text:
2019-2020 Executive Summary
2020-2021 Judicial Hellhole Report
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas & the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
South Carolina Asbestos Litigation
The City of St. Louis, Missouri
Cook, Madison & St. Clair Counties, Illinois
06.23.2011	Points of Light
Wisconsin Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Medical Monitoring Claim
In yet another recent "Point of Light" court decision, a three-judge panel of Wisconsin's District III Court of Appeals recently upheld a circuit court's dismissal of a claim for medical monitoring damages.
According to the State Bar of Wisconsin's website, the plaintiffs "claimed that Wauleco, Inc. (Wauleco), corporate successor to the Crestline Millwork Company, was responsible for improper chemical discharges of 'Penta' between 1946 and 1986 near the Crestline factory site. Penta chemicals, classified as possible carcinogens, are used to treat wood products and are capable of causing cancerous and noncancerous diseases."
But the appeal panel's decision in Alsteen v. Wauleco, Inc. held that "a plaintiff does not have a personal injury claim until he or she has suffered 'actual' injury or damage" and that "[i]ncreased risk of future harm is not an actual injury under Wisconsin law."
The court noted that other states have refused to identify future medical monitoring as an injury in a claim for damages, and rejected the plaintiffs' assertion that Wisconsin courts had abandoned the actual injury requirement.
Tags: medical monitoring, Wisconsin
Missouri Judiciary Needs to Address Efficiency Concerns
Activity in state legislatures across the country is starting to ramp up as legislators look to tackle a variety of
Judicial Hellholes
Op-Ed: Courts in 'Judicial Hellholes' Less Likely to Abide by SCOTUS Precedent
There is a growing trend across the nation of state courts in "Judicial Hellholes" rejecting U.S. Supreme Court precedent and
Op-Ed: COVID-19 Lawsuits Ravage Businesses
This piece was originally published by the Washington Times. For those across the country who fear potential lawsuits in the
Since its inception in 2002, the American Tort Reform Foundation's Judicial Hellholes® program has documented in annually published reports various abuses within the civil justice system, focusing primarily on jurisdictions where courts have been radically out of balance.
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Hellhole News
© 2021 Judicial Hellholes.


We're new to sea kayaking and looking for our first boats. We used Stratos on our course and they seemed fine to our limited knowledge.
We would need 1 small and 1 large in at least reasonable condition. We are in Haverfordwest but would drive 2-3 hours to collect.
We need to gear ourselves up so if anyone in the area has any other pieces of kit for sale, please let us know.
Thanks Shiner, I've sourced new Stratos locally at £710 each, but if someone had used boats in OK condition they were passing on, we'd take them.
There was a lady posted a small for sale on here on the 5th Sept.. She was looking for £600 and its near new.. Worth a look if it hasn't gone.
Now sorted with both boats. Thanks.


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Little did Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald know in 1969 that his commitment to social justice would result in a fate some might argue is perhaps worse than death.
California's ultra-conservative prison system, whose roots are both conscious and unconsciously entrenched in a racist tradition, has exacted a dear price from Romaine Fitzgerald by making him pay with more than fifty years of his life.
Eligible for parole since 1976, Romaine Fitzgerald, who also carries the political weight of being a former member of The Black Panther Party has been denied an opportunity to get out of prison while at the same time most prisoners with a similar offense have long been released.
It's also worth noting, that contributing to the poor quality of the prison system, is the absence of a powerful social justice movement, with very few signs of the potent punch carried during the 1960s. This decline contributes to a prison population that is less socially conscious of itself, making Mr. Fitzgerald's release even more uncertain.
The prison authorities are threatened by the politically aware presence of Mr. Fitzgerald, targeting him for disparate treatment on numerous occasions. Without justification or provocation, they have locked him away in solitary confinement over the years, and at least twice they have manufactured the conditions for other inmates to attack him.
In the modern era, prison authorities routinely pit inmates against each other. For a recent example, one only has to look at the experiences of Hugo Pinell, a prisoner politicized by the 1960's era prisoner's rights movement. In 2015, after Mr. Pinell had served 50 years in the prison system, California authorities used members of a neo-Nazi prison gang to murder him in New Folsom. His murder occurred within two weeks after authorities transferred Mr. Pinell to the regular population. Mr. Pinell had served the previous 45 years in solitary confinement. Authorities used his vulnerability to affect his death.
During the summer of 2019, the prison's increased pressure on Romaine Fitzgerald came on the heels of lawyer inquiries and a public petition drive, where thousands of California residents called for his release. This public call for his release made Romaine even more visible to prison authorities, and predictably, in October 2019, the seventy-year old political prisoner became the victim of a physical assault by a fellow inmate.
To date, Romaine, a stroke victim with partial paralysis, has consistently been denied proper housing in an appropriate medical facility. The California Department of Correction's refusal to place the aging Fitzgerald in a medical facility deprives him of his human right to safety. In September 2019 Prison authorities further exacerbated the situation when they executed an unusual search and seizure of Mr. Fitzgerald's cell. This questionable action resulted in the confiscation of Mr. Fitzgerald's legally held belongings, including paper files associated with his efforts to secure parole. Despite not finding any contraband or other illegal items, prison authorities have yet to return Fitzgerald's belongings and despite inquiries, they have yet to respond with an explanation for their confiscation of these legal documents. In addition, prison authorities have denied people with impeccable credentials and backgrounds visitation rights that would allow them to visit Mr. Fitzgerald. Taken together, these orchestrated activities appear to have helped create the conditions necessary to render Chip vulnerable to the most recent physical attack. Authorities have since indicated this attack came as a result of a "routine prison rivalry."
Though perhaps saved by his walking cane, Mr. Fitzgerald sustained significant head injuries in this recent attack. He has yet to receive adequate medical treatment. While the full extent of his injuries are currently being investigated, prison authorities continue to hold Mr. Fitzgerald in solitary confinement and have transferred him to R J Donovan Correctional Facility in the San Diego Calif. area.
The fact that Mr. Fitzgerald has been eligible for parole for 42 years has had no effect on the administration of justice in this case. The fact that 20-year-old Chip's wrongful and hurtful actions that led to the death of a security guard 50 years ago has also had no discernible impact, despite the fact that he has demonstrated remorse and been described by some as a model prisoner and a positive force inside the prison walls. It also seems not to matter that Mr. Fitzgerald, who sometimes requires the use of a wheelchair or a walking cane for mobility, is currently an elderly stroke victim in need of consistent medical care. It appears the California prison system is adamant in its quest to achieve a distorted sense of victory by effecting the slow death of Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald behind bars. We can't let this happen!
We who believe in freedom cannot rest!
We request that you do the following:
Call, tweet, email and write:
California Governor Gavin Newsom
1303 10th Street Suite 1173
Sacramento, Ca. 95814
Insist Romaine Fitzgerald be given decent medical care.
Insist Romaine Fitzgerald be released from solitary confinement and transferred to an appropriate Medical Facility.
Let the Governor know you expect them to follow the rule of law and release Romaine Fitzgerald from prison, as they have others, particularly following California legislation applying to long term youthful offenders in poor health.
Circulate the website petition to California residents/particularly on Twitter and Facebook.
50 Years, Enough is Enough!
5PAROLE HEARINGS:
1515 "K" ST
SACRAMENTO, CA 958
FREE CHIP FITZGERALD
Write to Chip's Parole Board
Pledge A Donation
Writings & Testimonials

