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April Fools: Nick Fish spearheads acquisition of new furniture
Street Roots
by Street Roots | 15 Apr 2009
From the April 1 edition of Street Roots. (The April Fools edition was one of the most popular Street Roots ever published. We sold out of the newspaper in a week and ordered more. It's on the streets for two more days - get your copy while it's hot!)
Portland City Council officials were forced to postpone several pressing agenda items this week after their habitual praising of their own accomplishments ran even longer than usual.
When their April 1 meeting convened, council members unveiled their new set of swivel chairs, which they will sit in to deliberate city policy and hear testimony from the public. Commissioner Nick Fish spearheaded the acquisition of new furniture after a wheel broke loose from his previous chair, leaving it with a lean and prompting concern about the safety of all the council seats.
The commissioners often take time to acknowledge the work of their colleagues when a policy passes or a project kicks off, but they seemed especially pleased about this project.
"This morning has literally been hours - or even days - in the making," Fish said as he sank into his plush new seat. "But I think I can speak for the rest of council when I say that it's been a real labor of love. Before we continue, I want to make sure we recognize the people who spent significant amounts of time and energy making this happen.
"First," Fish went on, "I want to recognize Roger Stillman of the Office Depot furniture department, without whom this really would not have been possible. It has truly been an honor to work with Roger, who was kind enough to walk me through the office chair aisle and offer his opinions and support.
"I'd also like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, chief of maintenance Edgar Delgado, who had to unpackage the chairs and screw all of the pieces together. And boy, you practically need a whole new committee to read those instructions," Fish added with a chuckle. (The Furniture Assembly and Regulation Team appointed by former Mayor Tom Potter was cut in 2007 for lack of funding.)
Fish then presented Stillman and Delgado, who were in the audience, with the city's first-ever "Spirit of Furniture" awards.
"I'd like to pause for a moment," declared Commissioner Randy Leonard, swiveling his chair toward Fish and steepling his fingers under his chin, "to recognize what a great orator Commissioner Fish has become. It has truly been a pleasure to watch."
Leonard then launched into a lengthy meditation on the history of distinguished rhetoric. "Not since Frank Lloyd Wright, however, has a speech about furniture stirred me so profoundly," he concluded.
The packed council chamber erupted in applause. As the cheers died down, Commissioner Amanda Fritz reached down to adjust her own new chair's pneumatic column to a more fitting height.
"Nick, I commend your initiative in bringing the issue of unstable furniture to our attention," Fritz said. "I also note that the up-and-down mechanism on these new chairs glides smoothly and without inordinate noise, meaning the business of council will not be interrupted if we need to adjust our posture. You really have done your due diligence on this one."
Commissioner Dan Saltzman, known as the council's stalwart realist, surprised his fellow council members by speaking out against the new chairs.
"While I certainly recognize the importance of council furniture in general, and seating in particular, I find that I cannot in good conscience support these chairs," Saltzman said. "Having taken into account the chairs' sensible price, comfortable back support and - I'll admit - superior rolliness, I still find that the embroidery pattern on these seats is too ugly to make them a wise choice for the city at this time."
Fish assured Fritz that although they disagreed on the issue of chair style, he was sincerely grateful for her dissenting opinion and her commitment to high standards of interior design.
"The input of all my colleagues in this process has been invaluable to me," Fish said, boosting his chair to its full height for greater effect. "I'm enormously proud of all the work we have done, the changes we have made, and the fact that we all showed up to work today to test these things out. In fact, I'm reminded of the words of Barack Obama, whom I always find inspiring."
Fish began to quote the president but was interrupted by the council clerk, who announced that the council session had run out of time. The remaining agenda items, including an emergency ordinance regulating sewage overflow, were deferred to the next week's meeting.
Mayor Sam Adams was not available for comment.
By rusty bearings
Unemployed Writer
April Fools, Dan Saltzman, Nick Fish, Randy Leonard, Sam Adams
Public argues against extending Sit-Lie
City Council extends Sit-Lie until October
Sit-lie update and seven year history
Breaking: Developer pushes for change at Right 2 Dream Too
Right 2 Dream Too files suit against city


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Le Club 700 () est un talk show chrétien évangélique américain basé à Virginia Beach, présenté par Wendy Griffith et Pat Robertson, dans sa version anglophone.

Histoire
Le Club 700 est fondée en 1966 par Pat Robertson sur le Christian Broadcasting Network. L'émission accueille des invités, présente des témoignages et de la musique chrétienne contemporaine.

En 2002, la version francophone présentée par le pasteur Raymond Koffi et co-animée par Macy Domingo est fondée. En 2016, l'émission est diffusée en 39 langues dans 138 pays.

Positionnement politique

Notes et références

Liens externes

 Le Club 700 francophone

Émission de télévision produite aux États-Unis
Christianisme évangélique à la télévision

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The uses of bulk SMS for communication by web designers cannot be overemphasized. These uses range from using it for adverts, doing follow-up on clients, getting feedbacks from clients among others. In a nutshell, what SMS does is provide a readily available communication tool that achieves the purpose its intended for. Little wonder it has gained so much popularity today as a marketing tool.
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The client deserves an explanation if his/her desired website will not be ready as at when due, and that explanation has to be made sooner than later. Because it might be difficult or majorly impossible to always see such ones face to face, a well tailored SMS might suffice. In this SMS too will apology for such delay be tender.
So, as you can see, the uses of bulk SMS service for web designers are endless. Register a bulk SMS account for you business if you've not done so already, and watch it take care of the seemingly difficult tasks.
Your contributions to this are welcomed.


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Jamie Lynn Spears Will Open Up About Her Journey from Zoey 101 to Motherhood and Music in New Special: 'I'm Not Just a Teen Mom'
Jamie Lynn Spears' TLC special When the Lights Go Out premieres on Sunday, June 26
By Lindsay Kimble
In 2008, Jamie Lynn Spears was the star of a hit Nickelodeon television show, following in her sister Britney Spears' footsteps when life threw her a curveball.
After getting pregnant with daughter Maddie at age 16, Spears retreated from Zoey 101 and the spotlight. Now, eight years later – and with success in the world of country music – Spears is headed back to television with a new TLC special called Jamie Lynn Spears: When the Lights Go Out.
The one-hour show, airing on June 26, will give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at Spears' life.
"The child star who got pregnant – I mean a lot of horrible nasty things were said," Spears says in an exclusive sneak peek of the special. "I look back now, and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh.' "
Don't miss a beat of country music news, photos and videos! Click here to get all this and more in the PEOPLE Country Newsletter.
Recently married to Jamie Watson, Spears juggles parenting now-7-year-old Maddie and creating new music. In addition to performing her own tunes, Spears has even penned hits for other stars, including Jana Kramer's "I Got the Boy."
The special will also document Spears' performance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville this past March, where her big sister and brother Bryan popped in to surprise her.
"I wanna do something that I'm gonna be proud of," Spears says. "I'm not just a child star. I'm not just someone's sister. And I'm not just a teen mom."
Jamie Lynn Spears: When the Lights Go Out premieres Sunday, June 26 at 10/9c on TLC.
By Lindsay Kimble @lekimble

