text:
Overall Financial Position of Himachal Pradesh – Comment
by DK Sharma
News about the difficult financial position of the State of Himachal Pradesh over the last few years has been doing rounds before and after presentation of the budget for 2011-12 by the State Government. Reports have come through in the media that the State Government was not allowed the promised borrowings for financing its plan and it did not have enough resources to meet the revenue expenditure burden on account of committed expenditure like salaries, pensions and interest payments. The pay and pension revision dues to the employees and pensioners are being staggered over time and would probably take another two or three years to get completely disbursed. The State government has been alleging a raw deal by the Thirteenth Finance Commission in terms of meeting its committed liabilities on account of revenue expenditure. The ongoing session of the State Legislature has also witnessed allegations and counter-allegations about the raw deal being meted out by the Central Government to the State of Himachal Pradesh. These and several related issues on this aspect are definitely a subject of detailed research and examination but a quick view of the overall financial situation of the State can give reasonable indications of the position where the truth lies.
Himachal Pradesh is a special category State and its financial existence and sustenance is heavily linked to the liberal central transfers of resources through the platforms of the Finance Commissions and the Planning Commission. But for these transfers, the special category States like Himachal Pradesh can not even afford to pay its employees and pensioners the full salary and pension burden for the whole year, leave aside anything in the nature of development or servicing the interest liability of the borrowings contracted by the State in the past and the principal repayments. History is witness to the fact that even after liberal fiscal transfers through the Finance Commissions to the special category States, further erosion in the revenue account has been taken care of by the scheme of plan financing for these States by internalising the negative balance from current revenues in the scheme of plan financing. Himachal Pradesh is not an exception to this scenario and whatever has happened in the State by way of development is a function of the central developmental and non-developmental transfers since attainment of Statehood and their effective utilisation by the successive governments in the State. The people, State and the Governments of Himachal Pradesh from time to time have not been ungrateful in recognizing this fact and have acknowledged the contribution of the Central Government several times over. Local level politics has, of course, been vitiated by putting the blame on the opposition or the ruling party on the one hand, and on the central government, on the other. This basically is spice and not the reality and should not be taken cognizance of by informed people.
A State which suffers from the malaise of poor fiscal situation has to be more vigilant to the issues of financial management. It has to do all that is necessary to manage the revenue account and also to be prudent that fresh borrowings do not infringe the fiscal deficit parameters. Any laxity on the revenue deficit or fiscal deficit management can lead the State to a debt trap from where it is impossible to get out.
Let us first of all look at the dispensation of the Thirteenth Finance Commission for Himachal Pradesh because the State Government has been arguing that it was not given a fair deal in regard to assessment of the revenue account by the Commission. To make a comment about it, it is imperative that one studies the data which is available through the report of the Thirteenth Finance Commission. The comparative picture on the forecast submitted by the State Government and the assessment made by the Thirteenth Finance Commission for Himachal Pradesh for the period 2010-15 is depicted in the sub-joined table:-
(Rs. crore)
Sl. No. Item GOHP forecast 13th FC assessment Variation vis-Ã -vis GOHP forecast
1. Own Tax Revenue 19049 20812 (+) 1763
2. Non-tax Revenue 8360 7218 (-) 1142
3. Total Own Rev.(1+2) 27409 28030 (+) 621
4. Pensions Exp. 12598 8822 (-)3776
5. Interest Payments 14576 10290 (-) 4286
6. Other Expenditure* 48507 28135 (-) 20372
7. Total NPRE(4+5+6) 75681 47247 (-) 28034
8. Pre-devolution deficit 48272 19217 (-) 29055
9. Share in central taxes — 11327 —
10. Revenue deficit grant — 7889 —
* : The other expenditure includes Salaries, expenditure on general, social and economic services to be met through the non-plan spending, assignments to local bodies and expenditure on committed liabilities.
Note : The numbers may not exactly tally due to rounding.
A careful look into the figures in the above table indicates that there is hardly any significant variation in the assessment of revenue receipts between the forecast projected by the State Government and the assessment made by the Finance Commission despite the fact that the Commission proceeded to do the assessment based on definitive normative considerations. The State Government had used the historical methodology to generate the forecast whereas the Finance Commission has linked the revenue receipts to the projected growth in the State Domestic Product. The variations, however, are large and significant on the expenditure side. It would be extremely relevant to look at the methodology used by the Finance Commission to estimate the expenditure side inputs. The Finance Commission has used the following methodology for estimating the major components of the expenditure across the board for all States:
•	Finance Commission assumed that the States have implemented the revised pay scales from 1.4.2009 with retrospective effect from 1.1.2006. Therefore, the budget estimates of the year 2009-10 were used by the Finance Commission to build salary expenditure into the forecast period.
•	The Commission has used one time increase of the order of 35 per cent in the salary expenditure for 2006-07. Thereafter, it provided 6 per cent per annum growth after taking into account 3 per cent annual increment, 6 per cent dearness allowance and 1 per cent attrition. The salary expenditures for the central and the State Government employees have been projected on this basis for the period 2006-10.
Expenditure on the salaries of the local bodies employees has also been added to the expenditure base for forecasting it into the 2010-15 period.
The Finance Commission has limited the impact of pay revision to salary expenditure to a ceiling of 35 per cent of the total revenue expenditure and the expenditure over and above this ceiling has been successively reduced by 10 per cent of the amount every year.
For the expenditure on pensions, the Commission has worked out the impact on State pensions to be higher by 21 per cent over the 2008-09 pension expenditure which was arrived at by applying the trend growth rate over the actuals of pension expenditure for 2007-08. Pension expenditure post-2009-10 has been projected to grow at 10 per cent per annum.
Interest payments have been projected on the basis of the debt stock indicated in the fiscal reform path framed by the Commission. For the years 2008-09 and 2009-10, the lower of the revised estimates or 3.5 per cent of the GSDP and Budget Estimates or 4 per cent of the GSDP, respectively, has been taken as the fiscal deficit for projection of the debt stock.
The above assumptions are basically responsible for the vast difference between the forecast made by the State Government and the assessment made by the Finance Commission. Since the Commission has used uniform methodology for all the States, there is precious little ground for any individual State to hold out a grudge against the dispensation worked out by the Finance Commission. The most critical input into the assessment methodology is the data presented by the State Government while presenting the budget for the year 2009-10 because the Commission methodology leans on entirely on the Budget Estimates for the year 2009-10 for the purposes of the salary expenditure. Hence the salary expenditure in the Budget Estimates had to be close to the number after taking into account the impact of pay revision.
Now that the data of actual expenditure for the year 2009-10 has become available, it will be interesting to compare the budget estimates for 2009-10 with the actuals of the expenditure to see if the two differed significantly from each other. The data on the opening balance, revenue receipts, revenue expenditure and closing balance after taking into account the capital and loans accounts for the last few years is contained in the following table:-
OVERALL FINANCIAL POSITION OF HIMACHAL PRADESH
Opening Balance Revenue Receipts$ Revenue Expenditure Revenue Account Net Closing Balance*
BEs (+)876.41 10478.33 10221.76 (+) 256.57 (+)718.04
REs (+)1121.98 10536.21 10691.13 (-) 154.92 (+)630.13
Actuals (+)1121.98 10436.36 11151.01 (-) 804.65 (+)582.60
SOURCE: Budget Documents of the Government of Himachal Pradesh.
*: This is after taking into account the capital account, loans and advances, etc.
BEs stands for the Budget Estimates.
REs stands for the Revised Estimates.
$ : Revenue receipts include State's own tax and non-tax revenues; the share in central taxes and revenue deficit grants from the Finance Commission dispensation; and the grant part of the central assistance for plan financing.
All figures are in Rupees crore.
