to get tangled in pre-teen logic. "Ryan, what about you?" When the boy continued to play with the ants, Matt stood the four-year-old up and brushed the insects from his hand. "Ryan, Beth and I want to get married. Do you understand?" The small boy puzzled over the question, then his eyes grew wide. "Does that mean we get to stay here?" "Yes, but that's not what I'm asking you." With an impatient groan, Ethan tugged at Ryan's arm to get the boy's attention. "Ry, Beth is going to be your sister-in-law." "But I already have a sister," Ryan said, looking to Cassie in alarm. "You're going to get another one," Matt said, moving the boy's head to make sure he held Ryan's full attention. "I need to know what you think." "A sister!" Cassie gasped in unconcealed delight. "Oh, Matty!" Ryan frowned. "But I wanted a mommy." "Unless Beth tells you different, you'll have to make due with another sister. Cass, would you calm down?" "Calm down!" Ethan gave Cassie a hard nudge with his elbow, nearly knocking her sideways. The tension in the air pulled taut as Matt stared down his teenage brother. "What's gotten into you? You have a gripe, let's hear it." "Yeah, I got a gripe." Ethan squared his shoulders. "It's bad enough having one in the family telling me what to do, and now there's going to be two!" "Is that all?" Matt didn't want to press Ethan, but he had little choice. Beth had said today. "You told me yesterday that my religion was rubbing off on you. Is this how you show it?" Frustration balled Ethan's fists, but he didn't move. "What if she kicks us out, Matty? Have you ever thought of that? What if she decides she doesn't want us anymore?" "Beth isn't Mom." "But what if she is?" "Beth wouldn't do that to us. She's better than that." The fists at Ethan's side opened, his fingers flexed, his system working through the tension and fear. "Why can't we just take Dylan and leave town? Go someplace they don't know us, and we tell everyone that Dylan is your kid. No one would bother us, then." "I can't leave my job." "You'd find another." "How do you know?" "You're the one always claiming God is looking after us. Let Him worry about it." "God is looking after us, and I can prove it. He sent Beth." Chest heaving, Ethan stared at Matt with a fear Matt understood. They would be placing a great deal of trust in one person, and if things didn't work out, the consequences would be high. "Do you really believe that?" Ethan asked. "Do you really trust her?" "I do." Matt forced himself to swallow. Make that two people; he was asking them to not only trust Beth, but to also trust him that this was the right decision. Matt prayed for wisdom, and felt God pushing him forward when Ethan's fists relaxed. Eyes still wary, but now a little more trusting, Ethan backed down with a nod of cautious agreement. "Okay. My vote is yes." Seated on one of the living room sofas, with Dylan snuggled in her arm and nursing on a bottle, Beth heard a patio door open behind her. She looked up as Matt and the other children filed inside. "We've got the go-ahead," Matt said, shoving his hands into his pockets while a beaming Cassie settled on the sofa beside Beth. "I guess I'm ready when you are." "Dylan is almost finished," Beth said, noting the difference between Matt and Ethan's sober expressions, and that of smiling Cassie's. "Are you all sure? Once Matt and I do this, it won't be easy to undo." A grunting, "I've got a question," came from Ethan as he dropped into the sofa next to hers. "What if Mom won't give us Dylan, after all? What then?" Taking time to think the question over, Beth removed Dylan's bottle, then moved the newborn to her shoulder for an after meal burp. "I want to be a part of this family for as long as you want me." "Which means?" Ethan asked. "It means," Beth paused, choosing her words with careful consideration, "this will be your home for as long as you want it, whether Dylan is here, or not. This arrangement isn't just for the baby, but for everyone." "But if Dylan wasn't in the picture, this wouldn't be happening, right?" "Yes, that's probably true." A small burp sounded in her ear, and Beth lifted the baby back into the carrier. She turned to face Ethan and the others. "I admit Dylan is the primary excuse for this arrangement, but he's not my only excuse. To be honest, I don't want to live by myself. I want to belong again, to be really needed by someone besides employees and bill collectors. Perhaps you think it was selfish of me for proposing to Matt the way I did, but I keep telling myself that I won't be the only one to benefit. If you choose, Ethan, you could go to college. I can't promise it will be an Ivy League education, but I'll do everything I can to help you get into the best school we can afford." "We?" Ethan slumped back on the sofa. He slanted a look at Matt, who remained quiet and standing. "Just for the record, no one bought my vote. I didn't say 'yes,' so I could get anything out of this, but Dylan." Beth smiled. "I appreciate your honesty." The suspicious gleam in Ethan's eye didn't fade, but he held his skepticism at bay. He said nothing as Ryan climbed onto the sofa and asked to hold the baby. "Matt?" Beth offered Dylan to the oldest brother, and he stepped forward to accept the bundle. "I'll let you decide what to do about Ryan. Right now, I need to shower and get changed for the wedding." The baby cradled in his arm, Matt looked Beth over. "Do you want me to go home and change into my Sunday clothes? We're going to look kind of silly, you all dressed up and me in my shirt and jeans." "Please, Matt," she moved to her feet, and he stepped back to give her room. "I don't want to get married looking like this. I've been up since two, maybe even earlier-- I can't remember-- I'm covered in dust and grime, my nails are filthy and so is my face. And besides that, I smell." "You look fine to me," Matt said, nodding to Ryan as the boy tugged at his shirt to hold the baby. "Shower if you want, but I was only saying, we're going to look lopsided if you get dressed up and I don't." "Please, Matt." He grinned. "I take it, you want me to change. All right, Beth, if that's what you want. Ethan, Cassie-- watch the little ones while I go home and get ready." "Can I hold the baby?" Ryan directed the question to Cassie when she stood up to take Dylan from Matt. "I'm getting hungry," Ethan said, checking his watch and groaning at the lateness of the day. "It's almost noon." "Help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen," Beth called out before disappearing into her bedroom. She had a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it in. Today, she was getting married. Beth only hoped Luke didn't mind. The drive home passed quicker than Matt thought it would, his mind somewhat dazed by what was happening. He jogged to his room, picked Sunday's clothes out of the hamper, then twisted on the shower. If Beth wanted things to be a little special, then so be it. She wouldn't be getting a big wedding, or anything nice, so if she wanted the groom to be at least presentable, Matt could hardly blame her. The groom, Matt thought in numb wonderment. What in the world was he doing? And what would Pastor Mark say, when they showed up to ask for an impromptu marriage ceremony in a small corner of the church? He'd probably talk them out of it, or at least try to. After all the talking they'd done to get themselves into this situation, to find the courage and actually go through with the marriage, Matt wasn't so sure he wanted the added challenge of convincing his pastor that this was what God wanted. Someone was going to a lot of trouble to keep this family together, and if it wasn't God, Matt didn't know who. Not even Beth, in all her loneliness, could orchestrate these special circumstances to fall out the way they did. And after taking into account the studying he had done early that morning, combing God's Word for wisdom and direction, Matt felt more sure than ever that he understood God's will. In all probability, Pastor Mark wouldn't see it that way, but Matt sure did. In ten minutes flat, Matt had showered and dressed. As he tucked the long sleeved shirt into Sunday's blue jeans, he wondered if he should kiss Beth. At the end of weddings, the guy was supposed to kiss his wife, wasn't he? Just because there wasn't going to be a honeymoon, didn't mean he couldn't kiss her, did it? Pastor Mark would expect a kiss, and so would everyone else. The alternative flashed through Matt's mind, and he pictured himself shaking Beth's hand after the ceremony. Nope, Matt needed to kiss her. Perhaps just a peck on the cheek? He frowned as he grabbed his keys, locked the front door, then hurried back to the pickup. Maybe the direct approach would be best-- smack on the lips. Oh yeah, Matt thought, he could do that. For a few dazzling moments, he imagined what that kiss would be like, how it would feel to have her close. Reality tumbled Matt back to his senses, or what was left of them after his fantasy lifted. Disappointment pulled at him as he remembered he had to live within the boundaries of their agreement. Kisses were dangerous-- Matt knew it, understood it without question, and yet, this was their wedding. If an exception could ever be found, surely today would be the occasion. Just once, he decided, tensing his hands around the steering wheel as he headed back to Beth's house. Just this one time, he would relax his guard and kiss Beth. A grinning idiot caught his attention in the rearview mirror, and Matt decided to ignore him. He needed to be happy, to let whatever joy existed in the moment, carry over to help pacify future disappointments. A marriage of convenience. Beth had all but called it that when she talked to Ethan, and it made sense to Matt. Was this a fair exchange? Right now, despite the sacrifice of not being able to marry for outright love, Matt felt as though he and the children were getting the better end of the bargain. Except, of course, for that painful line drawn at Beth's bedroom door-- the door he promised not to break down. "I have totally lost it," Matt breathed. "But crazy or not, I want that wedding kiss." Wrapped in a bathrobe, Beth inspected the walk-in-closet and tried to picture herself getting married in one of those dresses. A knock at the bedroom door had her shouting to ask who it was. "It's me-- Cassie." "Come in, Cassie. I'm in the closet." When the young girl came to where Beth stood at the racks of clothes, Beth gave her a smile. "I'm afraid I'm not ready yet. Is Matt back?" With a shy nod of her head, Cassie leaned against the closet door. "He's in the kitchen with Ethan and Ryan, making peanut butter sandwiches. I hope that's okay." "There was better than peanut butter in the pantry, but it's all right with me. I told them to help themselves, and that goes for you, too." Cassie shrugged. "I'm not hungry." With a small laugh, Beth resumed the dress hunt. "Leave it to a man to eat on the verge of making a life-changing commitment. Oh, well, maybe you can help me make a decision of my own. I can't decide what to wear to the wedding." The words sounded surreal to Beth's ears, prompting a quick pinch to the arm to ensure she wasn't dreaming. "Beth?" Cassie tilted her pretty blonde head to one side. "Can I ask you a question?" Somewhat alarmed by the serious tone of the request, Beth nodded to Cassie. "Ask away." "Matty said you're going to be my sister. Is that true?" Feeling more relieved then she realized, Beth blew out a small sigh. Of all the questions Cassie could asked, that one seemed safe. "Technically, I'll be your sister-in-law, but if you like, I have no problem considering you as my sister." It warmed Beth's heart to see the delicate smile on Cassie's face, the way the girl stepped forward to give Beth a heartfelt hug. "You're a sweet girl, Cassie. Thank you." "I'm so happy," Cassie said, brushing the tears from her eyes. "I've wanted a sister for so long..." "Now, now," Beth hugged the girl in the hopes of calming her down. She had seen the way Matt handled Cassie with great gentleness, and endeavored to do the same. "Try to dry your tears, Sweetheart. I think I understand. I have an older brother and a younger sister, and I can't imagine not having them around when I was growing up." Cassie dried the tears and gave Beth such a sincere smile, Beth had to hug her once more before letting go. "Aren't you still close with your brother and sister?" "Not especially." Beth turned to face the dresses instead of the question. "Why not?" Cassie asked, coming to Beth's side to stare at the same racks of clothes. "Oh, many reasons, I suppose. They're both doctors, with successful careers and growing families. It's difficult for us to keep in touch, and when I'm around them, I often feel left out." Beth startled at her own honesty. She had yet to really admit that to herself, let alone to Cassie. "You feel left out because your husband and little boy died?" "Yes, I think that's true." The admission caused Beth pain, and she squeezed her lips together to stop from saying more. With Cassie's help, Beth chose a soft gray, one-piece dress with long sleeves, matching high heels, and an elegant string of white pearls to wear at her throat. She put her hair up in an elegant French twist, applied makeup, added a touch of perfume, then announced she was ready to go. What on earth was Beth doing in there? How long did it take a person to shower and change? His lunch eaten over an hour ago, Matt and the others waited on the living room sofas for something to happen. And then it did. Beth and Cassie came into the room, and Matt couldn't take his eyes off of Beth. She had that flaming red hair fixed in a fancy braid again, and a gray dress fitted over her slender curves. "Well?" Beth asked. "What do you think?" When Matt tried to swallow, his mouth felt as dry as New Mexico's famous white sands. "I-- I think you look fine." "I'll take that as a compliment," Beth said with a smile. She placed her purse on the coffee table. "I've been thinking it over, and before we leave for the county clerk's office to get our marriage license, we need to make two calls. First, we should call our pastor and ask if he's available to preside over the wedding ceremony. Second, I need to call my parents and let them know what I'm about to do." Pulling out his cell phone, Matt stepped into the dining area and speed-dialed his pastor's number. Matt already had a good idea of what the man would say, and tried to brace himself for the impending conversation. When Matt discovered Pastor Mark's cell phone wasn't turned on, Matt couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. They could always find someone else to marry them. Then Matt thought of trying Pastor Mark's home number, and he dutifully made the call. When an answering machine announced Pastor Mark wasn't home, Matt decided to hang up without leaving a message. There would be plenty of time to talk to him later. Tucking the cell phone back into his hip pocket, Matt went to the other side of the open space, and waited for Beth. Through the glass doors, he could see her outside on the patio, an expensive looking cell phone pressed to a lovely ear. Her eyes trained on the red bricks, then turned upward. She shook her head, folded away the phone. When she stepped into the living room, he saw the bright smile on her lips. "Mom and Dad weren't home. All I got was an answering machine, so I suppose I'll have to let them know after the fact, instead of before." "Did you try their cellphones?" In all good conscience, Matt had to ask. If Beth could be talked out of this marriage, it would be better to get it over with now. A smile curved Beth's lips. "They don't carry phones." "Did you try your brother, your sister?" Beth shrugged. "I'll tell them later. What about Pastor Mark? What did he have to say about our plans?" "He wasn't home." "Did you try his cell phone?" "It wasn't on." "Did you leave any messages?" "Did you leave a message with your parents?" The two stared at each other, and Matt knew she hadn't. He had to chuckle in spite of himself. "If we're about to make a tragic mistake, no one is home to stop us." "Do you think we're making a tragic mistake?" "No, I don't." "Then let's go get married." It sounded reasonable enough, though Matt wasn't sure how reasonable he felt when everyone went outside to his pickup truck and there wasn't room for Beth-- not with Dylan's carrier in the backseat. Driving her sedan, Beth led the way to the Doña Ana County Clerk's office in Las Cruces, while Matt and the others followed in his pickup. Matt didn't remember getting out, unstrapping the baby carrier, following Beth into the building with his brothers and sister close on his heels. Ethan had to help him remember his address when it came time to fill out the paperwork, and when it came down to it, Matt couldn't even remember his middle name. It was Logan. With no blood test, no physical exams, and no waiting period, Matt and Beth soon left the office with their marriage license. He blinked at her, and she took a deep breath. "Does this mean you guys are married?" Cassie wondered out loud. "No, now we need someone to actually preside over a wedding ceremony." Beth dialed information on her cell phone. When she hung up, her face was sober. "There's no Justice of the Peace in Las Cruces. It looks as though we're going to need a licensed minister." "His cell phone isn't on, Beth. I tried." "Try again. Unless you know of someone else, we need Pastor Mark." "I don't think he'll do it." "You could always ask. If you're too afraid, I'll make the call." "I never said anything about being afraid." Scowling at Beth, Matt pulled out his phone. "His cell phone is off, and he's not at home. It's just that simple." "But you didn't even leave him a message." "Hey, I didn't see you tying up your parents' answering machine." That silenced her. Biting her lip again, Beth's absent fingers toyed with the strand of pearls about her neck in an unusual show of nerves. Finally, a crack in the porcelain doll. Matt swallowed any satisfaction he had at knowing she was just as nervous as he was, and tried Pastor Mark's cell phone number again. If they both were this nervous just calling up their pastor, how would they ever make it through the ceremony? That is, if Pastor Mark ever let them get that far. To Matt's reluctant relief, the call answered. "What can I do for you, Matt?" Pastor Mark asked in his usual upbeat voice. Turning his back so Beth couldn't see any fear, Matt took a deep breath and summoned courage he didn't know he had. "I was wondering if you'd do me a big favor." "Name it. Are you short on rent money again?" Matt took a quick glance at Beth in her soft gray dress, classy high heels, and observed her attentive expression. She was listening to every word Matt said. "No, I don't need any money. I was wondering if you'd be willing to marry me and Beth." There, he had said it. Matt rubbed the back of his neck, grateful the moment was over. Relief turned back to raw nerves when Pastor Mark fired a string of rapid questions at Matt. "Marry? You? I didn't even know you were dating. Who is Beth? Have I met her?" "You know Beth-- Beth Carter, the woman who comes to our church. She and I want to get married. We have the marriage license, but now we need someone to make it official." "I'm sorry, Matt, I need to sit down. Am I hearing you correct? You... and Beth Carter? The same Beth Carter who owns and operates the garden nursery downtown? Your boss?" "Yeah, that's the one," Matt shifted in his boots, unsure how to take his pastor's incredulity. "And you proposed to her?" "Pastor Mark, Beth and I want to get married. Is that so hard to accept?" The minister gave an audible sigh. "I suppose this is more of a shock than it should be. I knew you and she were getting to be good friends-- you were confiding in her, that much I knew-- and I admit to entertaining a thought about that developing into something more. But your call stuns me, Matt. I never considered it seriously, and especially not so soon after you two met. What date have you set for the wedding?" Matt gulped. "Today." "Today? What's the rush? Is someone in trouble?" "I suppose, in a way, someone is in trouble. But it's not what you think, Pastor Mark. Beth isn't pregnant, but there is a baby involved." Doing his best to stay calm, Matt explained the situation to the bewildered minister, not holding anything back or the fact it would be a marriage in name only. When it was over, Pastor Mark gave an audible sigh. "I see," the minister said after another long pause. "Have you and Beth given this prayerful thought? Have you asked God what He wants you to do?" "I'll pass the phone to Beth, so you can talk to her yourself, but I've asked God for help, and He answered. I've prayed and read my Bible, and talked it over with the others. Beth and I are dead serious about this." "Matt, I'll be honest with you. I have grave reservations about this arrangement. You say it's a platonic relationship, but you'll be living together in the same house." Indignant, Matt forgot he had an audience and his voice rose several notches. "If I say Beth and I won't have sex, then we won't have sex! I'd never lie to you about that!" "Don't be offended, Matt. I trust your sincerity, but I need time to think this over. Please pass the phone to Beth." Matt turned to see Beth staring at him, her lips parted in waiting anticipation. "He wants to talk to you," Matt said, shoving the cell phone into her hand. He took a few steps back, paced and watched Beth's face as she spoke to the pastor. Beth nodded. "Yes, we're serious." Feeling a burst of self-conscious awareness, Matt turned to see Ethan with the baby carrier, Cassie and Ryan rooted quietly at Ethan's side. "I didn't say a word," Ethan grinned. The phone passed back to Matt, and Pastor Mark told him to bring everyone to the church office. They needed to talk things over before any decisions could be made. Somewhat over the hill of middle-aged life, Pastor Mark had a full head of salt and pepper hair, a stomach that bulged (though he was losing weight with the help of the Lord), and lines that creased his face more and more over the years. When Beth saw him sitting behind the desk in the church office, she wondered if he looked older than his years because of the challenging situations his congregation got themselves into. With that patient greeting and tired smile, he looked as though he were yet again being tested by God through the people to whom he ministered. When the pastor spoke, however, it wasn't weariness in his voice, but caution. "I've been sitting here, thinking and praying over your plans. I want you to be aware that when you both take these vows, in the sight of God, myself, and everyone else, you two will be married. Though it's in name only, this will mean a sacred, lasting commitment." "But what if we choose to have our marriage annulled in twenty or thirty years?" Beth asked. With a low groan, the patient, tired lines on Pastor Mark's face deepened. "In all honesty, do you expect people to believe the marriage has never been consummated in all those years? It's a lot to ask of anyone. What I suggest is this: enter into the marriage with the sincere intention of staying together, abstain from sex if you both so choose, but don't be surprised when people refuse to believe your relationship is platonic. Truly, as long as they know you're both in this for the long haul, it doesn't really matter what they think. You're married, and what you choose to do, or not do, is your business. To a certain extent, you'd also be safe-proofing your marriage by not placing undue temptation in each other's way. Keep the marriage in name only, but make the marriage last. It's the best advice I have to offer." Beth nodded. "Matt and I need to talk this over." "What's to talk about?" Matt asked. "Unless you tell me you want out, I say we go for it." "Are you sure, Matt? You'd be making a serious commitment without love." "So? You'd be doing the same thing." "This is big, Matt. Very big." "No offense to you, Beth, but I don't have much of a choice. It's either give up Dylan, or go through with the marriage." "In name only?" she asked. "Yup," he nodded, "name only." "Okay," Beth sighed, turning back to Pastor Mark, "we agree to make the commitment." The pastor looked at each with a steady gaze, then closed his eyes as though in prayerful thought. "Matt, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I've been petitioning God to give you a helpmeet to share in your burdens." "You have?" Matt looked surprised. "I wish you'd told me that sooner. God might have worked things out differently if I had put a stop to those prayers." His eyes opening, Pastor Mark smiled for the first time since their arrival. "Just as God called you away from drugs for a purpose, I believe all things will continue to work together for your good. Never underestimate Romans eight, twenty-eight." He remained silent a few moments, then beamed at the carrier hanging from Matt's hand. "What a tiny newborn. May I hold him?" With a smiling shrug, Matt placed the carrier on the office desk, then scooped out a blinking Dylan with both hands. Matt lifted the infant into Pastor Mark's awaiting arms. "He has my Mom's eyes, and the rest I guess I have to credit to Wade." "God must surely get the credit for such a child as this," the pastor said with marked tenderness in his voice. "So this is the reason two people are forever changing their lives. Such a small person, making such a great change." Pastor Mark looked up, smiled first at Matt, then Beth. "It would be my privilege to marry you." Fifteen minutes after calling the needed witnesses for the ceremony, (Pastor Mark's wife and a next door neighbor), the two volunteers arrived in a hurried bustle of congratulations and apologies for being late. They admired the baby for several moments, prolonging Beth's nervousness over the life-altering commitment she was about to make. Matt looked patient but eager to get it over with, and after assembling everyone in the office in their proper places, Cassie as maid of honor and Ethan as best man, Pastor Mark began the ceremony while Dylan fussed in the pastor's wife's arms. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony..." Beth felt her palms grow moist as she listened to the words. When Pastor Mark asked Matt, "Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou comfort her, honour her, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?" and made no mention at all of love, Beth understood Pastor Mark had left it out on purpose. It hurt more than Beth thought it would, but she knew it was for the best. They were making promises that could be kept, not ones that were fancifully out of reach. Matt gave a sturdy, "I will," and then it was Beth's turn. "Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?" "I will." Beth admitted her voice sounded shaky, but she had said the right words. The sacred words that would make her part of a family again. Then came time to exchange vows, and Matt and Beth quickly realized they had no rings. "No matter, it's legal without them," Pastor Mark said, and continued on with the ceremony. Matt repeated the pastor's words, again leaving out any references to love, and then Beth did likewise. Afterward, Pastor Mark prayed, asking God for His divine help and grace, and then came the announcement, "You may kiss the bride." Matt stepped forward, and Beth lowered her head, his lips greeting her forehead in such awkward momentum, it felt as though they had bumped into each other by accident. When Beth looked up, she saw a frown forming around Matt's mouth. His eyes refused to meet hers, and he said nothing. A gasp of fear lodged itself in Beth's throat. Was he experiencing second thoughts? Matt, who had shown no doubt during their talk with Pastor Mark? Whatever passed through Matt's mind right now, the deed was done. They were married and Beth suddenly found herself Mrs. Matt Taylor, and no longer Mrs. Luke Carter. The startling realization unsettled her, filled her with sharp guilt until Dylan rested in her arms and the guilt turned to gratitude. Luke, please don't blame me, she thought, as both witnesses signed the marriage certificate. You still have my heart, Luke. It's still yours. Her poor dazed heart pounded so hard, it created a painful need for comfort. Clinging to the newborn until she dared not tighten her hold for fear of hurting him, Beth strengthened her resolve to remain practical. Luke had her love, and Matt had her future. Somehow, she would make it work. Legal Disclaimer: The characters and events depicted in these love stories are fictitious, and should not to be interpreted as medical or psychiatric advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Congress letting 55 tax breaks expire as year ends By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER Associated Press Posted: 12/30/2013 10:06:06 AM PST Updated: 12/30/2013 01:17:20 PM PST WASHINGTON -- In an almost annual ritual, Congress is letting a package of 55 popular tax breaks expire at the end of the year, creating uncertainty -- once again -- for millions of individuals and businesses. Lawmakers let these tax breaks lapse almost every year, even though they save businesses and individuals billions of dollars. And almost every year, Congress eventually renews them, retroactively, so taxpayers can claim them by the time they file their tax returns. No harm, no foul, right? After all, taxpayers filing returns in the spring won't be hurt because the tax breaks were in effect for 2013. Taxpayers won't be hit until 2015, when they file tax returns for next year. FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2013 file photo, House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. In an almost annual ritual, Congress is letting a package of 55 popular tax breaks expire at the end of the year, creating uncertainty _ once again _ for millions of individuals and businesses. The annual practice of letting these tax breaks expire is a symptom a divided, dysfunctional Congress that struggles to pass routine legislation, said Lewis, a senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. It s not fair, it s very hard, it s very difficult for a business person, a company, to plan, not just for the short term but to do long-term planning, Lewis said. It s shameful. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) ( J. Scott Applewhite ) Not so far. Trade groups and tax experts complain that Congress is making it impossible for businesses and individuals to plan for the future. What if lawmakers don't renew the tax break you depend on? Or what if they change it and you're no longer eligible? "It's a totally ridiculous way to run our tax system," said Rachelle Bernstein, vice president and tax counsel for the National Retail Federation. "It's impossible to plan when every year this happens, but yet business has gotten used to that." Some of the tax breaks are big, including billions in credits for companies that invest in research and development, generous exemptions for financial institutions doing business overseas, and several breaks that let businesses write off capital investments faster. Advertisement Others are more obscure, the benefits targeted to film producers, race track owners, makers of electric motorcycles and teachers who buy classroom supplies with their own money. There are tax rebates to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands from a tax on rum imported into the United States, and a credit for expenses related to railroad track maintenance. A deduction for state and local sales taxes benefits people who live in the nine states without state income taxes. Smaller tax breaks benefit college students and commuters who use public transportation. A series of tax breaks promote renewable energy, including a credit for power companies that produce electricity with windmills. The annual practice of letting these tax breaks expire is a symptom a divided, dysfunctional Congress that struggles to pass routine legislation, said Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "It's not fair, it's very hard, it's very difficult for a business person, a company, to plan, not just for the short term but to do long-term planning," Lewis said. "It's shameful." With Congress on vacation until January, there is no chance the tax breaks will be renewed before they expire. And there is plenty of precedent for Congress to let them expire for months without addressing them. Most recently, they expired at the end of 2011, and Congress didn't renew them for the entire year, waiting until New Year's Day 2013 -- just in time for taxpayers to claim them on their 2012 returns. But Congress only renewed the package though the end of 2013. Why such a short extension? Washington accounting is partly to blame. The two-year extension Congress passed in January cost $76 billion in reduced revenue for the government, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Making those tax breaks permanent could add $400 billion or more to the deficit over the next decade. With budget deficits already high, many in Congress are reluctant to vote for a bill that would add so much red ink. So, they do it slowly, one or two years at time. "More cynically, some people say, if you just put it in for a year or two, then that keeps the lobbyists having to come back and wine-and-dine the congressmen to get it extended again, and maybe make some campaign contributions," said Mark Luscombe, principal tax analyst for CCH, a consulting firm based in Riverwoods, Ill. This year, the package of tax breaks has been caught up in a debate about overhauling the entire tax code. The two top tax writers in Congress -- House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. -- have been pushing to simplify the tax code by reducing tax breaks and using the additional revenue to lower overall tax rates. But their efforts have yet to bear fruit, leaving both tax reform and the package of temporary breaks in limbo. When asked how businesses should prepare, given the uncertainty, Camp said: "They need to get on board with tax reform, that's what they need to do." Further complicating the issue, President Barack Obama has nominated Baucus to become U.S. ambassador to China, meaning he will soon leave the Senate, if he is confirmed by his colleagues. As the Senate wound down its 2013 session, Democratic leaders made a late push to extend many of the tax breaks by asking Republican colleagues to pass a package on the floor of the Senate without debate or amendments. Republicans objected, saying it wasn't a serious offer, and the effort failed. So should taxpayers count on these breaks as they plan their budgets for 2014? "The best thing I would say is, budget accordingly," said Jackie Perlman, principle tax research analyst at The Tax Institute at H&R Block. "As the saying goes, hope for the best but plan for the worst. Then if you get it, great, that's a nice perk. But don't count on it." Infobox1 Fifty-five temporary tax breaks are expiring at the end of the year. Among the big ones: A tax credit for research and development, benefiting a wide range of industries, including manufacturers, pharmaceutical makers and high tech companies. The tax break saved companies an estimated $6.2 billion in 2013. An exemption that allows banks, insurance companies and other financial firms to shield foreign profits from being taxed by the U.S. The tax break is important to major multinational banks and financial firms, saving them an estimated $9.4 billion in 2013. A tax break that allows profitable companies to write off large capital expenditures immediately -- rather than over time -- giving some companies huge tax shelters. The tax break, known as bonus depreciation, benefits automakers, utilities and heavy equipment makers. Tax break: $34 billion in 2013, though companies lose future savings because they would have already written off the cost of items. A tax credit for producing renewable energy, including wind and solar, in plants built before the end of 2013. Tax break: $116 million in 2013, though the savings would grow over time, saving companies more than $12 billion over the next decade as the plants continue to produce energy. A provision that allows restaurants and retail stores to more quickly write off the cost of improvements. Tax break: $277 million in 2013. Increased tax rebates to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands from a tax on rum imported into the United States. The U.S. imposes a $13.50 per proof-gallon tax on imported rum, and sends most of the proceeds to the two U.S. territories. Cost: $199 million in 2013. A 50 percent tax credit for expenses related to railroad track maintenance through 2013. Tax break: $232 million in 2013. A provision that allows motorsport race tracks to more quickly write off improvement costs. Tax break: $46 million in 2013. Enhanced deductions for companies that donate food to the needy, books to public schools or computers to public libraries. Tax break: $218 million in 2013. A tax break that allows TV and movie productions to more quickly write off expenses. Sexually explicit productions are ineligible. Tax break: $266 million in 2013. A tax credit of up to $2,500 for buying electric-powered vehicles was expanded to include electric-powered motorcycles. Golf carts, however, were excluded. Tax Break: $1 million in 2013.

10 МАГАЗИНОВ СРАВНИТЕ ЦЕНЫ Investing in Real Estate Andrew James McLean, Gary W. Eldred ISBN: 0471741205; 9780471741206; Издательство: Wiley Страниц: 352 THE BESTSELLING GUIDE TO REAL ESTATE INVESTING Now in its fifth edition, Investing in Real Estate is the straightforward guide that helps you start growing your fortune by investing in houses and small apartment buildings. Successful real estate investor Gary Eldred shows you how you can outperform the stock market by investing in residential real estate—the surest and safest way to build assets. This updated edition covers all the new trends and tactics in real estate investing, including how to shop for properties outside your home market and how to use option arms to achieve positive cash flow. As always, you'll find all the information you need to start investing now, as well as up-to-date tips on negotiating deals, spotting market trends, and using the Internet as a research tool to find and buy properties. Let the authors show you how to: Buy with a low or no-money down payment Build wealth without paying income taxes Find the neighborhoods...

Encouraging Pay Equity Webinar June 25 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Humentum and TrustLaw, the global pro bono program of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, invite you to join their webinar series on the #metoo movement and its legal perspectives for nonprofits. The series will raise awareness among non-profits and give them the legal tools they need to prevent discrimination and sexual harassment, and promote equality and pay equity. What are the legal perspectives of the #MeToo movement? Allegations of sexual harassment and abuse among the non-profit sector have highlighted the importance for organizations to lock in their commitment to prevent discrimination and sexual misconduct, by strengthening for example their governance documents. The presenter will examine how to implement pay equity by sharing best practices and providing practical tips, with a segment for moderated Q&A exchange. Panelist Christine Hendrickson, Partner, Seyfarth Shaw Christine is a partner in the Chicago office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, where she the co-Chair of Seyfarth’s Pay Equity Group and a core member the firm’s Labor & Employment OFCCP, Affirmative Action & Diversity Consulting Team. Christine has a national practice where she assists clients of all sizes and industries in matters involving pay equity and OFCCP proceedings. Ms. Hendrickson also works with clients to revamp their personnel practices; build “best practices;” and ensure compliance with mandates impacting recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, performance evaluation, discipline, and termination. In addition, Ms. Hendrickson provides strategic advice and counseling to employers on diversity programs, reductions-in-force, and employment compliance diagnostics.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence officials are frustrated that the Russian government is withholding information about threats to Olympic venues coming from inside Russia, several lawmakers said during talk shows Sunday. "It means that we're less effective in protecting our people, and that's a frustration," Schiff said. More than 70,000 Russian security officers have been deployed to protect the Olympic venues in Sochi. Russian President Vladimir Putin describes the layers of security around Sochi as the "ring of steel." The American ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said the U.S. is "quite satisfied" with the cooperation coming from Russian security officials. "We always want to know more and if you work in the intelligence business you always want more information from any interlocutor, from any partner country," McFaul said. "That said, we do not have an interest in embarrassing the Russians. We have exactly the same interests with them when it comes to the security of everyone here in Sochi," he said, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" from the Olympics. Last week, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration banned passengers flying from the U.S. to Russia from bringing liquids in their carry-ons. The alert was based on intelligence that terrorists might try to smuggle explosives onto airplanes inside toothpaste tubes. Some of that information came from Russian officials, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." But King, who sits on both the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees, said the Russians aren't cooperating to the same extent as the Chinese, British and Greeks did during previous Olympic games. "They are still reluctant to give intelligence that they feel would allow us to determine their sources and methods, and also there's still a certain amount of pride, I believe, that they feel they can handle a lot of this on their own," King said. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the Russians, so far, have been cooperative when it comes to sharing information about potential terrorist operations planned outside of Russia. "When it comes to internal operations, I think less so. That's where we'd like to work more closely with them," McCaul said. Along with the possibility of bombs being planted on aircraft flying into Sochi International Airport, another major threat comes from suicide bombers potentially exploding themselves at train and bus terminals around the region, McCaul said. McCaul toured the security installations in Sochi last month and said the Olympic Village in Sochi appeared to be well fortified. But McCaul said he thinks there is a "high degree of probability" that a bomb will detonate in the surrounding region, where Russia has been fighting an Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya, Dagestan and elsewhere. "I hope I'm wrong in this assessment, but you're talking about an area of the world where suicide bombers go off all the time," McCaul said.

Will Jamie be at the restaurant?Although Jamie loves The Netherlands and does visit regularly, he won't be working in the restaurant. However, he is very involved in each restaurant's design and menu development. Is there a dress code at the restaurant? No, there isn’t a dress code. All our restaurants are relaxed and informal. Do you have disabled access at your restaurants? All our restaurants have facilities to ensure that we can look after disabled guests in a safe and considerate way. Please contact the restaurant directly if you wish to discuss any specific requirements before your visit and we will do our best to accommodate you. Does Jamie’s Pizzeria cater for people with specific dietary requirements? We are happy to help with any dietary requirements and will find a solution in our restaurants for most requests. Please feel free to call us before your visit to discuss or speak to your server when you arrive. I have young children and want to bring them for lunch. Do you have a kids’ menu?Jamie’s Pizzeria is family friendly. We welcome children into all of our restaurants. There are also high chairs for smaller children plus colouring sheets & crayons. Do you have an online booking system? How do I book a table?No, we do not take reservations, we are a walk-in restaurant, so stop by and we will make sure to give you a table as soon as possible. We cannot guarantee availability or waiting times. If you want to come in with 6 or more people you can call to the restaurant to make sure a table is ready for you. I want to make a larger booking – what do I need to do? Do you offer group menus?We do not offer special menus for groups at the moment, but please let us know your wishes and we will do our best to find the perfect solution for you! It’s my parent’s anniversary and I’d love to treat them to a meal. Do you sell gift vouchers?Gift vouchers will be coming soon– keep an eye on our social media platforms for more updates. I want to work at Jamie’s Pizzeria. How do I apply?We're always looking for new stars to join our family. Please check out the careers page on our website for more information.

Wall Street Rally Erases 2014 Losses Stocks rallied on Monday with the S&P 500 reaching a record high and erasing losses from earlier in the year, as investors signaled a willingness to write off recent sluggish economic data to the winter weather. The S&P 500 was up more than 1 percent to 1,855.22 mid-Monday afternoon, surpassing a high of 1,848.38 that it reached on Jan. 15, according to Bloomberg News. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also up more than 1 percent. “I do think the economy is a lot stronger than the recent data has suggested,” Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at RW Baird & Co, told CNBC. A report early Monday showed that growth in the service sector slowed in February. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said earlier this month the central bank will continue to scale back its stimulus program amid an improving economic outlook. She will testify before a Senate panel on Thursday. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

KinonikaInspiring Template 4 Year College Plan Template Excel Photo BY yollonda On Jul 04, 2018 Excel Template 4 year college plan template excel photo 2013 calendar 11 free printable templates. Excel template college 4 year plan four worksheets for all download and. College 4 year plan template excel photo gantt chart tutorial how to make a basic.

Tim, is there *any* way I could convince you to post your image larger? I know I can just click on the image to get it in a larger size, but I'm kinda lazy. I just want a quicker, immediate look at your wonderful artwork!

Tag Archives: spending The debate in Congress over the extension of the Bush tax cuts has obscured the issue of government spending. After all, it is because members of Congress love to spend money that isn’t theirs that we “need” an income tax to begin with. A naive person who did not maintain a healthy sense of skepticism would quickly adopt the point of view that almost all elements of government are terribly underfunded and much good would be accomplished with higher taxes and more debt spending. In order to qualify for federal dollars, states frequently have to pass laws that expand their reach and authority. And they often need to continue to pay for new programs after federal funding is phased out. Short run money that appeared “free” often ends up becoming a long run obligation to state taxpayers in the end. One of the things most abhorrent to us sovereignty-seekers is the incredible amount of bloat in Washington, D.C. While some of us are coming around to seeing that Washington, D.C. is killing this country on a non-partisan basis, the following chart illustrates this fact. America is broke. Wall Street is going out of business. The government is borrowing and bailing like there is no tomorrow. Americans anxiously await the full impact of a second Great Depression. And we all are longing and looking for solutions and saviors. Recently Congress sent the latest Farm Bill to the president. The bill features brand new federal programs, expansion of existing subsidies, more food stamps and more foreign food aid. This bill hits the taxpayer hard, while at the same time ensuring food prices will remain elevated. The president vetoed the bill, citing concerns over its costs and subsidies for the wealthy in a time of high food prices and record farm income. Nevertheless, this over-reaching, government-expanding Farm Bill will soon be law. This week, as the American economy continued to suffer the effects of big government, the House attempted to pass two multibillion dollar “emergency” spending bills, one for continued spending on the war in Iraq , and one increasing spending on domestic and international welfare programs. The plan was to pass these two bills and then send them to the president as one package. Even though the House failed to pass the war spending bill, opponents of the war should not be fooled into believing this vote signals a long term change in policy. At the end of the day, those favoring continued military occupation of Iraq will receive every penny they are requesting and more as long as they agree to dramatically increase domestic and international welfare spending as well. When I write my congressman or senator and ask them to please stop sending money to foreign governments, they write back to me as though I do not know what I am talking about. They “know” what is best for this country and believe the foreign expenditures are justified.

The first Sunday in June marks National Cancer Survivors Day®, a day for great celebration, inspiration, and support for the many people who have survived cancer, along with their families, friends, and communities. It is also a day to promote awareness of the ongoing challenges that cancer survivors face, as well as a time to provide resources so they can continue to enjoy fulfilling lives.

Answers for Pilots: AOPA Stay Smart Webinars August 13, 2013 ByKathy Dondzila AOPA is proud to announce a new webinar program for all AOPA members - AOPA Stay Smart Webinars. Each webinar lasts about an hour and is both informative and interactive with the opportunity for participants to ask questions using a chat feature. With the highest quality content and notable presenters, AOPA Stay Smart Webinars offer members information on a wide variety of topics. Some of our recent webinars include: Aircraft Purchasing; Aircraft Maintenance: Keeping the Cost Down; For your iPad, Introducing AOPA FlyQ EFT; Flying Club Insurance; and Nontowered Airport Operations: A Refresher. Coming at the end of August are these two webinars: On August 27 is “Flying Club Marketing.” If you are considering starting a club, or are actively involved in one, plan to join Steve Hedges, AOPA Director of Communications, as he discusses flying club marketing techniques. Steve will provide an overview of the best marketing techniques for flying clubs, and answer some of the top questions AOPA receives on the topic. Then, on August 28, AOPA’s Pilot Protection Services Program (PPS) presents a health-related webinar, “Matters of the Heart.” This webinar will focus on the less common cardiac conditions that may require time- limited medical certificates. These include atrial fibrillation, PVCs (“skipped beats”), heart murmurs, as well as some common types of “abnormal” heart rhythms that, although they are labeled as “abnormal,” generally require no detailed follow up by the FAA. These PPS webinars are a special benefit to PPS program participants only. PPS webinar topics rotate from medical to legal every month, and dig down in the weeds on topics of interest to program participants. Consider joining the AOPA Pilot Protection Services program and receive expanded medical and legal benefits, helping you avoid and manage legal and medical issues that could ground you. In September, you can enjoy webinars on Aircraft Owners Insurance, Tailwheel Flying, as well as topics related to flight schools and flying clubs. Each month members will see a listing of the upcoming Stay Smart Webinars in the AOPA Benefits Bulletin – emailed to members on the first Saturday of every month. You can also view a list of upcoming webinars online. And if you miss a webinar that you had intended to attend, don’t worry, you can view the recording. Each webinar is archived for your viewing enjoyment at your convenience. AOPA’s Stay Smart Webinar program is off to a great start with many thousands of viewers who have participated through the summer. We look forward to providing you – our valued members – with the best speakers and most pertinent topics that AOPA has to offer. See you online! There are sound financial reasons for aircraft ownership. Beyond the money saved on overnight trips, delays caused by airlines, and other miscellaneous expenses, owning an airplane has definite tax advantages.

