text:
India's 'Discovery' of Burma Still Waiting for the Train to Leave the Station
Burma's Frontier Appeal Lures Shadowy Oil Firms
Burma Open to Reducing Role of Army: Minister
UNDP to Normalize Aid to Burma
Burma to Host World Economic Forum in 2013
Dalai Lama's Envoys in Talks with Beijing Resign
NKorea Threatens Specific Attacks on SKorean Media
How Asean Engagement Led to Burma Reform
Suu Kyi's Flair Already Causing Rifts
Govt Calls for Calm after Arakan Clashes
Hanoi Opens Three MIA Digs, Releases Letters
Oops! Yingluck, Suu Kyi, WEF et al
Suu Kyi Returns Home After 1st Trip in 24 Years
Burma Has Abandoned Nuclear Ambitions: Minister
Burma's Economy Faces Barriers to Growth
The Slippery Slope that is Sanctions
Suu Kyi Promises Hope to Refugees
Burma Seeks Int'l Help with Electricity
US Looking to Forge Military Ties with Burma
Burma Business Roundup (Saturday, June 2)
Burma Govt Wants Investment Focus Away from Natural Resources
Suu Kyi Meets Refugees
Suu Kyi Arrives in Mae Sot
Suu Kyi Shines, But Party's PR Machine Stumbles
Govt Closes Jade Mines to Squeeze KIO
Boomtown Ruili Faces Backlash
Suu Kyi Too Busy for Facebook
Forced Labor Deemed Rife Despite ILO Report
Suu Kyi Urges 'Healthy Skepticism' at Forum
Alleged Rape, Murder Sparks Arakan Unrest
GE Sees Opportunity in Burma's Energy Needs
Hundreds Ordered off Army Land
Surveys Show Chinese Manufacturing Slowing
Suu Kyi Says Burma Reforms Depend on Army
India's Economic Growth Slides to Nine-year Low
Suu Kyi Presses for Migrants' Rights in Thailand
Filipino Extremists Stage More Attacks
Govt and KIA to Hold Informal Talks
Striking Workers Left in the Dark
Parallel Battles for Burma and Asean's Human Rights Commission
Burmese Refugees Conduct Repatriation Workshop
Mixed Feelings for Suu Kyi's Mae La Visit
Suu Kyi Steals Show at WEF in Bangkok
Three in Hospital but Hunger Strikers Claim Victory
Shan Leader to Receive Award from US Congress
Burma Reforms Need World Support: Parliamentary Body
Thai Army Wants Burmese Refugees to Return
Australia Hopes for Visit from Aung San Suu Kyi
Prospect of Thaksin Return Heats up Thai Politics
A decade after deciding to forge closer ties with Burma's military rulers, India still lags behind the country's other neighbors in trade and investment.
By William Boot 5 June 2012
Can India finally overcome years of a stuttering "look east" policy and challenge China's business dominance in Burma?
New Delhi's belated high-profile official visit after numerous Western leaders had already trail-blazed to Naypyidaw seems to sum up its lack of success in gaining a firm foothold in Burma.
In spite of the political decision in the 1990s to ditch support for Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in favor of the junta generals, India is today still only ranked as Burma's 13th largest trading partner, with far smaller countries like Thailand and Singapore managing much more business success.
Much trumpeted Indian transport infrastructure projects in Burma's southwest and northeast are far from nearing completion, and the Chinese are tapping the Burmese gas and other natural resources which India craves.
Most of the business interaction between India and Burma has been government-led or sponsored, like the redevelopment of the west coast port of Sittwe.
However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was accompanied on his Burma visit last week by senior executives from some of India's big-name conglomerates as part of a delegation from the Confederation of Indian Industry.
They delegation featured leaders from Bharti Enterprises, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate which includes food retailing, property and insurance; vehicle manufacturer Tata Motors; and the Essar Group, which is engaged in steel making, electricity power generation, oil and gas production, shipping, property and large infrastructure construction.
Even so, some of them felt obliged to claim that India is not late knocking on Burma's business door.
"I don't think we have missed the bus. This country is just starting to happen," said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of telecommunications firm Bharti Airtel, which is part of Bharti Enterprises. "There is so much to be done. Every piece of infrastructure [in Burma] needs to be rebuilt and the warm, historic relationship that we enjoy will come in handy for Indian businessmen when they are competing with the rest of the world.
"While the world only discovered Myanmar now, I think India has discovered this place for a long time, more than a century. It's up to us now, how fast we can move into this country." Mittal told New Delhi's Asian News International.
The evidence does not support this view.
India may have "discovered" Burma a long time ago but both political and business relations have been uncertain and sluggish for years.
"Singh sought to make up for 15 years of stunted relations," said The Hindustan Times, one of India's oldest and biggest newspapers, which was closely linked with Mahatma Gandhi, whose non-violent protest philosophy is much admired by Suu Kyi.
India has tried with little success during its years of embracing the military junta to expand economically in Burma, or to use Burma as a conduit for trade in other Southeast Asian countries.
Indian state oil firms lost out to China in the bidding for the 200 billion cubic meters of gas in the Shwe offshore field in the Bay of Bengal. A Thai firm has won the concession to develop a major port and industrial complex at Dawei, after India had fumbled with the idea for years, and the much-heralded Trilateral Highway meant to link northeast India with Thailand and beyond via northern Burma is still five years away from the best estimate on completion—even though the idea was conceived by India in 2004.
India's cross-border trade with Burma has been stifled for years by poor road transport links, railway lines that never get off the drawing board, and stifling bureaucracy over import-export tariffs. A current bilateral trade agreement via the only land border crossing, at Moreh, covers just 40 items.
One of the economy-improving ideas the Singh delegation took to Naypyidaw was a new cross-border bus service between Imphal, capital of the northeast Indian state of Manipur, and Mandalay. Nothing was agreed due the lack of an all-weather road, said The Times of India.
India's most successful infrastructure development in Burma has been the US $135 million project to modernize the old British-era rice port of Sittwe and link it with a navigable Kaladan River flowing from India's Mizoram State. One of the main construction firms is the Essar Group, which has said the work should be completed sometime in 2013.
However, this project was agreed and begun before the current political reform in Burma and is seen by analysts and political observers as a trade off by the former Burmese junta for New Delhi's tacit support. Sittwe will merely be an import-export outlet for India's isolated northeast. It was conceived after Bangladesh had refused to give India similar access to the Bay of Bengal.
"Why did India decide to switch from supporting pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and back Myanmar's brutal military regime? The answer is not oil, or China. The answer is the [Indian] northeast," said The Hindustan Times last week.
The New Delhi government faced ethnic insurgencies in its northeast which it could not cope with alone and so sought the help of the Burmese military to choke off cross-border refuge for rebels, said the paper. In return, New Delhi switched support from Suu Kyi to the junta.
"New Delhi will need more than one prime ministerial visit to restore its image among pro-democracy activists in Myanmar," The Hindustan Times commented. "It is no secret that many in the National League for Democracy… see India's past policy as opportunistic if not amoral."
Settlement of ethnic tribal disaffection in both northeast India and northwest Burma will be necessary before that region can move forward economically from the backwater it now is, said the paper.
Meantime, it remains to be seen whether the confidence of the new Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) bears fruit elsewhere.
"Bilateral trade relations are growing [and] through the India-Asean free trade agreement, both countries are hoping to double trade by 2015," the CII said last week.
But even if that is achieved it would only raise India's two-way trade to an annual value of $2.6 billion. That's hardly big stuff for the 11th largest economy in the world with a GDP in 2011 of $1.67 trillion.
William Boot The Irrawaddy


text:
package com.amazonaws.services.support.model.transform;

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import com.amazonaws.services.support.model.*;

import com.amazonaws.protocol.*;
import com.amazonaws.annotation.SdkInternalApi;