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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SearchHOU
Internet Marketing Group Houston
About Houston's Digital Marketing Group
Founded in 2014 by Aaron Eaves, SearchHOU aimed to fill a void in the Houston digital marketing culture. What started out as a handful of people meeting at a local co-working space in the Houston Heights has now grown into a group of more than 500 people strong.
Once per month SearchHOU meets in Houston to discuss topics that range from: search engine optimization (SEO), paid search (PPC), social media, content marketing, video marketing, re-marketing, and other topics in the digital marketing realm. We have local, regional and even national speakers come in and share today's top marketing trends and cutting edge tips to help any business stay ahead of the competition.
SearchHOU is a group for digital marketing professionals that share knowledge, experiments, and tactics with others in our community. Our goal is to give actionable insights that you can take home and use the very next day!
Register today, and join us for our next meetup!
Email: info@searchhou.com
SearchHOU is a group centered around digital marketing education and knowledge sharing.
Copyright © 2023 · SearchHOU


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A Summer of Citizen Artistry
By Akilah Walker, A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program Class of 2017
Staying in the Bay Area this summer has possibly been one of the best decisions I've made since coming to A.C.T. I had the opportunity to work with A.C.T. first at a two-week residency at La Clínica (a health center serving two public schools in East Oakland, Roots International Academy and Coliseum College Prep Academy) and then with A.C.T. Stage Coach's production of Crack. Rumble. Fly.
During the two-week residency at La Clínica, I co-taught two classes back to back. Each class was made up of 20 sixth-grade students—most of whom were Spanish speakers for whom English is a second language—and was 30 minutes long. To most teachers, 30 minutes of class time would sound like a breeze, but for acting—which is extremely improvisational in nature—time constraints like these called for intense preparation to make sure Alec MacPherson (my co-teacher) and I would be able to optimize students' time while also respecting their learning rate.
As it turned out, we had to modify our plans on a daily basis. The first few days, the students were curious, but also very timid, so it took some coaxing to get them to participate. When this happened, Alec and I would have to quickly decide to play another theater game the students felt more comfortable with, or we would have to give examples ourselves of how to play fearlessly.
On one occasion, the students expressed interest in hearing more about our lives in theater, so we set aside our original plan of playing an interactive game. After we shared our stories, I noticed a shift in their behavior. Many of the students were more vocal about their interests in pursuing careers in theater and asked more questions about how the games related back to the field of acting.
Throughout the class, many of the students would speak Spanish to one another and sometimes ask us to speak Spanish to them. I was fascinated and delighted by the students' ability to code switch so fluidly. At first I was intimidated, because I only speak a limited amount of Spanish, but I thought it was extremely important for me to try my best to incorporate the Spanish that I knew when requested. It was also visibly appreciated by the students, who would often give me a head nod or a high five of approval when I was able to do that.
I watched the students gain confidence with each passing class. By the end, many of them were jumping up to volunteer and encouraging each other to participate.
This was one of the first times I've worked with students who didn't choose to be in a drama class. The students informed us that they had only seen one play in their lives—a production of Aladdin that came to their school. Teaching students who had almost no theater experience reminded me how important it is to share theater with communities. I know how positively transformative theater is, so I'm invigorated to continue to do work within communities like the one at La Clínica and to spread the good word about what it is that theater artists do.
The next project I worked on this summer on was the A.C.T. Stage Coach production of Crack. Rumble. Fly.: The Bayview Stories Project. For this project, A.C.T. commissioned playwright Aleshea Harris to write a play about Bayview–Hunters Point, a historically black neighborhood in San Francisco whose residents are gradually being displaced due to gentrification.
Akilah Walker and Mary Booker in A.C.T's production
of Aleshea Harris's Crack. Rumble. Fly., performed
at Mendell Plaza in San Francisco's Bayview
neighborhood. Photo by Haley Seppa.
Harris conceived the play after she listened to story circles in which Bayview–Hunters Point community members came together with A.C.T. staff and students to share their stories about their lives in the Bayview and their experiences of gentrification. I had the honor of sitting in on one of these story circles. In that room, we were able to aid in the process of healing for the community. We all came into that room with heavy, burdened hearts, feeling powerless—but we left with hope. We came into that room as people from different walks of life—but we left in solidarity because we had shared with each other. We cried, we laughed, we performed, and we listened. It was the beginning of theater.
After the story circles were complete and the play was written, my next task was to come on to the project as an understudy for the main character, Mother Marsha. Mother Marsha was played by Mary Booker, a pillar in the Bayview community, an actress and a pioneer of the theater scene there. Because of Booker's age—she's in her mid 80s—A.C.T. asked me to be an understudy who would accompany her onstage and help her with her lines if she needed any assistance. But during rehearsals, my role transformed into a new character in the play: a spirit who guided Mother Marsha. I was thrilled to be playing alongside a woman who held so much respect in her community.
We presented Crack. Rumble. Fly. on the A.C.T. Stage Coach mobile unit in Mendell Plaza as part of a Bayview Arts Festival. It was thrilling to perform in the center of the neighborhood that our story was about. Seeing the faces and hearing the responses of the people witnessing our play was a humbling experience. Though there were some minor missteps along the way and in performance, as there are in any process, we were able to tell a story that people could connect with.
For me, working with La Clínica and on Crack. Rumble. Fly. reiterated the necessity of connecting with others and the importance of serving the community in which you live. It taught me that the best way to feel empowered is to empower someone else. I was able to give my time, energy, creativity, and love to two communities, and they gave the same things back to me and to the people around them. I witnessed the power of theater as a tool for change, whether it was bringing confidence and curiosity to middle school students or inspiring a community to take back and reclaim the place they live. I learned about how to truly lead by having a vision and encouraging people to jump on board and enhance that vision. After having these experiences, I feel prepared to do more work like this in the future. I'm confident in and inspired about community-based theater and learning, and I can't wait to embark on my next journey in this arena.
ACTCommunity ACTEducation&CommunityPrograms AkilahWalker


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Brian Cox
Tony Siragu...
Levan Uchane...
Tony Devon
Misha Kuznet...
Isiah Whitlo... Jr.
Michael Genet
Patrice O'Neal
Al Palago...
Aaron Stanfo...
Screen Shots Trailer
Monty Brogan is about to start his last day of freedom before turning himself into the authorities and serving a seven-year term for drug dealing. He's a charming young man who had always dreamed of being a fireman, following in the working-class footsteps of his father, who has had to put up his bar in Queens as bond so that his son can stay out of jail until his sentence begins. Monty, named for Montgomery Clift, does not know how he managed to get himself into this predicament. It was easy money and it carried so many perks, and you'll feel more than a little sympathy for this young man who has managed to kill his own dream for courtside seats at Madison Square Garden. But before he goes to prison, Monty wants to have one last night out on the town with his two best friends. Frank Slattery is a bond trader, one of the best and most successful risk takers in a very risky business. The other is Jakob Elinsky, an English teacher who envies his friends' lifestyles but who has no intention of ever giving up his job for the easy money, despite the disillusionment of teaching high school students in a tough school. The three young men enjoy the night into the early morning as they eat, drink, and visit the hottest spots in town. It's a sad night for Monty, but he has a plan that neither Frank nor Jacob know about--and it makes for a shocking ending to this brilliant and disturbing story.


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Tasting notes - Code Rouge is a Blanc de Blanc showing great finesse and elegance. Almost crystalline in colour, with fine bubbles, this pale sparkling wine has a floral bouquet combined with aromatic notes of ripe pear, green apple, citrus and a touch of creamy vanilla. Fresh with a refined minerality on the palate and a vibrant finish.