The data on the revenue account for the year 2009-10 indicates that according to the budget estimates (which became the basis for the Thirteenth Finance Commission to estimate the salary expenditure along with the cap of restricting it to 35 per cent of the revenue expenditure), the year had been projected to have a surplus of Rs. 256.57 crore. When a State presents a revenue account surplus budget for the base year for an assessment by the Finance Commission, it must understand that it is going to have a huge impact on the overall revenue account deficit. Against these budget estimates, the actual expenditure data for 2009-10 now available indicates a deficit of Rs. 804.65 crore. This implies that the budget estimates were about Rs. 1,060 crore off the mark. On a simple assumption, this could have meant an underassessment of about Rs. 6,000 crore over the 2010-15 period. This is one part of the problem. The overall data for this year indicates that the budget estimates had a revenue account surplus of about Rs. 257 crore and the State could have done well with lesser borrowings in this year as well. The actuals for this year show a revenue deficit of about Rs. 805 crore which should have led to a closing balance of about Rs. 325 crore instead of Rs.583 crore had the State Government contracted less fresh borrowings to the tune of about Rs. 258 crore. To see how well or badly the State is presently doing on major items of revenue expenditure vis-Ã -vis its projections to the Finance Commission, it is of interest to look at the comparative data for the forecast to the Commission and the budget estimates for a sample year like 2011-12 (because by now the expenditure patterns post pay revision are expected to have stabilised). This data is depicted in the following table:-
FORECAST TO 13TH FINANCE COMMISSION AND BUDGET ESTIMATES FOR SALARY, PENSION AND INTEREST PAYMENTS LIABILITIES FOR THE YEAR 2011-12
Item Forecast Budget estimates Variation
(+) /(-)
Salary 5795 5882 (+)87
Pension 2125 2210 (+)85
Interest payments 2570 2151 (-)419
Total 10490 10243 (-)247
The forecast data has been taken out of the Memorandum presented by the State Government to the Finance Commission.
The budget estimates data is from the Budget presented to the State Legislature.
This data presents an interesting picture. Although the salary and pension expenditure in the budget estimates for 2011-12 are marginally higher than the forecast figures, the interest payment liability is about Rs.250 crore lower than the forecast figure. At an overall level, the revenue expenditure on the three major components for the year 2011-12 is about Rs. 250 crore lower than the forecast figure. Since the budget estimates emerge from historical trends, this data can be considered fairly representative of the reality. It is, however, important to mention that there exists a wide gap between the allowance made by the Commission for salary, pensions and the interest payments expenditure and the forecast presented to the Commission by the State government as explained in the preceding text. The State Government had projected an expenditure of Rs. 13,138 crore for pension liability and Rs. 14,575 crore for interest payments against which the Finance Commission allowed provisions of Rs. 8,822 crore and Rs. 10,290 crore, respectively.
Now let us come to comment upon the overall financial position. The data in this behalf are presented in the following table for six years to take a medium term look at the overall scenario.
2006-07 Actuals (-)169.16 7747.96 7643.83 (+)104.13 (-)124.09
2007-08 Actuals (-)37.11 9141.55 8291.75 (+)849.80 (+)1121.75
Actuals (+)1121.75 9307.99 9438.12 (-) 130.13 (+)1121.98
BEs (+)630.13 11588.55 12093.42 (-) 504.87 (+)197.51
REs (+)582.60 12356.83 12511.18 (-) 154.37 (+)334.02
BEs (+)334.02 14093.51 14042.46 (+) 51.05 (+)345.89
A quick perusal of the data in the above table reveals that with the exception of the budget estimates for 2010-11 when the State Government presented a budget with a revenue account deficit of about Rs. 505 crore, year after year, the State Government has been presenting a revenue account surplus budget. In layman's language it means that the revenue receipts are larger than the revenue expenditure. Now we look at the closing balance for various years. It presents a history of overall surplus position after taking into account the capital and loan accounts. When a State has a history of budgets having surplus on the revenue account and it also has consistently positive closing balances, the story of the State being in a difficult financial situation does not hold much water. In fact, using the revenue account surplus to finance the much needed capital expenditure and also to reduce the leaning on fresh borrowings is what fiscal prudence dictates.
Let us look at the individual years. For 2006-07, the actual data reveals that the fiscal year operations had an overall surplus since the opening deficit was mitigated by about Rs. 45 crore as the closing balance shows an improvement over the opening deficit. For 2007-08, the year has a nominal opening deficit of Rs. 37 crore and the year ends with a closing balance of about Rs. 1,122 crore, indicating an overall improvement of Rs. 1,159 crore. Of this, the revenue account surplus contributes about Rs. 850 crore and the remaining improvement of about Rs. 309 crore in on the capital account. The surplus on the capital account is basically fresh loans contracted by the State Government. Fiscal prudence would have demanded not to contract fresh borrowings for enhancing the closing balance without any commitment for higher capital expenditure and also for not raising the overall debt stock the servicing of which would impact the revenue expenditure on account of interest payments and capital expenditure by way of servicing the principal in the future years. The line corresponding to the year 2008-09 actuals indicates that there was a revenue account deficit of about Rs. 130 crore but the opening and closing balances remained nearly static at Rs. 1,122 crore to Rs. 1,129 crore, respectively. Even in this year, the borrowings could have been reduced by at least Rs. 137 crore. The story of 2009-10 has been commented upon in the earlier paragraphs and needs no further discussion.
For 2010-11 and 2011-12, similar story gets repeated when one looks at the budget estimates or the revised estimates. The reality will emerge after we get the actual expenditure data as we go along.
One would like to leave this with a few comments. Firstly, if the revenue account generates a surplus for any fiscal, prudence demands that the State government should borrow less to improve its fiscal deficit position. The bodings are that over the last six years, the revenue receipts and revenue expenditure aggregates have grown at about 12.9 per cent per annum each and if the State Government continues to manage its expenditure containment effort, it would end up with revenue account surplus on a sustained basis. The more important message in this is that the interest payments burden has started getting restrained as a result of a series of efforts starting with debt reset, debt swap and rescheduling along with the debt capping prescribed by the successive Finance Commissions. Therefore, there is an urgent need for expenditure compression on the salary burden. The maintenance expenditure for the existing infrastructure should be the highest priority so that the stock of infrastructure is put to good use for enhanced performance of the economy.
On the revenue receipts side, the future lies in revenues from the hydro-electric sector. The last decade and a half has not seen the desired frenetic activity to expeditiously harness the potential. The future of hydro-electricity is not very long as other clean energy options tend to become competitive in pricing and more so, on the environmental considerations. The State Government should have a clearly defined policy set up for a given time frame of at least 15 years and should not keep tinkering with it for various reasons best known to everyone. The revenues from State's own taxes have an inherent constraint of growth due to the overall size of the economy and the diversity of the economic activity. These will probably show a buoyant trend soon after the introduction of the composite Goods and Services Tax which has recently been cleared by the Union Government for a short run and then plateau out.
Secondly, the closing balance of a larger order being rolled over year after year also needs to be curtailed in a systematic manner to manage the fiscal deficit parameters. Thirdly, the revenue account surplus indicates that the State government is abiding by its Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act and deserves to be congratulated for that.
Lastly, as the revenue receipts of the State Government improve into future and it simultaneously takes charge of the revenue expenditure management, it should understand to expect less and less revenue deficit grants from the future Finance Commissions. It may be remembered that the dispensation of the Thirteenth Finance Commission resulted in three of the Special Category States, namely Assam, Sikkim and Uttarakhand, becoming revenue account surplus after the statutory tax devolution.
DK Sharma
Devinder Kumar Sharma, a former Principal Adviser and Secretary Planning, Government of Himachal Pradesh, is a visiting professor and an economist. He lives in Shimla.
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text:
Q: Convert NSString into 6bit binary representation I want to convert a NSString into 6 bit binary.
For Example :
Input:
NSString = @"A";

