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Chapter Menu - Celebrity Events ================================ The Jimmy Stewart Marathon The Television Festival The Love Ride The Hollywood Celebrity Show Star-studded Movie Premieres Movie Premiere Locations Stars at the Theatre American Cinematheque The Hollywood Christmas Parade The Tournament of Roses Parade The Strawberry Festival Parade Calendar of Celebrity Events ================================
Seeing Stars Website Menu ================================ Calendar of Celebrity Events! Seeing Stars Homepage Where the Stars Live Where the Stars Shop Restaurants Owned by Stars Restaurants Popular With Stars Where the Stars Play Schools of the Stars Churches of the Stars The Movie Studios The Television Studios Free Tickets to Studio Tapings Touring the Studios Movie & TV Locations Where the Stars Died Where the Stars Are Buried (index) Where the Stars Are Buried Where the Stars Are Immortalized Hollywood Award Ceremonies Hotels of the Stars Hollywood Landmarks Hollywood Movie Palaces Special Celebrity Events News Hollywood Museums Stars On Stage Famous Hollywood Streets How YOU Can Be a Star! Star Indexes Site Index ================================
Seeing Stars: Movie Premieres
Thursday October 14, 2:34 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Premiere for ``Body Shots'' to Be Held Monday, Oct. 18
WHAT:      When eight twentysomething men and women set off on a wild
ride through the notorious night life of Los Angeles, they
get more -- and less -- than they bargained for. Fueled by
the need for love and intimacy, the evening takes them on a
crash course through the turbulent world of sex and dating
in the '90s. "Body Shots" dissects the events of the
evening through the varying perspective of each
participant. Directed by Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-
winning playwright Michael Cristofer, the ensemble cast
stars Sean Patrick Flanery, Jerry O'Connell, Amanda Peet,
Tara Reid, Ron Livingston, Emily Procter, Brad Rowe and
Sybil Temchen. Written by David McKenna, the film is
produced by Jennifer Keohane and Harry Colomby and
executive-produced by Michael Keaton.
WHO:       From the film:  Sean Patrick Flanery, Jerry O'Connell,
Amanda Peet, Tara Reid, Ron Livingston, Emily Procter, Brad
Rowe and Sybil Temchen and director Michael Cristofer.
Guests: Simon Rex ("Jack & Jill"), Paul Marshall
("Snoops"), Kerr Smith ("Dawson's Creek"), Kevin
Williamson, Jessica Capshaw, Antonio Sabato Jr., Ali
Larter ("Varsity Blues"), Brett Ratner, Marisa Coughlan
("Wasteland"), Jamie Kennedy ("Three Kings"), Jason Behr
("Roswell"), Jaime Pressley ("Jack & Jill"), Desmond Askew
("Go"), Majandra Delfino ("Roswell"), Brendan Fehr
("Roswell"), Joshua Leonard ("Blair Witch Project"), Sasha
Alexander ("Wasteland"), Eddie Mills ("Wasteland"), Ivan
Sergei ("Jack & Jill"), Alyson Hannigan ("American Pie"),
Tangi Miller ("Felicity") ... and more to come.
WHEN:      Monday, Oct. 18
Arrivals -- 6:30 p.m.
Screening -- 7:30 p.m.
WHERE:     Screening -- The Egyptian
Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre
NOTE:      For additional information and to RSVP, call Gina Soliz at
310/967-6685. "Body Shots" opens nationwide Oct. 22 (rated
"R").
New Line Cinema, Los Angeles
Gina Soliz, 310/967-6685
Click Here to Return to the Main Menu
Copyright � 2020-Gary Wayne
This webpage is not associated with any business described in the article above, and does not constitute an
endorsement of this or any other business. The photos of celebrities on this page also do not constitute
endorsements by them of any kind, and are used by the author solely to illustrate this online article.
(Click here to read other disclaimers)


Test your knowledge of Oklahoma Sooners' football history and Oklahoma Sooners' trivia!
1. What is the name of the Oklahoma Sooners mascot?
2. What is the name of the Oklahoma Sooner fight song?
3. Who was OU's first Heisman Trophy Winner?
4. What rival do the Sooners OU play in the Red River Shootout?
5. Who does OU play in their Bedlam Rivalry?
6. Who was the first Sooner coach to win 100 games?
7. OU was a charter member of what conference during its formation in 1914?
8. What are OU's school colors?
9. What heavily-favored team did the Sooners beat in the 2001 BCS National Championship Game to claim the National Championship?