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The following day, Smurfette and Jokey were arriving from the forest carrying a bunch of purple flowers that they have picked together.
"Oh, how I love picking flowers out in the forest, and these will make such beautiful Spring Day bouquets," Smurfette asked.
"Would you like me to box them for you as well?" Jokey asked.
Smurfette giggled. "No thanks, Jokey."
"Just thought I would ask, Smurfette," Jokey said. "So what are you hoping to smurf with Empath during the pageant?"
"What do you mean by that, Jokey?" Smurfette asked.
"Well, it's no big secret that the two of you have been seen smurfing time together over the past year since he smurfed home for good," Jokey said.
"Really, Jokey, that's not any of your business what Empath and I smurf together," Smurfette said.
"Me and Sneaky are betting that by the end of the year, you and Empath are going to be married," Jokey said. "What do you have to smurf about that?"
"I think this is one bet you're both going to lose, Jokey," Smurfette said.
"Well, don't say that we didn't smurf you if that ever happens," Jokey said.
Just then, they heard Farmer crying "WHEEEEEEE" as he was riding straight towards them on the back of Puppy, sowing his seeds here and there. Jokey and Smurfette barely ducked out of the way as Farmer rode right past them and dumped seeds on them.
"Hey, that's not very funny," Jokey shouted.
"Well, this is one thing I'm going to tell Papa Smurf about," Smurfette fumed.
Meanwhile, Harmony is making the musicians play his music so loud and so fast that they can barely keep up. Grouchy felt exhausted trying to keep blowing his tuba to the fast pace. "I hate really fast music," he muttered.
"Gosh, Harmony, I can hardly follow the notes anymore," Clumsy said as he tried to keep up with his playing the xylophone.
"Forget about the notes!" Harmony said, tossing the music sheets aside. "Just keep playing louder and faster!"
Elsewhere, Tapper was just approaching Painter as he was working like mad, splashing all sorts of colors everywhere on the canvas. "So what do you think, Tapper?" Painter asked. "It's all coming together, no?"
"Great Smurfiny Crickets, my dear Painter, I could say that it's all running together," Tapper exclaimed, seeing the mess of colors on the canvas.
"I'm experimenting with a new smurf of art," Painter explained. He gasped as he saw something on the canvas. "Ah, I've missed a spot! Stand back, mon ami!" He picked up a bucket of purple paint and hurled its contents right onto the canvas, splattering Tapper's face in the process. "Now that is perfection!"
Tapper walked away looking really concerned. "This is getting a wee bit out of hand! I need to go tell Papa Smurf about this!"
Empath was already with Papa Smurf, telling him what he discovered about the magic orb Poet had possessed. "Are you certain that it's the Orb Of Euphoria?" Papa Smurf asked.
"It is the very same object from the book, Papa Smurf," Empath answered. "We need to destroy it so that the other Smurfs can't touch it."
"Very well then, Empath," Papa Smurf said. "Fortunately I still have the orb smurfed away in my laboratory."
But when Empath and Papa Smurf entered the laboratory and opened the case, they found out that it was empty. "Great Smurfness!" Papa Smurf exclaimed.
"This smurf senses that this case was empty all along, Papa Smurf," Empath said. "Whoever took the case with the orb must have swapped it for this."
"I know who was responsible, Empath," Papa Smurf said, sounding a bit angry. "It's time that we smurfed this problem in the bud once and for all."
"Papa Smurf! Empath!" a few voices were shouting. The two of them saw Tapper, Jokey, and Smurfette approaching them.
"Farmer's been smurfing really crazy out in the fields, Papa Smurf," Smurfette asked. "He almost ran me and Jokey over while riding on Puppy smurfing his seeds around."
"You think that's bad enough, the other Smurfs are all complaining about the noise level from Harmony Smurf," Jokey added.
"And Painter's been smurfing around buckets of paint while he was smurfing on his painting, Papa Smurf," Tapper related.
"This sounds worse than what's been going on yesterday with those Smurfs, Papa Smurf," Empath said. "It makes this smurf wonder about Handy's work of building the pageant stage."
Meanwhile, Hefty was watching Handy work like crazy on the pageant stage that looked like it was built haphazardly.
"It looks real nice, Handy, but if you nail down the curtains, how are we supposed to open and close them?" Hefty commented as he jumped onto the stage to inspect the work.
"I'll figure that out later, Hefty," Handy shouted. "Just leave me alone, okay?"
"There's no need to get mad, Handy," Hefty said. "I was just going to..."
Suddenly the floor of the stage collapsed under Hefty, sending him falling through the floor.
"Oh, no! Look what you've done!" Handy shouted as he climbed down the ladder and saw the hole in the floor of the stage.
"What I've done? You didn't built a stage strong enough!" Hefty shouted back.
"Oh dear...more work!" Handy shouted, sounding rather flustered.
"Hey, where are you going?" Hefty asked as he watched his brother leave the work area.
"Don't worry, Hefty, I'll be back to fix everything," Handy shouted.
Hefty decided that he was going to follow Handy to get to the bottom of this. As he followed his brother, he saw that he and Farmer had gathered around Poet's house. They both had really bloodshot eyes and looked like they were going to collapse. "Boy oh smurf, do I really need some more of that energy," Handy said to Farmer.
"Sweet mother of smurf, I could smurf more of it myself," Farmer replied.
The door opened, and Poet greeted the both of them, also with bloodshot eyes. "Come in," he whispered.
"Just as I have thought," Hefty said as he watched the two Smurfs enter Poet's house.
Poet removed the tablecloth that he had hidden the Orb Of Inspiration under. "It's getting so that I can't smurf two lines without needing more of it," Poet explained as he opened the case.
"My smurfness, its glow is weakening," Handy noticed.
"Is it running out of energy?" Farmer asked.
"What shall we do if that happens?" Poet asked.
"Why don't we find out!" another voice broke in. The three Smurfs watched as Hefty rushed into the house to grab the orb. "I think you Smurfs had enough of this thing!" He then hurled the orb into the fireplace, where it was destroyed.
"THE ORB OF INSPIRATION!" Harmony shouted as he and Painter just entered the house to witness its destruction.
"QU'AVEZ-VOUS FAIT?" Painter exclaimed, as he and the other three Smurfs ganged up on Hefty, ready to let him have it.
"You Smurfs better watch it!" Hefty responded, already swinging his fists. "This is Hefty Smurf you're dealing with!"
Just then, Papa Smurf entered the house with Empath and Tapper, carrying the empty case Papa Smurf had found. "My little Smurfs, what's going on here?" he demanded.
"They had the orb, Papa Smurf," Hefty said, pointing toward the other four Smurfs in the house.
"I thought as much, given what Tapper, Jokey, and Smurfette had smurfed me about what they've seen," Papa Smurf said.
"He destroyed it by smurfing it into the fireplace!" Poet said, pointing toward Hefty.
"It's for the best that he destroyed the orb, my fellow Smurfs," Empath said. "This Orb Of Inspiration is actually called the Orb Of Euphoria, and its power had you lying and stealing and doing very unsmurfy things."
"But we need its magic, Papa Smurf!" Handy shouted.
"Aw, fiddlesmurfs, Handy," Hefty said. "It's all in your heads."
Poet and the other four Smurfs objected to Hefty's comment until Papa Smurf silenced them.
"Now, now, my little Smurfs, I agree with Hefty, and in time I'm sure that you will agree with him as well," he said. "We still have a lot to do for the pageant, so I suggest that we all smurf back to work."
Papa Smurf then left the house with Hefty, leaving Empath and Tapper to deal with the other five Smurfs who felt as if their life line has been cut.
"With the way that I'm feeling, I'm not sure that I have the smurf to do anything," Harmony said.
"This smurf senses that you need a break from your work," Empath said. "You five have been relieved from your duties. This smurf will assign others to take care of the tasks that need completion. Under no circumstances are any of you to leave the area of the village in order to seek another orb. Is that acknowledged?"
"Yes, Empath," the five Smurfs said in unison.
"I do feel sorry for how they must be feeling right now, Empath," Tapper said as he and Empath left the house. "This magic power must be so entrancing that they would smurf anything just to have more of it."
"Hefty did the right thing in disposing of the orb, Tapper," Empath said. "This smurf senses that they will have withdrawal symptoms, but those will pass in time."
"But can we just leave them like this?" Tapper asked.
"This smurf can't force them to do what they don't want to do, Tapper," Empath said. "We will watch out for them, but they need to have the willpower to break free of its control themselves."
"All the same, I feel the need to pray for their well-smurfing, Empath," Tapper said.
"If that will help them, Tapper, then you have this smurf's permission to do so," Empath said. "Right now, this smurf needs to find other Smurfs who will replace those who were affected by this orb."
"Aye, Empath," Tapper said, nodding with understanding.
However, as the other Smurfs took over the jobs, Poet and the four other Smurfs felt that they need more of the orb's magic, and so, against Empath's orders, they went out into the forest to seek Allura. They traveled near the area of the brook, which was where Poet first found her.
"Allura! Allura!" Poet called out.
"Uh, I don't know about this," Farmer said, dragging his feet as he followed behind the group. "Maybe we should have listened to Empath and Papa Smurf. The truth is, I haven't been feeling so smurfy ever since I started smurfing the Orb Of Inspiration. Why don't we return to the village where we can..."
"Why, my little Poet," a friendly female voice greeted. "I see that you've brought along your friends."
Poet saw that it was Allura. "Yes, I did, Allura. Well, you see...the Orb Of Inspiration that you smurfed me...it got broken."
"Awwww, that's too bad," Allura said consolingly. "Well, eventually it would have run of magic anyway."
"I was just wondering...uh...could we please have another one?" Poet asked.
"Why, of course," Allura answered. "I have one right in my home. You're more than welcome to use it. Just come and follow me."
Poet and the other four Smurfs started to follow her. But then Farmer stopped in his tracks. "Come, M'sieu Farmer, what are you waiting for?" Painter said as he noticed Farmer lagging behind.
Farmer found himself fighting with his conscience. "Oh, very well, I do be a-coming," he said as he raced to catch up with the others.
Allura led the five Smurfs up a trail to a snowy mountainous region of the Smurf Forest which looked rather foreboding. Farmer felt increasingly nervous as they got closer and closer to wherever this Allura lived.
Soon they have reached a rocky snow-covered fortress. "There it is," Allura announced. "The orb is waiting right inside the entrance."
"Better watch your step," Handy warned as they started to cross the narrow bridge that led to the entrance of the fortress.
"Oh dear," Farmer said, looking fearfully at the long drop on either side of the bridge.
"Come, my little friend," Allura encouraged. "There's no need to be frightened."
"Uh...maybe some other time," Farmer said. "I've got to get smurfing back to my fields."
Allura watched as that Smurf ran back down the trail into the forest. Her voice nearly cracked before it resumed its gentle harmless tone. "Well...it appears that there will be more of the magic for you to share," she told the other four Smurfs. And then, when they finished crossing the bridge, she announced, "There it is, just like I promised."
All four Smurfs looked at the orb that was sitting on a pedestal on top of a raised platform. "Wow...look at the size of that thing!" Handy exclaimed.
"At long last!" Poet said as the four of them entered the fortress and went over to the orb to touch it. Allura smiled wickedly as she watched them feel the energy flowing through them.
"Ah, tres bien, I feel so much better," Painter said.
"Thanks, Allura, we really need that," Handy said.
"Now I feel that I can smurf back and finish up my poem," Poet said.
"Anytime you need its magic, you know where to find it," Allura told the group.
"Let's smurf back to the village and smurf our tasks again," Harmony said.
"We'll be seeing you, Allura," Poet said as the four Smurfs headed out the door.
"You most certainly will," Allura muttered in her actual evil voice.
As the four Smurfs crossed the bridge, Harmony said, "Now I'm feeling a whole lot better..." And then suddenly his walking slowed. "...well, maybe not a whole lot better..." And then his walking stopped. "...well, maybe not much better at all."
The other three stopped walking as well. "Come to smurf of it, I could use a bit more of the magic orb." Poet said.
"Quelle misère! So do I!" Painter said.
"What's happening to us?" Handy exclaimed.
They all ran back across the bridge into Allura's chamber. "Back so soon?" she asked.
"We had to, Allura," Poet explained. "The orb's magic just isn't lasting."
"That's the way it is with the orb, my little friends...you can't live with it, and you can't live without it!" Allura laughed as she transformed into her hideous hooded form before their eyes and one of her horrid-looking winged pets landed on her shoulder.
"We...we've got to get out of here!" Harmony said, sounding very frightened.
"But what about the orb?" Poet asked.
"I told you that you can use it whenever you want...except that from now on there will be a catch," Allura said. "As long as you're here, you're going to be working as my servants." With a wave of her hands, she caused mops, scrub brushes, and buckets of water to appear before them. "And you can start by scrubbing the floor of this chamber."
"And what if we refuse to smurf that?" Handy asked.
"Then no more orb!" Allura answered.
Poet gulped. "I was afraid she was going to say that."
"With all the work that I have planned for you, you're going to need as much of its power as you can handle," Allura said, laughing as she now cast chains on their legs to keep them from ever escaping.