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MSI laptops boosted with new 9th-Gen Intel Core i9...
MSI laptops boosted with new 9th-Gen Intel Core i9 processors
Games just got a whole lot faster.
Sarah Lewis (PC World) on 30 April, 2019 11:30
MSI have revealed that their gaming and content creator laptops will receive CPU and GPU upgrades in May, taking advantage of the new generation of Intel Core i9 processors.
Using Intel's new 9th-gen Core i9 chipsets and NVIDIA GeForce RTX and GTX graphics cards, the company claimed in a press release that the changes will make their laptops 45% faster than their predecessors.
[Related: AMD Radeon VII vs Nvidia GeForce RTX: Which should I buy?]
Credit: MSI
MSI GT63 and GT75 Titan
The updated MSI GT Titan sports the new 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9980HK and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. According to preorder listings on Newegg.com, the new model's base CPU speed (2.4GHz) is slower than its predecessor (8th Gen at 2.9GHz), though the new processor features two more cores and is capable of overclocking up to 5GHz. This is great for newer games like Apex Legends and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.
The content creator line will also receive a new model, the 17-inch P75, alongside a face-lift for the existing 15.6-inch P65. According to preorder listings on Newegg.com, both will feature 9th Gen i9-9980H CPUs out of the box, clocked at 2.3GHz with 8 cores.
Even with 4K UHD displays and GeForce RTX 2070 GPUs, both models still remain lightweight and portable for the artist on-the-go. The P75 weighs in at just 2.25kg, which is impressive for the high-end tech it contains.
MSI P75
"Innovation and technology have always been at the core of MSI and we've successfully partnered with leading brands to craft top-notch gaming solutions for our fans," said Charles Chiang, MSI's global CEO.
Read more Huawei are 'exploring' what a gaming-Matebook might look like
The new line of MSI laptops is currently available for preorder in the United States on Amazon and Newegg.com. MSI have not yet revealed a release date for Australia or New Zealand.
MSI Trident X review: It's easy to make a strong case for this gaming desktop
MSI give the AMD Radeon VII a launch day price
Computex 2019: MSI debut their first NVIDIA Studio Laptops
Tags gamingmsiNVIDIA GeForcecontent creatorsGaming LaptopsIntel Core ProcessorsNvidia GeForce RTX


text:
Neds
Punt Sports
Home Rugby League League News Queensland hold edge in Origin deciders but NSW eyeing three in a...
Queensland hold edge in Origin deciders but NSW eyeing three in a row
Chris Myson
An entertaining 2020 State of Origin series will reach a conclusion on Wednesday when the Queensland Maroons take on the New South Wales Blues.
Queensland recorded a surprise 18-14 win in Adelaide to open the series, only to be brought back down to earth last week when NSW triumphed 34-10 in Sydney on the back of a man-of-the-match display by Nathan Cleary.
That means the series is intriguingly poised at 1-1 ahead of Game III at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
With the help of Opta statistics, we take a look at some of the key talking points ahead of the decider.
THE DECIDER! #Origin pic.twitter.com/h4ckxlVrlv
— NRL (@NRL) November 17, 2020
Queensland have won the last five Game III deciders which have been played outside New South Wales. The most recent of those, in 2017, saw Valentine Holmes score a hat-trick as Cameron Smith was named man-of-the-match.
The Maroons have also won six of the last seven State of Origin matches at Suncorp Stadium, including the previous two at the venue despite trailing at half-time.
NSW, though, triumphed in the last two Origin series and are aiming to seal a third consecutive victory. If achieved, it would be their joint-longest winning run in the format, with NSW previously achieving a three-peat between 2003 and 2005 after their first such streak from 1992 to 1994.
The Maroons will have to improve defensively, having conceded 26 or more points in three of the last four State of Origin matches, three of which have been losses. They had only leaked that many points once in the 11 games prior.
Daly Cherry-Evans was man-of-the-match in Game I. He has 11 one-on-one tackles, the most of anyone in this series so far. Queensland players also come second and third in that ranking, thanks to the efforts of Dane Gagai (10) and Kurt Capewell (eight).
Phillip Sami has made a joint-series high two try saves for Queensland in this State of Origin campaign, level with Gagai (two) and as many as the entire New South Wales team combined (Tyson Frizell and Daniel Saifiti have one each).
Josh Addo-Carr has scored a series-leading four tries in 2020 and the New South Wales star needs one more to equal the record for the most in single edition. That is jointly held by Ryan Girdler and Lote Tuqiri, who had five each in the 2000 campaign.
Game 3, 2012 Cooper Cronk cold-blooded!#Origin pic.twitter.com/Gb03zaukJq
Deciders played in Queensland have typically seen NSW start fast. They have led at half-time on nine previous occasions, going on to win in six of those fixtures (L3).
Having won last year's decider 26-20, New South Wales will be looking to claim back-to-back victories in Game III for only the second time in State of Origin history.
They have only previously done so in 2004 and 2005. The 2019 decider saw them edge an entertaining encounter 26-20 courtesy of a last-gasp James Tedesco try in Sydney.
New South Wales' Tedesco has scored three tries in his last two appearances in Origin deciders. In those contests, he has also made four line breaks and 13 tackle breaks.
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FX Attacks Nuns
*subhead*Bad habit.*subhead*
Now, I'll admit that when I heard there was going to be a horror show including nuns I just figured it was a documentary of the Nuns on the Bus. But I was wrong. It turns out FX is creating a show in which Jessica Lange will portray a nun (what could go wrong?) who's pretty darn terrible to the inmates in her asylum.
The Catholic League reports:
"American Horror Story: Asylum" is the work of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk; they worked together on "Glee" and "Nip/Tuck." Murphy is another angry ex-Catholic homosexual. Falchuk's mother is the past national president of Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization (one might have thought that at least he would have learned to respect other religions).
The plot is sinister. Sr. Jude, played by Jessica Lange, is a sadistic nun who beats inmates in a Massachusetts asylum. Set in 1964, Sr. Jude, who likes to wear red lingerie beneath her full habit, lusts after Msgr. O'Hara, who also has dark intentions. Inmates include a nymphomaniac, a lesbian, a degenerate bully, and Bloody Face (a serial murderer who wears the skins of his victims as a mask). We also meet Dr. Arden, a physician who is fond of torturing the mental patients; this explains why co-creator Murphy says of this character, "People think he's a Nazi."
There's more, but you get the point: FX has decided to portray Sr. Jude as a monster who runs an evil Catholic home for the criminally insane.
When the Vatican attempts to correct wayward nuns and sisters, it's eeeeeeeevil. But a television show depicts nuns as murderous evil religious wackos and that's just hunky dory. Oh wait, it's art. And that's like way more important than the state of someone's soul. Like it's not even close. Duh.
matthew archbold
Did someone in Hollywood think there was something original about this?
And how does she get her lingerie and get away with it?
And I might be a little uptight around the skin guy myself.
Der Tommissar
The real injustice here is making us think Jessica Lange is relevant and that anyone wants to see her in red lingerie.
David L Alexander
Tommy Boy:
I don't think we'll actually SEE her in red lingerie. Just mentioning it is more than enough.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Sounds as if the plot of ASYLUM might be as artistic and as relevant as those 19 minutes of THE INNOCENCE OF MOHAMMED.
Let's see if the President apologizes to the Catholic Church and begs the creators of this trash to can it.
Rick DeLano
Let's see if the Pope and bishops command that all Catholics involved with the production of this satanic filth disassociate themselves from the network responsible.
Let's see if they personally lead protests outside the sodomite executive's offices.
They won't.
There is no hope for this generation of prelates.
Persecution is coming, and our bishops will smile and dine with the perpetrators.
Steve "scotju" Dalton
Matt, what makes you think that someone like Brad Falchuk would have any respect for the Church? He's a member of a religious/ethnic group that has been at loggerheads with us since 33 AD. Their religion is officially Anti-Christian. People like Falchuk never miss an opportunity to do the Church dirt. And as long as our mass media is owned and controlled by Falchuk's co-ethnics, we will see our faith smeared over and over again.
New Jersey Criminal Defense Attorney
Vincent James Sanzone, Jr., Esq.
(AMDG)
If every practicing Catholic cancelled their cable service over protest of this filth against our Holy Church, the executives of this filth peddling would get the message.