10. What is a Sooner?
A. People who claimed the land during the land rush too soon.
B. People who had sooner live in Oklahoma than anywhere else.
C. People who staked a claim when they got around to it.
D. No one is really sure.


Keller Engineers teamed with Grannas Brothers Stone & Asphalt Co. to complete this design/build project in Bedford, PA. The project included the concrete pavement restoration and overlay of SR 30, Sec 027, known locally as the Bedford Bypass. The work included concrete patching, bituminous overlay, shoulder upgrades, guiderail improvements, inlet adjustments, concrete barrier modifications, signing, pavement markings, delineation, and signal upgrades for approximately 4 miles of east/west roadway and associated ramps.
The project design was completed on an accelerated schedule at the request of the client. All plans were completed and approved ahead of time for the contractor to begin construction in advance of PennDOT's anticipated schedule.


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Release Date: February 2016
Composer(s): Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev
Artist(s): Nicholas Walker
"Although I learnt Islamey as a student, it was many years before I began to examine Balakirev's other works, a rich revelation of subtlety, virtuosity and poetry; a Russian cocktail of Chopin, Liszt and the Orient. Through these recordings I hope to help restore this neglected composer to his rightful place. In the course of the project I have discovered some completely unknown works, including the Nocturne in G sharp minor (1856) on this disc and the Grande Sonate on Volume 1 (GP636). What is remarkable is that one never tires of Balakirev's music: the more one plays it, the more one sees in it." — Nicholas Walker
Listen to FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: RUSSIAN PIANO MUSIC on Spotify
BALAKIREV, MILI ALEKSEYEVICH (1837–1910)
Complete Piano Works • 2
Waltzes, Nocturnes and Other Works
Nicholas Walker, piano
Mili Alekseyevich Balakirev was the influential leader of the Russian 'Mighty Handful' of composers that set the standard by which others were judged. Revealing both Balakirev's admiration of Chopin and love of music with a deeply Russian character, this programme ranges widely from new discoveries such as the early Nocturne in G sharp minor to one of his last pieces, the heroic Seventh Waltz. There are also beautifully simple gems such as the Chant du Pêcheur and works of technical brilliance such as the Valse de concert and the magnificent and visionary Second Nocturne.
This recording was made on modern instruments:
Tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13: Steinway Model D 531743
Tracks 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12: Steinway Model D 589463
Waltz No. 1 in G Major (1900) (00:07:39)
Nocturne No. 1 in B-Flat Minor (1898) (00:05:30)
Waltz No. 2 in F Minor (1900) (00:05:24)
Waltz No. 3 in D Major (1901) (00:05:11)
Nocturne No. 2 in B Minor () (00:07:44)
Waltz No. 4 in B-Flat Major (1902) (00:05:59)
Nocturne No. 3 in D Minor (1902) (00:06:13)
Waltz No. 5 in D-Flat Major (1903) (00:06:55)
Nocturne in G-Sharp Minor () * (00:05:57)
Fantasy Piece in D-Flat Major (1902) (00:04:05)
Waltz No. 6 in F-Sharp Minor (1903) (00:05:29)
Chant du Pecheur (1903) (00:03:31)
Waltz No. 7 in G-Sharp Minor (1906) (00:06:09)
Nicholas Walker studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Moscow Conservatoire. Winner of the first Newport International Piano competition, he has performed with major British orchestras, given recitals worldwide, and recorded for the BBC, BMG Arte Nova, ASV, Chandos and Danacord labels.
A brilliant pianist, improviser, noted conductor and selfless champion of other composers, Balakirev is surprisingly little known today. Yet as leader of the Russian composers known as 'The Mighty Handful', Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Cui, he strongly influenced not only their work but also that of Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky, setting the standard by which others were judged. In addition to a large output of piano music and songs, Balakirev wrote two symphonies, several symphonic poems, works for piano and orchestra, choral music and incidental music for Shakespeare's King Lear.