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What do Amazon, Microsoft, Finnair, Teck Frontier, Llyods Bank, Equinor and Singapore have in common? Buried in the news so far in 2020, there's been a deluge of good climate change developments around the world, signifying a clear uptick in momentum in the fight against global heating. In Episode 32, The Angry Clean Energy Guy, less angry for once, goes through these positive developments and continues to build on the case for climate optimism made in Episode 27.
What do Amazon, Microsoft, Finnair, Teck Frontier, Llyods Bank, Equinor and Singapore have in common? Buried in the news so far in 2020, there's been a deluge of good climate change developments around the world, signifying a clear uptick in momentum in the fight against global heating. In Episode 32, The Angry Clean Energy Guy, less angry for once, goes through these positive developments and continues to build on the case for climate optimism made in Episode 27.
It's bleak out there, isn't it?
The Coronavirus seems to be weighing on everything and everybody, to the extent that most people are hard pressed to think about much else, based on what I've seen. The hospitality industry is suffering, restaurants are suffering in multiple countries, the job losses might be ticking up, airlines are suffering and so are their people.
So, it seemed to me a good moment to talk instead about the fact that I was stunned over the past few months with the momentum building on climate change. So, here's a "good news" podcast coming up, no small thanks to Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – they've all been incredibly effective pressure points on climate and so have several of the U. S. Democratic candidates for president.
What I'd like to do today is take you through that momentum. I very much hope it will cheer you up, even if it's just a little bit. Welcome to Episode 32 of The Angry Clean Energy Guy with me, Assaad Razzouk.
DELUGE OF GOOD NEWS ON CLIMATE
A relative deluge of good news on climate started earlier this year with a letter from the chairman and CEO of BlackRock.
He said climate change has become a defining factor in companies' long term prospects. He also said that it's a risk that markets to date have been slower to reflect and added, "I believe we're on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance" and that was, as some of you may know, music to my ears because I have and others have been saying this for many years.
But it's something else entirely when these are the words of Larry Fink of Black Rock because he's no less than the largest investor in the world, with $7 trillion under his organization's passive and active control.
So, what happened since? A deluge of good climate change news is what happened.
But let me begin by saying that everything I will be taking you through can of course be criticized and should be criticized for being inadequate, for being insufficient, for being weak. That, however, does not make it "nontrivial," to use one of the favourite words of a close friend of mine, a turn of phrase that has perplexed me forever, but I love it. So, it does not make it nontrivial.
We need to take note, and we need to encourage all the people joining the fight against climate change to do more, and they will do more over the next 2 to 3 years.
Larry Fink, by the way, is not alone. Just this week, the UK's investment industry trade body warned companies ahead of their 2020 annual general meetings that they must disclose more about how they're handling climate change risk. And it gave them a three-year deadline to explain in their annual reports how they plan to measure and how they plan to manage the threat of climate change. That's also hugely encouraging because if there is one thing we do know is that the capital markets, should they price climate risk correctly, would change the world.
DELUGE OF GOOD NEWS ON CLIMATE: GOVERNMENTS
So just since January, Japan has gone anti-coal, pretty much.
Japan has been really recklessly supporting overseas coal projects in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia in a completely inexplicable way other than to sell kit and bad kit at that, because it was selling worst coal plants overseas than what it allows to be built in Japan.
Finally, the Japanese government announced that it is revisiting that reckless policy, which I would expect to change within the course of this year.
Not far from Japan, Singapore also tightened its targets and increased its climate change ambition. And that's hugely encouraging because Singapore has been a relative laggard on climate change. So, among other measures, Singapore is aiming to cut its 2030 peak greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2050, which isn't in and of itself that ambitious – actually, it's probably unambitious – however, it's big progress compared to where they're coming from.
They're also aiming to achieve net zero emissions as soon as viable "in the second half of the century", which is obviously too late. But these targets will tighten over time. And given that they had submitted a super-weak commitment to the United Nations, this represents progress. And I do expect them to do a lot more over the coming 2 to 3 years.
DELUGE OF GOOD NEWS ON CLIMATE: OIL, GAS, MINING, UTILITIES
Let's look at oil and gas and mining now for a minute. There's a new mining operation to extract oil from the tar sands in Alberta (so pretty much the absolute dirtiest thing you can do in terms of climate change of everything else that we do in terms of climate change), that's been cancelled.
And that's huge news because that mining operation alone was going to use up one-third of our remaining carbon budget. The company's called Tech Resources, and it withdrew its application for that mine, thankfully.
Then shortly thereafter, Equinor, the Norwegian oil giant, found a minimum of decency and common sense and withdrew its plan to destroy the Great Australian Bight. And that's big because the winners from not drilling that ecological treasure are people, oceans, the environment, tourism and fishing and the losers are no one.
Then Rio Tinto, one of the really bad guys in the mining area and one of the world's biggest producers of steelmaking ingredient iron ore, announced that it, too, is joining the bandwagon and will target by 2030 a 15% reduction in emissions from its 2018 baseline.
Now again, this is nowhere near enough, but coming from Rio Tinto, we should take it and then push them to do some more. Rio Tinto also pledged to cut its emissions to net zero by 2050 and spend $1 billion on climate related projects over the next five years. So not so bad and certainly enormously better than what they've been doing. They have a lot more to do, and we now just keep up the pressure on them.
If you then look at "big energy" – remember we're only the 6th of March and everything that I'm describing are developments that happened since early January – what you see is that Europe's five largest utilities by market capitalization have now all approved targets or committed to set science-based targets to cut their emissions. So that would be France's EDF, Italy's ENI, Spain's Iberdrola, France's ENGIE And Danish Power Company, Orsted. They've all approved science-based targets, while EDF and the UK Grid operator National Grid, have committed to set one.
And that's important because the kind of mystically named science-based targets are really a relatively simple concept.
For example, you look at the emissions that your value chain generates – so that's everybody that you, for example, buy kit from.
You then put a cap on these emissions and start decreasing them and you start decreasing them by, for example, investing in renewable energy assets around the world, powering your own assets with renewables, buying offsets if you have to, and other tools.
The advantage of setting these science-based targets is that there is an NGO that you then file your plan with that then monitors it and that, therefore, puts some pressure on you to behave.
DELUGE OF GOOD NEWS ON CLIMATE: BANKS
Now let's look at banks. In February, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is re-branding now as NatWest, announced its intention to end finance for all fossil fuel clients that aren't aligned with the Paris climate targets, which pretty much means all of them.
And if they follow through, then that's probably the most a bank has done in terms of contributing to the fight against climate change.
Also in February, Crédit Mutuel, which is the fifth largest French bank, announced a zero tolerance approach to coal and a total phase out of coal by 2030.
Lloyds Banking Group, one of the U. K's Big Four banks, released an updated energy policy that basically rules out financing for oil and gas operations in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Now that's definitely not good enough, but it's also definitely progress and even the biggest and baddest of the fossil banks. J. P. Morgan Chase, made some progress when it published new restrictions on lending and underwriting of coal and Arctic oil and gas.
So all these banks, you know, they start somewhere, then they do a bit more, then they do a bit more. And what many NGOs around the world and citizens are doing are just keeping up the pressure on them because they can do so much better and they know it.
DELUGE OF GOOD NEWS ON CLIMATE: CORPORATES
Then there is an explosion of positive activity from corporates.
Delta Airlines announced an ambitious plan to become the first U. S airline to go carbon neutral. They're also going to invest $1 billion over the next 10 years to mitigate all their emissions. Now, that's not that easy, because airlines really don't have an alternative to fossil fuels right this moment. But there are 100 businesses that are developing electric airlines around the world, and Delta can decrease its use of jet fuel and increase its efficiency. It could also invest in carbon removal programs in things like forestry or wetland restoration or grassland conservation or marine and soil capture. And God knows that we need them to.
Jet blue, another U. S airline, also announced that it was becoming carbon neutral on all its domestic flights this year.
And Finnair stepped up its efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and has started to cut its emissions by half by 2025 from their level last year. Finnair, being an airline, acknowledged that most of its current emission cuts have to be achieved through carbon offsets. But it also said that it's going to partner with Finish biofuels producer Neste to gradually increase its use of biofuels to €10 million annually by the end of 2025. And believe me, that's not a very easy thing to do.
Then Microsoft stepped up. Microsoft is already carbon neutral, but they announced a big plan not only to be carbon negative by 2030, so 10 years from now (that's carbon negative, so that's taking away more emissions than they are contributing), but also announced to reduce more carbon by 2050 then they have ever emitted in their history since 1975.
Plus, Microsoft said it was going to invest $1 billion over the next four years fighting climate change. Now that announcement can be very big because Big Data, machine learning and artificial intelligence and therefore the cloud as well, which is where Microsoft and people like Amazon make a lot of their revenues, are being harnessed by Big Oil, as I talked about extensively in Episode 28 of The Angry Clean Energy Guy in an unholy alliance to increase oil and gas production.
So if Microsoft is actually quite serious about going carbon negative, they're going to have to do something about how this cloud is being powered and what they're doing with the oil and gas industry.
Then Amazon came through.
Amazon said 50% of its shipments are going to be carbon neutral by 2030 and that's because it's investing in 100,000 electric trucks; It's investing in wind power; It's investing in solar power.
Another tech company called Intuit also announced that it was going to reduce carbon emissions 50 times more than its current carbon footprint by 2030.
And as all of you probably know, Jeff Bezos, who's the world's richest man and who runs Amazon, (that's the company, not the forest), pledged $10 billion to fight climate change. He wants to fund scientists, activists and NGOs and any effort to help preserve and protect the natural world. So, if you know how to get to him, give him a call. Go see him, help him spend that $10 billion.
And I kept the best for last. In electric vehicles, there are major changes on their way.
Volkswagen unveiled massive electric vehicles plans. They're going to spend €33 billion to produce 26 million electric cars in the next nine years, basically trying to leapfrog Tesla to become the world's largest electric carmaker. Now, obviously, we have to take what Volkswagen says with a grain of salt because of what it has shown it can do to cheat on emissions through its diesel scandal that cost it billions and billions of dollars. But they have a new management team in place, and I, for one, believe them because in any case, they don't have a choice. We all want to drive electric, and we want car companies to give us enough choice to do so.
I mean, how can we all drive electric if you can only buy two electric car models? It's not possible. Similarly, in the electric vehicle space, General Motors unveiled a $20 billion electric vehicle plan recently, and it's going to have all its brands, Chevy, Cadillac, GMC, Buick launching new electric cars and trucks. GM is also making a strong effort on batteries because it's got a new technology that is aiming to reduce cobalt content by 70% in its batteries and continue to drive battery cell costs down. I love the marketing spin GM put on it, which is to say that they want to "put everyone in an EV" and both General Motors and Volkswagen assure us that they can do all this profitably from the get go, which is music to my ears.
So, everything we've just been through has happened only since January. That's the BlackRock letter, the UK investment industry stepping up to put pressure on companies, Japan going anti-coal, Singapore starting to shape up, Tech Frontier cancelling its tar sands mine, Equinor in Australia stopping its reckless project to destroy the Great Australian Bight, Rio Tinto cutting emissions, the six largest utilities in Europe setting science-based targets, Royal Bank of Scotland, Crédit Mutuel even J.P. Morgan and Lloyd's doing better. Add Delta, JetBlue, Finnair, Microsoft, Amazon, Jeff Bezos, Volkswagen and General Motors – All of them unveiling what are relatively large efforts to begin to make a big difference at last.
We all know this is the decade for urgent action, and here's a guarantee from my own pocket: All these commitments will get stronger and stronger over the course of the next decade. Some of these plans will have huge real impact. Others will have less impact, but they will improve. So, the signs of momentum are everywhere.
Let me leave you with a concluding thought. Human nature is once again not helping. We like the sensational. We like immediacy. We like panics and we don't like to look at things relatively. And the Coronavirus is a case in point.
Contrast the wall to wall, pretty global, media coverage of the Coronavirus with the media coverage that climate change, a systemic, immediate, existential threat is receiving. A recent study just released says that major U. S. news networks devoted less than four hours, between all of them, in total, to climate change in 2019. I bet they're broadcasting more than four hours a day on the Coronavirus as I speak.
Thank you so much for listening to me, The Angry Clean Energy Guy. As always, if you like this podcast, please consider leaving a rating or a review – and have a great couple of weeks.