Output:
010001

A: -(void)hexadecimal_change:(NSString *)string{
NSLog(@"hexa");

NSString *hex = string;
NSUInteger hexAsInt;
[[NSScanner scannerWithString:hex] scanHexInt:&hexAsInt];
NSString *binary = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",[self toBinary:hexAsInt]];
NSLog(@"%@",binary);

long v = strtol([binary1 UTF8String], NULL, 2);
NSString *dec=[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%ld",v];
NSLog(@"%@",dec);

}

 -(NSString *)toBinary:(NSUInteger)input{
    if (input == 1 || input == 0)
        return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%u", input];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%u", [self toBinary:input / 2], input % 2];
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Flubromazepam is a long-lasting psychoactive substance of the benzodiazepine class which produces anxiolytic, sedative, muscle relaxant, depressant and amnesic effects.
This compound was first made in 1960, but was never marketed and did not receive any further attention or study until late 2012. It has potential use for the short-term treatment of anxiety, insomnia, acute seizures, and the sedation of hospitalized patients. However, it is currently exclusively sold by online research chemical vendors for use as a recreational psychoactive substance and has not been formally studied. This means that any comments regarding its pharmacology are purely speculation based upon the subjective effects it induces and its structural similarity to triazolam, pyrazolam and other benzodiazepines.
It's worth noting that the sudden discontinuation of benzodiazepines can be potentially dangerous or life-threatening for individuals regularly using for extended periods of time, sometimes resulting in seizures or death. It is highly recommended to taper one's dose by gradually lowering the amount taken each day for a prolonged period instead of stopping abruptly.
Flubromazepam, or 7-Bromo-5-(2-fluorophenyl)-1,3-dihydro-1,4-benzodiazepin-2-one, is a chemical of the benzodiazepine class. Flubromazepam is named for the fluorine and bromine substitutions on its core benzodiazepine skeleton (FLUorine-BROMine-azepam). Flubromazepam is a member of the benzodiazepine class as it contains a 1,4 diazepine ring fused to a substituted benzene ring. Bromine is bound to this bicyclic structure at R7. Additionally, a fluorine-substituted phenyl ring is bound to this structure at R5. Flubromazepam also contains an oxygen group double bonded to R2 of its diazepine ring to form a ketone. This oxygen substitution at R2 is shared with other benzodiazepine drugs with the suffix -azepam.
Benzodiazepines produce a variety of effects by binding to the benzodiazepine receptor site and magnifying the efficiency and effects of the neurotransmitter gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) by acting on its receptors. As this site is the most prolific inhibitory receptor set within the brain, its modulation results in the sedating (or calming effects) of flubromazepam on the nervous system.
Sedation - In terms of energy level alterations, this substance has the potential to become very sedating in a rapid-acting fashion. At higher doses, this can lead users to suddenly feel as if they are extremely sleep deprived and have not slept for days, forcing them to sit down and generally feel as if they are constantly on the verge of passing out. This sense of sleep deprivation increases proportional to dosage and eventually becomes powerful enough to force a person into complete unconsciousness.
Cognitive euphoria - This effect is generally produced only at high doses, and is thought to arise largely from the release of pre-existing anxiety in the user. Many users report not feeling any pleasurable or euphoric sensations from benzodiazepines at all.
Compulsive redosing - This component is likely due to the rapid way in which the substance produces its anxiety-relieving, relaxing and sometimes euphoric effects before quickly dropping off. It can be made worse due to the memory suppression it produces which can lead the user forgetting they have taken any at all, which can lead to a cycle that leads to a dangerous amnesic blackout state.
Delusions of sobriety - This is the false belief that one is perfectly sober despite obvious evidence to the contrary such as severe cognitive impairment and an inability to fully communicate with others. It most commonly occurs at high to heavy dosages.
Emotionality suppression - Although this compound primarily suppresses anxiety, it also dulls other emotions in a manner which is distinct but less intensive than that of antipsychotics.
Flubromazepam likely has a low toxicity relative to dose. However, it is potentially lethal when mixed with depressants like alcohol or opioids.
Flubromazepam is extremely physically and psychologically addictive.
Tolerance will develop to the sedative-hypnotic effects within a couple of days of continuous use. After cessation, the tolerance returns to baseline in 7 - 14 days. However, in certain cases, this may take significantly longer in a manner which is proportional to the duration and intensity of one's long-term usage.
Withdrawal symptoms or rebound symptoms may occur after ceasing usage abruptly following a few weeks or longer of steady dosing and may necessitate a gradual dose reduction. For more information on tapering from benzodiazepines in a controlled manner, please see this guide.
Benzodiazepine discontinuation is notoriously difficult; it is potentially life-threatening for individuals regularly using to discontinue use without tapering their dose over a period of weeks. There is an increased risk of hypertension, seizures, and death. Drugs which lower the seizure threshold such as tramadol should be avoided during withdrawal.
Flubromazepam presents cross-tolerance with all benzodiazepines, meaning that after its consumption, all benzodiazepines will have a reduced effect.
Although many drugs are safe on their own, they can become dangerous and even life-threatening when combined with other substances. The list below contains some common potentially dangerous combinations, but may not include all of them. Certain combinations may be safe in small doses of each but still, increase the potential risk of death. Independent research should always be done to ensure that a combination of two or more substances is safe before consumption.
Benzodiazepine overdose may occur when a benzodiazepine is taken in large quantities or concurrently with other depressants. This is particularly dangerous with other GABAergic depressants such as barbiturates and alcohol since they work similarly, but bind to distinct allosteric sites on the GABAA receptor. Thus their effects potentiate one another. Benzodiazepines increase the frequency in which the chlorine ion pore opens on the GABAA receptor while barbiturates increase the duration in which they are open, meaning when both are consumed, the ion pore will open more frequently and stay open longer. Benzodiazepine overdose is a medical emergency that may lead to a coma, permanent brain injury or death if not treated promptly and appropriately.
Symptoms of a benzodiazepine overdose may include severe thought deceleration, slurred speech, confusion, delusions, respiratory depression, coma or death. Benzodiazepine overdoses may be treated effectively in a hospital environment, with generally favorable outcomes. Benzodiazepine overdoses are sometimes treated with flumazenil, a GABAA antagonist. However, care is primarily supportive in nature.
Germany - On November 21, 2015, flubromazepam was added to the controlled substance act ("BtMG"), making it illegal to produce, sell or possess.
Volumetric liquid dosing - If the benzodiazepine is in a powder form, it is unlikely to weigh out accurately without the most expensive of scales due to its activity in such small amounts. To avoid this, one can dissolve the benzodiazepine volumetrically into a solution and dose it accurately based upon the methodological instructions linked within this tutorial here.
This page was last modified on 20 April 2019, at 23:06.


Robert W. Decherd will succeed Moroney as chairman, president and chief executive officer. Decherd previously served as chairman and chief executive officer of A. H. Belo and Belo Corp. from 1987-2013. Decherd has remained a director over the five years since Moroney became the company's chief executive officer.
Tyree B. Miller, lead director of A. H. Belo, said, "The Board is enormously grateful to Jim for leading the company through a period of unprecedented change in the newspaper and media industries. His intense focus on A. H. Belo's journalistic mission and his deft handling of the company's business portfolio have put A. H. Belo in a position only a few U.S. newspaper companies can claim today. We thank him and welcome Robert back to the leadership role he ably fulfilled for many years."
Moroney added, "When I became CEO in 2013, I told the Board I would commit to four years. It's now been almost five years and I asked Ty to form a transition committee which worked diligently during the past year to design the organization we now have in place. I feel very good about where we are as a company." The Board's transition committee was composed of Miller, director John P. Puerner, who preceded Miller as lead director, Moroney and Decherd.
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Decherd said, "It's exciting to serve again as A. H. Belo's chief executive officer. We are in the enviable position of being able to conceive and implement initiatives that reinforce shareholder value while upholding the company's long-standing commitment to local journalism, editorial leadership, and far-reaching news projects. A. H. Belo has great people, strong conviction, and a durable financial structure."