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Dromore Palace
THE foundation of this diocese is ascribed to St Colman in the 6th century.
St Colman founded an abbey here for Canons Regular, which afterwards became the head of a see, of which he was made the first bishop.
The abbey had acquired extensive possessions early in the 10th century, and was frequently plundered by the Danes; it also suffered materially from the continued feuds of the powerful septs of the O'Neills, Magennises, and the Macartans.
In the 14th century, Sir John Holt and Sir Robert Belknap, being convicted of treason against RICHARD II, were condemned to death, but on the intercession of the clergy, were banished for life to Dromore, County Down.
At the reformation the cathedral was in ruins, and the town had greatly participated in the devastations of the preceding periods; in this situation it remained till 1610, when JAMES I re-founded the see by letters patent, rebuilt the cathedral, and gave to the bishop extensive landed possessions in this and several adjoining parishes.
An episcopal palace was commenced by Bishop Buckworth, but previously to its completion the war of 1641 broke out, and the cathedral, the unfinished palace, and the town were entirely destroyed by the parliamentarian forces.
From this point the town remained in ruins till the Restoration, when CHARLES II gave the see in commendam to the celebrated Jeremy Taylor, with Down and Connor, by whom the present church, which is also parochial, was built on the site of the ruined cathedral.
THE SEE of Dromore is extremely compact, and the smallest in extent of any in the island of Ireland, which is not annexed to another see.
It extends only 35 miles from north to south; and 21 from east to west; yet it includes some part of three counties, namely Down, Armagh, and Antrim.
The lordship of Newry claimed the same exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, to which it was entitled when it appertained to a monastery before the Reformation.
The proprietor of the lordship, the EARL OF KILMOREY, exercised the jurisdiction in his peculiar court, granting marriage licences, probates to wills etc under the old monastic seal.
THE PALACE, Dromore, County Down, afterwards called Dromore House or Bishopscourt, was a three-storey, Georgian house built in 1781 by the Rt Rev and Hon William Beresford, Lord Bishop of Dromore, 1780-82.
The palace was enhanced by Bishop Beresford's successor, the Rt Rev Thomas Percy (1729-1811), who laid out plantations, gardens and a glen, adorned with obelisks.
The palace was frequented by a circle of poets and painters during Bishop Percy's time, including Thomas Robinson, a pupil of the portrait painter George Romney.
The last prelate to reside at the palace was the Rt Rev James Saurin, Lord Bishop of Dromore, 1819-42.
It was sold in 1842, when the See of Dromore was merged with Down and Connor.
Dromore House was in use for some years in the late 1800s as a Jesuit school, when it was known as Loyola House.
Thereafter the old episcopal palace remained "untenanted and desolate."
After 1945 the trees and woods were all cut down and the house was left to decay.
First published in January, 2013.
Labels: Episcopal Palaces
walkers said...
I teach in a school near the site of the old palace, and can confirm that it was demolished in the 1970s. There is a photograph of the palace in its derelict state in the UAHS list for Mid Down. By the way, I visit this blog every day - super!
There is a modern house either on - or near - the site and it is called "Bishopscourt".
Newry Liam said...
The Jesuits bought the palace using it as a school and seminary. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was based there for a while. The Jesuits planted a large cross of trees in the grounds unfortunately this has been cut down in living memory
Demetrius said...
Dr.Jeremy Taylor in the 17th Century? I wonder what he might have made of the Society of Jesus being on site?
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The Queen's Birthday
Moydrum Castle
Corick House
Old Court Chapel
Prince Philip's Final Visit
Salterbridge House
Christie of Coleraine
Copeland Islands
Greenmount Manor
Rathcavan
Ram's Island Cottage
The Stupendous Trip
Rockdale House
1st Baron Newtownbutler
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, 1921-2021
The Ferguson Baronetcy
Ardnalea House
Lisburn Manor House
Slaghtfreedan Lodge
Manor of Florida: III
Wilmont House
Donegall Square: 1844
Kilmood Vicarage
Ballinacourty House
Tullynakill Visit
Boyd of Ballycastle


Spectacular views of Savannah, florals, ice carvings, holiday décor and, of course, delicious food!
The price for Brunch is $75.00 for adults and $30.00 for children ages 6 - 12 years old. Price includes bottomless mimosas!


Dave prepaired Flank Steak with Dave's Rub, Roasted Red Peper and Leek Soup, and a Blueberry Pecan Crumble. All were very tasty. I was particulalry impresessed with the crumble.
I also got a signed copy of Daves cookbook Young & Hungry. Awesome!
What a day! It was worth the hour long bus ride through a rather unsavory part of NJ to get to the Short Hills Mall, a high end mall actually. Fairly bizzare, it's like finding Fashion Island in the middle of Garden Grove. Crazy state.
Note to self: Still need a good grill pan, perferable cast iron, some good industrial knives and perhaps an immersion blender. And an ice cream maker, just because.