PKS is proving to be a success. It's not just us that feel that way! CRN just awarded their 2018 Innovator Awards – and PKS was a winner! Read here.
make the platform open – but also complete, with deep integration with NSX-T as one example of many.
That said – we know we have a lot to do.
I love working with the product team as we work on prioritization, work through technical problems, as we debate the next areas to tackle. Walking through the backlog aha board for PKS is like taking a tour inside the collective minds of the growing pantheon of customers – you can see their input shaping where the VMware and Pivotal teams go next.
Sidebar: It's funny – in my career, I always end up in wonderfully strange jobs. I think the pattern might be caused by my own weirdness. The roles always bridge the engineering/field worlds – and I've found out that even when the role is geared one way or another (my former GM role of the converged business at Dell EMC was geared more inwards, the current role at Pivotal is geared more outwards), I find ways to twist the role I'm in so I blend both.
If I'm honest with myself, the main reason is my own messed up psyche – I love the role of the "SE" it's my natural home. SEs everywhere (at Pivotal the role is called a "Platform Architect", sometimes this role is called an architect, it has all sorts of names) sit at the nexus of the technology and the market. Find an SE, and listen – you're likely to get the best feedback you could ask for. People (including me) often revert to their own true nature.
The second reason is because it's that intersection of product and field where so much magic can happen (or not happen). It's an opportunity for "impact". When you see great ideas fail, it's often because they didn't get that intersection working.
With PKS 1.2.x and NSX-T 2.3.x we crossed a critical "ready for the big leagues" mark – but there's a lot to do.
Continued work on fundamentals. While PKS 1.2.x is ready for production at customers of all types – we shouldn't kid ourselves: we are still in the "mid hype-cycle" of k8s in the enterprise. As we dig in, there are a ton of things you discover. Examples include things like: making pod security policy controls work better; making telemetry/observability work better; windows container support; expanding RBAC roles. This "work on fundamentals" also includes NSX-T – which is always "batteries included" with PKS. There is a lot of great stuff coming in the near term NSX-T roadmap, and it's intersection with PKS – like multiple T0 configs, more automation, big scale leaps for endpoints and LBs, more network profile flexibility… a LOT. And, of course, we have to keep proving, over and over, that we have a platform that can reliably update itself to keep up with k8s – in a way that customers can count on, in the middle of production, without even blinking. Kubernetes 1.12 is coming soon to a PKS near you!
Expansion and improvement of multi-cloud coverage. I can see CFCR (a component in PKS) drumbeats that show where we are on Azure support. I'm feeling really good that soon we will be "complete" with "built in" (vs. a lot of scripting the customer owns) support for all the cloud IaaS that matter. But – even once we "tick all the boxes", there's a lot to do to make the support work better (and NSX-T support on every cloud will go a long way – VMware NSBU team, this is important 😊).
Doubling down on the k8s core. There are things that we can only do properly through contribution to upstream k8s. Examples that jumps to mind are work on ClusterAPI, kubeadm and how they could work with BOSH (and how they work in the absence of BOSH, or how these ideas can come together), pod security policy, federated k8s clusters and much more. The examples extend to other graduated projects like Prometheus. I'm really excited about what the addition of the Heptio team (when the transaction closes) can do here – but that doesn't absolve the existing VMware/Pivotal team to need to keep pushing hard and contributing.
Work on what's below, beside, and on top of PKS.
"Below" = lots of work to continue to improve the CSI/CNI ecosystem and the interactions with PKS. In spite of what people think – PKS is wide open to plugins and other endpoint extensions. We will always take a posture of "integrate value, but always maintain openness". For example Wavefront, vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Automation are deeply integrated yes, but not required. This is intentional We are proud of the great SDN that is NSX-T and it's unique value and integration with PKS – solving problems in unique and great ways. But – we know customers want choice. Lots of work underway here to help customers that want to use PKS with the broad ecosystem.
"Beside" = there's a pattern of the CNCF tools people use with PKS – from Graphana, Prometheus, fluentd, ELK, etc. Add to that the great OSS tools where Heptio is leading the charge. I think we can do a better job of of thinking about how we package/support these tools. Internally, I am NOT advocating that we tightly couple these "beside" ingredients by "baking them in". The "beside"/"below"/"on top" CNCF ecosystem should have low/no bindings to PKS itself – but we can do work for the common deployment patterns to be better documented and easier to use. This is one of the design principles of PKS vs. others in this space… PKS tries to do one thing really well (k8s fundamentals) and being really open to the ecosystem tools (and the "on-top" ISV/Developer ecosystem). It's not the only way to roll. Of course there's the RedHat example, but I'm thinking of others. There are some really, really interesting things people are doing (and I don't begrudge them). Examples are things like Robin.io that tightly integrate the "below", "beside" and "on top" around solving specific (real) challenges with data/persistent workloads on k8s. I don't AGREE (I think over time, things get "crufty" when you try to do too much) – but I get it. I think the way to solve those problems is in a way that doesn't create strong bindings.
"On Top" = loads of interesting things here that I mentally group into two piles.
The ISV ecosystem. We're at the point where there are 8 partners with whom we've collaborated on their Helm charts/K8s operators on PKS (LINK). Our posture to all ISVs is simple – we will always be "vanilla" K8s – so anything they do with us is wide open, and will work on any other k8s. Lots to do here.
The developer value on top of k8s. While people can build their own developer toolchain and pipelines on top of k8s (of course), and often use tools like CloudBees (PKS packaging here) – it's a long way today relative to the beautiful developer value of Cloud Foundry. Customers tell us this loud and clear. We've shown our hand – we think this is an area of a lot of work to do with Knative, Istio, open buildpacks, Spring Cloud and a lot more. This won't happen overnight, but lots to do!
Doing the things to get to tens of thousands of customers.
That last one is particularly interesting to me. I learnt a lot about scaling products and GTM over the last few years, and you need something to get super-easy if you want it to scale. Right now, we have the "machinery" (product, GTM, packaging, ecosystem) to get PKS from hundreds to thousands of customers. We DON'T yet have it figured out on how to get to tens of thousands.
At VMworld Barcelona we announced that the VMware channel will be enabled and have the competency program, registration mechanics for PKS in Q1, and the team is working furiously to get there. This represents the stuff "around" a product to help it scale.
Then there are the things we need to do in the product itself – and we need to think through all the ways people want to consume k8s. Today, this is as multi-cloud software they control (VMware PKS), and soon (as beta closes) as a multi-cloud service they consume (VMware Cloud PKS). There's lots of great opportunities to keep making these simpler, simpler and simpler.
I'll give you a current, and real example of making the product scale better.
One of the main points of VMware PKS is that it's definition of multi-cloud presumes that one of the main clouds is the vSphere cloud most customers have on premises. Yes, most of our PKS customers use more than one cloud (vSphere + AWS/Azure/Google), but very few use VMware PKS only on public clouds (those that do, they tend to prefer the service model of VMware Cloud PKS).
So… Making VMware PKS work better for all the vSphere administrators out there is really important! Check out this VMware PKS web UI plugin for PKS, which is a fling that is available for you right now!
You can download the bits and the docs here. Have fun! Thanks to the team for sharing the VMware fling publicly!
The VMware PKS future is so bright, you've got to wear shades – and hang on, we're iterating fast! Feedback is ALWAYS welcome – what do YOU think we should be prioritizing?
So, how does the multi-cloud PKS with vSphere and AWS look like? Do you need VMware Cloud on AWS, or you can just use "standard" AWS infrastructure?
What other components are required to extend on-prem PKS deployment to be able to use public cloud for additional capacity? HCX?
Is there any PKS multi-cloud reference design guide available?
Sorry for the delay, and thank you for the question. PKS on AWS (and GCP and soon Azure) runs directly on the standard IaaS services of the public clouds. It does not require VMC. Today federated Kubernetes clusters are a no-go, so the deployment pattern are to deploy foundations (single AZ or multi-AZ) on premises or off premises, and have a common control plane, observability, RBAC etc in all cases. You don't stretch the network.