text:
Everville: The Second Book of the Art
Clive Barker. HarperCollins Publishers, $25 (697pp) ISBN 978-0-06-017716-4
Horror's wunderkind returns with a spectacular sequel to his masterpiece of dark fantasy, The Great and Secret Show. As before, the saga of how our world commingles with the dream-sea world of Quiddity-and the wondrous, sometimes malevolent lands and beings that lie beyond its shores-provides the British author with a vast canvas on which he paints a riot of Boschean images. So complex are Barker's imaginings-from a celestial hierarchy that toys with human affairs; a geometry in which a pyramidic city can balance on its tip-that readers new to his cosmos could use a glossary or map that, alas, the publishers do not provide. Still, most will be swept away by his marvels, begining with the horrific decimation of a party of Old West pioneers by an interloper from the parallel world of Quiddity. Grotesqueries, dazzlements and titanic battles between humans and nonhumans abound as, in the present, several men, women and creatures, many returning from the prequel, are caught up in the attempt by two corrupt men to attain the ``Art,'' the power by which they can manipulate time and space. Meanwhile, the Iad, a sentient force of immense destructiveness, breaks into our world on a mountaintop above the town of Everville, Oreg. But for all his facility at apocalyptic wonders, Barker's greatest strength remains his grasp on the yearnings of the heart and spirit. At times profoundly moving as flawed heroes and heroines martyr themselves to love or goodness, this novel confirms the author's position not only as one of horror's most potent and fertile minds but also as one of modern fiction's premier metaphysicians. BOMC and QPB alternates; Harper Audio. (Nov.)
Hardcover - 978-0-06-017798-0
Mass Market Paperbound - 656 pages - 978-0-06-109308-1
Open Ebook - 704 pages - 978-0-06-009191-0
Paperback - 704 pages - 978-0-06-093315-9
Peanut Press/Palm Reader - 704 pages - 978-0-06-009710-3
COLDHEART CANYON: A Hollywood Ghost Story
Barker fans may breathe a sigh of relief. That the Walt Disney Company is paying $8 million for ancillary rights to the author's forthcoming for-all-ages novel series, The Arabat Quartet Continue reading »
Those with the determination to commit to nearly an entire day of listening will be glad they put forth the effort, because this is one impressive production. Barker's 19th book is an epic Continue reading »
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS
When a 10-year-old boy wishes to be delivered from a boring afternoon, a creature takes him to the Holiday House. "Barker masterfully embroiders this fantasy world with a mounting number of Continue reading »
ABARAT
Like The Thief of Always, Barker's first book for children, this tale finds a bored protagonist venturing into a fantastical world. The novel begins with a Continue reading »
CLIVE BARKER'S HELLRAISER: Collected Best II
Larry Wachowski, John Bolton, Clive Barker
The stories in this uneven anthology come from the Epic comics series of a decade ago, which was inspired by a continuing series of horror movies, all of which originated in Barker's novella Continue reading »
Candy Quackenbush travels from Chickentown, Minn., to a fantastic otherworld of unbelievable characters, including the Lord of Midnight, Christopher Carrion. "The author's imagination runs Continue reading »
Mister B. Gone
This offbeat novel in the form of a minor demon's diary may satisfy devoted Barker fans eager for his return to adult fiction after several years writing the Abarat series, but others, Continue reading »
With a bone-chilling opening consisting of a gloomy score and a very angry Doug Bradley (Hellraiser 's Pinhead himself), Barker's latest horror effort Continue reading »
A giant of horror strides toward mainstream fiction in this awesome but skewed novel. Not that Barker (Everville, etc.) has forsaken the fantastic and outre; but here, the premier metaphysician of Continue reading »
Galilee: A Romance
A family saga isn't what we'd expect from Barker (Sacrament), the most ambitious dark fantasist of our time, but that's what he delivers in his most elegant, and most conventional, novel yet. A Continue reading »
Clive Barker's Books of Blood
The playwright, artist, film producer and horror-master extraordinaire makes his original six paperback collections from 1984 and 1985 available in one monstrous volume with Clive Barker's Books Continue reading »
Books of Blood, Vols. I-III
Published last year in Britain as three paperback originals, these short narratives garnered impressive reviews. This edition, Barker's first hardcover appearance in America, gathers together 16 Continue reading »
Comprised of a novel and four long stories, this volume is classic Barker, full of lurid, bloody imagery and action involving large-than-life characters. It's great fun and provides plenty of thrills Continue reading »
Damnation Game
Barker has generated acclaim and controversy with his dozens of shorter works published in the six ""Books of Blood.'' His rather long first novel is often engrossing, often disturbing and Continue reading »
Weaveworld
This long second novel by Barker, whose first, The Damnation Game, was published earlier this year, is an unusual and not totally convincing mix of adventure and fairy tale. Barker envisions a race Continue reading »
The Great and Secret Show: The First Book of the Art
Early in his new epic novel, Barker describes the thoughts of one of his characters as ``barbaric and baroque''--and the words fairly sum up the book. Down-and-outer Randolph Jaffe works in the Continue reading »
The Thief of Always: A Fable
In a tale that manages to be both cute and horrifying, bestselling novelist and screenwriter Barker ( Imajica ) puts the dark side back into childhood fantasy, recalling the violent undercurrents of Continue reading »
The Painter, the Creature, and the Father of Lies
Clive Barker, Sarah Stokes
This landmark retrospective comprises twenty-five years of essays and incantations from a modern mastermind of the horror genre. A chance viewing of Jean Cocteau's The Testament of Orpheus as a child Continue reading »
Chiliad: A Meditation
Horror's characteristic preoccupations with the filth and violation of the human body are present in Barker's "meditation," but it is neither horror nor a story in any conventional sense. It has the Continue reading »
Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium
Horror legend Barker (Hellraiser) builds a world of corruption, decay, political intrigue, and bile-inducing detail in this tightly constructed novella. After introducing Agonistes, an Continue reading »
Harry D'Amour, the psychically sensitive detective from Barker's Books of Blood, faces off with Pinhead, the sadistic Cenobite star of the Hellraiser series, in this gory battle royal that takes the Continue reading »
Midian Unmade: Tales of Clive Barker's Nightbreed
Clive Barker, Joseph Nassise, Del Howison
Most of the 22 stories in this tribute to Clive Barker's novel and film Cabal successfully evoke the feelings of loneliness and persecution that motivate that story's race of monstrous Continue reading »

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The Bailey's Book Reviews: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
My favourite type of video games are those I can really get stuck into and build a story of my own. In 2014, I finally splurged on all three Mass Effect titles and thoroughly enjoyed following my own female ginger-haired Shepherd through the trials of being a certified badass, throwing jemble upon jemble at the walls in a flick of a hand. But aside from the ever-so-satisfying combat (particularly in the first game where you literally could walk into a room and lift everyone in it straight away), what really got me hooked was the multi-species crew, their back-stories and their future with you.
Especially Liara. Oh Liara.
Love me? Of course I will!
The characters come in shades of grey moral wise, and depending on your choices throughout the adventure will also depend on who you grow closest to. If you haven't played Mass Effect you should. If you lack a suitable device to play it on, then I recommend watching many of the cut together "Mass Effect movies" on Youtube. So the reason I bring up Mass Effect is that The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is basically a book of Mass Effect character quests.
I realise this comparison will mean absolutely nothing to a lot of you, so I'll try another.
It's like watching a multi-species crew pilot Serenity on a long mission in the short-lived show Firefly, instead of everyone speaking Chinese from being part of an integrated society yet being almost totally Caucasian but that's a gripe for another day. The book has the fun bounciness and quick wit that Joss Whedon gives to all his characters, though very much feel like Chambers' own creation, rather than an homage to anything specific.
Okay, so comparisons aside, this book is really great. Rosemary Harper joins the Wayfarer as a new administrator, and serves as our narrator that guides us through the lives of the crew. It is a classic space opera, reminiscent of Star Trek (oh alright one more comparison), that is absolutely joyous to read.
The Long Way originally started out life as a successfully funded Kickstarter project, as Chambers' debut novel, that was then picked up by Hodder Books to be published in the UK and USA.
Characterisation is the focus -really the story is not about the journey they make to a dangerous bit of space; it's about who is making the journey and how they work together to complete it. Each voice is heard clearly, and none of the characters feel underwritten (I do think Kizzy could have been fleshed out more, but that is possibly because I felt she was probably an aspie and wanted to know more about her).
In fact, Chambers' construction of non-human races is dramatically detailed, as well as the history of human expansion into the galaxy. The descriptions of deep-space mining is practically mind boggling, but also thrilling. The care and attention to detail for the galaxy inhabited by the Wayfarer is incredibly impressive and cohesive.
Some of the most touching moments came from Sissix's storylines. A pilot and only resident Aandrisk, Sissix's family life and culture is explored through its inclusiveness but also its willingness to exclude those who are different. In a small passage where Sissix comforts a lone Aandrisk, she later tells of how some of her people cannot communicate in the same way, and are often cast out, made to be loners. I basically bawled my eyes out at this (as does Rosemary, so I wasn't alone). I absolutely love Sissix and hope desperately for more to be written about her.
Another heartwrenching storyline is the crew member who is in love with the ship's AI; it can't all end happily, can it?
The underlying moral of the story is ultimately that we may not always understand each other completely, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't care for each other. It's a pretty good message to live by. Alongside that, it's really fun. It's silly and funny and ridiculous, and is full of heart.
Why should it win?
The Long Way combines zany space opera fun with thorough character focussed storylines, harmonising to create a fun, memorable adventure through space. Accessible community-focussed sci-fi for all!
Interested? Get it here.
The sequel, A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
Hold Back the Stars by Katie Khan
Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie
Thanks again to Hodder Books for providing me with a review copy, though admittedly I'd already broken and bought a copy by the time it arrived. Grateful colleagues have been devouring it since.
littlehux	1 Minute Reviews, Bailey's Prize Longlist 2016, Fiction, LGBTQ	11 Comments March 31, 2016 April 12, 2019 3 Minutes
The Bailey's Book Reviews: At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison
I firmly believe that we are currently living in a real boom for nature writing. At work I've made displays specifically to show off the plethora of recently published hardbacks celebrating nature, specifically that of Britain. For a small island, we have a lot to talk about, whether it be in form of memoir or purely historical count of the land.
I've known of Melissa Harrison through her nature writing, and from repeatedly being at the same talks as each other on the topic – and also from that time myself and a few friends gegged along on her evening chatting with Helen McDonald in a bar under a theatre in Soho (sorry about that Melissa!).
Because of this, I really didn't know what to expect, having not read her previous offering Clay, but the first thing that became clear to me is how much the genes of nature writing are expressed in her fiction. The prose is suffused with rich descriptions of the countryside around Lodeshill, regularly to a level of detail you don't usually see in other fiction writers. This isn't a criticism however, this attention to detail serves to build up a rich real landscape, and a realisation that the setting of the novel is living as much as the characters who reside in it.
At Hawthorn Time is a quietly paced novel that begins with a (future) bang, and builds up to this throughout the month long story. It predominantly follows four characters – married ex-Londoners Harold and Kitty, both finding themselves stuck and unable to move forward; young Jamie, desperate to finish his beloved Corsa and escape the village; vagrant farmhand Jack, whose jottings on the wildlife act as a header for every chapter.
The gentle melancholy of the characters and the book itself reminds me so much of Stoner by John Williams or even A Whole Life, a recently translated German novel by Robert Seethaler.
Jamie reminds me of many of the people I went to school with and a desire to escape the country I saw in myself – the irony being that now I'd love to live back in the countryside, feeling stifled by hot polluted bustle of the city-lifestyle I'd always coveted. Maybe I've become Kitty?
I genuinely enjoyed At Hawthorn Time and it thoroughly deserves its place on the longlist.
At Hawthorn Time a humble, melancholy novel with a living landscape, populated by complex characters whose stories gripped me. Harrison deftly combines and contrasts a narrative of paused lives with the never-stopping persistence of nature.
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler
Stoner by John Williams
Thank you to Hannah from Bloomsbury Books for sending me over a copy to read.
littlehux	1 Minute Reviews, Bailey's Prize Longlist 2016, Fiction	2 Comments March 28, 2016 April 12, 2019 2 Minutes