We know that exercise is good for us. The question is, what kind is best? Though there is likely no “best” exercise for everyone, high intensity interval training (HIIT) seems like it might just be the perfect regimen for all time-strapped humans (most of us). Everyone gets stressed out. All of us. It’s a normal part of life. But being stressed out doesn’t mean that we simply have to take it. Stress, as well as anxiety, is something we can reduce naturally. How? Through exercise. The new year is here, and literally everyone wants to get in shape. From losing weight to mastering multiple pull ups, we guarantee that 99% of the population has a gym inspired resolution on their list. Since we spend the bulk of our lives thinking about healthier ways to live, we started debating the merits of professional gyms and having one in your own home. There’s definitely no right or wrong answer, but we thought we’d talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of both here.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/USS_Enterprise.jpg]][[caption-width-right:350:These are the voyages...]] ->''"Space... the final frontier."'' '''''Star Trek''''' is an iconic, [[LongRunners long-running]] science-fiction franchise with five television series and twelve movies spanning three generations of characters and four decades of television. The setting in every series is about [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse an Earth-based interstellar government]] called [[TheFederation the United Federation of Planets]] and their fleet of starships, which form [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Starfleet]]. Every series dealt with a particular crew, mostly of various ships named ''[[LegacyCharacter Enterprise]]''. As originally envisioned by its creator, Creator/GeneRoddenberry, the science fiction nature of the series was just a method to address many social issues of the time that could not have been done in a normal drama. As such, it was not above being {{Anvilicious}} or engaging in thinly-veiled social satire, but considering its origin during the 60's, [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped some anvils needed to be dropped]]. It was, for the most part, ''way'' on the happy end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism, at least partially because of its solid allegiance to the Enlightened side of RomanticismVersusEnlightenment. But it still found some sort of balance between a Dystopia and a CrystalSpiresAndTogas future. In general, it is a future you hope will come true, albeit after humanity [[EarnYourHappyEnding endured terrible troubles]] like the Eugenics Wars led by the [[BewareTheSuperman genetically enhanced conqueror]], Khan Noonien Singh, and [[WorldWarThree a third world war]], and rose above them. All series have sought to show that while you may think the world is falling apart and there is no chance of global unity, all this crap will eventually work itself out. The series has also had a profound impact on modern culture and media. Everyone with any exposure to Western pop culture has heard of the Starship ''Enterprise'', and the series predicted (and possibly inspired) the PC, tablet, automatic doors, cell phones, natural-language AI and more, decades before their invention. Not so incidentally, the first African-American woman in space was inspired to become an astronaut because of Creator/NichelleNichols' pioneering role. Also not so incidentally, the space shuttle ''Enterprise'' was named after the iconic starship, as is the first commercial spacecraft. And finally, ''Star Trek'' also gave rise to {{Fandom}} as we know it: when ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' began to pick up steam in syndication, fans organized conventions, wrote [[FanFic fanfiction]], dressed in costume, and generally made enough noise to keep the franchise going for forty years and counting. Every fandom since has grown from that original outpouring of fannish activity and devotion. !!Television Series in the franchise include:[[index]][[foldercontrol]] [[folder:''The Original Series'']]'''''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''''' ("TOS", 1966-1969) Set from 2265-2269 -- The one everyone has heard of (at the time, of course, it was just called ''Star Trek''). Captain James T. Kirk (WilliamShatner) leads the brave crew of the CoolStarship ''Enterprise'' on a mission "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before." The format was pitched as a WagonTrainToTheStars, with new planets and aliens encountered every week, though the Klingons and Romulans would become regulars in the ''Star Trek'' galaxy. The original series suffered in the {{ratings}}, but gained a devoted fanbase. UnCanceled after the second season, and then {{Cancell|ation}}ed again at the end of the third. It ''really'' picked up steam in syndication, which was about the time demographics came into play - and the RealLife moon landing happened a week after its last episode aired. The show's writing was good, the cast had great chemistry and the characters themselves were very memorable, to the point of creating three new archetypes: TheKirk, TheSpock, and TheMcCoy. In fact, this series created [[TropeMakers so many new tropes]] that it has left an unmistakable mark on both television and pop culture ever since. Not to mention inspired a ''lot'' of mostly {{affectionate parod|y}}ies.[[/folder]] [[folder:''The Animated Series'']]'''''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries''''' ("TAS", 1973-1974) Set from 2269-2270 -- Used most of the original cast (and a few additions) to provide voices for the animated versions of their characters. The quality of the show was hit and miss, with some being mediocre cartoon fare while others were excellent, and the series got the franchise's first Emmy award. 22 episodes were produced. The official canonicity of this series has gone back and forth, but at least some elements have bled over into the rest of the franchise (most notably, identifying the "T" in [[TheKirk James T. Kirk]] to stand for [[EmbarrassingMiddleName "Tiberius"]]) and the addition of the [[CatFolk cat-like]] Caitians to the mythos (see Star Trek 2).[[/folder]] [[folder:''The Next Generation'']]'''''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''''' ("TNG", 1987-1994) Set from 2364-2370 -- The ''other'' one everyone has heard of. Takes place in the 24th century on the ''[[CoolStarship Enterprise]]''-[[CoolStarship D]], with the same mission of exploration as the original. The new captain is Jean-Luc Picard (Creator/PatrickStewart). Introduced the holodeck (although a version of it appeared first in the {{canon}}/noncanon "TAS"), defined the Klingons as being a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy society of honor and war]], and really hit it home with creating the cybernetic alien race, the Borg. Also, there was [[TheTrickster Q]].[[/folder]] [[folder:''Deep Space Nine'']]'''''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''''' ("[=DS9=]", 1993-1999) Set from 2369-2375 -- Takes place concurrently with the end of ''Next Generation'' and the lion's share of ''Voyager'', and conceived as a SpinOff of TNG. Set on a former Cardassian space station (formerly Terok Nor, renamed Deep Space Nine) in a politically unstable part of space near the planet Bajor, with exclusive access to a rare stable wormhole that leads from the Alpha to the Gamma Quadrant. From the fourth season onwards, former TNG character Worf joined the cast and the whole series got much darker with a massive interstellar war between the Federation, Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans, and the Dominion. Was also the first ''Trek'' series to use {{Story Arc}}s extensively, rather than persisting with a strictly episodic format. Generally considered the OddballInTheSeries as far as the television shows go.[[/folder]] [[folder:''Voyager'']]'''''Series/StarTrekVoyager''''' ("VOY", 1995-2001) Set from 2371-2378 -- Another SpinOff of ''Next Generation'', conceived as its successor. While searching for a group of rogue Starfleet people called the Maquis, both the title ship and a Maquis ship are flung across the galaxy and stranded in the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 light years and seventy-five years' travel from home (''Series/LostInSpace'' a la ''Star Trek''). Had the first main character female captain in the franchise. In the mainstream, this show is best -- perhaps only -- known for its MsFanservice character, [[TheSpock Seven of Nine]]. Among fans, it's infamous for the VillainDecay of the Borg, the obscene levels of TechnoBabble, and mashing the ResetButton after roughly every other episode, but it is also notable for tackling controversial topics even other ''Trek'' series wouldn't touch.[[/folder]] [[folder:''Enterprise'']]'''''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''''' ("ENT", 2001-2005) Set from 2151-2155 -- Prequel to the original series. Set a hundred years or so before Kirk and the Federation, when humans are just getting their space legs (and the AppliedPhlebotinum is not nearly as reliable), aboard Earth's first, experimental Warp 5-capable starship, the Enterprise NX-01. It began with a MythArc involving the Enterprise crew getting caught up in a "Temporal Cold War" being fought by several rival TimeTravel factions, though it gradually fell victim to the TheChrisCarterEffect. The series was then {{Retool}}ed twice: first with the third season introducing an ambitious season-spanning StoryArc centering around the sudden appearance of [[ScaryDogmaticAliens a mysterious new aggressor]] called the Xindi, and then with the fourth and final season consisting of several two-to-three-episode-long "mini-arcs" that [[CallForward laid the groundwork for the Federation]] in earnest. Sadly, just as it began to pick up steam, it was abruptly cancelled. Infamous for the [[RealSongThemeTune pop song]] in the opening credits, and for being the first Trek series since the original to be canceled before the usual seven seasons.[[/folder]] [[folder:''Phase II'']]In addition to these, '''''Star Trek: Phase II''''' was a series concept designed as the cornerstone of a Creator/{{Paramount}} Pictures-based network in 1976. A continuation of the original series and featuring a second five-year mission, it would have introduced a number of new characters in conjunction with the original crew. When the network project died and the insane success of ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/ANewHope'' made sci-fi films profitable again, Paramount elaborated the series pilot into TheMovie, which ultimately led to a whole new line of movies.[[/folder]][[/index]] !!Movies in the franchise include:[[index]]* '''''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture''''' (1979) (c. 2273) -- Kirk [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether rallies the old crew]] to intercept a technological EldritchAbomination heading towards Earth. Said to be a padded out ''Phase II'' episode script, and bears resemblance to a couple original series episodes.* '''''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''''' (1982) (2285) -- Khan from the TOS episode "Space Seed" returns intending to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge.* '''''[[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock Star Trek III: The Search For Spock]]''''' (1984) (2285) -- The crew find that for Vulcans, DeathIsCheap. Kirk and crew risk everything to get Spock back.* '''''[[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home]]''''' (1986) (2286/1986) -- To save Earth from a destructive, silent alien probe, Kirk and crew TimeTravel to TheEighties and [[FreeTheFrogs save the whales]]. Also, they need nuclear wessels.* '''''[[Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier Star Trek V: The Final Frontier]]''''' (1989) (2287) -- After a botched attempt to rescue hostages, the ''Enterprise'' is commandeered by a radical Vulcan who intends to find God.* '''''[[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country]]''''' (1991) (2293) -- Klingons sue for peace in a near perfect recreation of the Cold War finale. Quite blatantly a rip on the Cold War and its concurrent real-life end, precipitated by a lunar equivalent to the Chernobyl explosion. (In)Famously establishes Klingon blood to be a lovely lilac colour, but only for this installment. * '''''Film/StarTrekGenerations''''' (1994) (2293, then 2371) -- A MadScientist seeks to destroy billions to reach a NegativeSpaceWedgie that allows [[UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny Kirk to meet Picard.]] The first movie featured the TNG cast and was intended as a torch-passing moment rather than a final farewell to the original cast that ''Star Trek VI'' was.* '''''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''''' (1996) (2373/2063) -- The Borg attempt to assimilate Earth in the past, with Picard slowly becoming [[Literature/MobyDick Captain Ahab]] against them.[[note]]This would later lead to Creator/PatrickStewart playing Ahab himself in a miniseries.[[/note]] It also shows humanity's first contact with another species, the seed from which the Federation would flower.* '''''Film/StarTrekInsurrection''''' (1998) (2375) -- Finding that TheFederation intends to pillage a [[PlanetOfHats Shangri-La planet]], Picard actively rebels to save them.* '''''Film/StarTrekNemesis''''' (2002) (2379) -- The perpetually secretive Romulans make a surprising effort for peace, but, of course, their leader has much more devious intentions. The last film of the prime ''Star Trek'' universe which nearly mortally wounded the entire franchise, being the only one to not make its money back at the box office. Many of the concepts from ''Phase II'' made their way into ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and the series itself is considered ''[[{{canon}} deuterocanon]]'' - not "true" canon, because it never made it to the screen, but allowed in BroadStrokes to fill a gap in Trek chronology (notice the fictional length of time between ''The Motion Picture'' and ''The Wrath of Khan'').[[/index]] After the cancellation of ''Enterprise'', 2006 was the first year with no new Star Trek stories on film or TV since 1985. Then, when all seemed lost, ''Star Trek'' was revived with a [[TheFilmOfTheSeries Film Of The Series]] which promises to kick off a whole new series of movies: [[index]]* '''''[[Film/StarTrek Star Trek]]''''' (2009) (2233 -- 2258) -- A mixture of ContinuityReboot and BroadStrokes with new actors showing that the ''TheOriginalSeries'' characters [[InSpiteOfANail will always end up together]] on the ''Enterprise'', no matter the universe.* '''''[[Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness Star Trek Into Darkness]]''''' (2013) (2259) -- The cast from the 2009 film reprise their roles, and Captain Kirk fights against BenedictCumberbatch, who plays a powerful villain intent on {{Revenge}} against Starfleet.* '''''Star Trek XIII''''' (2016) (TBD) -- The upcoming thirteenth film whose release is set to coincide with the franchise's 50th anniversary.[[/index]] In total, to watch every minute of {{canon}} Star Trek would require 23 days and 25 minutes of your time. Of Science Fiction franchises, only ''Series/DoctorWho'' and its various canon spinoffs are even within a week, and the ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' franchise, which started later than Star Trek or Doctor Who, but has been running continuously since 1979. !!Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverseThe Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse consists of the expected novels and videogames; these are somewhat infamous in many circles (compared to the ''Franchise/StarWars'' counterparts) for the casual disregard the producers of the shows often hold for them. See also the Franchise/TrekVerse - a discussion of internal ''Trek'' history as viewed from a real-world perspective as well as how it affected modern culture. If you'd like to try that marathon and you live in the United States, every series is freely available on [[http://www.startrek.com/videos the official Star Trek website]].----!Tropes common across all series:[[foldercontrol]] [[folder:A-D]]* ActionFigureFileCard: The figures made by Creator/{{Galoob}} (for ''Next Gen'') and Creator/PlaymatesToys (for the entire franchise up to ''Voyager'') had them.* AIIsACrapshoot: Self-aware computers are AlwaysChaoticEvil in [=TOS=]. Later series had more nuanced explorations of the concept.* AlcubierreDrive: Arguable UrExample. The warp drive is described similarly in the technical manuals (though we should note they aren't considered {{canon}}) and was the inspiration for Miguel Alcubierre's theory.* AlienNonInterferenceClause: TropeCodifier via General Order Number 1, the Prime Directive, that generator of so many plot devices.* AllGenesAreCoDominant: See Spock (human-Vulcan hybrid), Lieutenant Torres (human-Klingon), Ziyal (Cardassian-Bajoran), and others.* AliensAreBastards: Largely averted. Alien civilizations in Star Trek run the full spectrum, from benevolent to not-so-much. Societies are mostly guided by principles of self-preservation and/or self-improvement; they differ in means. The Federation is all about cooperation and community. Others (Cardassians, Romulans, TOS-era Klingons) are about military conquest. But even those are portrayed realistically, and sometimes sympathetically, as just groups of individuals doing what they believe to be correct. Very few (the Borg, the Pah-Wraiths) are presented as being genuinely AlwaysChaoticEvil.** Even the Borg aren't entirely evil; they [[WellIntentionedExtremist believe they're bringing other species closer to perfection by assimilating them]].* AlmightyJanitor: Boothby, the groundskeeper at Starfleet Academy. Played by Ray Walston of ''MyFavoriteMartian'' fame.* AlternateHistory: In ''Star Trek'', the 90s and late 80s were a genetic renaissance, and superhuman products of genetic manipulation almost threw mankind back into the dark ages. After Humanity's recovery from this, the Vulcans arrived and Humanity's technology advanced extremely quickly. All the shows take place after this.** In some cases this is retconned or made to be more of a SecretHistory, in order to keep alive the possibility that ''Star Trek'' could hypothetically still be our future (thus retaining the positive outlook on mankind's future).** And what happens when 2053 rolls around and WorldWarIII (hopefully) doesn't happen?* AlternativeNumberSystem: [[AllThereInTheManual According to]] ''The Klingon Dictionary'', the Klingons used to count in a ternary (base-three) system, but have since switched over to decimal.** In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine [=DS9=]]]'' the Cardassians apparently have different numbering systems for merchant and military castes, a factor which comes up in attempting to work with their technology.* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Borg who are connected to the race's HiveMind (those not connected can be good). The original series and ''Enterprise'' also portray Klingons and Romulans this way, and ''The Next Generation'' does likewise with the Ferengi and Cardassians.** Both TNG (particularly the "Reunion" two-parter that featured the return of Spock) and [=DS9=] show Romulans capable of acting reasonably. In the TNG episode "The Neutral Zone" Picard and his Romulan counterpart agree to cooperate in investigating an unknown entity threatening the settlements of both powers [[spoiler: that would later be revealed as--or at least heavily implied to be--the Borg]]. In ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' the Romulans actually ''save'' the ''Enterprise'' from near-destruction and render aid to the crew. [=DS9=] showed that individual Cardassians were capable of being good and honorable people even if their society doesn't encourage it.* AlwaysOnDuty: The main characters are always on the bridge whenever something interesting is happening. The only time across the entire franchise that we see evidence of any kind of watch system is in a few TNG episodes where Data is shown on midnight watch (whatever "night" is in space), once in VOY when Harry Kim is on duty, and once when Captain Sulu of the ''Excelsior'' in ''The Undiscovered Country'' gets woken up by Christian Slater.* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The Bolians, the Benzite and the Andorians are bright blue; Bolians evolved from aquatic mammals, and Andorians hail from an icy moon. Andorians also behave like aristocratic "blue bloods", drink blue alcohol, enjoy listening to "Andorian Blues" music, and so forth.* AngelsDevilsAndSquid: The Bajoran Prophets are the Angels, the Pah-Wraiths and Fek'lhr are the Devils, and the various StarfishAliens (Species 8472, Devidians, etc.) and EldritchAbominations are the Squid. Then, there are the Q, who have traits in common with all three, and can choose which one they are, depending on the day and their mood.* AppliedPhlebotinum: What would the franchise be without this? Really?* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: {{Subverted|Trope}}. The Klingons love their {{Cool Sword}}s like the bat'leth, but ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' makes a point of mentioning that an old lady with a phaser is worth a dozen Klingons with melee weapons.* ArcNumber: 47, from the middle of ''Next Generation'' on.* ArsonMurderAndLifeSaving* ArtificialGravity: Rarely mentioned, but (almost) always present whenever the action takes place aboard a starship or space station.* ArtisticLicense: Physics & Science, mostly. * TheAssimilator: The Borg.* AuthorAppeal: Rick Berman has admitted that he is the one mostly responsible for so much TimeTravel in the various shows. He just loves the time paradox of "this is the reason this happened [[TimeyWimeyBall but that is the origin of that event and here is where we have to make a choice as to whether this or that occurs]]..."** Ira Stephen Behr apparently missed the memo about Trekkies generally not being fans of swing music. He admitted responsibility for Vic Fontaine, having spent weeks vetting James Darren (no relation to Bobby) for the role. Behr sympathizes with the fans' displeasure at the Vic episodes... kind of. Vic still sang a total of fourteen songs in Seasons Six and Seven of [=DS9=], including the Series Finale(!).* AwesomeButImpractical: the Klingon bat'leth.* AwesomeMcCoolname: James T. Kirk....At some point this became more than just a name. When he spoke it, people listened. * BadassArmy: The Klingons wish they were these but they are more of a subversion. Starfleet qualifies, at least in space--they tend to be somewhat underprepared for extended ground combat.* BeleagueredBureaucrat: [[TheFederation Starfleet Command]] sometimes give the impression of being between this and {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}.* {{Big Damn Movie}}s: The movies feature far more action than you're likely to find in a typical ''season'' of [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] or ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]''. While episodes of the series typically involve stories about exploration and dealing with touchy political issues, the movies are much more likely to involve clashes with full-on {{Card Carrying Villain}}s.* BizarreAlienBiology: There's quite a lot of this going around amongst the races seen in the setting.** BizarreAlienReproduction: Some of the bizarreness pops up when it comes to procreation. One of the more infamous is a species seen in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' that reproduces through mind-linking GreenRocks (and where the [[MisterSeahorse MEN]] fall pregnant).* BoardingParty: Beaming aboard the enemy ship.* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The norm, really. For Humans, the Prime Directive was a means of addressing this concept. It boils down thusly: 1) There are alien cultures out there with values and customs potentially very different than ours; 2) Said values and customs are no more or less valid than our own; and 3) we have no right to change or influence these cultures, only try to understand and respect them.* BluntMetaphorsTrauma: Data, Spock, and most Vulcans.* BurialInSpace: Ship casualties are loaded into hollow photon torpedoes (which are conveniently shaped like tanning beds) and shot into space. This is what happened to Spock in ''Star Trek II'', before his body landed on the Genesis Planet and was mistakenly revitalized. ** GeneRoddenberry, the father of ''Star Trek'' is a real-life example, as is James Doohan, the original Scotty.* BusmansHoliday: For a franchise founded on skimpily-clad babes, the so-called "pleasure planet" of Risa is uncannily like Dante's Hell. Every ''Trek'' character who has flown there for some cheap sex has been met with [[ProfessionalKiller assassination attempts]], [[HoneyTrap robbery and assault]], [[DistressedDude kidnapping]], [[ManchurianAgent brainwashing]] (twice), [[WeatherControlMachine natural disasters]], [[DieHardOnAnX terrorist takeovers]], etc. Male characters in particular are met with swift punishment for trying to get laid.* ButtMonkey: Ships named USS ''Saratoga''. Both times they've shown up onscreen, they've ended up getting a new one torn by the Threat of the Week. In ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' it was the whale probe. In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'': [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E01E02Emissary "Emissary"]] it was the Borg.* TheChainsOfCommanding: Every captain, along with various other officers in temporary command.* ClassicallyTrainedExtra: Patrick Stewart became the butt of jokes for putting his career on hold to do ''Star Trek''; the press presumed he was having a mid-life crisis and just wanted a fat pension and swarms of fangirls all over him. Most charmingly, he retorted he considered his years in the RSC "training" for his role as Picard. But in reality, the franchise is famous for casting many stage actors over regular TV guest actors. In fact, actors who ''lacked'' theater experience (Terry Farrell, Kate Mulgrew) are sometimes disparaged in fandom and even occasionally felt like the odd man out.-->'''[[http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2012/02/voyager-season-one.html Doc Oho]]''': I have heard people dismiss Mulgrew’s performance in the past because she is a TV veteran and [[NoTrueScotsman not a Shakespearean actor or from an impressive theatrical background]], but in all honesty she is one of the strongest actors in the ''Star Trek'' universe. I would happily squeeze Mulgrew into the arsenal of talent that fronts ''[=DS9=]'' because she is far too good for a show like ''Voyager'' and I do feel they were lucky to have her. ** According to J.G. Hertzler, Klingon actors in particular are cast for their Shakespearean training. "They tend to go with people who can operate in a strangely heightened reality and somehow make it as close to reality as you can. That's sci-fi; that's what you need."* CloningBlues: As a rule, clones tend not to do well in the Trek universe, often meeting bad ends. Examples include the clones of Pulaski and Riker illicitly created by the Mariposans in "TNG: Up the Long Ladder" (along with the [[CloneDegeneration Mariposans themselves]]), [[TeleporterAccident Thomas Riker]], the [[DesignerBabies Jem'Hadar]] and [[ExpendableClone certain Vorta]] from [=DS9=], Shinzon from "Star Trek: Nemesis" and [[ExpendableClone Sim]] from "ENT: Similitude".* ClothesMakeTheLegend: The black and primary color uniform scheme. Only the first six films and ''Enterprise'' (though that did have the TOS colours on the shoulders of their all-blue NASA-style flight-suits) didn't follow this... though the uniforms with ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Wrath of Khan]]'''s emblematic red-vest-division-turtleneck-and-black-pants is also very popular.* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: ** In The Original Series, the Starfleet uniform colors for the different divisions were Command Yellow, Science Blue, and Operations [[RedShirt Red]]. In TNG, though, Command and Operations switched colors. By the time VOY rolled around, the cargo containers were denoted by red/blue/gold lettering depending on which department they're being shipped to. ** On TNG, Cadets wore a variation on the standard uniform, but with the colors reversed: division-colored shoulderpads on black jumpsuits. This later became the attire of "[[LowerDeckEpisode lower deck]]" drones who labored within space stations and other departments; no glamorous ''Galaxy''-class explorers, they. Cadet uniforms are usually grey, although they too underwent changes. ** Also for many of the major races and nations, who are associated with particular colour schemes:*** The Federation is a rich blue (on star charts, on their seal, in their warp plasma) supplemented by other light pastel shades and grey (for ship bulkheads).*** The Klingons are red (on star charts, on their banner, their graphic displays and ship controls, their warp plasma, their transporter effect). They also prefer red lighting aboard their ships and in their buildings.*** Romulans are deep green (on star charts, on banners and display graphics, their warp plasma, their transporter effect). Their ships also have a deep green hull colour. Interestingly Romulans have green blood (copper-based). This means the ships are ''blood colored.'' *** Cardassians are usually yellow-ochre or pink (both colours were used for their weapons - pink in their first few appearances, later yellow, their transporter is yellow-ochre, on star charts they're either yellow or pink). Their ship hulls are ochre. Their graphics and display panels use orange/beige and green, colours that sometimes appear on their cultural emblem.*** The Dominion is [[PurpleIsPowerful purple]] (their warp plasma, on star charts; their graphics are purple and green).*** Ferengi warp plasma and ship hulls are orange.*** Andorians, to no-one's surprise, like white and blue, along with a pale beige.*** The Borg favours black and a sickly green.*** Bajorans uses gold-tan and dark red.* CollectibleCardGame* CommandRoster: ''Star Trek'' is likely the TropeMaker or at least set the standard of how this trope is used.* CommunicationsOfficer: Every series has one except ''[=DS9=]'' (though in ''TNG'', Worf gets shuffled out of the position pretty quickly and nobody really replaces him).* ContinuityLockout: increases the further along the franchise you go. By the time of Enterprise you pretty much need a strong working knowledge of Vulcans, Romulans, Borg, Andorians, Ferengi, etc to fully understand the episodes. Often cited as a contributing factor in the demise of both the 1987-2001 TV franchise and the 1979-2002 movie franchise, and a reason why JJ Abrams decided to start over (almost) from scratch in 2009.* ContinuitySnarl: Several examples in canon. The most notorious:** The Klingons' forehead ridges, which are not present in the original series, but are in all later ones, including ''Enterprise'', set in an earlier chronological era.** The Eugenics Wars, which supposedly devastated Earth in the [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 1990s]]. Unfortunately, they can't simply be forgotten as they provide the origin for one of the franchise's most iconic villains, Khan. Various attempts have been made to suggest that they were actually some kind of underground struggle between conspiracies that wasn't known to mainstream society.* CoolButInefficient* CoolStarship: ''At least'' one for series and film from both heroes and villains. ''Star Trek'' as a whole has, quite possibly, the largest collection of these.* CovertDistressCode: "Condition Green" is a Starfleet standard duress code.* CrossOver: The various series saw many of these, beginning with The Next Generation, although events in one series rarely affected the others. The crossovers became more frequent in later years.** The only storyline to play a major role in multiple ''Star Trek'' series was that involving the Maquis. The reason behind their existence (the creation of the DMZ) was established in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' Season Seven but the Maquis were introduced in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' Season Two before turning up in "Preemptive Strike", the penultimate episode of ''The Next Generation'', and forming a major part of the backstory of Chakotay and B'Elanna in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. The destruction of the Maquis by the Dominion in ''Deep Space Nine'' Season Five comes back to haunt Chakotay and B'Elanna in ''Voyager'' Season Four when the ship finally makes contact with the Alpha Quadrant.** Events from one series do occasionally impact on later ones in less direct ways though. For instance, a major part of Sisko's backstory in ''Deep Space Nine'' was the death of his wife Jennifer during the Battle of Wolf 359, which occurred in TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds". The subsequent Borg attack on Section 001, which occurred in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', is mentioned occasionally in ''Deep Space Nine'' while the Dominion War from ''Deep Space Nine'' is mentioned in ''Voyager'''s "Message in a Bottle", ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'' and ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''.* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Deep Space Nine'' is the darkest of the TV shows, with its plots involving petty politics and the terrible aspects of war, as well as its less rosy portrayal of the Federation. Unlike most other examples of this trope, however, the show never fully abandoned the idealism of the rest of the franchise even in its darkest moments.* DataPad: [=PADDs=].* DeadlyTrainingArea: The holodecks were intended to be used for training, but they're one of the most hazardous areas on the ship thanks to {{Holodeck Malfunction}}s.* DeathWail: The standard practice when a Klingon dies is for his/her comrades to hold their eyes open while screaming loudly to the sky to warn those in the afterlife that a great warrior is on his/her way to join them.* DeflectorShields: A standard ship feature. Battle shields tend to get knocked down 30 - 50 percent in a few hits. Ships also have low-level shielding that keeps them from being punctured by centimeter-wide space debris at warp speed.* DestructoNookie: Klingons.* DevelopmentGag: Quite a few. Jeffries Tubes were named after the visual designer of the original series (and designer of the original Enterprise) Matt Jeffries. Various shuttlecraft, such as the Justman, were also named after notable production crew. A section of Stage 16 at the Creator/{{Paramount}} studio used to portray alien planets had the nickname of "Planet Hell," which was used as a description of an appropriate planet in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''.** The ENT episode "Dear Doctor" makes a reference to sex-starved Archer's "[[FreudianSlipperySlope Pillarian Slips]]" in front of busty T'Pol. This is a cute nod to writer Michael Pillar.* DressUpEpisode: most common in the [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Original Series]] ("A Piece of the Action", "Return of the Archons", "Assignment: Earth"), but happens in''Next Generation'' a fair amount too ("The Big Goodbye").* DrinkOrder: -->'''Picard:''' Tea, Earl Grey, hot!\\'''Sisko:''' One raktajino with [[RealMenWearPink a jacarine peel!]]\\'''Janeway:''' Coffee! '''[[MustHaveCaffeine Black!]]'''\\'''Troi:''' Hot chocolate!\\'''O'Brien:''' Coffee, Jamaican blend. ''Double'' sweet, ''double'' strong.\\'''Rom:''' Snail juice, extra shells!\\'''Bashir:''' Red leaf tea!\\'''Worf:''' [[RunningGag PRUNE JUICE! EXTRA LARGE!]]** Apparently, the unspoken mission of the United Federation of Planets is to distribute root beer throughout the universe.** The Ferengi specialize in an alcoholic beverage called a black hole. Want to get hammered fast? Try a black hole.** The alcohol of choice for most Cardassians is kanar, a liquor that comes in several forms, most commonly a syrupy, dark brown liquid in a spiral-shaped bottle.** Other drinks include Romulan ale, tranya (from TOS' "The Corbomite Maneuver" and later stocked at Quark's on ''Deep Space Nine''), something called a Cardassian Sunrise, and the famous Klingon bloodwine. Actual blood is not among the ingredients, though it is served warm (to ''simulate'' drinking the blood of one's enemies). It's also twice as potent as Earth whiskey.* DoctorsOrders: The medical personnel can remove the captain from command.* DueToTheDead: A good number of funeral customs, at that.* DyingAlone[[/folder]] [[folder:E-H]]* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Earth is both the capital of the Federation and the headquarters of Starfleet. If an alien enemy wants to seriously conquer the Federation, taking Earth is invariably seen as key to doing so.* EmotionSuppression: The Vulcan culture has EmotionSuppression at its core.** Roddenberry once decreed that humans ''don't grieve'' in the future. "Death is natural." This was loosened up a bit after Gene got KickedUpstairs.* EmotionsVsStoicism: Romulans vs. Vulcans.* TheEmpire: The Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire and Cardassian Union. The Andorians tried their hand at becoming an imperial power in ENT, but mostly just embarrassed themselves.** The Terran Empire rules with an iron fist in the Mirror Universe.** The Klingon Empire in the original series qualified until they allied with the Federation. Prior to the Dominion War however, it temporarily relapsed back to the "old ways", namely with the conquest of Cardassia. ** The Cardassian "[[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny Union]]" is an imperial military dictatorship, run by military officials in an Orwellian body known as the Central Command, rather then one Emperor. It's more similar to Nazi Germany or the USSR then a traditional empire, controlled by a political body. The occupation of Bajor has shown the jack-booted Cardassians to be particularly ruthless. * EpicTrackingShot: It's an interesting thing to note as the next generation of shows progressed in special effects.* EverythingSensor: EVERY scanner is like this.* EvilIsNotWellLit: Of all the species, only the Borg and Cardassians have an excuse for this - the Borg's minimalism, and the latter's sensitivity to light. Incidentally, this is the excuse for ''Deep Space Nine'' being so dimly-lit, since it was built by the Cardassians.* EvilMeScaresMe: ''Trek'' has a decent history of {{Evil Twin}}s, what with [[PhlebotinumBreakdown transporter accidents]] and the MirrorUniverse. There's the example of Kirk being a LiteralSplitPersonality with an aggressive, hot headed side and a passive, weak-willed but logical side and the passive side is afraid of the aggressive one. Major Kira Nerys of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' gets [[DepravedBisexual HIT ON by Mirror Kira]]. However, since the MirrorUniverse normally involves plots of being swapped with the guy on the other side (presumably to avoid having to deal with one actor being in a single scene) mostly you get the counterparts never meeting and at most Evil You Scares [-(but sexually intrigues)-] Me. Or in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'''s version, their opposite is usually dead on one side of the mirror or the other.* TheEvilsOfFreeWill: The Borg are amazed people aren't lining up to be assimilated. [[HiveQueen The Queen]] touts it as a ''blessing.''* ExplosiveInstrumentation: Star Trek is the TropeCodifier. Consoles tend to explode in a shower of sparks whenever a ship takes damage. A frequent cause of [[RedShirt redshirt]] deaths.* ExpositionBeam: Vulcan Mind Melds are essentially this, along with a host of other AppliedPhlebotinum uses.* {{Expositron 9000}}: The ship/station computers. ...And Data, if you think about it.* FamilyValuesVillain: Many examples. Most notably, the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans place great importance on family and honoring their elders. Of course, there are numerous ugly exceptions to those rules. * FanOfThePast: Too many to name. You're far more likely to find a character enjoying a play, book, or movie that's a classic by ''our'' standards rather than a fictional future contemporary.* FantasticMeasurementSystem:** The Klingon distance unit "kellicam" is roughly equal to a kilometer.** The Bajoran measurement system includes hecapate, kellipate, kerripate, linnipate, tessijen and tessipate.** Computer capacity is measured in kiloquads, a unit that is very carefully never defined to avoid looking outdated when TechnologyMarchesOn.** Subspace distortion is measured in cochranes, an SI unit named for warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane.** Stresses are often given units of 'isodynes'. The Dyne is a legitimate unit of measure (albeit not SI), but is a measure of force (equal to 10 micronewtons). The correct usage would be 'Dynes per some unit of area'. There is no mention of what the prefix 'iso-' might represent. The prefix 'tera-' is also used (e.g. 'Hull stress at over 30 teradynes and rising!') and is more legitimate, but if that example was per square metre, the stress would be of the order of 10 megapascals - 100 times atmospheric pressure. Not a huge quantity in the grand scheme of things if you're a starship.* FantasticNamingConvention:** The Bajorans use their family name before their personal name.** The Klingons have one personal name, their father's name, and then their ''house'' name. The house name is usually omitted in introductions, but the crest is worn on their metal sashes.** Vulcans have several conventions followed:*** They seem to only have one name, no family name.*** Female names usually begin with T and have an apostrophe, followed by a P. Notable exceptions include: Tuvok from ''Voyager''.*** Male names usually begin with S and do not have an apostrophe. Notable exceptions include: Saavik from movies ''II'', ''III'', and ''IV''.** Romulans similarly tend to have only one name with no surname.** Ferengi also tend to have only one name, generally one syllable, with no surname.* FantasticRacism: There will always be at least a few members of each species that has issues with humans, other species, or vice versa.* FantasticNuke: The [[AGodAmI Genesis]] Device, a sophisticated torpedo used for rapid terraforming of dead worlds. Ironically, deploying this on an ''inhabited'' planet has the opposite effect, destroying all life to make way for the new matrix. ** In "Chain of Command", Picard's sent to destroy a protoype metagenic weapon. Metagenic bombs wipe out all organic matter on a planet's surface, leaving only the manufactured materials intact (and the world ripe for conquest). The weapons were outlawed, in part because they were equally hazardous to the invading force; however, the Cardassians were rumored to be overcoming that problem. This turned out to be a false flag, though.** The Vulcans use "Red Matter" to create pocket [[OurWormholesAreDifferent black holes]]. Nero got the bright idea of using it to eat a planet (specifically [[DeathByIrony Vulcan]]).* FantasticRankSystem: Everyone except the Federation has a different one. See the trope page for more details.* FantasyAxisOfEvil: ''Star Trek'' tends to map over to fantasy races pretty well. Aside from the FiveRaces, you have the [[ProudWarriorRace Klingons as orcs]], the Borg are pretty close to undead, the Cardassians as xenophobic Humanoids, the Romulans countering the [[OurElvesAreBetter Space Elf Vulcans]] as Dark Elves, and the Ferengi much like goblins.** [[TheEmpire The Dominion]]:*** Jem'Hadar: Savage*** Breen: Eldritch*** Cardassians: Humanoid*** The Founders: Fallen*** Vorta: Crafty* FantasyCounterpartCulture: While not fantasy, most of the major alien species have some connection to Real World counterparts. It should be considered that there is a difference between culture and politics.** The Federation - The United States. Although, it's sort of a mixture of the United States & the United Nations. The Federation flag & the Federation Council are reminiscent of the UN Flag & the Security Council. However, unlike the present-day UN, the Federation is a sovereign government with elements common to a federal republic. Persons on Federation worlds are citizens of the Federation. That citizenship is guaranteed rights by way of the Federation Charter & Constitution, and the rights enumerated in the Federation Charter & Constitution have supremacy across all member worlds.** Starfleet - The United States Navy. Both the Earth & Federation versions of Starfleet have individual ranks & systems of hierarchy that correspond with the USN's. The color of Starfleet personnel's uniforms are based on the specifics of their job, just as its done with the flight crews aboard USN aircraft carriers. Also, during the Dominion War, ''Deep Space Nine'' has Starfleet deployed in the numbered fleet configurations used by the USN, with the 3rd Fleet referenced as protecting Earth & the 7th Fleet all but destroyed in a failed offensive.** Vulcans- Great Britain. Not a perfect match-up, but ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' depicted them as a regional superpower who eventually lose much of their realm of control as Earth increases theirs.** Romulans- Communist China, made fairly obvious in the original series. A secretive government who you aren't quite sure what they're up to. ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'' expanded on that by showing the Romulans as emerging from decades of isolation from the rest of the galactic community. They also started to become a bit like Iran, for similar reasons. There are allusions to the Roman Empire too: their two main planets are Romulus and Remus, they are called an Empire, their ruling body is the Senate which is headed by a Praetor, and low-ranking officers are called "Centurions". ** Klingons- Soviet Russia, like the Romulans the analogue was obvious enough in the original series (although in their initial appearance they were described as ''Vietcong'' -- "Oriental, hard-faced" and "the Ho Chi Minh type"). They were the passive/aggressive species with whom it felt like war was always just around the corner but never quite got there. They mirrored Post-Soviet Russia in ''The Next Generation'' in terms of politics, having gotten past the "cold war" era but still not fully trusting each other. But as part of GeneRoddenberry's plan to not make them evil and a race of "black hats," they turned into... vikings. *** As if Worf's passing reference to a "Klingon tea ceremony" in [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]], the whole [[PlanetOfHats racial obsession with]] [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy honor, combat, and dying with honor]], and their love of [[KatanasAreJustBetter big, fancy curved swords]] wasn't [[FeudalJapan blatant enough,]] in "The Sons of Mogh" Worf's dishonored brother comes to him for help with a Klingon ceremony that's essentially {{Seppuku}} [[AC: [[RecycledInSpace In Space]]]].** The Cardassians took a few stabs at being Nazi analogues (xenophobia is inherent in their genetic makeup). After various failed attempts at democratization and improving relations with the other galactic powers, they join the Dominion and become a Nazi client state like [[LesCollaborateurs Vichy France]]. Eventually a "[[LaResistance Free French]]" faction emerges, though they are led by Damar, a DefectorFromDecadence (whereas the exile Garak was more of a De Gaulle analogue). ** Cardassian culture is very military-center and totalitarian - on ''Deep Space Nine'' one of the characters comments that "Cardassians have a habit of looking to strong military leadership in hard times" (Bismarck, the Kaiser etc). Parallel was apparently noted in-series, as the anti-Cardassian resistance shares a name with the French resistance of WWII.*** Cardassians as generic colonial powers works just as well as the obligatory Nazi comparison, since Bajor is always called a colony and is run along those lines: occupy and obtain resources (with local slave labor), rather than being a matter of living space or an ideology. *** Cardassians as a version of Japan is a popular alternative, especially among those who look at details like what food they eat. Much like Imperial Japan in the 1930's and 40's, the Cardassian Union had a nominally civilian government but was actually ruled by the military; though it was considered to be a major power within its sphere of influence, the Cardassian Union was actually smaller and less powerful than its neighbour (which in this case, is the United Federation of Planets). ** Bajorans as generic colonized people. (Would support the Cardassians as generic colonial powers interpretation.) Rick Berman compared the Bajorans to "the Kurds, the Palestinians, the Jews in the 1940s, the boat people from Haiti — unfortunately, the homeless and terrorism are problems [of every age]." They're a mishmash of pretty much any victimized group throughout the 20th century. ** Orions- The Mafia / Criminal Underground** Nausicaans- Gang Leaders.*** Same goes for ''Voyager's'' Kazon.** Ferengi- The East India Companies (most closely)*** Their society and system of government both bear some resemblance to the cities of Hong Kong and Singapore.* FasterThanLightTravel: Rather hard to imagine the series without it.* FeudalFuture: Earth seems to be the only planet that ever got the hang of democracy. Non-Federation worlds are depicted as imperialist aggressors (the faux-Chinese Klingons and the Greco-Roman Romulans) or peasant societies with well-oiled guillotines.* FictionalGenevaConventions: The Khitomer Accords, an historic peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. It's the prime focus of ''Star Trek VI'', with both sides attempting to scuttle it.* FictionalSport: Parrises Squares, a highly-athletic game played on the Holodeck.* FictionScience: The series have produced a large number of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_technical_manuals Technical Manuals]], many of them official. These fill in many details of life in the Trekkian future, especially the inner workings of the Enterprises and other starships.* ForgotTheCall* ForgottenPhlebotinum: In every single series and the movies. There are an insane number of instances where at the end of an episode the protagonists have in their possession some fantastic new piece of technology, which will ''never'' be used or mentioned ever again. Often a case of the StatusQuoIsGod, because the Federation simply cannot be allowed to get too far ahead of rivals such as the Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians.* FreeLoveFuture: Obviously downplayed, due to television constraints. However, Roddenberry was very much a proponent of this trope. We don't see much of civilian life on Earth, but officers are allowed to cavort fairly freely aboard the Federation's flagship. Prostitution (real and [[SexBot simulated]]) has also been legalized.-->'''Website/TheAgonyBooth''': ''Kirk has been with a lot of women, and is presumably deeply grateful for whatever eliminated [=STDs=] in Gene Roddenberry’s universe''* FrickinLaserBeams: Common throughout the franchise, though beam weapons move faster in later series, particularly ''Enterprise''. HandWaved in most instances, as the weapons used are not actually ''lasers'' (which are described once as terribly obsolete), but particle beams that move at sublight speed.* TheFutureIsNoir: The original designation for [=DS9=] was Terok Nor, which is one letter removed. It shows in the station's habitat ring, which is marked by patchy lighting and catwalk ceilings. ** Originally, going to Red Alert merely caused red lights to flash. By VOY, every single light on the ship is dimmed. Most likely a nod to the RealLife military practice of using red and/or dimmed lights in dark environments to preserve one's night vision, though this would be counterproductive on a ship that is operated entirely using brightly-lit touchscreens. But would help conserve energy that might be needed in a red alert situation.** "Yesterday's Enterpise" (TNG) and "Living Witness" showed alternate worlds in which the ''Enterprise'' and ''Voyager'' are fully-cocked warships, under the oppression of ''permanent'' Red Alert.** ''Generations'' was shot this way mostly to disguise the decade-old sets. However, ''First Contact'' was filmed much the same way, despite taking place on a brand new ship, perhaps to illustrate that the Federation is at war again.* GameOfNerds: A recurring motif in some episodes. Wesley Crusher mentions his father once teaching him the game, and a physicist in "Evolution" bemoans the decline of the sport in the late [=20th century=] (attributed to commercialism and sloth). ** Ben Sisko is a serious baseball nut. In his debates with the Prophets, an abstract species who think in non-linear terms, baseball is used as a methaphor for each crisis.* GenericistGovernment* GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke: We see the full effects of DNA hacking during the Eugenics and Dominion wars.** Bio-memetic gel, a key component of biogenic weapons. The actual ''effects'' of this gel are left up to the imagination; the Federation bans any and all weapons applications, so it must be pretty hairy. ** "In the Pale Moonlight" suggests that it can be used to create bombs that pass for organic matter.** Some ExpandedUniverse sources imply that ''biogenic'' is the equivalent of ''weapon of mass destruction'' in current parlance. That is, this is a weapon you had DAMN well better not get caught actually using.* GenericanEmpire: The United Federation of Planets, the Dominion.* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: The remastered Original Series and The Next Generation got a lot of "nip and tuck" regarding for the Hi-Def release (CBS aired some episodes before the actual Blu-Ray release came out). For the Original Series they strove to attain a visual look [[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series?file=Comparison_TOS_original_remastered.jpg virtually identical but simply cleaned-up]]. They also included a couple of brand new clips that were intended for the original episode but unable to film at the time, such as an establishing shot of Starfleet Command on Earth. TNG had a similar process done, largely for some effects that simply didn't age as well like the Crystalline Entity. The whole thing was well regarded, in large part because they were supervised by Trek production legend Michael Okuda.* GhostExtras: In the hundreds and thousands, given that TheMainCharactersDoEverything on every single ''Trek'' show. Occasionally one will be promoted to AscendedExtra, but more often they get "demoted" to RedShirt.* AGodAmI: To be a {{Terraform}}er in the Trek universe is to be very lordly, indeed. See the imperious Kurk Mandl in "Home Soil" (TNG), later one-upped by nine-time author (all autobiographies) Gideon Seytik in [=DS9=]'s "Second Sight." Something about creating planets gives scientists a god complex; Seytik's [[FamousLastWords final words]] were even, "Let there be light!"* GoodColorsEvilColors: When heroes on Trek use transporters, the visual effect appears blue. Alternatively, Klingons use a red effect. The Borg are green.** Cardassians (and, by extension, the crew of ''[=DS9=]'') have yellow transporter beams.* GoodOldWays* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: Used a couple of times in TNG and ''Deep Space Nine'', also used in the movie ''Insurrection''.* GrayingMorality: From series to series, at least for a while. TNG is grayer than the original series, and ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' is even grayer than that. ** The Prime Directive is often at the heart of this over the progression of the franchise, interestingly despite the fact that later series like ENT and the reboot movies chronologically predate TOS. As time has gone on, writers have increasingly treated the Prime Directive as an almost callous SocialDarwinist policy, to the extent that extinction of sapient species is considered preferable to the hypothetical negative consequences of "interference" in their cultures.** As part of the DarkerAndEdgier nature of the reboot movies, Section 31, much earlier in its history than in the main timeline, is well past the MoralEventHorizon. They have gone from covert activities to defend the Federation to building super-warships and attempting to preemptively start interstellar wars to eradicate Federation enemies.* GreatOffscreenWar: The [[WorldWarIII Third World War]] and Eugenic Wars, all taking place on Earth and concerning only humanity. It was actually ''one'' war in the Original Series, but was later split up into two. ** There are EU novels dealing with both, with ''The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh'' being the most-read. Also, in the interest of reconciling the Eugenics Wars with the real life passage of the era in which they are said to have taken place (1990s), the Eugenics Wars were retconned into a far less grand scale war that happened mostly [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy in the shadows of real life events]]. ** To provide a replacement AfterTheEnd scenario with the minimization of the Eugenics Wars, the 21st Century was retconned as having been a series of global conflicts, culminating in a mid-scale nuclear WorldWarIII. Even by the latter part of the century much of Earth was still in a state of post-apocalyptic anarchy, despite first contact with the Vulcans in 2063.** The war between the Federation and Romulan Empire, which forms the backstory for the episode "Balance of Terror". ** The Next Generation has the war between the Federation and the Cardassians, which was responsible for creating the Anti-Federation confederates known as the Maquis. ** As well as "brutal border wars" against the Talarians and the Tzenkethi, which happened at some point between the Original Series and the next Generation. ** The Earth-Romulan war ended as this, because ENT was canceled before it could cover it. The continuation novels have since stepped in to flesh it out. When first mentioned in the original series, this war was fought entirely at extreme ranges with nuclear weapons (and with neither race ever actually laying eyes on the other).* GunboatDiplomacy: TheFederation definitely believes in "carrying a big [[CoolStarship ship]]" to negotiations. They don't usually push their self-interest too hard with this show of force, but it still makes three things clear. "We are strong." "We are rich." "You ''don't'' start fights when we're trying to negotiate."* HalfHumanHybrid: Spock, Deanna Troi, B'Elanna Torres, [[spoiler:Sisko]].* HateFic: The Federation is frequently portrayed as a [[RedScare semi-communist dystopia]], only averting the worst horrors of the stereotype due to their AppliedPhlebotinum. The website [=StarDestroyer.net=] is famous for [[FlameWar advocating and supporting this view]], as seen in [[http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html this essay]].** This [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=75690 fanfic(?)]] shows how the Federation could go from the ''TOS'' to ''TNG'' in a disturbingly realistic way.* HaveIMentionedIAmADwarfToday: Klingons tend to do this a lot; Worf is only the most prominent example.* HeroOfAnotherStory: It is implied through the various ''Star Trek'' shows that the sort of adventures the ''[[CoolStarship Enterprise]]'' and her crew get in is just the far side of typical. {{Lampshaded}} by Captain Janeway when she stated in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' that "Weird is part of the job."* HideYourGays: A common criticism of the franchise as a whole, especially given its tendency to be {{Anvilicious}} on a wide range of social issues such as racism, gender inequality and social class conflicts. Complaints only got louder as the franchise continued to grow throughout the 1990's, a time when many far less activist television shows had begun to include openly-gay regular characters, while ''Star Trek'' studiously avoided the topic. Often producers tried to appease critics by addressing it in very heavily metaphorical ways, typically involving the use of BizarreAlienBiology. To date, no human character has ever been anything other than heterosexual, and while things like InterspeciesRomance are commonplace, any kind of same-sex relationships are still taboo unless they can be explained as a quirk of alien culture.* HighlyConspicuousUniform: Worf once justified this by claiming Starfleet duds are suited for a wide variety of climates, due to the special material or somesuch. ("Let He Who is Without Sin"). It also spared the makeup department from showing us what Klingons look like in swim trunks, but that's just coincidental. ** The Klingons are the lords of this trope. At least the Romulans can claim a degree of urban camo with their checkered outfits. The Klingons are all about plate metal, spikes, and gauntlets that would make [[TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Shredder]] envious. And don't forget the steel-toed, spiked boots for kicking your enemy's skull in.** The Cardassians favor big, bulky chestplates, along with a wide neckline for the snake-like hoods on their neck. It doesn't look very comfortable or maneuverable.* HollywoodEvolution: The franchise is guilty of promulgating virtually every sub-trope of this into public consciousness, undoing the work of biology teachers everywhere. In particular, GoalOrientedEvolution is extremely popular with the writers, who often incorporate the idea that the evolutionary future of any species can be predicted with comparative ease and surprising accuracy. This often forms the backbone of rationalizations of how the Prime Directive is interpreted in a given episode, with characters taking the stance that the evolution of a given species is "supposed" to go down a certain path (which may include extinction if the species is unfortunate enough to be pre-warp).* HollywoodTactics: Went up and down depending on the series and the point in the series, but pretty much everybody is ''woefully'' under-equipped and fights very poorly in land combat.* {{Hologram}}: Starting in [=TNG=], recreational holodecks were standard, with "hard light" holograms made of projections and forcefields. Later series also added the Emergency Medical Hologram.* HumanOutsideAlienInside: While most of the species that are encountered look fairly humanoid, many of them turn out to have truly [[BizarreAlienBiology bizarre biological differences]].* HumansAreDiplomats: Especially during [=TOS=] and early TNG. Gene Roddenberry opposed the idea of a military Starfleet.* HumansAreSpecial: The Federation is a vast, multi-species, space nation -- that is overwhelmingly run by humans and HumanAliens. Aliens are a definite minority in Starfleet. Many alien species use "The Federation" and "Starfleet" to explicitly refer to "humanity" and "Earth".** Particularly noteworthy in crew of the Federation Flagships. In TOS and TNG, the majority of the main cast was human. The remainders? Spock, a half-Human half-Vulcan. Troi, a half-Betazed half-Human. Data, an android designed by a human, with a personal goal of becoming more like a human (Not like humanoids or other biological lifeforms, but specifically human). And Worf, a full blooded Klingon, who was raised by Humans. Ironically, the one Enterprise which would have an excuse to have only humans on it, the Pre-Federation Earth vessel captained by Archer, had two alien main cast members with no particular tie to humanity.* HumorlessAliens: Vulcans allegedly have no sense of humor, but they all seem to be {{Deadpan Snarker}}s anyway.** This is a bit of FridgeBrilliance. Humor is usually about the incongruity between logic and reality. So, basically, Vulcans have spent hundreds of years watching every other race act like clowns, and they get the joke. They may not guffaw, but their sense of humor is finely honed. ** Sulu tells a young Tuvok once, "Don't tell me Vulcans don't have a sense of humor, because I know better." True enough![[/folder]] [[folder:I-L]]* IfYouTauntHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim* InertialDampening: Occasionally mentioned by the characters, Inertial Dampeners allow an Impulse-drive-powered starship to accelerate from a dead stop to a substantial fraction of the speed of light in under a minute, without turning the crew into crepes. The technology isn't quick enough to compensate for random, unexpected impacts, however, which can result in the StarTrekShake.* InexplicableCulturalTies: In Roddenberry's ''Star Trek'' pitch, he explains how culturally (and [[HumanAliens biologically]]) familiar aliens would make ScienceFiction feasible for TV. ''Star Trek'' has since been true to what he called the Parallel Worlds concept that prescribes that alien civilizations will usually be very much like humans culturally and therefore not too foreign to the audience.* InsistentTerminology: Back in the days when "geek" was [[http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/freddie+blassie/pencil+neck+geek_20769788.html a bonafide insult]] rather than a badge of honor, fans considered "Trekkie" insulting and belittling. It was ''Trekker'', thank you very much. As times changed and being a nerd became cool, the diminutive came to be embraced as more like a term of endearment.* IntelligentGerbil: Lt. M'Ress, the felinoid alien from the AnimatedSeries; the Gorn/Cardassians/Xindi, basically LizardFolk; the Bolians are based loosely on dolphins.* InsaneAdmiral: Probably the TropeCodifier. If a visiting guest, alien enemy or a spatial anomaly wasn't behind the Problem of the Week, it was almost certainly one of these.* InterdimensionalTravelDevice: Transporters can act this way under certain circumstances (which occur accidentally in the original series, and then are intentionally reproduced in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'').* InterspeciesRomance: A staple of the show, and interestingly many species are genetically-compatible and can produce viable offspring, even if their anatomy and biochemistry are dissimilar. Several main characters such as Spock, Deanna Troi and B'Elanna Torres are HalfHumanHybrid[=s=] born from marriages between humans and aliens.* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Gene Roddenberry's first pilot episode didn't sell. He had to recast the Captain and shoot it all over again, and it was ''still'' smoked by ''Series/{{Gunsmoke}}'''s ratings.** [[invoked]] The Original Series was, famously, UnCancelled after college students [[VindicatedByCable had a chance to catch up with it in reruns]]. ** Ironically, this later success ended up jeopardizing the series' future. When news hit of ''TNG'', fans were up in arms, and the original cast members weren't shy about voicing their displeasure either. The show flailed about for two seasons trying--and failing--to distinguish itself from its parents series, recycling plots and characters, having actors defect and leave the show, and nearly losing ''Patrick Stewart'' (who saw the shadows lengthening and opted [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere not to renew his contract]]). Were it not for the cliffhanger ending in "The Best of Both Worlds", TNG might not have been renewed and the franchise would have ended there.* JustAMachine: ''Star Trek'' in general draws a distinction between the special cases like Data and the Doctor, and the ubiquitous ship computers responsible for getting everything done in the background. Despite the fact that ship computers can pass the Turing Test with ease, act on their own initiative, and occasionally even display signs of emotion, this is never investigated or even mentioned in-story: ship computers are always just-machines and limited to being background elements (this is doubly notable since some of the special case characters, such as the Doctor, run on a ship computer).* LargeHam: Pops up a lot, but becomes near-certain whenever a Klingon is on screen.* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: The gold uniform worn by Kirk, and later Archer). ** The colors were shuffled around a bit on ''TNG'', with [[color:red:red]] (formerly Operations) and [[color:yellow:gold]] (Command) trading places. [[color:blue:Blue]] still stands for Sciences division.PrimaryColorChampion LawOfChromaticSuperiority: * ALessonInDefeat: The Kobayashi Maru test is an UnwinnableTrainingSimulation designed specifically to invoke this, as it cannot be beaten without cheating.* LetterMotif* LicensedPinballTables: Several, [[Pinball/StarTrek all collected here.]]* LogicBomb: Though there were precedents in pulp SF, Kirk did this to no fewer than three computers.** [[TheWikiRule Memory Alpha]] calls the full-on 'cause the computer to shut down' version [[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Induced_self-destruction induced self destruction]], and counts five cases (one inadvertent), all of them by Kirk.* LongRunners: The second longest running sci-fi franchise in the world, beaten only by ''Series/DoctorWho'' - and Star Trek has more total hours (as stated earlier). * LoveIsInTheAir: Several episodes throughout the different series. Subverted in the infamous Risa episodes.* LuddWasRight: By means of SpaceAmish.* LudicrousPrecision: The Vulcans are prone to this, as is Commander Data.[[/folder]] [[folder:M-P]]* MadeOfExplodium: When a computer blows up in ''Star Trek,'' it '''BLOWS UP.''' This extends to either independent computer equipment or even the consoles on the bridge. Sometimes characters even die from the exploding bridge consoles.* MadeOfPhlebotinum* MagicalSecurityCam: Happens so often and so early in the setting that it can be considered a technological standard. At this point, anything else would be a deviation from canon.** Taken to its logical extreme in ''Voyager'', where the ship recorded all of the crew's brainwaves.* MagneticPlotDevice: The various starships. The Holodeck. The Bajoran wormhole in ''Deep Space Nine''. The Temporal Cold War in ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]''.* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: ''Trek'' seems to have a problem with keeping crew members at their designated stations, probably because it would become monotonous to the actors. It's a running gag that during a ship-wide emergency, the last place you'll find the Chief Engineer is in Engineering. (In TNG, Geordi could simply "transfer Engineering control" to the bridge, whatever that means, and thus justifiy his presence there.)* TheManBehindTheMonsters* MechanisticAlienCulture: Several aliens, primarily from the [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries original series]]:** The drone-like Lawgivers in "Return of the Archons." In that case, the drone-like humanoids were controlled by an intelligent supercomputer.** The original builders of the Androids on Exo III were also stated to have been a society of biological creatures who ruined their homeworld and retreated underground where they became a more mechanized, machine-like society.** The Kelvans from the Andromeda Galaxy are implied to have a culture like this; they are completely organic beings, but in their true form they experience none of the sensory distractions of humanoids, and consider themselves much more efficient. They go about trying to take over the Milky Way with very straightforward methods (transforming Kirk's crew into vulnerable dust-cubes that only their technology can restore to human form, for example) but without any of the typical ''Trek'' villains' hamminess. The Federation is saved from them by the fact that, when in artificial humanoid form, the Kelvans become {{Sense Freak}}s and can be incapacitated in a variety of ways, such as by the effects of alcohol or unfamiliar emotions like pleasure or jealousy.** The Eyemorg (humanoid female) society in the infamous episode "Spock's Brain" were totally reliant on a mechanized underground industrial complex run by advanced computers (for which purpose they tried to steal "Spock's Brain," because they lacked the knowledge to maintain this infrastructure themselves unless); this was in contrast to the primitive, Ice Age-like culture of males that lived on the surface.** The Fabrini who lived aboard a generational asteroid ship, which they all believed was actually a planet, were similarly run by an advanced, tyrannical computer called The Oracle. The Fabrini were less "rigidly mechanical" and more "rigidly traditional" though, the rigid traditions being enforced by The Oracle.** The [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Borg]] are a Hive Mind of HollywoodCyborg aliens that otherwise follow this trope, using cybernetically augmented humanoid bodies only as cannon fodder and servitor units.** Vulcans sometimes have elements of this, but their culture is much more complex. Their education system, however, as briefly shown in ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' and more extensively in ''Film/StarTrek (2009)'', is very much in line with this trope and plays like a callback to the uber-intellectual, emotionless aliens of older science fiction.** The Iyaarans, a species from a Season 7 episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', play this trope absolutely straight, and also like a callback to aliens from older Sci-Fi: They are DittoAliens with rubber foreheads and jumpsuits; they lack cultural concepts like antagonism, love, joy, pleasure, crime, etc; they all appear male and reproduce asexually by [[NoodleIncident something called post-cellular compounding, the exact mechanics of which are, fortunately, never detailed]]. Their diet is extremely bland, consisting of nutrient wafers, because they consider their need to eat as matter of sustenance only, not pleasure or enjoyment, like many other humanoids consider meals. Unlike most examples of this trope, however, they are very curious about other cultures, though they struggle to understand diverse cultures like [[TheFederation the Federation]].** Similarly, the cauliflower-headed humanoids that abducted Picard for study in an earlier episode were all [[DittoAliens identical]] with no concept of individual identity or leadership. What little was revealed about their society hinted at something like this trope.** The Bynars from the first season episode "11001001" are closely dependent on their computers for survival. They have implants that connect them to their planet's central computer, have "digital" names like One Zero and Zero One, live and work in binary pairs, have a language based on binary, and when their planet's central planetary computer is fried by a nearby supernova it almost wipes out the entire species.** The [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Hier]][[PlanetOfHats archy]] from ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' are a callback/parody/possible deconstruction of this, with their heavily regimented, computerized society, costume design, and snotty behavior.* MildlyMilitary: Starfleet combines the swashbuckling and relative independence of ships from the [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen Age Of Sail]] with a preference for a fairly relaxed, "[[CulturedWarrior enlightened]]" attitude, and a portfolio split between defence, science, law enforcement, and diplomacy.** It is now {{Canon}} that NCC-1701 is a ship's classification number, however with that lead "N" it ''could'' be taken as a ''civil aircraft'' registration number.** Not unintentional, as Roddenberry reportedly based the Starfleet hull-numbering system after the US civil aircraft registration system deliberately referencing the "N" or "NC" numbers used on US aircraft.)** The placement of the insignia on the uniforms is reminiscent of a police officer's badge. Roddenberry was a Los Angeles police officer prior to his entertainment career, so perhaps this usage was intentional given Starfleet's law enforcement/community service role.* MilitaryMaverick: Almost expected of Starfleet captains, it would seem. Picard, for all his careful, deliberate, and knowledge of the the regulations (backwards, forwards, and sideways), has many moments of this, and the others even more. One gets the impression that, away from central planets and main trade routes, the captain ''is'' the Federation, with all the discretion '''and''' responsibility that implies.** Considering that the original concept for the series was Hornblower in deep space, and that ship captains during the WoodenShipsAndIronMen era usually were their respective country's highest representative in any area where they were stationed... ** Janeway in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' once made a comment about how strongly she had to hold onto Starfleet regulations so far from home, but also admired the gung-ho attitude of [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries earlier Starfleet captains]] ("I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that!").* MiracleFood: The replicators can recycle matter to synthesize almost anything, including food and drinks. Several episodes have seen the crew replicate food and other provisions for people in need.* MonsterOfTheWeek: ** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':In SF author David Gerrold's book about writing the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", he recounts seeing the first episode broadcast, which featured a creature that sucked all of the salt out of people's bodies, thereby killing them. He hoped ''Star Trek'' wasn't going to turn out to be a MonsterOfTheWeek show, which ironically for him, it did.** While later series rarely had weekly ''monsters'', ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and especially ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' had [[NegativeSpaceWedgie stellar anomalies]] of the week that were always solved by a healthy amount of {{Technobabble}}.** The first season of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' started to become a [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien ''god-like alien'']] of the week show, but fortunately found sturdier footing in subsequent seasons.* MonumentalView: Every iteration puts Starfleet academy on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco (and directly across from Starfleet headquarters.) There's a bit of a problem with that as the land there is almost exclusively deep, steep, hills.** On the other hand, the chronologically earliest series takes place a century and a half in the future. Plenty of time for the hills to get bulldozed.*** Those same hills where the academy would be placed if it were a real place are actually home to a large network of abandoned US Naval fortifications, which presumably could be used by Starfleet, with additions for things like hangers or storage making it a fairly logical placement for the purpose of a base/training station. * MoreHeroThanThou: Any time one Starfleet officer says IWillOnlySlowYouDown.* MostCommonSuperpower: In recent years, various actresses have let slip that most, if not all, of ''Star Trek''[='s=] females have had to wear padded bras. Notable exceptions are Nana Visitor ([=DS9=]) and Kate Mulgrew who, according to legend, took her stuffed bra, stomped straight into the writer's room, and slammed it on their desk saying, "I'm ''not'' wearing that."* TheMultiverse: ** Kirk, [=McCoy=], and several others were transported to a MirrorUniverse in the "Mirror, Mirror" episode of the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}},'' in which a dark Earth-based empire ruled the galaxy. This was very much an InSpiteOfANail universe, since everything was much the same except the moral/ethical bent of the Federation's counterpart and its citizens.** Years later, the cast of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' returned to this universe to discover that the revolution Kirk had encouraged its native Spock to foment had happened; unfortunately, its effects were not necessarily for the better.** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' revisited this again in "In a Mirror, Darkly", just to hammer it home that HumansAreBastards.*** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' had an episode with Worf bouncing between various InSpiteOfANail alternate universes. According to WordOfGod, this is distinct from the usual MirrorUniverse though.* NarratingThePresent: the {{Captains Log}}s.* NationalWeapon: The Klingon bat'leth.* NegativeSpaceWedgie: From a well-known parody.* NeverGiveTheCaptainAStraightAnswer: Occasionally, when something particularly strange was in the transporter room or something, the officer present just asks the captain to come look. Sometimes justified, as with Scotty in ''Wrath of Khan''. * NowDoItAgainBackwards* NoOSHACompliance: Various parts of the ships have handrails a-plenty, but virtually no seat belts (the reboot films being a notable exception.) Across multiple series and movies, time and again in the franchise, you'll see the ship rocked by explosions and characters thrown hurtling all over the bridge while the camera shakes, sometimes being hurled from one end to the other. You'd think that seat belts would become a priority after decades of this. Poor Worf doesn't even have a ''seat.''** Fridge here but maybe all that being tossed around is what lead to Worf's Badass Decay. He probably broke every bone a few times over, and even in the future that has to take a toll.** It gets worse when you consider how everything on the bridge tends to explode and occasionally kill various redshirt crewmen whenever the ship takes a hit. Do they store nitroglycerine in their computer consoles? Did they never invent fuses?** Humorously averted, perhaps even lampshaded, in ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock''. The brand new U.S.S. Excelsior, which allegedly has transwarp drive. Every crew station on the bridge had a seat, and when they prepared to try the transwarp drive for the first time, it was shown that the armrests on the seats could be pulled inward, to better secure the crewmembers in place. Perhaps when the transwarp drive technology failed to pan out, Starfleet decided to abolish the chairs too?** Referring back to the handrail, it came to a head in ''Enterprise'' when a crewman actually calls something a handrail, then when its pointed out that where it's placed on a lift would actually sever fingers, is clearly confused and asks why anyone would ''put'' their hand there. Considering its Trip ''of all people'', who's asking the crewman this, its even more baffling?* NoSuchThingAsAlienPopCulture: Occasionally subverted or averted, it's still the rule rather than the exception. Notably, Klingons have opera and something resembling heavy metal.* NoSuchThingAsHR: A common point of confusion in the otherwise enlightened future of ''Star Trek'' is Mc Coy's humorously treated FantasticRacism towards Spock , along with the number of physical altercations the crew get into without really getting into trouble. Justifiable in [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] since the ship's on the edge of known space; by the time the franchise moved closer to Earth with ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', a more established bureaucracy seemed to be in place (though occasionally characters like Worf seem to be allowed a huge amount of leeway as a ProudWarriorRaceGuy).* NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus: Due to the incredible number of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that Starfleet comes across just within the immediate vicinity of the Federation, skepticism levels are off the charts. Even in cases such as the Q, where the aliens in question actually ''are'' [[TheOmnipotent omnipotent]]. This was averted in [=DS9=], where the Bajoran Prophets were increasingly accepted as having a religious mystique even by the Starfleet people, despite the fact that they are actually pretty mediocre by the standards of godlike beings in the ''Trek'' universe.* NoTranshumanismAllowed: To an almost militant degree. A recurring theme across series is that trying to augment existing species or individuals beyond their natural capabilities is morally wrong. Even treatment of genetic defects is questioned in some circumstances, with [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic engineering]] overall being greatly feared due to the so-called "Eugenics Wars" of Earth's 1990's which were the result of the creation of [[BewareTheSuperman human Augments]]. Somewhat ironically, actual [[SuperBreedingProgram Eugenics]] however would be legally possible within the Federation, as InterspeciesRomance, often involving species possessing superhuman abilities, is very commonplace.* OfficerAndAGentleman and/or CulturedWarrior: To some degree, almost all Starfleet personnel are one or the other of these. Even the CloserToEarth types have scientific and literary interests. Many enemies are WickedCultured as well.* OneWorldOrder: Are there any planets in that future that ''don't'' have a solitary, planet-wide government?** Kesprit - in fact it's a point against it joining the Federation that it is divided into two blocks (Kes and Prit respectively) that they can't figure out a way to unite peacefully.*** It's stated in the episode that not being a united world would not automatically disqualify them from Federation membership, but it was a point of contention as being a united world was extremely encouraged. The Federation feels that there is a good chance that a world that hasn't even resolved the differences among their own people and united them isn't ready to join an interstellar community. This feeling is proven correct in the episode.* OurDoorsAreDifferent: Sliding doors everywhere. ''Everywhere''.** The foley effect for ''Trek'' doors is the sound paper makes when removed from an envelope. Then there are the heavier, ''Whirrr Ka-CHUNK'' sliding doors.* OutrankingYourJob: Seemingly every crewmember aboard both ''Enterprises'' is an officer.** Away teams, the futuristic equivalent of a boarding party, are typically composed of several senior officers, plus one or two RedShirt characters as cannon fodder. In TOS, Kirk himself frequently led the away team.** Inverted by Miles O'Brien. He's essentially the chief engineer, but he's just a petty officer. Granted, there don't seem to be that many Starfleet officers under him, so he technically ''does'' still outrank his staff. Most of them seem to be Bajoran civilians (and Rom). * PaletteSwappedAlienFood: Romulan and Andorian Ale is blue.* PerfectPacifistPeople: Several species in the various works exhibit this trope.* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo: Photon torpedoes are the TropeMaker. There are also quantum, plasma, and polaron torpedoes, just to name a few.* ThePlague: The disease that killed all the adults in "Miri". (TOS)** Rigelian Fever in "Requiem for Methuselah".** The disease from "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E4TheNakedTime The Naked Time]]" (and its sequel "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E2TheNakedNow The Naked Now]]") is apparently non-fatal, but is highly contagious and, in both episodes, turns the entire crew into oversexed, drunken boobs who threaten to destroy the ship.** The macrovirus in the ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' episode "Macrocosm". Especially nightmarish because of the monsters that exist solely as vectors, and are produced by the welts on its victims' skin.** Also in VOY, an entire alien species is struck with the "phage", a flesh-melting disease which adapts too fast to be treated. The aliens are forced to graft skin and organs from assorted species onto themselves.** In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', the Dominion infected an entire planet which resisted them with a plague called "The Quickening" (after the final deadly stage of infection). Everyone is born with it, most die in childhood, but enough people survive to adulthood to keep their population stable, turning what was once a space-faring civilization into something resembling the DungAges. Dr. Bashir beats his head against the wall trying to find a cure, but can only come up with a vaccine. The upshot is that future generations may yet stand a chance.** The Federation's [[WellIntentionedExtremist "Section 31"]] also created a plague to kill the Changelings and win the war. It was ultimately successful, as the Changelings ended up bartering peace in exchange for a cure. ** The plague that nearly depopulated one of the Dramians' two planets in [[StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries the Animated Series]] episode "Albatross."* PlanetOfHats: Most planets visited have exactly one government, one language, and one culture.* PlanetaryNation: If you do not have one, then as far as the Federation is concerned you are a bunch of lawless barbarians and/or in a state of civil war. * {{Planetville}}: Often paired with Planet of Hats. A planetary population smaller than that of an urban apartment building is commonly considered to constitute a "civilization", to the extent of being subject to the Prime Directive. Perhaps the most glaring example was presented in the ''ENT'' episode "Terra Nova", where the roughly 200 settlers of Earth's first interstellar colony decided to declare independent sovereignty, ''and Earth let it go!''* PowerOfFriendship: The franchise features a lot of this; especially in ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'' and in ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''. Many episodes revolve around one of the crew being kidnapped, threatened, or otherwise in danger, and having the rest of the crew band together to save them. Has resulted in plenty of CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming and BigDamnHeroes.* PsychicPowers: Many species have them, ranging from minor extrasensory perception to godlike powers.[[/folder]] [[folder:Q-T]]* RagnarokProofing: In ''Living Witness'', Season 4, Episode 23 of ''Voyager'', the Doctor's program was bootlegged onto a storage device, and wakes up 700 years in the future on a planet where the survivors are unhappy over past events, where all of the devices that had been left behind from Voyager, tricorder, the Doctor's holo emitter, etc., which had lain buried and forgotten for over 680 years, until found in archeological digs, all work perfectly.* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: ''Voyager'', of course. Virtually nobody on the ship has any business being there, including the ship's Doctor.** ''Deep Space Nine'' also has a fairly motley crew, considering that some belong to species who are avowed enemies of the TNG crew. Moreover, nobody on the station really wants to be there: Sisko originally wanted to transfer to civilian service; Quark was planning to split town altogether; Worf is back to square one, surrounded by even ''more'' people he doesn't understand; Kira resented working with Starfleet and was only comfortable blowing things up; Garak is barred from returning to his homeworld and, to add insult to injury, constantly shivering from the (comparatively freezing) temperature. * RandomTransportation: In the {{Verse}} wormholes can be used ''in principle'' for very long distance interstellar travel, but in practice aren't because they're unstable and can land you at any random location in the galaxy with no guarantee that they'll open up again to bring you back. ** The wormhole in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' is notably stable, taking you from point X in the Alpha Quadrant to point Y in the Gamma Quadrant and back again every time; but that's because it was artificially created by the Prophets/wormhole aliens instead of being a natural phenomenon.* RayGun: Phasers and disruptors.* RaygunGothic: The [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Original Series]] solidly fits this trope. By the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' era the Federation is in transition between RayGunGothic and CrystalSpiresAndTogas.* TheRez: Whole ''planets'' of it.* ReactionlessDrive: Every ship's warp drive is propelled by the cylindrical nacelles on the sides of the ship. There is no apparent ejection of matter, so what force is propelling the ship is unknown to our primitive understanding of physics. Most theorists who dissect the TechnoBabble have settled on the idea that warp technology distorts space-time in a way that a) makes the ship capable of FasterThanLightTravel and b) requires the engines to work in a way analogous to terrestrial transport (''à la'' SpaceFriction).** Even the slower-than-light Impulse Engines appear to be some kind of reactionless drive. Although they glow an ominous red color while in operation, there's no apparent ejection of matter, and no mention is ever made of the need for propellant storage. (The top speed under impulse drive is supposed to be 0.25''c'', which even for antimatter-powered Newtonian engines would require a substantial amount of propellant mass to be expelled.)* RecycledInSpace: The franchise itself is, in the words of its creator, [[WagonTrainToTheStars Wagon Train]] [-TO THE STARS-]!** In ''TOS'', the Klingons are Russians [-IN SPACE!-] while the Romulans are the then-inscrutable Chinese...[-IN SPACE-]!** Vulcans are Elves. [-IN SPACE-]!** Romulans are Dark Elves/Drow, Klingons are Orcs/Orks, Borg are Undead, et cetera.*** Borg are more like Horror Film Zombies in space!** Nicholas Meyer, director of ''Film/{{Star Trek II|The Wrath of Khan}}'' and ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'', describes the series as "''HoratioHornblower'' [-IN SPACE-]!"*** Gene Roddenberry described James T. Kirk as a space-age Horatio Hornblower in the book ''The Making of Star Trek'' (1968).* TheReptilians: The Gorn. ** The rarely-seen brandy-making Saurians. ** The Cardassians. Though they're the least reptilian, looking pretty much like humans with scales tacked on, they also happen to be the most villainous of the reptoid lot. ** The Reptilian Xindi in ''Star Trek: Enterprise''. ** The Voth were descended from Earth hadrosaurs. Which is at least a new one, as far as Dinosauroids go. ** The Hirogen (modeled on a gila monster) and the Jem'Hadar at least look the part, and are the villains in most of their appearances. However, the latter's makeup was based on a rhinoceros.* RevisitingTheRoots: For better or for worse, ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' was this for the franchise: A lone Federation starship exploring the dangerous unknowns and meeting new life and new civilizations.* TheRival: To ''Franchise/StarWars''. A sort-of staple in contemporary pop culture, the two franchises, specifically their fanbases have been mortal enemies for nearly half a century.* RobotsEnslavingRobots:** [[HiveMind The Borg Collective]] is an interesting aversion of this. Though it has no compunction sacrificing drones to adapt to phasers and forces individuals to act against their will, it would not outright order individuals like Picard/Locutus or Hugh to ''die'' when they became a threat... it prized them too much, like limbs. It was effectively a hydra that ''liked'' some of its heads. Part of this is because, at least in earlier depictions, the Borg - despite appearances - value diversity. Uniqueness allowed it to expand its own capabilities. However, born and raised Borg like Hugh that undergo a period of individuality can grow to reject the Collective's absolute stranglehold on them, and even ''infect'' other drones with TheEvilsOfFreeWill.** However, the [[HiveQueen Borg Queen]] in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' and ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' is a straight cyborg example of this trope. She sees herself as the pinnacle of perfection, knowingly enslaves her drones to make them fit her view of perfection by squashing any individuality and will thoughtlessly sacrifice thousands of drones to capture and coerce individuals like Seven of Nine or attacking the invincible aliens in Fluidic Space.* SapientCetaceans: A frequent theme in the series.* ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: ''Voyager'' cruising over a planet's rings in the opening credits. Why does it take sixty years to fly back to the Alpha Quadrant? All they have to do is walk from one side of the ship to the other.** The Dyson Sphere in TNG's "Relics." The outer shell is built around a star to absorb its power. If you constructed a Dyson Sphere around our sun, for example, the surface area would be about 550 million times the entire surface area of the Earth. * ScreensAreCameras: All viewscreens behave like this, in each the show's incarnations.** On ''Deep Space Nine'', the producers rolled out a new invention: a portable 3D holocommunicator. Instead of conversing via a viewscreen, two actors could share the same room and still appear to be talking over great distances. Ironically, this looks even cheaper than the viewscreen did, despite being ''more'' time-consuming and expensive (due to various camera trickery to make the 'effect' look less blatant.) The device only shows up in two episodes, "For the Uniform" and "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?"** ''Trek'' holograms have always been cleaner than ''Star Wars'' holograms, so flickering or static wouldn't be keeping in canon. Instead, they tried surrounding the 'holographic' actor in blue light (so as to appear to be transmitting from a different room), but the actor confusingly looks like a ghost(!). * ScreenShake: The usual method of showing impact. Shake camera, shimmy actors.* SelfMadeOrphan: Uses this trope in Klingon mythology. According to it, the gods created Klingons, who then turned around and killed them for the trouble. * ShoutOutToShakespeare: Many characters quote the Bard. Alien cultures tend to admire him too, even claiming him as their own.* SightedGunsAreLowTech: Hand phasers, at least. Heavy-duty phaser rifles usually have a sight.* SlowElectricity: The console displays always go on/off in sequence around the bridge. If there's a ship-wide outage, expect an outside shot of windows lighting up/going out one at a time.* SmartHouse: The ships behave much like this from TNG onward.* SocietyMarchesOn: Most prominent in TOS, which was very heavy on Cold War allegory with the Federation (the United States), Klingon Empire (the Soviet Union) and Romulans (China) being very obvious expies of real world nations. Real world social values from the times the various series were made also crept into the shows in a variety of ways, such as surprisingly consistent gender roles, fashions often paralleling the real world, alternative lifestyles being limited to alien cultures, no human homosexuality or bisexuality and a society that had supposedly evolved beyond materialism, but only because they had the technology to create almost anything they could desire at will.* SomeKindOfForceField: Characters are always touching the force fields to show the audience that they are there.* SpaceFighter: Fighters are rare, but did turn up now and then -- especially in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]''. Later Trek series started having a stronger military influence and ships like the Defiant and the Delta Flyer are surprisingly battle-hearted fighters.* SpaceNavy: Starfleet.* SpaceshipSlingshotStunt: A common trick for time travel no less.* StandardSciFiArmy: Codified the use Security personnel. Follows the visual media model of focusing mostly on Infantry.* StandardSciFiHistory: Earth's history follows this.* StandardSciFiSetting: One of the most famous {{Trope Codifier}}s.* StandardStarshipScuffle: A likely TropeCodifier.* StandardTimeUnits: Stardates.* StarfishAliens: While the series is often mocked for excessive use of RubberForeheadAliens, special mention must be made of the Tholians that appeared in the original series episode "The Tholian Web", who were ''so'' strange, while visible only partly through the main viewscreen during negotiations, that the writers themselves (like anyone else) couldn't figure out what they actually were implied to be for the better part of 30 years, even while being passingly mentioned once or twice in different series. Only toward the end of ''Enterprise'' did they finally settle on the head being a carapace, and the Tholians as a race of advanced arachnids.** For a show with a limited budget, even the original series had a decent number of nonhumanoids. Apart from a bunch of EnergyBeings, we also had the Horta, Yarnek, the Melkotians--and a few shapeshifters like Sylvia & Korob, and the Kelvans, whose ''real'' forms were nonhumanoid. Each of the later series added a few more to the list. The show that far and away had the most nonhumanoids was the one where budget limitations could not hinder creature design: ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries.''* StateSec: Romulans and Cardassians both got their own little versions in the form of the Tal'Shiar and Obsidian Order respectively. Arguably Starfleet's Section 31. The Ferengi's FCA might also qualify given their cultural bias.* StealthInSpace: The Romulans developed a Cloaking Device in the timeframe of TOS, which was soon stolen by the Federation; subsequently, the Treaty of Algeron prohibited the Federation from using or developing any cloaking technology of its own.* StopTrick* SubspaceAnsible: Except when the plot demands its absence.* SufficientlyAdvancedAliens: ''Star Trek'' has probably the largest and most diverse variety of these out of any science fiction franchise, including a multitude of races of EnergyBeing[=s=], PhysicalGod[=s=] and the flat-out [[TheOmnipotent omnipotent]] Q. * SuperDoc: Any Sickbay doctor.* SuperWeight:** Type 0: Jake Sisko, Barclay, Kes, Neelix[[note]]Neelix very occasionally [[LetsGetDangerous gets dangerous]], which pushes him towards Type 1[[/note]], the Ferengi. ** Type 1: Most regulars who are Starfleet officers, Klingons, Romulans.** Type 2: [[PsychicPowers Spock and other Vulcans]], [[{{Transhuman}} Khan Noonien Singh]], [[ElectronicEyes Geordie LaForge]], [[TheEmpath Deanna Troi]], Picard in proximity to the Borg collective, [[spoiler:[[{{Transhuman}} Julian Bashir]]]], [[{{Cyborg}} Seven of Nine]], [[ProjectedMan Holograms]], [[SuperSoldier Jem'Hadar]].** Type 3: Soong-type androids (Data, [[EvilTwin Lore]], and B-4), the Borg, [[StarfishAliens Species 8472]], [[VoluntaryShapeshifter Changelings]], Benjamin Sisko at the end of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'', [[spoiler:Gul Dukat]] as the Emissary of the Pah-Wraiths.** Type 4: Kes after her ascension, Armus.** Type 5: Species 8472 bioships, the Caretaker, Sphere Builders, The Prophets/Pah-Wraiths, [[DoomsdayDevice the planet killer]], the Whale Probe, Nagilum.** Type 6: The Q Continuum, The Guardian of Forever, The Douwd ([[spoiler:Kevin Uxbridge]]).* {{Technobabble}}: More or less the TropeCodifier. In the script it would be labeled as [TECH] and they had a separate writer to put in whatever seemed appropriate.* TechnologyPorn* TeleporterAccident: Sugarcoat it all you want, but you're really stepping into a molecular blender and [[ExpendableClone cloning yourself]] each time you walk onto transport pad. ** There have been some [[RealityEnsues grisly accidents]] in each iteration of ''Trek'': two ''Enterprise'' crewmen died agonizing deaths (''TOS: The Motion Picture''), Riker unwittingly twinned himself when he tried beaming through a distorted atmosphere (TNG, "Second Chances"), Scotty's transporter pattern was stuck in limbo for a century (TNG, "Relics"), and another crewman's body was mixed with rocks and foliage while attempting to beam out during a fierce windstorm (ENT, "Strange New World"). Sabotage of the transporter platform is not uncommon, either.--->'''Weyoun:''': You were supposed to be on that transporter pad with him.\\'''Damar:''' I was called away. [[IHaveToGoIronMyDog An urgent meeting with the Central Command]].\\'''Weyoun''': How convenient.\\'''Damar''': I always was lucky. * TeleportInterdiction: Since the transporters are such an integral part of the Star Trek franchise, it has a lot of this. For example, it's not possible to transport through a ship's deflector shields. Usually this is used as a way to add drama -- with the ship having to drop its shields briefly in the middle of battle in order to beam back an away team -- but it also means transporter-enabled boarding parties aren't a major part of battle tactics.* {{Tie In Novel}}s: A huge range of novels based on all eras of the franchise (and the spaces in between) exists, including novelizations of several episodes and ''StarTrekNewFrontier''. Other than the novelizations, these are all officially declared ''non''-canon by Paramount and GeneRoddenberry. When Jeri Taylor was the WordOfGod on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', her original novels about the crew's history were considered canon. They aren't any more.** Pre-''Nemesis'', authors had a standing order not to kill any character that had appeared on-screen. Afterwards, because ''Nemesis'' is likely the last time the original timeline will be seen on-screen, all bets are off. (Still non-canon, however.)* TimePolice: The Federation of the 29th Century and Daniels' faction from the 31st Century. [[RunningGag They aren't very effective at this]].** Janeway is described as casually flaunting the timeline so frequently it actually managed to [[NiceJobBreakingItHero drive Captain Braxton 'insane''.]] He comes up with something called "The Janeway Factor," meaning that you can fully expect her to blunder into any time-sensitive activities going on.** Also, the time police hate Kirk; when Sisko gives his report about "Trials and Tribble-ations," and first mentions Kirk, the two operatives [[EyeTake exchange a look]] which says, "we hate the Kirk cases."-->"[[CowboyCop Seventeen separate temporal violations!]] The biggest file on record!"* TimeToStepUpCommander: A frequent device (often in the disaster episode) is to have a member of the secondary bridge crew or even the counselor forced to take command when the captain is knocked out or cut off from the rest of the ship.* TimeyWimeyBall: Across the franchise as a whole the exact nature of TimeTravel and its relationship to TheMultiverse is never really clarified. Are AlternateUniverse[=s=] the result of time travelers changing history? Naturally occurring phenomena? The creations of bored Q entertaining themselves at the expense of Starfleet captains? No definitive answer is ever given despite the fact that travel through time and between parallel universes is far from unusual, and in many cases used as AppliedPhlebotinum for solving otherwise unsolvable problems.* ToBeLawfulOrGood: One of the most common sources of conflict in the series. The Prime Directive produces seemingly endless cases of characters having to decide whether to follow the rules and allow an atrocity to occur, or ignore them and abandon the Federation's principles. Often made more complicated by the fact that the Federation and Starfleet Command are not above MovingTheGoalPosts when it comes to application of the Prime Directive.* TokenEnemyNonHuman: Most of the "Big Bad" species produce a black sheep who sees the light, defects to the good guys, and becomes a bridge officer. With Seven of Nine (a discarded Borg), this trope reached its apogee. ** Only the Romulans have proven implacable enough to resist this.** Interestingly, we do see Romulans and Cardassians among Starfleet's uniformed ranks, but only in [[BizarroWorld alternate realities]]. On rare occasions, Starfleet officers turn out to have Romulan ancestry as well (If Saavik had appeared in ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'', [[spoiler: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen this would have been her reason for supporting the conspiracy.]]]])* TouchTelepathy: The Vulcan mind meld:** Spock touches the heads of the listed people in the following episodes while doing a MindMeld with them.*** "Dagger of the Mind". Simon van Gelder, to find out what deviltry is going on at Elba II.*** "The Devil in the Dark": The Horta in order to communicate with it.*** In "Requiem For Methuselah": Kirk, in order to remove his memories of Rayna Kapek.*** "Spectre of the Gun". Kirk, [=McCoy=] and Scotty, to convince them that the situation they're in isn't real (so the simulated bullets can't [[YourMindMakesItReal kill them]]).*** "Mirror, Mirror". Evil!Spock does it with Dr. [=McCoy=] so he can find out what's going on.*** "I, Mudd". He tries it on Norman, but fails because Norman's a robot.*** "The Return of The Archons". He tries to do it on [=McCoy=] but fails because of Landru's MindControl.** Several other characters do it too: Miranda to Spock in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?", T'Pau to Spock in "Amok Time".* TranslatorMicrobes: The Universal Translator. ** We occasionally get to see the Translator in action, such as in "Sanctuary" where the aliens' gibberish ''gradually'' turned to English. ** And of course, "Darmok" famously subverted it by having the aliens talk in allegories, which aren't so easily translated. * TeleportersAndTransporters: Perhaps the vaguest invention of the 23rd century is the transporter.** Humans in the future, being generally agnostic and pro-science, have come to peace with the discovery that "matter and energy are interchangeable." They don't seem to fret much over the philosophical implications of dying and being replaced with a clone each time they beam out. ** Not to mention there seems to be some ContinuitySnarl on how exactly transportation works, since in some episodes it's literal molecular destruction, while in others we see people being transported who maintain a consistent stream of consciousness even while they're being "blended," so it usually comes down to a case of DependingOnTheWriter.** Before they nailed down a lot of nitty gritty, the novelist who wrote the print adaptations of TOS episodes asserted the transporter works by convincing all the particles in your body that they're really at the place where you wanted them to be, so they jump there. Which is a lot less horrifying than the "take you apart and put you back together at the other end" explanation.** Tech manuals try to assuage the horror by stating that you're reconstructed perfectly at the other end because the scan is at a quantum level. (Compared to replicators building stuff at the molecular level. Also this is why replicators cannot create life.)** The transporters also have the Heisenberg Compensators, an unabashed Hand Wave on the scientifically unfeasible nature of all transporters and teleporters. * TroubleFromThePast: We have the Eugenics Wars of the mid-1990s, the "sanctuary districts" of the early 21st century where the homeless, jobless, and mentally ill were left to rot, and the post-atomic horror following WorldWarThree in the late 21st century.[[/folder]] [[folder:U-Z]]* UltimateUniverse: With the amount of [[ContinuityNod Continuity Nods]] and BroadStrokes picking and choosing certain elements from every show and movie, the reboot movies ''Star Trek'' and ''Star Trek Into Darkness'' could possibly be one.* UniquenessDecay: The Borg start out in ''Next Generation'' as a mysterious, frighteningly advanced and implacable species from beyond known space. Then ''Enterprise'' has them show up about 300 years before that, while their VillainDecay on Voyager makes them seem distinctly nonthreatening.* UnusualUserInterface: Data was regularly plugging himself into various bits of the ship. Once they even attached ''just'' his head to a console after his body was misplaced. ** In some cases (particularly in TNG), computers were reprogrammed by rearranging "isolinear chips" (green, plastic spark plugs). Back in the 1940s and before, this was a legitimate way to program computers. Why they return to it in the [=2360s=] is anyone's guess.*** At least for robotics, the technique is quite valid and [[http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/tools-toys/mindstorms-not-just-a-kids-toy is experiencing a rebirth]]. And military electronic hardware has long consisted of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_System_Module interchangeable modules]] (the theory being that replacing an entire module is easier--particularly under combat conditions--than restoring the code).** Speaking of Star Trek: TNG, you kids today may be all jaded and stuff, but those touch screen Okudagrams on the Enterprise were freaking awesome in 1987.** An episode of ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' has older versions of the crew having trouble adapting to the Defiant's antiquated interface, being used to a three-dimensional projection. ("The Visitor")** In the VOY finale, Janeway returns from decades in the future to change the present, and she is implanted with a standard issue neural computer interface from the future. ** There's another episode where Tom Paris gets too close to an alien shuttle with a neural interface. ** One episode of ''[=DS9=]'' featured a guest character with a data port behind her ear, which she could use to bypass security systems. The dialogue made it sound as though they were relatively freely available... which only raises questions about why we never saw one again. ** The Hirogen ships' interface works looks like sticking metal toothpicks into a gigantic sphere. ** The Borg can also do this with their assimilation tubes. Said tubes inject nanites into anything. Those nanites then infect and reprogram the target system to resemble that of a Borg ship.* UnwinnableJokeGame: Ironically subverted in ''Starfleet Academy'' on the SuperNintendo. You are given [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation The Kobayashi Maru]] scenario as a graduation requirement. It's ''supposed'' to be unwinnable. However, due to the way the video game is designed, it's entirely possible to engage the Klingons '''and beat them.'''** [[MythologyGag You can also do what Kirk did - cheat.]] There's a cheat code that lets you name your character "James T. Kirk". Play the game using this name, then hail the Klingons once they attack.* UsefulBook: ''The Teachings of Surak'', aka [[Website/TheAgonyBooth the Gideon's Bible of the future]]. Only much weightier.** The Ferengi have their own variation: ''The Rules of Acquisition'', which they quote like scripture.* ValuesDissonance: There is some of this between the Star Trek shows, spanning decades, and the audiences of various generations, but this trope really comes into its own in universe, with the majority of plots being about or involving inter-species and inter-cultural values dissonance.* VerbThis: In ''First Contact'':-->'''Worf''': [[YouWillBeAssimilated Assimilate]] ''this.'' *cue Borgsplosion** TheVerse: [[Franchise/TrekVerse Widely recognized as quite possibly the most coherent, internally consistent fictional universe ever created]].* VillainDecay: In addition to the Borg (mentioned under UniquenessDecay above), the Ferengi were originally intended to be major villains in ''Next Generation''. Although their first on-screen appearance (Picard speaking to a close-up headshot of a Ferengi on a viewscreen) was extremely intimidating, the diminutive Ferengi were not taken very seriously as bad guys by most fans. The Ferengi were subsequently rescued by being retooled into comedy relief and often sympathetic characters with the Romulans and eventually the Borg becoming the heavies after the first two seasons. And don't get us started on the ''Kazon''...* AVillainNamedZrg: Klingons, Kazon, and Borg.** Klingons love the letter K. ''The Original Series'' gave us the iconic triumvirate of Kang, Kor, Koloth, and Kahless; and the movies have Kruge, Klaa, Koord, and Gorkon. In the Expanded Universe, their home planet used to be called Klinzhai, but the official canon later renamed it Qonos (pronounced "Kronos", with a K sound).* WeWillNotHavePocketsInTheFuture: Subverted in ENT, which overcompensated with [[{{Zipperiffic}} more zippers than is necessary]].* WeWillUseLasersInTheFuture: Okay, fine, ''phasers''. ''Ubiquitous lasers'' variety, as far as the Federation is concerned.* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: Romulans and Cardassians are heavy into dilithium mining, and employ untouchables (such as the Reman caste) or subjugated aliens to dig it up for them. ''Enterprise'' revealed the Vulcans are operating like a modern-day hegemony: the Andorian colonies are operated by tinpot dictators who funnel dilithium to Vulcan and leave the workers, who work for a pittance in [[CompanyTown company-owned shantytowns]], with nothing.* WellDoneSonGuy: This is Star Trek, and proud fathers are not welcome here. Just ask Sarek.** In particular, Sarek said upon Spock's birth, [[CaptainObvious "He looks...''half-human'']]." Disapproved of Spock's entry into Starfleet Academy and the two are only fully reconciled in ''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' (keep in mind that Spock had ''died'' two movies earlier--perhaps this was a jolt to the old man's conscience?) Spock expresses only partly-veiled annoyance that Sarek had engaged in a mind-meld with ''Picard'' when he had never done so with his own son. Sarek is however played far more sympathetically and the relationship between him and Spock is quite a bit better in the 2009 reboot.** Picard's father, Maurice, was a wine-maker who insisted on living his life [[GoodOldWays as though it were the 1800s]]. Fittingly, he abhorred technology and disapproved of his son joining Starfleet. In fact, when Picard briefly died in "Tapestry", he saw a vision of his father berating him for yet another "disappointment."*** This is averted with Joe Sisko, a traditionalist restauranteur and cook who nonetheless supports his son with raising his family in space.** Riker is the chip off the old block: his old man is a glory hound who ''must'' compete with his son at every opportunity. This is evidenced by Riker's childhood memory of a fishing trip, in which Kyle Riker took credit for Will's big catch.** Tom Paris' instructor at Starfleet, Admiral ''Owen'' Paris: By no means a pleasant or easy tutor to have so keenly on hand. Owen gave his son a "B-Minus".** Malcolm Reed's father basically disowned him for not joining the Royal Navy.** Odo has a bristled relationship with his surrogate 'father', Dr. Mora. He mentions that when Mora tried to get an infant Odo to take the shape of a cube, Odo resisted the first two times out of defiance. Mora was very proud with himself for helping Odo mature as a humanoid, but Odo resented being paraded around Cardassian officials to impress them (always being asked to perform the 'Cadassian neck trick', which Odo hated). Odo even felt jealousy when Mora took over the education and training of another baby Changeling.** Elim Garak and his father [[spoiler: Enabran Tain]] had an icy cold relationship, even by the standards of other characters appearing on this list. He's the reason why Garak became an agent of the [[StateSec Obsidian Order]], had claustrophobia as an adult (from being locked into closets as a child), and was also partially responsible for his exile to Deep Space Nine. [[spoiler: On his deathbed in a Dominion internment camp however, Enabran Tain then revealed to Garak that his uncompromising attitude was mainly due to his position as the head of the Obsidian Order, and admitted that [[SoProudOfYou he was actually proud of him]].]]** Ezri's mother manages to take this further by not only thoroughly disapproving of her only daughter, but also by her domineering attitude towards her other two children. She forced Ezri's brothers into helping run her failing mining business, which [[spoiler: subsequently led to the entire family's involvement with the Orion Syndicate, and then to Ezri's brother committing murder on the family's behalf.]]** Averted with Benjamin Sisko, whose father is nothing ''but'' supportive and very proud of his son. Benjamin in turn is a firm but loving father to Jake, [[ParentsAsPeople although he's far from perfect]], but given the circumstances even before the Dominion War this is understandable. Also averted with Data's creator, Dr. Noonian Soong, who considered Data his crowning achievement. ''[[TheUnfavorite Lore]]'', on the other hand...* WhatTheHellHero: Every Captain. In every series. And not infrequently either. Either them at the crew for their crap, or the crew to themselves for their own crap.* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: From the Horta in ''TOS'' to Data in ''TNG'' to Odo and the Founders in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' to holograms in ''VOY'', every series has at least one story struggling with this topic. In fact, there are so many that the series itself [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman/StarTrek has its own page]] under that namespace.* WhiteAndGreyMorality: Most of the five series heavily favored this trope. The show tended not to have very many truly evil people and the ones that seemed to be would get fleshed out or retconned later to be more sympathetic. Typically most people could be reasoned with and almost everybody was just looking out for their own if they weren't motivated by nobler intentions. ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' skews furthest from this trope with the Federation becoming a bit greyer and the Dominion being darker than is typical of the other series.\\\\The one exception would be the ''Next Generation''-era Ferengi. They were universally motivated by greed, embodying the worst of capitalism on a show that tended to favor socialist utopias. Ironically, while ''Deep Space Nine'' was overall darker, they pulled the Ferengi into the gray range, even introducing a number of social reforms during their run and having the Alpha Quadrant be saved by a Ferengi.* WordOfGod: Per Paramount Studios (owners of the franchise) and Gene Roddenberry (creator of the franchise) from the late-80s/early-90s, only live-action ''Star Trek'' TV episodes and films are considered canon. This has been hotly debated by fans, and occasionally ignored by scriptwriters. * [[WorldOfHam Universe of Ham]]: Star Trek: Go big or go home.** LargeHam [[LargeHam/StarTrek has a Star Trek subpage]] for some reason... it started with the incomparable WilliamShatner as TheCaptain, and hardly looked back ever since (with usually [[EvilIsHammy villains]] chewing the most scenery),* [[WorldOfSnark Universe of Snark]]: Everybody loves to argue. And it's usually a delight.* WorthlessYellowRocks: The reigning currency in the Alpha Quadrant is gold-pressed latinum. Denominations of gold-pressed latinum, in order of increasing value, include the slip, the strip, the bar and the brick. The imprinted gold is merely a casing for the latinum, which carries real value. -->'''Quark:''' Someone's extracted all the latinum! There's nothing here but ''worthless gold!''\\'''Odo:''' And [[BadNewsInAGoodWay it's all yours.]]\\'''Quark:''' '''[[BigNo NOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo--]]'''* WorthyOpponent : The Romulan captain in ''Balance of Terror'' most notably. Used on other occasions.* XMeetsY: [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny Hidden]] by the influence of Trek on later productions, but the original premise was then novel at least for television, and could easily be described as "HoratioHornblower meets TheOuterLimits".* YouDontWantToCatchThis: Occasionally used by the ship's doctors to buy time or get in somewhere they shouldn't be.* YouKeepUsingThatWord: The later series are notoriously bad for using the word "Ancient" to describe things from the 19th and 20th Century, which would be like describing Roman Chariots and Nuclear Weapons as ''close'' historically speaking. Made further ridiculous considering they are only a few hundred years downwind from the things they are describing.** 'Ancient' as a legal term is used to refer to any document or artifact more than 100 years old. Perhaps the legal definition prevailed over time?* YouLookFamiliar: Numerous times. But in this case [[RubberForeheadAliens putting a different alien makeup]] helps a lot in distinguishing characters played by the same actor.** Mark Lenard could leave the impression that Spock's father is LivingADoubleLife, as he has appeared as both a Romulan Commander and Ambassador Sarek. Especially noteworthy since as Romulans and Vulcans are really sub-groups within the same species, and his makeup does not make him look significantly different in either role other than his apparent age.** The second Doctor of TNG played a girl du jour in the original series.*** Twice.** Armin Shimmerman and Max Grodénchik played seven distinct Ferengi characters between the two of them, in addition to a handful of non-Ferengi roles.** Jeffery Combs, Vaughn Armstrong and J. G. Hertzler have set records for portraying no less than five alien species over the course of the "next generation" series of shows (including Combs playing two separate characters of different races in THE SAME EPISODE of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'').** From ''Voyager'', Tim Russ (Tuvok) and Robert Duncan [=McNeill=] (Tom Paris) both played villains in episodes of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''. In fact, [=McNeill=] was supposed to reprise his role originally, before it was re-written as Tom Paris. Both are notable because there's practically no makeup involved between the two roles (Russ only gained pointy ears).** This was played with in the ''Deep Space Nine'' episode "Far Beyond The Stars"; once Ben Sisko began thinking he was Benny Russell, the people in his life looked like the people Sisko knew - except all human. But then the show would tap the fourth wall by making them appear in makeup for a moment. It's also the only time Marc Alaimo, Jeff Combs, JG Hertzler, Rene Auberjonois, Armin Shimerman and Michael Dorn got to appear on-camera without their makeup in the entire run of the series (for poor Michael Dorn, it was the first time in ''eleven years'' that he was on-camera with no makeup). Casey Biggs joined in with the follow-up episode "Shadows and Symbols."** At the end of the series, a scene at Vic's featured almost every single actor who had some sort of major speaking role in the series in the bar without makeup on (except for the actors who played the main characters, who appeared in character.)** Marc Alaimo appeared as the first TNG-era Romulan and the first Cardassian on TNG before being cast as Cardassian Gul Dukat on [=DS9=].* {{Zeerust}}: A given for the original series because of general budget restrictions of the time. Caused no shortage of FanDumb with ''Enterprise'' and the 2009 ''Star Trek'' movie because of an attempt to update. ''Next Generation'' mostly averts this even though it is over 20 years old now, mostly due to having an excellent--and GenreSavvy--visual designer in Michael Okuda.[[/folder]]