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    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Summer is at its peak. What better time to revamp your sunglass selection, then? Your go-to? Destination Sama.
Opened in 2004, Destination Sama stocks designer Sheila Vance's full-line of Sama eyewear and includes collections by heavy-hitters such as Loree Rodkin and Badgley Mischka.
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text:
Sunni Muslims are in the majority in all the republics. In the excitement of independence, there was a flurry of Korans and mosque-building, but the level of religious knowledge in most areas is still low and no definite religious identity has appeared, except perhaps in the poor and heavily populated Fergana Valley, where there's a growing interest in Islam.
Traces of Zoroastrianism can be found in Tajikistan and Shamanism in remote regions of Kazakstan. The people of the Pamir Mountains in eastern Tajikistan are Ismaeli, followers of the Agha Khan. The strain of Islam called Sufism is prevalent in all areas of Central Asia and most people are devotees to a greater or lesser degree.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
TDPE presents: Heiwai Tang
September 19, 2016, 4 p.m.-5 p.m. EST
Heiwai Tang on "Do Multinationals Transfer Culture? Evidence on Female Employment in China"
Heiwai Tang, Johns Hopkins University
Authors: Heiwai Tang and Yifan Zhang
This talk studies cross-country transfers of culture by multinational firms as revealed by gender norms in the labor market. Using panel data of Chinese manufacturing firms over the period 2004-2007, we find that foreign affiliates whose home countries' culture is more equal with regards to women tend to hire proportionately more women and are more likely to appoint female managers. Foreign affiliates, especially those from countries with a more pro-women culture, also generate cultural spillovers to domestic firms, as revealed by a positive correlation between domestic firms' female employment shares and the prevalence of foreign direct investment (FDI) across industries or cities.
Heiwai Tang is Assistant Professor of International Economics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His research interests span a wide range of theoretical and empirical topics in international trade. His work has been published in leading journals in economics, including American Economic Review, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Development Economics, and Journal of Law and Economics. Prof. Tang received his PhD in economics from MIT.
Sponsored by the Trade Development and Political Economy Program at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs


text:
Tag Archives: Ryne Stanek
Rafael Montero Agrees to Three-Year, $34.5 Million Contract with Houston Astros
Rafael Montero isn't leaving Houston in the near future…
The 32-year-old Dominican professional baseball pitcher has agreed to a three-year, $34.5 million contract that will bring the right-handed reliever back to the Houston Astros' dominant bullpen a week after the team rode its pitching staff to a World Series title, according to ESPN.
Montero thrived in his first full season with the Astros, posting a 2.37 ERA in 68⅓ innings and allowing just three home runs while striking out 73.
Re-signing Montero deepens an Astros bullpen that already will return closer Ryan Pressly, right-handed flamethrowers Ryne Stanek and Bryan Abreu, and solid righties Hector Neris and Phil Maton.
It likewise continues the early trend in free agency of high salaries for relief pitchers, after the New York Mets signed Edwin Diaz to a five-year, $102 million contract and San Diego gave right-hander Robert Suarez a five-year deal worth $46 million.
Houston acquired Montero in a July 2021 trade from the Seattle Mariners and watched him blossom into the hardest-throwing version of himself yet, with a fastball that averaged 96.5 mph. Of the remaining relievers available in free agency, Montero topped a number of teams' lists.
The contract is a bet on Montero's 2022 more than his previous seasons. Once a well-regarded starting-pitching prospect, Montero bounced from the Mets to the Texas Rangers to the Mariners before landing in Houston, where he allowed two runs in 9⅓ innings this postseason and struck out 10.
With a ground-ball rate of greater than 50% and high strikeout numbers, Montero was bound to generate widespread interest and took advantage of it with a deal that exceeded industrywide expectations. In 182 career games, Montero has a 4.43 ERA as a reliever and struck out 213 in 201⅓ innings.
Posted in Deportes | Tagged Bryan Abreu, Edwin Diaz, ESPN, Hector Neris, Houston Astros, New York Mets, Phil Maton, Rafael Montero, Robert Suarez, Ryan Pressly, Ryne Stanek, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, World Series | Leave a reply
Jeremy Peña Hits Solo Home Run to Help Houston Astros Sweep Seattle Mariners for Spot in AL Championship Series
Jeremy Peña is returning to Houston a hero…
The 25-year-old Dominican professional baseball player's solo home run off Seattle Mariners reliever Penn Murfee provided the lone tally in the Houston Astros' 1-0 victory that clinched a spot in the AL Championship Series for the sixth consecutive season.
This day, two decades in the making, seemed like it was never going to end. Game 3 of the American League Division Series between the top-seeded Astros and Mariners, hosting their first postseason game since 2001, featured epic pitching, exemplary defense and, finally, in the 18th inning, the only hit that mattered.
Never before had a postseason game gone scoreless for as long as Game 3 did. Its 18 innings tied a postseason record with three other games, its 6-hour, 22-minute run time the third longest ever. The 42 combined strikeouts set a record. The four combined walks and zero errors exemplified that this wasn't just a battle of offensive ineptitude but rather a clinic in run prevention.
It was the capper of an oxymoronic outcome: the close sweep. While Houston took all three games in the best-of-five series, comeback victories in Games 1 and 2 showed that the Mariners were no fluke. They were simply not good enough to overcome Houston's deep pitching staff and dangerous lineup.
"We kept putting the zero up there and they kept putting the zero up there, and you think we're going to be able to break through because we have so many times," Mariners manager Scott Servais said. "It's kind of what we're accustomed to, playing those tight games and finding a way. … I mean, that is a big league game, with the pitching and defense that was fired out there. We just weren't able to put anything together."
In the game's first half, the story centered around a pair of great starting pitching performances, by Seattle rookie George Kirby and Houston right-hander Lance McCullers Jr., who was battling an illness. Kirby threw seven brilliant shutout innings; McCullers nearly matched him with six. Each ceded to a bullpen that ranks among the best in baseball, something both showed as arm after arm entered and exited the game without allowing a run.
Seven Seattle relievers put up scoreless outings before Peña's homer. Houston matched that number, led by Luis Garcia, the right-handed starter who finished with five shutout innings, allowed two hits and zero walks, struck out six and locked down the 18th to earn the victory.
Pena, the 25-year-old rookie who took over at shortstop upon the free agent departure of Carlos Correa, had provided the necessary run in the top of the inning. He entered the at-bat 0-for-7. He left it 1-for-8 after Murfee hung a slider, and Pena pummeled it out to center field.
"You could tell by his brightness in his eyes and his alertness on the field that he wasn't scared and he wasn't fazed by this," Astros manager Dusty Baker said. "Boy, he's been a godsend to us, especially since we lost Carlos, because this could have been a disastrous situation had he not performed the way he has."
Houston's offense, the best in the American League this season, managed just 11 hits in 63 at-bats. Seattle's offense, which lived by the home run this season, was 7-for-60. The Mariners struck out 22 times and drew three walks. The Astros walked just once against 20 punchouts. The defense was clean, none better than when Mariners star rookie Julio Rodriguez tracked down a Yuli Gurriel shot into the right-center-field gap in the 16th to save a pair of runs.
All night, "Ju-li-o" chants permeated T-Mobile Park, which 47,690 packed to see the Mariners' first playoff team since the 2001 group that won 116 regular-season game but lost in the ALCS. While this Mariners core is likely to return to the playoffs in the coming years, the Astros are still the team through which the AL runs.
With a thin bullpen hamstringing them in past seasons, the Astros focused on sharpening it this year and after McCullers ran out a litany of power-armed relievers who each threw a scoreless inning: Hector Neris, Rafael Montero, Ryan Pressly, Bryan Abreu and Ryne Stanek. Rookie Hunter Brown put up a pair of scoreless frames. And then came Garcia's command performance.
"This at-bat," Pena said of his home run, "was not going to be possible if our pitching staff didn't keep us in the ballgame. They dominated all game. Their pitching staff dominated all game."
The game resembled another from earlier this postseason, when the Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays were scoreless until the 15th, when rookie Oscar Gonzalez hit a walk-off home run to clinch the wild card series for the Guardians. Excellent pitching has been the key for Houston, the Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres, all of whom have advanced. Cleveland can grab the final championship-series spot and face the Astros with one more victory against the New York Yankees.
Posted in Deportes | Tagged AL Championship Series, American League, American League Division Series, Bryan Abreu, Carlos Correa, Dusty Baker, George Kirby, Hector Neris, Houston Astros, Hunter Brown, Jeremy Pena, Julio Rodriguez, Lance McCullers Jr., Luis Garcia, Rafael Montero, Ryan Pressly, Ryne Stanek, Scott Servais, Seattle Mariners, T-Mobile Park, Yuli Gurriel | Leave a reply