SUNDAY, April 27, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Humor and laughter may help combat memory loss in the elderly, a new study suggests.
Previous research has found that the stress hormone cortisol can harm memory and learning ability in older adults. This new study examined whether mirth might reduce the damage caused by cortisol.
Researchers showed a 20-minute humorous video to a group of healthy seniors and a group of seniors with diabetes. These groups were compared with a group of seniors who didn't see the video.
The two groups that watched the funny video showed significant decreases in cortisol levels and greater improvements on memory tests, compared to the group that didn't see the video. The diabetes group showed the largest decrease in cortisol levels, while the healthy group had the greatest improvement on memory tests.
The study was to be presented Sunday at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego. Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
"It's simple, the less stress you have, the better your memory," one of the study's authors, Lee Berk, said in a Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology news release. "Humor reduces detrimental stress hormones like cortisol that decreases memory [brain cells], lowers your blood pressure and increases blood flow and your mood state. The act of laughter -- or simply enjoying some humor -- increases the release of endorphins and dopamine in the brain, which provides a sense of pleasure and reward.
"These positive and beneficial neurochemical changes, in turn, make the immune system function better," Berk added. "There are even changes in brain wave activity towards what's called the 'gamma wave band frequency', which also amp up memory and recall. So, indeed, laughter is turning out to be not only a good medicine, but also a memory enhancer adding to our quality of life."
The findings could be used in designing wellness programs for the elderly, according to study author Dr. Gurinder Singh Bains. Berk and Bains are both from Loma Linda University in Calif.


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"The information I got from thousands of letters sent and received enabled me to document the early history of the home-business movement in a way no other author was doing then or has done since."
"Without question, our own words can come back to us years later to become a tremendous source of help and encouragement to us—which is exactly why I have always urged people to keep a journal.
"When we write our thoughts and feelings from the heart at the time they occur to us, we are able to tap into something elusive that will be lost forever if we don't grab it right then and put it in writing."
BELOW, Barbara's new memoir, which features an amazing collection of family writing that includes her mother's private memoir and youthful writings, excerpts from her diaries and journals, and many family letters that colorfully document the lives of Marcella's family.
This book could not have been written if the whole family had not saved their history in one form of writing or another.
Copyright © 2000-2018 by Barbara Brabec. All rights reserved.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Barbara waxes nostalgically about what many people are now losing because of the convenience and speed of electronic and digital communication, which has made letters seem impractical. "But don't let your personal, family, and home-business history get lost in the process," she urges.
I RECENTLY STUMBLED ACROSS this nostalgic note from fellow author and business friend Leila Peltosaari, written while she was packing for a move to new quarters one year:
"I ran across some of your old print newsletters and just sat there and reminisced—it was such a nice era. Remember? This was before computers taking all of our time. Your newsletter was so charming and such a good read; you featured me in many of them and I remember how pleasant it was to get it in the mail. Those times seems so far away now and we both have been through a lot. This electronic era doesn't have the same old-fashioned charm, but what can we do, except just go with the times?"
Many of my readers have no idea that my husband and I published a quarterly magazine called Artisan Crafts from 1971 through mid-1976 when a recession finally did us in. I ceased publication gracefully by going out with a special three-issue award-winning Bicentennial Series I called CraftSpirit 76. After publishing my first book, I launched a print subscription newsletter that thrived from 1981 to mid-1995. Of course all this started long before I had a computer—back in the "dark ages" where everything had to be done on a typewriter and glued to boards for the printer with typesetting purchased for headlines and red film cut to indicate the placement of photographs. My newsletter had three different names and formats through the years (Sharing Barbara's Mail, The National Home Business Report, and the Self-Employment Survival Letter), and it was such a boon to me when I finally got my first computer and could begin to produce and lay out issues with considerably greater ease, although nothing compared to what can be done on the computer now.
Snail Mail and Emails
I love the Internet and email, too, but I very much miss the warmth of the snail mail I used to receive from publicity mentions and from readers of my newsletter and various magazine columns—usually 25,000 letters or more a year. Some letters were typed, of course, but most of my mail in those days came from home business beginners who sent charming hand-written notes, cards, or very long letters filled with a unique combination of hope, joy, frustration, excitement, worry, and fear of the unknown. Often, there were enclosures of a newly printed brochure, flyer, or business card. This mail was always extremely personal and infinitely satisfying to me.
Many of the folks who wrote to me in the seventies, eighties, and early nineties ended up being featured in one or more of my books. In the early days, I couldn't afford unlimited long-distance telephone calls, so much of my interviewing had to be done tediously by letter until telephone rates became more affordable. The information I got from thousands of letters sent and received enabled me to document the early history of the home-business movement in a way no other author was doing then or has done since. Wanting to be truly helpful to others, my book contributors gave me cautionary tips and sage words of advice and encouragement that added a unique personal quality to the sound business information in each of my books.
Of course I love being able now to do research on the Internet and communicate with my readers by telephone and email, but an email message printed on paper for reference can't begin to compare to the warmth of a personal letter on stationery that comes through the mail. Something that does give me special pleasure today, however, is that many of the readers on my Brabec Bulletin mailing list are folks who have been with me through thick and thin over many years. We have a shared history of "the good old days" that no amount of technology can replace, and I value these friendships very much. Whereas in years past I saved special letters from my readers, today I save copies of their email messages in annual folders along with my own messages that document my thoughts and activities. As I've learned from experience, these file folders will be invaluable reference files and memory joggers for me as I work on new books in the future.
The History Being Lost Today
Most people today—even older people who used to prefer writing letters—seem to love the ease with which they can communicate electronically by email, telephone, or text messaging. But what I see happening here is a complete loss of personal, family, and home-business history. That's why for years I've been encouraging people to print or at least save for printing later all the most interesting email messages received from family and friends, as well as copies of their own interesting and informative messages. (Forget about saving trees; what you need to focus on here is saving history.)
Any thinking person can see how the details of our personal. family, and business lives are falling through the cracks here, along with the kind of family history that generations before us carefully documented in letters, journals, and scrapbooks. But it's not just history that we can capture by saving our email messages. Gwen Lord, one of my long-time readers and business friends explains:
"Barbara: We have shared so many 'special emails' of encouragement for such a long time and I have saved many of them in a folder because they were so full of wonderful advice and tidbits about how to enhance my business. I have so many of your newsletters there, too, and get such a kick out of reading them from time to time.
"In 2005 you posted some of my thoughts and ideas in your Newsletter and I printed them and hung them on the wall behind my computer. I'm especially fond of 'the little train that could' entry, and it still makes me smile to just see the clip art of the little train you used, and I'm amazed now by how my own words there have been such a source of encouragement over the years."
Without question, our own words can come back to us years later to become a tremendous source of help and encouragement to us—which is exactly why I have always urged people to keep a journal. When we write our thoughts and feelings from the heart at the time they occur to us, we are able to tap into something elusive that will be lost forever if we don't grab it right then and put it in writing. As proof, I offer my memoir, The Drummer Drives! Everybody Else Rides, a book that was based entirely on years of journal writing, plus a lifetime of letters Harry and I wrote to friends and family and kept copies of. I never could have written this book or the ones I'm working on now for publication as eBooks if I hadn't begun to document my life in writing at the age of eighteen by writing letters to my mother. She saved all of them and gave them back to me when I was in my mid-forties, and I felt as though I'd struck gold. I had no idea of the thousands of little details of my life that I had completely forgotten in the "rush of living," and it was such fun to live those years over again through my own writing.
If there is any real point to this article, beyond the fact that I just need to get these thoughts "out there" for others to read, it's that I want you to realize it's not too late for you to start capturing your own personal and family history for posterity (or, as Harry used to say, "for ma's territy, too." So start journaling now if you're not already doing this, and also start printing copies of all your most interesting and informative personal and family email messages. Then one day you will be able to leave your children and grandchildren a written legacy of not only your life, but theirs as well. And they will love you for it.
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Sandsend village church faces closure without help
St Mary's in Sandsend. Picture by Scott Wicking
Victorian place of worship needs repairs
A fundraising campaign has been launched to help save St Mary's Church in Sandsend from possible closure.
One of the principal fundraisers, Stephen Renshaw, married his wife, Judith, at the church in 2008, despite living 80 miles away in West Yorkshire.
He explained why the church means so much to him, saying: "It was my wife's dream to get married in that church.
"I proposed to her on Sandsend beach and we later married at St Mary's.
"When we were visiting the church, we saw a notice saying it was under threat, and my wife and I were so upset to hear that."
He added: "Although the regular congregation numbers have declined, St Mary's is cherished by the whole community and the hundreds who visit each year.
"We call St Mary's 'our church' and that is why we want to help this small passionate group of people keep the church going so that our children and grandchildren can also enjoy its splendour for many years to come."
The high costs and low number of users have put the future of the church in doubt.
A recent structural survey has highlighted the need for repairs in the building which must be carried out over the next one to two years.
Failure to raise the estimated £25,000 required for these repairs could see the building closed to the public.
The main issues are that the church, built during the Victorian period, needs repairs just to make it fit for purpose.
A further complication is that the St Mary's building is not owned by the church – it is leased to them by Lord Normanby, and Lythe PCC are under a legal obligation to look after the building.
House of Lords says Whitby is being "let down" by poor public transport
Mike Russell, chairman of St Mary's Appeal Committee, said: "We are trying to raise money to keep the church open, but also to use the church as a community space as well.
"As the village hall has been closed, we want to raise enough to put a kitchen and toilet in the building, so it can be used as a place for the community and a place of worship.
"The cost of repairs is about £25,000 but we are trying to raise about £50-60,000 to make it a community space."
The Parish of Lythe is a rural and seaside landscape which includes the communities of Lythe, Sandsend, Goldsborough and Kettleness.
The name "Lythe" means "on a hill". The Parish of Lythe, which originally extended over some 40 square miles, and included the present parishes of Egton and Ugthorpe, is nearly all high above sea level, though the sea forms a Parish boundary.
St Mary's' parent church is St Oswald's at Lythe, which is found at the top of Lythe bank.