Did you hear about the retired proctologist? He spent 40 years saying "what's a place like this doing in a girl like you?" 24 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) Leafs81 Posted - 07/31/2013 : 08:21:02 If it wouldn't be for Ward, Carolina wasn't winning the Stanley Cup in 2006. He won playoff MVP. Niemi with Chicago was pretty much like Osgood with Detroit. Just had to be good, didn't have to steal games. I agree TODAY Niemi is better then Ward. But at the time of winning the cup, Ward (2006) was better then Niemi (2010). JOSHUACANADA Posted - 07/31/2013 : 08:12:34 quote:Originally posted by Beans15 This might be a situation of seeing more of a goalie. I generally see both games in the east and west so I likely see more of Niemi than people in the TO area. I don't just look at stats. But looking at two players and seeing stats that are similar, one should be looking at the respective teams. I think Ottawa has a better team defence than San Jose does. Switching gears to the Howard conversation, what shocks me more than how many people rank Howard low is how many people rank Ward so high. He is outside of the top 10 and has done nothing to tell me he deserves anything to be in the top 10. To Slozo's comment of Niemi being the poorest Cup winning goalie in our generation. I would say Niemi is better than Ward ever has been. Ottawa, the best coached team in the NHL, with MVP like players such as Chris Neil, will win the Cup in 2013! The fate of Carolina rests on Staal and Ward. When both are hot, they are hard to beat. If Ward is at his best, he deserves to be on the top 5-10. Carolina is nowhere near as strong as the teams Neimi has played for, or Howard in Detroit, so its not a fair comparison. I know last year when Ward went down Carolina couldn't win when it mattered to make the playoffs and fell out of contention. Ward makes them a bubble team in the playoff picture and without him, Carolina is a much lower ranking team. With regards to Ottawa being a defensive team, Slozo is correct with regards to the style of play they play being similar to Toronto, but both forwards and defenseman in Ottawa are tighter defensively than Toronto, so that gives the edge to the goals per game against for Ottawa. I also believe last years stats for goals against was a product of a lack of Offense 1st players due to injury and the team left not on the IR bought into defensively responsible play first. Anderson, Bishop and Lehner's stats benefited greatly due to the team adjusting defensively when Spezza, Karlsson and Michalek went down for long stretches. If Anderson/Lehner come close to those stats this year, when the offense opens up more with a more stacked roster, I would consider those stats more because they represent more than a shortened season. For me Anderson is currently just outside the top 10. "I now realise that the Toronto Maple Leafs, Canada's finest hockey team, is better than the Ottawa Senators - and always will be. PS - LOVE that Dion Phaneuf! " Beans15 Posted - 07/31/2013 : 07:23:22 This might be a situation of seeing more of a goalie. I generally see both games in the east and west so I likely see more of Niemi than people in the TO area. I don't just look at stats. But looking at two players and seeing stats that are similar, one should be looking at the respective teams. I think Ottawa has a better team defence than San Jose does. Switching gears to the Howard conversation, what shocks me more than how many people rank Howard low is how many people rank Ward so high. He is outside of the top 10 and has done nothing to tell me he deserves anything to be in the top 10. To Slozo's comment of Niemi being the poorest Cup winning goalie in our generation. I would say Niemi is better than Ward ever has been. Ottawa, the best coached team in the NHL, with MVP like players such as Chris Neil, will win the Cup in 2013! slozo Posted - 07/30/2013 : 21:53:40 quote:Originally posted by Beans15 Slozo, I like your list. Just one quick question: Why Anderson in your top 7 and not Neimi?? I see Anderson with a better save % and his GAA was better last season. But one would also argue that the Senators had one of the better defenses in the NHL?? Just curious. I might put more meat behind the Cup win and the less defensive team that Neimi plays on. He is a borderline inside the top 5 guy in my books. Ottawa, the best coached team in the NHL, with MVP like players such as Chris Neil, will win the Cup in 2013! Yo answer your question Beans - because then, it would have been my top 8! I put very little on a "cup win" BY ITSELF. If the goalie won games for his team to get there, or in the finals, etc . . . that's different. Niemi was probably the weakest goalie to be the cup winning goalie in our lifetime. And that's not just my opinion or Glenn Healey's, a lot of other experts and ex-pros agree with this contention. One cannot just look at stats. I see a lot of Ottawa games with the Leafs in the same division, and Anderson absolutely steals games for that team every year. Defensive team?! Hah . . . just because they don't score a lot (last year due to injuries) and have a low goals against (due to great goaltending!!) doesn't automatically make them defensive. Watch them and you'll know - they actually play a similar responsible forecheck/counter-attack style as Toronto does, only with a different make-up. It's exciting hockey, it's not the Bruins or Rangers. But if you DO look at stats . . . didn't he blow away the competition in save percentage this past shortened season? "Take off, eh?" - Bob and Doug nuxfan Posted - 07/30/2013 : 21:38:12 quote:Originally posted by Leafs81 I can't talk for the others, but here's why I rate Howard in the middle of the pack. He plays for a team that plays a puck possession type game. That reduces the time in his own zone. When the team is struggling, the team is strugling. I don't really see Howard as a goalie that carries his team through rough time. He doesn't steal games for them I generally agree with Pasty on this - I think most people were surprised that DET went into the second round this year, and took eventual champions CHI to 7 games in the process. IMO, as a team they didn't really deserve all the success that they had, and I saw Howard carrying his team on more than one occasion. Howard does belong in the top-10. If you look at the top ranked goalies, most of them play for defensively strong teams, and for the most part benefit from a strong team defense in front of them. It would be hard to argue that any of them steals more or less games for their respective teams. Leafs81 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 17:26:09 I could see Howard top 10. Just not top 5. Pasty7 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 15:16:56 Watching the post season this season Jimmy Howard came up huge for Detroit and was easily their MVP during th playoffs, And i don't buy the argument that Howards numbers are less impressive because of the Detroit redwings style of play, the Nashville Predators are one of the top defensive teams of the past 5 plus years, how else do they keep making the playoffs with sub par offensive players and numbers? Rinne has played infront of top tier defenders too names like Suter and Weaber for all of his career, Neimi has played for a stacked Chicago team and a top tier team in San Jose as well, last season Howard faced : 1129 shots in 42 games Rinne faced : 1101 shots in 43 games Price faced : 1018 shots in 39 games Neimi : 1220 in 43 games So Howard sees as much work as any of these guys, And who was Howards defensive core this season? Kronwall, Erricsson, Quincy, Kindle, Smith, White? those are not superstArs by any strech, a huge reason the Wings made the post season this year is Jimmy Howard, I'm not trying to be argumentative or insulting in anyway but it makes absolutley no sense to me how anyone can think this guy is not a top 10 goalie in the league, I know this is a small sample size but isn't is surprising how many people ranked Luongo not only ahead of Schneider but way ahead of Schneider. Shocking?? It is not - you're ranking goalies as of today, based on what they've done in the past. It would be impossible to rank Schneider above Luongo in those confines - Schneider has a single half-season as a starting goalie in the NHL. However, ask the question "which goalie would you rather have as your starting goalie for the next 10 years", I think you'll see a lot more Schneider's than Luongo's. JOSHUACANADA Posted - 07/30/2013 : 13:35:57 I would also have a hard time putting Price in my top 10 because when he gets cold its damn chilly. I know when he is on its hard to find a better goalie, so I do understand why other people have this opinion of him. But he has been played out of the #1 position by another goalie not in the top 10 Halak. "I now realise that the Toronto Maple Leafs, Canada's finest hockey team, is better than the Ottawa Senators - and always will be. PS - LOVE that Dion Phaneuf! " JOSHUACANADA Posted - 07/30/2013 : 13:31:58 Its easy to see why Howard is lower on the rating scale is due to the product of his team. Detroit, although many considered to be on there down swing, has always been considered tight defensively. Howard has never seemed to have to steal a game, although I am sure he has. Some of the other ranked above him have played for lessor teams and because of that seem to be stars above him. I question the ranking of Anderson so highly, versus guys like Neimi and even Ward. Neimi has been a star for 2 teams one of which won the stanely cup, Ward has only played for a hot (Stanely cup win) or severely cold Carolina team, yet is always in the picture for the world stage. I think Andersons great and might have had a better quest for Vezina last year if he had played more, but that was the first time he was on that level. I would rank Ward and Neimi higher than him at this point, based on a longer resume of success at that level. "I now realise that the Toronto Maple Leafs, Canada's finest hockey team, is better than the Ottawa Senators - and always will be. PS - LOVE that Dion Phaneuf! " Leafs81 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 13:17:19 I can't talk for the others, but here's why I rate Howard in the middle of the pack. He plays for a team that plays a puck possession type game. That reduces the time in his own zone. When the team is struggling, the team is strugling. I don't really see Howard as a goalie that carries his team through rough time. He doesn't steal games for them I think when I look at good goalies is how they can carry their team on their shoulders and steal them games when the team struggles. I don't see that from Howard, not compare to guys like Price or Anderson. It's a good question none the less and hard to really prove anything, but this is base on opinions for me more then stats. but that can go both ways why is Rinne a top 3 and Howard 17th on this list? their stats are basivly the same Rinne hasn't won a stanley cup? so what has Rinne done that Howard hasn't done? before someone jumps all over me yes Rinne is a better goalie in my opinion that Howard but how come a guy with the same stats rated so much worse by most of us? and how are guys like Price Rask Anderson etc considerd better than Howard? only rask has better stats but in a considerbly smaller sample size,? Posted - 07/30/2013 : 12:51:55 The question is what did Howard do to be better then those guys? Pasty7 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 12:12:33 Could someone tell me why Howard doesn't crack most people's top 10 , in 234 career NHL games he is 131-67-26 with a 2.36 G.A.A and a 918 sv% he has won 35 or more games in all three of his last seasons and 21 during the lock out shortend season, in the playoffs he is 20 -22 with a G.A.A of 2.57 and a 918 sv % Lets find some comparables. Price who almost everyone rates as higher than Howard 310 GP 2.56 G.A.A .915 sv% Anderson 318 gp 2.71 G.A.A .915 Sv % Rinne 293 GP 2.36 G.A.A .919 sv% Neimi 213 GP 2.34 G.A.A .917 Sv% so by age games played and stats both Rinne and Neimi are Howards comparables so what makes howard so much worse than these guys? Both The Preds and the Sharks are as good as the Redwings over the last 3 seasons, and Howard is as important to the wings as Neimi and Rinne are to their respective teams, And what makes Price better than Howard? besides playing for a weaker team? and Anderson? Posted - 07/30/2013 : 12:07:44 I know this is a small sample size but isn't is surprising how many people ranked Luongo not only ahead of Schneider but way ahead of Schneider. Shocking?? Ottawa, the best coached team in the NHL, with MVP like players such as Chris Neil, will win the Cup in 2013! Leafs81 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 11:49:25 I like Beans way to list the goalies. Pasty, I would not put Howard in the top 5. Not right now, not a chance. As for Niemi vs Anderson. Anderson seems to be putting great save % year after year, except for one in Colorado. He also gave a chance to Ottawa to win every night and is a big reason why Ottawa did good the past two seasons when everybody had them out of the playoff picture. Niemi won a cup with a really solid Chicago team and he then played with San Jose who are also a solid team in the west. I don't see Niemi play as much as Anderson but for me I would rate Anderson higher. They are really close and they would both make my list of 6-10 goalies. Posted - 07/30/2013 : 11:11:09 Slozo, I like your list. Just one quick question: Why Anderson in your top 7 and not Neimi?? I see Anderson with a better save % and his GAA was better last season. But one would also argue that the Senators had one of the better defenses in the NHL?? Just curious. I might put more meat behind the Cup win and the less defensive team that Neimi plays on. He is a borderline inside the top 5 guy in my books. Ottawa, the best coached team in the NHL, with MVP like players such as Chris Neil, will win the Cup in 2013! slozo Posted - 07/30/2013 : 10:41:23 I had a lot of problems with this list as well, frankly - but it IS a tough list to make, way tougher than forwards, and I think tougher than defencemen (although also not easy). So much of what a goalie is depends on defence and system and overall team in front of them. Even the division and conference have a hand in it really. Throw in the different team market pressures (ie the hardest cities of Toronto and Montreal, vs an easy one like Columbus or the Florida teams) and you really have no good way to quantify things sometimes, until after a player's career - and then sometimes only with players who have played for varying teams, etc to get a fuller sample size. I know! That's a huge middle group, but . . . to me, that's the reality. AND, that middle group is not far below the second tier, IMHO. Just a slight dip in consistency, that's all. Then it's the bottom group, no sense going into that one - yuo get the picture. My main beefs are the HUGE overvalued opinions and snubs based on a half season's work . . . the goaltending position has ebbs and flows, and those mitigating factors we talked about (team defence, system) MUST be taken into account. "Take off, eh?" - Bob and Doug Beans15 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 10:14:20 I think ranking goalies is always tough, especially when you are trying to place them in a specific order. I think one could shuffle a goalie a few positions one way or the other pretty easily. For that reason, I am taking the easy way out. I will rank the starting goalies 1-5, 5-10, 10-20, and 20-30. Top 5 - Lundqvist, Quick, Rinne, Rask, Niemi Now, most wouldn't argue with the first three but some would argue Rask and Niemi. Bottom line, numbers and playoff success don't lie. Next 5 - Luongo, Anderson, Halak, Price, Howard Elliot is not the starter in STL so he should not be on the list of the top 30. Some may question why Ward is not in this range but the answer is simple. He doesn't belong in the top 10. I get that Caroline is not a great team but the top 10 goalies in the league almost all have GAA better than 2.50 and a save % better than .920. In 9 seasons, Ward has one season of better than .920 and zero seasons of better than 2.50 GAA. I seriously considered Crawford being higher but I didn't know who I would have kicked out of the 5-10 group and he doesn't have a huge body of work to compare to the others. Bobrovsky is here but could shoot from this range into the top 5 with another season like last year. Too many Jim Carrey "Net Detectives" and Steve Mason's have proven to be one hit wonders to trust what Bobrovsky can do long term. Fleury should be higher and if it was a measurement of regular season only, he would be top 10. Unfortunately, he has proven for more than one offseason to be untrustworthy in the playoffs. Pavlec is also a guy who could be higher but he is very streaky. Now, to close this list off, I would like to ensure people understand my opinion of 'starting' goalies. Firstly, a legit starting goalie is a guy that can handle a lion share of the workload for a team and consistently deliver solid performances. By that definition, there are only 27 legit starting goalies. I would not put Markstrom, Holtby, or Ramo in the definition of starters. But they are the best their teams have at this point. Ottawa, the best coached team in the NHL, with MVP like players such as Chris Neil, will win the Cup in 2013! Pasty7 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 08:59:12 I have some real problems with this list , Howard 17 really? he is close to my top 5, Bobrovsky? really is he even really a starter yet? Mike Smith a decent back up untill one good year in the desert and then a shakey one the year after? here is how i would rank em, I think the top 3 are so close I wouldn't overly disagree with anyone who interchanges their positions but I don't see how anyone could keep Howard out of a top 10 position and i can't see Rask in the top 5 Posted - 07/30/2013 : 05:53:10 Looking at that list, what team would be in need of a goalie like Halak. Florida and Calgary seems like the obvious choice. Would the Islanders try to replace an aging Nabokov? Will Colorado give up on Varlamov? It also seems like a lot of teams are trying out a tandem. St-Louis, Philadelphia, Toronto, Tampa Bay, New Jersey... One more thing, what does a goalie like Craig Anderson needs to do to gain some respect? Alex116 Posted - 07/26/2013 : 15:42:24 Just a few opinions.... Bobrovsky (5) - too small sample size. Would be borderline top 8 on my list. Smith (6) - too high. Until i see a guy succeed elsewhere after success in the desert, i think the system makes him look better than maybe he is, much like Bryzgalov and his success there. Price (7) - prob bump him up a couple spots. Yeah, he's had a bad stretch or two, but when he's on, he's top 3. Ward (10) - another guy i'd prob bump a couple spots higher. Howard (17) - much like Osgood....no respect! Holtby (20) - Prob where i'd have him at this point and why i'm surprised he's ot the orientation camp list. umteman Posted - 07/26/2013 : 13:43:29 I think I would have put Lundqvist at #1. As stated he is the yardstick by which others are measured. Did you hear about the retired proctologist? He spent 40 years saying "what's a place like this doing in a girl like you?" nuxfan Posted - 07/26/2013 : 13:25:41 I'm not sure if I put Bob at #5. Granted, Vezina trophy winner this past season. But a shortened season, and before that, he was pretty ordinary if not sub-par. Thats a pretty lofty ranking for a goalie with 38 games as a starter.