"I have no doubt that Walker's series will replace Paley as the reference set for Balakirev and expect the journey towards its completion will be quite enjoyable." – American Record Guide
"The skilful virtuosity of Nicholas Walker is wonderful...His communicative enthusiasm distinguishes him from Alexander Paley (a very good recording in Brilliant Classics), more inclined to work the decorative element and therefore necessarily more static. It also imposes itself, from the start, as a reference." – Classica
"Nicholas Walker serves this music with brio, without any loss of intensity" — Diapason
"Joyous and colourful pieces with an unmistakable Slavic tone… This series continues to establish Walker as the new reference for Balakirev's music." — Musiq3
"Very special piano music, virtuosic, intelligent and sparkling. Highly recommended." — Stretto
"Walker's playing throughout this absorbing disc is a pleasure to hear, with a sophisticated tonal palette and eschewing any superficial virtuosity: 'bravura with integrity' is how I would describe it." — Gramophone
"Walker's performances offer more shaping, refinement, sense of line, color, and depth of tone" — Fanfare
"He's [Walker] obviously one this country's best kept secrets. His stunning virtuosity, accomplished musicality and stylish readings do true justice to these wonderful scores. The two recording venues offer an acoustic and ambience that, in my view, couldn't be bettered." — MusicWeb International

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Review: Closer
by Brian Rentschler
– on Dec 19, 2005
in Movie Reviews, 3 star movies
Short version: This movie was better than I thought it would be, but the characters are such idiots that I found it hard to enjoy the movie more than just marginally.
There's something I really don't understand. Why does Hollyweird always have such a huge need to adapt stage plays into movies? It doesn't make any sense. With the recent release of Rent and The Producers, I feel like I'm in movie hell. The film adaptation of Closer, written by Patrick Marber and based on his play, is a classic example of why I hardly ever go to see stage plays. Most of them are just too morbid and depressing to be enjoyable. I mean, think about it... when was the last time you saw a happy, uplifting stage play? And take my word for it, the words "happy" and "uplifting" are in no danger of being associated with this movie.
For all its faults, Closer is actually quite well-made. In fact, it was better than I thought it was going to be. It basically involves four people who talk for an hour and a half, so I wasn't expecting to be blown away. The subject matter is unpredictable and edgy enough to be entertaining, though, if not a little shocking at times. (Children should not see this movie for more reasons than I have room to list here.) The bottom line is that if you're going to direct a stage play, it's hard to find someone better than Mike Nichols. My biggest issue with Nichols' films is that he tends to focus on keeping the material edgy and challenging, rather than entertaining the audience. In some cases, that works really well, but with others, that's not quite the case. Overall, I mildly enjoyed Closer, but the movie is an exercise in frustration to watch, as I'll explain.
The story is set in London, and it starts out with Dan (played by Jude Law) and Alice (played by Natalie Portman) seeing each other from across a crowded street. Before Dan can introduce himself, though, Alice is promptly mowed down by a car while she's in the crosswalk, so he goes with her to the hospital. It turns out that she didn't sustain any major injuries, but during the time Dan and Alice have spent together, they really hit it off. Fast-forward to a few months later, and Dan has written a book about the experience. He's in a photography studio getting his picture taken for the book cover, when it suddenly dawns on him that the photographer, Anna (played by Julia Roberts), is an attractive young woman. Despite the fact that Dan has a girlfriend, he hits on Anna, and after a little initial hesitation, she reciprocates... sort of. From that point on, Dan is fascinated with Anna, but he still has feelings for Alice. I was starting to get a headache by this point.
The next part of the story has Dan playing an internet prank on a doctor named Larry (played by Clive Owen). Dan pretends that he's Anna, and he has Larry meet her at a local aquarium. To everyone's surprise, despite the initial awkward moment, Larry and Anna really hit it off, and before you can say "totally unrealistic," Larry and Anna are married. But do you think that's going to stop Dan and Anna from getting their freak on? If you said "heck no," give yourself a gold star! Before you know it, the relationship between Dan and Alice is in trouble, then Anna and Larry's marriage is in trouble, then Dan tries to get together with Anna, then Larry tries to get together with Alice... I really had a serious headache by this point.