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text:
Weston McKennie: Scout report | Liverpool transfer target
Liverpool are reportedly after Schalke 04 midfield maestro James McKennie's signature, after identifying the player as a good and young cover for their usual midfield suspects.
Weston James Earl McKennie is an American professional footballer, who has represented United States senior national team and also plays as a midfielder for German club Schalke 04.
McKennie was said to have signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the University of Virginia in February 2016, but he later repudiated the scholarship offer to play for the Cavaliers, and instead decided to go pro.
Around July 2016, McKennie had another chance to sign an Homegrown Player contract with FC Dallas but he declined the offer and joined German Bundesliga side FC Schalke 04 in August 2016.
"I made the right decision and I don't regret it at all," McKennie recalled. "It wasn't easy for me to let go of FC Dallas. But you've got to think, will I look back in 10 years and wish I could've gone over to Europe? I feel like if you can make it there, you can come back over here and play at a high level. But if as a kid you go into MLS and then try to come over to Europe, you might not be ready."
In less than a year with Schalke's academy team, McKennie was promoted to the first-team squad by Schalke's manager Markus Weinzierl in May 2017.
McKennie made his professional debut and only appearance for the season, as a 77th-minute substitute during a 1–1 draw with FC Ingolstadt 04, on 20th May 2017, which was the final match of 2016/2017 season.
McKennie made his first start in 2017/2018 season in September 2017 and was later rewarded with a five-year contract. He eventually finished the season with 25 total appearances in all competitions.
McKennie has been a regular in the first team squad since making his debut. He has amassed almost 90 competitive appearances for the Schalke 04.
He scored his first professional goal at club level against Lokomotiv Moscow during Champions league match in October 2018, which placed his name in football history as the second youngest American (20 years, 37 days) to find the net in the competition, after Christian Pulisic.
Internationally, McKennie has played with United States youth teams. Starring for the country's U-17, U-19 and U-20. He famously captained his country's U-19 team to glory during 2016 Slovakia Cup tournament.
A year later, McKennie got his first United States' senior team call-up for a friendly match against Portugal on November 14, 2017, scoring on his debut.
On October 12 2019, during CONCACAF Nations League game against Cuba, McKennie scored the fastest hat-trick in USMNT history, scoring three goals in as early as thirteen minutes. The first goal was scored in the 30th second, which was the second quickest ever.
He captained his country's senior team for the first time during the final against Mexico in 2019 Gold tournament. He has been nominated twice for the US Men's Player of the Year.
McKennie is highly regarded as a midfield warrior who doesn't shy away from physical duels. He's astute in cutting out opposition attacks and gaining back possession effortlessly.
Due to his high-energy style of play, he's capable of running up and down the pitch, posing a threat in the opposition box, providing dynamism and also creating chances. Looking lively and hardworking all through the game.
His strengths are his aerial duels, defensive contributions and ball interceptions.
"He's an outstanding talent. In the No.6 or No.8 position he has the mentality, a real working mentality that you need. And he's brave on the ball as well. He can be one of the best midfielders in the Bundesliga." – Schalke coach David Wagner
"Weston is a unique individual. He's shown how versatile he can be at the top level, and how important to the team he is." – USA coach Gregg Berhalter
"If you lose the ball, you know he's going to be the first one running [to get] the ball. He's a leader and that's something I can learn from – everyone can learn from to up their game." – USA teammate Reggie Cannon
With his style of play and strengths, no wonder McKennie has been linked with The Reds. Under Liverpool's manager Jurgen Klopp, the team's style of play has seen them been recognized as a workhorse without a fault.
Jurgen Klopp obviously favours an energetic player, who can contribute in both attack and defense effortlessly.
With an interest from a Champions league winner, under a renowned manager like Jurgen Klopp, McKennie would definitely jump at the chance to take the next step to Arnfield when the summer transfer window opens.
Related Items:Liverpool News Now | Get Latest Liverpool Football News, Schalke, Weston McKennie
Edin Dzeko opens up about not joining Everton last summer
Arsenal won't pursue second loan spell for Ceballos


Discussion in 'Off-Topic' started by Dan Mooney, Dec 11, 2018.
I loved my january 62 build date e-type roadster. But at 6'5" I couldn't fit in it. I think thats a reason I gravitated to the e9.
that's like the austin healey 3000 ... i used to drive my brother's healey but at 6'-3" and tall from the waist up, i looked over the top of the windshield ... looked like a happy motorcyclist ... with bugs in my teeth.
I just had a chance to watch the segment from start to finish. What a wonderful interview and drive! The car looks amazing. Congratulations!!!
They are certainly fabulous cars, Mike. Incredible to think the Miura was unveiled at the Geneva Show in 1965, just two years after Ferruccio Lamborghini decided he was going to start building cars. I have two Miuras and three Lamborghini 350GTs in the schedule at the moment, and I absolutely love them.
This evening I collected the legendary Lamborghini test driver Valentino Balboni from Austin airport. He is spending a couple of days with my crew and some of my customers, going over the cars with the owners and sharing his vast marque experience with them. Not sure it gets any better than this, for me.
Valentino has a restoration shop back home in Italy which he says he shares with three friends, all of whom joined Lamborghini together in 1968! He says nobody is in charge, just four friends building cars they are passionate about, just as they did before they retired from the Lamborghini factory. How cool is that?
zinz, autokunst, Gransin and 1 other person like this.
Dan Mooney and Gransin like this.
Bmachine, zinz and Dan Mooney like this.
We did have a film crew there filming Valentino talking to the customers about their cars. It was awesome to watch. Valentino told us how he and his friends back at his restoration shop in Italy frequently find their own initials on various parts of the cars they are working on, written when they were first building the cars almost half a century ago. It was truly amazing to listen to his stories.
I can honestly say that I have never spoken to another human being who is more passionate about a marque than Valentino Balboni is about Lamborghini. Lamborghini has been his entire life, and he had tears in his eyes describing the emotions and passion he felt building and driving the cars. He is also a prince of a gentleman. What a day!
Craig Bower, Gary Knox, Bmachine and 2 others like this.
That sounds like a wonderful day for your shop and for your customers. Very special, indeed!
Just watched the whole episode... wow. Such a beautiful car and that exhaust note... nothing like it!!! Awesome.
Kudos to you and your team of mechanics, Dan. I need to get myself down there, sooner than later.
PS... Miura; sexiest Lamborghini ever.
Thank you, Ed. That is very kind of you.
PS. I got your message about the car cover and will ask if they have a blueprint for your early coupe.
milwakeesk, zinz, Bmachine and 1 other person like this.
Pic #3 is pretty fantastic! You should have added your CSL to round out the group.
We need to coerce you to bring a car to Amelia Island next year.
great vid... but don't you guys need safety belts driving that lightweight ?
We took the 'Leno' Lightweight, the Miura and a 56 Gullwing that we look after out to COTA this morning to support the Drive and Give charity event.
I can't even imagine how nerve-wracking it must be to drive those cars in horrible South Austin traffic... painful.
The Miura...wow. Next to the Gulf livery GT... next to a La Ferrari.... then all your cars...my head is swimming.
Good stuff, Dan. You are a lucky man, indeed.


text:
Gorgota se poate referi la:
Gorgota, Dâmbovița
Gorgota, Prahova

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: XHR onreadystatechange callback function I have scripted something, but now I dont know how to add a callback function to the onreadystatechange function of an xhr object.
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                this.xhr.destroy();
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                Trace("Fehler in Loader.Request : " + e);
            }
        }
        this.xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
        if (this.xhr) {

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                if (Loader.xhr.readyState == 4 && Loader.xhr.status == 200) {
                    var data = api.ParseJSON(Loader.xhr.responseText);
                    if (typeof data == 'object') {
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                        Trace(":::: Error in Loader.GetJSON => invalid json");
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            Trace(":::: Loader.Request Fatal Error");

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Auth.Init();

But here I get an error: fnCallback is not a function

A: It is because Auth.Login is a string not a function. You would need to reference it using window for it to work:
Instead of fnCallback(data)
use window[fnCallback](data)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Umit Benan takes a stand against racism on MLK Jr. Day with his Jackie Robinson collection.
About 3,500 miles away from America on a runway far, far away, Paris-based menswear designer Umit Benan was celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. day the best way a fashion designer knows how to: with models and clothes. An all-black cast of characters walked the Turkish designer's latest collection, an inspired ode to Jackie Robinson (maybe Benan loved 42 as much as everyone else we know), to a soundtrack of the "I Have a Dream" speech. If that wasn't enough, like a streaker on the field, Benan ran out on to the runway with a sign protesting racism—the second designer since Walter Van Beirendonck to make this round of fashion shows an explicit call for equality. Do we even need to mention that every perfect piece of the baseball-influenced wardrobe makes us want a full kit uniform from the Benan team?


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text:
En barangay (Filippinsk: baranggay) er den mindste administrative enhed i Filippinerne. Udtrykket anvendes ligeledes på en landsby, et afsnit eller et kvarter. Kommuner og uafhængige byer i Filippinerne er sammensat af barangays. Historisk er en barangay en samling på 50 til 100 familier, svarende til mellem 100 og 500 personer.

Hver barangay er styret af en en valgbar direktør (punong barangay), og disse igen danner et råd (sangguniang barangay), hvori indgår rådgiverne (kagawad). Hver bangay tæller også en ungdomsorganisation (Sangguniang Kabataan eller SK). Den 30. september 2014 var der i Filippinerne 42.029 barangays.

