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If We Don't Slash Our Nuclear Arsenal, "a Major City Is Going to Be Destroyed"
Author Eric Schlosser on America's terrifying history of atomic mishaps.
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A 1953 detonation of the 23 kiloton XX-34 Badger at the Nevada Test Site.Official CTBTO Photostream/Flickr Creative Commons
The term "wake-up call" is a tired cliché, but it is appropriate in the case of Command and Control, the frightening new exposé of America's nuclear weapons mishaps by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser. (Click here to read an excerpt and my detailed review.) In short, Schlosser delivers a book full of revelations that left me agape. While we still worry in the abstract about Iran and North Korea and Pakistan, it's easy to forget that we still have thousands of our own ungodly devices on hair-trigger alert at this very moment. And even if we never drop or launch another nuke on purpose, these weapons are, in his words, "the most dangerous machines ever invented. And like every machine, sometimes they go wrong."
That's what the book is about. Through hard-fought documents and deep digging and extensive interviews, Schlosser reveals how close we've come, on numerous occasions, to a domestic nuclear detonation or an accidental war in which there are only losers. Command and Control will leave many readers with a deep unease about America's ability to handle our nukes safely. Schlosser's hope is that this unease will beget a long-neglected debate about "why we have them and when we use them and how many we need." But his book is no screed. He delivers an engrossing page-turner. Would that it were fiction.
Mother Jones: The safety of America's nuclear arsenal is far cry from fast food. What got you interested in this topic?
Eric Schlosser: I spent some time with the Air Force before Fast Food Nation came out. I was interested in the future of warfare in space: space weapons, particle-beam weapons, lasers, directed-energy devices. A lot of the people who were involved in it had started their careers as missile-crew officers. As I spent time with them, I became more interested in their stories from the Cold War about nuclear weapons than I did in the future of warfare in space.
"It's incredible that a major city hasn't been destroyed since Nagasaki."
MJ: How long did it take to research the book?
ES: A lot longer than I thought it would. I originally was going to write a relatively short book about this accident in Damascus, Arkansas, which was an extraordinary story. But the deeper I got, the more I realized that the subject of nuclear weapons accidents hadn't really been written about, and that the threat was much greater than I thought it was. So what started out as a two-year project turned into six—and an extraordinary amount of digging around in strange places.
Eric Schlosser Photo: Kodiak Greenwood
MJ: My general takeaway is that, given our history of near misses, it's essentially dumb luck that we haven't had an accidental nuclear detonation on American soil, or an accidental launch.
ES: If we don't greatly reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, or completely eliminate them, a major city is going to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon. It's remarkable—it's incredible!—that a major city hasn't been destroyed since Nagasaki. We can confront this problem or we can accept that hundreds of thousands or more will be killed. And I don't think that's inevitable. The book was really written with a notion of trying to prevent that.
MJ: But is it inevitable if we maintain our current course?
ES: My background, academically, is history. I hate the word "inevitable" because I feel like things don't have to be the way they are. But we really need to change our policies. I think Obama has done a terrific job of trying to raise awareness about nuclear weapons. But we really need to sit down with Russia, China, England, France, India, Pakistan, and think about how to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, these weapons. And that may sound totally absurd and unrealistic, but when I was in my 20s, if someone had said that the Soviet Union would vanish without a nuclear war and the Berlin Wall would come down and all this would happen without tens of thousands, or millions, of deaths, people would have thought that was absurd.
MJ: What do you think might befall our society were an accidental detonation to occur? I mean, suppose that H-bomb had exploded in North Carolina?
ES: It would have profoundly shocked this country and the world. When you look back at the response after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was around the period that the United Nations was nominally created, and support for eliminating nuclear weapons was not only in the air, but was embraced by the majority of Americans. As the decades passed, particularly since the Second World War, we lost the sense of how devastating these weapons can be—and also what its like to be in a society that's been completely destroyed by warfare. We're very fortunate in the United States that we've been protected by geography. I was in Manhattan on 9/11, and the difference between having 3,000 Americans killed, which was horrible on 9/11, versus 500,000 or a million is almost impossible to comprehend. These weapons are machines, and I think they are the most dangerous machines ever invented. And like every machine, sometimes they go wrong.
MJ: I find it remarkable how little public attention has been paid to the safety of nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War.
ES: I can't really blame the media. The government—lying might be too strong a word, although in some instances they absolutely lied about it—but they did everything they could to cover up these accidents, to distract attention from them, and when attention was paid to them, in most cases, to mislead the press.
MJ: Some examples?
"The official list of broken arrows the Pentagon released in the '80s includes 32 serious accidents involving nuclear weapons. That list is entirely arbitrary."
ES: Throughout the '50s and '60s, it was almost boilerplate for Defense Department officials to say that during an accident there was no possibility of a nuclear detonation, while privately, at the weapons laboratories, there were physicists and engineers who were extremely worried and were well aware that we had come close to having it happen on American soil. If you look at the official list of broken arrows that the Pentagon released in the '80s, it includes 32 serious accidents involving nuclear weapons that might have threatened the public safety. The list is entirely arbitrary: Some of those accidents didn't even involve weapons that had a nuclear core, so they never could have detonated. But many, many serious accidents aren't on that list.
One document I got through a Freedom of Information Act request listed more than 1,000 weapons involved in accidents, some of them trivial and some of them not trivial. There's somebody who worked at the Pentagon who has read this book, and one of his criticisms was that I'm so hard on the Air Force—he said that there were a great number of accidents involving Army weapons that I don't write about.
You know, it's very difficult to get this information. I did the best that I could, but I have no doubt that there are other incidents and accidents that still have not been reported, so I can't blame the mainstream media so much as blame this national security apparatus. Again and again I would see by comparing documents that what was being redacted wasn't information that would threaten the national security—it was information that would be embarrassing, or put these defense bureaucracies in an unflattering light.
MJ: Were you surprised the Air Force gave you as much as it did?
ES: The Air Force was remarkably unhelpful. I was able to get what I got through FOIA requests to the Department of Energy and the Pentagon—some of these things took a couple of years, and some of them were heavily excised. We're talking about a nation that no longer exists, the Soviet Union. We're talking about weapons that are no longer in the stockpile. And yet when you get these documents, it's remarkable how much has been blacked out. The thing that was enormously helpful to me, and surprising, was to find that some of the most anti-nuclear people in the US are the people who designed, handled, had command of these weapons.
MJ: When most people think of nukes, we think of these massive, high-yield bombs, but you also write about nuclear artillery shells, nuclear depth charges, and even a nuclear rifle called the Davy Crockett. How is it even possible, given the institutional dysfunction of the military, to maintain tight control with all these small nukes around?
"We've probably made 70,000 of these things; if one of them had detonated…that's very good management. But still."
ES: It was a constant challenge, and particularly when these weapons were being stored in Europe for use against an invading Red Army, it was a matter of inventory control. This book is critical of the management of our nuclear weapons, and yet the Pentagon deserves its due: To my knowledge, there was never an accidental detonation. If you add them all up, we probably made 70,000 of these things. If one of them had detonated, it means 69,999 did not. And that's very good management. But still, the consequences of one detonation are almost unimaginable.
MJ: You can't screw up!
ES: You can't screw up once! And that's the unique danger of these machines. The incident in 2007, when we lost half a dozen hydrogen bombs for a day and a half, was an incredibly serious security lapse: The fact that nobody was asked to sign for the weapons when they were removed from the bunker, the fact that nobody in the loading crew or on the airplane even knew that the plane was carrying nuclear weapons is just remarkable.
MJ: And this was six years ago!
ES: Yes. And the Air Force seems still not to have gotten its act together. There was a decertification of launch crews at Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of our three Minuteman bases, just a few weeks ago. There was a decertification at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, which is where the Air Force stores most of its nuclear weapons.
MJ: What's a decertification?
ES: It means they're failing their safety inspections. This is very, very serious stuff. The margin for error is as small as can be.
MJ: In the book, you relate how Harold Agnew, a Los Alamos physicist visiting a German base in 1960, "nearly wets his pants" when he saw planes with fully assembled H-bombs being guarded by lone US soldiers who weren't even trained in what to do if someone tried to commandeer the plane. I can't imagine that we're still so careless.
"There was a learning curve in the management of nuclear weapons, and we are very, very lucky. And there's no guarantee that luck will last."
ES: What was remarkable then was that we were sharing these weapons with our NATO allies. In that case, he saw a powerful nuclear weapon loaded onto a jet that was part of the German air force and had the Iron Cross markings on its wings. His concern—this wasn't so long after the end of World War II—was that a disgruntled German pilot might just take off, head for Russia, drop his bomb, and there was absolutely nothing except for the air defense system of the Soviet Union to prevent him from doing that. There were no locks on the bombs. There were no codes required to activate the bomb. It was in the early days of the Kennedy administration that there was a crash program begun to do something you'd think common sense would dictate, which would be: Put locks on the nuclear weapons, and put coded switches on them so only the person who has the code could set them off. But there was a learning curve in the management of nuclear weapons, and we are very, very lucky. And there's no guarantee that luck will last.
MJ: Describe the reaction of Sandia weapons safety expert Bob Peurifoy when you showed him the list of broken arrows you obtained through FOIA requests.
ES: I think Peurifoy is a national hero. He was a weapons designer at the lab who became concerned about safety and fought for 20 years to get modern safety devices installed on our nuclear weapons, at great personal cost. He knew as much about nuclear weapons accidents as any person in our national security establishment. There was a document I got listing accidents and less-serious nuclear incidents, and I gave him a copy to see what he thought of it. And he was stunned and very depressed by it, because it was clear that there were many incidents that were not being shared with him.
"The people designing the weapons literally often didn't know how they were being handled in the field by the Air Force…There's a very strong element of madness in this."
There was an enormous amount of compartmentalized secrecy, and that was to prevent secrets from being too widely shared and potentially leaked. But what that meant was people in different parts of the system didn't have an overall view of how the system was operating—and that can be very dangerous. The people designing the weapons literally often didn't know how they were being handled in the field by the Air Force—and a lot of people in the Air Force didn't understand some of the dangers. There's a very strong element of madness in this.
MJ: One of the Peurifoy's greatest challenges was this constant tug-of-war between the desire to deploy a weapon quickly and the desire to have it not go off accidentally. The military invariably erred on the side of speed. Has that balance changed since the end of the Cold War?
ES: It hasn't. There's always going to be that inherent tension when you have these conflicting design goals. They can be expressed by the phrase "always/never." The things that would ensure the weapon always works flawlessly may conflict with the things that make sure it never goes off accidentally, never gets stolen, never gets sabotaged.
This is especially important when you want your nuclear weapons available for immediate use, as we do in the United States. Right now, our land-based missiles are ready to be launched pretty much within a minute or so. To keep these WMDs on a trigger like that means that you're adding an element of danger, a chance of accidental launch—whereas if you, for example, were to take the warheads off the missiles and not have them available for immediate use, they would be considerably safer. We still have the capability, if we get a signal that China or Russia has attacked the United States, to launch our missiles before they're destroyed by these incoming weapons. But that means you've got to really make sure the radar signals are the right ones.
MJ: And you haven't much time, especially with a submarine launch.
ES: Yeah, the time between when you see them on the radar and when they might hit might be six, seven, eight minutes if the sub is off the coast of the United States.
During the Carter era, "there was a computer error at NORAD that basically said more than 1,000 missiles were on their way."
MJ: You describe a bunch of WarGames-type incidents during which this really happened—we got false launch signals or the Russians got false signals.
ES: There were two major false alarms during the Carter administration. One of them occurred when a training tape was accidentally put into the computer at NORAD that was supposed to warn us of a Soviet attack. It was a very realistic simulation of a Soviet attack, and so that created a great deal of concern until it was realized that it was a false alarm. Not that long afterward, during the tense period after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, there was a computer error at NORAD that basically said that more than 1,000 missiles were on their way. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was woken up in the middle of the night and told that it looked like the US was under attack. He waited for more confirmation before calling the president, but he was fully prepared for this nuclear strike and to order a counter-attack. According to Bob Gates, who was head of the CIA and later Secretary of Defense, Brzezinski deliberately didn't wake his wife, because if they were all going to die, he just wanted it to happen while she was sleeping. Having a launch-on-warning capability like we do, and having our missiles on alert is a very dangerous game, because once one of our missiles is launched—unlike bombers—there's no calling it back.
MJ: In the early days of nuclear weapons, the authority to launch was solely in the hands of the president, and that got diluted. How many people have that authority now?
ES: Good question, and that's probably very top secret. What happened was, as there was a great realization that Washington could be destroyed by the Soviets with little or no warning, there was a need to delegate the presidential authority so that if the president were killed, the United States could mount a retaliation. But once you start delegating authority—essentially sharing the launch codes—you introduce the possibility that somebody could start using our weapons without the authorization of the president. And this was particularly of concern with NATO, because it's clear that the supreme allied commander in Europe had been delegated the authority to use nuclear weapons; if there was a communications breakdown between the United States and Europe, the NATO officers on their own could initiate the use of nuclear weapons, and things could spiral completely out of control very quickly. It's not clear to me who is delegated to authorize their use today.
MJ: NATO no longer has that authority?
"If you're going to have nuclear weapons, you must spare no expense" to maintain them.
ES: NATO doesn't really have nuclear weapons on alert anymore—there are some delegated to NATO through submarines, and there are maybe 200 tactical nuclear bombs, but they're not mounted on airplanes.
MJ: Your book's central narrative involves the deadly explosion you mentioned, which took place at a Titan II missile silo in Arkansas in 1980. What were the key lessons of that disaster, and do you think the military has learned them?
ES: I'm quite concerned. One of the lessons would be, if you're going to have nuclear weapons, you must spare no expense in the proper maintenance of them. The Titan II was widely regarded as obsolete. They were running out of spare parts. There were frequent leaks, and the warhead was acknowledged not to have adequate safety devices. The people working on it were often poorly trained, poorly paid, overworked. There were shortages of trained technicians. In retrospect, it was completely irresponsible to have all of those things occurring with a missile carrying the most powerful warhead ever put on an Air Force missile. It's just extraordinary! And there were high rates of drug use. I spoke to people who had been involved in sensitive nuclear positions who were smoking pot at the time. You don't want people smoking pot and handling nuclear weapons. So those are some of the crucial takeaways. And yet our land-based missile, the Minuteman III, is upward of 40 years old. The B-52 bomber hasn't been manufactured since John F. Kennedy was president, and some of those bombers are getting close to 65 years old. We really should either invest in our weapons systems or get rid of them.
17 Air Force launch officers "were taken off duty earlier this year for safety violations; there's a sense of a lack of direction, and mismanagement."
Look at what happened with the Air Force, starting with that 2007 incident when they lost those hydrogen bombs. A few years ago, they lost communication with an entire squadron of Minutemen missiles—50 missiles!—for almost an hour. They had to decertify the maintenance crew that looks after the biggest Air Force storage facility in New Mexico. Seventeen launch officers were taken off duty earlier this year for safety violations. There's a sense of a lack of direction, and mismanagement right now—particularly in the Air Force. And it's intolerable. It's unacceptable.
