text:
Tag Archives: Waterboarding
Language, Law, and Truth
"The language marches in step with the executioners.
Therefore we must get a new language."
Tomas Tranströmer, Night Duty
Marjorie Cohn, a respected progressive commentator on the use and abuse of international law during the past decade, notes with justifiable horror the willingness of Republican candidates for president to endorse torture as an acceptable instrument of counterterrorism. [Cohn, "US Presidential Elections: GOP Candidates Advocate Torture," Nov. 19, 2011] Rick Perry, one leading Republican presidential contender who is now governor of Texas, put his support for torture in typically crude language: "This is war. That's what happens in war." The most direct endorsement was made by Herb Cain, a businessman who repeatedly demonstrates his scant knowledge of foreign policy issues, said with sprightly ignorance of waterboarding during a recent TV debate among the Republican candidates, "I don't see it as torture. I see it as enhanced interrogation technique." Not to be left behind in this rather alarming Republican horserace for the presidential nomination, Michelle Bachmann, attempted to give a pragmatic twist to the discussion by claiming (contrary to the evidence that torture often turns up information that is misleading and generally less useful than permissible forms of interrogation) that waterboarding is an effective means to gain information, and that as a patriot she would not hesitate to use such a technique to protect the country against its enemies. The lead candidate in opposition to Barrack Obama at this time in the November 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney, also let it be slyly known that he shares the view that waterboarding is not torture: "Enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used. Not torture, but enhanced interrogation, yes."
Here we have direct examples of the dirty language games being played at great costs to the moral standing of the nation, its people, and its government. Torture is not torture if it is not called torture! Of course, in the background standing tall are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, and others who during the Bush presidency invented this trick designed to make torturers and their minders sleep well at night. For these unindicted war criminals, it was enough to give an unacceptably narrow definition of the legal crime of 'torture,' which allowed them to retain their innocence and at the same time brag about using waterboarding to save American lives, sometimes done over 100 times to a particular detainee. This Republican revival of a pro-torture argument is particularly discouraging because it seems to rest on an extremely distressing assessment of American public opinion as favorably impressed by the brutality and lawlessness of a continuing reliance on waterboarding and other forms of 'enhance interrogation.' If this assessment is correct it confirms the impression widespread in the world that not only has America lost its way, but has also mortgaged its soul!
As Professor Cohn tells us, President Obama reaffirmed that waterboarding is torture, an opinion proclaimed ever since his presidential campaign in 2008, and bolstered by an insistence that since in office he has unconditionally repudiated torture as conventionally understood. His language is instructive, but in its own way misleading: "Waterboarding is torture. Anybody that has actually read about it and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that it is torture—and that's not something we do, period." This renewed repudiation of waterboarding is welcome, as is the insistence on not distorting the language so as to allow those acting on behalf of the government to abuse physically and mentally persons held in detention, and even to do so with a relatively good conscience.
But if waterboarding is torture, and Mr. Obama is true to his wider pledge to implement the rule of law during his presidency, why does he not allow investigations of the criminality on the part of his predecessors in office who acknowledged ('confessed') to the crime? In effect, a serious crime was repeatedly committed by the highest elected officials, damaging badly the reputation of the United States, and yet the political will to uphold the law is evidently not a feature of the Obama presidency, which early on asserted that it wanted to look forward not backward when it came to implementing law. To put it mildly, this is a peculiar 'enforcement' strategy that seems indistinguishable from non-enforcement! Imagine if a similar impunity was granted to common criminals for past murders and rapes! Imagine the Republican outrage! What is worse, as the comments of Republican candidates vividly reveals, this spirit of non-implementation keeps the virus of torture alive in the American body politic.
In the good old days of the Cold War there also occurred a distressing reliance on torture and assassination, often entrusted to the CIA section on covert operations carried out overseas, well-documented and analyzed by Alfred McCoy in his book Question of Torture: CIA Interrogations, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (2006), but this behavior was kept secret, partly because it was known to be indecent and unlawful. Such a use of secrecy does not immunize the practice of torture from legal accountability had the political will and capability existed, which it did not, but it at least manifests a concern that such behavior if revealed would generate opposition and moral disgust. In the post-9/11 world, at least here in the United States, that concern and disgust while still present among urban liberals are much attenuated, which means the barriers to secret wrongdoing are likely to be virtually non-existent. And if one of these Republican torture advocates should be elected next November then it would seem likely to initiate an open season for a new round of torture undertaken beneath the feel good banner of 'enhanced interrogation.' At least, we can take some tiny comfort from the fact that even torture advocates still rely on this canopy of language to disguise the nature of their behavior.
Of course, it is easy for me to pontificate self-righteously when not faced with the dilemmas of governance. It was undoubtedly true that any attempt to impose standards of accountability on the Bush presidency would have led to an acrimonious national debate, or worse, and produced a deepening of the polarities already hamstringing the formation of public policy in the country. Yet for those who seek justice and truth in politics, such a law-oriented course of action would have been exhibited a genuine commitment to American values, and have gone a long way to demonstrate that the discontinuities between the Bush and Obama presidencies were more than halfway gestures.If a law-based democracy is ever to approximate reality, we the citizens must insist that the political risks of truth-telling be taken, that torture in our name, whether present, past, or future is totally unacceptable and will be punished no matter who turns out to be the culprit.
In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 President Obama said strikingly: "Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted..The same principle applies to those who violate international law by brutalizing their own people." But is not this precisely what Obama has been doing by averting his eyes from the crime of torture committed by his predecessors in office? This evasion of the solemn responsibility to implement international criminal law as it pertains to torture, even to investigate allegations of criminality, is accentuated by taking other backward steps suggesting ambivalence at best. Obama refused to authorize the formation a truth and reconciliation commission with a mandate to investigate past reliance on torture, which might have produced clarity, if not closure, on the issue. As well, the Justice Department has shockingly intervened in judicial settings to prevent civil law suits by former Guantanamo detainees seeking damages from the abuse they endured on the flimsy, and morally unacceptable, grounds that as aliens they lacked clear constitutional rights, as aliens, not to be tortured. [For detailed indictment of the Obama approach to torture see Eric Lewis, "Torture's Future," NY Times, Nov. 21, 2011]
In the same Nobel speech Obama explained his outlook on the relevance of law to warfare: "Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard." Again, performance trumps rhetoric, and from this perspective Obama seems both hypocritical and cynical, not just in relation to torture, but more generally with respect to international law.
For the Obama presidency, the debate about the escalated use of attack drones to target suspected terrorists wherever they might be located in the world occupies a comparable space to that of torture during the Bush presidency. And what is revealing, is the similarity of manner by which the Obama people bring law to bear on this controversial use of force that has such broad implications for the future of warfare. More than their Bush counterparts, such luminaries as Harold Koh, Legal Advisor to the Secretary of State, and John Brennan, the top counterterrorist advisor to the president, emphasize the degree to which adherence to the rule of law in the conduct of American security policy is a priority that guides behavior because it reflects American values, and also works out better in the combat zones because it builds unity at home, strengthens cooperation abroad, and conveys the differences between 'us' (law-abiding on principled grounds) and 'them' (engaging in deliberate violence against civilians).
But then this major premise of adherence to law is immediately contradicted by the minor premise: doing what is militarily desirable and possible to counter alleged terrorist threats associated with al Qaeda and the 9/11 experience, and this means targeted assassinations in foreign countries far from the hot battlefield, understating of civilian casualties, ignoring the frightening wider effects of drone attacks on the overall sense of societal security in a target zone, broadly defining who constitutes a threat, and a refusal to lift the veil of secrecy from drone operations to determine whether intelligence was reliable as to target and supposed threat. It is lethal behavior by the United States carried on in foreign countries, with 'consent' publicly denied or absent, generally undertaken by a CIA civilian operative sitting in an air conditioned office, converting 'war' into a risk-free process that for the drone-minder resembles a video game, and since there is no public accountability, there is also no burden of responsibility for negligence or even malice. Does not this represent an extreme stretching of the international law with respect to the right of self-defense? It also is a blatant denial of 'the right to life,' an imposition of extra-judicial capital punishment, and as such, an affront to legal standards associated with international human rights. As well it entails an utter lack of respect for the sovereign rights of other states, and in its totality, a contorted 'legality' put forth by government legal experts on behalf of drone warfare in a manner unnervingly similar to what the Bush legal operatives sought to do with regard to torture.
It may be time to acknowledge that governmental lawlessness in foreign policy has become a bipartisan reality for the United States Government, and that the face in the White House or the political party in control, while not yet irrelevant, is a matter of secondary interest, at least to those who are drone targets or torture victims.
It may be past time to say that such a stretching of the language of law is an insult to our intelligence and a subversion of our morality as a people and nation. When 'law' becomes a synonym for 'crime' we know that power corrupts all the way to the top of the governmental pyramid!
Tags: Barack Obama, Cold War, Enhanced interrogation techniques, George W. Bush, Obama, Republican, United States, Waterboarding
Categories Commentary, International & Global Law, World Politics