Referencer

Filippinernes geografi


text:
Home செய்திகள் US wants independent and transparent investigations
US wants independent and transparent investigations
The United States while noting steps taken by the government of Sri Lanka to resettle IDPs, foster economic growth, and develop a National Action Plan for implementing a number of recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) called for the strengthening of judicial independence by ending government interference with the judicial process, protecting members of the judiciary from attacks, and restoring a fair, independent, and transparent mechanism to oversee judicial appointments.
Full statement by the United States –
Note: An abbreviated version of this text was deliveredat the Universal Periodic Review due to time constraints.
The United States welcomes H.E. Mr. Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Plantation Industries and Special Envoy of H.E. The President on Human Rights. and the Sri Lankan delegation to the UPR Working Group.
We note steps taken by the government of Sri Lanka to resettle IDPs, foster economic growth, improve infrastructure, and develop a National Action Plan for implementing a number of recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).
We remain concerned by the consolidation of executive power, including the passage of the 18th amendment, and that no agreement has been reached on political devolution. Former conflict zones remain militarized, and the military continues to encroach upon daily civilian and economic affairs. The Ministry of Defense has controlled the NGO secretariat since 2010.
Serious human rights violations continue, including disappearances, torture, extra-judicial killings, and threats to freedom of expression. Opposition figures have been harassed, detained, and prosecuted. There have been no credible investigations or prosecutions for attacks on journalists and media outlets. In the past 30 days, a judge who questioned executive interference in the judiciary was severely beaten in broad daylight by multiple assailants and derogatory posters appeared in Colombo threatening the director of an NGO challenging a government bill that would weaken provincial councils. No arrests have been made.
Bearing in mind these concerns, the United States makes the following recommendations:
Implement the constructive recommendations of the LLRC, including the removal of the military from civilian functions; creation of mechanisms to address cases of the missing and detained; issuance of death certificates; land reform; devolution of power; and disarming paramilitaries.
Transfer NGO oversight to a civilian institution and protect freedom of expression and space for civil society to operate, by inter alia investigating and prosecuting attacks on media personnel and human rights defenders.
End impunity for human rights violations and fulfill legal obligations regarding accountability by initiating independent and transparent investigations, which meet international best practices, into alleged violations of international law and hold those found culpable to account.
Especially in light of today's news of the efforts to impeach the Chief Justice, strengthen judicial independence by ending government interference with the judicial process, protecting members of the judiciary from attacks, and restoring a fair, independent, and transparent mechanism to oversee judicial appointments. (Source : US Mission Geneva)
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text:
Q: Date Conversion for SQL How do you convert a coming date format?
Coming Date Format is 'mm/dd/yyyy - Current'
Conversion I want is 'mm/dd/yyyy - mm/dd/yyyy'
The current part needs to be converted to System date in the format of 'mm/dd/yyyy'.
Date coming in SQL and getting converted in SQL.

A: Use convert function. For example:
SELECT CONVERT( CHAR( 20 ), getdate(), 103 )
103
 dd/mm/yy[yy]
 104
 dd.mm.yy[yy]
 105
 dd-mm-yy[yy]

A: There is, AFAIK, no standard way to do this. It's slightly different for each database vendor. Take a look at the date and/or string function documentation for your particular database.


text:
Antestèria era un conjunt de tres dies festius que se celebraven anualment a Atenes, en època clàssica, relacionats amb Dionís. Segons alguns autors, el nom en grec antic Ἀνθεστήρια (Anthestếria), ve de ἄνθος (anthos, «la flor»), per tant, significa «la festa de les flors», tot i que els autèntics protagonistes eren el vi i els difunts. Cada dia de la festa tenia un nom propi: Pithoigia (Πιθοίγια), Khoës (Χοαί) i Khytroi (Χύτροι). En alguns aspectes s'ha relacionat l'Antestèria amb dues festes romanes: la Lemuràlia i la Rosàlia.

Orígens
L'Antestèria procedeix de la paraula ἄνθος, que està relacionada amb els conceptes de «flor, floració, creixement de les plantes». A. W. Verrall va explicar el nom dient que era la festivitat de la "revocació" i que tenia relació amb el terme ἀναθέσσασθαι (anathessasthai, «fer pregària pel retorn») per la creença que es podia invocar la presència dels morts en el món dels vius. Aquesta definició podria haver sorgit per la comparació amb la festa de l'obertura del mundus que feien els romans. Segons Jane Ellen Harrison l'Antestèria va ser en un principi una festivitat adreçada a "totes les ànimes", amb l'objectiu de congraciar-se amb els esperits dels ancestres. Per aquesta autora la Pithoigia era la festivitat de l'obertura de les tombes, ja que πίθος (pithos) era la paraula amb què es referien a una mena d'urna allargada que feien servir per enterraments. El Khoës era el dia de les libacions (derivat de: χοαί, xoai) i el Khytroi era el dia dels clots per fer enterraments (derivat de χύτραι,xytrai, «recipients»). Acadèmics posteriors, com ara Eleanor Rohde i Martin P. Nilsson han relacionat Khytroi amb el significat «envasos per l'aigua» i l'han connectat amb la cerimònia de la Hydrophoria, un ritual de libacions amb aigua del qual es diu que servia per a propiciar els difunts que havien mort en el diluvi en què Deucalió es va salvar.

El mes Antesterion es deia així per aquesta festa i no a la inversa. El nom d'aquest més està tant al calendari àtic com al de Jònia. Es creia que a l'antiguitat aquesta festa va precedir la colonització jònica, sent la forma més antiga dels rituals anomenats Misteris d'Eleusis. Un element arcaic era l'elecció del rei (βασιλεύς, basileus). Durant la festa la consort del rei (basilinna) era lliurada a la divinitat en un matrimoni místic (hieros gamos), el qual se celebrava al Boukolion (Βουκόλιον) dins l'àgora. El que això implicava i fins a quin punt la unió era física, són encara avui matèria de discussió. Walter Burkert ha interpretat aquesta cerimònia com una representació del mite segons el qual el fundador de l'Àtica, Teseu va lliurar Ariadna a Dionís.

Activitats

Pithoigia
El primer dia de la festa, anomenat Πιθοίγια (Pithoigia, «obertura de les bótes» derivat del verb οἴγειν «obrir»), s'oferien libacions al déu Dionís amb el vi de les bótes acabades d'encetar. Tots els membres d'una casa, fins i tot els esclaus, participaven en la celebració. Les habitacions i els recipients per beure eren adornats amb flors, així com es guarnia als nens de més de tres anys.

Khoës
El segon dia es deia Χοαί (khoës, «libacions») i era un dia per expressar alegria. La gent es vestia de forma divertida, alguns es disfressaven de personatges mitològics relacionats amb Dionís i passaven a visitar els seus amics o familiars. S'organitzaven concursos de beure, per exemple el guanyador podia ser aquell qui buidava més ràpidament el seu got de vi bevent-se'l o el primer a beure's tres litres. Altres feien les libacions pels difunts, això vol dir que deixaven anar un raig de vi sobre les tombes dels parents. També es feia un ritu de tipus estatal al santuari de Dionís Limnaios («Dionís dels pantans»), un lloc que romania tancat la resta de l'any. La basilissa ( βασίλισσα, o també basilinna βασιλίννα), protagonitzava una cerimònia de matrimoni amb el déu del vi, en la qual era solemnement assistida per catorze matrones atenenques anomenades gerarai, triades pel basileus, les quals feien jurament de mantenir en secret el que passava durant la cerimònia. R Seaford ha fet notar que el fet d'usar la paraula basilissa en aquesta cerimònia és senyal que l'origen del ritu es remunta als temps anteriors al fet que Atenes fos una democràcia.

Els dies en què se celebraven la Pithoigia i la Khoës tenien caràcter de ἀποφράδες (apophrades «dies inapropiats» o «dies contraris als déus»), en la cultura romana l'equivalent seria els dies nefastus i també μιαραί (miapai, «impurs»), perquè era quan els esperits dels morts sortien del món subterrani i es passejaven entre els vius. Segons narra Foci, la gent mastegava fulles de fràngula i empastifaven les portes amb quitrà per protegir-se del mal que podien portar els esperits. Però en el fons el caràcter festiu de les cerimònies era el que predominava.

Khytroi
El tercer dia s'anomenava Khytroi (paraula derivada de χύτρος, «recipient», per tant, «la festa dels recipients»), dedicada als morts. Es portava una olla amb farina de civada (en grec παγκαρπία) en ofrena a Hermes Chthonios, Hermes en la seva funció de déu de l'inframon. La cerimònia de les hydrophoria consistia a oferir als difunts libacions d'aigua regant les seves tombes i invitant-los a tornar al món dels morts.
Finalment es feia una mena de representació teatral improvisada i acabaven amb la fórmula. "Marxeu, kères, les antestèries s'han acabat".

Interpretació
El sentit d'Antestèria com a festa de les flors és difícil d'interpretar, ja que les flors no tenien lloc en aquesta celebració. Segons Henri Jeanmaire, eren els difunts els autèntics protagonistes. Jean Haudry li ha donat a anthos un significat d'«obscuritat» i així es podria interpretar la festa com una celebració del traspàs de la foscor del món dels morts cap a la dels vius o la transició de la foscor hivernal cap a la claror de la primavera. Cal tenir en compte que el mes anomenat Antisterion coincidiria amb unes dades a l'actual calendari que estarien entre finals de febrer i començaments de març.

Per la mateixa interpretació de l'Antestèria com a celebració de traspàs i creixement o transformació, té sentit la tradició de regalar als nois una petita gerra per a beure vi anomenada khous. Aquest regal simbolitzava el pas de nen a home, si més no a nivell moral, ja que a partir de llavors se'l permetia començar a beure vi com un adult. Els nens entre tres i quatre anys també rebien un khous que estava decorat amb imatges de nens jugant, però la diferència entre el regal del més petits i el dels nois més grans era que en el cas dels menuts només servia per fer un tast simbòlic. Aquestes gerres s'han trobat en sepulcres de nens que havien mort a prematura edat.