MJ: Obviously, the warhead on that Titan II didn't detonate. But even barring a nuclear explosion, should we be worried about a dirty-bomb type scenario where, say, plutonium is dispersed over a populated area?
ES: Yes. That warhead didn't contain plutonium, but the warheads on top of our Trident II missiles do. They are mounted around the third stage of the missile in a way so that if the rocket fuel were to detonate, you could have a major scattering—and that's still a major issue with our Trident bases in Washington state and in Georgia. You have to be extremely careful about how these warheads are mounted on the missiles and how the missiles are put in the submarines. These are dangerous devices. And I'm not the first person to say that. I know that the Navy is quite aware of it, but I don't think the general public is.
"In college, I studied game theory and nuclear strategy, but doing this book, I realized that my ignorance was profound."
In college, I studied game theory and nuclear strategy, and I was interested in the nuclear freeze movement, so I read an enormous amount about nuclear weapons. But doing this book, I realized that my ignorance was profound. And this is important knowledge for American citizens to have, because we need to have a meaningful debate about nuclear weapons, about nuclear strategy, and why we have them and when we use them and how many we need. That's pretty much why I wrote the book.
MJ: Curtis LeMay, who ran the Strategic Air Command back in the day, was almost this kind of caricature of a military hawk. On the other hand, it seems like America's nuclear weapons were under far tighter control on his watch.
ES: Yeah. LeMay at one point was considered a great American hero, protecting us from the Soviets. He later became widely reviled in the United States, the symbol of a warmongering general who was caricatured in Dr. Strangelove as the mad general played by George C. Scott. LeMay's politics are different from mine, and many of his theories of nuclear warfare are ones that I don't endorse, but I think he was one of our truly great generals. He was an engineer by training, and if you're going to have nuclear weapons, you want them managed by someone who has absolutely no tolerance for error, who's a great believer in checklists and proper organization. He was all of those things. LeMay was absolutely ruthless with his men about ensuring that there was no sloppiness.
The other thing I think made him a great general was that he was brave and willing to take risks himself. During the Second World War, he flew the lead plane during some dangerous bombing missions just to show his men that the plan was a sound one. He was the sort of commander that's more and more sort of missing in America.
With this nuclear weapon accident in Arkansas, there was a remarkable lack of accountability. The people who were held responsible and punished for it were the low-level enlisted men, and not some of the high-ranking officers and generals who had made the crucial decisions that contributed to the disaster. So, LeMay certainly made mistakes, but if you look at how our nuclear weapons are being managed now, we could use a little bit more of Curtis LeMay.
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75 Years of SPINNER
The Founder …
… and his family-run company
Georg Spinner, who was born in Munich in 1921, launched his business soon after the end of the second world war, in 1946. He dubbed it the "Funktechnisches Büro Georg Spinner"– an appropriate choice, since he devoted himself to fixing radios. By that time Georg was already tackling technical challenges and keeping up with the latest developments in communications technology.
How Everything Began: Our Founder, Doctor of Engineering Georg Spinner
As a child, Georg Spinner already had the desire to create things. He built his first radio at the young age of 11, and in his final year of secondary school presented an oscillograph he had assembled himself to his physics class. That was in 1939, on the eve of World War II. After the war Georg spent a year working for Rohde & Schwarz before enrolling to study electrical engineering at the Technical University of Munich in 1946.
Designing and creating new things and setting milestones: that was his major passion. Georg consistently fascinated others with the swiftness with which he was able to turn an idea into production-ready products. The basis for this was his encyclopedic knowledge of physics, radio-frequency technology, biomechanics, and state-of-the-art production technologies, backed by considerable hands-on experience.
During his first quarter at the Technical University of Munich, Georg founded his own company "Funktechnisches Büro" to pay for his studies.
1948 Georg developed Germany's first postwar directional radio in Germany using unmanned relay stations, as Prof. Heinz Hölter later recounted at the ceremony for bestowing the Diesel Medal on Dr. Georg Spinner in 1993. The German Institute for Invention grants this distinction to outstanding inventors, pioneers, and discoverers in the fields of natural sciences and technology.
In 1949 Georg passed his final exams in electrical engineering with honors. From a very young age, he had been fascinated by radio-frequency technology. He was encouraged by his mentor, Prof. Meinke – and wound up devoting his entire life to this field. Dr. Spinner later founded a new award in his teacher's honor that continues to be handed out each year for outstanding dissertations and scientific work at Munich Technical University.
In 1952, his company built and occupied its first factory hall in Linprunstrasse in Munich. By the mid-1950s, its staff had expanded to around 80. The business steadily grew and prospered, thanks to having Georg as its talented director and his wife Erika in charge of the multifaceted commercial side of the business.
In 1959 the company moved to a new factory complex in nearby Erzgiessereistrasse. Just a few years later, in 1963, Georg completed his doctorate in engineering, also with Prof. Meinke.
The steadily growing company soon outgrow its accommodations, making yet another expansion necessary. A new facility was therefore founded in the town of Westerham south of Munich. Additional construction projects in 1970, 1978, and 1985 enlarged it to its present size.
In 1990 SPINNER acquired Koaxialtechnik Lauenstein in Saxony, previously the "Dorfhain Nationally Owned Enterprise for Electronic Components" following lengthy negotiations with the Treuhandanstalt ("Trust Agency") created by the government of the German Democratic Republic to (re-)privatize East German enterprises prior to German reunification. Dr. Spinner was so excited by the expertise and motivation of its staff that just a few months later today's SPINNER Lauenstein plant was launched.
Dr. Spinner was honored by the Diesel Medal in Gold, the highest distinction that a German engineer can receive. The Diesel Medal – founded in 1953 by Eugen Diesel, the son of Rudolf Diesel – is bestowed on individuals and institutions for noteworthy achievements such as inventions and innovations. This accolade made him particularly proud, since it had previously only been conferred on about 200 other engineers. His long career as an outstanding inventor was also documented by around 250 patents and other achievements.
He also received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 1st Class, the Bavarian State Metal, which is bestowed for special achievements in a field of political, economic, cultural, intellectual or honorary endeavor, and other awards. Through it all, however, he always remained modest and true to himself.
Dr. Spinner devoted a great deal of his time to standardization work. Among other things, he spent roughly a decade as the secretary of the international standardization committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission for 46D RF connectors, was a founding member of the CECC, and cofounded and chaired Working Group 22 and DIN NEA 412.4. Dr. Spinner also spent many years heading the advisory council of Messe München, and was a founding member of Electronica, one of the world's leading tradeshows.
Dr. Spinner spent 45 years working and living in and with the company, supporting and advising it right up until the end of his life. He passed away in 1996 just before the company's 50th anniversary. Throughout his career, he was consistently available to advise and support his employees. His confidence in and close relationships with staff imbued him with authentic authority. Dr. Spinner was especially passionate about supporting trainees; since launching its vocational training program, the company has trained some 800 young people as specialists and hosted over 200 interns.
Der Firmengründer: Dr. Georg Spinner
Dr. Georg Spinner spricht auf der ELECTRONICA 86 in München. Er war Mitgründer der Messe im Jahre 1978 – heute eine der wichtigsten Fachmessen der Welt.
Dr.-Ing. Georg Spinner erhält das Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse. Links seine Frau Erika.
The 2nd Generation:
Stephanie Spinner-König
Stephanie Spinner-König, the older of Dr. Georg Spinner's two daughters, took the company's reins in 1990.
She was born in 1950. And since the family's home and business occupied the same building, she literally grew up in the company.
In 1975, after completing a university degree in business administration and a one-year internship at Rohde & Schwarz, Stephanie went to work for the family company full-time.
In 1990, Dr. Spinner turned the role of CEO over to her. From then on, she piloted SPINNER GmbH with support from Dr.-Ing. Franz Pitschi and Ingo Schilling, two loyal employees in management roles who had already spent many years actively driving the company's growth and expansion.
It was under Ms. Spinner-König's leadership that SPINNER burgeoned into a globally active enterprise. Around the turn of the millennium, she inaugurated new manufacturing plants in Germany and elsewhere and opened a large number of sales offices in strategically important countries.
Ms. Spinner-König was awarded the Order of Merit of the state of Saxony on March 25, 2002. In 1991, as managing partner of SPINNER GmbH, she had acquired an electronic component factory in the town of Lauenstein from the Treuhandanstalt, the agency established by the East German government to reprivatize enterprises prior to German reunification. From the start, SPINNER Lauenstein had its own development and production operations and provided job security for a sizeable workforce in what was then an economically depressed area near the former inter-German border. From the start, Ms. Spinner-König involved local staff in planning and developing the operation, thus contributing to Germany's reunification process.
In 2004, Stephanie was honored with the "State Medal for Special Services to the Bavarian Economy".
For rendering outstanding services to the Bavarian constitution, Stephanie was awarded the Bavarian Constitution Medal in Silver. The president of the Bavarian Parliament presented this accolade to her in a special ceremony on December 1, 2011. It is conferred on a maximum of 50 persons each year.
A few weeks later, she also received the Citizens' Medal of the town of Feldkirchen-Westerham within the scope of a New Year reception.
In 2018 Ms. Spinner-König switched from active management to the role of supervisory board chair.
In addition to her successful business activities in her own company, Stephanie Spinner-König took on other roles and is still involved in various business bodies today:
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Munich and Upper Bavaria: VP, Chair of the Foreign Trade Committee, member of the Industry and Innovation Committee, and Supervisory Board Chair for the chamber's vocational training organization
German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (ZVEI): member of the Executive Board and head of the Bavarian State Office
Association of the Bavarian Economy (vbw): Vice President
Munich University of Applied Sciences: Member of the Executive Board of the university's Association of Friends; she has also played a major role in improving the university's collaboration with the business sector
Stephanie Spinner-König led SPINNER as a member of the family's second generation.
Stephanie Spinner-König receives the State Medal for Special Services to the Bavarian Economy in 2004
The 3rd Generation: Katharina König
In 2010 Stephanie Spinner-König's daughter, Katharina König, took over the role of CEO. Since then, she has headed the company as a member of the family's third generation.
After completing an MBA while focusing on strategic management and marketing, she entered the company's marketing and corporate evolution departments in 2004.
In 2010, Ms. König joined top management and ran the company together with her mother until Ms. Spinner-König switched to the role of supervisory board chair in 2018.
At the same time, Torsten Smyk, who had spent many years successfully piloting the company's subsidiary in China, returned to Munich to take a role on the executive board alongside Ms. König.
Mr. Smyk concentrates on strategically aligning the company and driving the further development of its business activities. After completing a degree in mechanical engineering, he launched his international career at Thyssen Henschel. In 2000 he switched to SPINNER, and ever since has been the managing director of the company's production and sales organization in China, SPINNER Telecommunication Devices (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a role that he also continues to play.
Katharina König has led the company since 2010.
The SPINNER Group has been setting standards with its RF technology products for 75 years, thus leading the information age to even greater vitality. We have summarised our claim in one phrase:
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Have a Blast Taking Down Your Enemies with Action-Packed Tower Defense Games
I love mobile games but, unlike a lot of the calm, casual games you can play on your phone, I want something full of action and excitement. It took me a while to figure out what exactly that is, but I finally tried out some tower defense games and I knew I had found what my inner-gamer was searching for.
As a genre of games, I've been experimenting with them for about three months now, so I decided to include a review of my top favorites below so you can give them a try for yourself!
Grow Castle – Rating: 4.5, Downloads: 10M
Grow Castle gives you the ability to (like the name implies) grow an army from scratch, customize heroes, and upgrade your weaponry a castle as you advance. I like games where I can witness my progress, and this is definitely one of those. Grow Castle has different game modes for more diverse gameplay, and you can make in-game purchases for upgrades if you want. If spending money is not your thing, put in the hours to improve your character and castle.
I sometimes have formatting issues when I'm playing on a device that has a larger screen. I'm not sure why this happens, but I pretty much solely play this game on my phone for that reason. You might want to test that out for yourself to see which way you prefer playing the game more.
Pros: Create a castle and army from the ground up, play online with others
Cons: Sometimes playing on a large screen can cause formatting issues
Overall: As long as you don't mind playing on a smaller screen, you'll love how much creative flexibility this game gives you
Alien Creeps TD – Rating: 4.4, Downloads: 10M
Alien Creeps is unlike any other TD game I've tried, which is why I like it so much. It is set in a desert battlefield that has a military defense theme. The best part is that there are tons of weapon choices from the very beginning of the game; you don't have to wait to unlock all of the best weapons. There are even tutorials to help out users who are new to tower defense games.
The only con with this game is that, on certain levels, it's really difficult to see the entire screen at once. As a result, this leaves you open to surprise attacks from your enemies that can overwhelm you on the battlefield. It sucks, but it doesn't seem to happen to me often, so I don't mind playing still.
Pros: Tons of weapons from the very beginning of the game, alien-themed tower defense game is unique
Cons: Screen occasionally cuts off
Overall: If you're looking for a unique TD game to try and don't mind working around occasional screen issues, I think you'll really enjoy this one
Realm Defense – Rating: 4.8, Downloads: 5M
If you love classic kingdom and tower defense games, then I think you will definitely love Realm Defense. It still has all of the best features of a classic tower defense game while also going above and beyond the typical kingdom defense game, including endless battles with super dangerous foes. As a player, you get to conquer far-off lands and build your own team of heroes, which is incredibly fun.
The one thing that I really don't care for is that in-app purchases can get a little bothersome. Compared to other apps I've tried, it seems like you could practically spend your entire paycheck on this game – it's way too tempting!
Pros: Create your own team of heroes, battle enemies in a game that lends to the classic world of kingdom defense
Cons: In-app purchases can add up fast
Overall: If you think you can withstand the urge to make loads of in-app purchases, then you'll love this contemporary rendering of the classic kingdom tower defense game
As I said, I like games that are full of action, which these games give me 100% of the time. I'm constantly thinking that I'll just sit down and play for a minute and two hours later I'm still having a great time. But don't take my word for it. I'll link below the website I used to find these apps so you can do some additional research if you want to.
Best 10 Defense Games
I fully understand the desire to double check on things for yourself, and this is a really fun website to explore, so I definitely recommend it. Good luck and have fun.
Alien Creeps TDBest 10 Defense Gamescasualcasual gamesdefense gamesdownloadsformatting issuesgamesGrow Castlemobile gamesphonetower defense games
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Welcome to Freedom Electric Inc.
For over 35 years, Freedom Electric Inc has been at the forefront of the electrical industry in the Southwest Kansas. Licensed in 28 States, including Kansas, we're the acknowledged leader in our field—experts in every facet of electrical construction, maintenance and service. No matter what kind of job, we're equipped to handle the challenges and complexities.
Our team is welltrained and highly motivated to deliver outstanding performance. Careful coordination ensures we're watching your bottomline. Whether you need an electrical contractor for a commercial, industrial, or residential project, Freedom Electric Inc. is your best choice.
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Started as a small business in 1980, Freedom Electric Inc. has since designed and built many of commercial and industrial projects in Southwest Kansas. Our projects feature essential electrical, communications, and energy management systems that were designed, installed, and continue to be maintained by Freedom Electric Inc. Many local residences also benefit from our services—no project is too big or too small for our dedicated crew.
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The NETFS would encourage all trainers to access appropriate training resources so that they can help provide a good training experience for Foundation Doctors. The former London Deanery has retained the Faculty Development website for further sources of training and support.
CD Rom "Medicolegal Foundations" available for purchase by Educational Supervisors for Foundation Trainees at cost price.
Guides on Consent, The Mental Health Act, Common Hospital Problems, Common General Practice Problems can be found here.