text:
Home » Journal » Press » Bellabeat Inc.
Bellabeat Inc.
By Sandra Attias
Founded in 2014, Bellabeat creates beautiful, innovative products that help women easily track, manage and improve their overall health and well-being. Bellabeat helps promote a better, healthier lifestyle by bringing intuitive wellness tools to women — encouraging them to take care of their health through educational content and community support. Bellabeat has always been inspired by the beauty and power of nature, which is incorporated into all of their products.
In 2019, Bellabeat launched their unique subscription service, Bellabeat+ Membership, which provides women with specialized content across different wellness segments.
Bellabeat+ members receive unlimited access to exclusive fitness and beauty video programs, mindfulness exercises, audio meditations, written educational content on all things important to women's health, special product offers and discounts — with even more perks coming in the future. Bellabeat+ members can also participate in discussions on women's health and get support from the biggest community of women in wellness. The content is distributed across their family of wellness apps. While the subscription is available as a stand-alone digital product, Bellabeat is offering attractive bundles that include both the product and the subscription service for complete insight into your wellness and lifestyle.
Since their admission into Y Combinator's class of W 2014, Bellabeat continues to change the game of health, and lifestyle tech for women. Back in the winter of 2014, Y Combinator included the company in their top 3 startups and Bellabeat has so far raised funding with top investors such as SV ANGEL, UNIVERSAL, CRUNCHFUND, Nicolas Berggruen, Justin Kan, Michael Seibel, Paul Buchheit, Tom Fallows, Cherubic VC and Adrian Aoun. Bellabeat's smart piece of jewelry, Leaf Nature, launched back in May of 2015 has quickly become known as "The Health Tracker for Women"; rightfully so as it was accompanied by the first health tracking app that allowed women to keep track of their reproductive cycle alongside the usual activity and sleep tracking.
2016 started big for Bellabeat, with the launch of Leaf Urban and Forbes including co-founder and CCO Urska Srsen in their "30 under 30" list, naming her ambassador of the list's Technology field. "I believe limiting yourself is the worst thing you can do. It doesn't matter if you're a doctor, a sculptor or a programmer – if we join hands, we can make amazing things that can turn the world into a better place", Urska said then.
Their tech powered wellness products have become a key accessory for women with different careers and lifestyles such as Lolo Jones, Summer and Winter Olympian and 3x World Champion, whose personalized guides are available in the Bellabeat app to all Bellabeat users. Due to the attention to design and versatility their products were also embraced by many fashion icons, lifestyle and yoga bloggers including Sarah Stage, Kino MacGregor, Diipa Khosla, Gabrielle Epstein, and Chiara Ferragni from The Blonde Salad, one of the world's most famous bloggers.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Creatures of the Wind Makes Its Runway Debut in London
As part of a collaboration with Farfetch, the New York-based duo staged their first runway show across the pond.
Hand-embroidered army parkas were available for purchase on Farfetch the same day as the show. Photo: Creatures of the Wind
When Shane Gabier and Christopher Peters, the designers behind the eight-year-old, Chicago-born label Creatures of the Wind, started their resort 2017 collection, they had little idea that, come June, they would be showing it beneath the crystal chandeliers of London's Spencer House — or in London for that matter.
That's exactly what happened on Wednesday evening, when the online retailer Farfetch hosted an intimate runway show and dinner for the duo, runners-up of 2011's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. On a visit to London last fall, the designers met with the team at Farfetch and the idea to create an exclusive capsule collection — a first-of-its-kind partnership for the retailer — was born. The three pieces — a hand-embroidered army parka, a crêpe de chine, persimmon slip dress and a rabbit fur sole — went on sale shortly before the show.
Pre-season collections — the collections called pre-fall and resort, which land in stores several months before the fall and spring collections and stay on the shelves considerably longer — tend to be major money-makers for designers and retailers alike, and more commercially minded (i.e., conservative and wearable) than the clothes created for runway. Knowing that the collection would be shown in a runway format transformed the designers' approach this time. "We came to it in a different way," Gabier said after the show on Wednesday. "When we're doing a show, you're thinking about looks, you're thinking specifically about the way it moves, the way things line up. For most pre-collections, you're not thinking about the same things."
"Quirky" is the word most often used to describe Creatures of the Wind collections, and while that word could easily be applied to the looks shown on Wednesday, they were elegant and ladylike too, reflecting a more grown-up sensibility that the brand has been developing over the past several seasons. A demure baby pink crepe-de-chine tank dress was enlivened with white knit gloves and furry loafers; a botanic-print skirt suit was cut sportily and paired with furry grey ankle boots; while a closer look at a sleeveless red-and-black printed jumpsuit revealed an assemblage of roosters.
The prize pieces were the parkas, one of which Pharrell, to whom it had been gifted, returned to the designers for use in the show. Each one takes more than a month to embroider, Gabier said. That, for him, was the most interesting part of the collaboration. "I don't care about [see-now, buy-now] particularly, but what was really interesting for us was the opportunity to design something you didn't have to produce a lot of. Every jacket was like its own set of hand embroideries. They're expensive to produce, they're really time-consuming, we normally can't fit that kind of thing in. If we can do more of that sort of thing, then I definitely want to do it."
After a majority of UK voters elected to leave the E.U. last Friday, dinner-table discussions in London have focused on little else, and Wednesday night's was no exception.
"I was feeling very depressed on Friday," said Caroline Issa, a street style favorite and founder of Tank magazine. "I think it's a really disappointing decision as a business owner. I think the next two years are incredibly unclear, I think the country is in chaos at the moment. But I think [now] we have to buckle up and figure out how to work together."
Gabiers said he, too, had been depressed by the results. "When we were thinking about how does that impact this [show], ultimately we just felt like, if you can bring to the moment some other thought, a brief moment of beauty, then maybe that would be a good thing," he said.
Browse the full resort collection below.
Creatures of the Wind Does Americana Its Own Way for Fall
This ain't no red, white and blue, folks.
By Alyssa Vingan Klein Feb 13, 2015
How I'm Making It: Shane Gabier and Chris Peters of Creatures of the Wind
Shane Gabier and Chris Peters, the designers behind the amazing brand Creatures of the Wind, went from teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to winning a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund runner-up award in about seven months. Such groundbreaking recognition is somehwat unheard of in an the fashion industry, though even more groundbreaking might be the fact that this duo's designs actually live up to the hype surrounding them. They garnered attention for their innovative and meticulously crafted clothes, and have stuck to that vision through ups, downs, and awards. I met up with the duo on a rainy morning just before Fashion Week to find out how Shane Gabier and Chris Peters manage their high-flying fashion life with their low-key Chicago based existence. It's pretty unreal.
By Steff Yotka Apr 10, 2014
Christopher Kane Keeps It Sweet and Light for Resort 2017
The designer presented an excellent, tightly edited collection at his Mount Street boutique in London on Wednesday.
By Lauren Indvik Jun 2, 2016
Creatures of the Wind Spring 2013
Creatures of the Wind The Clothes: Original and special, as we've come to expect from the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund runners up. This time they looked to
By Dhani Mau Apr 10, 2014


For those looking for high-quality, custom woodwork for furniture, building and remodel typically only found in places such as Portland or San Francisco look no further. With decades of experience between them, Jake Hayes and Judd Olsen of Raven Wood Works pride themselves on excellent craftsmanship and unique design not easily found elsewhere.
Jake and Judd have a large portfolio of beautiful work to share in today's interview. Read on to learn more about their one-of-a-kind craftsmanship and how they are achieving their goal to build amazing things for amazing people.
Thanks so much for talking with us today. Please tell us a little bit about Raven Wood Works?
Raven Wood Works was founded by Jake Hayes and Justin (Jud) Olsen whom combined have over 44 years of woodworking expertise. Jake is a 4th generation carpenter and Jud is a self-taught woodworking expert. Jake was 20 and Jud 18 when they first began working together and ultimately incorporated Raven Wood Works 7 years ago.
RWW has been privileged to work on spectacular projects from high-end vineyards, unique artisan furniture, Tai temples, gorgeous executive office spaces, and custom front doors to back doors and everything in between.
RWW brings heritage, precision, and artistry to your home. We pride ourselves in our ability to bring to physical life our clients dreams. If you can envision it, we can create it.
Tell us about some of your favorite projects from this past year.
Hard to pin down just one because we love what we do. But the best is when our clients give us unique ideas that we get the chance to create outside the box like building a fully functional guest house on a 10'X 11' pad. Our clients have very versatile desires and projects which keeps our work fun and rewarding. One of our favorites this year was the design and building of a kitchen remodel where a client asked for the "bat cave"- meaning they wanted their entire kitchen island on tracks so when rolled back, led to their wine cellar. We used reclaimed lumber for kitchen cabinets and built in many "hidden compartments" as well. They wanted their kitchen to be a work of art where they could sit down, pour a glass of wine and converse about life in a space that reflected their personality and complex life experiences.
Not only are your creations totally unique but you have some very interesting and unique clients!
This is true; we do have some amazing clients! We tend to attract very creative people where the end result is a great mingling of ideas and creations. Another thing we love about our clients is that they come to us for custom one of a kind things knowing there will be nothing like it anywhere else. You can't get this stuff from Home Depot or Costco. Our clients have class, they travel and have a story to tell and they want their home to reflect it. They are people who desire to create a space- they have a general idea of what they are looking to build yet are looking for us to articulate, design and bring to life their vision. We want our clients to understand that once the door to custom is open, there is nothing that can't be obtained.
Doing this interview in the LocalsGuide is going to introduce you to many potential new clients.
We are looking forward to meeting new and excited clients. If you can envision it, we can build it. If it hasn't been done, it doesn't mean that it can't be. We love a great challenge, like turning old wine barrels into wine cellar doors, or building a 10' high by 12' wide arched door unit (see pic).
What kind of jobs do you specialize in?
That's just it, with all the experience RWW has, we bring incredible ingenuity and knowledge to any custom project. If it is made of wood we can build it. So you just need to bring us the vision and we can make it happen. From unique kitchen remodel to brand new custom homes.
Walk us through your creative process. How does a client's vision become a finished product?
In the first meeting, we usually show up with a sketchpad and measuring tape and we start from there. The clients often give the general feeling they desire, pictures, wish lists, or even stick drawings and we start coming up with ideas as to where we will go with the design. I love when clients want to tweak or twist our ideas to make it there's. It has been said that the greatest works of art have been commissioned. All the greatest artists, architects and designers worked with the clients ideas that they gave them. The result is art that the whole world gets to enjoy- this is how we view our creations.
Tell us about some of the toughest challenges Raven Wood Works has taken on.
The toughest challenge by far is balancing work with family. We have a huge passion to build the best and be the most reliable in both work and family. Between Jake and Jud, we have the most amazing wives and 13 children. That being said, we are fiercely committed to meeting our clients expectation and time frame. This at times has meant showing up to the shop at 4 am so we can be home for dinner at 5:00 pm. We stand strong in our word, if we say we can build it, and when it will be done, we do just that.
You took on an amazing project for a high end Mexican restaurant in Woodland, CA. Tell us about it.
Yeah, that was a fun job. We worked with a restaurant owner who had a very unique and explicit look that he was going for. We built every door, chair and table to look different- no assembly line. He even wanted us to shoot the doors with a gun to make it look like a true Mexican cantina. We actually inlaid bullets into the doors which turned out so cool! It is now one of the most amazing Mexican restaurants in northern California.
You have some outstanding feedback from your customers. What have you been hearing?
What is the best way for readers to learn more about your business and start a project?
Please visit our site to see a video of our work and us at RavenWoodWorks.com and visit our FB page RavenWoodWorks Inc. Call Jake or Jud at 541-261-6414.