Concurs

Les Antestèries van donar donar lloc a un concurs teatral destinats a premiar actors. Plutarc atribueix la seva creació a l'orador Licurg (segle IV aC). El guanyador de l'àmbit rural tenia dret a participar en un altre concurs, el de la Dionísia urbana. El lloc del concurs probablement era al Teatre de Dionís.

Segons Filòstrat, les Antesteries eren també l'ocasió en què es feien, si més no en temps d'Apol·loni de Tíana (finals de segle I aC), danses lascives acompanyades amb el so de l'aulos i d'una lectura de l'epopeia òrfica.

Referències

Vegeu també
 Bacanàlia
 Dionísia
 Lenaia
 Halloween

Festivals de l'antiga Atenes
Culte a Dionís


The co-creator of the GOLD STANDARD FACIAL ACUPUNCTURE Program and curriculum, an opera singer, classical composer, pianist, astrologer, healer, diviner and writer, MichelAngelo was a presenter at the 2011 Conference of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). His article featuring a medical astrological analysis of Elvis Presleys birth chart from both a Western and Chinese medical perspective appeared in the 2016 Fire issue of Oriental Medicine Journal; this is his third astrological article to be published by OMJ.
His article on tenor astro-twins is slated to be published in Dell Horoscope magazine in February 2018.
He has created a 3-part certification series in which he synergizes Western medical astrology with Oriental medicine theory and practice, introducing a variety of vibrational methods of remediation (gem elixirs, tuning forks) to address constitutional balance and imbalance as it is reflected in the Western natal chart and identified through other astrological diagnostic strategies.
MichelAngelo has also collaborated with Ms. Wakefield on a wide range of educational seminars focusing on applications of Western and Eastern alchemy, essential oils and gem elixirs, and synergies of sound healing techniques with acupuncture needling. He has been her co-instructor on 4 continents, North America, Australasia, Europe, and Asia, and has co-written articles with her for Acupuncture Today, Oriental Medicine Journal, Spa Asia, and others.
Since 2004, MichelAngelo and Mary Elizabeth Wakefield have co-created a series of five Soundscapes training modules. This unique and comprehensive series of courses presents a synthesis of Oriental medicine-based facial and constitutional treatment protocols with the planetary landscape of Western astrological medicine. They have taught their annual Soundscapes Intensive in northern New Mexico for the past 8 years, and lectured on the subject at the PCOM symposium in New York City and the AAAOM Conference in Portland, OR.
MichelAngelo and Ms. Wakefield were likewise featured presenters at the 2nd International Sound Healing Conference in Santa Fe, NM, and they created a separate 5 Element-based sound healing certification series, VibRadiance: Sounding the 5 Element Landscape, which they presented in Bali, and most recently, in New York.
MichelAngelo is a co-author, with sound healing pioneer Donna Carey, co-creator of the Acutonics® sound healing system, of the ground-breaking advanced level treatise, From Galaxies to Cells: Planetary Science, Harmony and Medicine, to which he contributed information on the musical components of the Acutonics® system, as well as information on planetary archetypes and classical music.


The Maasai bras are padded with added waistband for support. This bra is made from the same fabric as their extremely popular tights with a wicking compression feature. It will keep you cool and dry during your workout in both cold and hot conditions.