Every person endeavors to maintain an improved personal health by using the best wellness and aesthetic techniques that may as well enhance one's beauty since the services assure effective techniques to assure quality skin health. Concerned health professionals have understood the benefits of wellness and aesthetic services forcing them to develop the best legal grounds where improved service plans can easily designed making it possible for interested persons to achieve a good personal health. Therefore, it is advisable for individuals who find it hard to boost their health or beauty to make sure that they conduct an intensive research about the best health specialists with proven records in provision of quality wellness and aesthetic services.
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MVRDV– An Architectural practice from Rotterdam Netherlands has undertaken their first project in the United States. A 22-story building considered to be a city which expands vertically and hosts hotels, retail, and office spaces in a vibrantly colored and elegant design in cosmopolitan New York City. MVRDV is known for their involvement in projects globally and their unique vision for a better and progressive future which is exemplified in this project. Meant to reflect the existing area, and inspired by NY's shop fronts, this design is a beacon of the city's diverse cultural background. The studio, comprised of European founders and a multicultural staffing, engages in solving some of the present global issues we now face as a society through a methodical approach, and an awareness for the residents of the area and the answer to today and tomorrow's needs.
Bridging different cultures and traditions through their designs, this studio is an example of what the upcoming of architecture can be. A medium that needs diversity and a multiplicity of experiences and educations, to address the needs for most of the population. Compelling the recipients of their projects to interact with one another as a suggestion to model the future. An example of this ideal can be seen in their "stackable hotel" in Shenzhen, China, with their "hopes to represent a window into the future of adapting housing to the user's needs, promoting the coexistence of multiple lifestyles in an optimized dense reality. "If more architectural studios took a similar approach to boost international markets and brought global perspectives to their design teams, cities with a deficiency of a multicultural public could benefit from insights that they may not otherwise get.
The Dutch studio has also competed in several international design competitions along with other studios in projects such as the "Stack" in Melbourne's South Bank. A similar idea to their NY project, a vertical composition to enhance the high-rise living. Along with these competitions, we must not forget another important aspect that we should mention when talking about the MVRDV, which is the Think-Tank. Ran by their studio and Delft University of Technology, the Think Tank is a research facility which focuses on visualizing and developing ideas for the cities of the future and what they will look like. Creating hypothetical situations and societies in order to make theories of what a utopian scenario looks like, engaging in public discussions and debates of what architecture and urbanism should be and how projects must be approached.