text:
Monthly Archives: February, 2020
The Guardian called commercially raped children 'sex workers' again today – but only for a few hours
By antiplondon on February 29, 2020 | 2 Comments
My gratitude to whoever it was who complained to the Guardian about this article this morning; I saw it myself, and archived the page, but had other things to do today before I could write a complaint email.
It's still worth spelling out the arguments: rape is not work; a commercially raped child is not a 'worker'; calling raped children (and adults) 'workers' reduces a sexual abuse issue to a mere labour issue.
The Guardian's own guidelines still say 'child pornography' should be referred to as child abuse images. Therefore a recording of a 'child sex worker' doing 'sex work' would be an image of abuse, but the creation of that abuse image would just be 'work', which is nonsensical.
Here's the original:
And here's the current version:
It's interesting to note that the 'Humanity United' logo has disappeared from the updated article – it's nice to imagine that the organisation complained, I've looked at their website in the past to see what their stance is on 'sex work' and I didn't see anything calling for decriminalisation of the sex industry.
Children as young as 10 were among more than 230 people rescued last month during a series of raids combating trafficking and forced labour in Niger.
Operation Sarraounia uncovered 46 children who had been sexually abused or forced to beg and hundreds of Ghanaian men who had been recruited online and then enslaved in the capital, Niamey, said Interpol, which provided assistance.
The vast majority of the children rescued were aged between 10 and 17. Most had been sexually abused in hostels and slums, while others had been kidnapped from their families and forced to beg at markets and bus stations.
Many of the minors required immediate medical attention, with some of them displaying advanced human papillomavirus infections, according to Interpol.
Police arrested 18 suspected traffickers during the 10-day operation in late January, said Interpol's secretary general, Jürgen Stock.
"Whether it's children, men or women, traffickers show little regard for the health and wellbeing of victims, they are simply a commodity to make money," said Stock.
"As vital as it is to track and arrest those behind these crimes, we also need to ensure that those rescued are protected and respected throughout the police process."
The underage victims were all returned to their families, Interpol said, with follow-up provided by social services and NGOs.
Posted in: (Commercial) sexual exploitation of children, Flyers/events/activism/media complaints, Prostitution, Trafficking still not a myth
QotD: "We have to talk to our sons about sex"
When Adam Lazarus complained about a seven-year-old boy putting his hands on his daughter at school, he was told not to cry sexual assault. "They don't think like that," the teachers said, "not at that age." "But it's power," Lazarus seethes, recounting the incident. "It's gendered power, and if you excuse it this kid thinks it's OK."
The Canadian performer made waves at the Edinburgh festival in 2018 with his controversial, gut-punch solo Daughter, which he is now bringing to Battersea Arts Centre in London. The show is told from the perspective of a young girl's father and what starts as a charming and funny quasi-standup set quickly turns into something acidic. Over the course of an increasingly intense hour, Lazarus – dressed in fairy wings, dancing adorably to his daughter's favourite song – unspools a brutal thread of toxic masculinity. First it's shrugged off as a joke, then a distasteful comment, until suddenly there's a metal rod in his hand and we're wondering how we got here. "Are you OK that I did that?" he asks in the show, as remnants of laughter start to taste like bile.
Having trained at Philippe Gaulier's prestigious clown school in France, Lazarus makes work that stems from bouffon, the French style of theatre with its roots in mockery. In contrast to his past performances, which involved elaborate costume and character, the father in Daughter is almost indistinguishable from Lazarus himself, and it leaves you wondering how much is true. "We had to ride the line [between reality and fiction] to be sure you couldn't dismiss him as a character," he says. "We were trying to get to a point where the room would say, I get it, I understand how a person could think like that."
With his co-creators Ann-Marie Kerr, Jivesh Parasram and Melissa D'Agostino, Lazarus began developing Daughter after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi. "It blew the minds of Canadians, because we listened to him every morning," explains Lazarus. Ghomeshi was acquitted in 2016 of four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking involving three complainants.
Daughter is built from real stories, though only some are from Lazarus's own life. Regardless, audiences frequently believe it's all him and that it's all true. In the Edinburgh performances, some people walked out, while lots of others refused to applaud. But silence is not the worst response Lazarus has had; people frequently ask his wife if she's OK, some close friends believe the stories are his own, and one man threatened to kill him for suggesting men had such a violent streak.
The hardest responses to reconcile are from the people – primarily women – who have been hurt by the performance. "I don't think everyone needs to see the show," Lazarus says frankly, when I ask about those who reported crying in the toilets afterwards, wishing they hadn't seen it. "The show picks at a scab and if you have a trauma or a trigger that's in there, it's gonna peel really bad. I don't know how to prepare people for that." After every performance the company hold a space to talk, led by producer Aislinn Rose. Lazarus doesn't attend those sessions; audiences feel more comfortable without him.
Lazarus argues that Daughter is a feminist play. "Pre-Trump I think it was a warning. Now I think it's a rallying cry." The show, Lazarus freely admits, is an attack on men, and the behaviour we often excuse. "It seethes underneath everything. These are microaggressions everyone is part of. The 'good guys' have a lot of work to do." He does the quotation marks in the air.
With thunderous impact, Daughter toys with these complex ideas of responsibility and consent, asking how we protect our daughters by talking to our sons. Lazarus's daughter is now eight, his son five. Scared and hopeful for them both in equal measure, he paraphrases a recent article by Peggy Orenstein. "We have to talk to our sons about sex in the same way we talk about manners: often. Even if you feel like you wanna poke your eye out talking to your son [about sex], if you don't teach them, porn will."
Posted in: Campus Rape Culture, Male allies, Pornography harms, Quote of the Day, Sex and Relationships Education, We live in a rape culture
QotD: "The portrayal of porn culture as an empowering, feminist win epitomizes the degree to which pop culture feminism has lost its way"
By antiplondon on February 23, 2020 | Leave a comment
Last Sunday, a number of Pornhub's most popular Asian performers took to the runway at New York Fashion Week to model the "Herotica" collection from Namilia. The designers behind the label, Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl, described their choice of models as a "feminist statement." Li explained, "The cosmos of sexual pleasure has been restricted to a few boring and chauvinistic narratives for the pleasure of the male gaze," adding, "Porn isn't something existentially male." With this collection, Li and Pfohl intended to subvert the dominant narrative of submissive Asian women, by using dominatrix-inspired looks — a traditional Chinese dress was deconstructed, and merged with contemporary sadomasochistic porn culture.
The collection is heavily influenced not only by porn, but by sadomasochism in particular — the designers included a schoolgirl-type uniform, with a pink and white pleated leather skirt (a blatant nod to porn culture's fetishization of girlhood), and printed the phrase "cock wrecker" on a number of items from the collection. During a backstage interview, Li said, "We wanted to take porn into a new context to kind of normalize sex work, prostitution, pornography, and put it in a fashion show context, so there's not as much shame and taboo," emphasizing her desire to create a "revolutionary new feminist youth culture."
The portrayal of porn culture as an empowering, feminist win epitomizes the degree to which pop culture feminism has lost its way, completely abandoning the long-standing feminist goal of female liberation in favour of a faux-feminism that panders to male desire. Far from representing a challenge to the male gaze (the apparent aim of the designers), the show stayed perfectly on script, falling prey to the sleight of hand that has convinced women that our sexual objectification is subversive and liberatory. In a classic marketing move, porn culture and those who profit from it have sold us something that harms us, and convinced us that we wanted it all along.
Pornhub is one of the most popular porn sites on the internet. Alexa, the leading web-traffic tracker, lists Pornhub in 36th place among the world's most visited websites, out of tens of millions of sites. Rule out search engines like Google, web portals like Yahoo, and shopping sites like Amazon, Pornhub takes fourth place, beaten out of the top spot by Wikipedia, Microsoft, and Netflix. Four other porn sites crack the top 100, including XVideos, BongaCams, xHamster, and xnxx. Between these five porn sites, their combined views per month exceed 6 billion. That equates to over 138,000 views per minute, or 2,300 views per second. Pornhub alone claims 115 million visits per day, and 42 billion specific searches annually.
Over the last year, Pornhub has been implicated in a number of cases of sex trafficking, child exploitation, and rape, as the site hosts an unknowable number of video recordings of sex crimes. In October, a 15-year-old who had been missing for a year was found after explicit photos of the girl were posted online. Further investigation found that she had appeared in 58 porn videos posted on Pornhub, and the man responsible was arrested in Fort Lauderdale. The girl reported that she was forced to have an abortion after getting impregnated during this time.
A few months after being attacked and raped at knifepoint, Rose Kalemba, who was 14 at the time, found several people from her school sharing a link online in which she was tagged. After clicking on it, Kalemba was led to Pornhub and was horrified to find multiple videos of her attack posted online. Recounting her story, Kalemba said, "The titles of the videos were, 'Teen crying and getting slapped around,' 'Teen getting destroyed,' 'Passed out teen.' One had over 400,000 views." Kalemba emailed Pornhub numerous times over a period of six months, begging for the videos to be removed from the site, but she received no reply and the videos stayed up. The videos were not removed until Kalemba set up a new email address pretending to be a lawyer and threatened legal action against the site.
In a viral blog entry posted last year, Kalemba shared a detailed account of her ordeal, and called for Pornhub to be held responsible for their extended inaction. She heard from dozens of other girls saying videos of their sexual assaults had also appeared on the site. Though Pornhub claims to remove all videos of assault, the reality does not reflect this and Pornhub continues to unapologetically host videos with titles such as, "Teen abused while sleeping," "Drunk teen abuse sleeping," and "Extreme teen abuse." The company's defence is that they "allow all forms of sexual expression" that do not go against their terms of service, even if "some people find these fantasies inappropriate."