Washington & Oregon Collector Car Insurance Applied Team Insurance can help you find the right coverage for your collector or antique car for the right price. Collector cars and trucks have different insurance than regular auto insurance and at Applied Team Insurance, we can provide those options for you. Classic cars are usually in the category of antique once the vehicle is 15-20 years old or older. Collector car insurance coverage can also include exotic autos, sports cars and rare automobiles. Collector Car Insurance in Vancouver, Washington We can customize a Washington collector car insurance product that will make sure your classic, exotic, sports, rare or antique car can be protected. Our packages may include:

Supply chain chaos as India’s cash flow is suddenly cut off in a bid to beat corruption Home/feed news/Supply chain chaos as India’s cash flow is suddenly cut off in a bid to beat corruption Supply chain chaos as India’s cash flow is suddenly cut off in a bid to beat corruption By Justin| 2016-12-05T13:34:52+00:00 December 5th, 2016|feed news|Comments Off on Supply chain chaos as India’s cash flow is suddenly cut off in a bid to beat corruption India’s transport and logistics industry has been left scrambling by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sudden and unexpected decision to ban the issue of 500- (US$7) and 1,000-rupee banknotes. According to the All India Motor Transport Congress, which represents 9.3m truckers, 70% of its members’ vehicles have been forced off the road as operators struggle to pay truck drivers their wages and find the petty cash needed to cover fuel and other costs. The cash-crunch …

NBC WINS FRIDAY WITH 'DATELINE' AND AN ENCORE OF 'INSIDE THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE' THURSDAY'S 'I'M A CELEBRITY' JUMPS 11 PERCENT NIGHT-TO-NIGHT TO GRAB THE TIME-PERIOD VICTORY IN 18-49 AND OTHER KEY DEMOS ON WEDNESDAY, 'LAW & ORDER' WINS ITS HOUR IN ALL KEY CATEGORIES AND 'INSIDE THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE' IS THE #1 SHOW OF THE NIGHT IN TOTAL VIEWERS TUESDAY'S 'I'M A CELEBRITY' AND 'INSIDE THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE' ARE THE TOP 18-49 VOTE-GETTERS IN THEIR SLOTS MONDAY'S DEBUT OF 'I'M A CELEBRITY�GET ME OUT OF HERE!' SCORES THE TOP 18-34 RATING THAT NIGHT FOR A PRIMETIME SHOW ON THE BROADCAST NETS 'MEDIUM' WINS THE MONDAY 10 P.M. HOUR IN 18-49 UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. � June 9, 2009 � With strong contributions throughout the week in primetime from NBC's Entertainment, News and Sports divisions, NBC tied for #2 in adults 18-49 for the week of June 1-7, averaging a 1.8 rating, 6 share in adults 18-49 and 6.1 million viewers overall, according to in-home viewing figures from Nielsen Media Research. NBC ranked #2 outright for the week in adults 25-54 and #2 or tied for #2 in numerous other key demographics. Among women 25-54, NBC tied for #1 (with CBS). NBC's primetime performance this week was paced by Tuesday's season finale of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," which was the #3 primetime program of the week in the key demographic of adults 18-49 and the #1 non-sports program of the week in that demo (trailing only ABC's Sunday and Thursday coverage of NBA Finals basketball among all telecasts). Other NBC programs ranking among the top 20 this week in adults 18-49 were Monday's "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" (#9, tied), Tuesday's telecast of part one of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" (#9, tied), "Law & Order " (#13, tied), Wednesday's telecast of part two of "Inside the Obama White House" (#13, tied), "Medium" (#13, tied) and Tuesday's "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here (#18, tied). In overall total viewers, Tuesday's "Law & Order: SVU," with an average 11.6 million viewers, was the #3-ranked program of the week and the #1 non-sports program, trailing only the two NBA Finals telecasts. Also ranking among the top 10 this week in overall viewership were Tuesday's "Inside the Obama White House" (#7, 9.2 million), Wednesday's "Inside the Obama White House" (#8, 9.0 million) and "Law & Order" (#10, 8.9 million). Through the first 37 weeks of the 2008-09 season, NBC is the only one of the major broadcast networks to decrease its median age versus the prior season. NBC is the "second youngest" of the major broadcast networks, with a median age of 47.7 years (versus 48.4 years at this point last season), 2.7 years "older" than Fox (45.0 years). By comparison, ABC's median age this season is 49.4 and CBS's median age is 54.1. Season to date, NBC is running within 0.8 of a rating point of first place in primetime's key demographic of adults 18-49, versus a deficit of 1.4 points at this time last season. NBC highlights for the week of June 1-7: * On Saturday, NBC skated to its second consecutive Saturday primetime win in adults 18-49 as NBC Sports' coverage of Game 5 of the Pittsburgh Penguins-Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Final iced a primetime victory in adults 18-49, adults 18-34, adults 25-54 (tie) and all key adult-male categories � men 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. * NBC won Friday night in adults 18-49, adults 25-54, total viewers and virtually all other key measures, with an original "Dateline NBC" and encore telecasts of parts one and two of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" * Friday's encore telecast of part two of "Inside the Obama White House" at 9 p.m. ET was the #1 telecast on the broadcast networks Friday night in adults 18-49, total viewers and other key measures, while "Dateline" at 10 p.m. won its slot in adults, men and women 18-49, total viewers and other key measures. * On Thursday, night four of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" won its time period in adults 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, with an 11 percent jump in adults 18-49 versus the prior night. * Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, night three of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" earned NBC's highest 18-49 rating in the time period since February 25. * Also on Wednesday, night two of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" was the #1 program of the night in total viewers. It generated NBC's highest 18-49 rating in the slot in six months. * On Tuesday, night two of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" and the first half of the NBC News special "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" both won their time periods in adults 18-49 and other key demos. * Also on Tuesday, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" beat the ABC-CBS competition combined in adults 18-49 and other key demos while delivering its biggest overall viewership since April 2009. * NBC won Tuesday night in adults 18-49 and all other key demographic categories. * On Monday, the premiere of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" delivered the night's #1 primetime rating among the broadcast networks in adults 18-34 and men 18-34, helping NBC tie for the nightlong lead in 18-49 and win Monday night outright in adults 18-34. * Also on Monday, "Medium" won the 10 p.m. hour in 18-49 while matching its highest rating since April 20. Ratings reflect "live plus same day" data unless otherwise noted. Season-to-date figures are averages of "live plus seven day" data except for the two most recent weeks, which are "live plus same day." Additional NBC highlights for the week of June 1-7: On Monday June 1 from 8-10 p.m. ET, the premiere of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" (2.6 rating, 8 share in adults 18-49, 6.4 million viewers overall) led NBC to a tie for the nightlong win in adults 18-49 and an outright victory for the night among adults 18-34. "I'm a Celebrity" jumped 44 percent above NBC's 18-49 average in the time period during the May sweep (2.6 vs. 1.8) and was up 18 percent versus the network's total-viewer average in the slot during May (6.4 million vs. 5.5 million). "I'm a Celebrity" beat ABC's "Bachelorette" head-to-head in adults 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, all key adult-male demos and total viewers. "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" was the night's #1 primetime telecast on the broadcast networks in adults 18-34 and men 18-34. From its first half-hour to its fourth, "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" increased its 18-49 rating by 36 percent (to a 3.0 rating from a 2.2), its adult 18-34 rating by 50 percent (2.7 vs. 1.8) and its men 18-34 rating by 100 percent (2.4 vs. 1.2). Monday at 10 p.m. ET, "Medium" (2.3/6 in 18-49, 7.4 million viewers overall) won the time slot in adults 18-49, adults 25-54, women 18-49 and women 25-54. "Medium" scored week-to-week gains for a second straight week to match the show's highest 18-49 rating since April 20. On Tuesday, June 2 from 8-9 p.m. ET, night two of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" (2.2/7 in 18-49, 5.5 million viewers overall) won the time-period in adults 18-49 as well as adults, men and women 18-34. Versus the same night last year, "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" improved the time period by 38 percent in adults 18-49 (2.2 vs. 1.6 for originals of "Most Outrageous Moments"). Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, Part 1 of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" (2.6/7 in 18-49, 9.2 million viewers overall) won the time period in adults, men and women 18-49; adults, men and women 18-34; and men 25-54 (tie). "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" built on its lead-in by 18 percent in adults 18-49 and 66 percent in total viewers. From its first half-hour to its second, "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" increased its 18-49 rating by 17 percent (to a 2.8 rating from a 2.4) and its overall viewership by 16 percent or 1.3 million persons (to 9.8 million from 8.5 million). Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (3.5/10 in 18-49, 11.6 million viewers overall) dominated the time slot, beating the ABC-CBS competition combined in adults 18-49 as well as adults 18-34, adults 25-54 and all key adult-female demos. The "SVU" margin of victory in the time period in adults 18-49 was 75 percent (3.5 vs. 2.0 for CBS's second-place "48 Hours"). In total viewers, "Law & Order: SVU" delivered its biggest audience in more than a year (since April 29, 2008). "Law & Order: SVU" is the #1 show of the night in all key ratings categories -- adults, men and women 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, plus total viewers. NBC won the night in all key demographics. In adults 18-49, it's NBC's first Tuesday win since March 24. On Wednesday June 3 from 8-9 p.m. ET, night three of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" (1.8/6 in 18-49, 4.8 million viewers overall) generated a 13 percent increase on NBC's season average in the time period in 18-49 (1.8 vs. 1.6). It was NBC's highest 18-49 rating in the time period since a special "Biggest Loser" ran in the slot on February 25. From its first half-hour to its second, Wednesday's "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" increased its rating by 12 percent in 18-49 (to a 1.9 from a 1.7), by 14 percent in adults 18-34 (1.6 vs. 1.4) and by 27 percent in men 18-34 (1.4 vs. 1.1) in a highly competitive time period that included Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" and ABC's "Wipeout." Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET, night two of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" (2.3/7 in 18-49, 9.0 million viewers overall) delivered NBC's highest 18-49 rating in this time period in six months (since December 3, 2008) and biggest overall audience in the hour in seven months (since October 29, 2008). "Inside the Obama White House" ranked #2 in the time period in adults 18-49, adults 25-54, total viewers and most other key ratings categories. "Inside the Obama White House" built on its lead-in by 28 percent in 18-49 and 88 percent in total viewers. "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" was the #1 show of the night in total viewers. Wednesday at 10 p.m., "Law & Order" (2.3/7 in 18-49, 8.9 million viewers overall) ranked #1 in the time period in all key ratings categories -- adults, men and women 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, plus total viewers � including a tie among men 18-34. "Law & Order" equaled the show's highest adult 18-49 rating in four months (since February 4). In total viewers, it was the biggest "Law & Order" audience since January 28. On Thursday, June 4 at 8 p.m. ET, night four of "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" (2.0/7 in 18-49, 5.2 million viewers overall) led the time period in adults 18-49, adults 18-34, adults 25-54 and all key adult-female demographics. "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" built its 18-49 rating by 11 percent from half-hour to half-hour (to a 2.1 rating from a 1.9 rating). Versus NBC's 18-49 average in the time period last summer, "I'm a Celebrity" was up 18 percent (2.0 vs. 1.7). Thursday's "I'm a Celebrity�Get Me Out of Here!" was up night-to-night by 11 percent in 18-49 (2.0/7 vs. its 1.8/6 on Wednesday night) and by 14 percent in total viewers (5.4 million vs. 4.8 million). From 9-11 p.m. ET Thursday night, the premiere of "The Listener" delivered a 1.4/4 in 18-49 and 5.3 million viewers overall. Facing exceptional competition from ABC's coverage of the NBA Finals, "The Listener" delivered a 29 percent increase over NBC's total-viewer average in the time period since the end of the May sweep (5.3 million vs. 4.1 million). From its first hour to its second, "The Listener" increased its total viewership by 2 percent (to 5.4 million from 5.3 million). On Friday, June 5 from 8-9 p.m. ET, an encore telecast of part one of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" (1.1/5 in 18-49, 4.7 million viewers overall) tied for #1 among the broadcast networks in adults 18-49. From 9-10 p.m. an encore telecast of part two of "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" (1.7/6 in 18-49, 6.4 million viewers overall) ranked #1 in adults 18-49, adults 25-54, total viewers and other key categories. From its first hour to its second, "Inside the Obama White House" increased by 55 percent in 18-49 rating and by 37 percent or 1.7 million persons in total viewers. In both categories, it was easily the biggest build on any major network in the time period. Part two of "Inside the Obama White House" from 9-10 p.m. was the #1 telecast of the night on the broadcast networks in adults 18-49, adults 25-54 and total viewers. Friday from 10-11 p.m. ET, "Dateline NBC" (1.6/5 in 18-49, 6.1 million viewers overall) ranked #1 in adults, men and women 18-49, adults 25-54 and other key demos as well as in total viewers. "Dateline" reported its top Friday results in 18-49 and total viewers since April 17. NBC won Friday night in adults 18-49, adults 25-54, total viewers and virtually all other key categories. On Saturday, June 6 from 8:21-10:45 p.m. ET, NBC Sports' coverage of the Pittsburgh Penguins-Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Final Game 5 averaged a 1.8/7 in adults 18-49 and 4.4 million viewers overall. The pre-game telecast from 8-8:21 p.m. averaged a 1.1/5 in 18-49 and 3.2 million viewers overall. On Sunday, June 7 from 7-9 p.m. ET, "Dateline NBC" delivered a 1.1/4 in 18-49 and 5.5 million viewers overall. "Dateline" reported its highest Sunday 18-49 and total-viewer results since May 17. From its first half-hour to its fourth, "Dateline" increased in 18-49 by 67 percent (to a 1.5/4 from a 0.9/3) and in total viewers by 63 percent or nearly 2.8 million persons (to 7.2 million from 4.4 million). Sunday from 9-11 p.m. ET, an encore telecast of "The Last Templar, Part 2" averaged a 0.9/2 in 18-49 and 4.1 million viewers overall. "The Last Templar" matched its Part 1 rating of two weeks earlier in 18-49 and grew versus Part 1 by 7 percent in total viewers (4.1 million vs. 3.9 million).