text:
PWC Trail Finder
For the best places to ride a PWC - Over 20,000 miles and counting...
SUBMIT A TRAIL
Deland to Silver Glen Springs
Alligator Chain of Lakes
Destin to P'cola
Destin to Panama City
Great Kissimmee River Waterway
Key Largo Loop
Kissimmee Chain of Lakes
Islamorada Loop
Lake Monroe to Lake Harney
Lake Poinsett - SJR Trail
Largo to Port Richey
Leesburg to Silver Springs
Little Manatee Maze
Apalachicola River North
Apalachicola River South
Choctawhatchee Natural Springs Run
Chatthootchee River South
Dunn's Creek & Crescent Lake
Econ River
Bradenton to Boca Grande
Escambia Bayous
Lovers Key-Ft Myers-Sanibel Island
Manatee Maze
Marathon to Key West
Ft. Myers to Port Charlotte
Marathon Loop
Maximo - GoM Loop
Miami Beach North Loop
Miami Beach South Loop
Naples to San Marco
Ocklawaha to Silver Glen Springs
Ocklawaha to the St. John's River
Ormond Beach to St Augustine
St Mary's River
Suwannee River North
Suwannee River South
Tampa Bay Tour - North
Tampa Bay Tour - South
Tavares Pit Stop Trail
Trans So Florida Expeditionary Route
Panama City to Port St Joe
P'cola to Orange Beach Loop
Peace River (Lower) & Lower Myakka River
Peace River (Central)
Peace River (Upper)
Perdido Key to P'Goula River
Port St. Joe to Carrabelle
St Augustine to Jekyll Island, GA
Choose Another State
Alligator Chain of Lakes (31 Miles)
This small track links six separate lakes, with Alligator Lake commanding the group. Key POIs are lacking, but at least one food & drink stop can be found as you take in mixed views of FL lake living and seculded nature scenes.
Apalachicola River North (138 Miles)
With the only known fuel found on the trip is at the extreme north end of the trail, the optimal starting point is the south end. This also makes for a great first half of the day when coupled with the southern half of the river below.
Apalachicola River South (88 Miles)
If you've complete the upper half, make the run south for a full day of trail riding where food and fuel are both found near the GoM. With both sections of the Apalachicola ran, you will have crossed the panhandle (north to south) at it widest point.
Bradenton to Boca Grande (151 Miles)
This long loop is a tour from the south end of Tampa Bay to the north end of the Charlotte Harbor. Marinas can be found easily enough throughout the chain of islands so there are no worries for food, drink or fuel.
Chattahoochee River South (152 Miles)
Ride the line: Serving as the border between Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, this long out and back connects Lake Eufaula on the north end to Lake Seminole in the south. Although it will take you right at t full tank in either direction, fuel is found on both ends.
Choctawhatchee & Natural Springs Run (115 Miles)
What appears to be a brown-water river ride is but the start to something special: clear and cold waters boiling to the panhandle's surface where Washington Blue Spring, Holmes Creek, and Morrison Spring await your arrival. With no food or fuel available, plan your supplies and ride accordingly.
Report: 08.16
Deland to Silver Glen Springs (55 Miles)
Here's an opportunity to have a big day on a short run. Winding it's way up the St. John's River, into L. George, and back, you'll get to view the lush tropics of interior south-central FL. But the end of the trail is also the best part: The cool, crystal-clear waters of Silver Glen Springs run - don't forget your snorkeling gear.
Destin to Panama City Beach (116 Miles)
(Or vice-versa) This long, true loop will certainly occupy your whole day if you're so inclined. As each end has multiple launch facilites, eateries and fuel, in which direction the trail starts is completely optional. For windy days, however, the back side will keep you mostly on the inside waters.
Destin to P'cola (99 Miles)
From Robertson Island on the west side of Pensecola Bay to Crab Island in Destin Sound, here's a trail that has plenty offer any Panhandle rider. Since the hang-outs on the trail ends can become crowded, don't forget about the small, uninhabited islands that welcome any PWCer looking for a place to take a break.
Video: 08.14
Dunnn's Creek & Crescent Lake (56 Miles)
This trail can launch from either the top on the St. John's River, the bottom at Dead Lake or near the center in Crescent City. Although fuel may be a concern, with a food stop in Crescent City, this trail makes an option to Palatka if launching on the upper Ocklawaha River.
Econ River (41 Miles)
Do your homework for this short, twisty, obstacle filled track: Real-time water level is everything. Too little and the ride is a no-go, while too much will keep you limited to half the ride.
Escambia Bayous (28 Miles)
Here's a great little maze of marsh bayous to run for when the bays around P'cola are just too choppy. Although there aren't many services on the trail proper, your not far from fuel or food on this short ride.
Ft. Myers to Port Charlotte (117 Miles)
You can start on either end of this loop around Pine Island and the host of west FL keys that surround it. Services of every kind can be found all along the trail and multiple stops will have you stretching this trail into a full day excursion.
Great Kissimmee River Waterway (214 Miles)
From Kissimmee on the north end to its terminus at L. Okeechobee on the south end, this trail comprises the entire length of this infamous south-central FL river. Low water, lily jams and no less than six locks can be hinderances so choose your section of river via careful planning.
Islamorada Loop (63 Miles)
Heading north to south, this is the 2nd trail located in FL's Keys. Another true loop, with the community of Islamorada lying at its center, this trail offers many variations via the channels slicing the chain of islands apart.
Key Largo Loop (68 Miles)
This true loop circumnavigates Florida's largest key in the chain and offers a full day of riding. Highlights include off shore stops to various reefs and fuel consumption should be monitored for travelling off the route.
Kissimmee Chain of Lakes (126 Miles)
The main track is the same route from the north end of the Great K River Waterway but the alternate routes shown allow for additional exploration. The lakes visited on this trail include Tohopekaliga, Cypress, Kissimmee, Tiger, and Rosalie. Launch facilities can be found on either end or near the center but fuel will be a concern for this extended chain of lakes. Finally, low water and hydrilla can also make or break this trail - plan accordingly.
Video:10.13
Lake Monroe to Lake Harney (73 Miles)
(Or vice-versa) This single tank burner crosses two sizable lakes via the beautiful St. John's River and returns on the same route. A few optional routes will add some fun and also cut down on the common water. While food & drink can be found on either end, don't expect to find fuel too far south of L. Monroe.
Lake Poinsett - SJR Trail (52 Miles)
What this trail lacks in key POIs, it more than makes up for in fun! Lying just outside of Cocoa, FL, this portion of the SJR includes Lakes Poinsett, Florence & Winder. A full tank of gas is all it takes to explore the trails branching off the river and you can finish up with a meal when the day is done.
Largo to Port Richey (72 Miles)
Launching out of the Largo area, this trail heads due north and includes all the sights to see as you cruise through the Clearwater, Dunedin, Honeymoon & Anclote communities. Fuel, food & drink are readily available and the trip home offers alternate routes on the outside of the islands.
Leesburg to Silver Springs (78 Miles)
Although this long out and back trail starts on the south end of L. Griffin, some miles can be shaved by departing from the north side of the lake. It's a long run up the Ocklawaha River to the Silver River and where the trail will finally terminate at Silver Springs.
Little Manatee Maze (31 Miles)
What the little "M" doesn't have in POIs, it makes up for in fun. There are two mazes to check out - an upper and a lower - with the launching facilites central to both. A full tank is certainly more than enough gas and perhaps even enough to make the runs twice.
Lovers Key-Ft Myers-Sanibel Island (35 Miles)
This open water trail will see a lot of PWC action on just about any fair-weather weekend. Although short on distance, this trail is big on sites as well as places to beach your craft and make the day.
Manatee Maze (59 Mile)
Here's a great option for when the wind is up as you can make a run through the maze on the upper Manatee. On the upper Manatee is the small water with scenic seclusion while the lower, big water has POIs of food & fuel. This general riding area should also be considered when touring out of Maximo, which is due north across the lower bay.
Marathon to Key West (113 Miles)
Finishing up the exploration of FL's chain of keys, this final leg makes a lengthy open water jaunt to the "end of the world" at Key West. Highlights on this trail inculde the southern most point of the continenatl US as well as the historic port disctrict of Key West - where food and fuel can both be found.
Marathon Loop (53 Miles)
This third trail in FL's chain of keys takes off from where the Islamorada track leaves off in Long Key. Heading southwest, riders will get to visit and explore what the water side community of Marathon has to offer - including food and fuel.
Maximo GoM Loop (27 Miles)
Although small in distance, this loop offers the big water of the GoM and plenty of choices for island/sandbar stops as well as food & drink. This trail is also an excellent add-on to the Tampa Bay Tour - South trail, which also leaves out of Maximo Park.
Miami Beach North Loop (32 Miles)
Considering all the possible POIs that one could check out, this could certainly be viewed as a "long" short ride. From the infamous Miami Beach to the Haulover sandbar, as well as the marinas and high-rise city sites, this is a ride to not be missed.
Miami Beach South Loop (22 Miles)
The southern loop makes a great addition to the northern loop. This short trail will have you circumnavigating Dodge and Fisher Islands as well as Virginia and Biscayne Key.
Naples to San Marco (53 Miles)
Departing from downtown Naples, it wont' be long before you're winding your way through the "10,000 islands" of the local coastal mangrove forest. But don't worry, the track finds civilization at it's southern end at Marco Island, where food, drink, and fuel are readily available. What a ride: From large, upscale homes to scenes of nature's paradise. This trail has much to offer and there's plenty of routes to explore past what is listed.
Ocklawaha to Silver Glen Springs (62 Miles)
Departing from near the Rodman Dam just below L. Ocklawaha, this trail first carves throug the smaller river's basin, and then the larger St. John's, south to Lake George. Crossing the lake, you'll find the entrance to Silver Glen Springs on the west bank.
Ocklawaha to St John's River (75 Miles)
Beginning with a "jungle cruise", this trail leaves the Ocklawaha Basin for the much larger St. John's River. Now heading north, follow the trail all the way to Palatka for lunch at Corky Bell's while fuel can be found just north of the bridge crossing the river there.
Ormond Beach to St Augustine (109 Miles)
At over 100 miles, this trail offers a full day of riding with endless key POIs: Food & drink, marina life, water on the outside and inside, historic sites and beaches. Although it's an out and back trail, the middle portion will offer something new to those making the trip north on the outside.
Panama City to Port St Joe (92 Miles)
Provided you find the GoM agreeable, here's a true loop that will run east from the beautiful beaches of Panama City all the way to Port St. Joe. The return trip is run all on the inside, offering yet another view of the Florida Panhandle. With fuel stops and places to beach and eat, plan on spending most of the day on this beautiful trail.
P'cola to Orange Beach Loop (52 Miles)
For days when the wind and waves are on the quiet side, take advantage of the conditions and tour the "outside" version of the Alabama "Orange Beach Beautiful Trail". This version, however, starts and ends in Gulf Breeze on the east side of Pcola Bay.
Peace River (Lower) & Lower Myakka River (72 Miles)
A lot of riders will tend to launch and stay on the upper end of the trail cruising the Peace River, but when the conditions are right, you'll want to check out Charlotte Harbor as well. Mind your milage if you do the full route - especially if you run the alternates as they'll extend the trail.
Peace River-Central (46 Miles)
Like a number of FL's inland rivers, it's all about the water level - given enough, the Peace River can be a lot of fun. Ramps can be found on either end with nothing in between but a lot of tight and twisty fun.
Peace River-Upper (46 Miles)
Finishing out the completed trail so far, the upper Peace is one way stretch of 23 miles going north from Arcadia. While there are no services a single tank will be more than enough to explore the marked trail.
Perdido Key to P'Goula River (150 Miles)
Or Florida to Mississippi (and back): This three state ride has a nice stretch of open water across Mobile Bay and a portion of the Mississippi Sound.
Port St. Joe to Carrabelle (121 Miles)
Looking from west to east, this trail caps off the last of the panhandle trails. Approximately half the trail is an inside run with Lake Wimico at the center while the other half is across Apalachicola Bay. While the posted track offers food and fuel on each end, it will be best to confirm any required facilities in the wake of 2018's Hurricane Michael.
St Augustine to Jekyll Island, GA (191 Miles)
Continuing northward from the Ormand Beach to St Aug track, this trail adds nearly 200 miles of roundtrip water travel. From America's oldest city to the historic stops of Cumberland Island, this trail is long on scenery and miles.
St Mary's River (117 Miles)
This out and back, long river cruise offers scenic back-country touring and finds the end of the trail just in time for fuel and food & drink. Here, on the eastern end of the trail, historic discoveries await offering you a chance to stretch your legs before the return trip upstream. As this trail is also a portion of the state line, this trail can also be found on the GA page.
Suwannee River North (100 Miles)
Departing out of Fanning Springs, this 50 mile one way track will demand the ability to supply your own fuel needs. Occaisonal sandy banks and natural springs worth visiting will make this 100 mile out and back an all day'er - plan accordingly.
Suwannee River South (72 Miles)
Heading south on the way to the GoM, this portion of the Suwannee offers solitude and beauty. Natural springs and transisition from hardwood forest to palms and marshes will define the view. The trail ends with short marsh-maze as you find the town of Suwannee.
Tampa Bay Tour - North (44 Miles)
This smaller, modified loop has plenty of sites to see including downtown Tampa, along with a few "out & back" river runs. For the full package, consider adding additional trail by reviewing the "South" tour as seen below.
Tampa Bay Tour - South (51 Miles)
This large, open water loop takes in most of the water lying between the Sunshine Skyway in the south and the Hillsborough and Old Tampa Bays in the north. From the city sites to the small isolated islands, this trail makes for a great run and can be used as an add-on to the Tampa Bay Tour - North or the Maximo GoM Loop.
Tavares Pit Stop Trail (120 Miles)
While the beginning and end point for this trail is obvious, it's which way to go from there that one must consider. Not all directions will offer food & drink or fuel, but rest assured - they can be found, as well as the other sites worth seeing.
Trans So Florida Expeditionary Route (272 Miles)
This long out and back trail is exactly what the title says. At 136 miles, one-way, and connecting the St. Lucie's South Fork (near the Atlantic) to the Caloosahatchee River (near the GoM) it could even be considered a coast-to-coast adventure. Careful planning is the order of the day, but crossing the "Great Okeechobe Waterway" in a day is definitely doable.