More recently, 22 women sued the owners of GirlsDoPorn, Michael James Pratt and Matthew Isaac Wolfe, as well as porn actor Ruben Andre Garcia, saying they were coerced into performing sexual acts on film that were later uploaded to Pornhub. The men had posted Craigslist ads for "beautiful college type preppy girls" needed for photo shoots, but when the women arrived, they were plied with drugs and alcohol and pressured to participate in a porn shoot. The victims were awarded $12.7 million. According to a federal indictment, Pratt and his co-conspirators also produced child pornography and trafficked a minor.
These cases demonstrate how dangerous Pornhub is, and how easily the site can be used as a tool to capitalize on the abuse of vulnerable women and girls. Laila Mickelwait, Director of Abolition for Exodus Cry and anti-pornography activist, found that all that is required to upload content to Pornhub is an email address. No government-issued ID is needed, even to become a "verified user." She found that it took less than 10 minutes to create an account on Pornhub, and to upload blank content to the site, which was immediately live and accessible to all users. If she wanted to become a verified user, she could have done so with nothing more than a photograph of her holding a piece of paper with her username written on it.
Pornhub is a resource for anyone who wishes to upload content, with absolutely no verification needed other than an email address, making it a perfect breeding ground for exploitation — something they appear to be in no rush to prevent, despite claims made in their terms of service.
In her book, Pornland, Gail Dines explains that when you Google the term "Porn," over 2.3 billion pages show up in the results, generated in less than half a second, with Pornhub being the top search result (hence it being frequently referred to as the "YouTube of Porn"). Based on what comes up just in the first page of links, some of the most common sex acts in mainstream pornography appear to be vaginal, anal, and oral penetration of one woman by three or more men simultaneously, double anal sex, double vaginal sex, gagging, and bukkake, along with regular references to women being "destroyed," "punished," "choked," and "brutalized."
The three porn performers that modelled for Namilia are Asa Akira, Marica Hase, and Jade Kush. A quick search of these names on Pornhub turns up videos with titles such as, "Japanese Porn Star Marica Hase Fucked Rough in Bondage," "Marica Hase Beauty Teen Fucked Hard," and "You Fuck Jade Kush Every Which Way Then Cum On Her Face." When we consider the amount of abuse that has been hosted on Pornhub, the normalization of such titles is unsettling at best. And the idea that portraying Asian porn performers as dominatrixes will subvert the norm of submissive Asian women is nonsensical.
First, reversing a norm does not necessarily weaken the norm, and in fact could be said to strengthen it. The reversal is an acknowledgment of its power. The idea of a dominatrix is only considered sexy because we have been taught to eroticize imbalances of power; that a dominatrix is treated as a fetish shows that she represents a deviation from the norm of male domination. She is a male fantasy. Second, we do not undo the damage caused by sexist stereotypes by swapping sides in the narrative. A dominatrix is "sexy" because it is not real — that "power" does not extend beyond that moment, in that bedroom or scene. The dominatrix, though somewhat contrary to the social norm of male supremacy, still reinforces the eroticization of unequal power. Being a "cock wrecker" is not a feminist position, and only further perpetuates the idea of violence and abuse as sexy.
This move by Namilia does nothing to liberate women, and instead represents yet another instance of the pornification of pop culture. Pornhub is not a feminist utopia of sexual empowerment, but quite the opposite — it is a resource frequently utilized by abusers of women for manipulation and humiliation. Collaborating with Pornhub to display outfits that fetishize sexual power imbalance, girlhood, and leather is about as far from feminism as anything could be, and indeed, only serves to normalize and bolster the site not only in the eyes of the general public, but for young women specifically, who are being told this is what feminism looks like.
Andrea Dworkin once wrote that "the new pornography is left wing; and the new pornography is a vast graveyard where the Left has gone to die." It looks like the corpses will be dressed in pink leather school skirts with "cock wrecker" emblazoned across their chests.
Jessica Masterson, Feminist Current, full article here
Posted in: (Commercial) sexual exploitation of children, Anti-BDSM, Porn industry conditions, Pornography harms, Quote of the Day, Radical Feminism, There's no such thing as 'feminist porn' (or, 'what about queer/gay/alt/'ethical' porn?'), Trafficking still not a myth, We live in a rape culture
QotD: "Testimony did not seem to bring a revolution"
Crimes have a tendency to become not just stories but genres, once we get too accustomed to them. As more and more stories of sexual assault have been made public in the last two years, the genre of their telling has exploded. One thing we often do with narratives of sexual assault is sort their respective parties into different temporalities: it seems we are interested in perpetrators' futures and victims' pasts. Whatever questions society has about the perpetrators tend to concern their next steps: Will they go to prison? What of their careers? Questions asked about the victims—even at their most charitable (when we aren't asking, "What was she wearing?")—seem to focus on the past, sometimes in pursuit of understanding, sometimes in pursuit of certainty and corroboration and painful details.
One result is that we don't have much of a vocabulary for what happens in a victim's life after the painful past has been excavated, even when our shared language gestures toward the future, as the term "survivor" does. The victim's trauma after assault rarely gets the attention that we lavish on the moment of damage that divided the survivor from a less encumbered past. One of the things that Margaret Atwood accomplishes in The Testaments – which recently won the Booker Prize (shared with Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other) – is enlarging our perspective by focusing on the aftermath of assault. This engaging sequel to The Handmaid's Tale tempers the first novel's grim vision by supplying a parallel text that reveals one of its villains, Aunt Lydia, to have been a rebel in waiting.
The Handmaid's Tail describes its fictional dystopia, Gilead, as a male theocracy with almost perfect powers of surveillance over its female subjects. What The Testaments proves – reassuringly – is that Gilead's hegemony was not just incomplete but flawed from its inception: someone was always in fact keeping an eye on the Eye. The horror of the Handmaids' suffering, which in The Handmaid's Tale was somehow both sanctioned and ignored, is somewhat mitigated by the revelation that it was always being witnessed: strict records of abuses were being compiled. The Testaments is a text that believes, quite strongly, that dossiers showing wrongdoing by the power brokers matter. Its premise is that if the truth is recorded, exposed, and circulated, consequences will be meted out and power will crumble.
This strikes me as an anemic optimism. If Me Too (not to mention impeachment) has taught us anything, it is that testimony does not dislodge power. We careen from outrage to outrage in a rollicking attention-deficit economy that most perpetrators are able to outwait or outshout. And even when they don't, no one can agree on how revelations about past abuse should affect the offender's long-term treatment. Soon enough, they return, and rarely are they much resisted. Jeffrey Epstein was entertained by powerful men after his 2008 conviction for "procuring an underage girl for prostitution" and soliciting a prostitute.
Me Too has altered such calculations by amplifying the survivors' claims, but even now, after the public disgracing of Harvey Weinstein and humiliation of Epstein, the embarrassed professions of regret from Epstein's powerful associates feel partial and crabbed. Weinstein was recently out at a downtown comedy club. Many of Epstein's allies resent that their conduct is up for public discussion at all. As for dossiers knocking down corrupt institutions, well, to take one recent example, Ronan Farrow has alleged that NBC withheld the Weinstein story because Weinstein was threatening to expose similar allegations against one of the network's own stars, Matt Lauer. Rather than expose both abusers, it kept them both safe. We know all this now, and yet no power structures have toppled. The men who decided to protect Weinstein and Lauer still have their jobs and their influence. Several of Weinstein's accusers are on the brink of signing a settlement in which he will not have to admit fault or pay a dime himself.
Testimony did not seem to bring a revolution. Yet there is something liberating about this: if the legal system is unresponsive, and power is not collapsing, then why should testimonies be restricted to the formats that the law or journalistic standards require? What little public understanding there is of a survivor's experience labors under a heap of clichés. The expectations we have for how people should act immediately after being attacked are as strict as they are implausible (she should be beside herself, ideally sobbing, and go to the ER at once to get a rape kit done, and deliver a perfect statement to the police while registering suitable pain and panic).
This is why Chanel Miller's Know My Name, in which she recounts the experience of waking up to medical personnel and police after being raped while unconscious, is as educational as it is literary. In describing the confusion of reaching back to pluck a pine needle out of her hair and being gently told she can't, because it's evidence; of reaching for her underwear and not finding it, and blocking out what that means; of not knowing what happened and realizing that no one quite does—in finding a language for bewilderments that few people have put into words—her testimony is crucial. So is her description of what happened after. Our models for the aftermath of a survivor's journey usually include revenge, despair, or the fantasy that exposing the truth will provide a just outcome. Miller's account offers no such catharsis or closure; she describes a jumble of conflicting mental states that proceed along parallel tracks and do not resolve.
Lili Loofbourow, New York Review, continue reading here
Posted in: Campus Rape Culture, Quote of the Day, We live in a rape culture
QotD: "We are going to have to learn how to make room for imperfect victims"
By antiplondon on February 7, 2020 | 1 Comment
When it comes to sexual assault, victims are often deemed to be not perfect enough: their sexual history too louche, their behaviour afterwards too wild. Yet predators pick off the vulnerable and survivors sometimes process trauma in deeply damaged and self-destructive ways. Instead of these factors being taken as evidence that something terrible has happened, too often they are cited as reasons that the victim should not be believed. The focus is placed on the effect, not the cause.
We are going to have to learn how to make room for imperfect victims, and to understand that the key to their stories lies in their imperfections. Few are more imperfect than Feldman. It was easy to believe the accusations against Weinstein when they were coming from such impeccable sources as Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie. Things are a little more complicated when abuse allegations are coming from a former child star who does wacky things on TV. Really, you need only to look at Feldman and Haim to know that something, somewhere, went extremely wrong. But that requires you to look at them and not turn queasily away.
Hadley Freeman
Posted in: (Commercial) sexual exploitation of children, Quote of the Day, We live in a rape culture