How many of you have spent an afternoon floating down a river? If you haven't made this sunlit trip, I highly recommend it.
My experience with this activity was a lot of fun. It was a social activity with family, it was on a lovely sunny day, it was in a river that was quite low (so I never feared that this foray into the rapids and sluices would be my last) and it was easy to just enjoy. We rode a rickety, clattering bus, loaded with people and gear, to the launching point well upstream of our parking spot. We dragged or carried our kayaks down the ramp to the water, a wonderful spot in the shade of a bridge overpass. We slogged into shallow water, trying our best to hold boat and booze and hats and other gear, and then, slipping and teetering and laughing all the way, we somehow ended up floating, silently slipping into the already moving clear current.
The next few hours were really, really nice. Sun dappled water. Greenery everywhere. Something new around every bend. Places that were so shallow that the more weighty of us had to portage to get to the next cool, deep pool. Cows. Yeah, cows. That part was really cool. One straight run terminated in a very small but exciting rapids that we all had to negotiate to move on down the river. There was no thinking about it. In true Master Yoda fashion, there was no try, only do. We were never in any danger, but the rapid acceleration and feeling of being shot out of a small water cannon made the pulse rise. The other hysterical part of shooting those rapids was the fact that there was a campsite of Deliverence-esque people on the other side. I kept listening for banjo music and watching the treeline high above us for the glint of a rifle barrel.
Navigating the increasingly harrowing river of digital technology is something that most, but not all, of us have a good deal of experience with.
I think with many people who love what they love and cannot see any possible way to love new things that do not have a cathode ray tube, belt drive or vacuum tube, it is a daunting proposition indeed. Those folks,and you may be among them, are basically swimming up stream. They are trying, half heartedly, to put in well downstream, paddle like mad to get back upstream to the place they parked their Edsels, but it is a lost cause they know it. The current, even at its shallowest, shadiest, most placid point, is simply too strong to fight for very long. The digital river, as all rivers, flows inexorably to the sea.
We now have at our fingertips hundreds of thousands of books, magazines and newspapers, blogs like this one, transcripts of speeches, and a multitude of other digitized print material. We can access, by buying or streaming, millions of songs and performances of all kinds. We can watch television shows from the time there were television shows, plus thousands of Oscar winning movies and serials and documentaries. We can listen to audiobooks and attend classes at the finest colleges and universities, all by clicking, tapping and swiping.
It is like trying to drink from a firehose. If one insists on fighting it, taking it all in, missing nothing, one will surely drown. You can try to swim upstream in the digital river, but the 1s and 0s will swirl around you, eddying and deepening until they fill your lungs and you gasp for air for the last time.
Now, all is not lost, and a watery grave of code does not have to be the end of you.
Just like preparing to launch oneself into a river to enjoy the afternoon sun, one can prepare to enter the digital world and really enjoy the journey.
First, wear good shoes. Just like the sharp rocks that lurk just under the inviting water, there are pitfalls in the digital space that will snag you if you let them. Educate yourself. Read. Learn. Know what is on the seedy bottom of the twenty first century stream. Viruses, phishing, identity theft, and scams of all types wait on the bottom like whiskered catfish. There are bottom feeders everywhere in this new cyber world.
Put in at a safe place. You wouldn't start your journey down a river by launching yourself off the highest falls you could find. Start in the shallows. Read a digital book. Buy a song or two. Download a movie or a television show. Get the hang of how it's done.
Slowly explore deeper waters. Learn how to access whole seasons of your favorite shows. Find out how to borrow digital books instead of buying them. Decide if buying music is still for you, or if a subscription streaming service better suits your needs.
Be excited, carefully so, about what is around the next bend. Once you get the hang of this music and book and movie thing, you're going to see augmented reality, virtual reality, and self driving cars in the next decade. Exciting? Heck yes! Scary? Heck yes!
Explore new things that make your pulse quicken. Learn how to take a virtual course in Chinese culture, how to be a part of a storm chasing team, or how to cook Indian food. It's all out there, and so much more. It's easy to find and even easier to take advantage of. You just simply have to put your oar in the water and paddle.
My advice to those of you who are still put off by this brave new world, frightened that things are not what they used to be and appear to never be going back?
You have all the time in the world. The river keeps moving, but that is the scary AND the reassuring part. It should keep moving for a very long time to come.
Get in, pop a cold one, raise your face to the sun, and float.


text:
Q: I would like to use a buttons output in tkinter to answer an input in another function This is a simple memory game, where the voice says a number, and you have to click the button with the same number. I want to use it with comparing lists. If you guessed correctly one the code will add another, and another and so on. My problem is, that I have the buttons and with the function button click I can define the values with print. I have the code where it should be linked, but I cannot lined them together. Please help me :)
import pyttsx3
import time
import random
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.title("A little memory game")

sound_or_color = IntVar()  # for radiobutton 1, sound, 2 color
quiz_list = []  # this will be the random number
your_list = []  # this will get the input form the buttons
guess = StringVar()  # for the label to add guesses
best_score = 2
best_score_final = IntVar()
best_score_final.set(best_score)
actual_score_actual = IntVar()

def button_click(number):
    your_list.append(number)
    print(your_list)

def game():
   # if sound_or_color == 1:  # this will work with sound
    actual_score = 0
    global best_score
    while True:
        # this will generate the task, each round
        quiz_number = random.randint(1, 9)
        quiz_list.append(quiz_number)
        speaker = pyttsx3.init()
        speaker.say(quiz_list)
        speaker.runAndWait()
        print(quiz_list)
        guess.set("click your guess(es)")

        **# take the user's guess:
        for i in range(0, len(quiz_list)):
            # your_list.append(int(input()))         <------the problematic part
            button_click()**

        # was the guess right?
        if quiz_list == your_list:
            actual_score += 1
            actual_score_actual.set(actual_score)
            your_list.clear()

        else:
            end_text = "Coungratulation, your score is", actual_score
            your_list.clear()
            quiz_list.clear()
            speaker2 = pyttsx3.init()
            speaker2.say(end_text)
            speaker2.say("Click the start button, to play again")
            speaker2.runAndWait()
            if actual_score > best_score:
                best_score = actual_score
                best_score_final.set(best_score)
            break

# labels:
label_best = tk.Label(root, text="best score: ",
                      textvariable=best_score_final, fg="#900C3F")
label_score = tk.Label(root, text="actual score: ",
                       textvariable=actual_score_actual, fg="#07A0F1")
label_best2 = tk.Label(root, text="best score: ", fg="#900C3F")
label_score2 = tk.Label(root, text="actual score: ", fg="#07A0F1")
label_input = tk.Label(root, textvariable=guess)

# define buttons:
button_start = Button(root, text="Start",
                      command=game, bg="#65B9E5")

button_0 = Radiobutton(root, text="with sound",
                       variable=sound_or_color, value=1)
button_10 = Radiobutton(root, text="with color",
                        variable=sound_or_color, value=2)

button_1 = Button(root, text="1", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(1))
button_2 = Button(root, text="2", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(2))
button_3 = Button(root, text="3", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(3))
button_4 = Button(root, text="4", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(4))
button_5 = Button(root, text="5", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(5))
button_6 = Button(root, text="6", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(6))
button_7 = Button(root, text="7", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(7))
button_8 = Button(root, text="8", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(8))
button_9 = Button(root, text="9", padx=40, pady=20,
                  command=lambda: button_click(9))

# Put buttons on the screen
label_input.grid(row=0, column=0, columnspan=3)
button_1.grid(row=1, column=0)
button_2.grid(row=1, column=1)
button_3.grid(row=1, column=2)

button_4.grid(row=2, column=0)
button_5.grid(row=2, column=1)
button_6.grid(row=2, column=2)

button_7.grid(row=3, column=0)
button_8.grid(row=3, column=1)
button_9.grid(row=3, column=2)

button_0.grid(row=4, column=0)
button_10.grid(row=4, column=1)
button_start.grid(row=4, column=2)

label_score2.grid(row=5, column=0)
label_best2.grid(row=5, column=1)
label_score.grid(row=6, column=0)
label_best.grid(row=6, column=1)