What really shocked me about this movie was how open everyone was with each other. If people really talk like that in London, I never want to visit that place again. As an example, Anna describes to Larry in graphic detail about what she did with Dan, who had what reaction when, etc. And she tells that to Larry because he asks her! Call me crazy, but I'm guessing that's not something Dr. Phil would recommend to help a struggling couple get the spark back into their relationship. The most frustrating thing about the movie is that out of the four lead characters, not one is clinically sane. They are all completely nuts, and they are all idiots. Dan is an idiot for cheating on Alice even though they have a (supposedly) happy relationship. Alice is an idiot for staying with a loser like Dan. Anna is an idiot for getting involved with a loser like Dan, even when she's married. Larry is an idiot for staying with Anna, even though he knows she's trouble. When all the main characters are idiots, how can they be likable? And how can a movie be enjoyable if there isn't a single likable character in it?
I won't reveal what finally ends up happening with all these dysfunctional relationships, but it really doesn't matter because we don't have much reason to care. This movie, if nothing else, serves as a great example of what you should not do if you want to keep a relationship alive and well. For all its faults, though, the movie ultimately keeps the viewer interested, not so much in what happens, but rather in the characters themselves. The story development is fairly lackluster, but the character development is quite good, as you would expect from a stage play. I mildly enjoyed Closer because it kept me interested in finding out more about the characters, but I couldn't enjoy it more than that because all the main characters were such idiots that it was hard to really care about what happened to them. I think it's time to go watch A Few Good Men again. Now that's how a stage play should be adapted into a movie...
3 out of 5 (Good)
Tags: 3 star movies
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Launch Pad is a collaborative workspace and community of entrepreneurs, creative professionals and freelancers - building businesses together.
New Orleans freelance writer, rock publicist. Have written for New Republic, Forbes, Earth Island, The Lens, NOLA. Edited newspaper; ran charity; bass wife.


The Nova-67P is a free equalizer plugin from software developer vladg/sound. It placed 2nd in last year's KVR Developers Challenge DC14. It is described as "a parallel parametric equalizer plugin combined with a compressor." This makes the Nova-67P a very flexible dynamic equalizer. It reminds me of the discontinued TC Electronic Dynamic Eq plugin that ran on their Powercore platform which I sometimes used, mostly on vocals. The concise manual included with the download helps the user grasp the full potential of the Nova-67P.


Hyderabadi Double Ka Meetha is a delicious dessert recipe which is popularly made on the day of Eid. It is made using bread slices and reduced milk and is loaded with dry fruits for a delicious crunch. Here is how to make Double Ka Meetha Recipe at home.
Heat ghee in a frying pan.
Cut the bread into halves diagonally.
Deep fry the slices till golden brown.
Deep fry the almonds and cashew nuts in the same ghee till slightly browned.
Add sugar and water in a pan and cook on medium heat till the syrup is slightly thickened.
When the milk comes to a boil, lower the heat and add saffron in it.
Cook on low heat till the milk is reduced to half.
Add sugar and cook for another minute.
Pre heat the oven to 180 degree C.
Grease a rectangular tray with ghee.
Arrange the bread slices on the tray.
Pour the sugar syrup on top of the bread slices.
Pour the milk mixture over the bread slices.
Sprinkle the fried dry fruits on top.


Mega power star Ram Charan is currently busy with the post-production activities of Rangasthalam. The makers already began the promotions and released a couple of singles from the audio album. Especially Yentha Sakkagunnave song and Rangamma Mangamma have impressed the music lovers big time.
An official update from the film unit informed us that the complete audio jukebox of the movie is going to be released tomorrow at 10 A.M in the morning tomorrow. Directed by Sukumar, the film Rangasthalam is produced under Mythri Movie Makers banner on a big scale. Devi Sri Prasad is the music director who has teamed up for almost all Sukumar films in the past. There are high expectations on this audio album.
The buzz is that there are total 5 songs in the audio album and along with a bit song. The makers are holding a grand pre-release function on 30th of this month.


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International concern about individuals and organizations with ties to Middle Eastern extremist groups operating in Ciudad del Este and along the tri-border area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina grew following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon. Throughout 2001, the political instability that appears endemic to Paraguay continued unabated, as congressional efforts to impeach President Luis Gonzalez Macchi--fraught with the intrigue and backbiting that characterizes Paraguayan political life-- came to naught, and the country's legal economy continued its downward trend.