text:
Q: jQuery Validation max value at runtime I need to validate if the entered value of intervalDuration is less than testDuration, but after couple of hours of searching I still was not found any solution which works for me.
I'm using the jQuery validation library.
Please help me.

var $val = jQuery.noConflict();

$val(document).ready(function() {
    $val("#uniformDistribution").validate({
        highlight: function(element) {
            $val(element).closest('.form-group').removeClass('has-success').addClass('has-error');
        },
        unhighlight: function(element) {
            $val(element).closest('.form-group').removeClass('has-error').addClass('has-success');
        },
        errorElement: 'span',
        errorClass: 'help-inline',
        rules: {
            testDuration: {
                required: true,
                digits: true,
                min: 1,
            },
            intervalDuration: {
                required: true,
                number: true,
                max: "#testDuration",
            },
        },
    });
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input type="text" class="form-control" name="testDuration" id="testDuration" placeholder="Test duration" required>
<input type="text" class="form-control" name="intervalDuration" id="intervalDuration" placeholder="Interval duration" required>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Cognitive enhancers are substances that promote mental alertness and greater focus to people who use them as study aids. There are many brain enhancers available which are both synthetic and natural products. Natural cognitive enhancers are sold legally as supplements. These contain vitamins and natural herbs. There are also drugs that are marketed as the prescription medication for people with learning disabilities like those suffering Alzheimer's, ADHD, and Parkinson's disease.
The reason these diseases are important is because we have millions of people suffering from them every year!
These drugs are illicitly sold among university students as study boosters. It helps students to have greater focus and attention and gives them longer endurance during long nights of studying. Using these medications also improves memory retention although retention, in this case, is only temporary. The use of brain enhancers has been a great cause of debate recently because many individuals support the use of cognitive enhancers as great study aids to those who want to excel in school.
It's hard to say if that is true, but scientists have figured out that the parts of your brain that you use the most, they do grow larger, that means your adult stem cells are working in those sections of your brain, and it becomes thicker and stronger in those regions. Now then, it's not against the law to enhance your human brain currently, and I suppose as long as you're not competing for a spelling bee, or a Nobel Prize, it really wouldn't be unethical.
Cognitive enhancers may also be referred as smart drugs, memory enhancers, and intelligence enhancers. The term "college crack" is common among people who use cognitive enhancer drugs illicitly. This type of medications increase brain stimulation, improve mental focus and sustain energy for an extended period. Issues on whether the use of cognitive enhancers must be legalized are being presented by many pro users of the medication. Some people believed that with proper caution and control, the use of the drugs should be allowed especially for students who want to improve their study habits. The potential danger of the utilization of these drugs, however, leads many antagonists not to promote its use. These drugs have a high potential for addiction, and many cases of prescription medicine abuse have been reported for the past few years which relate to the use of cognitive enhancers in particular.
Based on recent studies, the number of drug abuse cases due to prescription medicine has increased. Addiction to cognitive enhancers is one of them. There are drug rehabilitation programs that are very specific towards their treatment approaches towards addiction from cognitive enhancers. The side effects of withdrawal both physical and mental, lead many users to continue using these drugs despite a desire to stop it. Studying without the aid of the drugs become impossible and focus is lesser without the intake. The drive for excellence and competency often pushes many college students to take extreme measures of using illicit drugs to get consistently good grades. As the pressure mounts, they seek out easier methods in studying which later develops into drug addiction. These are some of the top nootropics.
Seeking medical help for addiction is a long process and requires a significant change of lifestyle. Desire is already a good indication of change. Visiting and consulting skilled staff in drug rehabilitation programs can help those who suffer from addiction from cognitive enhancers. Before any treatment is recommended, assessment of the patient is the initial step. Counseling and other behavioral therapy may be included as part of the entire rehabilitation process. Whatever you choose, just make sure you do not become addicted to any of the substances!
When it comes to drug abuse, university students are just as culpable as anyone else. There are plenty of people who are deciding to use drugs recreationally, but also thousands (if not millions) of Americans who are using drugs illegally in order to get better grades in school.
This phenomenon is a huge problem and it is causing many people to consider Adderall to be as big of a problem as any other drug that is currently being bought and sold on the market. For many people, the use of Adderall by students is an epidemic because it is no widespread and done through the most conscious and educated people in the country.
This article is going to discuss some of the substitutes for adderall and similar kinds of amphetamine-based drugs so that you and your children do not need to utilize this drug in order to get ahead. Hopefully, this will serve as a balancing act so that you can improve the quality of your mental performance without resorting to drastic and somewhat unpleasant actions.
The first step for anyone who is looking to get off of adderall is to see how it can be done through the use of other kinds of smart drugs by yourself. You'll recognize that there are millions of people who are focusing on some of the wrong things when it comes to getting off of the Adderall drug. Most people do not realize this, but you'll see that the drug is an amphetamine and that can make it addictive and problematic.
When you are taking adderall, it makes sense for you to be more focused and stimulated, but you have to find the alternatives. There are many adderall alternatives that you can find and even some substitute options that are beneficial. Many adderall substitutes are similar (like ritalin or vyvanse) so do not be duped into getting the wrong thing. You'll need help getting off adderall if you have been using it for too long.
The best ways to get off of adderall is to do so through the process of exercising (and sweating) a lot. This creates chemicals called endorphins, which can make you feel a lot better and improve your general health. Also, another way is to be social with other people as you'll get oxytocin and other chemicals from interacting withe people.
Why is Adderall so Popular?
Not only does adderall feel good to many people who are using the drug, but it is also a powerful stimulant that can have drastic cognitive effects. It can help people to study for longer and with better vision and focus. For many people, it is the only way that they can pass their tests and study for them.
The vast majority of people who are trying to get rid of their adderall addiction don't realize they need to get better at passing tests and not having test anxiety. Test taking anxiety creates a lot of fear for people that can be spent doing other things. There are many test anxiety tips, but realistically you are going to have to learn how to deal with test anxiety on your own. It is worth it, though!
Most people who are engaging with different drugs find that they are more capable of achieving when their mind isn't being consistently bombarded with the different stimuli. It makes a lot of sense and there are millions of people who are desperately looking for an alternative to adderall right now.
The hard part is, many people need to take this drug as they have a disorder that is genuine. The only problem is how to treat it in the right way.
What is the Legality of Using Nootropics?
There are plenty of people performing at the highest mental level who are looking for information about nootropics and smart drugs. These people are interested first and foremost in making sure they are taking something that is legal. Second, they want to figure out what they are going to take so that they can avoid getting into trouble. There are plenty of ways to improve your memory, concentration, and general mental performance so no need to get into trouble.
The vast majority of people who are looking at the legal question with regard to nootropics don't realize that they are potentially asking the wrong questions. One major question to ask might be "is the nootropic I'm using safe?" We will hopefully answer both of these (or at least give you a place to start).
There are some nootropics that are considered in a legal grey area. For example, there is a powerful nootropic called noopept that is a prescription drug in many parts of the world and is not regulated in others. The former Soviet bloc countries utilize these compounds to improve memory formation and there is plenty of evidence to support their usage.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are options like Alpha Brain, which are helpful for improving your cognition without all of those side effects. This Alpha Brain review for brain health shows that there are a host of advantages of using this drug. Of course, Alpha Brain might not be the one that you are really looking forward to if you are wanting high power, but it is safe and legal. Other drugs besides Alpha Brain may not be.
As you can see, there is a wide range of legality depending on the type of drug that you are looking to utilize. We have showed you these options and it would benefit you to keep this in mind for the rest of your nootropic supplementation days.
There are not too many people in LA that haven't fallen down the spiral of being health conscious and focused on being as pretty and proper as possible. Los Angeles is literally where the most attractive people often go in order to get movie auditions, find new career changes, and do the things that they truly love.
The vast majority of people who are using herbal remedies find out about them from friends without doing a lot of research. Anyone who has looked at nootropics online has come across extracts and herbs that can improve cognitive function, but how deep have they gone down the rabbit hole?
Although many people in Silicon Valley tout provigil, the reality is that this is a major synthetic drug that is going to potentially have some side effects. These side effects may be mild, but they could also be detrimental for your health as well.
Maca powder – this is a natural remedy that can help you to improve feelings of anxiety and has a lot of different benefits for vitality as well. The thing that you need to be able to focus on is whether or not you are getting good quality products. One of the products that incorporates a few of these things into a nootropic drink for brain health might be helpful.
Ashwagandha – this is a great anti-anxiety medication that is an herbal remedy and makes a big difference for your overall health. The vast majority of people who are using ashwagandha find that it can remove many of their symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder or even the anxiety types that we face in social situations.
By combining these herbs or many of the others that you haven't seen, you can improve your cognitive performance manifold.
Ever wonder why it is some people get ahead above all others? It isn't hard work, it isn't intelligence, but it is always the ability to adapt to an ever changing environment. In a more easy to understand term, this is "evolution". If you are able to adapt and evolve in a way that gives you an advantage, it will make your life a lot easier and your success a lot greater.
The vast majority of people who are improving the quality of their lives do so in a way that might not be the most useful for their overall health. For example, if they are taking steroids it might be useful for them to be stronger and thus look like they are more healthy for mating, but in reality it removes their ability to produce sperm and actually have babies!
This faulty logic is everywhere and if you want to adapt past the other people, it is imperative that you look for ways to do this. One of the best ways is through smart drug called CILTEP. This is a drug that is meant to improve long-term potentiation, which is a fancy term for memory. People who use this tool are able to improve their learning ability and general cognitive thought.
Some of the experts in different fields are starting to use nootropics more often because it is easy to improve the quality of your memory and learning ability with these drugs. As the link above shows, it is easy for people who have jobs in San Francisco to justify this kind of a thing because it is becoming so prevalent in that part of the world.
If you are trying to improve the quality of life for you and your family, one suggestion might be to improve the way that you do everything through the use of nootropics and the drugs that we have provided in this article. Hopefully this is going to make big changes for you in the way that you suspect and hope.