root.mainloop()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Bogleech.com Reviews Thing Transformations
John Carpenter's The Thing isn't just an adorable manga character. It's also one of the most frightening monster movies possibly ever filmed, in concept and in its beautiful, haunting, paranoid final execution, yet we've never talked about it all that much on here until now. Since I'm devoting some of this year's Halloween II to "mainstream" horror, it feels like the right time to offer my opinions on the many forms taken by this incredible being.
KENNEL THING
The Thing is famously taking the form of an ordinary husky at the start of the film, and I always appreciated the initial red flag of the dog so calmly sitting and stiffly staring forward when brought into the kennel, completely unfazed by the other dogs so disturbed by its presence. Later, the dog's head abruptly peels open into a blossom of red flesh, the skull simply drops off, a flailing tongue and a number of spider-like appendages crackle out of its sides. A great first impression! It's also interesting how it begins to squirt a clear fluid over the other dogs. You could speculate that it's some sort of paralyzing toxin or digestive acid, but it really doesn't need either of them. What we learn over the course of the film is of course that if you touch so much as touch this organism, it will exponentially begin to replace your tissues with its own, so I feel like the fluid needed only be a means of delivering its cellular material.
The "dog" soon loses its fur, and a new, embryonic and highly distorted facsimile of a dog begins to sprout from its sides. The hissing, slimy, earless dog-head is, I think, one of the movie's most iconic images; it has just enough familiarity to us to be especially disturbing, and I love the crackling, woody sound we hear when its new limbs emerge!
I think one of the very next forms we see is highly underrated however; this bleeding pile of swollen skin and very human eyes is quite frankly terrifying to look at even in a still image. The utter wrongness of these recognizable features and tissues in this random arrangement is so much worse than the forms with claws or jaws or tentacles, and it's marvelously complemented by guttural moaning sounds.
The skin-blob cracks open before you can even really take it in, but that was quite deliberate; John Carpenter has said that he wanted the creature to change just rapidly enough that you could never quite finish processing one form to the next. I honestly love how imperfect some of these effects looked, too, by which I mean the way this prop rips open is very plasticy and inelegant, but in a way that I feel is actually more realistic than the smoother, "cool looking" transformations you get with CG effects. I love that network of orange, webby tissue just under the skin!
What emerges from the split is a bizarre, plant-like mouth on the end of a short stalk, and I somehow never realized that the intention here was for this appendage to be formed out of dog tongues and dog teeth! The Thing is experimentally remixing the physiology it has absorbed! This is the most compelling thing about this creature; that its body is like an archive of every living thing it has ever consumed, and it can recall any part of any of them whenever it wants, combining them together in new ways.
It's an aspect of the monster that, unfortunately, doesn't get that much attention in the movie itself either; we never see it take on forms again that feel combined with totally alien species.
The last we see of the kennel form is its burnt remains, or part of it anyway; the part that didn't haul itself up into the ceiling at the last minute. The demonic face of this faux-dog is a bit gauche, but that's part of the fun. I feel like every time the thing seems to be "trying too hard" to be scary, it's the unrealistic comic-book-ish look and feel that actually makes it more unsettling, like it's really perverting and twisting our natural world into something ridiculously wrong.
BENNINGS THING
That said, I think the creepiest form taking in the whole film is one of the subtler ones. It looks exactly like a human, a specific human, but hasn't finished replicating "Bennings" quite perfectly yet, and still has bizarre, chaotic flesh-hands. The way it stares, opens its mouth, and emits a truly unearthly sound is one of the most chilling moments in horror cinema, in my honest opinion, as if it's making a last-ditch effort to communicate but hasn't quite sorted out how that's supposed to work. It is, after all, the first time we actually see and know for sure that it has replicated a human, and perhaps it took some time for it to adopt our actual thought processes and language skills.
NORRIS THING
The single most dramatic and best-remembered sequence begins when Vance Norris appears to have a heart attack. CPR ends up caving in his chest unexpectedly, which reveals jagged fangs and chomps down on the would-be rescuscitator. I always enjoyed how crude and sloppy those teeth are; they're really just rough shards of some hardened tissue, and they look truly grisly, even a little "disgusting," not a word I ever usually use to describe any biological form.
I love the way this orifice then proceeds to spew bright green-yellow goo while similarly colorful tubes and hoses flail around inside. Our director wanted the forms of the creature to have a pulp B-movie feel with cheesy "alien blood," and felt that this would actually be more frightening to the audience than more human-like gore, and he was absolutely correct. The goofiness of the brightly colorful, alien body fluids contributes, I think, to a sickening sort of dreaminess.
What erupts from the body is another spider-limbed form, but it also has a fuzzy, chitinous attempt at human legs and a thick, worm-like neck topped by a monstrous exaggeration of Norris's original face. I always liked the tissue dangling between this and the body on the table, and how the whole shape of this form really does feel like some spur-of-the-moment slapdash transformation once the monster has been "found out." The spidery legs are even oriented especially for it to cling to the ceiling! It's honestly fascinating how well the Thing can pretend to be a normal person, but kind of "panics" and gets its anatomy scrambled up once it's been found out.
I also love just how ridiculous this face is up close. Again, I don't like to call any creature "disgusting," but the wet, veiny skin here is extremely unpleasant, the walleyed stare is nightmarishly uncanny and I must again praise the "hokiness" when it comes to those monstrous fangs. It may be a bit much, but that's what makes it feel like even more of an unholy parody of the human form.
This is also why I so love the next scene, when what seemed to be Norris's original head just stretches away from the body, neon green ichor spattered all around. It was this scene that I came upon on TV as a small child and, at that moment, found almost traumatizingly horrendous. I didn't even see what happened next, which I'm not sure my young mind could have handled. No, I just saw this puppet of a human head stretching and distorting for a split second, tongue waving about mindlessly, and I screamed bloody murder.
I would have been truly sickened and probably damn near inconsolable had I watched long enough to see the stretched, rubbery neck start to snap, spurting more of the green slime until it basically dripped down from the body, lashed a long tongue out and dragged itself away. Absolutely. Horrific.
...Which is how we get the single most iconic scene in the whole movie, one of the most famous moments of any monster movie, when the head not only sprouts spider legs but a pair of goofy, snaily eye-stalks out of its neck stump! The decision to keep the head upside-down was commendable, as there is no reason the creature would need to keep it in a human orientation. This moment is so whimsically twisted and the design so fun, I'm not sure this movie would even have been quite as fondly remembered without it. Still a good movie, obviously, but sometimes the general public's capacity to really remember a movie, good or bad, all comes down to a particular moment you couldn't forget if you tried.
PALMER THING
The movie's only sudden "jump scare" comes when they decide to test everyone's blood with a heated wire, hoping that the blood of the monster will avoid the head of its own volition. They are correct, and I always remember that glob of blood shrieking and leaping in pain. An unofficial short story, The Things, would later propose that the entity didn't actually need to feel pain if it didn't want to, but played along with this test to hide the fact that it had already taken one of the other men.
With the blood revealed, "Palmer" begins to convulse, and soon his head splits completely open into a pair of jaws! Nice! It even has another tentacle-tongue just so it can drag someone else into its maw. The Thing may easily panic, but it's still a master of improvisation.
The way Palmer also springs straight up, back-first, and sticks to the ceiling is just weird as hell. It's not just the designs, but the abnormal things the creature does that really sell it.
BLAIR THING
Are we really at the end so soon? There isn't really all that much Thing in The Thing, but every moment we see it on-screen is so memorable, we barely need to see much more.
Blair is the last person proven to have been The Thing by the end fo the film, and the final form it takes is largely unseen, with a fleshy trunk that continues all the way under the floor and presumably deep into the ground, but what we do see is a mush-mash of Blair with the dog forms from earlier! It really feels by this point like the monster is trying to blend in better with our world, practicing humans and dogs - the only two Earth species we know for sure that it encountered! Unless, of course, it picked up the arthropod legs from a cockroach or a house spider or something.
We've now covered every iteration of The Thing in the original film, but we've still got a bit more to go over...
AMALGAMATED DYNAMICS' THING
If you're here, you probably know that The Thing had a poorly received 2011 prequel, and if you've seen both movies, you probably already know what I'm about to say.
These clips demonstrate the phenomenal animatronics made for the film by the studio Amalgamated Dynamics. As the tests progress, I think you'll agree that their puppets show an astonishingly life-like array of believable, organic movements that would have looked especially convincing as an abnormal, shape-warping horror in the darkness of the final film. Unfortunately, company higher-ups thought otherwise, disliking the puppetry and having it completely covered over with brighter, smoother, more fluid and more over-the-top computer animation.
It honestly makes me sad enough that I don't have it in me to review the forms from 2011 scene-by-scene; I just wanted to at least momentarily touch on what could have been. Speaking of which...
DALE KUIPER'S THING
In the earliest drafts of John Carpenter's own film, The Thing was a remarkably different foe conceived by the late effects artist Dale Kuiper. A shocking turn of events involving a physical assault, unrelated to the film's production, landed Kuiper in the hospital with no hope of returning to the project, and his successors have said that they retired his designs out of respect for him, rather than any dissatisfaction with them. This, unfortunately, did not please Kuiper at all, who spent the rest of his life openly resentful that his vision was scrapped.
The idea that the creature could disguise itself as anyone or anything was already central to the story, but Kuiper felt it needed a "true" or "original" form, and one vulnerable enough that the audience could hold out a little more hope for the humans, something he felt would increase the film's excitement.
For this "true" Thing, Dale imagined a small, globular, arthropod-like form almost like a "floating head," with long crustaceoid limbs. Within this central body was the fluid the creature chould shape into any additional appendages or tissues it desired, to the point that it could even grow a complete body around itself in any form imaginable...or merge itself into the body of another creature, lying in wait as a parasite until ready to strike. Even the dog kennel scene was already scripted in this version, the parasite hiding inside and controlling a normal dog until it chose to consume its host and explode into a ball of weird, alien appendages and flesh.
You could be harboring this version of the monster without knowing, and instead of the blood test scene of the final version, our protagonists would have realized that they needed to compare everyone's weight to their last medical record.
Carpenter himself had, at the time, also requested a creature "with no Earthly means of mobility," and so Dale concocted an entity with a biologically impractical but nonetheless fantastic mechanism of locomotion. Completely covered in what Dale called "projection tubes," the monster would have constantly shot a web of "light-propelled pseudopods" from its body, like energy beams with a living tissue core. These beams would have "solidifed into tempered steel-strength and then dissolve to powder in the next instant," creating a latticework that held the creature off the ground but dissolved and re-formed rapidly enough to propel it at lightning speed.
How this effect would have even been achieved at the time, I can't even imagine. Perhaps the web would have been an animation effect, resembling a field of crackling energy bolts connecting the entity to the architecture around it? According to Dale's notes, what appeared to be the monster's "eyes" were "solar collectors" that took in every variety of energy in order to fuel its "multiviscous life fluid."
Things didn't nearly end there, either, because Dale's Thing was also an illusionist. Yes, it could already change shape and disguise itself as anything imaginable, but it could additionally warp the perceptions of other beings in ways indistinguishable from reality. Imagine, then, a scenario almost like a ghostly haunting, where your friends are warping into monsters and even the scenery around you is distorting in impossible, confounding ways...but some of it is real. The physical monster, the thing actually capable of touching and killing you, could be lurking anywhere within its own funhouse of nightmarish hallucinations.
It's all a truly fascinating idea, I have a lot of respect for what Dale wanted to accomplish and I'm as disappointed as he is that his psychic, parasitic, flesh-molding nightmare-bug from space didn't go down as one of our culture's famous movie monsters. However, I do feel that the simplicity of the final Thing - a straightforward "intelligent infection" that can re-shape its host - is actually a lot easier for audiences to swallow and, yes, much more frightening. Maybe one of the most frightening monster concepts ever put to cinema.
Dale felt instead that this being was "confusing," even senseless, without having a "true form" or mortal core of some kind, and he believed this was why The Thing was inititally a box office failure. Of course, as a 1982 film, it was also up against E.T, Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, Conan the Barbarian, The Wrath of Khan, Tron and even Poltergeist. Seriously?! Those were all the same year?!
I feel that, as cool as Dale's monster was, it might have felt just slightly more like Alien than the formless being we wound up with, and while its design could have certainly become iconic and the movie likely would have at least gained a cult following, I daresay it might have held back The Thing from the level of esteem it has today; that as much as I'd have disagreed with such an attitude, I can easily see it going down as a "cheesier" and less menacing monster with that comprehensible "true form."
Still, it would have certainly left a better impression than the "true form" described in the original story, Who Goes There?...a bright blue, three-eyed humanoid with tentacle hair. Cute, but nowhere near as terrifying as either the Dale Kuiper vision or formless, infectious flesh.
And then of course we have the first film adaptation of the story, "The Thing From Another World," which dropped all mimicry and shapeshifting entirely for a somehow "plant-based" humanoid that drains the blood of its victims, and is finally found to be vulnerable to electricity.
The Thing went through an odd journey of concepts before someone finally said "what if it didn't look like anything at all?" And as much of a fan as I am of creature design, I really admire the move to basically not even have one. I do wish that the creature's transformations in the final product got more alien, less like the same pieces of human, dog and nondescript arthropod we kept seeing, and it's a shame that the 2011 film was seemingly going to rectify that. Still, I stand by my statement that film has never before or since had a biological monster so frightening; a truly "all purpose" monster complete with an aspect of invasive body horror and paranoia.
One detail also bears mentioning: that as with Dale Kuiper's version, production information has confirmed that people replaced by the Thing don't always know it.