In March 2001, the president announced a cabinet reshuffle that resulted in three of the four appointments going to technocrats rather than politicians, something unique in Paraguayan politics. The reshuffle occurred in the wake of an unsuccessful impeachment effort against Gonzalez Macchi's public works minister, who was accused of having been involved in the torture of detainees while holding an earlier post as law enforcement minister.
Charges about official corruption made by the political opposition have proved to be the most serious challenge faced by the government. In 2001, trade unionists and Paraguay's association of industrialists made common cause, demanding that Gonzalez Macchi act against "smuggling, tax evasion, corruption and impunity." A public opinion survey suggested that 22.6 percent of Paraguayans believed that the country was run by the "mafia"; 20.8 percent by the political parties; and only 16.8 percent by the government. Another poll suggested that most citizens would prefer to return to the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner than to continue to live in the situation of near chaos characteristic of Paraguay throughout the year.
In 1989 a coup ended the 35-year dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner. Another general, Lino Oviedo, stormed into the bunker of Latin America's oldest surviving dictator with a pistol in one hand and a grenade in the other and demanded that Stroessner surrender. General Andres Rodriguez took over Stroessner's Colorado Party and engineered his own election to finish Stroessner's last presidential term. The Colorado Party won the majority in a vote for a constituent assembly, which produced the 1992 constitution. It provides for a president, a vice president, and a bicameral congress consisting of a 45-member senate and an 80-member chamber of deputies elected for five years. The president is elected by a simple majority, and reelection is prohibited. The constitution bans the active military from engaging in politics.
In the 1992 Colorado Party primary election, Luis Maria Argana, an old-style machine politician, apparently defeated the construction tycoon Juan Carlos Wasmosy; Rodriguez and Oviedo engineered a highly dubious recount that made Wasmosy the winner.
The 1993 candidates were Wasmosy, Domingo Laino of the center-left Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), and Guillermo Caballero Vargas, a wealthy businessman who founded the National Encounter Alliance. Wasmosy promised to modernize the economy. Laino played on his decades of resistance to Stroessner. Caballero Vargas campaigned as a centrist, free of the politics of the past.
Every poll showed Wasmosy trailing, until three weeks before the election, when Oviedo personally took over the direction of the campaign--in spite of the fact that he was an active military officer--and threatened a coup if the Colorado Party lost. Fear of a coup proved decisive, as Wasmosy won with 40.3 percent of the vote. Laino took 32 percent, and Caballero Vargas, 23.5.
Oviedo was then appointed army commander, and Wasmosy allowed him to eliminate rivals in the military through forced retirement. The partnership came to a bitter end when Wasmosy moved to reduce the influence of the drug-tainted military in government and it became increasingly obvious that Oviedo and a hardline Colorado Party faction planned to use Wasmosy as a stepping stone for the general's own accession to the presidency. Wasmosy ordered Oviedo's resignation on April 22, 1996. The general in turn threatened a coup and mobilized the troops. Wasmosy took refuge in the U.S. embassy and prepared his resignation. International pressure and mass protests in Paraguay allowed Wasmosy to outmaneuver his rival, who then vowed to return as a presidential candidate in 1998.
Wasmosy's government was shaken by a number of corruption scandals. These included money laundering in the banking system by financial racketeers from neighboring countries and by drug traffickers, as well as two bank collapses provoked by the theft of assets by bank managers. In 1997, Oviedo won the Colorado Party presidential nomination by besting Argana by 10,000 votes. Argana's supporters claimed fraud, despite the fact that they controlled the party electoral tribunal, and demanded that 50,000 of the votes cast be reviewed.
Raul Cubas, a civil engineer and originally Oviedo's vice presidential choice, was elected in May 1998, after Oviedo was jailed in March by a military tribunal for his 1996 attempted putsch and banned from standing for election. Despite the deep divisions within the Colorado Party, Cubas not only bested Laino 54 to 42 percent, but also led the party to majority status in both chambers of congress for the first time since 1989. One of Cubas's first acts was to free Oviedo, in a maneuver widely described as a "constitutional coup."