text:
Kohl's Donates $1.5 Million to Discovery World for STEM Education Access
Business Wire March 19, 2019
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Funding supports Kohl's Design It! Lab and Mobile Lab which promote creativity and innovation to students and families in Milwaukee's most vulnerable communities
Kohl's (KSS) announced it will award a $1.5 million grant to Discovery World, over three years, to increase access to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for children and families in Milwaukee's most vulnerable communities through Kohl's Design It!, a hands-on, educational program that encourages students and families to use technology to turn imagination into reality.
"Kohl's is proud to continue our partnership with Discovery World to provide opportunities for students and families to participate in free, interactive STEM programming, increasing their knowledge of the disciplines and exposing them to careers in the field," said Jen Johnson, Kohl's senior vice president of communications. "We applaud the work Discovery World is doing in bringing hands-on, age-appropriate learning centered around design and creativity to kids in our community."
Discovery World will allocate Kohl's funding to bring highly innovative STEM education to the fingertips of more local children and families through the following efforts:
Free School Visits to Discovery World: Students from more than 250 qualifying local schools, with 50 percent or more of the student population living in poverty, will have the opportunity to visit Discovery World to participate in Kohl's Design It! Lab at no cost. At the Kohl's Design It! Lab, students harness their creativity by partaking in collaborative art- and design-focused STEM projects.
No-Cost Community-Based Programming for Families: The Kohl's Design It! Mobile Lab will travel to organizations in Milwaukee communities and qualifying schools, with 70 percent or more of the total student base living in poverty, to introduce families and students to the intellectually stimulating STEM field through engaging demonstrations and a variety of hands-on learning activities, including product development.
"Kohl's Design It! has become a pivotal resource for local students and families to receive hands-on educational programming focused on creativity, innovation and design," said Amy Panicucci, Discovery World's director of marketing. "Kohl's generous support helps us educate, motivate, mobilize, and inspire the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow by providing impactful and engaging educational experiences today."
Since 2010, Kohl's and Kohl's Cares have committed $7.5 million to Discovery World to launch and support the Kohl's Design It! educational program, which includes the Kohl's Design It! Lab and the Kohl's Design It! Mobile Lab.
Kohl's (KSS) is a leading omnichannel retailer with more than 1,100 stores in 49 states. With a commitment to inspiring and empowering families to lead fulfilled lives, Kohl's offers amazing national and exclusive brands, incredible savings and an easy shopping experience in our stores, online at Kohls.com and on Kohl's mobile app. Since its founding, Kohl's has given more than $700 million to support communities nationwide, with a focus on family health and wellness. For a list of store locations or to shop online, visit Kohls.com. For more information about Kohl's impact in the community or how to join our winning team, visit Corporate.Kohls.com or follow @KohlsNews on Twitter.
About Discovery World
Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, Discovery World is Milwaukee's premier science and technology center that's fun for the whole family. The 120,000-square foot facility is home to interactive exhibits, fresh and saltwater tanks in the Reiman Aquarium, live theater shows, and a multitude of educational programs. Discovery World is also home to Wisconsin's Flagship, the Sailing Vessel (S/V) Denis Sullivan. To find out more call (414) 765-9966 or visit www.discoveryworld.org.


text:
Jerusalem Post Middle East ISIS NEWS
Canadian-Israeli anti-ISIS fighter: If we don't fight them there, they'll come here
"This isn't just their fight, it's the world's fight," says Gill Rosenberg who returned to Israel after nine months of fighting for the Kurds in Syria and Iraq.
By TAMARA ZIEVE
Published: JULY 28, 2015 18:17
Updated: JULY 29, 2015 04:51
If the West doesn't fight Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, it will find them on its own borders, warns Israeli-Canadian fighter Gill Rosenberg who returned from the front-lines of the Kurdish fight in Syria and Iraq earlier this month.
"The Kurds need a lot more Western support than they have," she tells The Jerusalem Post. "This isn't just their fight, it's the world's fight and if we don't fight them there, then they're going to be at our borders, and they almost already are."
She opines that Israel could do more on a "quiet level" in terms of providing training and arming the Kurds, but she acknowledges that Israeli involvement is "tricky politically."
31-year-old Rosenberg --the first foreign woman to join the fight against Islamic State -- decided to head back to Israel after nine months of fighting due to "changes on the ground."
"Especially with the Iranians and now the Turks - the Turkish forces have been bombing Kurdish forces inside northern Iraq, as of a couple of days ago," she elaborates.
"The Iranians are making most of the advances within southern Kurdistan, and I just felt like the dynamics were changing a lot and ISIS isn't the only threat. Iran is just as great a threat if not greater."
Rosenberg says that the "never again" mantra oft-repeated by Jews was behind her motivation to join the fight against ISIS, after seeing genocidal images from the region splashed across social media. Having been brought up with a strong Holocaust education, the refrain resonates with her. "We say never again and that's not just for Jews, that means for anyone. We don't stay silent and watch a genocide take place anywhere, to anyone."
"I saw there was something I can do and I wanted to help. I saw that there were women fighting on the front-lines, and I thought 'why not me?'"
In Syria, Rosenberg saw many other women fighting for the Kurds on the front-lines and states that "women are the ones winning the war" there. In the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) region of Iraq where she fought, however, she was the only woman on the front-lines but notes that she wasn't treated any differently than the men. "Everyone treated me with the utmost respect and like I had the same capabilities and physical abilities as anyone else that was out there."
As for her Jewish and Israeli identity, the high and mid-level commanders in Syria were aware of it but advised her not to share the fact with the rest of the soldiers. She explains that this was not due to expected reactions from the Kurds, who she says "love Israelis and the Jewish people," but rather due to the presence of local Syrian Arabs "who might not be so fond of Jews and Israelis." In Iraq, however, she says everyone was aware of her origins and notes that they discovered more similarities than differences between them.
Now back in Israel, Rosenberg intends to continue her fight for women and children in Syria and Iraq, from her home turf. She notes that she has been approached by several organizations and will explore which is the best fit for her.