text:
Edir Macedo (* 18. Februar 1945 in Rio das Flores, Bundesstaat Rio de Janeiro) ist ein brasilianischer Unternehmer und Begründer und selbsternannter Bischof der Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD), eine als Wirtschaftsunternehmen strukturierte neo-charismatische Denomination der Pfingstbewegung mit ca. 8 Millionen Anhängern weltweit und dem Hauptsitz in Rio de Janeiro. Er ist u. a. Eigentümer eines weltlichen Firmenkonglomerats mit Verlagen, Supermärkten, Reisebüros, Holzfabriken, Immobilien-Unternehmen und vor allem einem Medienimperium mit Dutzenden von Fernseh- und Radiostationen im ganzen Land, darunter der brasilianische TV-Sender Rede Record, den er 1989 für 45 Millionen US-Dollar kaufte. Laut Forbes (2013) ist Macedo der mit Abstand reichste Pastor in Brasilien. 2013 wurde sein Vermögen auf 950 Millionen bis 1,2 Milliarden US-Dollar geschätzt. Macedo lebt mit seiner Familie in New York City.

Leben
Nach seiner Schulzeit war Macedo als Lotterieverkäufer in Brasilien tätig. Macedo verließ die römisch-katholische Kirche, weil er zuvor eine emotionale Enttäuschung in seinem Privatleben erlebt hatte. Daraufhin gründete er 1977 eine eigenständige pfingstlerische Kirche, die Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (deutsch: Universalkirche des Reiches Gottes) in Rio de Janeiro.

Edir Macedo, der sich Bischof nennt, predigt nicht nur die Liebe Gottes; der Gründer der fundamentalistischen Freikirche ist auch ein Meister im Eintreiben von Spenden. Die "Universalkirche" ist mit rund acht Millionen Mitgliedern weltweit eine der größten Kirchen Brasiliens und drängt die katholische Kirche immer weiter zurück. In fünftausend Zentren werden Millionen Gläubige mit fragwürdigen Methoden indoktriniert. Obwohl er immer wieder in Skandale verwickelt war, blüht sein "Gottesreich" prächtig. 2009 geriet Macedo in eine Affäre wegen Spendenveruntreuung und wurde wegen Gründung einer kriminellen Vereinigung von der brasilianischen Staatsanwaltschaft angeklagt. Dabei ging es um etwa 1,5 Milliarden Euro, die die "Universalkirche" zwischen 2003 und 2008 auf Umwegen in brasilianischen Unternehmen, u. a. auch in Schmuck, angelegt haben soll. Seither ermitteln die Staatsanwaltschaften in New York City und in São Paulo aufgrund unklarer Finanztransaktionen gemeinsam gegen die Universalkirche. Ende April 2010 sagten zwei Devisenhändler aus, zwischen 1995 und 2001 etwa 5 Millionen Real (2,2 Millionen Euro) monatlich illegal aus Brasilien in die USA geschleust zu haben. Insgesamt ging es um etwa 400 Millionen Real (180 Millionen Euro).