In early March 1999, an armed forces spokeman warned that the military would be obliged to defend Cubas if congress tried to remove him for failing to carry out a judicial order to send Oviedo back to jail. The March 23, 1999, hit-squad-style murder of Argana, a bitter Oviedo foe, and the killing of eight student protestors by rooftop snipers, ended the fiction of a truce in the long-ruling Colorado Party. After Cubas's impeachment by congress, Senate President Gonzalez Macchi assumed the presidency on March 28, 1999, and appointed a "national unity" government including members of the two main opposition parties--the PLRA and the National Encounter Party. More than 100 army officers, including several generals, believed to be Oviedo supporters, were forced into retirement. Oviedo--who had received asylum from his long-time friend, Argentine President Carlos Menem, and sought to surgically alter his appearance --fled to Brazil following the December 1999 change of government in Buenos Aires. In June he was jailed and awaiting possible extradition to Paraguay.
Oviedo, who was detained in Brazil in 2000, was accused of masterminding the killing of his long-time rival, Argana. In May 2000, several dozen military and police officers were arrested following an unsuccessful effort by pro-Oviedo factions to oust Gonzalez Macchi. Liberal party leader Julio Cesar Franco won the Paraguayan vice presidency in August 2000 in a special election designed to fill a post left vacant by Argana's murder. The dead man's son, Felix Argana, was the losing candidate in the race to replace his father in the 2000 election, a victim of Gonzalez Macchi's inability to create a government of national unity and the first member of the Colorado Party to lose a presidential election in 60 years of uninterrupted party rule. From his jail cell, Oviedo had ordered his supporters to vote for Franco for vice president. At the same time, two Brazilian congressmen sought to have him put on trial for drug and money laundering offenses. In Paraguay, in October 2000, a general who once headed the national antidrug effort was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding the government of several million dollars.
In 2001, the Paraguayan police had to provide a prosecutor and a bishop with special security after they received death threats in the wake of corruption charges filed against a provincial governor. In December 2000, the bishop had issued a strong denunciation of corruption and warned that Paraguayans were being "manipulated and dominated by mafias." Oviedo remained in prison in Brazil, pending a request from Paraguay for his extradition to face trial in the murder of Argana. The political opposition claimed Gonzalez Macchi was linked to a group of "speculators and swindlers" who transferred $16 million from the Central Bank to accounts in Miami. In a positive development, in March 2001, the U.S. State Department "certified" Paraguay as cooperating in the fight against drug trafficking, after six years of its not being certified or of its receiving a conditional waiver. In 2001, Oviedo was released by Brazil from prison, the political party system appeared on the verge of total collapse, and two high-profile kidnappings suggested that ideologically motivated acts of persecution were on the upswing. The discredit of the entire political class--encompassing the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government--was evidenced by the low turnout in 2001 municipal elections, where the participation by young people, nearly three-fourths of the population, was nearly nonexistent.
The 1992 constitution provides for regular elections. Municipal elections held in 2001 were generally free and fair, although electoral participation throughout the country was the lowest since 1989. In a positive development, Colorado Party reformer Enrique Riera won the Asuncion mayoralty, one of the country's most powerful political posts. The 2000 elections, although they were raucous, were considered free and fair by local standards. More than 80 percent of eligible voters participated in the 1998 elections. Although the presidential campaign was marred by the political proscriptions of General Lino Oviedo and threats against the national electoral tribunal, voter fraud was held to a minimum by the work of the tribunal, coverage by the media, and the willingness of the military to stand firm in favor of the process.
The constitution guarantees free political and civic organization and religious expression. However, political rights and civil liberties are undermined by the government's tolerance of threats of intimidation and use of force, including imprisonment, by its supporters against those Oviedo followers who remain in the country. In the tense days following the August 2000 vice presidential balloting, the press was the target of intimidation, including physical attacks, by supporters of both candidates, Julio Cesar Franco and Felix Argana.
The judiciary, under the influence of the ruling party and the military, is susceptible to the corruption pervading all public and governmental institutions. Corruption cases languish for years in the courts, and most end up without resolution. The courts are generally unresponsive to human rights groups that present cases of rights violations committed either before or after the overthrow of General Alfredo Stroessner. Allegations include illegal detention by police and torture during incarceration, particularly in rural areas.