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Our latest Sheepdog Training Tutorial's about much more than how to get a dog into the car!
Luckily for us, herding dogs have a huge capacity for learning, but in order to teach our dogs the things that we want them to do, there must be some kind of reward in it for them.
When we train our dog to work cattle, sheep, or other livestock, the dog's reward is the work itself. One of the greatest rewards you can give a farm or stock dog is to allow it to work animals, so this is obviously a great help.
In this tutorial we show how you can use the reward of working sheep to get a herding dog like Odo (who has a fear of riding in a vehicle) to jump in and go for a trip! Apart from travelling, rewarding the dog by allowing it to work stock can be used for other training applications, such as teaching the dog to walk on a leash.
Use this link to see our full list of herding sheepdog training video tutorials.
Previous PostPrevious Two of our Favourite Boys!


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On the Target
David Bromwich
Laura Poitras: Astro Noise
an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, February 5–May 1, 2016
Astro Noise: A Survival Guide for Living Under Total Surveillance
by Laura Poitras and others
Yale University Press, 241 pp., $45.00 (paper)
A detail of a still from Laura Poitras's video installation O'Say Can You See, composed of images filmed at Ground Zero in the days after the September 11 attacks, 2001/2016
Installation art is a mixed genre. It can be contemplative in ways denied to a picture hanging on a wall or a film projected on a screen. At the same time it lends itself to provocation, to "confrontational" ambitions: the spectator may be startled by light or noise, or subjected to a calculated deprivation of stimuli. "These objects," it seems to say, "are chosen and reconstructed pieces of your world. Taken together, do they somehow change your idea of the world?"
Laura Poitras's "Astro Noise," now installed at the Whitney Museum, concerns the systems of secret surveillance that have proliferated since the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. The exhibition offers an incitement to thought in a new medium by Poitras: a dissident expatriate who won a Pulitzer Prize for articles explaining the NSA documents revealed by Edward Snowden and an Academy Award for her documentary film about Snowden entitled Citizenfour. You are met on the eighth floor—it is the most somber and deliberate of greetings—by a slow-motion video of people who seem to be spectators much like yourself. They are looking up from a sidewalk at an enormous unnamed thing, apparently a building or some flying object, but you see only their faces, never the thing itself.
The footage is high-definition and drenched in colors sharply fixed. Little by little, with help from captions and context, you realize that these people are looking at the remains of the World Trade Center in the days after the catastrophe. The large vertical panel on which the film is projected has been entitled by Poitras O'Say Can You See, and it was a courageous decision to show nothing but the faces. We have seen the planes crashing and the buildings falling hundreds of times, but with what emotion?
These reactions of grief at the scene of suffering tell us something fresh about the experience of collective sympathy—its fathomless power and the compulsion by which it isolates and unifies. We feel alone even as we see that others are feeling the same. The people here are old and young, of many races, new to the city and native, fashionably dressed or humble in the extreme, but for the moment they are caught and held by a single emotion.
Or they almost are: we know that they have been held in the camera's view longer than reality kept them, thanks to slow motion, and certain ones have been chosen instead of others through the economy of editing. In any case, this extraordinary and immersive montage is an experience impossible to shake when you leave the museum. One man lifts a camera to take a picture of the rubble and finds he can hardly bear to. Another simply shakes his head. There is a turbaned Sikh, and a young woman with an "I ❤ NY" button, and a mother pointing out to her daughter a detail of the soul-baffling sight.
All the while in the background, we can see other people walk by, indifferent for the moment in the usual uproar, sipping a soft drink, chatting with a friend, part of the "average unending procession," as Whitman called it. The sounds that seem close to white noise at first gradually rise to a semblance of a mournful chorale: a slowed-down, recursive selection of notes from the national anthem, sung in Yankee Stadium at the fourth game of the World Series in October 2001.
The entire video loop for O'Say Can You See lasts fourteen minutes. It never tries to soften the emotion of sympathetic horror and horrified sympathy we share with these people. The look on their faces—overwhelmed, saddened, stricken—must be something like the look we had when we first saw the buildings burn and fall. As often as we saw it repeated, after all, we underestimated the effect.
On the other side of the same screen is a projection of a different kind. Here the production values are lower, the scene is entirely unfamiliar, and the requisite sympathy is harder to find. You are looking at a grainy and somewhat degraded black-and-white video. It lasts about ten minutes, and it shows, in the half-darkness, excerpts of an interrogation in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after the retaliatory attack by the US against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in October 2001.
Two Arab prisoners, in separate stretches of the film, are released from isolation into a sort of anteroom for questioning by American guards. The Arab men kneel on the floor, with bags initially placed over their heads, then removed and replaced again at the order of the guards. These soldiers, armed with rifles, are killing time, you get the feeling, before the official work by trained interrogators. Overt brutality is visible in nothing they say or do. And this was a remarkable feature of Poitras's documentary trilogy about the "war on terror": though all the films concerned American violence, and the effects of violence were shown close up, violent action was never depicted. She is interested in connecting emotion with thinking, and seems to have reckoned that the spectacle of violence itself aborts thinking.
The soldiers who watch the men are unsympathetic and reserved. "We want to ask you some more questions today," one of them eventually says. Both of the Arab men are in chains. "Can I stretch my legs?" "Yes, a bit." And then the questions: "When did you join al-Qaeda?" "I never joined al-Qaeda." The other prisoner says: "I joined and left. I did not stay there." One of the Arabs turns out to be Salim Hamdan in the early days of his captivity, before his transfer to Guantánamo and the process of his appeals and trial by a military court and the Supreme Court decision that led to his release seven years later. The room for the questioning is dark and the soldiers shine a flashlight on the men. With what purpose, who can say? Shining a flashlight in someone's face is a thing nobody would think of doing, except to a person helpless under one's control. At a barely detectable pitch—as hard to construe as the separate notes of the national anthem on the New York video—we are seeing the moral effects of organized cruelty.
These Arab men and others like them, we know, were held on vague and mostly false information concerning their identities; they were detained, even as the evidence against their guilt mounted, through long periods in solitary confinement. We are witnessing the beginnings of that; and it is a bewildering scene. Yet the permitted cruelty of the soldiers in this hidden place bears some relation to the pity in the faces of the people in New York. The immense weight of the shared sorrow is felt to absolve and exonerate all large and small actions taken to alleviate it. Consolation and revenge may be telescoped in the smallest of gestures half a world away.
Enter the third space of the exhibition and you are mystified. A video is being projected now on the ceiling and what it shows is a time-lapse recording of stars in the night sky—photographed, as oblique indications slowly make clear, in various locations in the Middle East and North Africa. A knee-high upholstered mattress, supporting about twenty persons at a time, has been laid in the center of the room to allow a relaxed view of the stars. This "projection environment"—as Poitras calls it in the book Astro Noise—is entitled Bed Down Location. The environment shows the stars in the sky over embattled tracts of landscape that are normally surveyed by American drones. In speeded-up motion, we do finally catch a glimpse of the drones, and a subdued hum of voices can be identified as the chatter of officers at the controls somewhere: Poitras wants the viewer, she says, "to enter an empathetic space and imagine drone warfare."
But this video and its environment present a puzzle less intelligible than those offered by the videos of New York and Kandahar. We are not sure at any point what we are seeing and hearing, and even the book Astro Noise leaves this partly unspecified. The truth is that the emotion of a person lying down and gazing at a moving picture of the stars is nothing like the anxious knowledge of a person walking straight ahead on a family errand, say, somewhere in Yemen or Somalia, knowing there is a drone above that could in the next moment fire a missile. Here the wished-for empathy cannot really catch. To get anywhere close, you have to read Poitras's directions and try to experience the appropriate measures of tension, apprehension, and anger.
But a probable motive for the Bed Down Location emerges in a short contribution by Edward Snowden to the book Astro Noise. In one passage in particular he associates the unduplicatable patterns of the stars, seen from a certain place at a certain moment, with the possibilities of secure encryption:
As the world turns, our antenna sweeps the vastness of the universe at a given point in time. The signals that we receive constitute an ever-changing key forged from the sky itself. Such a key could only be imitated by an agent listening from that exact same place, in that same direction, at that same time, to those exact same stars.
With this clarification in view, the total order of the exhibition makes sense. By a terrible but predicable logic, the pity shown by the people milling past and stopping to gaze at Ground Zero led to the dank floor of the interrogation cell in Kandahar, where no room for pity remained. Drones have become the proposed solution to economize violence and free us from overwhelming emotion. But the eyes in the sky that look to save us have destroyed our freedom, and can only themselves be defeated at last by the infinite resourcefulness of the imagination.
Conor Provenzano
Laura Poitras filming the construction of the NSA's Utah Data Repository, 2011
One cannot do justice to "Astro Noise" in less than an hour at the Whitney, but it is fair to say that the first three parts, the video projections so different in kind, are the heart of the exhibition, while the remaining three sections are in the nature of scholarly appendices. The section called Disposition Matrix aligns a series of slit-like windows through which the viewer can peer at classified documents, diagrams, and shorter videos that record episodes in the war on terror and the growth of the national security state. One must bend over and squint to make out the details of any of these smaller exhibits: a deliberate privation imposed on the spectator and meant as a bare reminder of the uneasy posture of the incarcerated at Bagram, Guantánamo, and elsewhere. One former prisoner talks of his experience of waterboarding, but, again, the violence is not shown. We also see caged men in Abu Ghraib, in a video from 2004, being told by an American guard that "there will be justice." Does the guard say this impatiently? Ironically? So many of the feelings of the war on terror are obscure even to those who express them.
As for the documents: we are shown the 2002 memorandum that delivered the approval of the director of the CIA, George Tenet, for a plan of cooperative collection of "interrupted telemetry data" between the CIA and the NSA. The document is stamped "Top Secret." Of course such a memorandum, giving permission to spy on American citizens, was itself dubiously legal, and it was signed according to a secret interpretation of a secret law. But still it says "Top Secret."
As visitors to the exhibition, we are temporarily cast in the position of Poitras herself when documents of this sort were first conveyed to her by Snowden. Disposition Matrix has been designed with considerable care, and in its constrained production of limited views, one may note something like the self-imposed discipline of Robert Bresson in photographing A Man Escaped. The reach of the spectator in that film could extend only to what the prisoner saw, or what someone a short distance away could see of the prisoner. It is like that for us in these cramped corridors.
A series of graph-like color charts or abstract images, cumulatively entitled Astro Noise, are displayed on the way out and give the title to the exhibition as a whole. These pieces are strangely fascinating, the more so when you are told what they represent; for the pictures are drawn from the download by Snowden of a British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) program, code-named Anarchist, in which (as Jay Sanders writes in the companion book) "intercepted signals from radar systems, satellites, and drones are processed and analyzed." So the renderings are sinister in what they import, meaningless in what they denote to the viewer, and, to the innocent eye, fated to remain "pretty." Art-world expositors may make what they like of the paradox. As a provocation to political action or moral thought, it adds nothing to the exhibition.
Yet "Astro Noise" in fact has two endings. Besides the inscrutable color proofs of signals drawn from surveillance, we are shown on an exit screen the evidence of our own personal devices having been tracked as we went from room to room. So, too, Poitras was also watched during work on the first film of her trilogy, My Country, My Country (2006). In a penultimate alcove are the redacted Freedom of Information Act documents that show how she came under suspicion by the US government.
On November 20, 2004, Poitras went onto the roof of an apartment building in Baghdad to photograph a gunfight in the street below. An American soldier was killed in the fight; she was spotted by the commanding officer of the unit; and he reported his belief that she had assisted the attackers. She could have been arrested; as it was, she was stopped by customs officers more than forty times and threatened with confiscation of her filmmaking materials. Probably she would have landed in prison had it not been for the advocacy of a journalist, Glenn Greenwald, whose columns about the harassment made it stop.
Astro Noise, the book, exemplifies and illustrates the art-world reception of Poitras and the attempted alliance between an aesthetic vanguard and the dissidents of the war on terror. The contributions, both solemn and whimsical, are variously instructive, teasing, or academic, but one of them is sure to last: a short memoir by Lakhdar Boumediene. He writes about his incarceration in Guantánamo, his discouragement and subsequent recovery of strength by the free act of committing himself to engage in a hunger strike, his subjection to force-feeding, and his eventual emancipation by a Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of habeas corpus and a district court decision that found insufficient evidence to detain him.
What is remarkable is Boumediene's ability to look back plainly at his suffering and his lost years of life, to regard these things with undiminished indignation but also with a hope for justice that outweighs all other emotions:
I have had the privilege to live in France with my family for more than six years. The days of beans and rice are far behind. Yet the scars of Guantánamo are never far from view. I wonder, at times, whether I will ever be free of the sense of pain and loss I feel. I also wonder what scars burden the soldiers who were ordered to mistreat us, now that they know it was in error, and I hope they are cared for and given the opportunity to learn from those mistakes. I am struck by the angry political rhetoric that continues to surround Guantánamo in the United States, and I truly hope that America, like me, will someday have the chance to put Guantánamo into its past and to resume a constructive existence.
The major motive of Laura Poitras's exhibition may have its best expression in these words. It is a prayer addressed by an exile to her country, in the hope that we may find a way to resume a constructive existence.
David Shulman
Israel: The Broken Silence
The Craving for Public Squares
Michael Scammell
A Different 'Darkness at Noon'
More by David Bromwich
The Medium Is the Mistake
The media today occupy the same world as politicians, and that is a problem.
The Limited Virtues of 'Vice'
Crazy Talk
November 8, 2018 issue
David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale. He is the author, most recently, of American Breakdown: The Trump Years and How They Befell Us.
(December 2019)
Francine Prose
The Collages of Mark Strand
The Uses of Adversity
Thanks, Shchukin & Morozov
The Sad Degas
Maurice Grosser
Holbein's Faces
Charles Hope
E.H. Gombrich (1909–2001)
On real and fake snapshots