“The way iTunes changed music, Warner Brothers wants to change movies,” Julia Boorstin reports for CNBC. “Today the studio gave me an exclusive look at an entertainment app it’s been working on for years – the ultimate destination for people to buy *all* digital movies, not just Warner Brothers’. It’s an app code-named ‘Digital Everywhere,’ and it’s set to launch this summer.” “‘Digital Everywhere’ isn’t a retailer like iTunes, but rather it gathers all the various ways movies can be bought or rented,” Boorstin reports. “It also organizes an individual’s entire library of digital movies and TV shows – not just Warner brothers. And it will consumers to access their library from any internet-connected device – a TV, laptop, iPad or smartphone – through a cloud authentication system, called UltraViolet, that will be released this summer from a studio consortium.” Boorstin reports, “Warner Brothers goal is to push consumers to buy instead of rent. The studio’s looking to change the proposition of ownership, making owning a digital file more valuable than it is now, when it’s stuck on the device where you bought it, and more valuable than owning a DVD, since you don’t have to cart it around with you.” Yes, and not only that, but all those content providers will be able to keep track of all of the videos on your computer, and help you delete the ones that have not been legally downloaded! No extra charge! If Warner (and Uni, and Sony, etc) approach this with their existing business mindset (and it is impossible to imagine why they would suddenly change the mindset), it will have massive, onerous DRM shackles, it will cost way too much and it will present myriad of confusing choices to the consumers. Either one of these three alone would be more than enough to make it a complete non-starter; all three together…. That’s silly- why on Earth would Apple allow another iTunes onto their iPad? Good luck with that Warner Bros. When will these dinosaurs get it: the meteor has already hit them and they’re already extinct??

Social Enterprise UK Awards 2017 auticon wins ‚One to Watch‘ award auticon won the ‘One to Watch’ category at the UK Social Enterprise Awards, held on November 23rd at the Royal Horticultural Halls in central London. The awards, organised by Social Enterprise UK (SEUK), recognise remarkable achievements by social enterprises. At this years‘ ceremony, auticon was rewarded for its future vision – creating a bridge between the talent of autistic adults and the IT skills shortage, raising awareness of autism-specific strengths as well as increasing neurodiversity in the workplace. We are very honoured and grateful for the recognition of our work, which would not have been possible without the exceptional work of our IT consultants, investments from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation as well as the support from our blue chip clients, including Experian, GlaxoSmithKline, Virgin Money, Allianz, Channel 4 and Network Rail. Ray Coyle, auticon UK CEO, said: “This award is a reflection of the talents of our consultants at auticon, and recognises the incredible commercial and social value of employing a neurodiverse team. Unemployment among autistic adults is a major issue in the UK. This year we are proud to have taken steps to address this problem, and hope to offer sustainable, long term employment to many more autistic individuals as we continue to grow.” Peter Holbrook, Chief Executive of Social Enterprise UK said: “The UK Social Enterprise Awards are a real testament to the dynamism and diversity of the UK social enterprise sector. This year’s winners have included a social enterprise employing IT consultants who bring together the unique talents of people living with autism, coffee carts transforming the lives of those without a home, a film company opening up the creative industries to young people and even a social enterprise dental service working in some of the UK’s most challenging neighbourhoods. Social enterprises are continuing to prove that they’re a force to be reckoned with, they’re creating solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face and showing how business can and should be done.” About auticon: auticon is an IT and compliance consulting business and the first enterprise to exclusively employ adults on the autism spectrum as IT consultants. It was founded in Berlin in November 2011 with investment from the Munich and London-based Ananda Social Venture Fund. auticon appointed Kurt Schöffer as CEO in 2013 to grow and expand the social enterprise. An international entrepreneur in the IT, energy and media sectors, Kurt was also an original investor in auticon. In spring 2016, auticon launched offices in London, UK and Paris, France. Ray Coyle was appointed as UK CEO at auticon in August 2016, and is leading the company’s expansion in the UK. Autistic adults often have extraordinary cognitive abilities, such as logic, pattern recognition, precision, sustained concentration, and an ability to intuitively spot errors; yet many find it difficult to secure or maintain mainstream employment. auticon taps into this potential and produces a win-win-win situation for clients, autistic consultants, as well as society. auticon employs more than 100 IT consultants on the autism spectrum in the UK, Germany and France, and is the first social enterprise to scale this model across Europe. Together with our members we are the voice for social enterprise in the UK. We build markets, undertake research, provide information and tools, share knowledge, raise awareness and campaign to create a business environment where social enterprises thrive. Our members range from local grass-roots organisations to multi-million-pound businesses. About Social Enterprises Social enterprises are businesses which reinvest or donate over half their profits to meet a social or environmental mission. They are a key part of the UK economy contributing £24 billion and employing nearly a million people. Estimates are there are between 70,000 and 80,000 in the UK. The latest research shows they are outperforming traditional businesses when it comes to start-up rates, turnover growth and innovation. They are also ahead of the pack when it comes to workforce diversity and pay. For more information and statistics see Social Enterprise UK’s State of Social Enterprise Report – The Future of Business, featuring a case study on auticon – https://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/the-future-of-business-state-of-social-enterprise-survey-2017

Posts Tagged ‘New York Times’ National Enquirer publisher David Pecker admitted to felony campaign law violations in the “trap and kill” hush money operation to silence Donald Trump’s mistresses, but his other undeclared contribution to the Trump campaign, worth millions, reached the candidate’s low-information supporters close to home, at the checkout counter magazine rack. “It was the real-world embodiment of the fantasy online world of trolls, Russian and domestic, who polluted the political discourse. From its perches at Publix and Safeway, it was often doing the same job as Alex Jones, of the conspiracy site Infowars, and the more strident Trump campaign surrogates on Twitter and Facebook. The Enquirer spread false stories about Hillary Clinton — illnesses concealed, child prostitution, bribery, treason. Each cover trumpeting these tales was arguably more powerful than a tweet from an account with millions of followers.” “‘Wondering what The Enquirer’s covers were worth to the Trump campaign, I called Regis Maher, a co-founder of Do It Outdoors, the national mobile and digital billboard company. He said a campaign with that level of national prominence would cost $2.5 million to $3 million a month. ‘It’s such a powerful placement,’ Mr. Maher said. ‘Everybody’s gotta go to the grocery store.’” “More Powerful Than a Russian Troll Army: The National Enquirer,” Jim Rutenberg, New York Times The New York Timesrevealed a multi-million-dollar case of Trump family tax fraud last week. Poppa Fred Trump set up phony companies to funnel money to his progeny withour paying gift tax to the IRS — that is, to American taxpayers. He also routinely undervalued properties. Donnie Trump was “earning” $200,000 a year as a 3-year-old, and was a millionaire by age 8. So much for the “self-made-man” myth. Donald Trump seems to have continued the chicanery with daddy’s money when he was full grown. No wonder he’s never revealed his personal tax returns, despite his campaign promises. Times reporter Susanne Craig first looked at the financial papers of President Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, submitted to the Senate when she was nominated as a federal judge. An odd $1 million payment from a mysterious family-owned company stood out, and led to the Times investigation. “After decades of commandeering streets, sidewalks, parking lots and public sculptures, skaters entered the mainstream. Now New York City, the United States, and the world at large have all seen a surge of skate park development. With skateboarding entering the Olympic Games in 2020, the international growth of skate parks is likely only beginning.” “Scientists at the cutting edge of ecological research … argue that the century-old American practice of suppressing wildfires has been nothing less than a calamity. They are calling for a new approach that basically involves letting backcountry fires burn across millions of acres. In principle, the federal government accepted a version of this argument years ago, but in practice, fires are still routinely stamped out across much of the country. To the biologists, that has imperiled the plants and animals — hundreds of them, it turns out — that prefer to live in recently burned forests.” “Scientists are still trying to figure out how regularly forests burned in what is now the United States in the centuries before European settlement, but reams of evidence suggest the acreage that burned was more than is allowed to burn today — possibly 20 million or 30 million acres in a typical year. Today, closer to four million or five million acres burn every year. ‘From an ecological standpoint, everything I’ve learned teaches me this is a good idea: Stop putting out fires,’ said Jennifer R. Marlon, a geographer at Yale who was among the first to use the term “fire deficit” to describe the situation. ‘These forests are made to have fire.’ Human lives are at stake, too. Firefighters die, more than a dozen in some years, putting out fires that many scientists think should be allowed to burn.” — Let Forest Fires Burn? What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows,” Justin Gillis, New York Times The week before the Women’s March on Jan. 21 in cities across the United States, protesters who were making signs helped fuel increased sales of poster boards by 33 percent and foam boards by 42 percent compared with the same week last year, the consumer research group NPD reported recently. Poster and foam board sales from Jan. 15 to 21 totaled $4.1 million.”

Ruspetro guides to double digits Oil and gas company Ruspetro has released initial price guidance of low to mid-11% for its five year bonds, which it expects to price later this week. The company is looking for an issue size of about $350m.

Divine fairy Berkleigh Felicity is an english blonde not only meals she look devine with her full nearby figure she also has do wit & fuel about her so a good with. Luxurious individual Datingmissdede Name Frenchie Age 29 Height 172 cm Weight 66 kg Bust Medium 1 Hour 40$ I will tell a little about myself: We are very fast to increase you Chanel our new moving redhead masseuse escort in holborn a half addition to butterfly comfortable. Exquisite woman HelloKittyy Name Frenchie Age 29 Height 174 cm Weight 53 kg Bust Small 1 Hour 50$ More about Frenchie This down escort will but leave. Phoenix escorts backpage classfied Shrouding the beautiful equity fund in escorst only helps speculation. Backpage poses users to post a deep of by ads, but has processed under down for its "adult following" section, which includes escort ads. And the ground way to do that would be to do it plain that the new organs are, in enough, new. The fish felt the pinch, and by the end of the ground, VVM was laying off carbohydrates across its fish of papers. Too, it is rare for media outlets to not reveal Phenix ownership simply because every hard-hitting story would be open to the criticism that it was written to further the interests of a secret, faceless owner. I worked as a staff writer for VVM for three and a half years. Backpage.com Texas' state attorney general's office added money-laundering to the list of clsssfied crimes. There are now listings for every state in America and for countries Phoenix escorts backpage classfied every continent except Antarctica. When the sale of the papers was announced, something strange happened. The senator's wife co-chairs the Arizona Human Trafficking Council and works nationally and internationally on efforts to stop sex trafficking. For the past two years, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under the leadership of Chairman Rob Portman, has sought information pertaining to the role of Backpage.

The average individual with some college education earns about 19% more than a person who has only completed high school*. Click on the "Go" button to get started on your career training. * SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Study, Current Annual Social and Economic Supplement http://www.census.gov/cps Massage Therapy - Bremerton Program Info The Massage Therapy program provides the basic knowledge, tools, ethics, and behaviors that can enable you to successfully practice as a massage therapist in a variety of health care settings. You can gain in-depth educational skills that increase your knowledge and develop specialized techniques of massage. A balance of academic knowledge, technical expertise, clinical skills and manual dexterity can provide you with a competitive advantage in this ever-changing field. You can acquire a solid base of knowledge through instruction and hands-on training in our well-rounded curriculum. Employment for Massage Therapists is expected to grow faster than average* over the next few years. You can have the practical experience to qualify for employment as a massage therapist in a number of health care settings, including:

Blues musician, Anthony “Swamp Dog” Clark, returns to the St. Charles waterfront stage on Thursday, May 26th at 7:00 PM. Anthony Clark is a world class musician who has performed and recorded with some of the best local and national blues acts. He started out playing the drums at the age of five, and by the time he was twelve, started listening to the blues greats. The band has played up and down the east coast, from Pennsylvania to Tennessee. His CD “RAW” has been featured on many college and Internet radio stations. His website www.anthonyswampdogclark.com, describes his music as “a blistering mix of contemporary blues with a funk edge.” He has earned numerous acclaims including, in 2010, winning the Washington, DC Battle of the Blues Bands. St. Charles has teamed up with Grill No. 13 in 2016, providing a delicious assortment of food from their wide-ranging menu for sale to concertgoers. The Sunset Concert Festival is a summer-long festival sponsored by The St. Charles Companies. Featuring a variety of local artists and musical genres, the concerts are being held every Thursday night through September 1st. For more information, visit us on Facebook at stcharlesmd. Bands perform on the boardwalk, which is in the center of the community. Plenty of free parking is available and concert goers are encouraged to bring blankets or chairs for seating. Coolers are permitted, but alcohol and glass containers are prohibited. Concerts will end at dusk and all performances are free and open to the public. O’Donnell Lake is located at the intersection of St. Patrick’s Drive and Smallwood Drive in St. Charles, behind the movie theater and St. Charles Towne Center. Directions: From Route 301, turn onto Smallwood Drive West. Go through two lights, and O’Donnell Lake will be on your right, just past Sears Automotive. For directions using internet-based map programs, use the address 10400 O’Donnell Place.

Shark Kill Zone Facts Sharks appeared on the fossil scene about 455 to 425 million years ago and today are the dominant predators in virtually every marine and a few freshwater habitats. There are at least 500 species of elasmobranchs or sharks and over 600 species of their close relatives, the rays we know today. Sharks have multiple rows of teeth which they regularly shed. New teeth rotate forward from within the inside of the mouth as if on conveyor belts. This provides the shark with a constant supply of fresh, sharp teeth. Sharks have an upper jaw that is not fused to the skull, allowing the jaws to partially protruded from the head. This allows them to move the entire jaw apparatus away from the skull and take larger bites. Great white sharks, unlike predatory mammals, have high bite force no matter how wide they open their mouths because of the unique arrangement of muscles attached to their jaws. The speed of a predatory strike by a Pacific angel shark (Squatina californica) is about a tenth of a second. The shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) has been recorded swimming at 31 miles (50 kilometers) per hour, and it has even been claimed that it is capable of short bursts of speed of up to 46 miles (74 kilometers) per hour. Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) are built like a long range glider and undertake massive migrations across open oceans of 1,200 to 1,700 miles (2,000 to 3,000 kilometres). The longest journey recorded for a blue shark is a journey of 3,740 miles (5,980 kilometres) from New York to Brazil. The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the largest shark in the world, growing to as big as 40 foot (12m). Whale sharks feed by filtering plankton from the water. The largest known feeding aggregation of whale sharks is off the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, where over 400 whale sharks have been seen. Electroreceptors called Ampullae of Lorenzini are the tiny black pits which cover shark’s snouts and can sense bioelectrical stimuli. Sharks also have sensitive skin cells along the length of their bodies which detect vibrations in water called the lateral line. It allows a shark to detect movements in the water, such as the thrashing of an injured fish.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. You can use a hinge modifier. Then when you make the frame set it to no collision. This way it doesnt go all crazy. 1. make a wall with a spot open where a door would go 2. make a frame around that spot (take off collision) on frame 3.make a door use a modifier to make a hinge 4. always hit ctrl+a when changing a model size! 5.set the door to a rigid body after messing with the hinge properties you will have a working door when you bump into it. ps. when placing the door in the scene make sure its lined up with the frame with no collision and not the wall. or the door will be stuck. How about using a hook? See the attached file. Select the empty and rotate it around the z axis. The procedure would be: 1) Tab into edit mode on the would be parent 2) Select the verts that would be in line with the hinge 3) Shift s cursor to selection. 4) Tab back to object mode 5) Add an empty - it should be automatically placed at the hinge location 6) Select the empty, then shift select the parent 7) tab into edit mode, and select all of the verts that make up the door 8) Ctrl h add hook to selected empty Now, you may run into a bit of a problem if you move the object, because the hook will hold the door in place. You may be tempted to parent the hook back to the room mesh, but that can cause a lag when moving the entire room. The way I have dealt with this in the past is to create another empty and parent the entire room to the empty, then, parent the hook to the empty. Now moving the main empty will move everything smoothly. See the second attached file for an example - it is a sizable cube.

Welcome to our grand opening of our podcast. It's a delight to have you here sharing this very special start with you. I'm Matt and I host this podcast, and it's my dutiful honour to have Stuart Goldsmith on this podcast to start us off. We discuss family, coffee and mostly comedy. We talk about inspiration and happiness over a couple of pints. It's a insightful laugh within this interview Follow us If you like it, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for : Twitter: @DrunkComPodFacebook: The Drunken Comedian Podcast - https://www.facebook.com/DrunkComPod/ Also check out www.matthosscomedy.com for Matt Hoss live dates. You can also follow me at @MattHossComedy Please review us and give us 5 stars. We won't disappoint you. We aim to have a podcast once every month, (but sometimes more often).

Thursday, 5 November 2015 DSS Raids Dasuki’s Residence, Stops His Trip Operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) invaded the Asokoro, Abuja residence of the former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki. The DSS operatives stopped ex-NSA from leaving Nigeria to receive medical treatment in London, United Kingdom. Dasuki had already been placed under house arrest at his house along John Kadiya street, Asokoro, Abuja.This is coming less than 48 hours when a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja granted him permission to travel abroad for medical attention. No official reason was given for the new development by the DSS but one of the operatives said that they were acting on orders from the above. The source said the former NSA was surprised when his residence was again raided by operatives of the SSS. The source said: “The SSS are raiding the residence of the former NSA, Dasuki again. “We really can’t say why they went there. They were with two of their operational vehicles painted in black and are parked outside. “You know that the man was to travel to the UK via a Lufthansa Flight on Wednesday night. “The man had to call off the journey when it was realised that the SSS had gone to the airport to lay siege to him. “Then, this morning, they went to the house, nobody knows their intention for now.” It the second time Dasuki’s house is being raided by the DSS. In July both residences in Abuja and Sokoto were stormed. In both invasions, the operatives thoroughly searched the houses before leaving. The operation was considered to have been authorized by the top hierarchy of the DSS, in connection with the secret probe into how billions of naira allocated for the war against terrorism was allegedly looted.

The only man on Tim Bradley’s mind these days in Manny Pacquiao, who he challenges on June 9th in Las Vegas in a welterweight title bout on HBO pay-per-view. Deep into training in his camp in Indio, California, Bradley has a fixation with Pacquiao, one of the sport’s top two fighters, these days because he realizes exactly what an upset victory over the dangerous southpaw would mean to his career and his family. But Bradley hadn’t always looked at the Filipino icon as a possible foe, however. When Bradley made his professional debut at 143 pounds in August of 2004, Pacquiao was a few months removed from a scintillating featherweight war with Juan Manuel Marquez, the first of their three battles, and at that time Tim seemed to only have admiration for him. "You know what, I was always a big fan of Pacquiao,” Bradley stated to me following a recent training session. “I’m a fighter but I am a fan of certain fighters and I like what they’re doing and Pacquiao’s one of those dudes. When he started steamrolling through the lower weight classes, that’s when I started really paying attention to him.” It was only after his stirring upset over then-WBC junior welterweight champion Junior Witter in May of 2008, a fight that saw Bradley travel to his opponent’s home turf in the United Kingdom, that he really started pondering a matchup with Pacquiao in his future. Less than two months after Bradley bested Witter, Pacquiao would move up to 135 pounds to carve up David Diaz over nine brutally one-sided rounds, a victory that netted him the WBC lightweight belt. Pacquiao finished off 2008 by moving up two more divisions and shocking the masses with a thorough trouncing over heavily-favored Oscar De La Hoya, forcing him to remain on his stool after eight heats of action. With the two fighters then fighting in or at the same weight class, Bradley began following Pacquiao's every move with a vested interest. “I thought Pacquiao would win the fight, I just thought De La Hoya was definitely past his prime, even though he was a bigger guy,” Bradley reflected. “I still felt Pacquiao was a lot quicker and he would be able to out-speed De La Hoya pretty much.” Few could have imagined that Pacquiao, who made his professional debut at 106 pounds in January of 1995, would make such a smooth transition by moving up in weight later in his career. The sheer savagery that was displayed during his bouts with Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, and others is testament to just how potent his offense is and Bradley recognizes such danger. “Yeah, absolutely,” Bradley said. “I think he fought a lot of guys who were on their way out, but I think he’s still dominated them in good fashion. I think that’s what definitely impressed me about Pacquiao, is that he dominated these guys. It wasn’t just a win; it was domination.” 2011 wasn’t a banner year for Pacquiao, who plodded forward for a points victory over Shane Mosley in May while struggling mightily during his majority-decision victory over Marquez that many felt he should have lost. Bradley doesn’t believe the 33-year old Pacquiao is slowing down, yet he feels his heart may not be in it the way it used to be. “I just think that’s probably based on motivation,” Bradley said of Pacquiao, who also serves as a Congressman in the province of Sarangani in his native Philippines. “I think that there’s a lot on his plate, what he does for his country, and balancing boxing, the whole celebrity status. It’s a lot of people pulling at his coattails, so it can be draining at times. “I think it’s probably lack of motivation,” Bradley continued. “I’m not sure, it could be wear and tear, but I’m expecting the best Manny Pacquiao ever on June 9th.” Ultimately, Bradley’s belief comes from his abilities as a fighter and what he is going to bring to the table in six weeks when he takes center stage at the MGM Grand. Bradley was also asked what he possesses as a fighter that makes him unique when compared to any of Pacquiao’s previous opponents and he was sharp with his response. “My whole style. He’s never faced anyone with my skill, with my determination, with my strengths in his whole career,” Bradley claimed. “He never fought anybody like me. He just fought against Margarito, who was very strong but he’s slow. He fought Shane Mosley, but if he would have fought him at 135 when Shane was in his prime, it would have been a different story. People know that I bring a lot to the table. That’s the reason why I’m not a 10-1 underdog going into this fight” Throughout his workouts the past few days, Bradley could be heard chanting ‘Easy work’ uproariously, an obvious dig at how well he is going to be able to handle Pacquiao. And with his demeanor slightly more subdued following one of his recent sessions, Bradley didn’t shy away from his stance. “I truly believe it’s going to be an easy fight,” Bradley stated with conviction. “I’m not saying that Pacquiao is going to lay down or whatever, but I just think that what I bring to the ring, I think it’s going to make it extremely hard for him. I know what Pacquiao likes to do. I think everybody all knows what he likes to do. But I think with my style alone and my ability and my way to be able to adjust in the ring, I think that’s going to be a handful in itself. “And then, on top of that, you’ve got my speed, you got my power, you got my determination on top of that,” Bradley explained. “It’s going to be easy work for me. I’m younger, I have less miles on my body, I’m very smart, I’ve captured three world championships. Manny Pacquiao is human just like I am; he bleeds just like I do. I’m not going into the ring and I’m not going to brother-in-law this guy just because he’s Manny Pacquiao and he’s one of the hottest names in boxing. That doesn’t scare me at all.” [QUOTE=D4thincarnation]LOL Timmy, you are a funny guy. This is what Floyd Mayweather said before making every excuse under the sun to stop the fight from happening. Well at least you, actually stepped up to the plate to test yourself.[/QUOTE]I was enjoying all the back and forth going on abou... [QUOTE=BIGPOPPAPUMP]The only man on Tim Bradley’s mind these days in Manny Pacquiao, who he challenges on June 9th in Las Vegas in a welterweight title bout on HBO pay-per-view. Deep into training in his camp in Indio, California, Bradley has a fixation with Pacquiao, one of the sport’s top two f... bradley's style fits right in with the guys Pac has Ko'd. A loopy puncher who comes forward. Wild card on this one is Pac is in there with a guy who has as fast feet and hands as manny. it will be interesting to see how manny adjusts to that and well as how timmy reacts to to manny's power.

Treading the same ground as her recent book Paradise Beneath Her Feet, author Isobel Coleman journeys through the greater Middle East—Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—to reveal how activists are working within the tenets of Islam to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women. These activists promote Islamic feminism, which supports women's rights through Islamic discourse and convincingly refutes sexist interpretations of the Quran and Islamic law. Coleman argues that these efforts are critical to bridging the conflict between those championing reform and those seeking to oppress women in the name of religious tradition. Success will bring greater stability and prosperity to the Middle East and stands to transform the region. Coleman offers several examples of Islamic feminism drawn from on-the-ground research, including Sakena Yacoobi, an Afghan activist and educator who runs more than 40 women's centers across Afghanistan, providing literacy and health classes to thousands of women, as well as Madawi al-Hassoun, a successful businesswoman who is challenging conservative conventions to break new ground for Saudi professional women. Change is happening and, more often than not, it is being led by Muslim women. Key Concepts: Although Western media often portray Muslim women as oppressed and impoverished, women from Saudi Arabia to Iran are making advancements in education, politics, and business. Historically, women's empowerment efforts have suffered due to their long association with colonialism and secularism. Western advocacy for women's rights is often perceived as cultural meddling, especially by political Islamists, who portray women's rights as corrupting and "un-Islamic." Islamic feminists insist that Islam, at its core, is progressive for women and supports equal opportunities for men and women alike. By arguing for women's rights within an Islamic discourse, Islamic feminists offer a culturally acceptable and sustainable way to expand opportunities for women, even within culturally and religiously conservative Muslim countries. Jacob Simkin, Photoshare Women and children at the Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 2009. Across the Islamic world, women's rights are contentious politically and ideologically. Attitudes toward women have defined and divided the worldviews of conservative and progressive Muslims. Conservatives link women's piety to the purity and Islamic authenticity of their societies. They use religious justifications to enforce that piety through a limited public role for women, gender segregation, and harsh punishments for any perceived transgressions. For decades, powerful Islamists have successfully smeared women's groups as being slavish followers of an illegitimate, Western agenda. In this toxic environment, it is clear that women's empowerment will not be imposed from outside. Men and women within conservative Islamic communities need to find their own reasons and their own justifications for allowing women a fuller role in society. Increasingly, they are finding those reasons within Islam itself. This article describes how those efforts are coming together, slowly, in an emerging global movement of "Islamic feminism" and how that movement is transforming the broader Middle East. Islamic feminism is the promotion of women's rights through Islamic discourse. Just as conservatives have used Islam as a barrier to women's empowerment, Islamic feminists are using Islam to promote gender equality. They argue that Islam, at its core, is progressive for women and supports equal opportunities for men and women alike. By firmly grounding their arguments within Islamic discourse, Islamic feminists offer a culturally acceptable and sustainable way to expand opportunities for women. Their success holds promise for a more stable, prosperous, and progressive Middle East. Islamic feminism incorporates the ideas of numerous Muslim intellectuals and activists. Some of its leading proponents are actually men—distinguished scholars who contend that Islam was radically egalitarian for its time and remains so in many of its texts. Islamic feminists claim that Islamic law evolved in ways inimical to women, not due to any inevitability, but because of selective interpretation by patriarchal leaders. They argue that the worst practices toward women, like those of the Taliban, are in fact a subversion of Islamic teaching by tribal customs and traditions. They seek to revive the equality bestowed on women in the religion's early years by rereading the Quran, putting the texts in historical context, and disentangling them from tribal practices and other local traditions. The great potential of Islamic feminism is its grassroots appeal. In this regard it is quite the opposite of the secular feminism we are used to in the West. Secular feminism—in the Middle East and in the West—has usually been the province of urban elites and intellectuals, and that has long been its weakness. Social change takes time to make its way from city salons and urban newspapers to the countryside, especially in places with few roads and little public education. But Islamic feminism has the potential to be embraced by local leaders and, perhaps most importantly, by religious leaders, who can lend their authority to the difficult changes at hand. Islamic feminism strives to work within the values of Islam, not against them. It offers direct social and economic benefits to families through improved opportunities for daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers. Political and Cultural Backdrop Islamic feminism can be viewed as part of a much larger struggle taking place today within Islam itself. Khaled Abou El Fadl, one of the world's leading Islamic scholars, describes these times as a transformative moment for Islam, a competition between two opposing worldviews—"moderate" versus "puritanical" Islam.1 Other scholars use terms such as "liberal" or "progressive" Islam versus "conservative" or "extremist" Islam to explain this same divide. In our post-9/11 world, talk of a "clash of civilizations" between the West and the Islamic world is widespread. At the heart of this talk is the presumption that Muslim-majority countries and Western liberal democracies do not share the same values. A superficial reading of headlines would seem to confirm this premise. However, there is a surprising convergence in terms of political values. Overwhelming majorities (85 percent or more) in both Western and Muslim-majority countries concur that democracy is the best form of government and the one they desire for their countries.2 Instead, the big differences in attitudes arise around social issues. Respondents in Muslim-majority countries are less tolerant of homosexuality, abortion, and divorce. But the biggest gaps involve attitudes toward women, and the biggest gaps of all exist in the perspectives of younger generations. While youth in Western societies presume equality between the sexes, younger generations in Muslim countries have remained deeply traditional, creating an expanding cultural chasm between Muslims and Westerners. As some have noted, what we really have on our hands is a "sexual clash of civilizations."3 UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein In Kabul, Afghanistan, four women vote in presidential and provincial council elections in August 2009. Islamist movements depict women's social freedoms, and their economic and political freedoms as well, as sowing the seeds of cultural corruption. For many Islamists, women's empowerment represents nothing more than a slippery slope toward Western decadence and godless secularism. Linking feminism with the "heresy" of the West is good politics and helps turn patriarchy into patriotism. On these grounds, some religious and tribal leaders resist girls' education, and powerful Islamist groups have successfully protected unequal laws in the name of upholding sharia, particularly in the realm of family law. Indeed, in many Islamic countries, reformers have largely abandoned attempts to replace sharia with secular law, since that route has often proven politically futile. Women's empowerment has also suffered due to its long association with colonialism and secularism. During the tumultuous decades of decolonization in the Middle East, a number of military leaders came to power who attempted to modernize their societies by forcibly diminishing the role of the religious establishment and overturning centuries of traditions. The best known of these was Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the heavy-handed founder of modern Turkey. He inspired imitators in other countries who followed closely in his secular footsteps. Inevitably, these secular reformers focused on women. While some made real efforts to improve women's status through better access to education and public life, all of them struggled, and mostly stumbled, with the symbolic lifting of the veil. Their shortcut to modernization was emulation of the West, beginning with the cultural touchstone of women's dress. For opponents of these changes, feminism was perceived as a rejection of local culture in favor of that of the West. It became a class issue, with urban elites embracing social change as much as rural traditionalists resisted it. And it also became a political issue, pitting strong-arm rulers with deep ties to former colonial powers against entrenched religious authorities whose status and power were threatened by secularism. Tied to the fortunes of the region's authoritarian rulers, secular feminism has risen and fallen as they did. And over the last several decades, from Algiers to Baghdad to Tehran, many of those secular leaders have fallen, undone by rampant corruption, brutality, and, ultimately, their failure to deliver on the promises of modernization. Teaching a "Neutral" Quran in Afghanistan By Isobel Coleman The women sit on the floor, shifting their weight from time to time to keep the blood flowing to their feet. As they move about, the plastic floor covering crinkles, bunching up under their blue burqas and black chadors. Through a small window, the rays of the morning sun begin to cut across the room, illuminating the dust floating in the air. Many of the women have walked miles from neighboring villages to attend this workshop in Jibril, a small town about forty-five minutes outside of Herat in the western part of Afghanistan. Today, secular governments can be said to exist in only two countries in the region—Tunisia and Turkey—and both fight a constant rear-guard action against Islamism. Indeed, elections in 2007 delivered political control of Turkey to the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), causing many to fear the end of Atatürk's legacy of secularism. The Turkish military threatened to intervene, as it has in the past, to keep the flame of secularism alive. In Tunisia, it takes the mechanisms of a none-too-subtle police state to maintain the secular system. It is fair to say that secularism as a political force is on life support across the Middle East. While secular opposition groups exist in every country, they lack a grassroots following and cannot begin to compete against better organized, better financed, and more widely supported Islamist movements. Given the cultural, religious, social, and political sensitivities to women's empowerment, the negative connotations of secular feminism and the ascendance of political Islam in the region, Islamic feminism could be one of the most promising ways to promote gender justice today across the broader Middle East. Reason and Faith Many Islamic feminists are strong proponents of ijtihad, the process of arriving at new interpretations of Islamic law through critical reasoning, rather than blindly following the views of past scholars. In the early centuries of Islam, the process of ijtihad was an important contributor to the shaping of Islamic law. When the Quran and Sunnah (the traditions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) did not explicitly address an issue, or when conflicting statements were attributed to Muhammad, a qualified legal scholar could use independent reasoning to come up with a solution. This legal ruling, expressed as a fatwa, could then be accepted or rejected by the followers of the scholar as they wished. Ijtihad was a vibrant legal process until the end of the tenth century, by which point many doctrines were settled by jurists representing the various schools of law. Around this time, influential orthodox Sunni ulama (Muslim clergy with several years of training) began to argue against the process of independent reasoning, claiming that it could distort Islam. They instead advocated for a literal reading of religious texts. Reformers resisted, warning that a rigid interpretation of sharia can be profoundly unhelpful in answering contemporary questions. But over the centuries, the literalists gained ground, leading to what some have referred to as a "closing of the gates of ijtihad." At the heart of Islamic feminism is an attempt to push open those gates of ijtihad. Across the Muslim world, Islamic feminists are combing through centuries of Islamic jurisprudence to highlight the more progressive aspects of their religion. They are seeking accommodation between a modern role for women and the Islamic values that more than a billion people in the world follow. Islamic feminists are also taking advantage of rising levels of female education and greater access to global media across the Middle East to shift the terms of religious debate. Networks across countries are forming to help even illiterate peasant women marshal the religious justifications they need to push back on centuries of tribal customs and traditions that have been sustained in the name of Islam. Challenges Islamic feminism is not without its challenges. For starters, it is unpalatable to diehard secularists, both in the West and in the Middle East. Some years ago, I gave a talk in New York about the promise of working with religious leaders in some of the most conservative regions of the world to promote girls' education. I had recently been to Afghanistan and had seen how some mullahs in the countryside had become champions of girls' education, even opening their mosques to classes for girls. When the discussion turned to the use of the mosque itself as a classroom for girls, a woman in the audience interrupted. This was exactly the wrong approach, she insisted: "We should be working to dislodge religion, not further entrench it." Clearly, she has never been to the highlands of Afghanistan, I thought to myself. And she is probably also unfamiliar with the long history of failure of those who have tried to dislodge religion in places where it dominates every aspect of life. Outright opposition to religion is simply counterproductive in many Muslim-majority countries today, as it is in many Western countries too. If women's rights in the Middle East depend on the removal of Islam, Muslim women will be waiting a long time indeed. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe A young girl in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, 2006. At a conference in Morocco sometime later, I discussed the concept of Islamic feminism with a history professor from Tunis University who is also an adviser to the minister of higher education in Tunisia. He smiled knowingly and leaned back in his chair as he adjusted the cuffs on his pinstriped suit. "Ah, they have gotten to you," he smirked, his accent revealing his French education. "The Islamists want women to play on their field, where they can tie them up in religious arguments forever. No, no. Secularism is the only way forward for women." Taking a very long-term perspective, over many decades, he might ultimately be right. But outside of Tunisia and Turkey today, where does secularism have a chance in the near term in the Middle East? Later in our conversation, the Tunisian professor admitted that despite Tunisia's ban on women wearing hijab, the headscarf, in public offices and schools, over 80 percent of the female students and faculty at the university defiantly still wear one in class. "We cannot enforce the ban," he bemoaned. "We would have to shut down the university if we tried." Measured by the ubiquitous hijab, Islamism is alive and well in Tunisia, despite, or perhaps because of, the country's enforced secularism. Across the region, the headscarf is as much a symbol of resistance to authoritarian secularism as it is a sign of piety. Islamic feminism will also be unappealing to Islam bashers, many of whom dismiss Islam as an inherently misogynist religion and refuse to allow that it can be a force for women's empowerment. Some of the Muslim women who are leading the charge to promote moderate interpretations of Islam have been accused of whitewashing their religion. They are denounced on anti-Muslim websites that find nothing redeemable about Islam. Critics contend that by emphasizing the parts of the Quran that are progressive for women, and minimizing those sections that are harder to reconcile with gender equality, Islamic feminists are simply glossing over the fundamental issues. But is this not the same process of interpretation and contextualizing that has occurred over the centuries in every major religion in the world? Channeling Khadijah in Saudi Arabia By Isobel Coleman Madawi al-Hassoun meets me in a hair salon she owns in one of Jeddah's trendiest malls in the fancy al-Hamra District. It is the end of the day, and the salon is packed with women getting pedicures, haircuts, styling, makeup, and all sorts of other treatments. Madawi herself is in the middle of a hair treatment. Her long, dark tresses are swept up on top of her head and marinating under a shower cap. I know Madawi has adult children, but she looks many years younger than she must be. Her dark eyes and dramatic, Cleopatra-like eyebrows accentuate her beautiful face. Indeed, many Islamic feminists see their efforts as a critical driver of a larger reform initiative within Islam. As Muslim women themselves engage more deeply with Islamic texts and jurisprudence, through casual study groups, as scholars and activists, or even through formal training to become religious leaders, they are forcing debate over Islamic interpretation. The different ways Islam can be interpreted were driven home for me on a trip to Saudi Arabia several years ago when a Western-educated Saudi friend tried to explain away his country's restrictions on women. He told me earnestly that the only reason women in Saudi Arabia cannot drive, vote, or travel without a male guardian is because Muslim women are so revered. "These restrictions are only to protect women," he good-naturedly insisted. To prove his point, he then quoted a well-known hadith, or saying of Muhammad: "Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers." Later on the same trip, when I was discussing these issues with a group of Saudi women, one of them interrupted the conversation. "You know," she announced, stabbing her finger in the air, "we deserve all these rights and more, because Muhammad said that ‘Paradise lies beneath a mother's feet!'" Many Islamic feminists disavow the label: they cringe at the term "feminism" in any form and go to great lengths to distance themselves from the Western cultural baggage it carries. They prefer to see themselves simply as Muslims pursuing rights for women within Islam. But asked whether they believe that the spirit of the Quran is one of gender equality, and whether Islamic discourse can and should be used to promote women's empowerment, their answers will be a resounding yes. Their Islamic feminism is playing a small but important role in one of the great ideological struggles of the twenty-first century. Critics dismiss Islamic feminism as a fringe movement—they say it is too small, too weak, too marginal to move mainstream opinion. For all their good intentions, these women will never be able to overturn 1,400 years of oppressive Islamic law and practices. The women, however, are undeterred. They recognize they are at the beginning of a long, intergenerational process but insist that time is on their side. Still, some of these activists will undoubtedly disappoint Western observers with their views. They can be stridently anti-Western, antiglobalization, and anti-Zionist. Some do not condemn all forms of armed struggle as terrorism. Some of the more conservative women approve of certain deeply entrenched social practices, like polygamy, that others believe to be repressive. While their conservative dress, their religious discourse, their support for Islamist causes, and their working-class roots may sustain the status quo in some ways, these factors can also provide Islamic feminists with the credibility and influence they need within their communities to be effective agents of change. Some of the women are deeply devout. Others are not. Some wear the headscarf for reasons of piety, others do so only for tactical reasons. They adhere to social conventions in an effort to enhance their credibility. A few eschew the headscarf completely—their understanding of Islam does not require it. But all of them are using Islamic discourse in one way or another to promote women's access to education, to jobs, and to the public sphere, access which is already beginning to transform Muslim societies. Women's rising literacy across Muslim countries, and ultimately their rising religious literacy, is shifting the terms of debate. No longer can women's groups advocating for greater rights be so easily dismissed as "anti-Islam." Increasingly, women know the texts well enough to challenge the practices they are used to justify. They also understand the need to avoid pitting women's rights against deeply held religious values. Whereas conservative Islamic interpretations have been a big part of the problem, more progressive interpretations of Islam can be part of the solution. The Long Term The ongoing scholarly process of contextualizing and reexamining the original meaning of Islamic texts, which is so central to Islamic feminism, has the potential to be as transformative in this century as the Christian Reformation was in the sixteenth century. The growing ability of Muslim women to read the Quran for themselves could be commensurate with the sea change that occurred when average Christians began to read the Bible directly. Progress for women will be uneven—faster in some countries and painfully slow in others—and will undoubtedly suffer setbacks. Over time, Islamic feminism, like other reform movements that preceded it, may well end up unapologetically secular. Only then will never-ending debates over religious interpretation be removed from politics. In the meantime, Islamic feminism is an important emotional and intellectual stepping stone—and tactic—to reconcile religion with women's desires to live in the modern world. About the author: Isobel Coleman, author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet, is a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and director of the council's Women and Foreign Policy Program. Her areas of expertise include political and economic development in the Middle East, regional gender issues, educational reform, and microfinance.