The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Israel conducted a war game recently, premised on a unilateral Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear sites within days after the U.S. Presidential elections. While the scenario itself led to a sequence of limited escalations by Iran and some allies against Israel, and ultimately, against U.S. and Persian Gulf targets, the outcome was a limited regional conflict. However, in the conclusions that followed the war game, the INSS reported that some of the players concluded that the Israeli attack would "lead to World War III," particularly because Russia and China took positions in stark contrast with both Israel and the United States.
The publication and wide dissemination of the INSS war game report and the warning of World War III, coming just days after Lyndon LaRouche's National Press Club event last Friday, Nov. 2, warning in stark terms about the danger of thermonuclear war, is of particular relevance.
According to a senior U.S. intelligence source deeply involved in war-avoidance efforts, the INSS publication of the war game findings was part of a renewed effort on the part of Israeli military and intelligence circles to push back against the growing threat that Netanyahu will again push for a unilateral Israeli attack. The source also cited the recent Ha'aretz revelations, to be further documented tonight on a British independent Channel Four TV documentary, that in 2010, Netanyahu actually ordered an Israeli preventive air attack on Iran, but was blocked by top Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad officials. According to the Ha'aretz account, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, then the Chief of Staff of the IDF, challenged the prime minister's authority to launch an attack without the approval of either his security cabinet or the relevant committees of the Knesset. Netanyahu was forced to back down, and soon afterwards, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan came out with a sharp warning against any Israeli unilateral attack on Iran.
The source went on to warn that, while an attack in the immediate days ahead is not a certainty, if Netanyahu is reelected in the January 2013 Israeli elections, he will move immediately to define a new "Red Line" for an Israeli attack, virtually guaranteeing an Israeli military strike early in 2013. Netanyahu is betting that the P5+1 will not reach a negotiated settlement with Iran before that time, and that Israel will be in a better position to pressure the United States—no matter who wins the upcoming elections—to join Israel in attacking Iran.
Between the Ha'aretz revelations and the release of the INSS warnings of World War III, the source noted, the anti-war elements in the Israeli military and intelligence establishment have activated "overnight."
We need to strenthen the hand of any Israeli anti-war mil and intel elements. The way to do this is to give Nuthin'yahoo a beat down.
He picked the wrong horse. Now comes the payback.
How dare you, Netanyahu, interfere in our domestic politics? How dare you! It's not enough that we sacrifice the fruit of our wombs in paranoid Israeli-interest-only wars? It's not enough that we bankroll you (foreign aid is meant for third countries, not grasping selfish 1st world ones) while infrastructure (which is a job multiplier) here crumbles?
How many Palestinians and other Muslims will you have to kill before you say, 'Ah, I feel all better now. I guess I'm finally satisfied." The answer of course is infinite, killing others will never bring peace to your cursed and evil soul.
the INSS reported that some of the players concluded that the Israeli attack would "lead to World War III,"
I certainly hope not. But they are running these simulations because certain individuals are "leaving every option on the table".


text:
Q: C Equivalent of Python Code struct.pack?
Possible Duplicate:
What is the C Equivalent of Python's pack("<I", 0)

How can I replicate the code in Python:
from struct import pack
string = pack("<I", 0x11111111)
print string

in C? From what I understand \x11 is a nonprintable character so...?

A: const char *string = "\x11\x11\x11\x11";
puts(string);

A: char* memory = (char*)malloc(5); //4 bytes plus null
for(uint i=0;i<4;i++){
  memory[i] = 0x11; //creating a little-endian 4byte \0x11111111
  // avoiding local endianess issues
};
memory[4] = 0; //To make it into a string
printf("%s\n", memory);
free(memory);


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Home>Nagaland >And there's a museum for Naga antiquities called 'museum'
And there's a museum for Naga antiquities called 'museum'
By Our Correspondent Updated: Dec 05, 2018 12:04 am
Visitors try out a wooden cart at the 'Museum,' which is a feature of the Traditional Evening Park, at Kigwema in Kohima. (EM Images)
Kohima, Dec. 4: Feeling bored? Let us break the monotony of the contemporary world and leap back into the past to a stall named simply 'museum' at the Traditional Evening Park, at Kigwema in Kohima.
The museum displays an assortment of items that were used apparently in the olden days. Some were even claimed to be over 100 years old. Among the items are a steel-tipped spear; and a shield made from the hide of a rhino. It is claimed to be over 100 years old.
It was said to have been used by Angami warriors during the headhunting era.
Another item is 'lekü,' a water vessel said to have been made from the dried skin of a wax gourd. It was claimed to be over 60 years old. It was informed that Naga forefathers carried wine or water in it. There is also a wooden cart called 'lheto gari.' Lheto is Angami for a type of wood while 'gari' is Hindi for vehicle.
There are also a variety of tableware, basket, bed, and shawls etc., on display. Some members at the museum will assist you in telling the stories behind it. For the sake of satisfaction, try giving it a visit.
By Our Correspondent Updated: Dec 05, 2018 12:04:27 am


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Free Minds
All The News That Matters From Different Sources. You Decide.
Highlights: Louis Oosthuizen leads after Round 2 of 2021 The Open Championship | Golf Channel
Free Minds July 16, 2021 2 min read
Highlights of Louis Oosthuizen's second round at the 2021 The Open Championship at Royal St. George's, where he holds the lead after 36 holes. #GolfChannel #TheOpen #RoyalStGeorges
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text:
title:  El Fin
date:   24/09/2016
---

### El Fin
#### Sábado 24 de septiembre

### LEE PARA EL ESTUDIO DE ESTA SEMANA:
Job 42:10-17; Génesis 4:8; Mateo 14:10; 1 Corintios 4:5; Daniel 2:44; Job 14:14, 15.