Update 11 a.m.: National Weather Service meteorologists are expecting today's storms to clear out of Palm Beach County before SunFest doors open at 5 p.m.
The forecast has been a tricky one because a lot depended on how swiftly the showers move through.
While some rain may be on the back side of the cold front, which was preceded by the storms, it shouldn't be too heavy or widespread.
Video: Jaw dropping images of today's storms in Palm Beach County.
Update 9:50 a.m.: The showers are moving east at about 15 to 20 mph with gusty winds up to 35 mph.
Moderate to heavy rain is expected with as much as 2 inches in some areas where the heaviest showers stall.
Previous story: A line of showers ahead of a cold front is moving through Palm Beach County this morning with gusty winds up to 34 mph and lightning already hitting northwestern and central areas of Palm Beach County.
Heavy lightning with today's storms. Radar image as of 8:50 a.m.
This morning, meteorologists believe coastal Palm Beach County will still be able to heat into the mid to high 80s, which means more robust thunderstorms are possible this afternoon as the front passes.
"A few 90 degree readings may even be possible. If precipitation holds off, there may be some additional regeneration of convectin as it approaches the east coast, especially in Palm Beach County," forecasters wrote this morning.
The system is expected to be through the state by early Saturday morning. The map below shows the front's location at 2 p.m. today.