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The French Connection — 05.21.2020
In previous anecdotes, I mentioned how Green Papaya was funded, albeit informally, from 2000-2007 by the French Embassy in the Philippines. This more detailed narrative aims to give credit and show gratitude to some individuals who helped open the doors of the embassy for me.
A few years before I decided to resign from ABS-CBN, I started to build a small client base as a freelance graphics designer. Two important clients were Alliance Française de Manille, whose director then was Renaud Fessaguet, and PAMATEC (Paris-Manila Technology Corp.), a French-Filipino corporation founded by Hubert d'Aboville. In the short period of time that I was working with Renaud and Hubert, my acquaintance and friendship with them became valuable.
In 1998 Mr. Gilles Chouraqui was appointed French Ambassador to the Philippines. The following year he introduced French Spring in Manila (FSiM), an arts festival which promoted artistic collaborations between French and Filipino artists across disciplines. FSiM was patterned after French May in Hong Kong (Le French May), which the diplomat helped initiate in 1993 while still a Consul in the former British Crown Colony. With the French Film Festival and Fête de la Musique as its two main components, FSiM fast became one of the most anticipated cultural events in Manila.
I formally met the ambassador only once and informally during a few social events hosted by the embassy I was asked to attend. For the FSiM account, I worked closely and directly with the embassy's Cultural Counsellor, Mr. Marcel Jouve. It was Renaud who introduced me to him and his wife Lily Yousry-Jouve, a prolific painter in her own right.
Mr. Jouve, a fine gentleman and an impeccably dressed diplomat, was also very kind and generous to me. He practically gave me a crash course on French culture and diplomacy after I disappointed him for being unfamiliar with the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle. But Mr. Jouve must have been happy with the work I did for FSiM 1999. He assured me that I will continue working for the FSiM account at least until he completes his deployment in the Philippines in 2001 .
During one of our initial meetings for FSiM 2000, he insisted on coming to my design studio which shared space with Green Papaya in Teachers Village. I guess he was fascinated by the idea of an artist-run space that does not depend on any government funding. He got even more interested when informed that the design studio's FSiM earnings was allocated to fund Green Papaya's exhibitions and programs. If given the opportunity to continue working on the FSiM account even after his tenure, these funds will continue to help Green Papaya.
Shortly before he went back to Paris in 2001, Mr. Jouve invited Donna Miranda and I for lunch to inform us that he will recommend to the embassy to keep me even after he leaves. True to his word, I continued to work with two other Cultural Counsellors for the French Spring in Manila until 2007.
As we continue preparations for our exit in 2021, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Renaud Fessaguet and Mr. Marcel Jouve for their indirect but invaluable support to Green Papaya.
Norberto Roldan
May 21, 2020
FSiM 2000 poster.
FSiM 2006 poster for Christian Lacroix Haute Couture exhibition at the Ayala Museum.
FSiM 2006 catalogue page.


Collapsible dog bowls, bendable medical tubes and drinking straws all seem to work on a common principle, snapping into a variety of mechanically stable and useful states. Despite the many applications for such "designer matter" structures, however, the fundamental mechanisms of how they work have until now remained mysterious, say materials scientists at UMass led by Ryan Hayward, polymer science and engineering.
Now he and colleagues including first author and Hayward's former doctoral student Nakul Bende and their colleague Christian Santangelo, physics, with mechanician James Hanna and students at Virginia Tech, report that they have figured out how these "multi-stable" structures composed of stacked conical sections are loaded with pre-stress, pent-up tension that arises "because the material is forced into a closed ring that is more tightly curved than it naturally wants to be," as Hayward explains.
"What we discovered is that the very useful property of being mechanically stable in a bent configuration seems to require pre-stress. As far as we are aware, no one had ever looked at how and why such structures have stability in the bent state," he adds.
He points out, "It will be helpful for us to understand this fundamental principle, which is key when designing new applications. If you're going to build a reconfigurable device, it's important to know why it works, and when it might fail." Details appear in the current online issue of Soft Matter.
Hayward says that the mechanics that explain the ability of corrugated tubes to be extended and contracted in length are "pretty well established," as is the idea that moving materials between mechanically stable states requires overcoming an energy barrier. Playing with a variety of colorful bendable tubes on his desk, he demonstrates that the tube holds its shape in either state, and that an energy barrier is crossed when it pops in and out of each.
They analyzed this "pre-stress" effect through curvature analysis during deformation using X-ray computed tomography and with a simple mechanical model that captured the qualitative behavior of the highly reconfigurable systems.
The authors point out that "Many biological mechanisms have been uncovered that exploit snap-through transitions between mechanically stable states of slender elastic structures to achieve rapid motion. While much of the literature has focused on bistability, systems that support multiple stable states are attractive for the design of highly reconfigurable structures," such as the ones they report on.


Balcas Brites Wood Pellets are a high quality UK-made Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI) Approved wood pellet designed for use in biomass boilers. They are debarked, so are low in ash meaning less cleaning out of your boiler. They're also less dusty than many cheaper brands. Balcas Brites have an excellent consistency in pellet length, which is essential for smooth flow into your boiler.


Basic dumbbell workouts provide a means for building general strength and muscle mass. It is also an essential building block of a healthy lifestyle. Getting started with dumbbell exercises can be very simple. Many exercises target different muscle groups which will require more or less weight. Adjustable dumbbells can be an advantage for this reason. It is important to find the best adjustable dumbbells that match your needs. As you gain strength and muscle mass you will be able to add challenges and complexity to your workouts.
This is one of the most basic exercises that can be done with dumbbells. It is a great way to target your pectoral muscles, triceps, and deltoids. This exercise requires the use of a flat bench for proper form.
Doing curls with dumbbells is one of the most classic ways to use dumbbells. It is the best way to target your biceps and forearms. Simply bend your elbow upward to curl the dumbbell and alternate with each hand.
The shoulder press can be done in two different ways when using dumbbells. The first is alternating. This means that as you are lifting one dumbbell you are lowering the other. The second, more popular method, is lifting both dumbbells at the same time. When done with proper form, both methods yield impressive results.
One major health benefit of using dumbbells for basic exercises is the muscle mass you will gain. Muscle mass is an excellent calorie burning tool and will help you to remain fit. You will also notice that with a healthier lifestyle comes a healthier outlook on life which is very important just for your overall wellbeing. If you choose to use a home set of dumbbells, be sure to read some adjustable dumbbell reviews first so you find exactly what you are looking for. Just remember to start small and build upon your good habits.
What Does A Holistic Dentist Do?