In 1997, the commander of the national police was dismissed following a newspaper expose about his force's involvement in car theft, corruption, and bribery schemes. In November 1999, congress began impeachment proceedings against Paraguay's top anticorruption official, who is accused of bribery and extortion. The presence of law enforcement is scarce throughout Paraguay. Reportedly corrupt police officials remain in key posts and are in positions to give protection to, or compromise law enforcement actions against, narcotics traffickers.
Despite receiving U.S. government certification in 2001, Paraguay remains among the 24 countries most involved in narcotics trafficking. Colombian drug traffickers continue to expand operations in Paraguay, and accusations of high official involvement in drug trafficking date back to the 1980s. In October 2000, former counternarcotics secretariat chief Jose Tomas Centurion was sentenced to seven years in prison for corruption during his tenure at the helm of the antidrug agency. Little progress was made in curbing money laundering, fighting public corruption, monitoring Paraguay's porous borders, or increasing the legal authority that police needed to effectively enforce antidrug statutes.
The lack of security in border areas, particularly in the tri-border region, has allowed large organized crime groups to engage in piracy and in the smuggling of weapons, narcotics, and contraband. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, attention focused on the serious lack of government control over Paraguay's lengthy and undeveloped land borders, extensive river network, and numerous airstrips (both registered and unregistered). The Iguazu triangle, as it is called, given its proximity to Iguazu Falls, is the region extending from the cities of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, Foz do Iguacu in Brazil, and Puerto Iguazu in Argentina. The region contains more than 100 runways, many clandestine, and the Paraguay-Brazil border has long been a scene of major commercial contraband, including the smuggling of stolen cars.
More than 12,000 Arab immigrants have come to the region since the 1970s, and many of these live in Ciudad del Este. Although many of the recent arrivals from Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine are legitimate business operators, law enforcement and intelligence sources say that a significant number are involved in smuggling operations. The Islamic extremist organization Hezbollah and other militant organizations are active in the region. In 1996 a Lebanese man was arrested after he was discovered to be in possession of weapons and explosives that he was allegedly going to use to blow up the U.S. embassy in Asuncion or Buenos Aires. Argentine investigators also discovered that the van used in the deadly 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires had been purchased in a second hand car dealership in Ciudad del Este one week before the attack. Even before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay had established a joint intelligence center to monitor the region, and all three countries had begun to use their air forces for surveillance and interdiction efforts.
Overcrowding, unsanitary living conditions, and mistreatment are serious problems in Paraguayan prisons. More than 95 percent of the prisoners held are pending trial, many for months or years after arrest. The constitution permits detention without trial until the accused completes the minimum sentence for the alleged crime.
In Paraguay, there is only one state-owned medium, the Radio Nacional, which has a limited listenership. A number of private television and radio stations exist, as do a number of independent newspapers. However, journalists investigating corruption or covering strikes and protests are often the victims of intimidation and violent attack by security forces. Free expression is also threatened by vague, potentially restrictive laws that mandate "responsible" behavior by journalists and media owners.
The Paraguayan constitution provides indigenous people with the right to participate in the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the country; however, the indigenous population, estimated at 75,000 to 100,000, is unassimilated and neglected. Low wage levels, long work hours, infrequent payment (or nonpayment) of wages, job insecurity, lack of access to social security benefits, and racial discrimination are common. Weak organization and lack of financial resources limit access by indigenous people to the political and economic system. Indigenous groups rely primarily upon parliamentary commissions to promote their particular interests. The constitution also protects the property interests of indigenous people, but these rights still are not fully codified. The constitution allows Public Ministry officials to represent indigenous people in matters involving the protection of life and property. Lack of access to sufficient land also hinders the ability of indigenous groups to progress economically and maintain their cultural identity. This is made worse by insufficient police and judicial protection from persons encroaching on their lands. Many indigenous people find it difficult to travel to the capital to solicit land titles or to process the required documentation for land ownership.
Peasant and Indian organizations demanding and illegally occupying land often meet with police crackdowns, death threats, detentions, and forced evictions by vigilante groups in the employ of landowners. Peasants have been killed in the ongoing disputes. Activist Roman Catholic priests who support land reform are frequent targets of intimidation. The government's promise of land reform remains largely unfilled, as nearly 90 percent of agricultural land remains in the hands of foreign companies and a few hundred Paraguayan families. A program financed by the European Union to restore traditional lands to Native Americans in the eastern Chaco region has been riddled with fraud. In June 2000, a former director of the government's National Indigenous Institute, which had authority to purchase land on behalf of indigenous communities and to expropriate private property under certain conditions to establish tribal homelands, was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for embezzlement. According to official statistics, 39 percent of Paraguayans speak only Guarani, 49 percent are bilingual, and 12 percent speak only Spanish.