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Housing for workers among govt. priority: Head of Service
Posted by News Express | 19 April 2017 | 1,136 times
•Head of Service Winifred Oyo-Ita.
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, on Monday updated President Muhammadu Buhari on the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) programme and other activities of the service.
Addressing State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Buhari in Abuja, Oyo-Ita revealed that she also updated him on the 2017- 2019 Head of Service Strategic Plan.
"Mr President wanted an update on the (Civil) Service so far and especially the 2017–2019 Head of Service Strategic Plan.
''I also briefed him on our FISH programme (Federal Integrated Staff Housing), which as you know is a sub-set of Mr President's National Housing Policy, which is so dear to his heart.
"Well the FISH programme, what we are doing now is relating with the developers and then we are also working very closely with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria; especially in the area of mortgage facilities for civil servants.
"The Minister of Power, Works and Housing has given us a lot of cooperation in this regard."
Oyo-Ita explained that the Head of Service Strategic Plan from 2017-2019 which was inaugurated in March, was aimed at repositioning the Federal Civil Service for efficient service delivery to Nigerians.
According to her, the plan which is standing on four pillars is to develop an efficient, productive and incorruptible and citizen-centred civil service.
She explained that the plan would be focus on capacity building, maintaining rules and regulations as well as training civil servants on core mandates.
The FISH programme, is aimed at addressing the bottlenecks encountered in securing land "for good cause projects and most importantly, to eliminate middlemen and land speculations from the housing value-chain."
The Federal Government has so far committed over N30 billion to the programme. (NAN)
Source: News Express
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It's really bloody cold in this house this morning. Like. Really cold.
Research Notes: Macdonald Correspondences continues.
March 27th, 1947- The Macdonald's have been in Calgary since late August, but still haven't found a place to live. (They're staying in some kind of boarding house.) As a whole, he's feeling a little more encouraged about Calgary (and it's art) though: "I am trying to form a small group, to lift themselves free from the frustration they have so long endured from the Alberta Society of Artists. This is probably dangerous for me in my present position, as it runs counter to Glyde, but I don't care. Something must be born here to give the spirit of creative effort its head. If it costs me my position, in the end, it is worth that I believe." (I totally guarantee that if he lost his position over it, we would read endless paragraphs on his subsequent woes. Macdonald can really complain about his lot in life.)
April 27th, 1947 - They finally have a place to live, "a nice suite in the Elbow River district". I've never been to Calgary, although I did stop there once in an airplane. You could see it pretty well from the airport window. It struck me as shockingingly flat, until, you know, it rather spectacularly stopped being flat and started being the rocky mountains. Or at least, that's the mental image of the place that's formed in my memory. But anyways, Macdonald says: "In four weeks I will be through my first year of teaching. It has been a hard year, with many difficulties which cannot recur, and endless fights against impossible conditions + sheer stupidity. I feel we have won a lot of fights." And then: "I have formed a group of six progressive young artists + have obtained the North Gallery for them in Vancouver, next November, for their first showing." Awww. That's so cute. He formed a little 'group'. Modernists are so adorable with their little clubs.
May 31st, 1947 - "This past week I have been asked to take LeMoine Fitzgreald's position in the Winnipeg School of Art and be acting-Principal next year." He didn't accept that position as it was only for one year. "Another teasing offer is a renewal of the request to come to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. They invited me to join them last fall but I preferred Calgary. This time they offer me three hundred a year more than I receive here. The position is nothing more than coming on to their staff. Again, I doubt it is worth while leaving the Western region. I believe that if people want me now, it is quite possible they will want me in a year or two from now." He has an upcoming show at the San Francisco Museum of Art and at Hart House, Toronto.
For whatever reason, I have this song stuck in my head this morning. (It's partly because I bought this record at a second hand shop last week, and it's amazing.) But anyways:
November 9th, 1947 - So JMD totally took the job at OCA, despite his previously mentioned objections. He is writing from a basement apartment at 23 Millbank Avenue in Toronto. (Gotta find that place.) Heyo! Dude is converting his garage into a studio. (That's what I did! For the record, this is my garage studio theme song.) Although, there's this: "It is likely that we will hang on to this place with the hope that eventually we will be able to get one of those large studios, in The Studio Building, which Lawren Harris built for the 'Group of Seven'. " Hey! Where the hell is that? That's awesome. Gotta find that building. Kinda crazy I've never even heard of this, but it has a full Wikipedia page. As an aside, I knew Lawren Harris came from money, but I DIDN'T know he came from friggin' Massey money. Crazy. Sorry, but who is it that thinks that who you know and where you come from isn't important in the art world?
Anyways, onto making breakfast and lunches for the kids (and Stacey). Busy day today. I'm HOPING to mask and finish the text on one of my white paintings today at the RMG. This part of each painting pretty much has to be finished in one go or else I'll have wasted my time. I'm off to Kelowna tomorrow after work, and can't have a painting in the RMG covered in masking tape for four days. That would look like a big steamy turd. I mean seriously, what would my admirers think?