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Copious Notes
This is a blog of
About Rich Copley & Copious Notes
Raised by opera-loving parents in a rock 'n' roll world, Rich Copley has parlayed his broad interests into his career writing about arts and entertainment. Since 1998, he has covered performing arts, film and faith-based popular culture for the Lexington Herald-Leader, the daily newspaper in Lexington, Ky. It's a pretty broad beat, but Rich delights in finding influences of the past in the present and showing fine arts fans the value of pop culture, and vice versa. ~ Copious Notes is a blog covering that broad spectrum. If you want to read about specific areas of interest, such as theater or opera, click on one of the categories to the right and you will be whisked away to all posts in that category. Also, look around the blog for links; multimedia items such as photo albums, videos, and interviews with artists; and other nuggets. Have fun, and thanks for dropping in. The header for this blog was designed by Danny Kelly and the illustration was drawn by Camille Weber.
Walter Tunis' Musical Box
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Political theater review: Third presidential debate
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., right, responds to a question as debate moderator Bob Schieffer, center, and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., listen during a presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008. Copyrighted AP Photo by Charles Dharapak.
If ever you could bill an hour-and-a-half on a stage as "ripped from today's headlines," the third presidential debate was it.
Just five hours after Americans watched the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose more than 700 points, again, and we heard the credit markets remain as frozen as an Alaska winter, Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama took a New York stage to field a script of questions about the issues facing the country, as well as some of the sexier subplots of the campaign.
They completely missed the conflict and drama.
Why should we have expected the third part of this trilogy to be any different than previous two?
Based on its predecessors, if this were a stage show, it wouldn't have been produced. If it was a film series, the sequel wouldn't have been greenlighted, because the original flopped. This trio proceeded forward for the same reason we got all three Star Wars prequels: history. We're talking the Presidential debates, Nixon sweating under the lights, Uncle Ronnie saying "there you go again," and "I will not exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience." These debates have been hits, and they seem important. Obviously we should have three.
Where's a Ronald Reagan when you need him?
Part of the problem was these two guys stayed in character. Obama was the calm professorial type, while McCain was the agitated elder, annoyed he had to contended with this upstart. As the debate opened, McCain seemed to be nervously searching for something different, stumbling over his lines in search of another voice. But soon he was back in character.
Neither man mustered a passion for the issues the times present.
On stage and screen, great playwrights have found drama in tweedy topics such as advanced mathematics (Arcadia and A Beautiful Mind) nuclear physics (Copenhagen) and medicine (House, and scores of other medical dramas). That's because they put them in human terms, whether it's the quest for knowledge, the struggle to save a life or the potential impact of grave decisions.
In the theater of these presidential debates, the candidates have consistently failed to humanize the pressing issues of today, even when they were talking about Joe the Plumber from Ohio.
Joe was this show's Godot, the guy who wasn't there, but the candidates were always talking about. Maybe it's that candidates have used that, "I met so-and-so in this small town and they were really worried about . . . " device over and over again, so we've become immune to it.
There were a number of times it felt like the candidates were reading from old scripts, whether they were party lines like McCain going on about wealth redistribution or Obama reinvoking his change theme like we'd never heard it before.
But more than missing the drama, these guys also missed the conflict, which is strange considering these two guys are in conflict. They both want the most powerful job in the country, they both will have enormous roles in how our current dramas play out. But even when given issues such as the conduct of the campaign, which has led to breathless monologues by pundits, McCain and Obama couldn't turn the heat up above medium.
Sometimes, trilogies offer three great chapters of an amazing story you want to see over and over. But the 2008 Presidential debtes seemed like that inexplicable series, when the first chapter really wasn't any good, and why on earth were they making more.
Thank God it's over.
Facebook reviews: I was just checking out my Facebook friends and have to share some great status lines:
Since I am not going to name anyone, I will give a blanket, My Friend . . .
. . . would like to see the candidates have a debate on the effectiveness and influence of presidential debates.
. . . would like to be known as Jennifer the Plumber, so everyone will suddenly care what I think.
. . . is now awake from his debate-induced nap.
. . . has officially added the word "cockamaney" to the McCain drinking game.
. . . is wondering how long before CNN gets Joe the Plumber on the air . . .
AP wasted no time getting Joe the Plumber on the record.
Survey says!: Once again, both CBS and CNN insta-polls say Obama won, big.
Interesting: I am watching Charlie Rose now, and they are talking about an Obama presidency as if it is a fait accompli.
Posted at 11:34 PM in Current Affairs, Political junkie, Television | Permalink
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Herald-Leader Photo Arts
Directory of arts and entertainment slide shows and videos at HeraldLeaderPhoto.com
Videos & slide shows
Laura Bell Bundy's 'Take It From the Top' workshop
'American Idol' auditions in Louisville
Curtain call at The Dame
SummerFest's 'Hair'
Girl Scouts rock at Camp Judy Lane
'Batman -- The Dark Knight' opening
SummerFest's 'Lord of the Flies'
'Smoke on the Mountain' from Lexington Stage Company
Shakespeare at Equus Run – "The Merry Wives of Windsor"
Ichthus Festival 2008
Stories and reviews
Music review: Walter Tunis on Alan Jackson at Applebees Park
Theater review: SummerFest's 'Hair'
Theater review: SummerFest's 'Lord of the Flies'
Theater review: 'Smoke on the Mountain'
Theater review: Candace Chaney on SummerFest's Antony and Cleopatra
Stage review: Shakespeare at Equus Run
Stage review: Candace Chaney on UK Theatre's 'As it is in Heaven'
Stage: Candace Chaney on 'The Zoo Story' at Natasha's
Stage review: Candace Chaney on LexArts' 'In This Place . . . '
Stage: Candace Chaney on LCT's 'Lily's Purple Plastic Purse'
Questapalooza 2008
In it's third edition, Questapalooza attracted 6,500 people to Quest Community Church in Lexington, Ky., on Aug. 31, 2008. The music lineup was Kirk Franklin, Kutless and needtobreathe. In addition to the tunes, festival goers enjoyed carnival attractions, contests, heard a sermon and witnessed baptisms.
Ichthus 2008
The 2008 Ichthus Festival was a roller coaster ride. The week started with the first project by Ichthus Ministries' environmental initiative: ECOS (Earth Commission, Operation Simplify). Then there was the severe thunderstorm June 9 that leveled 14 out of 19 tents at the festival site, with only two days left to open. And it did open, earlier than ever with a Thursday morning battle of the bands. That was followed by one of the hottest Ichthus days ever, and we aren't just talking about Skillet's set the night of June 12. The next day was Friday the 13th, and it turned out to be unlucky for the fest, with thunderstorms scuttling the evening lineup. But as it often has, Ichthus rallied with a fun and worshipful Saturday. The Herald-Leader crew was out there all week. Here's our photo album.
UK Wind Ensemble goes to China
May 19 to 29, 2008, the University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble is taking a trip to China, where it is scheduled to play six concerts and visit seven cities. The tour finds China eagerly anticipating the 2008 Summer Olympics while also mourning the loss of tens of thousands of its citizens to a devastating earthquake on May 12. This photo album begins with images taken by the Herald-Leader's Whitney Waters at event's leading up to the ensemble's departure.
Actors Guild of Lexington
Actors Guild of Lexington's early spring production is Tom Stoppard's brainy drama, Arcadia. The show is a mystery over several centuries involving math, science and literature. Here's a look at some images from the show, which runs through April 6 at the Downtown Arts Center, by Herald-Leader photographer Charles Bertram. The photos are copyrighted by the Herald-Leader.
Winter Jam 2008 - Rupp Arena
After years of going to -- excuse us while we clear our throats -- Louisville, Winter Jam finally came to Kentucky's true big house, Rupp Arena, March 6, 2008. That gave Lexington a heaping helping of MercyMe, BarlowGirl and Skillet, as well as others. This is a little record of the event.
UK Opera Theatre
The University of Kentucky Opera Theatre is presenting its production of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" through March 8, 2008 at the Lexington Opera House. To give more students a shot at the stage, and for the sake of the singers' voices, two casts were fielded for this production. University of Kentucky photographer Tim Collins shot both casts. Here's a selection of those images.
Amber Rhodes
Lexington Native Amber Rhodes is a budding country star, shopping a hit independent release around the country, hoping to land a recording contract with a major label. To take a peek into the life of an aspiring country star, and to see how much work it is, I went down to Nashville to spend a day with Amber, as she works to get her name out there. Here are some pictures from that trip. All photos are copyrighted by the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Summer Theatre 2007
Between June 21 and Aug. 2, eight new plays or musicals opened in the immediate Lexington area. That was an extraordinary number of shows for a summer in the Bluegrass State. Here, we offer a photo album from behind the scenes and on stage.
Ichthus 2007 took place June 14-16 at Ichthus Farm in Wilmore, Ky. Among the featured performers were Switchfoot, Relient K, Newsboys, Third Day and Phil Keaggy (photo, above).
On April 29, 2007, Lexington native Laura Bell Bundy realized her dream of creating a role in a Broadway musical when she took the stage of New York's Palace Theatre playing Elle Woods in 'Legally Blonde.' It's a goal she'd been working toward since age 10, when she played monstrous child star Tina Denmark in the Off Broadway hit 'Ruthless.' Her 'Legally Blonde' performance earned Bundy a Tony Award nomination for best leading actress in a musical. Over the years, Herald-Leader photographers have chronicled Bundy's career. These are some of their best shots, along with a few other photos.
Superchick's Generation Rising Tour in Winchester
Superchick's Generation Rising Tour came to Winchester's Central Baptist Church, May 11, 2007. Joining them were DecembeRadio, Krystal Meyers, Nevertheless and Group 1 Crew. Photos by Rich Copley.
Stephanie Pistello
Stephanie Pistello graduated from Lafayette High School and Transylvania University. She went to New York to pursue an acting career, but returned in August 2006 with her New Mummer Group to present Tennessee Williams' "Candles to the Sun" at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
The Shakespeare portraits
Since 1999, the Herald-Leader has previewed the Lexington Shakespeare Festival with profiles and environmental portraits of the actors or directors involved in each show. This is a gallery of those fantastic images.
Ichthus '06


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With the changes in social values and familial structure, many people now consider pet dogs their spiritual companions, even their family members. Pet dogs with their loyalty and vitality boost their values and importance in human society. Pet-dog ownership has become a common phenomenon in Taiwan these days.
1. All dimensions of pet attachment are moderately positive in terms of leisure benefits, leisure constraints, and out-of-town tour demands.
2. The owners in this research have medium and upper perception of attachment with their pet dogs, medium and upper perception of leisure benefits, and medium perception of leisure constraints.
3. For pet-dog owners, the top requirement in out-of-town tour taking their pet dogs with them is friendly public transportation. Then come with friendly shopping and travel facilities, friendly dining facilities, and comfortable pet accommodation. A very promising tour market can be pursued among the three groups of tourists traveling with their pet dogs who are female, single, and no kids.