Die Anklage hielt der Bewegung vor, Spenden mit Hilfe ausländischer Strohfirmen für den Aufbau von Medienorganisationen verwendet zu haben. Die brasilianische Verfassung erlaubt religiösen Organisationen nur, Einrichtungen zur Glaubensausübung zu finanzieren. Zu Macedo's Kirche gehört der Fernsehsender Rede Record, mehrere Radiostationen und drei Tageszeitungen sowie ein Reiseunternehmen und eine Lufttaxi Fluggesellschaft. Ihr politischer Arm, die Republikanische Partei Brasiliens, ist im Parlament mit 35 Abgeordneten vertreten und unterstützte den ehemaligen Staatspräsidenten Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In ihren Medien bezeichnete die "Universalkirche" die Anklage als Verleumdungskampagne. Frühere Ermittlungen gegen die Kirche wegen Unterschlagung und Steuerhinterziehung waren ergebnislos geblieben.

Imperiumsaufbau
Ein großer Teil des Vermögens stammt von Spenden: Die Universalkirche verlangt von ihren Gläubigen mindestens zehn Prozent des Einkommens, die aber nur für kirchliche Zwecke gebraucht werden dürften. Macedo war schon im Gefängnis, weil er sich als Teufelsaustreiber, Wunderheiler und Scharlatan hervorgetan hat. Er peitscht die Gläubigen emotional derart auf, dass es oft zu Massenhysterien kommt. Mehrfach füllte er das größte Fußballstadion von Rio mit Hunderttausenden Anhängern. Tausende warfen bei den Gottesdiensten Brillen und Stöcke auf den Rasen, weil sie in ihrer Euphorie glaubten, sie seien geheilt worden.

Auf seinen eigenen TV-Kanälen lässt Sektenführer Macedo Gläubige auftreten, die behaupten, von Aids, Krebs und Lähmungen genesen zu sein. Boris Herrmann schreibt in seinem Artikel zum brasilianischen Fernsehprogramm: "Das Programm besteht vor allem aus moralischer Lehrmeisterei, es ist offen schwulenfeindlich und tendenziell anti-islamistisch." Macedo hat auch Kontrolle über eine Partei namens Partido Republicano Brasileiro, die im Nationalkongress Abgeordnete stellt. Seine Anhänger bekleiden politische Ämter, zum Beispiel das Amt des 2017 gewählten Bürgermeisters von Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Crivella.

Zwischenzeitlich überlegte Macedo, bei Wahlen anzutreten, um in Brasilien "einen theokratischen Staat zu errichten". Inzwischen unterstützt er die Regierung von Jair Bolsonaro.

Sein Sender Record finanzierte den 2018 erschienenen Kinofilm Nada a perder (Nichts zu verlieren) über Edir Macedos Leben, der auf seiner Autobiografie beruht, von Kritikern als Glorifizierung bezeichnet wird und der mit Gratistickets in den Kirchen zum Blockbuster gemacht wird. Ein zweiter Teil ist für 2019 angekündigt.

Im Zuge der COVID-19-Pandemie in Brasilien sorgte Macedo für Unmut, als er das Coronavirus als Erfindung der Medien bzw. "Strafe Satans" bezeichnete.

Audio
 Brasilianische Freikirche in Berlin "Das Geld ist der Grundstein im Werk Gottes", von Peter B. Schumann, Deutschlandfunk Kultur 6. Oktober 2019

Weblinks
 Offizielle Webseite von Edir Macedo (portugiesisch)
 Sueddeutsche: Brasilien vor dem Papstbesuch, ein Mikrofon für Gottes Stimme
 Biografie (pt)

Einzelnachweise

Geistlicher der Pfingstbewegung
Person des Christentums (Brasilien)
Unternehmer (21. Jahrhundert)
Unternehmer (20. Jahrhundert)
Unternehmer (Brasilien)
Brasilianer
Geboren 1945
Mann
Fernsehprediger
Person des Rechtsextremismus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Digital Hub Chorley
Digital expert joins team at Strawberry Fields (9 July)
As we look forward to the opening of the Strawberry Fields Digital Hub we welcome a new face to the team that will help the businesses based there develop their digital skills.
We took some time to have a chat with University Advisor Gill Millington and talk through the plans for the state-of-the-art building, off Euxton lane.
Gill has a wealth of experience in the digital sector and was an early adopter of social, website building and SEO (search engine optimisation).
"There are a lot of social media experts around now and people who will tell you what to do and what not to do but I learnt the hard way, if you like, by testing things out and seeing what worked and what didn't work because the knowledge wasn't around back then," explained Gill.
"Having run my own business and built well over a hundred websites I can use all that insight to benefit businesses and give them a return on investment.
"There is so much information available to businesses through analytics it's critical that they make the most of this and measure all their marketing activity so they are working as effectively as they can."
Gill, who lives just a mile from the new development, will work with us one day per week with the rest of her time spent supporting businesses through Boost Lancashire.
She is excited about the offices opening and says it is a real coup for Chorley to have a facility like this.
"It's going to bring some kudos to Chorley as it's quite a big thing to have something like this based outside of the city regions," said Gill.
"It will bring people into Chorley, not just getting businesses here, it will also attract people into Chorley, which is fantastic for the place.
"We're seeing lots of interest in the space and it's about getting the right mix of businesses and ensuring they are all digitally-focussed.
"It will be a site that people from all over Lancashire can utilise and it'd be nice to get some of the manufacturing businesses, particularly those based in the east of the county, coming to use the facilities."
The digital hub will open its doors in the summer and Gill will be the person to make the links between the businesses and the universities and match people together that will benefit from sharing knowledge.
"I will see the project a success when we get everyone in and people are co-working, pushing business between each other," said Gill.
"That would see web designers, working with graphic designers, sharing that work with SEO specialists and then co-working with a company doing apps, that type of thing.
"It's an opportunity for businesses to appear bigger than they are because they can co-work with other businesses."
Strawberry Fields Digital Hub
Please help spread the word :)


text:
Q: Finding Database address and connecting to it through code I've just made a new SQL Database with Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and I'm trying to connect to it through some C# code. However, I'm having some issues doing so.
I'm trying to connect to my database with the following line:
  String DBConnection = "Data Source=unknown; Database=SQLExpress\\Darkride; Language=English";

However my program can't find my database as I have no idea where my data source is. I've been trying to find it for hours now, but I'm getting nothing.
Does anyone know where I can find out my databases Data Source?

A: Take a look on the connection string examples here http://connectionstrings.com/sql-server-2012
Looks like it can be something like:
Server=.\SQLExpress;Database=Darkride;Trusted_Connection=True;

A: you are missing Initial Catalog in the connection string:
 String DBConnection ="Data Source='localhost';Integrated Security='SSPI' Initial Catalog=Darkride;";

check here for more options.

A: Add
"Data Source=127.0.0.1; Database=SQLExpress\\Darkride;Initial Catalog=YourDataBase;User Id=user;Password=pass"
You can use the SqlConnectionStringBuilder class to build your connection string.
A good site for refenrence is http://www.connectionstrings.com/

A: Have connection string format as:
String DBConnection = "Data Source=27.0.0.1;;Initial Catalog=Darkride;User ID=userIDText;Password=PasswordText";

A: Change your code to this:
Server=.\SQLExpress;Database=Darkride;Trusted_Connection=True;

And take a look on the link below
Connectionstring.com will help : Connection strings for SQL Server 2008
Best Regards