>
PARA MEMORIZAR:

> "Le dijo Jesús: Yo soy la resurrección y la vida; el que cree en mí, aunque esté muerto, vivirá" (Juan 11:25).

EN LAS CLASES DE REDACCIÓN, se enseña la importancia de que los textos tengan un buen  nal. En las obras de  cción, donde el contenido no es verídico pero debe ser verosímil, el autor necesita completar el trabajo con un  nal sa- tisfactorio. Sin embargo, también en el caso de las no- cciones es importante un buen  nal.

Y en la realidad, ¿qué ocurre? ¿Qué pasa en la vida misma, experimentada no en las páginas de una obra, sino en carne y hueso? ¿Qué sucede en nuestras propias historias? ¿Qué clase de  nal tenemos? Los cabos sueltos, ¿están unidos en forma agradable, como en una buena redacción?

Este no parece ser el caso. ¿Cómo es posible que nuestra historia termine bien si el  nal siempre es la muerte? En ese sentido, nunca tenemos  nales felices, porque ¿es feliz una muerte?

Lo mismo es cierto en la historia de Job. Aunque, a menudo, se la presenta con teniendo un  nal feliz (en contraste con todo lo sufrido por Job), en real- mente no lo es porque también esta historia termina con la muerte.

Esta semana, al iniciar nuestro estudio del libro de Job, comenzaremos por el  nal, pues plantea preguntas acerca de nuestro propio  n, no solo en esta tierra sino también en la eternidad.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
VIEW NARRATIVES
World Encyclopedia of Plant Bacterial Diseases
World's Plant Diseases Caused By Bacteria
Milton N. Schroth, Eva I. Hecht-Poinar and Anne M. Alvarez
Department of Plant Pathology (1903–1992), University of California, Berkeley 94720;
third author, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu 96822.
The purpose of this website is to provide images and data of the world's most
important bacterial plant diseases. The search features are designed to assist
teachers, scientists, farm advisors and backyard gardeners in diagnosis and
disease management. It is applicable for computers, smart phones and other
devices that allow data to be viewed almost anywhere in the world. We present
over 1,000 images with characteristic symptoms and captions that include
pathogen name, common and scientific names of the host and disease. When
possible, multiple images are provided to show various stages of symptom
expression as the disease progresses. Thirty-five narratives present an
overview of the ecology and pathogenic properties of some major types of plant
diseases such as galls, rots, wilts, fasciations, and scabs.
Not all bacterial diseases are included either because images no longer existed
or a provider could not be located. Some images were imperfect due to problems
common to old slides but the images were nevertheless included when no others
were available. It is not possible to keep up with the taxonomy of bacteria past
2010 as taxonomists often alter names based on new information It is our hope
that future efforts will expand the coverage of bacterial diseases with images of
new and recently described diseases and/or improve resolution and quality of
some images which were previously unavailable.
All contributors have signed copyright release forms or permissions and the
images are now "free open access", courtesy of the American
Phytopathological Society (APS). Free open access is important to the
dissemination of scientific information and we hope that scientific
organizations will follow our practice. Land grant universities throughout the
states with their experiment stations have always been outstanding in
providing needed information and are a good source for additional specific
information to complement our website.
Footer_Menu
© 2019 PlantDiseases.org. All Rights Reserved.


The lab proposed will investigate temperature and its effects on catalase.
Establish baselines of hydrogen peroxide loss due to heating and handling.
All temperatures should have a baseline taken. Temperatures 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 degrees celsius should be tested along with additional tests to find the true effecient point of the catalase (hypothesized to be about 32°C). KMnO4 titration will be used to find out the remaining hydrogen peroxide after 20 seconds. Additional runs at 60 seconds are possible if 20 seconds reveals too little data at the extreme points.
Remove from bath and titrate.
This procedure does not require the styrofoam cups and will potentially maintain a better constant temperature over longer time intervals. It will also effectively get rid of heat of reaction.


text:
Cloudy. High 51F. Winds light and variable..
Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 34F. Winds light and variable.
In high demand, where could Titans OC Arthur Smith land?
Before the Tennessee Titans 20-13 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday in the AFC wild card round, offensive coordinator Arthur Smith was a hot commodity among teams searching for a new head coach.
Despite a dreadful showing in Nashville that yielded just 12 first downs and 209 yards of total offense, Smith was still in demand following the game, interviewing with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday night following the game and the New York Jets, Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Chargers and Detroit Lions on Monday night.
The Philadelphia Eagles also asked the Titans for permission to interview Smith on Tuesday.
In an interview with Robby and Rexrode on 102.5-FM on Tuesday, Yahoo! Sports NFL insider Charles Robinson stated that Smith would be the best fit on a team that runs a balanced offense with pieces already in place.
"I think the Chargers are probably the best destination [for Smith] just given the talent and the quarterback that's there to work with," Robinson said.
"…The ability for Arthur Smith to walk in and run the kind of balanced scheme he can run in Tennessee [is important]. But I also think some of this is being dictated by what's going to happen with (Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator) Brian Daboll, and weirdly enough Doug Pederson. The separation with Philadelphia could actually impact this because I do think that Pederson could be a candidate in New York with the Jets."
The Chargers are the only team that interviewed or requested to interview Smith that have a franchise quarterback already in place with record-breaking rookie Justin Herbert. Los Angeles also has a solid stable of running backs with Austin Ekeler, Kalen Ballage, Joshua Kelly and Justin Jackson, a nice 1-2 punch at receiver with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, and a top tight end in Hunter Henry.
Outside of the Chargers, the rest of the organizations looking for a head coach have some level of uncertainty at quarterback. The Jaguars are presumed to move on from Gardner Minshew and draft Trevor Lawrence with the No. 1 pick in April's draft.
The Jets have Sam Darnold but could potentially draft Justin Fields or Zach Wilson with the No. 2 overall pick. The Falcons and Lions have Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford, respectively, but both could be gone with new regimes taking over.
With five interviews already completed and a sixth potentially on the horizon, the likelihood the Titans could be in the market for a new offensive coordinator is becoming a very real possibility.
"Arthur would do a great job [as a head coach]," Titans coach Mike Vrabel said. "I've got a lot of respect for Arthur. [He] hasn't worked telephones and tried to undercut anybody. He's always come to work. I have a lot of trust in Arthur as a person, first and foremost."
Follow Michael Gallagher on Twitter @MGsports_


text:
		<form wicket:id="form" id="form1" method="post" action="./org.apache.wicket.ajax.form.AjaxFormSubmitTestPage?0-1.-form">
<input type="hidden" name="form1_hf_0" id="form1_hf_0" />

			<input type="text" wicket:id="txt1" value="foo" name="txt1"/>
			<input type="text" wicket:id="txt2" value="bar" name="txt2"/>
			<input type="submit" value="Submit" wicket:id="submit" name="p::submit" id="submit2"/>
		</form>