Worn by the U.S. Marine Corps during WW2. Issued in 1944, the P-44 Utility Jacket was favoured by marines due to it's comfort and hard wearing durability. This jacket features distinctive cargo pockets and is finished with metal laurel leaf buttons.


French Presses are known as the simplest of all brewing systems when it comes to making coffee. For decades, they have been associated with making the purest coffee and espresso simply by steeping coffee grounds and hot water in a beaker. Once the coffee is done steeping, a metal mesh filter is pressed to the bottom of the beaker, which separates the coffee grounds from the liquid coffee and guarantees you get the bold, unique flavor coffee was meant to provide.
So how do you choose the right one? To keep it simple, you can break up the French Press into two categories: stainless steel or glass brewers. Personal preference aside, stainless steel presses won't shatter easily and retain heat better while a glass model, which allows you to see the coffee brewing and some also come with stylish protective frames surrounding the glass to help prevent shattering.
The Brazil French Press by Bodum is easy to use, easy to clean and easy on your wallet. In just 4 minutes you can brew delicious coffee that is full of flavor due to the 3-part stainless steel plunger which allows for premium extraction, a mesh filter which allows for flavor to be delivered direct to your cup and not absorbed by a paper filter which also means no waste.
The Secura French Press is made from top quality stainless steel on both the interior and exterior which ensures longevity. A 3-layered stainless steel filter structure traps the smallest coffee grounds to produce an exceptional full-bodied flavor and a bonus stainless steel screen is included. When the two are stacked together, this gives your coffee or espresso a more refined taste. Lastly, it's designed with a cool touch handle and knob provide for a comfortable and safe pour.
The KONA French Press Coffee Maker uses a 3-piece stainless steel infuser filter system ensuring your most authentic cup of coffee yet. This French Press is also made from not only a thermal shock-resistant glass but has been wrapped with a stylish protective design to minimize breakage.
← What Is An Altimeter Watch and How Does It Work?


text:
Q: Line breaking in equation This is the equation I want to write in LaTex:

I have read these advices, but for split and multilined commands it says that they are undefined (and also for multiline, but nevertheless this is not suitable for me). Is there another possibility how to break line?

A: The empheqpackage (which loads mathtools and amsmath) lets put whatever you want on the left or on the right of a group of equations. So here is another solution, with the gather*environment:
    \documentclass[12pt,a4paper,bothsides]{article}
    \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
    \usepackage[showframe, nomarginpar]{geometry}
    \usepackage[overload]{empheq}

    \begin{document}

    \begin{gather*}[left ={ V_{i,j} = \empheqlbrace},  right = \empheqrbrace ]
           a + b  = c + d \\
            ∫_0¹ x² \ \mathrm{d}x   = \dfrac{1}{3}\\
           \nabla u  =  0
    \end{gather*}

    \end{document}

A: Since you've noted in a comment that the semicolons are there to denote an "if ..." relationship, I would suggest that you display the material in two separate columns, with ; replaced with if at the start of the second column.
Furthermore, since the same, fairly complicated expression occurs five times between the curly braces, I suggest you define it beforehand and give it a shorthand, say, \widehat{W}. (You're obviously free to come up with a more suitable shorthand symbol!) Then use either an array environment or a dcases environment to state what V_{ij} is, with \widehat{W} -- or whatever symbol you end up choosing -- making its appearance five times.
This setup -- first, define the complicated expression; second, use it repeatedly in the statement of what V_{ij} is -- should let the reader focus more easily on the structure of the argument.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\DeclarePairedDelimiter{\abs}{\lvert}{\rvert}
\begin{document}
Let $\displaystyle\widehat{W}\equiv W_{j}\ln\biggl( 1 +
  \frac{G_{i,j} \abs{h_{i,j}}^2 P_{i,j}} {\sigma_{i,j}^2} \biggr)$. Then
\[
\renewcommand\arraystretch{1.5} % more space between lines to mimic display style
  V_{i,j} =
  \left\{\begin{array}{ll}
     (Q_{1}D_{i}^{d} + Q_{2}D_{i}^{o}) \widehat{W}
        & \text{if } D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o} \leq \widehat{W}\\
     Q_{1}D_{i}^{d} \widehat{W}
        & \text{if } D_{i}^{d} \leq \widehat{W} < D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o}\\
     0
        & \text{if } \widehat{W} < D_{i}^{d}
  \end{array}\right\}
\]

Or, using the \texttt{dcases} environment:
\[
  V_{i,j} =
  \begin{dcases} % dcases environment is provided by the mathtools package
     (Q_{1}D_{i}^{d} + Q_{2}D_{i}^{o}) \widehat{W}
        & \text{if } D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o} \leq \widehat{W}\\
     Q_{1}D_{i}^{d} \widehat{W}
        & \text{if } D_{i}^{d} \leq \widehat{W} < D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o}\\
     0
        & \text{if } \widehat{W} < D_{i}^{d}
  \end{dcases}
\]
\end{document}

A: Another solution:
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{mathtools}

\DeclarePairedDelimiter{\abs}{\lvert}{\rvert}

\begin{document}

\begin{equation*}
  V_{i,j} =
  \begin{Bmatrix}
    \displaystyle (Q_{1}D_{i}^{d} + Q_{2}D_{i}^{o})W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu}; D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o} \leq W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu}\\[3ex]
    \displaystyle Q_{1}D_{i}^{d}W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu}; D_{i}^{d} \leq W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu} < D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o}\\[3ex]
    \displaystyle 0; W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu} < D_{i}^{d}
  \end{Bmatrix}
\end{equation*}

\end{document}

P.S. I've added geometry to avoid the equation going into the margin.
Update
If you want all the math in the document to be written in display style, you can declare \everymath{\displaystyle};
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{mathtools}

\DeclarePairedDelimiter{\abs}{\lvert}{\rvert}
\everymath{\displaystyle}

\begin{document}

\begin{equation*}
  V_{i,j} =
  \begin{Bmatrix}
    (Q_{1}D_{i}^{d} + Q_{2}D_{i}^{o})W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu}; D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o} \leq W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu}\\[3ex]
    Q_{1}D_{i}^{d}W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu}; D_{i}^{d} \leq W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu} < D_{i}^{d} + D_{i}^{o}\\[3ex]
    0; W_{j}\ln{\mkern -7mu}\left(1 + \frac{G_{i,j}\abs{h_{i,j}}^{2}P_{i,j}}{\sigma_{i,j}^{2}}\right){\mkern -5mu} < D_{i}^{d}
  \end{Bmatrix}
\end{equation*}

\end{document}

A: You have to load the mathtools package to obtain the multlined environment.
Anyway, the Bmatrix environment from the same package (and from amsmath, of which mathtools is an extension) may be suitable to you:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\[
V_{i,j}=\begin{Bmatrix} Q_1 \\ Q_2 \\ Q_3\end{Bmatrix}
\]
\end{document}

Instead of Q_1, Q_2 and Q_3, you may enter your own formulas.

A: You could use an array:
\begin{align*}
    V_{i,j}=\left\lbrace\begin{array}{c}%
                First line\\
                Second line\\
                Third line
             \end{array}\right\rbrace
\end{align*}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Two different questions this week?! What's up?
Two different reasons. It's clear from my emails that lots of new people are coming on board who haven't heard a lot of the basics—especially concerning things we haven't mentioned in a while. And there are some topics—like these two—that we should cover every season at the right time of year, no matter what. So let's bask in some double-down basics!
Q. My wife and I have always composted our lawn clippings, but recently moved and our new backyard backs up to a golf course (with a creek and about five yards of wooded area in between). The previous owner says that the lawn is untreated, but the golf course obviously treats their turf heavily. Will we be able to continue to compost our clippings, despite the potential for run-off and cross contamination?
A. First, I'd worry much more about my water supply. If you're on a well, get the water tested ASAP, as agricultural chemicals can travel great distances underground. And I hope that the golf course exercises caution near that creek; herbicides and chemical fertilizers can wreak havoc in aquatic areas.
And no matter where you live, don't compost your grass clippings!
…Because those clippings are 10 percent nitrogen by weight; that's the perfect food in the perfect percentage for lawn grasses! Removing the clippings after you mow literally starves your lawn of its most natural food. If you have a good quality mower with a sharp blade, you won't ever see any of the pulverized clippings, but your lawn will get a free gentle supplemental feeding every time you mow.
And people tend to overload their compost piles with nitrogen-rich green materials like grass clippings at this time of year, which can lead to a stinky mess.
But even if you have saved large amounts of shredded fall leaves to balance out those greens, you should still let the clippings fall back on the lawn. It's good for the grass—and less work for you.
And let us stress that you should never ever try to compost grass clippings alone; and never ever ever try and compost clippings from a lawn that has been treated with herbicides; the resulting compost can kill any plants that aren't grass.
Q. Do you have any expert advice on how to control slugs? They have eaten the beans I planted, killed my flowers and are now on my basil leaves. I put a pie plate of saltwater out, but fear the problem will just get worse thru the summer as the veggies grow. Is there any commercial product I should be using around the garden?
1) Don't use chemical pesticides! Amphibians like toads have porous skin that makes them very susceptible to pesticide poisoning.
2) They also need a 'toad abode'—a damp shady spot to hide out in during the day. The ideal 'abode' is something like a board propped up on bricks in a heavily vegetated area of the garden—like under some big hostas or large shrubs. Put some old carpeting, dirt or mulch on top of the board to keep it moist and cool inside the abode.
Speaking of mulch, you should consider raking away any heavy mulches until you get your slugs under control. Heavy mulch provides a perfect hiding place for slugs in the daytime.
And/or lay boards down around the affected plants. When the sun comes up, go out with a five-gallon bucket with some soapy water in the bottom, lift up the boards and scrape all the slugs hiding on the underside into the soapy water. Very satisfying.
…As is installing copper barriers on your raised bed frames or around the tops of your containers. Copper is 'shockingly toxic' to slugs.
You can also put small containers of fresh beer—NOT 'stale beer'—out in the garden at sunset. (Not early in the morning—the beer will go bad during the day.) They'll be full of dead drunken slugs in the morning.
Like Rick in Casablanca, our listener has been misinformed. If you go out at night and sprinkle just the tiniest bit of salt onto a slug, it will quickly shrivel up and die. But, alas, they will not hurl themselves into a miniature ocean for you.