Summer in the Caribbean? Scholarships available!
Summer in the Caribbean is a BLAST!
We would love for you to be a part of this life changing adventure with us. Come along to Belize and become a part of a magical journey. You will love the people. You will learn about yourself and all this amazing country has to offer! Dates are June 29- July 14. While there we will explore the country while hosting a summer camp for some pretty incredible kiddos! You can apply HERE! Come see what all the fuss is about and learn all there is to learn about Belize! Education majors will LOVE this chance to be engaged and play an active role in helping progress literacy skills in children, but ALL majors have a blast when they come on this incredible trip!
We are headed to Austin Texas as well to hang out at Community First!
Our HSDA majors LOVE this trip! We hang out in a tiny home community for the formerly chronically homeless working alongside the residents of this amazing community! While there we explore San Antonio, Little Mexico, and if we have 10 students sign up we go on a HOT AIR BALLOON ride! WHAT?? Dates are June 7-15 and you can sign up HERE!
We have competitive scholarships available so don't wait apply today!
Want to try to be one of our scholarship recipients? You can start your application HERE! Don't wait though, the deadline for Austin is March 30, 2019 and the deadline for Belize is April 15, 2019! Make sure you have all documents in for our committee to select a winner!
Just want to make an impact?
We are giving back by putting a clean drinking water cooler at the Unity School in Belize City. Currently these children don't have access to free clean drinking water. We want to change that and you can too! If you sign up to be a water warrior, for just $10.00 a month (or the price of two trips to your local coffee shop) you can provide two cooler bottles (The big 5 gallon kind) a month! This give us constant access to clean drinking water! Your subscription is completely tax deductible as we are a 501 C 3 organization. You can make a HUGE impact for a child today by signing up HERE!
Watch Below to see what a Belize trip looks like!
Spring Break in Belize come with us!
Ardenti is calling all students that love to travel and love to give back! We are looking for committed focused students to assist us in classrooms in Belize while hosting an after school program for underserved children. We pack so much into 10 days you'll want to come back just to see what else you can do! Working in classrooms, hosting after school program, exploring some of the different cities in Belize such as Belmopan where you will see how other college students like you study at the University of Belize. We see Caye Caulker an island off the coast of Belize, and when we go cave tubing and ziplining we see the interior of the country in small villages like San Ignacio. If you love to travel you love to learn because the world is your global classroom. If you think you can't we show you how you can! So, scream YOLO and sign up today. You'll be so glad you did! Competitive scholarships are available so we encourage you to apply today and see if you qualify to go for FREE!
The time is now. Sign up today and #GoPassionately with our team!
Check out our Fall trips by clicking on the video below!
You've been dreaming of a spring break in the Caribbean, here's your chance! 20% off!
Spring break in Belize won't be the same without you!
Halloween Savings for YOUR Christmas Present to YOURSELF!!!
SCARY SAVINGS FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO YOURSELF!
Another Semester huh? Tired of the same old routine? SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!!!
FALL 2018 SEMESTER IS HERE! What will you do differently this semester?
Take a look at what you could be doing in this SHORT video and let's get you going!
I don't need to see more sign me up!
When I was in school, which by the way wasn't that long ago, it felt like every semester about mid way through I would feel like it was NEVER going to end. I bet some of you get that same feeling. Ardenti has created a way for you to be able to break up your semester with a life changing, transforming trip that will also build your resume!! This fall we have two of them!
Belize City, Belize for 10 days and Austin Texas for 8 days. One of them you can swim with sharks while working with community children in their school and the other you can take a hot air balloon ride while working with a real live working tiny home community for the chronically homeless.
Belize leaves in November and is part of your Fall break and Austin leaves right after final exams!
So stop getting stuck in the hum drum long drawn out semester and break it up with an incredible trip that will not only change your life but the lives of all the people we work with in these communities!!
Scholarships are available on a first come first serve basis, so if you are ready fill out our application on our website under the "Volunteer Abroad Today" tab! HURRY! They will not last!
And if you will be traveling during the holidays we also have information on how to make it through when or if your plans get all wonky doodle in the process!! Travel along with Momleficent and learn some super cool tricks to staying safe when the travel blunders have you going sideways!!
Dr. Carlise Wynne shows us all super awesome travel hacks to prepare for our fall travel!
Don't miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime! Get going now!!


RAY: During the 19th century, disgruntled French peasants would go into the fields of the landlords -- these are peasants that worked the fields and grew the crops -- and would trample said crops to show their discontent or disdain with the way they were being treated by these landlords. And they would trample the crops wearing their wooden peasant shoes.
RAY: Out of this behavior, a new word was born, and, of course, has entered not just the French vocabulary, but the English vocabulary as well and is a very common word. A word that you could hear everyday.
TOM: I know the answer. Cabernet sauvignon.
RAY: Nice try. What is this word?
RAY: Here's the answer. And I'm sure a lot of people do know what the name for wooden shoe is, especially if you're a crossword puzzle fanatic. It's sabot.
TOM: Un sabot or un pair of sabots.
RAY: So, as the French are want to do, they add an A-G-E to make a word. If you look, a word that's often used when referring to our show - gar-bage. And they came up with the sabo-tage. Now there are a lot of rumors about the origin of this word. But I'm sticking with my story!


text:
HBO World Championship Boxing Preview: Golovkin vs. Rubio, Donaire vs. Walters
By: William Holmes
The Stub Hub Center in Carson, California will be the host site for Saturday's HBO World Championship Boxing telecast. Gennady Golovkin will be fighting on the west coast for the first time in his career as he defends his WBA Middleweight title against WBC interim middleweight champion Marco Antonio Rubio. Nonito Donaire will be in the unfamiliar position as a supporting fight as he defends his WBA Featherweight title against the very dangerous Nicholas Walters.
The Stub Hub Center has quickly become a destination for exciting and fan pleasing fights. Donaire and Golovkin are two boxers who tend to participate in action packed bouts.
The following is a preview of both of the title bouts on Saturday night.
Nonito Donaire (33-2) vs. Nicholas Walters (24-0); WBA Featherweight "Super" Title
Nonito Donaire has been a staple of HBO for several years and has always, unjustly, had to have his career compared to fellow Filipino Manny Pacquiao. He's a bit of a throwback in that he's always willing to fight whoever is in front of him no matter the odds, and on Saturday he'll have a very tough fight on his hands against the underrated and hard hitting Jamaican Nicholas Walters.
Donaire will be giving up about an inch-and-a-half in height, a daunting five inches in reach, and three years in age to his opponent. However, Donaire has been several wars inside the ring and they may have noticeably taken a toll on his body.
Donaire had a solid amateur career. He won three national championships before turning pro. Walters also competed as an amateur and won a Bronze medal at the 2006 Central American and Caribbean games.
Walters has impressive power. He has stopped twenty of his opponents, including nine of his past ten fights. Donaire has twenty-one stoppages to his record, including four of his past five fights.
Donaire clearly has the more impressive list of defeated opponents. They include Vic Darchinyan, Jorge Arce, Toshiaki Nishioka, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., Fernando Montiel, and Omar Narvaez. Walters has defeated the likes of Vic Darchinyan, Daulis Prescott, and Irving Berry.
However, Donaire looks like he has been slipping inside the ring recently, or that he's not quite built for the featherweight division. He defeated Simpiwe Vetyeka in his last bout, but looked lackluster before a questionable stoppage occurred in the fifth round. He appeared to be losing to Vic Darchinyan before stopping him in the ninth round. And Guillermo Rigondeaux simple outclassed him in his bout at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Walters, on the other hand, has been surging and looked very impressive in his stoppage victory over Vic Darchinyan. He has slowly been gathering steam amongst the boxing media and appears to have the hunger that Donaire once had.
Donaire has recently admitted to not having the same passion for boxing that he used to have, and that it is more like a job to him nowadays. That is never a good sign for someone who wants to compete at the championship level.
Without that passion, Donaire's time at or near the top will come to an end. Saturday should be Walters' coming out party.
Donaire, Golovkin, Rubio, Walters (Photo: Chris Farina: Top Rank)
Gennady Golovkin (30-0) vs. Marco Antonio Rubio (59-6-1); WBA Middleweight "Super" Title
Golovkin has long been a boxing media darling and the favorite of the die-hard boxing fans, but he hasn't quite been able to translate that into mainstream media success.
His last bout was at the main room in Madison Square Garden and sold better than expected, but it was far from a sell-out and was helped by the appearance of fighters from the Northeastern portion of the United States who tend to draw well.
This fight with Rubio was clearly made to help make Golovkin a bigger draw. He'll be fighting on the West Coast of the United States for the first time in his career and will have more exposure to the prevalent boxing media on the West Coast, and more importantly, the Latino fan base. Rubio is a good boxer but should not be considered a legitimate champion. He brings the Mexican fanbase and will give Golovkin a chance to prove himself amongst the passionate Mexican boxing fans.
Golovkin had a much better amateur career than Rubio. He won the silver medal in the 2004 Olympics and the 2003 World Championships. Rubio's amateur career is largely unheralded.
Both boxers are 5'10" with seventy-inch reach. Rubio is two years older than Golovkin, but Golovkin is older than most realize. He doesn't have much left of his prime at the age of thirty-two.
Golovkin's power is already legendary. He has stopped twenty-seven of his opponents for a 90% knockout percentage. He is currently riding an amazing seventeen-fight stoppage streak. Rubio has stopped fifty-one of his opponents, including four of his past five fights.
Rubio has defeated the likes of Domenico Spada, Marcus Upshaw, Carlos Baldomir, and David Lemieux. However, whenever Rubio faces elite opposition he seems to come up short. His losses have come to the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Kelly Pavlik, Kassim Ouma, and other lesser known opposition.
Golovkin has never tasted defeat and has never been pushed to the brink. He has defeated, thoroughly, the likes of Daniel Geale, Curtis Stevens, Matthew Macklin, Gabriel Rosado, Gregorz Proksa, and Kassim Ouma.
Three of Rubio's losses have come by stoppage, and it seems likely he'll suffer another stoppage loss on Saturday.
If Golovkin wants to appeal to the Mexican fan base, he'll need to win and win impressively.