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De N764 is een Belgische gewestweg in de plaats Neerpelt. De 2,5 kilometer lange route begint op de Norbertinessenlaan bij de Bermstraat en gaat vervolgens over op de Groenstraat, Stationsstraat en Sellekaertsstraat. Hierbij ligt de route voor ongeveer 1,5 kilometer parallel aan de Spoorlijn 19 en passeert het station Neerpelt. Op het eind sluit de route aan op de N712, die eerder ook al gekruist werd.

764
Weg in Limburg (België)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


During the Christmas season, tourists descend on major cities like New York with holiday-window viewing at the top of their agendas.
Along Fifth Avenue from 55th to 58th Streets you can find (1) Henri Bendel a fashion and accessories boutique that often has New York City-inspired holiday windows. From 57th to 58th Streets (2) Bergdorf Goodman's windows are famous for their opulence and the sophisticated details. Last but not least (3) Tiffany and Co always has timeless holiday windows that fill the world with sparkle.
Check out the NY board on Pinterest.


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Marin broadens renter assistance with $4.6M outlay
By Richard Halstead | rhalstead@marinij.com | Marin Independent Journal
PUBLISHED: October 11, 2022 at 5:50 p.m. | UPDATED: October 14, 2022 at 9:43 a.m.
Marin County will use millions of dollars in federal funds originally provided for rental assistance to people affected by COVID-19 to fund a broader program designed to aid renters and prevent homelessness.
After distributing $27 million in rental assistance to more than 1,900 households since April 2020, the county has $4.6 million remaining and might be able to access another $4 million in federal funds, Deputy County Administrator Hyacinth Hinojosa told county supervisors on Tuesday.
The supervisors authorized using the $4.6 million to fund several housing-related initiatives, including $2.8 million to provide additional rental assistance to Marin residents.
Since March 2020, Marin County has received more than $33 million in federal funds, roughly half of which was designated for reimbursing landlords for rent their tenants were prevented from paying due to the effects of COVID-19. The other half of the federal funds were also earmarked for rental assistance, but the rules governing it are more flexible.
Prior to receiving the federal money, the county had already received $6 million from the Marin Community Foundation to assist renters.
Marin's first allocation of rental assistance funds from the federal government, some $16.7 million, came through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. That spending bill, which former President Donald Trump signed into law, provided $900 billion in stimulus relief for the COVID-19 pandemic, including $25 billion strictly for use in reimbursing landlords for unpaid rent.
Marin's second allotment from the federal government, about $16.6 million, came through to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, enacted after Joe Biden became president.
"The use of these funds does not have to be related specifically to the pandemic," Hinojosa said Tuesday.
Hinojosa said the county's new rental assistance program would seek to help people who were deemed ineligible under the rules of the previous program. That would include people who paid their rent during the pandemic but borrowed money to do so and those who were subtenants.
Hinojosa said the new rental assistance program will also provide money to those who need cash to pay their rent or pay security deposits.
The county will prioritize providing help to people who earn 30% of the area median income, which amounts to about $30,000 per year for a single-person household, and applicants who have been evicted in the past.
In addition, the supervisors approved spending more than $439,000 to provide legal assistance to renters, and landlord/tenant education and mediation. The supervisors also signed off on spending $250,000 to cover the administrative costs of the new rental assistance initiative.
The supervisors also approved spending $1.3 million of the federal funds on efforts to prevent homelessness. The bulk of that amount, $700,000, will be given to the county's nonprofit partners to distribute to those who need quick cash to pay rent, security deposits or utility expenses to remain housed.
In addition, $300,000 was allocated to hire someone to assist people for two years in applying for federal housing vouchers through the Marin Housing Authority. Another $300,000 was approved to help underwrite the rents of 10 people for up to a year while they're waiting to get a federal housing voucher.
Hinojosa said the county has been unable to access about $4 million of the American Rescue Plan Act funds previously allocated because a failure to meet certain benchmarks, but it might be able to do so in the future.
Hinojosa told supervisors that the county's initial rental assistance, which concluded on Sept. 30, processed 100% of approximately 4,000 applications that were submitted. Following the meeting, he said as many as half of the applications were duplicates.
Hinojosa said the program was a success "because of our collaboration with the community in leading with race and equity as one of our core principles."
Hinojosa said that while Latino residents make up about 16% of Marin's population, 31% of those who received rental assistance from the county were Latino. He said 16% of those who received rental assistance were Black residents and 11% were mixed race. Black residents account for about 3% of Marin County's population.
Sixty-nine percent of those who received rental assistance earn only 30% of the area median income.
County Administrator Matthew Hymel said Marin County chose to administer the federal housing funds itself rather than have the state do it.
"We're seeing the benefits of that decision at the tail end," Hymel said, "because we can reprogram those funds for vital services to our residents."
The process didn't always run smoothly. Some landlords complained the process moved too slowly. Gary Armor said Tuesday that he was never able to recover the $80,000 in back rent owed to him by a tenant who rented his house in Belvedere.
"Hinojosa's staff denied my application on the grounds that my tenant did not occupy the property, based on the fact that he had no paid receipts for utilities, garbage, catv/internet etc., which were all paid by me," Armor wrote in an email. "Evidently, they did not read the lease agreement which stipulated all costs were to be paid by the landlord."
In December, Eric Faulks, a former Marin County official, was charged with embezzling $1.9 million from the county's rental assistance program, which he helped run.
Faulks pleaded guilty to four counts of grand theft and will begin serving a six-year prison sentence on Nov. 30. Hinojosa said so far the county has recovered about half of the money Faulks stole.
Richard Halstead | Reporter
Richard Halstead is a news reporter covering Marin County news, politics, health care, social services, Fairfax and San Anselmo.
rhalstead@marinij.com
Follow Richard Halstead @HalsteadRichard
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text:
En industristad är en stad med en stor andel produktion inom industrisektorn. Se även industrisamhälle.

Typiska industristäder

Sverige
Typiska industristäder i Sverige är

Sundsvall, Västernorrlands län
Borås, Västra Götalands län
Eskilstuna, Södermanlands län
Kiruna, Norrbottens län
Norrköping, Östergötlands län
Sandviken, Gävleborgs län
Skellefteå, Västerbottens län
Södertälje, Stockholms län
Västerås, Västmanlands län

Samt till viss del även
Göteborg, Västra Götalands län
Malmö, Skåne län

Både Malmö och Göteborg har många arbetarstadsdelar. I stora städer har dessa stadsdelar ibland gentrifierats, såsom Möllevången i Malmö, Majorna i Göteborg och Södermalm i Stockholm.

Samhällsplanering


This webinar will help fire chiefs prepare to meet with their Congressional members and educate them about the legislative priorities of the fire and emergency service.
This webinar explains IAFC's National Volunteer Workforce Solutions (VWS) initiative to improve volunteer recruitment and retention by creating a more diverse and inclusive fire service.
The purpose of this webinar is to provide real world advice and examples of how to implement change at your department.
Participants learned how shifts in fire/smoke characteristics due to changes in home design, building techniques and furnishings incorporate the latest technologies that are expected to be in the market place in 2019. Presenters' discussions included "multi-criteria" sensing technology and how these new alarms will be less likely to alert from nuisance sources such as cooking smoke.
This webinar, in partnership with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides an overview of CHEMM and its organization. CHEMM is a single point source for a wide array of information on chemical emergency response, organized to make it easy for responders to search and access the information they need.
This webinar, in partnership with the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), provided an overview of the current state of national trends in firefighter behavioral health based on qualitative and quantitative research findings.
Discussions included new technologies that may prove effective at preventing fires for gas stove cook tops and new requirements for smoke alarms designed to help reduce unwanted alarms.
This webinar, in partnership with Vision 20/20, hosts three presentations sharing model performance in community risk strategies that worked for them and discussion on reducing fire losses in all communities.
This course will offer insight into the importance of proper succession planning as well as steps to create a successful plan for your department.
This webinar, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) identified indicators of potential human-trafficking victims and situations; allowing notification to appropriate authorities for further investigation.


text:
DOJ sides with Mississippi church in COVID-19 challenge; church accuses police of discrimination
The Justice Department is siding with a Mississippi church in its lawsuit against local police, claiming that authorities targeted worshipers in an uneven enforcement of coronavirus-related restrictions prohibiting public gatherings.
Casting the federal intervention as an attempt to balance religious freedom with public health in the midst of a pandemic, Justice officials said the action was "neither neutral or or generally applicable."
Temple Baptist Church officials claimed that Greenville, Mississippi, police were dispatched to a April 8 drive-in service where members of the congregation had gathered "peacefully inside their cars listening to Pastor (Arthur) Scott's sermon with their windows rolled up."
Police, according to court documents, responded by "knocking on car windows, demanding drivers' licenses and writing citations with $500 fines."
The service took place a day after the city issued a prohibition against drive-in services, an order that appeared to conflict with a state action designating churches and religious activities as essential operations as long as they complied with guidelines published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mississippi Department of Health.
More:Top evangelicals urge DHS to release some immigration detainees during coronavirus pandemic
"The church broadcasts its service over a low-power FM station for its parishioners who gather in their cars in the church's parking lot," federal authorities stated. "Attendees are required to remain in their cars at all times with their windows rolled up. The church does not have a website or the ability to stream services online, and many church members do not have social media accounts, the ability to participate in a (group) call, or watch services online."
Attorney General William Barr, who signaled last week that he was closely tracking virus-related enforcement actions that may impinge on religious freedom, said the the city's action "appears to have...singled churches out as the only essential service that may not operate despite following all CDC and state recommendations regarding social distancing."
"While we believe that during this period there is a sufficient basis for the social distancing rules that have been put in place, the scope and justification of restrictions beyond that will have to be assessed based on the circumstances as they evolve," Barr said Tuesday.
More:'Governors need clarity': States get a jump on Trump task force with talks on economic reopening
"Religion and religious worship continue to be central to the lives of millions of Americans. This is true more so than ever during this difficult time..."
Orders limiting or suspending church services have prompted clashes between some church leaders and local officials.
Last month, Florida Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was charged with unlawful assembly and violation of a public health emergency order.
Greenville officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The fines, however, have since been rescinded.