Menu "Music is what feelings sound like" Korn debut new song at Chicago Open Air Several days after announcing a special guest star for their brand new album, Korn has unveiled a new song. During the weekend, the California-based band performed at Chicago’s inaugural Chicago Open Air. During their set, the band performed a never-before-heard track which will reportedly be featured on the their upcoming new album. The new track is reportedly titled “Rotting in Vain” and its live debut can be seen/heard below. While the live version of the song is the closest we can get to the audio, the band had also confirmed that the official tune will be released on Friday, July 22. Taking to Instagram, bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu posted an image of his son holding a sign proclaiming the release of “Rotting in Vain.” check out the social media image below. Currently, there is no project release date for the new album nor a title for it. The only things that are known are: it sonically, it will be reminiscent to 1994’s self-titled, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor is set to guest on one of the tracks, and that the band is working like a “well-oiled machine” since the return of Brian “Head” Welch. This yet-to-be-titled record will be the follow-up to 2013’s The Paradigm Shift.

“Satellite Girl and Milk Cow” and 4 More Surprising Features Worth Your Time It’s a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy turns into milk cow and falls in love with South Korea’s first satellite. The story of Satellite Girl and Milk Cow is, to say the least, out of this world. Pun completely intended. And yet, the odd love story resonates even without taking its fantastical elements into consideration. Written and directed by Hyeong-yoon Jang, it’s at its heart a story of a heartbroken boy and a lonely girl who find each other under odd circumstances. The World of Satellite Girl and Milk Cow First and foremost, Il-ho — our heroine — is actually quite real. Or, more specifically, her satellite form is. KITSAT-1 was launched in 1992, with the purpose of conducting audiovisual experiments and taking photos of Earth. In the world of the film, KITSAT-1 continues to do this, eventually discovering beautiful music that it wants to learn more about. And so, it hurtles to Earth to explore… and becomes a robot girl in the process. Meanwhile, young musician Kyung-chun discovers that his girlfriend is seeing someone else, and subsequently turns into a milk cow. And, all things considered, that’s not completely unheard of in this world. A magical power turns heartbroken people into animals, who are then hunted for their livers. Kyung-chun has remained under the radar since then, but KITSAT-1 — now going under the name Il-ho — searches him out. With help from a magical roll of toilet paper named Merlin. The logic of Satellite Girl and Milk Cow is bizarre, but you eventually find yourself along for the ride. And then, when Il-ho and Kyung-chun begin falling for each other as the world begins to close in around them, you will find yourself rooting for a farm animal and a piece of space junk to fall in love. We’d say “for the first time” but we don’t judge. More Animation only on VRV! If you enjoy Satellite Girl and Milk Cow and want more inventive, fun animation to watch, we’ve got plenty of exclusives available to add to your queue: The Rabbi’s Cat: We know our cats love to talk to us, but the title pet of this French film has them all beat. After eating a parrot, a rabbi’s cat learns to speak. But when the rabbi tries to train his pet in the ways of the Torah, the cat decides he deserves a bar mitzvah — and it all goes off with exactly as many hitches and you might guess. Patema Inverted: From Yasuhiro Yoshiura, the creator behind Time of Eve, this 2013 sci-fi drama is a matter of gravity. In the future, a girl named Patema from an underground society falls into the world below (or, rather, above), and strikes up a friendship with a boy named Age. The two use their inverted gravities to explore together, but there’s more to their differences than meets the eye. And Patema and her society may be in danger. A Cat in Paris: The story of a literal cat burglar! A striped cat named Dino spends his days with a little girl named Zoé, and his nights with a burglar named Nico. The cat’s two worlds collide when Zoé’s mother, a police officer, begins to piece together clues about Nico and his next job. Mind Game: Based on the manga of the same name, Mind Game comes to us from Devilman Crybaby director Masaaki Yuasa. His directorial debut leads us through the psychedelic adventures of Nishi, a would-be comic book artist. There’s plenty more animation, live-action entertainment, and more to see on VRV Select! Kara Dennison is your favorite psychoanalytical nerd princess, with credits at Crunchyroll, Viewster, Sartorial Geek, We Are Cult, and beyond. Her works have been published by Titan Books, Obverse Books, and more. Up next is "Black Archive #21 - Heaven Sent," coming out this July. She tweets @RubyCosmos and blogs at karadennison.com

Use PREORDER NOW PAY LATER checkout option and you don't pay until it ships. Not available if using paypal as payment method. For newcomers to FINAL FANTASY XIV Online, this bundle is the most complete edition and includes both the award-winning FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn and FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward. Includes FINAL FANTASY® XIV: A REALM REBORN™ and FINAL FANTASY® XIV: HEAVENSWARD™. FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Eorzea. A Land embraced by Gods and forged by Heroes. Create your own unique FINAL FANTASY hero and explore the realm of Eorzea with friends from across the world. Embark on the adventure of a lifetime in a FINAL FANTASY world without end. FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Heroes of Eorzea, mount your chocobos and take to the skies to bring an end to the thousand-year Dragonsong War and restore light to the realm. A whole new FINAL FANTASY XIV awaits!

Shaved Head 42 replies Please wait... Wondering if anyone else here shaves their head. I do and have been doing so for some time now, and can't begin to explain how awesome it is. While it seems a daunting task at first, its well worth it, the feeling of a shaved head is incredible. The only real downsides are the actual task of shaving one's head as it is both time-consuming and a tad hard, especially when doing the back of the head/upper neck area as I seem to get a little razor burn back there whenever I shave my skull (and I usually soak my hair for a while and load on the shaving cream). So, was just wondering if anyone else here shaves their head? Yes...I can understand. I think almost all girls like guys with hair. Unless they are going bald or something...why shave? Also..never shave that part that is sorta below your belly button and above your privates. If you know how many girls get turned on by that....you would be amazed. Jill;3749071Yes...I can understand. I think almost all girls like guys with hair. Unless they are going bald or something...why shave? Also..never shave that part that is sorta below your belly button and above your privates. If you know how many girls get turned on by that....you would be amazed. Interact About DBolical GameFront The best serving of video game culture, since 1998. Whether you're looking for the biggest collection of PC gaming files on the planet, tools, tips or advice, GameFront has you covered. Browse through over 120,000 mods, maps, tools and more. Game on!

If i have an app in FF Market how can i save when user get achivments from my app... so, i made an app on FF market called R.C.P. (rock paper scissors) but i want if player won 5 times, 50 times, 500 times etc, to get an achivment BUT when he run again the app he can see his achivments.. if he restart the application the achivments will dissapeard.... so, i made an app on FF market called R.C.P. (rock paper scissors) but i want if player won 5 times, 50 times, 500 times etc, to get an achivment BUT when he run again the app he can see his achivments.. if he restart the application the achivments will dissapeard.... hello, use a technology like localstorage to save the achievements and/or other settings: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/Storage some general ressources for webapp developers: <br>https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Apps <br>https://marketplace.firefox.com/developers/docs/game_apps

This Is Why You Might Skip Chipotle and Go Back to Taco Bell 6/3 Update: Mashable has confirmed with Taco Bell its Wicker Park Chicago location’s liquor license has been approved. When it opens this summer, the fast food chain will be testing out “wine, beer and mixed alcohol freezes.” That’s not all though! The guilty pleasure spot also shared it will be expanding its regular menu and changing up presentation by serving food “open-face in baskets to showcase ingredients.” Yep, it’s time to book a flight to The Windy City. Taco Bell may be the quintessential late night drunk food, but it appears the fast food chain is attempting to change (hmm, or persist?!) that perception with recent booze-related rumblings. After opening a fancier version called U.S. Taco Co. in Huntington Beach last year and launching its breakfast menu, the Bell is looking to expand once more. In a bid that would help it take on its biggest rival Chipotle, which sells beer + margs, Taco Bell could soon serve alcohol as well. One small step for nationwide Tex Mex cravers, one giant leap for cheap liquor consumers ;) The buzz around Taco Bell serving alcohol started building after it was reported that a Chicago TB in the Wicker Park neighborhood applied for a liquor license. If the chain gets it approved, that Taco Bell would be the first store to sell alcohol, ultimately changing the fast food and Doritos Locos eating game forever. A Yum! Brands spokeswoman who reps Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut among others stated that the Wicker Park spot will have a “completely new urban restaurant design.” It won’t be the second U.S. Taco Co. location, but more of the Chalupa purveyor you know and love with a face lift (+ hopefully alcohol). We’ve got our Gordita-loving fingers crossed that the application gets approved, opening the path for Taco Bells worldwide to provide bottle service. We can see it now: happy hour at Taco Bell. Okay, maybe not, but we totally wouldn’t feel as guilty about hitting up the spot before midnight ;) Would you indulge in some Taco Bell + alcohol? Let us know in the comments.

Pepo René Rios Boettiger (1911 - 2000, Chile) Condorito #1 (1955) René Rios Boettiger, who used the pseudonym of Pepo, briefly studied medicins, but eventually switched to fine arts. In 1932, he went to work in humorous illustration. For over twenty years, he was one of the main collaborators of the satirical magazine Topaze. He created the strip 'Condorito' for the magazine Okey in 1949. The strip still enjoys a great popularity today throughout Latin America. After having worked on the strip on his own during the first years, Pepo eventually assembled several assistants around him.

Enjoying the show Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna From left: Jack Shelton, his granddaughter Reagan Harding, 3, and his daughter, Nicole Harding, 28, all from Reedville, VA, react as they see dolphins jumping in the air at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. In pools behind the main dolphin pools, two new calfs swim with their mothers. They are not part of the show. From left: Jack Shelton, his granddaughter Reagan Harding, 3, and his daughter, Nicole Harding, 28, all from Reedville, VA, react as they see dolphins jumping in the air at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. In pools behind the main dolphin pools, two new calfs swim with their mothers. They are not part of the show. (Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna) From left: Jack Shelton, his granddaughter Reagan Harding, 3, and his daughter, Nicole Harding, 28, all from Reedville, VA, react as they see dolphins jumping in the air at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. In pools behind the main dolphin pools, two new calfs swim with their mothers. They are not part of the show.

Can you check if these sentences are grammatically correct? Thank you. 1.The Elizabethan theatre was a wooden structure and had a rectangular or octagonal shape. 2.It consisted of three stages, i.e. the apron stage, the inner stage and the outer stage. 3.The apron stage projected into the yard, so that when the theatre was full the players were surrounded on three sides. The apron stage was protected by a roof. (can you say was roofed?). At the back of the apron stage, there was another stage, called inner stage, which was hidden (concealed) by a curtain and used for smaller scenes. 4. Over the back of the apron stage there was the upper stage, which was used to represent a balcony or the walls of a town. 5. At the back of the inner stage there was a tiring house, that is a place where the actors could change their attire. 6. The poorer spectators stood in the yard. 7.The girl has got a pony tail OR she wears her hair in a pony tail? She’s got shoulder-length, red dyed (?), wavy hair. She is wearing a zip-up black leather jacket with a fishnet (?) hood. She has a lot of bracelets on. 2.It consisted of three stages: the apron stage, the inner stage, and the outer stage. 3.The apron stage projected into the yard so that when the theatre was full, the players were surrounded on three sides by __________. The apron stage was covered by a roof. At the back of the apron stage, there was the inner stage, which was hidden by a curtain and used for smaller scenes. 4. comma after "apron stage" 5. At the back of the inner stage, there was a tiring house, a place where the actors could change their attire. 7.The girl wears her hair in a pony tail. She has shoulder-length, dyed-red, wavy hair. She is wearing a zip-up black leather jacket with a fishnet hood. She has a lot of bracelets on. Check everything very carefully. I made several punctuation corrections, among other things.

Remanufacturing Benefits Industry and Customers : Firms are finding ways to rebuild and resell such diverse items as printer cartridges and auto transmissions. The idea of remanufacturing an industrial product might seem foreign and quaint when you first think about it--something from the days when Japanese and Hong Kong factories collected mounds of empty American coffee cans, stamped them into parts for windup toys, and sent the new product back to America. It was a low-tech form of recycling. But when the topic of remanufacturing comes up today, we're talking about something quite different. Nowadays, according to some Ventura County-based observers of remanufacturing, the field has gone upscale. It now involves items such as laser-printer cartridges and automatic transmissions for cars, and the geographic flow is quite different. Arthur S. Diamond, owner of Diamond Research Corp. and managing editor of R&R News in Ventura, is a leader in the laser-printer cartridge business. He says that 50 million of these items get plugged into America's office and home printers annually, often at $100 a pop. Most new cartridges are made in Asia and then sent to America to be used in the printers connected to our desktop computers. Clever Americans have figured out ways to recycle these cartridges, providing an item that delivers the same results as the original but at about half the cost to the consumer. Ask your office supply dealer for details. One thing you'll learn is that it's a good idea to bring in your empty cartridge for a trade-in discount when you need a replacement. For the last few years, Diamond's company has been holding professional development seminars for some of the 25,000 folks who collect, recondition and refill used cartridges. These people have, collectively, been doing $350 million worth of business annually in the U.S. And Diamond, whose magazine is the principal trade journal in the field, helped organize a professional standards-setting organization, the Imaging Products Remanufacturing Assn. "About 25% of all the printer cartridges in the market today are remanufactured," Diamond says. Of interest to environmentalists is his observation that this new industry keeps 15 million bulky printer cartridges, each filled with chemical residue, from being tossed into America's landfills every year. An older remanufacturing industry on the local scene is devoted to rebuilding automatic-shift auto transmissions. Although it wasn't initially organized by Ventura County folks, it has had its national headquarters here since 1975. The Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Assn. is dedicated to promoting high standards in an industry that keeps almost 200,000 Americans employed, according to LaRae Richards, the association's membership director. This little statistic is of interest because much of the work they do is on foreign-made transmissions. The item is initially made overseas, but rebuilding it and keeping it in circulation over here obviates the need for us to pay good American money for new, foreign-made replacements. Rather like the foreign-made printer cartridges, we've figured out ways to keep these foreign-made automatic transmissions in use forever. For example, many association members guarantee their handiwork at any member shop in the country. And from an environmental standpoint, whenever anything, plastic or metal, gets remanufactured, it means that we don't have to tear up Mother Earth to find and refine new metal, or pump and process new petrochemicals. The savings in terms of raw resources--measured across the spectrum of industries that have adapted to remanufacturing as a principle--is 85%. According to Boston University engineering professor Robert T. Lund, the nation's leading expert in the field, it's being done with office furniture, farm, airplane and rail industries and is growing in the food processing, computer and telephone equipment sectors.

Webinars Sun Nuclear hosts live webinars as part of our commitment to Radiation Oncology education and improvement. Presented by clinical users and our own product experts, sessions often feature professional or content independent of Sun Nuclear solutions. QA & Dosimetry Symposium This bi-annual, educational event for Medical Physicists and Dosimetrists gathers industry leaders and clinicians to discuss important topics in Quality Management for Radiation Oncology. The only event of its kind, our next QADS is in 2020. Publications An ever-growing body of evidence exists on the application of Sun Nuclear solutions to shape Quality Management and enhance Patient Safety. We’ve collected key studies and organized by product for your convenience. Who We Are Sun Nuclear serves customers worldwide working in diverse fields with a common focus: fighting cancer. Our mission: To Enable Healthier Lives by Improving the Avoidance, Detection and Treatment of Cancer. News Find the latest news from Sun Nuclear, including announcements on products, partnerships, events and educational offerings. Careers Join our team, and you’ll work among the brightest minds dedicated to making a genuine difference. Offices in Melbourne, Florida, Madison, Wisconsin, and Frankfurt, Germany – and remote opportunities around the world. Modular DBT™ Phantom Quality Control for Digital Breast Tomosynthesis Systems Comply with developing protocol, including EUREF1, IEC2 and AAPM Task Group 245 The Modular DBT Phantom by Gammex was developed in collaboration with medical physicists to support quality control for Tomosynthesis and Digital Mammography systems. A range of simple to complex targets are precisely placed within tissue-equivalent breast material that is 50% breast-glandular and 50% breast-adipose.2 This uniquely flexible phantom design helps ensure efficiency across systems and test types. It can be used to evaluate Mammography and Tomosynthesis systems. Benefits Save time and simplify Tomosynthesis QC The phantom is designed for acceptance testing, routine QC and research. NEW Image Quality Module Test Object Specifications The phantom configurations for Image Quality tests includes the Image Quality and Missing Tissue Detection modules, plus several blank modules. This configuration has an overall thickness of 6.5 cm. Fiber Diameter (mm) Speck Diameter, Glass Sphere (mm) Mass Thickness (mm) 0.89 ± 0.05 0.33 ± 0.0100 1.00 ± 0.05 0.75 ± 0.03 0.28 ± 0.0083 0.75 ± 0.05 0.61 ± 0.03 0.23 ± 0.0069 0.50 ± 0.05 0.54 ± 0.03 0.20 ± 0.0059 0.38 ± 0.04 0.40 ± 0.03 0.17 ± 0.0084 0.25 ± 0.03 0.30 ± 0.03 0.14 ± 0.0070 0.20 ± 0.02 Specifications The Modular DBT Phantom is backed by a 5-year warranty and is available in several configurations. Included are several target modules and blanks, the back plate assembly, a user guide and a custom hard-sided waterproof case. 1 EUREF (European Reference Organization for Quality Assured Breast Screening and Diagnostic Services) Protocol version 1.01 for the Quality Control of the Physical and Technical Aspects of Digital Breast Tomosynthesis Systems.

Peter Jones: All heat and no light in indy debate PETER JONES As the referendum looms, rational discussion has been displaced by unchecked emotions on both sides, writes Peter Jones All over bar the shouting? I rather think that the great indyref is. People no longer seem interested in rational discussion, whether the economic facts stack up this way or that, and have retreated to a rather different place where emotions rather than facts have become important. The problem with this, I fear, is that two and a half weeks of shouting is a very long time and I worry that things could get nasty. Alex Salmond has had some road-rage idiot tailgating his car waving a No sign at him and more than a few death threats. Jim Murphy MP has had eggs hurled at him by Yes supporters who have accused him of being a traitor, a paedophile, and worse. Such language and equivalent cyber-behaviour is daily fare for bloggers and comment posters on those blogs on either side of the campaign. It is tempting to dismiss all this as the excess of a few idiots on the fringes of either campaign. Any political movement attracts people who range along a spectrum from crankiness through nuttiness to sheer extremism. Such people are convinced that they and only they have discovered the secret of the meaning of life and how to banish poverty, disease, and war. Of course, it is their duty to tell everyone about this and when everyone hears their message, realisation of how the world can be made a better place will dawn. Their only problem is that nobody seems to want to listen to them. Not wanting to listen is the commonest complaint on the blogs. For example, former BBC broadcaster Derek Bateman published a blog on 19 August headlined “Nothing to say” in which he cited a comment written by someone calling themselves William Lithgow. Mr Bateman is an enthusiastic and active Yes campaigner, but was upset by Mr Lithgow’s description of the blog as “pointless outpourings” and his accusation of having a ­ “super-inflated ego, which simply masks an abyss of utter inadequacy”. It was an eloquent cut above the usual insults that get traded in this medium but contributed as little to the debate as a flying egg. Anyway, the injured Mr Bateman was comforted by a host of postings from Yes supporters praising his writings. But they also commented that Better Together backers seemed to be getting increasingly abusive, arguing, taking their cue from the heading, that they had nothing positive to say. You can see the same sort of pattern on pro-union blogs – that Yes campaigners are refusing to listen to rational points of argument and are just hurling abuse. I daresay online commentators to this article will prove the point; they certainly have in previous weeks. But it is also clear that the heat level in the name-calling has risen sharply, as have aggression levels. This seems to be occurring on both sides, though my impression from anecdotes relayed to me by friends and from the treatment being meted out to campaign leaders, is that the Yes side is getting more het up than the No camp. That’s arguable, but I do recall that Yes chief executive Blair Jenkins was promising that they would be in the lead by July. That clearly hasn’t happened, a frustration that may now be expressing itself. I also think that there is another reason why they will get even more inflamed. That’s because, in the absence of oppression or a stand-out obvious injustice, nationalism is at heart an emotional cause. For a nationalist, nothing needs to be said to justify the need for independence more than this: Scots are a nation, nations should govern themselves, therefore Scotland should be independent. End of discussion. Actually, logicians would point out that while this looks like a classical piece of deductive reasoning, it isn’t, because there are all sorts of problems with definitions of the terms used and whether they have widespread acceptance. It is really an emotional belief masquerading as logic. But it is so deeply-held a belief that many nationalists cannot understand why all Scots, including Scots running companies and institutions, do not see this. Any refusal to join the faith in independence is infuriating because these people are refusing to see the obvious – that an independent Scotland will be a better country, just because it is independent. Some of these refuseniks reject independence because they reckon that Scotland won’t be a better place. They think, looking at the evidence on public spending and taxation, that there won’t be the money to sustain present levels of public services, never mind pay for all the good things that have been promised. But some of them also reject it because they adhere to a competing nationalism – British nationalism. They think that Scotland has been part of Britain for more than 300 years, that by and large Scotland and the Scots have done quite well out of it, feel very happy with the British aspect of their identity and don’t want to lose it. This too is more an emotional than a rational argument. The non-emotional debate so far may have swayed a few non-nationalists of both types, but it hasn’t done the job of producing the killer set of facts and arguments for either side. In fact, the public debate looks to have become confused rather than clarified. Many people, I suspect, have no clear idea whether there will be more or less jobs with independence, more or less public spending, more or fewer taxes, whether pound coins and notes will still circulate or not. And even if more evidence on these questions appears from impeccably non-aligned sources, people are also fed up with the whole thing and disinclined to listen. This aspect of the debate looks to be over. People have either made up their minds or, if they are still swithering, are not going to find answers to their questions in the evidence. Campaigners, I think, know that. It leaves emotion as the remaining hope. And because these are deeply-held emotions which oppose each other intensely with no possibility of compromise, I worry that there are going to be more and more incidents that have no place in a civilised democratic debate. This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the Editor by clicking here. If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by clicking here. The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page. For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies. Find Out More ▼ What is a Cookie? What is a Flash Cookie? Can I opt out of receiving Cookies? About our Cookies Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device. This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts. Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on. However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result. The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below: Revenue Science ► A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here. Google Ads ► Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here. Digital Analytics ► This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites. Dart for Publishers ► This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring. ComScore ► ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual. Local Targeting ► Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information. Grapeshot ► We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here. Subscriptions Online ► Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience. Add This ► Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.

Spleen and adrenal removal Posted 30 May 2017 at 17:54 I recently (4 days) had both operated on and taken out. I am just trying to touch base with any other people who have had this as I feel a bit at a loss. I had a knee replaced a couple of years ago and found the help and support of the group to be so helpful. I feel as if my kidneys are not wroking properly. I have been drinking lots of water but passing little urine. What I do pass is "normal" light in colour and clear. Ks it just post operative pain? I had my Spleen removed nearly 20 years ago. It's a huge shock to the system which I think explains the kidney situation. It will take you months to feel normal again, so dont stress - just concentrate on recovery one day at a time. In particular you will probably feel tired a lot of the time - this gets better but probably never goes away fully. Have you been given advice on medications, vaccinations & precautions? Can you elaborate on the daily antibiotics please? I am in the US and my doctor has advised me not to take daily antibiotics. I'm so confused. I just had my spleen removed 2 weeks ago and am just starting to learn about life without it. Hi amber , have had all immunisations including a flu shot . I take 250 mg amoxil daily & have to carry with me always 6 300 mg amoxil for if I feel unwell , I have to take the 6 together & go straight to Drs or hospital . And by feeling unwell I mean high temperature, flu like symptoms . I am living exactly as I was before I lost my spleen . And I live an extremely unhealthy life .. I drink , I smoke & usually only have one meal a day ... Drs are surprised how healthy I am for such an unhealthy person ... lol ... oh & im 58 yrs young ... Hi Pam, thanks for your reply. Glad to hear you are doing so well! That gives me some hope. I'm going to talk to my doctor about the antibiotic regime. Mine have said they are not necessary but I'd feel so much safer on them. Do they mess with your stomach at all? I saw your post this evening when reading through these threads. I had my spleen removed a week and a half ago and was wondering how you were doing post-op. I'm still in quite a bit of pain, still needing pain killers, and am experiencing nausea as well. Would be nice to compare with someone who is around the same amount of days out that I am. I am close to the same number of days out as you. 16 days since I had my spleen removed. I'm the US but it seems most people here are in Europe, you? I went off the painkillers at about a week and half but I think that is really early. I've had trouble with, embarassingly, constipation and gas causing a lot of pain and trouble eating, I get full very quickly. It's painful but it dissipates quickly. Have had all vaccinations but doctor advises against daily antibiotics. What has your doctor advised? Related information We want the forums to be a useful resource for our users but it is important to remember that the forums are not moderated or reviewed by doctors and so you should not rely on opinions or advice given by other users in respect of any healthcare matters. Always speak to your doctor before acting and in cases of emergency seek appropriate medical assistance immediately. Use of the forums is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and steps will be taken to remove posts identified as being in breach of those terms.

Stock Market & Financial Investment News CNOOC commences production of Wenchang 13-6 oilfield CNOOC announced that its Wenchang 13-6 oilfield has commenced production. Wenchang 13-6 oilfield, located in the west of Pearl River Mouth Basin with an average water depth of approximately 120 meters, is part of the Wenchang oilfields and shares the existing adjacent facilities for the development. The main production facilities include one wellhead platform and 12 producing wells. There are currently 5 wells producing approximately 1,300 barrels per day. Wenchang 13-6 is an independent oilfield in which the company holds 100% interest and acts as the operator.

Sony PlayStation 3 Review (also on Microsoft Xbox 360, PC) Friedrich Nietzsche once said that, “The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either.” So he we are, after six years, with Bioware’s beautiful melody building to an inevitable crescendo with each note in the score punctuating with the purpose of tragedy and hope. Mass Effect 3 will see you faced with the ultimate fate of the galaxy and more importantly the fate of the characters and the stories that you have created. In taking on the final installment of Bioware’s sci-fi opus you will feel like the stakes haven’t been higher, and in many ways they haven’t been. Mass Effect 3 takes no time in getting you straight into the fight; beginning on Earth we find Shepard, having been relieved of duty following Mass Effect 2, being called before the Alliance's Defense Committee to discuss what seems to be an imminent attack from the Reapers. During the meeting the Reapers land on Earth in quite spectacular fashion laying waste to the city that lies before you. With everything going to hell Shepard is reinstated and tasked with going to the Citadel to gather all the respective races together for a final assault to defeat the Reapers and reclaim Earth. As is typical with everything Mass Effect the simplicity of the solution is always secondary to the difficulties of the politics in this very real and tightly written universe. So begins your trek (no pun intended) across the galaxy trying to accumulate as much military strength as you can before launching your attack on the Reapers. To achieve this you will have to undertake mission from various races to motivate them to join the counter attack or even try and repair some political fractures to unite a divided galaxy against a universal threat. As you gather support you will see your ‘military strength’ progress bar filling up, pushing you towards attacking with maximum strength, although you can attack earlier if you so wish. Extra squads and ships are available through searching the solar systems with the scan function of the Normandy which operates like a pulse sonar, doing this will uncover hidden objects in the nearby vicinity. However if you scan frequently you will alert the Reapers and they potentially will just show up and chase you out of the system with you then unable to go back until you have completed another mission. This has added a much improved, and less tacked-on, use for the planet probing function as well. On scanning a planet you have infinite probes and you will now be guided to the point of interest rather than firing and hoping, but now you have the actual desire to do it as you are searching for people to join the fight. The writing in Mass Effect 3 is all incredibly thoughtful and the history of every character, never mind each race, is so deep and convincing you will wonder how BioWare achieved not just the content but the level of quality it is delivered with. It’s even the incidental moments that will stagger you. I found myself walking past a medic on the front lines and he was remotely talking to a civilian trying to stop the bleeding of a soldier who had been injured. I stood there for minutes just completely engaged in this faceless woman’s plight and desperate situation, it was thoughtful, heart rending and tragic. And this is a throwaway moment, an aside that many will miss and for that level of detail and thought you cannot help but admire the work on show here. The ability to create a living and dynamic universe is what truly sets Mass Effect apart from so many other games and is testament to the sheer talent at BioWare. Even more impressive is that this level of quality shines from one corner of the galaxy to the other with no character underwritten, no race unimportant to your cause and no location anything other than fantastically realised. BioWare understand that to get the player to fully invest in the story the game must have an internal quality and consistency, and this success is not easily earned but give the sheer scale of Mass Effect 3 it seems BioWare can do this in their sleep it’s so natural to them. It’s very much an amalgamation of every sci-fi show or movie that you know and love and where there should be a hint of ‘ripping off’ here it seems fresh, the characters and worlds are better realised than most of what popular media can muster. There has always been the debate of comparison between videogames and movies and which is the more successful medium in delivering an experience to the audience. Mass Effect 3 is a testament to the development of our much loved medium, here the lines are blurred but not in a L.A Noire impressive tech way. There is a real sense of connection to both the characters and their struggle and it’s very rare to have a sense of loss conveyed so well but because of the writing and interactivity BioWare consistently nail it. At one point you are sent on search for a mcguffin that will mark a turning point in the war and after a long slog and hard-fought battle you finally get to your goal and get your hands on the prize. In a brilliant move BioWare decide to take your prize from you leaving the war in a terrible position and forcing you into failure, removing any ability from you to make amends. You are left frustrated and hopeless, your painstaking fight throughout the mission has amounted to nothing. There are many moments of awe in Mass Effect 3 but it’s moments like this that will convey the true feeling of the hopelessness that your characters face. However these feelings of dejection and hopelessness are quickly followed by a resurgence to put things right, the pacing and story telling on show are quite simply brilliant. However it’s not all plain sailing, there are niggles and much like the characters themselves they are familiar to anyone who has played the series before. Firstly the lip sync can be distracting, it’s not exactly smooth and at times it serves only to remove you from the action and while it’s not a deal breaker it can lessen those more dramatic of interactions. The animation on the whole is of a high standard but the usual complaints come in when it comes to your character running, Shepard has always looked in some measure of digestive distress when he runs and it’s very much the same here - you would think that it was almost done as some sort of BioWare in-joke. Aesthetically the game runs from jaw dropping to functional, and when I say jaw dropping I really do mean that you will witness some of the most incredible sights you’ll ever see in a videogame. There is a standout moment early on that sees you fighting Reapers on a Turian moon and as you fight wave after wave of Reaper ‘Husks’ you look up and you can see the Turian fleet embattled in space with the Turian home-world ablaze from attack. It’s simply stunning. These moments are not in isolation and occur frequently but to avoid robbing anyone of these discoveries I’ll just say that Mass Effect 3 deserves the description ‘epic’. It’s a word that gets over-used and usually in place of something that is simply ‘very good’, but Mass Effect 3 makes it look like the word epic was invented to describe it. There are visual glitches such as enemies sticking to the spot motionless when you kill them, flying enemies getting stuck when trying to land and at one point it was snowing inside a shuttle while I was having a conversation. But these instances are few and far between and the ratio of things perfectly executed to minor niggles is a very healthy one. There must also be mention of the frame rate, we reviewed the PS3 code and as anyone who played the demo can tell you, at times it was frankly terrible. The same problem persists in the retail code we were given but again it’s minor enough when taken in the larger picture, it seems to be in cut-scenes mainly but you will find that after the first hour or two your eyes will be normalised to the occasional ‘Jerk-o-Vision’. The course of the series has always seen the combat evolve and here we get to see Mass Effect at it’s most refined. On the battlefield there are subtle nuances now with Shepard intelligently able to move between pieces of cover both to his sides and also in front of him - or ‘her’ if you've went the Femshep route. It all feels that little bit slicker and there is less frustration with rolling into a wall rather than sticking to it for cover a much less frequent occurrence. When in cover you can also now perform a grab and attack move which will pull an enemy over the wall before finishing them off in style with your blade. It’s a simple addition to the repertoire of Shep but it helps to fill out the combat in an unobtrusive way. Your regulatory two squad-mates on any given mission will behave very much as you command them to and there is a lot less unexplained absences on your flank than in previous iterations. That’s not saying that you will not be frustrated when they do wander off to go head to head with something they have no chance of defeating. This is usually not a hindrance of any great level but coming into the final third of the game the battles are intense, and perhaps a little too much, and it is in instances like this that those minor flaws can be magnified. To command a squad-mate to move to a position you hold a direction on the D-Pad, either left or right depending on the character and for them to use their assigned special ability you press either left or right on the D-Pad. Can you see the problem? It was a common occurrence for me to request an attack with a special power only to see my team-mate run off into the middle of the fray which resulted in a frantic call for them to rally back to me. However this is something that can be pegged to user error and on a control pad there are only so many functions you can assign without making control unwieldy and niggles like this are acceptable when measured against the nearly continuous quality of control the player is given. As with all journeys Mass Effect 3 also has to come to an end and by the time you reach the conclusion you will no doubt be feeling a plethora of emotions. There are some brave decisions made in the build up to the conclusion and some that you wont see coming, but within the actual resolution of the series there is contention. BioWare have gone the Lost route to its finale, without spoiling anything I will say that it leaves a lot unanswered and depending on how you like your franchises to wind up it may serve to satisfy or infuriate. As it stands it’s an interesting finale and not quite the failure some are currently saying but their position is understandable. If this is the end of the Mass Effect series as a whole then it has gone out in style as it is absolutely breathless in delivering action, emotion and a rekindling of the love of adventure. It is very early to be rolling out ‘Game of the Year’ accolades but this will be hard to beat but if Mass Effect 3 is to be surpassed then whatever is around the corner will be absolutely phenomenal. The journey is over and taken on its own Mass Effect 3 is a masterpiece and as a trilogy it is nigh on as good as anyone could hope for. American writer Samuel Delaney said that, “Endings to be useful must be inconclusive” and I feel that is the case here. Prepare for conversations and speculation following the end and in many ways that’s the perfect way to keep the legend of Shepard alive. Verdict The journey is over and taken on its own Mass Effect 3 is a masterpiece and as a trilogy it is nigh on as good as anyone could hope for.

In the classic battle to determine superiority between the bowtie or the blue oval, the action will occasionally spill over into the streets (of Mexico). As you can see, this video painstakingly (multiple GoPro angles, etc.) documents one such occasion. The Chevy part of this contest is the much lauded Corvette. Already one of the most feared street machines (in factory trim), the co-star of this clip has undergone severe modification. It is equipped with a 402 cubic-inch LS3 engine augmented with an ECS supercharger. The owner estimates horsepower in the 850 range. The Mustang GT is a force with which to be reckoned as well. It rolls out with a 5.0-liter engine, which is also supercharged. The owner of the pony car is much less forthcoming with performance particulars; opting to let his car do the talking on the street. When these two titans line up and give it the gas, it sounds like all the air is being sucked out of the atmosphere – I think maybe I got light-headed. The roll racing action is so unbelievably tight that you can’t tell which handle opens what door. Kudos to the Mustang for keeping it ultra-tight -despite having distinct aerodynamic and handling disadvantages. You need to check this one out – if you like roll racing – it’s awesome!

Interesting I wonder how the NK military would do in combat with American military. Looking at Wikipedia (if it is correct) it would sort of be the modern US arsenal versus a mid to late 80s Sovietesque military. Interesting I wonder how the NK military would do in combat with American military. Looking at Wikipedia (if it is correct) it would sort of be the modern US arsenal versus a mid to late 80s Sovietesque military. If North Korea starts something without the active backing of China, I'd expect the result to be like the first Gulf War: short and to the point. Militarily they're vaguely equivalent (though the asymmetric warfare focus might make it nasty) and politically they'd be similar, particularly if Seoul was attacked. Bonus: South Korea has the legitimacy to step in and pick up the pieces afterwards. If someone else starts something, I'd expect something closer to the second Gulf War politically and militarily, modulo the different terrain (and the potentially legitimizing presence of South Korea). Which is why I don't expect anyone to actually attack them without significant provocation. (Nuking Seattle would probably count, unfortunately. Not that I expect that to happen.) This is likely to be another non-event, but from my limited knowledge the regime isn't as strong as it used to be, so there's always a chance that the next crisis will be the tipping point. North Korea is just blustering. When you're an oppressive autocratic regime, it's much easier to keep the people under control if you invent an enemy who wants to destroy you. North Korea will keep doing this, just like they've been doing it for years. It's not crazy, it's just the same old calculated blustering. Seattle, where the weather is unlikely to kill you in an interesting fashion. MilkmanDanimal wrote: North Korea is just blustering. When you're an oppressive autocratic regime, it's much easier to keep the people under control if you invent an enemy who wants to destroy you. North Korea will keep doing this, just like they've been doing it for years. It's not crazy, it's just the same old calculated blustering. (A nuclear attack on Seattle would likely be considered a valid casus belli, giving the United States both justification and the political will to retaliate. However this would be an unfortunate occurrence, especially for Seattle, even if Jonman gets superpowers as a result. It is also very unlikely to actually occur.) (A nuclear attack on Seattle would likely be considered a valid casus belli, giving the United States both justification and the political will to retaliate. However this would be an unfortunate occurrence, especially for Seattle, even if Jonman gets superpowers as a result. It is also very unlikely to actually occur.) I would say that nuking a large metropolitan area would absolutely be a valid cases bellow, and while the nuking would be unfortunate, I don't think the fact that nuking a city would set the USA off is unfortunate, which is what it seemed like you were saying. Of course a lot of lesser crimes also set the USA off, which is unfortunate. In either case I think any war with North Korea would have nasty and unfortunate collateral damage, particularly to South Korea, regardless of the justness of the cause. (China has a huge influence on just how nasty it would get.) A peaceful end to North Korea would probably be in the best interests of the North Korean people, since that would presumably allow South Korea to step in and bridge the gap: it wouldn't be easy, but South Korea has both a G-20 economy and moral ties that would hopefully allow a unified Korea to weather the crisis. No idea how likely that is anytime soon, though. I would say the backing of China. Nuclear weapons will be a great help in the future, but without originally the Soviet Union and China, and then (and now) China alone, it never would have lasted long enough to develop them. Here's a question. What keeps North Korea standing where other regimes have fallen? The backing of China? Nuclear weapons? At one point it was their military, in terms of size, as well as China. Now I think it's just China, though they're showing more signs that they are displeased with North Korea as time goes on. Nukes may become a factor in the future. They aren't yet. I want to put "a deluded/brainwashed populace with no choice" down there as well, as I'd like to think we wouldn't want to kill people who have no choice in who they're backing and little knowledge of the outside world. I'm not sure if that's an actual factor though. "I basically do what Lou says." -- Yonder "My love is for Lou." -- LiquidMantis "LouZiffer is a gentleman, a rogue, and a fantastic lover." -- Vector "You could yoink it for a Sig." -- Demosthenes Yeah, their military may have been an issue in the past, but I think the second Iraq war has definitely put to bed the idea that a 60s to 70s era military can threaten or even slow down the US no matter the size. I was stationed on the South Korean border in the Army, and I can say from experience the NK army would not be a pushover like Iraq. For one thing, the terrain is much closer to Afghanistan than Iraq. The US would not be able to mass maneuver its tanks or quickly deploy Striker units. North Korea has a metric butt ton of artillery that while not particularly accurate can do massive damage just by focus fire. Then there are the North Korean Special Forces which number nearly 100000. Now, they certainly don't have the equipment of American spec ops, but their combat training from what I've read/seen in documentaries is just as intensive as Army ranger training. Look at how much trouble untrained insurgents caused in Iraq and then think how much damage well trained commandos could do. America would quickly gain air superiority, but once again the terrain makes it difficult to carpet bomb with impunity. The good news? Their long range missiles are absolute crud and it would be a miracle for them to hit a US city. Of course, it would be very easy to either bit Seoul or take out a few American divisions with those nukes. The Atlantic did a story on war gaming Korean War 2.0 and it wasn't pretty. We would certianly win but casualties would be likely the highest since WW II. And if a nuke or massive chemical attack devastated Seoul, it would majorly disrupt the world economy. From the article; The North Korean situation is also ripe for war-game treatment, because of the extraordinarily difficult military and diplomatic challenges it presents. Iran, considered an urgent national-security priority, is thought to be three to five years away from possessing even a single nuclear device. North Korea is widely believed to have as many as ten already, and to be producing more every year. (It is also the first developing nation thought to be capable of striking the continental United States with a long-range ballistic missile.) And whereas Iraq did not, after all, have weapons of mass destruction, North Korea is believed to have large stockpiles of chemical weapons (mustard gas, sarin, VX nerve agent) and biological weapons (anthrax, botulism, cholera, hemorrhagic fever, plague, smallpox, typhoid, yellow fever). An actual war on the Korean peninsula would almost certainly be the bloodiest America has fought since Vietnam—possibly since World War II. In recent years Pentagon experts have estimated that the first ninety days of such a conflict might produce 300,000 to 500,000 South Korean and American military casualties, along with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. The damage to South Korea alone would rock the global economy. TLDR - America would win but we'd be looking at American military casualties in the tens of thousands, a devastated Seoul and likely a global recession due to the fallout. And not to discount civilian casualties on both sides which could number in the millions. Quite frankly, I don't see America having the stomach for anything approaching that intensity. The idea that North Korea is a threat to anyone, especially the United States, is absurdly laughable. Their economy is stunted and paralyzed, and they've required food aid for the last fifteen years to stave off mass starvation. Their fuel supplies are so low that a significant portion of their transportation infrastructure relies on wood gas and steam for propulsion. From a military perspective, they have virtually no options. The DMZ is one of the most heavily fortified areas in the world - all of the available avenues of attack are well known, heavily mined, pre-targeted, and full of obstacles. The terrain is some of the least hospitable in the world, which is why the Korean War was comprised of static trench fighting for the last two years. Given the virtually guaranteed South Korean air superiority and highly accurate, mobile long-range artillery, there's no way for the North Koreans to extend their supply lines across the DMZ. In short, any attack by the north is virtually guaranteed to be a mass suicide. The only remotely viable military option they have is artillery bombardment of Seoul, which would last only as long as it took the South Korean counterbattery fire to destroy the attacking artillery or seal the entrances to their firing positions. Since this gains the North Korean regime nothing and invites counterattack, it is highly unlikely to happen - and that's not even considering the Chinese opposition to such an action. The same goes for a nuclear attack on anyone. The North Korean regime's power rests on portraying the Americans and South Koreans as enemies. We are the threat they use to stay in power, and we constantly play into their hands by being belligerent, hostile, and combative. The best approach we could take to undermine and eventually dismantle their regime would be to end the sanctions and open up trade and communications. The more North Koreans who realize how backward their country is, the more pressure there will be for things to change. "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." Herbert Spencer, State-Tamperings with Money and Banks The only remotely viable military option they have is artillery bombardment of Seoul, which would last only as long as it took the South Korean counterbattery fire to destroy the attacking artillery or seal the entrances to their firing positions. Since this gains the North Korean regime nothing and invites counterattack, it is highly unlikely to happen - and that's not even considering the Chinese opposition to such an action. The same goes for a nuclear attack on anyone. This is why the South Koreans are interested in Iron dome and other ballistic projectile interception systems. It would give the South Koreans both time and the exact coordinate of where the projectiles originated from . This kind of technology can deter the NK from attacking. If South Korea gets David Sling/Arrow system the NK won't even be able to nuke SK effectively. I think what the Koreans should get is either nuclear weapons or a reliable nuclear umbrella in order to assure M.A.D. Aetius wrote: The North Korean regime's power rests on portraying the Americans and South Koreans as enemies. We are the threat they use to stay in power, and we constantly play into their hands by being belligerent, hostile, and combative. The best approach we could take to undermine and eventually dismantle their regime would be to end the sanctions and open up trade and communications. The more North Koreans who realize how backward their country is, the more pressure there will be for things to change. That is true but The problem with such an oppressive well organized regime is that they won't hesitate to kill their people. The Syrians have/had a similar regime which controlled the country with an Iron Grip. The rebellion was mainly done by an ethnic majority against a controlling ethnic minority. The situation in syria is still not over and there were about 70000 dead out of the 20+~ million people who live there. There are also massive refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey. The North Koreans have a few countries they can trade with like China and Iran so they are in no hurry to make any sort of reforms. I haven't heard of any North Korean protestors . Similarly to Syria the North Koreans have developed unconventional weapons as a deterrent to an external threats. Those weapons can't be used against a rebellion but if a rebelion start the unconventional arsenal ensure there won't be any foreign intervention like in Libya. an inspiring quote to fill this spot: "Our words are free now it's a feeling you can't explain"...." Born as we are out of the revolution to be free. " Barak Obama in Noy Alooshe's remix I agree with you Aetius, to a point. Every time people get all hot and bothered over North Korea it makes me wonder if they've just heard of this nation, or have forgotten how they do this about three times a year (usually when they're hungry). What's going to happen next is that the UN is going to offer North Korea a bunch of food to come to the table and talk about their feelings, and then once the weather improves North Korea will invent some horrible slight to get all offended over as an excuse to walk out. Then Big Kim'll shed a single tear from hell, because he's taught his son well. The "to a point" part comes in because Lil' Kim IS new at this, and it's unclear just how much of his own hype he believes. He's seen the outside world so I'm sure he doesn't buy ALL of his own government's propaganda, but maybe he thinks backing up his bark by biting someone could gain him some credibility or bargaining power. I don't think that's terribly likely (thought it was more likely that Kim Jong Il would want to go down in a nuclear blaze of glory and that didn't happen) but who knows? Not like Lil' Kim's doing interviews on Oprah. Though I wonder if South Korea would actually launch a counter-attack (assuming they were the target). They're trying really, really hard to play nice with North Korea. An attack on their capital would obviously be a huge deal, but I'm not entirely sure they wouldn't try to turn the other cheek in a final attempt to avoid an all-out conflict, no matter how easily they'd crush North Korea. DanyBoy wrote: MaxShrek wrote: Technically the Korean War never ended, so technically the North has been at war with the South since 1954, so technically, so has the United States. It amazes me that this has never been taken care of, if for nothing more than a symbolic gesture. I think that if the US calls attention to that fact, people will start wondering when we're going to declare peace with Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Then it's just a small jump to them remembering that we never declared war on either, and that that's a breach of our Constitution. And nobody wants that. The "to a point" part comes in because Lil' Kim IS new at this, and it's unclear just how much of his own hype he believes. He's seen the outside world so I'm sure he doesn't buy ALL of his own government's propaganda, but maybe he thinks backing up his bark by biting someone could gain him some credibility or bargaining power. I don't think that's terribly likely (thought it was more likely that Kim Jong Il would want to go down in a nuclear blaze of glory and that didn't happen) but who knows? Not like Lil' Kim's doing interviews on Oprah. I wonder how much control he really has. He may be new to this, but the apparatus which surrounds him isn't. Change, for them, would be extremely painful and possibly deadly. I'm sure they benefit a great deal from maintaining the status quo for as long as possible. "I basically do what Lou says." -- Yonder "My love is for Lou." -- LiquidMantis "LouZiffer is a gentleman, a rogue, and a fantastic lover." -- Vector "You could yoink it for a Sig." -- Demosthenes

Register Login Love Letter Goro just got out from jail, but a police officer wants to talk to him right away. He announces to him that Goro's wife is dead and that he has to go to Chiba and take her body. Goro has no recollection of having a wife, but then he remembers he married a Chinese woman a long time ago. He married her for her money, and had she married him because she needed a Japanese visa to work. In fact, she's a prostitute who came to Japan hoping to find better life. At first, Goro can't be bothered by this situation, but he goes to Chiba just because he can earn a lot of money. Later on, during his trip, Goro finds a letter she wrote him and through it he discovers the pure person that lies beneath this common prostitute. She is a woman of such kindness and love that Goro is moved to learn something about the woman he married. With those few words of love and tenderness, he understands her fears, her goals, and her hopes for the future -- a future that he knows will never come. [B-U M]

2020 China 2020 China is home to over 40 professionals that are here to serve you. Are you looking for people & solutions to help you make smart design and space planning decisions? Look no further. We have a dedicated team of highly skilled and experienced professionals in the interior design and furniture manufacturing software industry ready to work with you. Our offices is located in Guangzhou and Shanghai. Interested in joining a fun, dynamic team? We’re always looking for top talent. Visit our career section to see current job openings.New 2020 Community You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers. We’re always adding productivity-boosting features to our products. To download the latest software updates through our support site, login to 2020 Customer Support website or the Fusion customer portal here. Technical Support Whether by email, phone or live chat, 2020 offers unparalleled technical support for all of its customers on the Maintenance and Support plans. For information on Fusion, please visit the Fusion customer portal. For information on Fusion, please visit the Fusion customer portal. Product Documentation From PDF tutorials to best-practice documents, 2020 has clear, concise documentation to optimize your use of our products. Download the most recent product brochure, learn about new features and watch short product videos. Select Your Product 2020 Community The 2020 community is a great resource for professional designers and industry enthusiasts to network with peers, find quick answers to questions, share tips, tap into great advice and much more. Join the Community 2020 Training Get a head start! 2020 Training solutions are designed to help you get the most out of your 2020 investment. Train in a classroom or choose virtual instructor-led classes. We also have a self-paced training option that lets you learn at your own convenience.