Zero Carbon Yorkshire aims to involve the broadest possible cross-section of Yorkshire people, places and organisations. If you or your organisation support the aim of making Yorkshire a world leader in the fight against climate change by moving to a 21st century, non-polluting and zero carbon economy by 2030, please fill in the form below to affiliate to the Zero Carbon Yorkshire alliance.
Once you have filled out the form, we will try and respond as soon as we can, but your details will be added to our mailing list straight away so that you are aware of what we are up to and can get involved!


text:
Does Angelina Jolie want to date Keanu Reeves?
ANI Tue, 18 Jun 2019 Tue, 18 Jun 2019
(ANI)
Washington D.C.: American actor Angelina Jolie seems to have moved on after her split with Brad Pitt and now wants to date the internet's latest obsession, who is none other than actor Keanu Reeves!
The 44-year-old actor moved to the Los Feliz neighbourhood in Los Angeles after she parted ways with Brad Pitt nearly three years ago and one of her neighbours happens to know Reeves' mother Patricia Taylor. Apparently, this is all it takes to spark romance rumours between Jolie and Reeves.
According to Celebrity Insider, a major outlet is claiming that Jolie has set her sights on the 'John Wick' actor so she can move on from her ex-husband and put her life back on track after her divorce.
The 'Always Be My Maybe' star is reportedly the first man Jolie has been excited about since meeting Pitt back in 2004 on the sets of 2005 thriller 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith'.
According to the tabloid, when Jolie became Patricia's neighbour, the actor allegedly saw this as her chance to get to know Reeves better.
"Keanu's really close to his mom and visits her all the time. That's how he came to meet Ange. They found they have a lot in common, and the attraction was definitely there," an insider told Star.
The source also claimed that Reeves has met Jolie's children - Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne, and Knox and gets along well with them. The source also added that Patricia is fine with the idea of a relationship between her son and the Oscar-winning actor because she is ready for her son to settle down.
Despite all these details from the insider, that may get the fans all excited, Reeves' representative said that there is absolutely no truth to the report. The rep also stated that they sent Star a denial of the story before they published it.
The 'Replicas' actor doesn't really have the time to invest in a relationship because he has been so busy with his career.
The 54-year-old actor's upcoming movie 'Toy Story 4' releases on June 21 and he reportedly got really into his character of Duke Caboom in the flick.
Reeves wanted to know everything he could about his role, asking Pixar producers what he was like and what he is afraid of. Producer Mark Nielsen said that Reeves "wanted to dig deep into the character," and during lunch, he came up with the idea of Caboom's love of posing.
"He climbed on a table and was striking poses in the middle of the atrium and we thought, that is Duke Caboom!" said Nielsen.
On the work front, Reeves was last seen in 'John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum'. He is all set to start filming for 'Bill and Ted Face The Music' later this year. Meanwhile, Jolie will next appear in 'Maleficent: Mistress of Evil', 'Come Away', 'Those Who Wish Me Dead' and 'The Eternals'.


old bag vintage antique medical doctor stitched black leather ?
Antique Authentic Old Doctors Medical Metal Tools Equipment.
Antique Old German Made Original Braun Melsungen Medical Glass Syringe.
Antique Old Bulgarian Made Original Record Medical Glass Syringe in a Box.
Antique Old German Made Original Record Medical Glass Syringe in a Box.
ANTIQUE OLD VINTAGE MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS BY G.ERMOLD N.Y.


For me, the most accurate definition of love is "sufficient, caring attention". I now see that Love is the universal substrate for all things, as love can present as anything.
I am Love. I alone AM.
Thou art Love. Thou art One with Me.
You may know me by desiring to know Me.
Through My Love alone can man know Me.
Man is God when he knoweth that he is Love.
Man is Me when he knoweth that he is Me.
What more can I give you to show you My Love ?
Of which YOU are the Designer ?
I have already placed within you.
For in so doing thou art glorifying Me.
I am the One Whole, the ALL.
For I am ALL, and no other is.
for thou art Me; thou art the Whole.
I, the genderless One, am Unity.
Nothing is which is not Light.
I, the One Whole, am knowing Mind.
but My thinking is not Me.
for repetition as sexed pairs of opposites.
Form hath no existence,nor have My imaginings.
These exist not, for they are not Me.


Dense, natural goathair brush to shape & shade, bronze and colour with powders or creams.. short wooden handled.
Washes easily with shampoo and air-drying. A La Carte brushes are hand-made in the finest quality materials.
Let your moisturiser sink in and apply primer, powder. concealer or foundation as you would normally do.
Use the contour brush dry and dip the brush end in powder blush or bronzer or dab it in cream blush or bronzer.
Buff gently in oval movements until edges disappear. Build-up if needed.


text:
Henry Bromberg Award for Perseverance – Part 1
In July, Gaudio were contacted by Laura and Robert Bromberg to create a trophy in memory of their son, Henry. Henry was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome; a rare condition that means half of the heart is not fully developed. The condition is not correctable and although some treatments are possible the only long-term solution is a transplant. Henry sadly passed away in July 2016, at only 9 years of age, whilst waiting for a heart transplant.
Henry, who liked to be known as Henry 'Dog' Warrior, was a vibrant young boy with a captivating personality. He was an inspiration to all those that had the honour to meet him. His appearance on BBC Children in Need made a lasting impression on millions of viewers for his charisma and optimism. Henry raised thousands for charity and was an ambassador for Readathon (now Read for Good) after he encountered their books and storytellers whilst receiving treatment at Gloucester Royal Hospital. Despite numerous operations and hours spent in hospital Henry was not put off hospitals and aspired to become a Neurologist.
Laura and Bob, Henry's parents, decided to create a trophy in honour of his bravery recognising the recipients for perseverance. One of the awards will be presented annually to a pupil at Deerhurst and Apperley C of E Primary School, which Henry attended, and the other for patients at the hospital where he received treatment.
Henry lived with his family in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, which is where Gaudio are based. After hearing about Henry, Gaudio's Managing Director, Adam Hutchinson, decided it would be an honour to create the awards for such an incredible person.
"Hearing Henry's story, how courageous and selfless he was, and what a positive impact he had on his chosen charity, he truly managed to inspire a nation with his infectious personality. How could we not want to be involved?" – Adam Hutchinson
Henry's friends created the initial designs based around things that made them think of him. Their designs featured pugs, stars, rainbows, pink, and Henry's catchphrase "I will never, ever, ever, ever, give up'. We were all impressed at the amazing designs, each of which could have been made into the final piece. After reviewing them, it was decided to use elements of all of the children's designs and to work in a heart as it was for having half a heart that Henry came to be known.
Laura and Bob then visited Gaudio to get a feel for what could be produced and to look at the kind of finishes they liked. They decided that Henry would have loved the premium, shiny, finish of polished metal and the glitz of crystals. Henry's half a heart was also important to consider in the look of the heart in the design. After a couple of rounds of designs and revisions working with Laura and Bob a final design was chosen.
See how the final design came out and what the children thought here!
To find out how Gaudio can design your awards, please contact us on 01242 232383, email sales@gaudio.co.uk or fill in the 'contact' form on our website and one of our project managers will contact you to discuss your requirements.
National Venue Awards 2018
Achievements in retail celebrated at the 2012 Retail Week Awards
Sir Bobby Robson Celebrity Golf Day


In this edition of Sixers Likes and Dislikes, we'll take a look at two trends, one positive and one negative, surrounding the Philadelphia 76ers. You can read previous installments in the series here.
The Jonah Bolden experience has been a bit of a rollercoaster in the second half of the season, with pronounced highs and lows that aren't all that rare of characteristics for a rookie big man, but they've made it difficult to have full confidence in exactly what you're going to get from him in a playoff series.


Tah-Dah! The Best of British cultural festival will return to Hong Kong from 12th-17th December in Tamar Park and it will feature the very best of British food, cinema, brands and entertainment.
What is your plan for December? Shopping at Christmas fairs? Packing for winter holiday? Or juggling your social calendar for all the parties and family gatherings? Whether you're a festive person or not, The Best of British cultural festival must have something for you. For example, are you a fan of British gin and whiskey? There is Fever Tree Gin Garden where you can sample some 15 unique gin creations and mixes. And Great British Whisky for you to stock up pre-Christmas.
Besides, no festival is complete without savoury food so there'll be food stalls curated by The Pawn, Jamie's Italian, Golden Pig, Shoreditch, Brick lane, The Pantry and more.
My personal favourite has to be the Film Festival – six British classics will be screened at the outdoor cinema in Tamar Park from 8.30pm each evening including Notting Hill (Tue), Bridget Jones Diary (Wed), Bond legend Roger Moore, with The Man with the Golden Gun (Thur), Love Actually (Fri), Harry Potter & the Philosopher (Sat) and Mama Mia! (Sun). The ticketing information will be released soon.
For more events and information, please visit their official website or Facebook page.


What is are FEMA flood maps?
FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) or just Flood Maps are provided after a flood risk assessment has been completed or updated for a community. This study is known as a Flood Insurance Study. The FIRM gives you the Base Flood Elevations (BFEs) and insurance risk zones in addition to floodplain boundaries. The FIRM may also show a delineation of the regulatory floodway.
To view these flood maps online, go to FEMA's Map Service Center and key in your address (hi-lited area shown here) search for your home. This will prompt you to then select the map that covers your area. The Flood Maps are somewhat cumbersome to use online. It is best to go through the tutorial on the bottom right of the address search page for an easier and more effective use of the GIS map.
If you are located in the City of Montgomery, you might also want to check the Montgomery Interactive GIS maps for more information and a little easier interface. Check the FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map box on the left to view the flood zones on this map.
Call Montgomery Land Surveying at (334) 625-9540 or contact us if you need help with this process or if you discover you are near a flood zone and need an elevation survey completed. We are here to help you minimize your flooding risk.