Started this discussion. Last reply by Siddarth Sep 1, 2014.
"you can contact me 9833607734 - Vivek for the below comment."
"Guys I am gonna start my ride again from tomorrow morning onwards...after a gap of 6 months will do around 10-15 kms...any one to join? i stay in bhandup west will take EE Highway."
"Vivek, Looks like you have forgotten about this event. I have not heard your plan, nor you have commented on others suggesting Dec-Jan period. If you are serious about this trip, then Please give your inputs. Regards,"
"Hey, I am interested. I know couple of friends who did this before. Every one suggested not to venture this in Oct. Dec or Jan is ideal time. Regards Manoj"
"Hi Vivek, How much planning have you done for this tour. I am fresh from a tour to Himalaya, from Chandigarh-Leh-KhardungLa, and ready to join after checking with your tour preparation and final dates. I am also flexible with the dates. I will call…"
"Hi Vivek A cpl of friends and I are planning a blr-delhi charity relay cycle ride. The goa-mumbai leg will begin on oct5th and end on oct9th. We would love to have you as one of our riders for the goa-mumbai stretch or mumbai-udaipur…"
"I have done the Mumbai - Goa coastal route twice and would like to suggest that you do it in the month of Dec or Jan."
"Hi Vivek, I am planning to do that exact trip. However, I won't be in India until December. I am planning to leave Mumbai on or about the 15th of Dec. See my post on the home page... kv"
"Vivek, I am planning the same trip. However, I won't be in India until December, and am planning to leave Mumbai on or about the 15th... any chance you could be going later in the year? If so, we could do this together. Let me…"
Once again trying to explore my love for cycling. Looking for groups to join for Cycle Trips in and around Mumbai.
Yes I should be in Mumbai somewhere in mid December or early January. And I am really interested in riding in India. i will keep you posted on my plans.
It's been having a busy week and hence the late response.
1. Yes, Fuji has some decent hybrids in their Absolute series. See if you can get a chance to ride one before you buy.
2. Good, good. I was expecting you to wait until the rains subside before you take the plunge.
3. My schedule for the weekend is still unclear. I shall try and reach out to you over phone tomorrow evening.
I too have been looking for company.
Unless you plan to go on off-road trails, MTBs aren't really advisable.
I am guessing that you would be riding a lot on well paved roads, so a road bike or a hybrid would make more sense. Road bikes are lighter and are built for speed, but aren't as sturdy as MTBs and Hybrids and the seating posture too isn't upright to facilitate lower drag.
So, if you're looking for something with a relaxed seating posture, isn't too slow and can take the beating from Mumbai's roads, look no further than a hybrid. However, do consider a road bike if you plan to ride occasionally and that too on good roads, in low traffic.
You could start with an entry level Hybrid and work your way up eventually based on your engagement levels. If your budget is about 15k, I suggest you go for the Montra Blues. It has the best specs for a bike under 25-27k. If your budget is even tighter, you could try looking for a good deal on a used Hercules Ryders Neo or a Rockrider 5.0.


3x XtremeZone, 1x SpeedCD Invites GiveAways!
Last edited by TJoKeR; 02-01-2019 at 02:29 PM.
kirill, Hawk Eye, H3LLB0Y and 5 others like this.
Hi @TJoKeR. Could I have a speed.cd invite please? Thanks!
can i apply for xtremezone invitation ?
The invite is not available anymore.


A new mural has brightened a downtown State College building and alley, adding to the borough's small but eclectic collection of public art.
Artist William Snyder III, of Port Matilda, and a team of community volunteers spent the past two weekends laying out and painting the mural installed on Humes Alley, covering the side wall of For Men Only salon and leading to the rear entrance of Webster's Bookstore Cafe.
The mural is called "Wild Geese" and is inspired by the poem of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver.
"We used eight rolls of blue tape to mask each triangle, and I mixed the 95-plus colors on the fly, trying to keep up with the volunteers filling in the design," Snyder said.
Volunteers paint the mural "Wild Geese" prior to its installation on Humes Alley in State College. Photo provided.
Trailhead, a new local organization that provides funds for ideas to make the Centre Region a better place, awarded a $1,000 grant for the mural in September.
Sharon Lucas, Gail Simpson, Angie and Drew Keller, Laura Snyder, Eric Robinson Jr., Robyn Passante, Tim Parker, June Ramsey, and Spud and Katie Marshall made up the paint team, and Garen Jenco was the installation assistant.
Snyder, a part-time art instructor at Penn State who specializes in unique sculptures, paintings and installations for public display, also recently painted over his "graffiti-style" necktie design behind the State Theatre with a blue that will be the base for his new mural, "Be."
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey will make a campaign stop on Wednesday at Penn State, joining with local Democratic candidates for a get-out-the-vote rally.
Casey will be joined by congressional candidate Marc Friedenberg, state Senate candidate Ezra Nanes and other local Democratic leaders at 11 a.m. in Room 129 of the HUB-Robeson Center.
Registration to attend can be found here.