text:
By Katherine Prescott Wormeley (trans), Rose Tremain (introduced by) and Honore de Balzac
Jump down to see edition details for: Hardcover | Paperback | CD/Spoken Word
Publisher Random House Uk Ltd
Publication date April 1, 2013
Dimensions 0.75 by 5.50 by 8 in.
Literature: Classics
Postcards from Penguin | Miss Buncle's Book
Published in association with the Orange Prize for fiction, with an introduction by Rose Tremain, describing why she chose it as the book she'd like to pass on to the next generation
Monsieur Grandet is a very rich man whose chief care is his gold. He runs his household with exacting miserly attention and his wife and daughter suffer a Spartan existence. On the evening of his daughter Eugénie's 23rd birthday his foppish nephew Charles suddenly arrives from Paris. Eugénie has never known passion, but now, in an instant, she falls in love and her life is changed forever. Monsieur Grandet will not countenance his daughter's marriage to her penniless cousin and Eugénie's determination to follow her heart leads her into direct conflict with her father.
from Bibliolife (November 30, 2008)
9780559627187 | details & prices | 344 pages | List price $32.99
About: This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality.
from Createspace Independent Pub (December 25, 2015)
9781522918189 | details & prices | 120 pages | 6.00 × 9.00 × 0.28 in. | List price $5.99
About: Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright best known for a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon.
from Createspace Independent Pub (October 13, 2015)
9781512392005 | details & prices | 164 pages | 6.00 × 9.00 × 0.37 in. | List price $12.99
This edition also contains Eugenie Grandet
from Createspace Independent Pub (May 19, 2015)
9781512284164 | details & prices | 110 pages | 6.00 × 9.00 × 0.25 in. | 0.49 lbs | List price $7.49
About: There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins.
With FB Editions (other contributor) | from Createspace Independent Pub (November 18, 2014)
About: "Eugénie Grandet" par Honoré de Balzac.
With Katharine Prescott Wormeley | from Createspace Independent Pub (October 22, 2014)
About: Eugénie Grandet is an 1833 novel by Honoré de Balzac about miserliness, and how it is bequeathed from the father to the daughter, Eugénie, through her unsatisfying love attachment with her cousin.
from Debolsillo (April 1, 2014)
About: La obra maestra de Honoré de Balzac en una nueva traducción.
from Createspace Independent Pub (March 18, 2014)
from Createspace Independent Pub (December 3, 2013)
9781494349240 | details & prices | 24 pages | 6.00 × 9.00 × 0.06 in. | List price $7.99
About: Christmas Summary Classics This series contains summary of Classic books such as Emma, Arne, Arabian Nights, Pride and prejudice, Tower of London, Wealth of Nations etc.
from Createspace Independent Pub (April 28, 2013)
With Rose Tremain (other contributor), Katherine Prescott Wormeley (other contributor) | Reprint edition from Random House Uk Ltd (April 1, 2013)
About: Published in association with the Orange Prize for fiction, with an introduction by Rose Tremain, describing why she chose it as the book she'd like to pass on to the next generation Monsieur Grandet is a very rich man whose chief care is his gold.
from Createspace Independent Pub (November 4, 2010)
About: Eugénie Grandet is a novel by Honoré de Balzac about miserliness.
from Book Jungle (July 31, 2009)
About: Honora de Balzac is considered the founder of social realism.
from Lightning Source Inc (June 30, 2009)
About: 'Who is going to marry Eugenie Grandet?
from Lightning Source Inc (August 30, 2008)
About: Excerpt from Eugenie Grandet: And Other Stories With Eugenie Grandet, as with one or two, but only one or two others of Balzac's works, we come to a case of Quit 7222190: m Here, and perhaps here only, with Le Medecin de Campagne and Le Pere Goriot, though there may be carpets and depreciators, there are no open deniers of the merit of the work.
from Wilder Pubns Ltd (April 30, 2008)
About: In Eugenie Grandet we are told the story of a young girl whose life is complicated by her father's incessant greed.
from Lightning Source Inc (January 31, 2008)
from Bibliobazaar (October 31, 2007)
About: There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters dreary moorlands or the desolation of ruins.
Large print edition from Bibliobazaar (October 31, 2007)
from Pomona Pr (January 31, 2007)
About: Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive.
CD/Spoken Word
Unabridged edition from Assembled Stories (May 30, 2007)
About: Webster's edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations.


text:
Space Station Cargo Ship Docking Attempt To Air On NASA TV
July 27, 2012 - Space - Tagged: cargo, ISS, NASA	- no comments
WASHINGTON — As part of NASA's ongoing live coverage of mission operations aboard the International Space Station, NASA Television will broadcast the attempted redocking of an unpiloted Russian cargo spacecraft to the space station for engineering data collection beginning at 5 p.m. EDT Saturday, July 28. Docking is scheduled for 9 p.m.
The ISS Progress 47 resupply ship arrived at the station in April and undocked from the Pirs docking compartment July 22. It made its first attempt to re-dock the following day. A technical problem prevented the spacecraft from reaching the space station, and its computers placed it a safe distance from the orbiting laboratory. Russian engineers are testing a new automated rendezvous system, called Kurs-NA, for possible use on future Russian spacecraft arriving at the station.
C. Pike - KnowledgeOrb Contributor
Contributor to KnowledgeOrb


text:
Rating: 4.00/5
February 23, 2008 at 8:36 pm by HaribabuBolineni 2013-11-07T06:27:16+05:30
Critic Rating: (4.00/5)
Every once in a while, a movie comes along with its audacity to take on grand themes, vast landscape, with out-sized characters that they somehow trip. With "There Will be Blood", American director Paul Thomas Anderson and star Daniel Day Lewis deliver grandly to make it one of the best films of the year.
So it's no surprise that Anderson, Lewis and the movie itself have all received Oscar nominations. The one category in which the movie is most likely to bag an Oscar is the Best Actor. Lewis delivers what could possibly be one of the best performances of the decade. It's a thrill to see Lewis tower in the vast landscape ably supported by fine performances by the likes of Paul Dano and a weirdly beautiful score by the rock group Radiohead's guitarist Johnny Greenwood. On one level, the movie has two characters who are opposite on the surface but deep down are mirror images of greed, ambition and eventually murderous intentions.
The movie opens with some of the most powerful images underscored by profound music with not a word uttered for almost 20 minutes. It is 1898 and Daniel Plainview (Lewis) is digging for silver in a mine, which he accidentally discovers. And it becomes his life's obsession. While drilling for oil, his partner dies and Plainview takes his son as his own. This works out well for him because the young boy gives him a look of a responsible family man when he travels to settle business deals. The action begins when a farm boy tells him they might have oil on their farm. But when Plainview gets there, he begins to butt heads with the boy's brother Eli (Paul Dano). Eli is an ambitious preacher who wants to build a church with the money earned from oil. The rest of the movie chronicles the battle between these two driven, ambitious and manipulative men.
This is Anderson's fifth movie and is quite a detour from "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia". Anderson is slowly becoming one of the best young directors around. Though this is the first movie he has directed and has not written, it was his idea to base the movie on a 1927 Upton Sinclair novel called "Oil!" The movie has some very clear references to earlier classics like "Giant" in 1956. Tackling themes like greed and ambition, we also get to see capitalism in action in all its glory and shame.
Following Plainview's life, we get a prescient glimpse of the beginning of the oil industry. Progress in society is often heralded, but too often is built on the backs of those who sometimes had to pay in blood. Another great building block of American society is religion. Dano delivers an incredible performance as the pastor who uses his religion to mask ugly ambitions. As the movie unfolds, we see how a young America's drive to succeed and its ambiguous religious fervour at times make for uneasy bedfellows.
Though the story is linear, it does at times try our patience because of its pace. But for true epic filmmaking with towering performances, there will be no better film than 'There Will be Blood" this year.
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83 patients were enrolled 3-7 months after stroke and treatment will be given for up to 4 years. The primary outcome is Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination (ACE, which includes MMSE) and will be determined during and at end of trial by observers blinded to treatment. The start-up phase was funded jointly by The Stroke Association and Alzheimer's Society and tested safety, feasibility and tolerability.
The PODCAST team would like to thank all participants for their involvement in the trial: without you, this contribution to stroke research would not have been possible!
November 2014: PODCAST will be presented at the UK Stroke Forum on 3rd December 2014, 14:15 - 15:30 in the King's Suite (Parallel Session 2D).
February 2014: PODCAST has now closed to screening and randomisation: thankyou to all our investigators for their hard work!
September 2010: First UK Investigator meeting held, Nottingham. Trial Steering Committee meeting also held.
January 2009: Start-up phase of PODCAST trial funded jointly by TSA and AS.