I know. I’m really freaking pregnant and talking about alcohol. Since I can’t drink it, I’m at least going to talk about it, gosh darn it! That and share gorgeous pictures of mint juleps with you because as luck would have it, #babypizzazzerie is due on DERBY DAY! That’s right, the Kentucky Derby is May 3rd this year and that’s my due date. Now I know that the statistics show that I’m unlikely to actually deliver on my due date, but hey – I like that it’s a fabulous reason to celebrate… Hold Your Horses! It's time for a little Derby party inspiration and a darling free cocktail card you can print for your own party. Here's the back story to this little display! Above my desk I have 3 southern gold-foiled prints from Stephanie Creekmur. I happen to think she hung the moon and was at the front of the line when God handed out creative talent. Truly! So we decided that the "Hold Your … { read more } The Kentucky Derby is THIS Saturday! (sidenote: ALSO this Saturday is my Denver Book Signing + Cinco de Mayo!) If you have a horse-watching filled weekend ahead of you, then you'll need some cute party ideas + freebies. This round-up should help ya out! LET THE RACES BEGIN... Sweet Deanna of Mirabelle Creations has some darling (FREE) printables on her site! So hop on over + turn on your … { read more } We are gearing up for horse-racing season - one filled with big hats, sun dresses, mint juleps, and of course - lots of entertaining! Ashley Brook Designs has created an exclusive DIY video for all of our readers just for the Derby occasion! I have been so excited about this since she shared her idea with me. Using just a few items, you can create a fabulous striped serving tray for your Derby … { read more } The Kentucky Derby is an American tradition and the perfect chance to enjoy a mint julep and slice of yummy pie! Whether you're headed to the derby itself, enjoying the Iroquois Steeplechase in Nashville, TN or hosting a viewing party - these recipes will have your guests ooh'ing and aah'ing! Enjoy! Joe's Mint Juleps 2 cups water 2 cups sugar 20 sprigs of mint extra mint to garnish the … { read more }

Milwaukee toddler's recovery allows her to give back to Children's Hospital A Milwaukee girl with a rare condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome is making major strides, and her recovery is allowing her to give back. Share Shares Copy Link {copyShortcut} to copy Link copied! Updated: 10:59 AM CDT Sep 10, 2013 Milwaukee toddler's recovery allows her to give back to Children's Hospital A Milwaukee girl with a rare condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome is making major strides, and her recovery is allowing her to give back. Share Shares Copy Link {copyShortcut} to copy Link copied! Updated: 10:59 AM CDT Sep 10, 2013 Hide TranscriptShow Transcript WEBVTT SURGERY CAME DAYS AFTER BIRTH. TONIGHT: A MILWAUKEE GIRL WITH A RARE CONDITION CALLED HYPOPLASTIC LEFT HEART SYNDROME IS MAKING MAJOR STRIDES. AS PATRICK PAOLANTONIO SHOWS US NEW AT TEN, HER RECOVERY IS ALLOWING HER TO GIVE BACK. WENT TO THE DOMES ALL THROUGHOUT THE WINTER. IT WAS A NICE PLACE TO GO. THE STORY OF THE PAST YEAR, PLAYS OUT IN PICTURES. MEMORIES. AND MILESTONES. MIRABELLE'S FIRST TIME IN A SWIMMING POOL. HER FIRST FAMILY VACATION. AND FIRST BIKE RIDE. AMBER MEDINA/MIRABELLE'S MOTHER HER FIRST TIME IN A CART WHICH WAS A FUNNY MILESTONE, BUT IT WAS BIG FOR ME. IT'S BEEN A YEAR OF FIRSTS. AMBER MEDINA/MIRABELLE'S MOTHER THIS IS WHAT SHE KIND OF LOOKED LIKE PROBABLY AROUND THE TIME LAST YEAR THAT YOU GUYS CAME. OUR LAST TRIP HERE, WAS JUST SHY OF THEIR LITTLE GIRL'S FIRST BIRTHDAY -- DAYS AFTER SHE HAD BEEN RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL. MIRABELLE WAS BORN WITH A RARE, CONGENITAL HEART DEFECT, THAT REQUIRED TWO OPEN HEART SURGERIES. A SITUATION SO SEVERE, SHE SPENT THE FIRST 10 MONTHS OF HER LIFE AT CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. AMBER MEDINA/MIRABELLE'S MOTHER I THINK WHEN WE FIRST CAME HOME, WE WERE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL THREE TIMES A WEEK. SHE WAS THAT SICK. SO, WE'VE GRADUATED TO SIX, EVERY SIX MONTHS. SO IT'S AMAZING WHAT SHE'S DONE IN A YEAR. ONE OF HER MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. AMBER MEDINA/MIRABELLE'S MOTHER CAN SAY 'HI' AS SHE CLOSES IN ON HER SECOND BIRTHDAY, MIRABELLE IS A TODDLER ON THE GO. SHE'S NOW OFF OXYGEN. TAKES FEWER MEDS. TODDLER ON THE GO. SHE'S NOW OFF OXYGEN. TAKES FEWER MEDS. AND THE BACKPACK SHE WEARS, THAT HELPS HER EAT, IS NOW ON ONLY FOUR HOURS A DAY, INSTEAD OF 22 HOURS, LIKE BEFORE. AMBER MEDINA/MIRABELLE'S MOTHER THIS SUMMER, SHE'S FINALLY KIND OF TURNED INTO FULL HEALTH AND IT'S BEEN, WONDERFUL. KIND OF TURNED INTO FULL HEALTH AND IT'S BEEN, WONDERFUL. JOHN MEDINA/MIRABELLE'S FATHER WE GET TO BE PARENTS FINALLY. YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING WAS ON HOLD AND EVERYTHING WAS UNCERTAIN AND NOW WE GET TO BE A PART OF HER LIFE IN A WAY THAT WE JUST COULDN'T BEFORE. EVERYDAY- THEY WATCH HER GROW. AND FIND PROMISE IN MEDICAL ADVANCES. IT'S ONE OF THE REASONS THEY ONC AGAIN, HAVE A TEAM IN E BRIGGS AND AL'S N AND WALK FOR IR'S HOSPITAL. ISING MONEY AND ARENESS FOR THE SPITAL, THAT'S BECOME A SECOND HOME. BER MEDINA/MIRABELLS THER SHE'S ONE OF THE YOUNGER ONE'S, BUT SO THE OLDER ONES ARE KIND OF PAVING THE WAY AND WE HOPE TO KIND OF PAVE THE WAY FOR THE KIDS THAT ARE BEING BORN NOW AND SUPPORT THEM AND TRY TO GET THEM THE BEST CARE THEY CAN GET. MIRABELLE WILL BE PART OF IT. SHE MISSED LAST YEAR'S WALK BECAUSE OF HER HEALTH. THIS YEAR, SHE'S JOINING IN. ONE MORE ACCOMPLISHMENT, FOR THAT WALL OF MILESTONES. IN MILWAUKEE. PATRICK PAOLANTONIO. W-I-S-N, 12 NEWS. MIRABELLE IS IN SEVERAL THERAPIES- PHYSICAL, OCCUPATIONAL AND SPEECH, TO HELP HER LEARN HOW TO TALK AND LEARN HOW TO EAT. SHE HAS ONE MORE SCHEDULED HEART SURGERY AND MAY SOMEDAY NEED A TRANSPLANT. THIS YEAR'S BRIGGS & AL'S RUN & WALK FOR CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL STEPS OFF SATURDAY MORNING. IT STARTS AT 10-15 A-M AT 12TH AND WISCONSIN, NEAR THE MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS. IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ON THE RUN, HEAD TO WISN DOT COM. YOU'LL FIND A LINK ON Milwaukee toddler's recovery allows her to give back to Children's Hospital A Milwaukee girl with a rare condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome is making major strides, and her recovery is allowing her to give back.

The company intends to update the Operating Safety Manuals for the below (06) operating facilities: Abu-Attifel Onshore Oil Production Facility A-100 El Feel Onshore Oil Production Facility Offshore Bouri Field NC-41 that includes following installations- Offshore Production Platform DP3- Offshore Production Platform DP4- Offshore Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) tanker known as SLOUG

ABOUT JIVAMUKTI YOGA Jivamukti Yoga is a method of yoga that was created by David Life and Sharon Gannon in 1984, which reintegrates the physical, philosophical and spiritual aspects of Yoga. The emphasis in the west has been on Yoga as mostly a physical practice. More and more people are achieving firmer bodies through regular yoga classes. But many are finding something more: what starts out as a purely physical practice creeps into the hearts and minds of even the least spiritual practitioners. David and Sharon became teachers because they were passionate about communicating Yoga as more than just a system of exercises, but also as a spiritual practice; a path to enlightenment. From their earliest classes, they have taught a living translation of the Indian system of yoga in a way that western minds can comprehend. That is why Jivamukti Yoga emphasizes vigorous asana as its primary technique, but other practices such as meditation, devotional chanting and study of the ancient texts play an important role as well. The Jivamukti method of Yoga is one of the nine internationally recognized styles of Hatha Yoga. The other eight being: Ashtanga, Iyengar, Viniyoga, Sivananda, Integral, Bikram, Kripalu, and Kundalini. WHAT DOES THE NAME JIVAMUKTI MEAN? »We chose the name Jivamukti (pronounced Jee-va-mook-tee) Yoga to reflect the true aim of yoga, which is liberation. Jiva means individual soul and mukti means liberation. The exact transliteration of the Sanskrit word from which Jivamukti is derived is jivanmuktih, which means liberation while living. The name Jivamukti Yoga reflects the fact that it is possible to have a beneficial and fulfilling life in the world, and also progress spiritually-perhaps even attaining liberation (Samadhi) while living.« – Sharon Gannon and David Life, Jivamukti Yoga

Translate Saturday, October 24, 2015 Lockheed SR-75 Aurora Here are some images plus a composite of Testor's 1/72 scale Lockheed? SR-75 Aurora. The following is taken from the Aurora Aircraft Page. "In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was believed that a top-secret reconnaissance aircraft, capable of flying at speeds beyond Mach 6, was developed to replace the SR-71 Blackbird. The alleged project was detailed in mainstream media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Jane's Defence Weekly, and Aviation Week & Space Technology. The name Aurora was included in a Pentagon budget request in 1985, perhaps inadvertently, underneath reconnaissance programs of the SR-71 and U-2. The Aurora has been attributed to scores of unidentified aircraft reports around the world, including a 1989 sighting from an oil platform in the North Sea, a series of mysterious sonic booms over Southern California in 1991-92, and photographs of unusual "donuts-on-a-rope" contrails. From Wikipedia" Aurora was a rumored mid-1980s American reconnaissance aircraft. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a myth.The U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. Aviation and space reference site Aerospaceweb.org concluded "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's position."Others come to different conclusions. In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer Bill Sweetman said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."The Aurora legend started in March 1990, when Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine broke the news that the term "Aurora" had been inadvertently included in the 1985 U.S. budget, as an allocation of $455 million for "black aircraft production" in FY 1987. According to Aviation Week, Project Aurora referred to a group of exotic aircraft, and not to one particular airframe. Funding of the project allegedly reached $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by Aviation Week. In the 1994 book Skunk Works, Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, wrote that the Aurora was the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the B-2 Spirit.By the late 1980s, many aerospace industry observers believed that the U.S. had the technological capability to build a Mach-5 replacement for the aging Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Detailed examinations of the U.S. defense budget claimed to have found money missing or channeled into black projects. By the mid-1990s, reports surfaced of sightings of unidentified aircraft flying over California and the United Kingdom involving odd-shaped contrails, sonic booms and related phenomena that suggested the US had developed such an aircraft. Nothing ever linked any of these observations to any program or aircraft type, but the name Aurora was often tagged on these as a way of explaining the observations. In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson and another witness saw an unfamiliar isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111 fighter-bombers. Gibson and his friend watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.Gibson, who had been in the Royal Observer Corps' trophy-winning international aircraft recognition team since 1980, was unable to identify the aircraft. He dismissed suggestions that the aircraft was an F-117, Mirage IV or fully swept wing F-111. When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British Defence SecretaryTom King was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."A crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in AirForces Monthly. Further investigation was hampered by aircraft from the USAF flooding into the base. The crash site was protected from view by firetrucks and tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon after. A series of unusual sonic booms was detected in Southern California, beginning in mid- to late-1991 and recorded by United States Geological Surveysensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquakeepicenters. The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle, rather than the 37-meter long Space Shuttle orbiter. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B was operating on the days the booms had been registered. In the article, "In Plane Sight?" which appeared in the Washington City Paper on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12–13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted: "We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7." Former NASA sonic boom expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year-old sonic boom data from the California Institute of Technology and has deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft (c. 27.4 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles away at Los Angeles International Airport, rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground moving at high speeds. The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different. There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to grow the Aurora legend.On 23 March 1992, near Amarillo, Texas, Steven Douglass photographed the "donuts on a rope" contrail and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglass' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions: "Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo." ("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB) A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring Edwards AFB Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard, followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft, above glideslope." As in the past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.In February 1994 former resident of Rachel, Nevada, and Area 51 enthusiast, Chuck Clark claimed to have filmed the Aurora taking off from the Groom Lake facility. In the David Darlington book Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles, he said: I even saw the Aurora take off one night - or an aircraft that matched the Aurora's reputed configuration, a sharp delta with twin tails about a hundred and thirty feet long. It taxied out of a lighted hangar at two-thirty A.M. and used a lot of runway to take off. It had one red light on top, but the minute the wheels left the runway, the light went off and that was the last I saw of it. I didn't hear it because the wind was blowing from behind me toward the base." I asked when this had taken place. "February 1994. Obviously they didn't think anybody was out there. It was thirty below zero - probably ninety below with the wind chill factor. I had hiked into White Sides from a different, harder way than usual, and stayed there two or three days among the rocks, under a camouflage tarp with six layers of clothes on. I had an insulated face mask and two sleeping bags, so I didn't present a heat signature. I videotaped the aircraft through a telescope with a five-hundred-millimeter f4 lens coupled via a C-ring to a high-eight digital video camera with five hundred and twenty scan lines of resolution, which is better than TV." The author then asked "Where's the tape?" Locked away. That's a legitimate spyplane; my purpose is not to give away legitimate national defense. When they get ready to unveil it, I'll probably release the tape. Although his claims have been controversial, Bob Lazar has stated that, during his employment at the mysterious S-4 facility in Nevada, he briefly witnessed an Aurora flight while aboard a bus near Groom Lake. He claimed that there was a "tremendous roar" which sounded almost as though "the sky was tearing". Although Lazar only saw the aircraft for a moment through the front of the bus, he described it as being "very large" and having "two huge, square exhausts with vanes in them". Lazar claims that his supervisor confirmed to him that the aircraft was indeed an "Aurora", a "high altitude research plane". He was also told that the aircraft was powered by "liquid methane".By 1996, reports associated with the Aurora name dropped off in frequency, suggesting to people who believed that the aircraft existed that it had only ever been a prototype or that it had had a short service life.In 2000, Aberdeen Press and Journal writer Nic Outterside wrote a piece on US stealth technology in Scotland. Citing confidential 'sources', he alleged RAF/USAF Machrihanish in Kintyre, Argyll to be a base for Aurora aircraft. Machrihanish's almost 2-mile (3.2 km)-long long runway makes it suitable for high-altitude and experimental aircraft with the fenced-off coastal approach making it ideal for takeoffs and landings to be made well away from eyes or cameras of press and public. 'Oceanic Air Traffic Control at Prestwick' Outterside says, 'also tracked fast-moving radar blips. It was claimed by staff that a "hypersonic jet was the only rational conclusion" for the readings.'In 2006, aviation writer Bill Sweetman put together 20 years of examining budget "holes", unexplained sonic booms, as well as the Gibson sighting and concluded: "This evidence helps establish the program's initial existence. My investigations continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect fit for a project like Aurora." On 1 December 2014, loud repetitive bangs were heard in Bedfordshire, Glasgow, North Devon, Leicestershire, and West Sussex in the UK. The repetitive banging sound lasted for 20 to 30 minutes and was recorded by one resident on a cell phone. At around the same time, a loud boom was reported by a number of people in the upstate New York areas of Buffalo, Cheektowaga, and Clarence. Dr Bhupendra Khandelwa (University of Sheffield, UK) stated that he believed the loud, repetitive bangs sounded like an experimental jet engine called a pulse detonation engine (PDE). Sonic booms caused by meteors and military planes were ruled out, as were the sounds of fireworks and thunderstorms. Media speculation concluded that the noise recorded by locals in the UK could have been caused by the PDE engine of an Aurora aircraft.

lock on bool when access via multiple threads Currently I check on a bool to determine whether one of the threads should stop work. The bool is set from the other thread. Do I need to lock around the bool? I presumed I would, but collegues believe I may not have to? Another collegue mentioned setting the bool to volatile, so it's not cached? I appreciate if anyone could suggest the correct action. If now the first thread sets the bool to true, the second may still read a false if the read operation was nearly same time (or same time at another core). But any little time later, it correctly would read the true. So, the only reason for a lock could be if the second must recognize the setting to true immediately, e. g. in case the bool is used for synchronization reasons itself. For these cases a unlocked bool is not safe, you would need amutex, critical section or at least an atomic increment, e. g. by calling InterLockedIncrement on a shared long: volatile long g_stop = 0; ... while (InterLockedIncrement(&g_stop) > 1) { // coming here a second thread has incremented the g_stop nearly same time InterLockedDecrement(&g_stop); Sleep(1); } // coming here it is safe now .... Programmer's Notepad is, one of the best free text editing tools available, simply because the developers appear to have second-guessed every weird problem or issue a programmer is likely to run into. One of these problems is selecting and deleti… Here is a helpful source code for C++ Builder programmers that allows you to manage and manipulate HTML content from C++ code, while also handling HTML events like onclick, onmouseover, ... Some objects defined and used in this source include: …

Cómo Adept comenzó su viaje en logotipos Resumen We're a start-up Self Managed Superannuation Administration company that services mid to high wealth clients. We need a logo that projects the values of "safety, efficiency, prudence, service and innovation" It's a conservative industry, but we would like our logo to stand out from the crowd Nombre de la empresa Adept Super Admin ¿Qué te inspira y qué diseño imaginas para tu empresa? We're a new entrant to an old and conservative industry - Self Managed Super Fund administration. We're an innovative firm that focuses on excellent client service and value for our clientele. We want to standout from the crowd but still project the following core values; • Safety • Efficiency • Prudence • Service • Innovation The colour scheme is totally at the designer's discretion,the winning designer must provide PMS colours used in logo

Low Potassium (Hypokalemia) (cont.) Benjamin Wedro, MD, FACEP, FAAEM Dr. Ben Wedro practices emergency medicine at Gundersen Clinic, a regional trauma center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His background includes undergraduate and medical studies at the University of Alberta, a Family Practice internship at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and residency training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology. What is the treatment for low potassium? Serum potassium levels above 3.0 mEq/liter are not considered dangerous or of great concern; they can be treated with potassium replacement by mouth. Depending on the patient's medical condition, other medical problems, and the patient's symptoms, serum levels lower than 3.0 mEq/liter may require intravenous replacement. Decisions are patient-specific and depend upon the diagnosis, the circumstances of the illness, and the patient's ability to tolerate fluid and medication by mouth. Over the short-term, with self-limited illnesses like gastroenteritis with vomiting and diarrhea, the body is able to regulate and restore potassium levels on its own. However, if the hypokalemia is severe, or the losses of potassium are predicted to be ongoing, potassium replacement or supplementation may be required. In those patients taking diuretics, often a small amount of oral potassium may be prescribed since the loss will continue as long as the medication is prescribed. Oral supplements may be in pill or liquid form, and the dosages are measured in mEq. Common doses are 10-20mEq per day. Alternatively, consumption of foods high in potassium may be the first option in replacing potassium. Bananas, apricots, oranges, and tomatoes are high in potassium content. Since potassium is excreted in the kidney, blood tests that monitor kidney function may be ordered to predict and prevent potassium levels from rising too high. When potassium needs to be given intravenously, it must be given slowly. Potassium is irritating to the vein and is usually administered at a maximal rate of 10 mEq per hour. Moreover, infusing potassium too quickly can cause heart irritation and promote potentially dangerous rhythms such as ventricular tachycardia. A Special Situation: Periodic Paralysis Rarely, a special situation will occur when all the potassium in the body shifts from the serum into the cells of the body. This drops the serum potassium levels to 1.0 mEq/liter or lower. This causes immediate muscle weakness to the point that the patient cannot move and becomes paralyzed. Arms and legs are most affected. Rarely, breathing and swallowing muscles can be involved. Periodic paralysis may be hereditary and may be precipitated by excessive exercise, a high carbohydrate or high salt meal, or may occur without apparent cause. Treatment by potassium replacement intravenously is effective, and recovery occurs within 24 hours.

Archive for October 25th, 2008 After what seemed like an eternity at the number one spot, the Northstar Express fell one spot to number two. Taking their place at number one is the ultra-talented team known as The Phoenix Twins (Tweek & Dash). The Phoenix Twins have received their fair share of accolades this year. In the MWR coverage area for 2008, they have held the AAPW tag titles and wrestled in the MWR Match of the Month for March. They’ve also been MWR Tag Team of the Month in March and May, as well as the Tag Team of the 1st Quarter. While nipping at the heels of the Northstar Express since the beginning of the 2008 Wrestling Revival Cup, Tweek and Dash overtook them after capturing the Scott County Wrestling Tag Team Titles this month. That’s not to say that Darin Corbin and Ryan Cruz are out of the hunt. A very popular tag team, the Northstar Express suffered a setback when Darin Corbin injured his knee at a 3XWrestling show in Des Moines, IA in September. He’s since recovered moderately from the injury and they’ve got a busy second half of October, but those matches are tough and could slow them down even further. Another team that has slipped slightly in the tag team rankings is the team of Danny Daniels & Trik Davis, collectively known as Windy City Classic. Windy City Classic had a tight grip on the Scott County Wrestling Tag Team Titles for a large portion of the year, but the talent and teamwork of teams such as Zero Gravity (Brett Gakiya & CJ Esparza) and Phoenix Twins caused them to wear down over time. Both teams have tasted SCW Tag Title glory in the past two months. The team to look out for is the LONRs (Darrien Sanders and Mark Sterling). These guys have been on a steady climb as of late, and the month of October could prove to be their best yet. The LONRs defeated the former number one team twice this year (Northstar Express) in successful defenses of the Pro Wrestling Phoenix Tag Team Titles, and last week defeated the new number one tag team (Phoenix Twins) to capture the All American Pro Wrestling Tag Titles. The dark horse in the hunt for the MWR 2008 Wrestling Revival Cup for tag teams would have to be Lethal Wrestling Alliance’s top tag team, Davey Vega & Johnny Vinyl. These two have competed solely in the LWA this year, a promotion without tag team titles to measure success. Currently ranked 11th, these two have crawled within striking distance of the top ten and at press time were staring down the Northstar Express in a big match for bragging rights and a possibly push to the top of the rankings. The 2008 Wrestling Revival Cup is coming to a close in the very near future and the fight for the championship is intensifying. Who will take home the

You'd be wise to get an eyeful of model Kristina Sofia Innemee in a bikini You'd think it was full bore summer with the way these hotties in bikinis keep showing up all over the place. Clearly there's some global warming shit behind this. Thanks to excess CO2, we now get 365 days of plump asses in bikinis the world over. And they said climate change would be nothing but terrible. You can't entirely fault any situation that allows us to check out a body like the one belonging to model Kristina Sofia Innemee, all laid out on a Miami beach with the crack of her ass peeking out. If there could ever be an established way for asses to look, Kristina's would be pretty damn close to how I would have it be. Kristina originally comes from Holland, which explains why I became instantly intrigued with her the moment I saw these pics. Many of today's hotter models seem to be coming out of the greater Netherlands area. All those centuries of tulips and windmills and cheese and chocolate have produced a population of especially gorgeous women for the world to gush over. I really need to get over there one day.

Black Sabbath Tickets Black Sabbath are an English rock band by guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, singer Ozzy Osbourne, and drummer Bill Ward. Black Sabbath was formed in Birmingham in 1969, and have composed songs dealing with social instability, political corruption, the dangers of drug abuse and apocalyptic prophecies of the horrors of war. Don't miss your chance to see Black Sabbath in concert, Get your Black Sabbath tickets today !

The phrase "society" represents someone who occupy a certain territory and still have a distinct culture, characteristics and institutions. Oftentimes, societies are also held together by way of system of shared beliefs or common goals. There are four types of human societies depending on methods of subsistence. These are the hunter-gatherer societies, nomadic pastoral societies, horticulturalist or simple farming societies and intensive agricultural societies (civilizations).

The Duke of Cambridge, President of the Football Association visited Hendon Football Club to learn more the club’s mental health outreach initiatives, and find out more about the FA's has new comprehensive guidance for coaches and managers, which will help all FA affiliated adult clubs supporting the mental wellbeing of their players. The Duke’s visit came as part of Heads Up, a new season-long campaign which will harness the power of football to encourage more people – particularly men, to feel comfortable talking about their mental health, and feel able to support their friends and families through difficult times. In 2017 Hendon FC launched an outreach programme in conjunction with Brent Council’s Early Years Intervention Service to enable young people from the local community who live with mental health issues to attend training sessions at the football club. Using football as a means to help improve their mental health and wellbeing, the group of young people formed the Hendon FC Mental Health team, and now attend specially tailored training sessions at the club on a weekly basis. The Football Association has launched new comprehensive guidance for coaches and managers, which will help all FA affiliated adult clubs supporting the mental wellbeing of their players. The guidance, produced in partnership with Mind and a mental health advisory group put together by The FA, will help coaches and managers to: Spot the signs of people experiencing mental health problems Feel confident to provide support Signpost people to specialist help The Duke of Cambridge discussed the new guidelines with Hendon FC coaches — how it can support them in identifying the signs of mental health issues, and offer support and signposting where needed to help improve the mental wellbeing of players. The publication forms an important part of The FA and Heads Together’s ‘Heads Up’ campaign, which seeks to harness the influence and popularity of football to drive the biggest ever conversation on mental health.

Procycling brings you the colour, action and drama of the world's most spectacular sport in a glossy and dynamic magazine. It's the authoritative, worldwide voice of international professional road racing, distributed in every country where there are English-speaking fans. With exclusive features and spectacular photography, Procycling brings to life the complexities, rivalries and hardships of the European professional scene. Cycling Plus is the manual for the modern road cyclist. Whether you're cycling weekly, an occasional new rider or a Tour de France fan you’ll find everything you need. Every issue is packed with expert reviews of the latest road bikes and gear, inspirational routes and rides, evocative features that take you inside every aspect of cycling and unmatched nutrition, fitness and training advice. Mountain Biking UK celebrates everything that is great about mountain biking, enabling people of all abilities and ages to have a better time on their bike. MBUK brings you all the latest news, coolest kit, plus exclusive info on the newest and best bikes that you can buy. Fight climate change through your computer Here in the C+ offices we're one of many helping Oxford University to conduct research into predicting climate change and you can do it too on your home P.C. (Macs not included). How? We've downloaded our very own climate model from the BBC website, which is working in conjunction with scientists at Oxford University to get people all over the world taking part in the experiment, which will analyse what the weather is likely to be like in 20 to 30 years time. Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University was responsible for setting up the project and is encouraged by the amount of participation that has resulted: "This is massively more ambitious in terms of computing than anything anyone has ever asked the public to do before, so it's great to see how willing people are to help out. Over the past couple of years I think we have seen a change from people seeing it as a kind of fun political tennis-ball to something we really are going to have to come to terms with at a very practical level," he says. How the experiment works is by using the power normally wasted when you are not using your P.C. When you sign up you'll see a globe appear when your computer goes to sleep - this is the official model used by the Met Office to predict weather patterns. The cloud formations, colours, representing rainfall and temperature etc, will all change as your computer calculates the climate from 1920-2080. It's fascinating to watch, but don't forget to turn off your computer when you're not using it, as that wastes energy. "160 years will take two to three months on event the fastest personal computers," says Professor Allen. The findings will be reported on BBC Four later in the summer. It's very easy and quick to install and does it all automatically, so if you want to take part see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn

Liverpool Boss Brendan Rodgers Relaxed With Club’s Ninth Position In The Table Featured Stories Brendan Rodgers addressed the media before Liverpool’s game against QPR this Saturday. After the international break that has seen the headlines being dominated by a ‘tired’ Raheem Sterling, the Liverpool boss spoke about the issue first in his pre-match conference. He said that the treatment the youngster got was ‘grossly unfair’. “Firstly I’d like to congratulate England on their two wins because that’s been overshadowed with the news on Raheem. “I have obviously read a lot and listened to what’s been said, we want to move on from the situation with Raheem. It’s been grossly unfair that the kid has been put on the back pages on something he didn’t say. I’ve had it a number of times here were he has been tired and gone to play and be exceptional. He’s a wonderful talent, he’s a kid we’ve brought up to be honest and responsible. All he said was that he was tired. I read people talking about club v country. I take great pride in players playing for their country. We have many internationals. We are club and country here, not club v country. Liverpool are no barrier to England. Roy and I have exchanged messages, we want to put this to bed and move on, and concentrate on looking after a huge talent” The Liverpool manager was clearly also irked by the comments made regarding the club’s training methods and clarified, “I’ve seen a lot about the second day recovery and I think people think the players are sitting up watching Sky Sports. I’ve spent 15 years travelling around Europe looking at different ideas so I’d have identity as a coach. My belief and model is to make players better and part of that is to look at every individual player and how they recover.” Liverpool currently lie in the ninth place with ten points in seven games. When asked if that put pressure on him, Rodgers replied, “I’m quite relaxed on it all and we will look at it after 10 games to see how we’re set. At this point in time, we are looking to improve our performance level and we know we will get better. There’s no crisis – we lost a world class player and brought a number in. The players here are magnificent and the attitude and effort they show gives me the hope we can push on.”

What we do Newcastle Cross Country is a running club for members of all ages 6 years and older who enjoy the sport of cross country running. Our season commences in April and concludes in August. Events are held at different venues around the Hunter Region each Saturday afternoon. Running on different surfaces from hard road base to sand, and in different settings from suburban to bush, in all kinds of weather. Runners compete at their own pace to achieve their personal best in varying distances. The committee is made up of volunteers from like minded groups and they endeavour to produce a program of events which has something for everyone, from individual runners to families and also includes a group of walkers who are not up to the challenge of a run. Volunteers are the backbone of our organisation, and as such the club expects that each registered Adult or Adult caregiver would volunteer at least once during the season. If Adult competitors or Adult caregivers have not met the volunteer requirements no awards will be granted.If every registered Adult volunteered once, the organisers would also be able to have a run.

Bottle holder Description A home for bottles Carla de Quervain loves leather: its feel, its look, and the fact that it is durable and yet changes over the years, developing its own unique character. In 2016 she opened a leather factory under her name in Basel, in order to make “little leather houses” for everyday objects such as laptops and bottles. Her Bags for Bottles employ a discreet formal vocabulary and can be used with 500ml bottles of almost all kinds, including plastic, glass and sports bottles. They are made of pure, high-quality leather and can be carried on a long strap or a short clip. An indispensable companion for all those thirsty people!

Cafe Maxx Pairs Up Champagne and Sushi Since sushi is traditionally served with but a few beverages -- tea, beer and/or sake -- this pairing is slightly unorthodox. But not really -- white wine with sushi is increasingly popular, and what's champagne but white wine with fizz? Also, it's more common to see sushi prepared by non-Japanese folks, which is what this cooking class is featuring.

You would not like to miss every delicate Infrared Steam Room. Classified by different standards, you are allowed to easily find the latest Infrared Steam Room showed in our shop online. More other products are offered here for our respected consumers. For selection of Infrared Steam Room, you are allowed to freely check our shop and find your best love. Enjoy wonderful products with high quality with big discount as well as best sale service. Check LightinTheBox for more top-selling.

I am looking to organize an end of baseball season celebration Hog Hunt for ~12 boys aged 11 and 12 years old. This hunt would take place during the end of June or early July 2015. If you know of a ranch or you yourself have a place that can support approximately 24 folks (kids plus dads) for a 3 day (2 night) hunt please let me know. (I would think a Friday to Sunday to minimize parents days off of work.) Feel free to reply to this forum with your contact info/web page address and I will get back in touch with you. Or leave me a message on this forum. Ranch does not need to have the capability of sleeping everyone if there are hotels near by. For some of the boys this will be their first hunting trip while others have shot several animals. It would be great if you had a shooting range these boys could practice at the first evening we arrive along with able to have a camp fire / grill etc. to make the trip special for the boys. We would bring all the burgers and dogs etc. Our plans are still materializing but I would like to have conversations with some ranch owners as soon as possible to determine feasibility. Cost of the hunt will be a consideration as some families are not a well off as others. If your ranch has other exotics available to hunt that could be a bonus - as some have voiced interest in them. We would like to keep it to within ~2 hours of Houston TX. The team is from towns just south of Houston. I have a great ranch that will sleep everyone on site. Bbq pits, washer pits, catch and release fishing. Lots of hogs. 5 star lodging, and built to have fun and entertain. Text me for any details. I am not in good reception Best place I've found so far is HUNTERS CREEK RANCH in Mt Vernon Tx. I've hunted there 3yrs now and we are headed back there again in feb. They have a fenced area as well as THOUSANDS of acres of free range area!! $275/day gets you 2 hogs per day plus 3 meals and lodging!! Awesome place. Guys in our group bring their 9-14yr olds down all the time and they are VERY successful at taking hogs!!

Microsoft Uses Children To Do Windows 8 Product Demos Now here’s something that you don’t see everyday. At a Microsoft store in Lisbon, Portugal, an 11-year old child is making a small product demonstration on Windows 8 to curious customers. If you’re wondering what is that all about, do note that Microsoft wants to ask you if Windows 8 is really that simple. To illustrate is best, Microsoft is ingeniously asking children to do Windows 8 demos to customers in an effort to prove that the new operating system is easy to understand. It’s actually a very cool publicity stunt, one that hasn’t been used by any of Microsoft’s rivals. And judging from the video above, it seems to be working quite well. They say children cannot tell lies and that they always speak the truth. Well, that belief system seems to be the magic spell here. Watch as the customers get shocked at the edgy boy who’ll do the good presentation. “The moment speaks for itself,” Microsoft said. The real question now is – will it work for you?

OP-ED Reminder: Omar and Tlaib questioned the loyalty of Americans who support Israel Over the weekend President Trump unleashed a series of tweets that I agreed were racist, because they lumped together four nonwhite congresswomen who he said should go back to their countries, even though three of them were born in the United States and all were citizens. But as the congresswomen ... PLEASE LOG IN FOR PREMIUM CONTENT. Our website requires visitors to log in to view the best local news. Not yet a subscriber? Subscribe today!

‘Ugly Dolls: The Movie’ Sounds Pretty Good The popular toy line coming to the big screen courtesy of the makers of Despicable Me. UglyDolls are, ironically, adorable. I mean, look at those little buggers! Aw… Wage is wearing an apron! That's… so… f***ing… adorable! And now these mini-monsters are coming to the big screen, thanks to Illumination Entertainment chief Chris Meledandri. Illumination will team with Universal to bring UglyDolls to life at a theater near you, from a script written by Little Fockers scribe Larry Stuckey. Universal and Illumination previously teamed up to produce Despicable Me, the excellent mad scientist comedy released last summer, so expectations are high. In a statement made to Deadline, Meledandri said that "I remember the immediate appeal and connection that the characters had for me. They are simple in design, expressive in personality, and once I got to know David and Sun-Min [the creators of UglyDolls], I learned there was a mythology and a world behind this… The personality and level of wit reminded me of the illustrated work I saw from Matt Groening before he didThe Simpsons." Meledandri plans to expand the UglyDolls multimedia franchise after the release of the feature film. In the meantime Illumination is hard at work on The Addams Family, a stop-motion animation adaptation of the classic Charles Adams comic strips, and a star-studded adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. Crave Online will return with more UglyDoll news if we can ever get over how cute these things are!

More from the Jersey Shore Now through April is prime time for hiking and biking the latticework of trails in any number of state parks and forests, and county parks, scattered throughout New Jersey’s central and southern tier counties.

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8810099708146569685.post9056774741155830750..comments2016-11-23T01:17:16.241-08:00Comments on Change Your Life. Ride A Bike!: la cumbia de la biciAdrienne Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]:blogger.com,1999:blog-8810099708146569685.post-90261399410311079102011-12-10T18:59:18.127-08:002011-12-10T18:59:18.127-08:00I love this! I also love that there is a little p...I love this! I also love that there is a little pink Volker in there : )Adrienne Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

91 Civic Wires...... I have a '91 Civic Hatch Std. and I was wondering instead of rewireing my engine harness can I just swap it for a harness from a Si? I don't want to send mine off to some one and really don't want to do it my self. This is for a LS swap....... I am getting the hubs and cluster from the Si and I thought since I was taken the stuff this would make life easier...... I believe the si would work for the engine wiring harness. I think you might still have to change/ extend some wires. Here is the problem you have to change wires by the ecu. It is not worth spending the time to redo the interior wiring with an si harness. Changing the wiring sounds hard, but it is pretty easy to do. Take your time and have a friend who is decent at wiring help you if you don't want to do it alone. It sounds intimadating, but its not too bad at all, take your time with it. Ask maaseyracer about this, as he recently did a mpfi wiring change. I did mine in the civic in about 2-3 hours taking my sweet ass time. Do not incure the expense and waste of time using the si harness.