text:
"New Year's Home"
December 23, 2017 / The Eclectic World of Christina
What is the ultimate gift?
This short story is based on The Garden Collection, one of my favorite novels to reflect on during the holidays … "The heartwarming story of struggle, determination, heartache, and true love …"
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31ST
In Mason's Diner in rural West Michigan, six-year-old Chloe Miller's paper snowflakes cover all of the windows as if another blizzard hit town. Multicolor Christmas lights blink around the window frames. By the cash register, a two-foot-high fake Christmas tree holds so many of Chloe's homemade ornaments the patrons can't see the branches.
Standing behind the counter, Brianna Carlson waits for Henry Mason to pass her orders through the grill window. She stares at the poster behind the register.
Her best friend, Lucy Donovan, had suggested Bree put her own doodle sketches to good work and enter the competition to design the New Year's Eve Gala poster. Out of one hundred applicants, she won.
She had drawn dark snowy woods where the old trees have snarled branches. The trees' arthritic fingers reach for the sparkling red box with a bright white bow that illuminates the small clearing. The caption reads WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE GIFT?
The regulars at the diner celebrated her excitement by encouraging her to attend the gala. As the winner, she received one hundred dollars and a ticket to the party. She had saved her money for three weeks to buy a dress with matching shoes.
"Bree, your order's up," Henry yells from behind the grill. She sees only his eyes and the top of his bandana-covered baldhead through the open window.
The retired men on the stools at the counter chuckle. "Are you daydreaming again, Cinderella?" Charlie asks.
She blushes. "Maybe I'll find my Prince Charming tonight," she replies, picking up the cheeseburger platters.
George unrolls his silverware from his napkin. "Are you ever going to tell us what's in the red box from your poster?"
She grabs the ketchup from under the counter. "What do you think is in the box?"
George takes the bottle. "Money?"
"How about keys to a yacht?" Charlie adds.
"I know what's in the box," Chloe says from the end of the counter. Her long brown hair in a thick braid matches her big sister's. Chloe bites into a French fry and grins.
"Well, my sweet one, please share with us," Bev Mason says from behind the cash register.
Chloe looks at her. "Can I tell them?"
Bree nods. "I always thought it was obvious." She caresses the etched ivy on her gold heart-shaped locket, an emerald in its center.
"Tell us right now," George demands. He winks at Chloe as he wipes his mouth.
"It's LOVE, sillies. I can't believe you never guessed it."
"Oh, I forgot you're a genius," Bev jokes.
"I've gotten all excellent marks so far in first grade."
Brianna nods. "You have a lot of wonderful tutors," she says, glancing at her work family. Chloe grew up on that stool. They even put her name on it.
As the men tease Chloe that they made her smart, Officer Eddie Kent stomps his feet inside the door. In his dark blue uniform and auburn crew cut, he sits at the opposite end of the counter. Bree greets him with his usual glass of milk.
"It's not ready yet?" he asks.
"I wasn't sure you were working today. I'll get right on it."
Bree quickly enters the kitchen and helps Henry with the order of rare steak and scrambled eggs with a side of raw onions and garlic toast. Eddie eats it every day he works.
She carefully sets his plates in front of him. She had learned not to stand too close afterward.
"Bree, don't worry. I'm here if you need anything," Eddie says, reaching for the knife.
"Kent! I will explain it," Chief Cameron Mason says, taking up the entire doorway. He smooths down his thick mustache with his thumb and finger then points her to the end booth. With a hand over her stomach, she sits. He stops Chloe from jumping off her stool. "Stay put. I want to talk to Bree in private."
"Cam, what's wrong?" she asks as he slides in across from her.
"Wayne is being paroled due to overcrowding."
She gasps. "When?"
"Oh, God." She places her shaking hands on her lap. Chloe stares at her reaction. "Do you think he'll come back here?" she whispers.
"I honestly don't know. If you see him anywhere in town, call my cell," he says, pulling out his card.
She stops him. "I still have it memorized."
Cam leaves for the kitchen to talk to his father. She stares out the window at the two fresh inches of snow. What should she do?
Wayne Miller's letters from prison promised to take Chloe away from her. Bree has no legal rights to Chloe. Could he reclaim his daughter?
Bree had taken the brunt for years so he wouldn't hurt her half-sister. She would not let Wayne hurt her now.
She jumps as Chloe slides in next to her. "Bree, what's the matter?
She hugs her. "Nothing for you to worry about, my sweet Clover." She nudges her out of the booth. "I have to get back to work."
While carrying the tub of dirty dishes, she bangs her shin into the metal cart behind the counter. The tub crashes to the floor. Plates and mugs shatter. With tears in her eyes, she rushes to clean the mess. Partial blindness in her left eye and a limp from a healed broken leg makes her clumsy, especially when stressed or tired.
Eddie Kent laughs as he finishes his meal. "Bev, have you run out of plates yet?"
Bree looks up at her. "I'm sorry."
"Honey, we know it's not your fault. Why don't you and Chloe take off? Tonight's the big night. Happy early birthday."
As she puts the last broken plate in the tub, she slides it to the side and stands. Charlie asks, "You'll save me a dance?"
"I'm first in line. She promised me yesterday," George adds.
"Only if you recognize me. It's a masquerade ball after all."
Thankful for their understanding, Brianna helps Chloe with her coat, hat, and mittens. Stepping outside, she takes a deep breath. They would make a run for it. They'd hide, and Wayne would eventually give up looking. With a purpose, she reaches for her sister's hand.
"Bree, do you want a ride?" Eddie asks, absently patting the gun at his side.
Resisting the urge to wrinkle her nose at his horrid breath, she shakes her head. "We have errands. Thank you though."
Chloe shuffles her boots through the snow on the sidewalk and sings "Let it Snow."
After closing out her savings account with one hundred and twenty-six dollars, she pulls open the door to the pawnshop. The stifling heat hits them in the face as they wipe their boots on the rug just inside the door. In a Santa hat, Gus Fuller strokes his long white beard and waves.
Bree sighs. "I need to talk to Gus for a moment. Do you want to wander around?" Chloe nods and heads for the stack of board games while Bree meets him at the counter. "I'd, uh, like to see what I can get for this," she says, slipping her precious locket over her head. A treasured gift from Lucy's brother, Robert.
Gus turns it in his hand. "This is a high-end piece. I'd say it's worth a grand. I can only give you five hundred, but Donovan's Jewelry may give you more."
She groans. Robert had spent too much money on her. She quickly wipes her eyes. This is about responsibility and survival not a sentimental trinket.
Bree takes the locket back from him and stares at it. She wears it all the time and touches it often. Finally nodding, she sets it back on the counter. As she tucks the money into her wallet, Chloe joins her with a magic kit.
"Do we have extra for this? It's three dollars," Chloe says.
"It's yours for a hug," Gus replies.
Chloe runs around the counter. After paying with a hug, she kisses his cheek and tugs his beard. "Thanks, Gus."
With slouched shoulders, Bree moves toward the door.
"Take care," Gus says quietly.
She wants to grab her locket and run. Instead, she limps out the door. No turning back. At the bus station, she opts for the trip tomorrow morning so she can attend the gala. Her one last hurrah.
"What are you going to wish for?" Chloe asks as they walk down the snowy sidewalk.
"Hmm, my birthday wish," she says, swinging Chloe's hand. "What would your wish be?"
"It's a secret."
"You're keeping secrets from me?" Bree asks.
"Only my wish."
"Are you wishing to hold hands with your boyfriend, Patrick Dugan, during recess?"
Chloe yanks her hand away. "I don't like Patrick."
"Well, I don't," Chloe replies.
Bree laughs. "So what's your wish or should I keep guessing?"
Chloe takes a deep breath. "I wish I had a mom."
Bree winces. Her eyes blur again. "I'm sorry things are different for us. I try to take care of you the best I can."
Now, Bree would be making their lives even more difficult. The stress and worry sends an ache to her leg as they walk up the hill.
"Bree, I didn't mean—"
"It's okay, Clover. I sometimes wish for that, too." Bree points to the golf course country club where the gala would be held. Delivery trucks drop off flowers and balloons. The band unloads their equipment. "Should I bring you home one of those huge balloons? Silver or gold?"
"Both," Chloe replies, taking her hand again.
Bree slows her pace and huffs as they approach Paul and Marta Donovan's house. She and Chloe live in the studio loft above their two-stall garage.
After retrieving Chloe's backpack for her overnight stay, they enter the main house through the huge kitchen. Passing two freshly pressed tuxedos still in their plastic wrap, Chloe races up the steps. Bree limps behind her.
In Lucy's room, a cluttered oak desk overlooks the snow-covered in-ground pool and golf course. Working from home, Lucy has a knack for marketing while Robert, always away, travels the world and designs amazing necklaces, earrings, and bracelets for the family business — Donovan's Jewelry.
On the plum couch, Chloe scoots closer to Lucy so they can look at her new magic kit.
Lucy grins as if she knows a secret. "Turning twenty-one will be your best birthday ever. I can feel it. The stars have finally aligned."
Lucy believes in Happily Ever After scenarios. She had said having a sprained ankle would allow her to watch Chloe while Bree went to the gala this year.
"A new year always brings hope and excitement," she replies, letting Lucy's positive energy wash over her. "Are you sure you're up to this?"
"Chloe and I are going to have a girls' spa night with facials and manicures," Lucy says.
"Oh boy," Chloe says. "Bree, you can go now."
Bree kisses Lucy's cheek and whispers a "thank you" in her ear. "Behave, my sweet Clover. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning."
"Why so early?" Lucy asks. "We're staying up until midnight."
"I want to start celebrating my birthday. Chloe promised to be extra nice. I want to take advantage of it."
"You're not going to be mean, are you?" Chloe asks.
"I'm going to be so horrible, and you'll still have to be nice," Bree replies, kissing her head. Chloe laughs at her jest and pushes her away.
After leaving the main house, Bree hurries up the steps to the loft. Inside, she kicks off her boots and tosses her coat on the double bed that she and Chloe share. She loves this small space but her home no longer.
Read more about Brianna and her struggle in the novel, The Garden Collection
The Garden Collection: Blurb
A few words of encouragement can stay with you for a lifetime. Robert and Brianna's childhood friendship grew into respect for each other and their ideas. Robert gave her the confidence to stand up for herself. Brianna helped him see his artistic potential and encouraged him to travel for his inspiration. He found it in the letters she wrote.
Now struggling to care for her six-year-old half-sister, Chloe, after their mother abandoned them, Brianna Carlson receives news that her abusive stepfather will be released from prison. Still limping from a once broken leg, she's terrified he'll come back to hurt Chloe this time. She decides to leave town.
While traveling for his family's jewelry business, Robert Donovan designed The Garden Collection, his newest line of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Returning home, he discovers Brianna had lied in every letter she sent. She never received any of his. Before he can demand answers, she disappears without Chloe. As Robert learns about Brianna's life during his absence, he sets out to find her and convince her to trust him again.
Excerpts, My Writing
encouragement, Energy of Words, excerpt, Faith, Family, friendship, Gratitude, Home, Hope, Inspiration, life, love, New Year's Eve, romance, Short Stories, strength, Struggle, Suspense, writer, writing
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