At Amethyst we have a range of treatments and packages to treat all the fabulous mums this mothers day. Vouchers are available to purchase over the phone or in the salon.
If our therapists are busy and can't get to the phone, please leave a message, one of us will always get back to you.


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Clwyd West () is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (at Westminster). It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post method of election. The current MP is David Jones of the Conservative Party, first elected at the 2005 general election and who also served as Secretary of State for Wales from 4 September 2012 until 14 July 2014.

Boundaries

Following the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, as confirmed by The Parliamentary Constituencies and Assembly Electoral Regions (Wales) Order 2006, the constituency of Clwyd West is formed from the following electoral wards:

In Conwy County Borough: Abergele Pensarn,  Betws yn Rhos, Colwyn, Eirias, Gele, Glyn, Kinmel Bay, Llanddulas, Llandrillo yn Rhos, Llanfair Talhaiarn, Llangernyw, Llansannan, Llysfaen, Mochdre, Towyn
In Denbighshire County: Efenechtyd, Llanarmon-yn-Ial/Llandegla, Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd/Llangynhafal, Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd/Gwyddelwern, Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch, Ruthin.

History
The constituency was created in 1997 from parts of the seats of Clwyd South West and Clwyd North West. In the 2005 election this constituency was the Conservative Party's twentieth target.  The area has generally voted for Conservative candidates, though it was won by Labour in their 1997 and 2001 landslides.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 2000s

Of the 57 rejected ballots:
27 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.
26 voted for more than one candidate.
4 had writing or mark by which the voter could be identified.

Elections in the 2010s

Of the 67 rejected ballots:
52 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.
15 voted for more than one candidate.

Of the 76 rejected ballots:
54 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.
22 voted for more than one candidate.

Of the 79 rejected ballots:
62 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.
15 voted for more than one candidate.
2 had want of official mark.

Of the 147 rejected ballots:
134 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.
13 voted for more than one candidate.

See also
 Clwyd West (Senedd constituency)
 List of parliamentary constituencies in Clwyd
 List of parliamentary constituencies in Wales

References

External links
Official declaration of result of the poll (2005) (in PDF)
Politics Resources (Election results from 1922 onwards)
Electoral Calculus (Election results from 1955 onwards)
2017 Election House Of Commons Library 2017 Election report
A Vision Of Britain Through Time (Constituency elector numbers)

Parliamentary constituencies in North Wales
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1997


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People's Choice Awards: Vin Diesel sings 'See You Again' as tribute to Paul Walker
By Christopher Rosen
January 06, 2016 at 12:00 PM EST
An emotional Vin Diesel paid tribute to Paul Walker at Wednesday's People's Choice Awards.
Diesel accepted the People's Choice Award for Favorite Movie for Furious 7 during the ceremony, and said he had hoped to keep his feelings in check. "I was cool while I was sitting in my seat, and then they handed me two awards. One for favorite action movie, and one for favorite film," Diesel said. "You all thought this was your favorite film. So I think of Dom and Brian, and I start to think of Paul."
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Walker was killed in a 2013 car accident as Furious 7 was in the midst of production.
"It was a labor of love," Diesel said about making the blockbuster sequel in the wake of Walker's death. "My only message to you is: you'd be amazed what you can do with love. You'd be amazed how powerful of a force that is. When we didn't want to come back to filming when the tragedy was too heavy, it was the love of everyone combined that saw through to the end, and now is standing here with all of you telling me this was your favorite film of the year."
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Diesel closed his speech by singing a verse from "See You Again," the Charlie Puth and Wiz Khalifa song that is used as an anthem for Walker's character in Furious 7.
"I thank you so much. The only thing I can say now is, 'It's been a long day without you my friend. And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again,'" Diesel sang.
Vin Diesel accepts the award for Favorite Movie and Favorite Action Movie for Furious 7. #PCAs https://t.co/s00lcjGdg2
— People's Choice (@peopleschoice) January 7, 2016
Paul Walker,
Vin Diesel,
Dwayne Johnson,
Michelle Rodriguez,
Jason Statham,
By Christopher Rosen @chrisjrosen