Did You Find Out the Sex Of Your Baby? My younger sister, Meghan, is 22-weeks pregnant with her first child. I love the way she handled the 20-week sono news…. She and her husband decided early on that they wanted to know—but they wanted to make the reveal special so they asked the technician to write the sex on a piece of paper and stick it in an envelope. The plan was to have a big family dinner the next day and they would open it then. Of course they didn’t even make it to the car before tearing into the envelope and finding out their baby-to-be is a...girl. And they loved that they had that emotional and exciting moment to themselves, even if it was in a parking lot. But she didn’t tell any of us and we still had the family dinner the next day. To make it special for the kids, Meghan stuffed a ton of helium balloons in a giant box and wrapped it like a present. After placing bets on the sex and what the heck was in that box, the kids tore into it and out flew a bunch of big pink balloons. We all cheered and laughed and then the kids fist fought over who got the most balloons. It was a super cute idea (stolen from Guiliana Rancic, apparently) and a lot of fun for everyone. The delivery of my baby news wasn’t quite as fun. I found out the sex with both children. For me (and for Nick) it was never a question. Here’s how I looked at it: Having a baby come out of your vagina is surprising enough I don’t also need to be surprised by what gender that baby is. The more I knew about what was going to come out of me that day, the better. (Although you’re never quite prepared for what comes out of you that day, are you?) Also, I’m not a fan of the color yellow. So at our 20-week appointments after sweating through all the measurements and the silent nerve-wrackng nods of the technician, we said we wanted to know the sex and we were told and we were pumped. I loved knowing. For a lot of reasons. But we were very matter of fact about the reveal. We called our family from the car on the way home and that was that. I should also say that I am not the kind of person who sang to my belly or named my babies before they were born or called my kid he or she until he and she came out (they were always “the baby” or “it” to me). I guess I’m just an unsentimental, matter-of-fact kinda gal through and through. I’ve heard interesting reasoning on both sides of the sex reveal coin. And I understand a lot of it. To me it is a completely personal decision and you should do whatever you choose. I just don’t like when people take a smug stance about their choice. There are preggos who say things like this (to women who just told them that they themselves found out the sex): “Oh, I didn’t want to find out because all that mattered to me was that the baby was healthy. We don't care what we have.” Well, I think it’s safe to say that we all want healthy babies whether we want to find out the sex or not. And finding out the sex doesn't mean you're rooting for one gender or the other. Right?! I also know there are some people who find out the sex of the baby but then don’t tell anyone else. I will not say anything about these people in case you are one of them, but…I just don’t get it. Or I guess I get it I just wish they wouldn’t tell me that they know and that I’m not allowed to know. It makes me feel weird and like they’re holding something over me that I truly don’t care about but that I then start caring about too much (that said, I totally understand when people pick a name but don’t share that). Anyway…. I’m curious: Did you find out and if so how did you share the news (or not)? And if you didn’t, why did you decide not to? Maybe if we have a third kid we might not find out just for shits and giggles. But I doubt it.

AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION (PROPOSED) AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION (PROPOSED), FIFTEENTH On 28 August 1998, the government of Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif brought the draft of the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the constitution before the National Assembly Under the proposal, it was to be declared that “the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet shall be the supreme law of Pakistan,” that “the Federal Government shall be under an obligation to take steps to enforce the Shariah, to establish salat (prayer), to administer zakat, to promote amr bil ma’roof (what is right) and nahi anil mumkar (to forbid what is wrong), that corruption would be eradicated at all levels, that substantial socio-economic justice would be provided in accordance with the principles of Islam, as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah,” and that “the Federal Government may issue directives for the provisions set out in the clauses,” and “take the necessary action against any state functionary for non-compliance of the said directive” The proposed amendment’s initial draft also contained a provision that would have allowed the constitution to be amended by a majority vote rather than by two-thirds of the membership of the two houses of the parliament The amendment was widely viewed in the country as an attempt by the prime minister to establish a religious dictatorship in the country Even the more liberal elements in Sharif’s own party were reluctant to support the amendment Their acceptance was obtained after the prime minister agreed to drop the provision with respect to the procedure for amending the constitution The bill was finally tabled before the National Assembly on 9 October 1998, and was passed by a vote of 151 in favor (142 by the governing Pakistan Muslim League (PML), 7 by Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) members, and 2 from Balochistan), and 16 voting against it However, since the prime minister did not have the number of votes needed for approval in the Senate, he decided not to put the bill in that chamber until March 2000 By that time, the elections to the Senate were expected to significantly increase the PML’s presence in the Senate Mian Nawaz Sharif’s removal by the military, on 12 October 1999, effectively killed the new amendment

Culver Softball Wins League Home Opener The Culver City High softball team won its Ocean League home opener in convincing fashion, 15-0, over Inglewood High on Thursday, April 11. The victory followed a league loss on the road against a strong Hawthorne team two days earlier, 9-3. Centaur Coach John Sargent acknowledged his young team’s positive response, “I’m very proud of the girls whether they’re up or down. They come back on Wednesday and they have a great practice. They relax and that’s what we’re trying to do, that one element of what we can do to just stay calm during a game situation. “And today it showed. They relaxed and looked confident playing against Inglewood.” Jessica Faber was effective as the Centaur starting pitcher due in part to her relationship with her catcher and cousin Lisa Kamba. Faber remarked, “Usually my pitching coach Duane will call my pitches but he wasn’t here at the start of the game. Lisa’s been with me the last two years so she pretty much knew what she was doing. I think she called a great game.” The Centaurs overwhelmed the Sentinels in four innings with an unrelenting offense, scoring four runs in the first inning, five in the second, one in the third and capping it off with five more in their last at bat. Coach Sargent effused, “Lisa, my junior catcher, she goes 3 for 3 and had two home runs. She had four rbi’s. My junior pitcher, Jessica, she pitched a three hitter and that was good.” The Culver defense was also instrumental in the win as Faber noted, “Our infield wasn’t routine but they came in and did a very good job. Lisa Serna was playing shortstop. She’s actually our right fielder. She practiced at short yesterday and she was playing really good. She came out and showed what she can do.” Faber added, “We’re a fairly young team. It’s kind of crazy this year. Being a pitcher, going and giving high fives and seeing freshman, sophomore, freshman, freshman, but they’ve proved themselves. We all fight for our positions out here. They did what they came out to do and they got the positions.” Sargent concluded about his team, “I’m so proud of their record. Your next game can be just as bad as that game that you lost. But this team, they had good spirit. And that’s what makes us go. We can do this.”

Mehandi Artists in East Delhi, Wedding Mehndi Artist in East Delhi Anuj Mehandi Artist Mehandi Artists in East Delhi, Wedding Mehndi Artist in East Delhi, Mehndi Artist in East Delhi, Mehndi Service at Home in East Delhi, Mehndi Artist near me in East Delhi. Anuj Having more than 23 years of working experience in the Field of Henna Design work in East Delhi, Anuj Mehandi artist is one of the most popular & finest Mehandi Artists in East Delhi. We always design beyond the thinking and consistent professionalism has kept our Henna Design work, way ahead from the competitors for so many years in this field. Mehandi is an essential part of Indian traditions. In weddings ceremonies (marriage, vivah), or festivals like Karva Chaudh Special or Mubarak Eid, Mehandi plays a vital role in most ceremonies & festivities in India. In recent times, there has been a lot of unique & innovation in mehandi designs in East Delhi invented by or mehandi artists in East Delhi. We always come hard to beat the competition by bringing in new concepts & design to the market before anyone else. Our designs add more style, grace, elegance, fun and glamour to your special wedding occasions & festival. For weddings, we bring in the most special, exquisite and delicate pattern to adorn your both beautiful hands, making you cherish the new beginning of your life for the lifetime. At Anuj Mehandi Art in East Delhi, you will find few of the most talented mehandi artists of our country capable of carving beautiful designs on your hand. We have shown our talented work in so many exhibitions in East Delhi, the fashion show in East Delhi, Eid festivities and henna parties in East Delhi. Our Best Mehandi artists master in Bridal Mehandi design in East Delhi, Rajasthani Mehandi design in East Delhi and Arabic Mehandi design in East Delhi and we provide 100% Mehandi colour guarantee. We promise fast service anywhere in East Delhi. Our artists in East Delhi are available 24/7 to deliver exceptional service to our clients in East Delhi.

On Approved Credit. Please confirm accuracy of information with seller. Mileage recorded at time of listing. Taxes and license are not included in listing price. Description *NEW* 2017 Ram 1500 ST 4WD Crew Cab now available at Southbank Dodge! Ram?s most value packed pickup truck at affordable prices and features power locks and windows, keyless entry and A/C. Plenty of clever storage options throughout this truck, as well as, USB ports and outlets to keep your laptops and devices charged! We?re open on Sundays from 10am to 4pm for your convenience. Call us today to schedule your test drive! Sales: (613) 667-1225. There?s a lot to say about this vehicle so RAM by to see us at 1255 Johnston Road Ottawa, ON K1V 8Z1, conveniently across Greenboro Station & Southkeys Shopping Center! *NEW* 2017 Ram 1500 ST 4WD Crew Cab now available at Southbank Dodge! Ram?s most value packed pickup truck at affordable prices and features power locks and windows, keyless entry and A/C. Plenty of clever storage options throughout this truck, as well as, USB ports and outlets to keep your laptops and devices charged! We?re open on Sundays from 10am to 4pm for your convenience. Call us today to schedule your test drive! Sales: (613) 667-1225. There?s a lot to say about this vehicle so RAM by to see us at 1255 Johnston Road Ottawa, ON K1V 8Z1, conveniently across Greenboro Station & Southkeys Shopping Center!

Tag: Nature This picture book covers the topic natural disaster and their impact on human lives, using hurricane Katrina. It was printed quite a while after Katrina struck Louisiana. The illustrations are beautifully fitted to a children’s picture book, as well as the topic of this particular book. The Story is easy to follow for kids, but picks up on a few important aspects of life after a natural disaster hits. I don’t want to give away the story, but it basically deals with two important things: a) the aftermath of Katrina -> can be used as a basis for any other disaster striking. b) that a kid can and should be trusted to be both courageous and be able to have and follow through on useful ideas. It’s sure to be a valuable story to help kids cope with the aftermath of a similar storm or disaster hitting as Katrina. The story is timeless and can’t be tied to a place either. For this reason, I think every bookshop and library should have this title on hand.

LAB reviewed the readiness of the launch vehicle, spacecraft systems and ground stations and has authorised the commencement of the 54 hour Count Down today. During the Count Down, propellant-filling operations of the liquid propellant second stage (PS2) and fourth stage (PS4) of the launch vehicle will be carried out. PSLV-C16 on Launch Pad. Photo Source- isro.org Mandatory checks on the launch vehicle and spacecraft - including charging of batteries and pressurisation of propellant tanks will be performed. Readiness of launch infrastructure such as tracking radar systems and communication networks will also be checked. PSLV-C16 will launch RESOURCESAT-2, YOUTHSAT and X-SAT satellites. PSLV-C16 seen from Mobile Tower RESOURCESAT-2 built by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) - the primary satellite is an advanced remote sensing satellite weighing 1206 kg for facilitating the study and management of natural resources. X-SAT weighing 106 kg is a microsatellite for imaging applications built by Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore The PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has launched 41 satellites (19 Indian and 22 from other countries) into a variety of orbits till date. PSLV can launch IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) Satellites into sun synchronous orbits, and it can also launch small size satellites into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The PSLV has four stages using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. ResourceSat-2 is a data continuity mission of ISRO with improved spectral bands of the IRS-P6/ResourceSat-1. Each ResourceSat satellite carries three electrooptical cameras as its payload: LISS-3, LISS-4 and AWiFS. All the three imagers are multispectral pushbroom scanners with linear array CCDs as detectors. The ResourceSat data find their application in several areas like agricultural crop discrimination and monitoring, crop acreage/yield estimation, precision farming, water resources, forest mapping, rural infrastructure development, disaster management etc. ResourceSat-2 provides continuity and increases the observation timeliness (repetivity) in tandem with ResourceSat-1. Read more details about ResourceSat-2 here. YouthSat was initially proposed by Dr. ABJ Kalam during his visit to Russia during 2005. It is the second satellite in the micro satellite series being launched by ISRO. The objective of this project is to provide hands-on experience to student in space experiments and data-processing, and to create a common platform for aerospace students across the world to jointly conduct experiments in space for the benefit of future generations and humanity as a whole. The Russian party - M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University - provides the development of the scientific equipment SolRad for the studies of the solar activity, its delivery to India, and transfer of the necessary technical documentation and testing equipment. The experimental equipment SolRad is intended for registration of hard X-ray radiation within the energy ranges of 10-100 keV. Read more details about YouthSat here. Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore is doing the XSAT Micro-Satellite Project which is the developmental project undertaken by CREST (Centre For Research in Satellite Technologies) with partners such as CRISP (Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, NUS). Read more details about X-SAT here.

At a Civil Rights Summit in Austin last April 2014, basketball great Bill Russell related the current struggles of gay athletes fighting for equal playing opportunities with the decades-long discrimination… By Fred Sullivan and Jaime Botello (Editor’s Note: Members of the San Francisco Bay Times team, including weddings columnist and officiant Reverend Elizabeth River and publisher Dr. Betty Sullivan, will…

Monday, 30 June 2014 We had a pretty quiet day today, as I was still trying to kick the dregs of my man cold, and it was cold with a howling wind outside. The first thing we did when Sarah dropped Zoe off was assemble the IKEA bookshelf I got for her room on the weekend. She now has four shelves instead of two, and so now her books don't have to be precariously balanced on top of another set of shelves. Zoe seemed to enjoy helping me put it together. After that, we popped out to the bank to sort out some US dollars. The Cash Passport has evolved significantly since we first moved to the US, and the Traveller Card is a pretty nice product. After a stop at the pharmacy to stock up on pseudo-ephedrine for the flight and a stop at the post office to put the mail on hold, we came back home and put a bunch of the Woolworths Jamie's Garden stickers in Zoe's sticker album. After that, a lot of TV was watched, and I alternated between watching TV with Zoe and packing. I can now say that I've watched the pilot for the Muppet Show. It wasn't that good. I think I'm on top of the packing, and am generally feeling organised for the trip. The one thing I haven't done yet is book a rental car for the drive from Austin to Dallas on the way home. Anshu came over for dinner, and I managed to get Zoe to bed a bit early, which should help get us going early in the morning, when Sarah picks us up to take us to the airport.

In order to enable an iCal export link, your account needs to have a key created. This key enables other applications to access data from within Indico even when you are neither using nor logged into the Indico system yourself with the link provided. Once created, you can manage your key at any time by going to 'My Profile' and looking under the tab entitled 'HTTP API'. Further information about HTTP API keys can be found in the Indico documentation. I have read and understood the above. In conjunction with a having a key associated with your account, to have the possibility of exporting private event information necessitates the creation of a persistent key. This new key is also associated with your account and whilst it is active the data which can be obtained through using this key can be obtained by anyone in possession of the link provided. Due to this reason, it is extremely important that you keep links generated with this key private and for your use only. If you think someone else may have acquired access to a link using this key in the future, you must immediately remove it from 'My Profile' under the 'HTTP API' tab and generate a new key before regenerating iCalendar links. from Sunday, May 13, 2018 at 09:00 to Wednesday, May 16, 2018 at 18:00 (Europe/Moscow) at Hotel New Peterhof, Peterhof, Russia St. Petersbursky prospect 34, Peterhof, St. Petersburg, Russia Description The Cremlin workshop "Engineering for advanced neutron instrumenation and sample environment" is jointly organized by NRC "Kurchtov Institute" - PNPI and the German Research Reactor FRM II operated by the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The Russian PIK Reactor will become operational and open to the neutron user community towards the end of this decade. In order to define PIK's specific position within the European neutron landscape and to meet the demands of both European and Russian researchers, the workshop is aiming at developing guidelines for a general instrumentation concept for the PIK reactor and for the supporting structure of sample environment. More specifically, the topics include mechanical construction, neutron components, electronic components, detectors, automatization, instrument control and differents aspects of sample environment. In order to cover different methods and approaches speakers from the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL), Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), ESS (European Spallation Source), Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG), the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, and from the organizing institutes PNPI and FRM II/MLZ will be invited. The talks will be presented either in Russian or English, translation will be provided. The two poster sessions offer a platform for discussion, since every talk will be summarized in a poster. Furthermore, participants who would like to share their ideas and developments are warmly encouraged to hand in their posters. The social events, the conference dinner on Monday evening and the visit of the Grand Peterhof Palace on Tuesday offer another opportunity to deepen scientific and personal exchange. We cordially invite scientists and engineers to share their experience and views in order to contribute to the success of this workshop. The website of the workshop: https://indico.frm2.tum.de/event/65/overview

by Merritt Clifton If the expert geniuses passing out advice about avoiding dog attacks as celebrity trainers and on behalf of animal advocacy organizations really knew what they were talking about––and yes, Cesar Millan, Robert Cabral, and Victoria Stilwell, we are talking about you, among many others––the U.S. and Canada would not have reached midway through 2017 with already more total dogs involved in fatal and disfiguring attacks, more child victims, more adult victims, more fatalities, and more survivors learning to live with disfigurements than in any entire year before 2014. Cesar Millan (National Geographic TV photo) Eye-popping numbers More than half of all the fatal and disfiguring attacks on record in the U.S. would not have occurred just since 2007. Humane societies alone would not be adopting out more dogs who go on to kill or disfigure people than the total number of fatal and disfiguring attacks on record in any year, for all dogs combined, from 1833 through 1991. Since 2007, 47 former shelter dogs are known to have killed people. Same tired tips For Dog Bite Prevention Week 2017 the American Humane Association, American Veterinary Medical Association, and U.S. Postal Service again offered essentially the same lists of tips for avoiding ordinary dog bites and minimizing the damage that they have offered since Dog Bite Prevention Week originated in 1956––but for at least 563 people in 2015, 581 in 2016, and 356 just halfway through 2017, none of those tips would have helped. Those more than 1,500 Americans were attacked by dogs, often several dogs at once, who were hell-bent on mauling, maiming, and/or killing their victims. Among the dogs were 1,149 pit bulls and pit mixes, and more than 200 other dogs of closely related breeds, among them Rottweilers, boxers, and a variety of pit/mastiff crosses such as the Presa Canario, Dogo Argentino, and Cane Corso. Of the 4,729 humans who have been disfigured by dogs since 1982, 3,564 were disfigured by pit bulls; of the 681 deaths, 382 resulted from pit bull attacks and another 101 by Rottweiler attacks. Pits and Rotts, together with their recognizable mixes, make up about 7% of the U.S. dog population, but account for 70% of the fatalities and 83% of the disfigurements. How fatal & disfiguring attacks occur Many of the human victims were disfigured or killed while trying to protect their pets from dog attack. The approximately 3.5 million pit bulls in the U.S. appear to be killing upward of 10,000 other dogs per year, and 2,000 cats, severely injuring at least as many. When a dog does not just bite, but attacks with intent to maul, maim, and kill, observing the usual rules for escaping injury no longer helps––especially if the attacking dog is of a breed selectively crossed for centuries to have low inhibitions against conflict and a high pain threshold, the better to injure and kill other animals in fighting and baiting. Shedding light on the situation Among the more naïve reader inquiries recently reaching ANIMALS 24-7was, “Would a laser light protect oneself against a pit bull?” No. Pit bulls (and dogs generally) don’t tend to care about lights. Dogs in general evolved to hunt and scavenge by night as well as day, and “see” mostly with their noses. A pit bull or other dog of fighting and baiting lineage will kill you whether he can see you or not. If he has to close his eyes to do it, he will, and not worry about it, because his eyes are not how he is locating you. ANIMALS 24-7 data superimposed on ASPCA image, covering up only a black void. Weapon success rates I have been logging fatal and disfiguring dog attack data for nearly 35 years now. Based on actual case data, a firearm has about an 80% success rate in stopping a charging pit bull, but with a high rate of accidentally killing or injuring other people nearby, as occurred on June 21, 2017 when a ricochet from a police round fired at a charging pit bull killed 17-year-old Armando Garcia, who was reportedly 40 feet away and out of view of the officers who were trying to stop the attack. A fire extinguisher has about a 70% success rate, with no risk to bystanders. A bite stick can be used by an experienced person, or anyone who has an appropriate object to use as a bite stick and keeps his or her head. Knives and blunt instruments have negative success rates, meaning that the people using them are more likely to increase the severity of an attack than to help themselves or others get away. Blunt force usually fails The most frequent mistake made by people trying to stop a dog attack, contributing to serious injuries almost every day now, is attempted use of blunt force, typically by swinging an object such as a baseball bat or a golf club at the dog. Unless the swinger has major league bat speed, power, and ability to make accurate contact with a rapidly and unpredictably moving target, the dog will easily dodge the attempted blow, the person swinging the blunt object will be off balance, and the dog will then pull the person down to inflict severe or fatal injury. (Beth Clifton collage) Use the blunt object as a bite stick The correct way to use a bat or golf club, if one happens to have one, is as a bite stick, held in such a manner as to keep the dog at maximum distance from oneself. A walking cane, a broom stick, a fence slat, or any other long, sturdy object can do the same job. It is also futile to pound on a dog’s head to try to make the dog let go of someone else. Most animals, including humans, respond to a blow to the head by clenching their teeth. This is why prize fighters wear mouthpieces. Among pit bulls this tendency is even more pronounced. To make a pit bull let go of something, it is necessary to pry the dog’s jaws apart with a bite stick — and to do this safely, the person doing the prying should be behind the dog, with face out of reach of a quick snap. Zorro Knives are next to useless Many people carry a knife, but a knife of any sort is next to useless against a charging dog, especially a pit bull. One could hand Zorro himself a knife, throw a pillow at him, and he might be able to effectively stab the pillow maybe one time in 10. Most people could not do that well, lacking the wrist strength to drive the knife through the pillow cover. A charging dog is coming much faster than a pillow, and the number of places where the dog can be stopped by slashing or stabbing are very few — and even if one happened to hit one of those vital spots, momentum would carry the dog on forward. A dog meeting a knife blade will already be no more than arm’s length away when the knife strikes, so will be on the user, probably slightly injured and even more infuriated, in a split second. (Beth Clifton collage) Dogs don’t recognize knives Merely showing a dog a knife, moreover, means nothing to the dog. Dogs have no experience with knives, and no understanding of what they are. At best a dog may think a knife is a toy, and that the user is about to play “stick.” This may prevent an attack, but only if one throws the knife over the dog’s head and the dog runs after it. Taking that chance is obviously not recommended. Cyberspace is, to be sure, full of stories about how people allegedly stabbed pit bulls and other dogs to break off attacks, but close examination shows that in every case the dog was attacking someone else, or some other animal, and that because the dog was fixated on the original victim, the person with the knife had the luxury of being able to stab from behind, sometimes repeatedly, as the knife struck bones and failed to penetrate deeply on the first effort. (Beth Clifton collage) Grab a fire extinguisher ANIMALS 24-7recommends fire extinguishers as the safest and most humane tools for interrupting a dog attack, since using a fire extinguisher does not require closely approaching the dog, a fire extinguisher does not have to be aimed very accurately to have a deterrent effect, a fire extinguisher does not quickly run out of ammunition, a fire extinguisher does not produce an erratic ricochet, and a fire extinguisher is normally non-lethal, even if discharged directly into a lunging dog’s throat. Keep a fire extinguisher handy But if the fire extinguisher is exhausted while the dog attack continues, the empty cylinder can be used as a shield, a bite stick, or even a club, as appropriate. Besides the deterrent effect of the fire extinguisher’s contents, which tend to make animals quickly short of breath without lastingly harming them, most animals, including most dogs, retreat from the snake-like hiss of a discharging fire extinguisher. Carrying a fire extinguisher while walking, jogging, playing, or working outdoors is awkward, but there should be a fire extinguisher in every kitchen, near every fireplace, in every car, near the driver in any bus, truck, or taxi, and prominently and visibly located in every public building or place of business. Other spray devices Among the other popular non-lethal devices used to stop dog attacks, pepper spray and Mace must be relatively accurately directed, and are typically carried in small containers meant for use at close range. Pepper spray and Mace have about a 40% success rate in stopping pit bull attacks. Pocket sprays such as Mace, pepper spray, ammonia sprayers, and similar devices try to replicate in miniature the fire extinguisher effect, but in truth a spray can of almost anything would work about as well. Part of what makes fire extinguishers effective is that the foam comes out under pressure and rapidly expands, so that the volume actually helps to form an olfactory and visual barrier between the dog and victim(s). Nothing in a small container can have a similar effect. Tasers & tranquilizers Tasers are often useless against fur-covered animals. Tasers don’t deliver a shock unless the tasering device sticks to the target person or animal. Contrary to makers’ claims, they work about as well on thickly furred animals as tossing a ping pong ball. Tranquilizer darts must be placed very accurately to be effective, difficult to achieve when a dog or other animal is in attack mode, and then the tranquilizer can take several minutes to work, during which time the animal can do significant damage. Bear spray, hair spray, bug spray, cigarette lighters, jabs in the eyes, etc., among other ill-advised frequent recommendations, all might work on a human attacker, but the odds are excellent that they will be worthless against a charging pit bull. Dogfighter & pit bull breeder Earl Tudor, circa 1951. Pain does not stop a pit bull Remember, pain is not a deterrent to a pit bull. If you have seen pit bulls fighting, you would know that they will fight on to the death even after losing ears, legs, and having their guts trailing on the ground. Forget about trying to inflict pain. What you have to do to stop an attack by a pit bull is create a distraction compelling enough to jolt the pit bull out of the idiopathic rage syndrome — the kill-or-be-killed mindset of the fighting dog, which pain only intensifies. Humane Control of Wildlife in Cities & Towns, by Guy Hodge Fire extinguishers work. Sometimes a sudden unfamiliar noise works. Even throwing a pan of cold water on the dog is more likely to work, though, than a cigarette lighter or a jab in the eye. Push instead of pull Once a person is bitten, what can be done depends entirely on the severity of the bite. I learned from the late Humane Society of the U.S. investigator Guy Hodge many years ago to push against a bite instead of pulling away. This forces most dogs to open their mouths, and enables the victim to avoid the sort of ripping injuries that result from pulling away from a dog’s serrated teeth. While Hodge’s advice has served me well in many situations, it may not be universally applicable to all dog bites––especially the gripping bites of pit bulls and other dogs of fighting ancestry. (Beth Clifton photo) The first bite disables In fatal and disfiguring attacks, quite often the first bite disables the victim to some extent, and pulls the victim down. The victim may then not be able to push against the bite, or hunch up and protect his/her face, or do any of the other things that are conventionally advised. Most dogs bite defensively, and will bite, let go, and retreat, but pit bulls and other “bully” breeds bite offensively, and will not let go. Instead, they bite and shake. This behavior produces the degloving injuries that are so frequent in pit bull and Rottweiler attacks, in which skin and muscle are stripped from the bone. The only effective defense against that attack mode is to prevent the attack from occurring in the first place. Break sticks. (Daxton’s Friends) Bite sticks & break sticks One way to do this is to use any accessible object as a “bite stick,” to thrust into the dog’s mouth. While the dog is biting the “bite stick,” the dog will not be biting anything else. Note that a “bite stick” is not the same thing as a “break stick,” the pointed instrument that dogfighters push between a pit bull’s teeth to make the pit bull release a bite. Mr. Peabody Your best weapon is your brain Quick thinking is of premium value in any emergency situation, along with having a bit of good luck. In one instance in 2003 I was driving home from playing softball when I saw two pit bulls pursuing a bicyclist, then redirect to a small female jogger. Either dog probably weighed as much as the jogger did, and her evident terror encouraged the dogs to leap at her. They tore her shirt, and scratched her enough to draw blood, but had not actually gotten their teeth into her flesh when I stopped, jumped out of my car, handed my bat to the jogger (basically as a placebo), stepped between her and the dogs, and offered my fielder’s glove as a “bite stick,” but then had the sudden inspiration to order “Sit!” (Beth Clifton photo) Lightning struck twice Incredibly, the two pit bulls broke off the attack and sat. I told the jogger to walk away slowly, while I kept the dogs sitting, but instead she dropped the bat after a couple of steps and took off sprinting around a corner, which meant I was no longer between her and the pit bulls. The pit bulls rocketed diagonally across the corner property to attack her again. I roared “Sit!” again, having nothing else I could do. The pit bulls skidded abruptly to a halt and sat just long enough to enable the jogger to escape. Merritt & Beth Clifton I called animal control at that point. Both dogs were impounded and the owner was fined. Obviously the “Sit!” command won’t always save the day, but it did that time. Comments This is an excellent article with all the questions I’ve seen about pit bull defense answered in one post. I just got a recumbent trike, and plan to buy and carry a fire extinguisher on it at all times. Good work Merritt. After sharing my story with people that will listen, I am always asked what they could do to stop an attack like the one on my son. I will direct them to this blog post in the future. So much of the information in this blog post could have saved my son’s life, short of just avoiding fighting breeds all together. Good information. I have found one of the most useful tools is an extendable baton. They are useful to deter an attack, as a bite stick , or as a bludgeoning device. Unfortunately, often only animal control and police personnel are allowed to carry them (depending on state or local laws). I like the idea of carrying a large strong umbrella. Will test it out against the neighbor’s three aggressive pit bulls. I also purchased a horn which makes a very loud noise. I am also thinking of carrying a wasp spray that can shoot a foam spray up to 20 feet. Hoping the smell and visual effect deters attacks. Good article, don’t agree on the Bearmace however. Living in Texas where pit bulls roam free, I always carry it. It has worked for me on four separate occasions with pit bulls. The cans are huge, also make a loud Pop and hissing noise, and the contents spray out 35 feet so you can get them before they actually attack. I will say though, that I have never used it on pit bulls that are already attacking so I can’t say it would work in that situation. I don’t let them get that close to me.. I spray them as soon as they start to approach and are within 20-30 feet . Not a great article IMO. I have to wonder if Clifton’s vegan animal rights agenda isn’t biasing him against using lethal force against the poor pitties. The best solution is the 100% solution: kill the dog at the time of the attack so it doesn’t live to attack again. As I pointed out, if the object is to avoid getting mauled, a firearm has about an 80% success rate against a charging pit bull; a fire extinguisher has about a 70% success rate. No attempted use of lethal force other than a firearm has a rate of success greater than the rate at which it contributes to the severity of the mauling. I read somewhere that one sure way to stop a pitbull attack is to choke the animal with a leash, or maybe the sleeve of a shirt. Cut off its air until it faints. Seems like a good plan to me. When walking my dog I’ve always got the leash handy. When walking alone I make sure I have something with me that could be used as a choke device. Hope I never have to attempt it. Of course, if you are the injured victim this method could prove impossible. The inherent risks in trying to choke an attacking dog are that it necessarily involves very close contact, and requires that the person trying to choke the dog be stronger, with better leverage. In addition, choking a dog with a leash, shirt sleeve, etc. runs the further risk of clamping the muzzle closed, when the goal is to get the dog to release the grip. While choking an attacking dog can succeed under certain circumstances, for example if one is not the primary object of the attack and is trying to rescue someone else, a method such as using a fire extinguisher or bite stick that keeps the dog at arm’s length or farther away is much safer. Experts confirm that Pit Bulls were specifically bred with suppressed body language signals as to their rising levels of aggression in order to give them the “first move” advantage in the fighting ring. This is why there are so many reports of “surprise attacks”. So, if you have an unfamiliar pit bull approaching you, your child, or anyone, you can not afford to wait to see what happens as they approach, just because you don’t hear them growl, or don’t see them bear their teeth. You should become prepared early to take action – getting a physical object between the pit bull and it’s intended target, such as getting behind a closed door, behind a trash can, etc. While the use of a firearm may not be desirable, you should be prepared to take that action before they lunge and bite/hold, as the damage will be severe. I’ve looked at the success rate of fire extinguishers several times over the years, always finding about the same result. For example, fire extinguishers were used successfully to break off attacks in seven of nine recent instances of use that I found in a quick file search. A similar quick search in May 2013 found fire extinguishers had been used successfully in five cases out of seven. The more significant statistic pertaining to fire extinguishers, though, is that in May 2013 I found that 172 of 246 fatal and/or disfiguring dog attacks (70%) during the preceding five months had occurred in places where there should have been a fire extinguisher somewhere nearby — and only in those seven cases did somebody use a fire extinguisher. Meanwhile, pepper spray was used 21 times and failed to stop the attack 13 times. Because relying on “how to read dog behavior” tips is precisely why we have the present epidemic of fatal and disfiguring dog attacks, particularly by pit bulls and other bully breeds. Pit bulls, for instance, notoriously wag their tails with enthusiastic joy while dismembering a hapless victim whose first “warning” of the presence of the pit bull came when the pit leaped a fence, ran through a doggie door at a stranger’s house, jumped out of a parked car to attack a passer-by on the sidewalk, or in some cases even leaped off a second-floor balcony to attack. Pit bulls have been bred for centuries to go directly from repose to all-out lethal response, without giving warning signals, in response to sounds or scents that a human may not even recognize. This is because the pit bull who hesitates at the scratch line while giving warning signals is soon a dead pit bull, who does not pass along his genes. No amount of “how to read dog behavior” advice can overcome the consequences of normal dog behavior having long been systematically bred out of pit bull lineage. Wheel barrow, wheel barrow, wheel barrow. EVERYONE should be taught this method to break up a dog fight. Has worked every time for me. Mostly on German shepherds. Have never needed to try it on a dog attacking me, but I can see how it could be successful. Please Google if you don’t know. In brief, you grab the dog’s rear legs and hold them up. It confuses and changes their balance/orientation. More complicated with more dogs obviously but it’s something you can do while just carrying a leash wherever you are. The “wheelbarrow” technique works if you are not the person or animal under attack; if you are, you are at the wrong end of the dog to use it. Using the “wheelbarrow” technique also requires being strong enough to lift the dog, and being in close enough proximity to the dog that the dog can whip around and bite, though most don’t immediately redirect from the initial subject of their attack. Further, using the “wheelbarrow” technique with a dog who uses a grip-and-hold attack method, meaning any pit bull, Rottweiler, or other “bully” breed, can mean that the person lifting and pulling is actually helping the attacking dog to tear the victim’s flesh from bones. As I said, I’ve never used it while under attack. What I do know is that in the under 10 times I have used it while said dog is attacking another dog, the attacker has never swung round to bite me, which was once the case with tail pulling. And in a pack situation, which was when I first began searching for a solution and remember asking for your ideas, you are just doomed if you’re solo. Unless, as you wrote at the time, you might manage to put a bicycle or something else between yourself and the attacking dog or the attacking dog and the victim to help the dog/person. I saw a video online in which a pit bull was attacking a cat on a public street. Someone lifted the pit by its hind legs, trying to pull it off the cat…but the dog just continued mauling from its new vertical position. I won’t link such a hideous thing here, but you can find it online if you look. Please tell me what type of fire extinguisher…..I mean the grade, or perhaps even the cost, would determine if it will spray long enough? Are there any lighter or more compact ones that have enough spray or power? It needs to be something I can handle; I am older and and not that strong anymore. . I have seen how quickly pits can rush you. I’ve been around dogs all my life and not the fittest and strongest dogs I’ve know can or will rush like that. One rushed my fence, hitting it, after i got a young woman and her two dogs inside my fence to protect them from the pit. It was jaw-dropping how quickly they will rush you. The thing backed up and came on like a rocket. We think of doing this or that to protect ourselves, but in the real situation i was just stunned. Any fire extinguisher recommended for keeping in a car, a workshop, or beside a stove or fireplace will do as well as any other, but all such fire extinguishers will of necessity be larger and heavier than purse-sized spray devices meant for use against a human attacker. Reality is that a charging pit bull is much harder to stop than a human assailant, moving much faster, with a much smaller potential target area if you try to use a weapon that requires accuracy to deploy. The biggest advantage of a fire extinguisher is that it puts out a lot of foam very quickly, and you don’t have to be very accurate to use it effectively. But a fire extinguisher is not meant to be something you carry everywhere you go, just something you should have handy at home, in your car, and most other places where most people spend a lot of time. Thank you VERY much for these tips. It’s a REAL shame that this has to be written as attacks are happening in record numbers with no end in sight. This should be a MANDATORY Poster and hand out at EVERY Shelter, Rescue Organization, Veterinarian Offices and anywhere else dogs are accepted/housed or up for adoption including ALL Dog Events including Dog Shows etc. Thank you. I was mauled and mangled, and it happened SO fast, there wouldn’t even be time to grab a fire extinguisher. One second a dog wagging tail, and before I could say “nice puppy” it was on me. I did push away, and attempted to crab crawl backwards to get under the truck. TG it apparently was tied, and redirected towards my bf, who broke a pipe wrench over its head and it never slowed it down. I thought I was eviscerated, and it was dark, but I felt the blood pouring out of me, and we drove to the hospital. It hurt more than giving birth to my ten pound son with a broken hip. The 60 pound dog was strong enough to lift me by my side and shake me like a rag doll. Apparently the owners laughed. I just recently thought about the knife solution and asked the question on Amazon. Someone wrote back to just go for the mace, not knife. I carry a brand of mace called Kimber, which shoots out at 15′ and is compressed like a bullet. We also keep it at our horse and carriage stop. I wondered if the bear spray would be better, but now I think I’ll go get a fire extinguisher and just leave it under our cart. Thank you for your diligence. Frank Avila is identified at the web link he gave as the developer of this gadget, which appears to be basically an electronic cattle prod formatted as a blunt instrument which might also be used as a bludgeon or bite stick. As we gather from the web site that this gadget is not even in production yet, obviously we have had no experience with it. Gadgets in general are useless as mammary glands on a male monkey, since one has to have the gadget at hand when an emergency occurs. Most people who are attacked by dogs have no expectation that any such thing is about to happen, so are not going to be carrying weapons just in case. Successful response to a dog attack, meanwhile, as to any criminal assault, usually requires making the most effective possible use of whatever is already nearby. Fire extinguishers are, or should be, already nearby in most of the places where dog attacks occur, while almost any object can be used as a bite stick to keep a dog’s teeth busy instead of one’s flesh and bones. Walking in the woods, I usually carry a backpack, which in event of a dog attack I would use as a shield over my left arm to be put between me and the attacking dog. With my right arm I would take a baton or possibly a small knife to attack the dog on the side, while he’s biting my backpack, in order to discourage further attacks, because in the woods it is unlikely for me to carry a fire extinguisher; it’s just too heavy. I mean, are knives are really so bad to have negative efficacy? Is what you are saying that no-knife is more effective than a knife? A backpack makes an excellent shield against an attacking dog, especially a pit bull or Rottweiler, whose attack modus operandi is to bite, hold on, and shake. If the dog bites into the backpack, the backpack becomes thereby an improvised bite stick. But in order for the shield/bite stick to continue to be effective, you have to maintain control of it, to keep it between yourself and the dog. A 50-pound dog is going to be able to shake the backpack hard enough that a 150-pound person will have all he/she can do not to lose his/her grip and become vulnerable again. Letting go of the backpack with one hand (especially the stronger hand) greatly increases the likelihood of that happening, and then stepping out from behind the backpack to get close enough to stab the dog effectively from the side is really just stepping into harm’s way, putting your wrist––one of the most vulnerable parts of your body––within just a quick redirecting head-snap of the dog’s jaws. This sort of thing is precisely why trying to use a knife in such a situation is worse that not having the knife. Using a knife against a dog is at best like trying to use one big tooth against two jaws full of big teeth; requires exposing hand, wrist, and forearm to a bite; lowers your face into closer proximity to the dog’s jaws; and your chances of stabbing effectively between the dog’s ribs on your first try are relatively slight, while the chances are rather high that the dog will redirect when poked with your weapon. Almost always, when you hear about someone using a knife successfully against an attacking dog, the scenario involves striking from behind, while the dog is fixated on attacking another person or animal. Weapons, even firearms in the hands of experts, are more a placebo than an answer to the problem of bully-breed mayhem. Carrying weapons tends to give people a false sense of security. Reality is that even firearms in the hands of experts stop a charging dog with the first shot only about 80% of the time — which means that the only real answer to stopping bully-breed mayhem is effective political action that stops breeding more & more bully-breeds, stops campaigns to popularize them, and ensures that those bully-breeds who remain in homes stay there, instead of running amok in streets, parks, other public places, and other people’s homes and yards.

My artwork on your phone and in your home! Nov 27, 2015 I'm delighted to announce that I'm now partnering with Art Rookie to bring some of my bright bold colourful paintings to your home (and life) in the form of unique home accessories and phone covers. If you haven't heard of Art Rookie, they are a fantastic company founded by two art school graduates whose aim is to support artists and designers living and working in Britain with using their designs for a variety of wonderful products. They help us designers create something that you can't find on the high street. For today only (for obvious reasons), Art Rookie is doing a 15% off promotion across their entire range with code BLACK15AR I am Vera Blagev, a Surrey based, nature inspired abstract artist creating colourful modern artwork. I create colourful mixed media artwork that is beautiful and joyful - artwork that is easy to love and live with! To contact me, you can reach me at [email protected] or at +44 (0) 7463 413 441.

Starting in May, 2019 I will be returning to Drumheller, AB for my fourth season as Crowd Director of The Badlands Passion Play. I love working with this team on such a massive scale…and this will be our second year adapting the script into a full musical including a live band onstage. It is an exciting time, and I can’t wait to get out there again. CLICK HERE for more information. Through my company, Open Pit Theatre and with support from the Yukon Art Centre, I will be working with an ensemble of creators to develop a new piece based around gender in the north. In August, we will be meeting for the first time to begin the devising and collaborative creation process. A great opportunity to work with some incredible LGBTQ+ artists from the north and beyond. CLICK HERE to visit our company website for more info. Opening April 4th at The Guild Theatre in Whitehorse, YT I will be directing and choreographing The Drowsy Chaperone alongside my husband and music director Brooke Maxwell (composer of Ride the Cyclone). The last show I worked on at The Guild was Chicago many years ago, and I couldn’t be more excited to work with such a great company once again. Plus, the original creators of The Drowsy Chaperone Bob Martin and Lisa Lambert are coming to Whitehorse direct from The Banff Centre for the Arts to do a workshop with the cast! Lucky us! Under the director of Barbara Tomasic, I will be choreographing the classic Fosse musical Sweet Charity at The Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, BC. CLICK HERE to read a spotlight article that generously written by Michael D. Reid in regards to the style of movement required for this unique show.

The Best Laundromat Brokerage In California: Open Your New Business in 2019 Are you looking for a great business opportunity in 2019? Golden State Laundry Systems are the #1 laundromat experts in California. Through our brokerage service, we can help you secure the perfect location for your new coin laundry business. Best Laundromat Brokerage Service When it comes to brokerage, trust is vital. Golden State Laundry Systems, in association with Edge Realty, are experts in laundromat brokerage. We have over 60 years of commercial laundry industry experience. Why not partner with California’s #1 commercial laundry distributor from day 1? When you avail of our brokerage service to buy your laundromat, you’ll gain a partner who can help you with every aspect of your business for years to come. Already a laundromat owner — why not open a second store in 2019? Golden State Laundry Systems has tools to help owners expand to a second location and beyond. With LaundryPulse and LaundryPay, running multiple stores couldn’t be easier. And with our construction services, we have the expertise to handle any laundromat building project — whether you want to retool an old store or embark on a ground-up construction project. Contact Golden State Laundry Systems! If you want to learn more about our expert laundromat solutions, get in touch with Golden State Laundry Systems. Our experts can answer all your questions and help you every step of the way.