The crypto market, after its decline has now showed signs of getting back and it would be only fair for investors to recoup what they lost during those times of darkness. You can't take anything away from cryptocurrencies, as their rise can be meteoric within hours or better still minutes.
However, this year hasn't been as smooth as that of last year, when digital coins enjoyed an upward trajectory for the most part of the year, with Bitcoin, almost hitting the $20,000 mark.
Although the beginning of the year was promising, the crypto market drifted backward, losing almost 67% of its cap within a one month period, from January 7 to February 6. The market was further plagued with series of hacks and scams, tight regulations, and crackdowns of ICOs and crypto adverts.
Crypto investors know that coins could work up their magic at any time in point, however, the rate at which the market has deteriorated has given no room for trust. Any coin is vulnerable as even the biggest of them all, Bitcoin has seen its worth fall than almost a half of what it started the year with.
Putting recent unfortunate events in the market aside, there are still coins aside from the people's favorite, Bitcoin, with huge potentials that can help in restoring all lost investments, when there are wisely invested in. A few suggestions might not hurt and therefore I choose three coins out of my own opinion that could double up in real time.
The second largest cryptocurrency still has what it takes to double up its total value. One of Ethereum's stronghold is its blockchain, which boasts of three unique features. To begin with, Ethereum can process right around threefold the number of transactions every second as bitcoin can.
These transactions, in addition, are also significantly less expensive, with the normal transaction on the Ethereum arrange costing under $1. Also, Ethereum's blockchain rises above just money applications. It not just can possibly change how financial organizations transmit cash, however, it tends to be urgent in helping screen supply chains, creating digital identifications, and logging medical records amongst others.
Launched in 2012, Ripple has proven to be a global network powerhouse which offers instant and relatively low-cost international payments. It also facilitates cross-border payments among banks in no time and its consensus ledger also differs from the rest of the altcoins as it requires no mining.
With its latest plans to expand to Asia and other major developments, Ripple could come in real handy and trading at just $0.333208, it would be a steal for investors.
With an open source global payment network and a faster rate of block generation which gives it a faster transaction speed, Litecoin has been dubbed the "silver to bitcoin's gold." With a growing number of merchants who accepts Litecoin, its value can shoot up anytime soon.
Many analysts have also predicted the price of Litecoin to reach $600 before the end of the year, based on the current performance of the coin. If that comes to pass, it will be a 967 percent increase in value and no investor would want to miss that.


text:
Carlos Santos may refer to:

 Carlos "Carlão" Santos (born 1976), 3-time World Brazilian jiu-jitsu heavyweight champion
 Carlos Santos (archer) (born 1940), Filipino Olympic archer
 Carlos Santos (boxer) (born 1955), former Olympic Puerto Rican boxer
 Carlos Alberto Santos, (born 1960) Brazilian footballer and manager
 Carlos Santos de Jesus (born 1985), Brazilian footballer
 Carlos Morales Santos (born 1968), Paraguayan footballer
 Carlos Santos (actor) (born 1978), Spanish actor
 Carlos Santos (MTV Tr3́s) (born 1981), Puerto Rico-based video jockey on MTV Tr3́s
 Carlos Santos (footballer, born 1989), Portuguese footballer

See also
 Carles Santos (1940-2017), Spanish pianist and creative artist

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Indeed, for him, the great pyramids are devices of geoengineering for the control of the planetary functions and he explains it perfectly and in details. This may seem exaggerated or strange at first, but we come to a very important point.
The more I work on the ancient Egyptians (and for many years now), the more I discover through many documents of different times that they were perfectly aware of the great cyclical disasters affecting our planet. And not only that, but that with their great intelligence, their incomparable sense of planning the territory in accordance with Nature (I show that in my lectures by hundreds of photos), I discovered that they had put all their forces to try to prevent these calamities or to survive them and to try to send us the message through the centuries to alert us.
It is not only a message: it is a set of remarkable processes and techniques that I try to collect little by little, because there are a lot (I am discovering some every day), and this is the biggest part of my long work because it takes a long time to decrypt everything, understand and record it. This is the true heritage that the ancient Egyptians wanted to convey to us and which has been often misinterpreted as an obsession with death.
Once we have been able to decipher the texts with their different levels of reading and translations, once we have been able to understand their artifacts, their customs with their objects, and the myths that are not imaginary but well constructed on purpose to bring us the most intact knowledge possible centuries later: the scale of their plan and their extraordinary dedication to Humanity began to emerge.
John Shaughnessy, found one of the main functions of the pyramids (because there are several). For me, he has found the one that is the most important for our present and our future, the one on which we can still act for our good. So you see the importance of his book! This primordial function found by Shaughnessy fits into a sophisticated system still much more extensive in different aspects (we will talk about it soon).
It is important to emphasize that here, we are not in a New Age interpretation or in mere impressions, it is an extremely technical and scientific knowledge perfectly human, when we know how to give the best of ourselves (which rarely happens alas!).
What is brilliant in the author's view is that he speaks of gravity as a source of divine energy for the Ancient Egyptians and not of electricity as we see too often in some books. For him, in ancient Egypt, the representation of the snake encompassing the solar disk colored red tells us about the energy of gravity and for me it is very clever because one of the energies that feeds the sun is gravity (the other is Nuclear energy, but there are still many questions about the synergy of the two). Let us not forget that solar energy gives the electromagnetic energy coming to Earth and is at the origin of the cycles of the wind, the water and of the photosynthesis and thus impacts all our kingdoms (animal, vegetal, mineral) on Earth . Let us not forget that in 1850 we discovered the cycle of ten years for the variations of the magnetic pole and then the solar cycle of eleven years. This demonstrates the interaction between the sun and the terrestrial geomagnetism.
In short, in this exciting book you will learn how the pyramids of Giza (to take them as an example): "reduce the gravitational fields in the magmatic chambers under the Pacific Ocean, under the Hawaiian islands" because the pyramids impact at 180 ° the existing volcanoes on the other side of the planet. So the pyramids of Giza are: "lowering the fields of gravitation in the magma chambers on the floor of the Pacific ocean" And he extends his theory with specific examples to all the main pyramids on this planet.
Any destruction on the great pyramids can cause disaster in our ecosystem!
If the pyramids were built to prevent and/or control, tectonic plate movement, volcanic activity, tidal waves, major earthquakes, earth movements and magnetic field movements here on Earth: and if we destroy them or part of them, then there is a serious impact on our whole ecosystem. The author explains to us what happened during the deteriorations carried out in the past, for example: the one done by the Caliphe al Mamoun and the English researchers who used dynamite on the Great Pyramid: he proves to us that in that time it triggered natural disasters on the other side of the Earth: impressive!
Something about the Moon !


text:
package Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V11::Services::FeedService::MutateFeedsResponse;

use strict;
use warnings;
use base qw(Google::Ads::GoogleAds::BaseEntity);

use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Utils::GoogleAdsHelper;

sub new {
  my ($class, $args) = @_;
  my $self = {
    partialFailureError => $args->{partialFailureError},
    results             => $args->{results}};

  # Delete the unassigned fields in this object for a more concise JSON payload
  remove_unassigned_fields($self, $args);

  bless $self, $class;
  return $self;
}

1;


In March 2018 our new service for starting a forum community called ArmorForums was made public to users. This platform allows you to use its forum hosting with a free and a premium pricing plan. But more of that later, first lets see how our software is different from other applications.
If you search on the web you will find all kinds of other similar websites and competitors. What makes ArmorForums stand out is that the free version is still usable as a standard forum with very few limitations and the forum you create is private. This means that every user has to be logged in to go inside the forum and guest users can't read the posts. The ArmorForums software gives you ability to tweak and control the registration process, so this makes it a very powerful platform for private communities. From the forum dashboard you can configure only specific people to be able to register, send invitations by email, approve new members and other settings.
When using a forum your main objective is surely to post content in a convenient and easily manageable structure. ArmorForums allows you to do just that with a standard and proven system for organization. The top level separation of content in our forums are the categories. Everything else is related to them and they hold the entire structure down the posts "pyramid". The boards are the next categorization for the content. Each one is sort of a container for keeping related forum threads (topics). Users can start threads in a specific board and then discuss it with replies. We've chosen this forum structure to provide isolation and flexibility of differently categorized and related content.
Speaking of content, many other websites have limitations on it when using their free version. The most common restrictions other services have are on the number of threads, members, visits and/or replies. As you can assume this kind of forum would not be very useful and it could even make you give up on such a limited application. With the free plan of ArmorForums only the main categories and boards are limited, all the other elements have no limitations. The forum members are 50 for the free plan, but they can be increased by upgrading to premium and they can create as many threads and replies as they want. But your categories and boards would be maximum 4 and 8, respectively, which is more than enough to separate and categorize your content.
Now to also briefly introduce you to our premium plan, which is priced at 4.95 per month. If you are looking for a maximum forum experience, without any ads and limitations, this is the way to go. You can very easily create a subscription and get automatically billed every month from your banking card or PayPal account. There is a payments dashboard from which you can cancel your subscription (billing cycle) at any time or download PDF invoices.
This concludes the brief description of our new forum services. You could use the quick 2-step registration to check the clean professional design of the forums or to try its modern technology software. Also find out more about our forums on the features page or if you have any questions visit the FAQ page.