There are numerous trade unions and two major union federations, although they are weak and riddled with corruption. The 1992 constitution gives public sector workers the rights to organize, bargain collectively, and strike, and nearly all these workers belong to the ruling Colorado Party. A new labor code designed to protect workers' rights was passed in October 1993.
Sexual and domestic abuse of women, which is both widespread and vastly underreported, continues to be a serious problem in Paraguay. Spousal abuse is common. Although the new Penal Code criminalizes spousal abuse, it stipulates that the abuse must be habitual before being recognized as criminal, and then it is punishable only by a fine. Thousands of women are treated annually for injuries sustained in violent domestic altercations.


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Q: Injectivity and Surjectivity of a Function We have the set $S$ that is the set of odd positive integers. A function $F:\mathbb{N} \rightarrow S$ is defined by $F(n)=k$ for each $n\in \mathbb{N}$, where $k$ is an odd positive integer for which $3n+1=2^mk$ for some non-negative integer $m$. Prove or disprove the following:
(1) $F$ is injective. (2) $F$ is surjective.
I have thought of ways I could start to answer this question, but my attempts have been fruitless. Help would very much be appreciated for this question.
Million thanks in advance.

A: What is $F$ doing? For any $n\in \mathbb N$ $F$ gives the odd factor of the prime decomposition of $3n+1$.
For injectivity note that $F(1)=F(21)=1$ (where $m=2$ and $m=6$ respectively).
For surjectivity consider what the implications are if $k=3$ in the equation $3n+1=k2^m$. Is $3n+1$ divisible by $3$ for any natural number $n$?

A: For any integer $n$, calculate $3n+1$. Once you have $3n+1$ write that as a product by taking out as many factors of $2$ as possible. The remaining odd factor is the value of $F(n)$.
If $n=1$, then $3n+1 = 4$, and $4=2^2 \times 1$, so $m=2$ and $k=1$. Hence $F(1)=1$
If $n=2$, then $3n+1 = 7$, and $7 = 2^0 \times 7$, so $m=0$ and $k=7$. Hence $F(2)=7$
If $n=3$, then $3n+1 = 10$, and $10 = 2^1 \times 5$, so $m=1$ and $k=5$. Hence $F(3)=5$
If $n=4$, then $3n+1 = 13$, and $13 = 2^0 \times 13$, so $m=0$ and $k=13$. Hence $F(4) = 13$
If $n=5$, then $3n+1 = 16$, and $16 = 2^4 \times 1$, so $m=4$ and $k=1$. Hence $F(5) = 1$

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Ecoelectric are electrical contractors you can trust. With a wide range of skills and experience, no matter your electrical need, Ecoelectric can provide the most cost effective and proven solution for your home or business in Brisbane, Ipswich, Gold Coast and throughout South East Queensland.
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Ask us to install infrastructure and even configure and interface systems such as Sonos and Synology with output through brands such as Benq, Yamaha and Samsung.
As a part of Ecoelectric's core business, our installations offering is extensive and covers a very large proportion of the domestic and commercial scope. Whilst we focus on solar power installation for Brisbane properties, we also offer an extensive range of other installation services. Be it an urgent service call to get the power on, or end to end construction management of mixed use buildings and smart homes, we have a solution for you. Browse through the categories below or contact us for a detailed design and assessment proposal from qualified engineers.
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After months of hard work, we're proud to have finally brought Chaos to the Xbox One with the release of Warhammer: Vermintide 2. It's a 4-player co-op action game designed to be played together with friends in a fun and challenging setting. The game is set in a vast universe with rich history which has greatly influenced how the game looks and feels.
Vermintide 2 takes place in and around the fortress town of Helmgart, nestled in the mountain range the Grey Mountains, situated on the border between the Empire and Bretonnia during the End Times, an age in which the world is becoming overrun with various blights seeking chaos and destruction upon all living things.
The first Vermintide game took place in Übersreik, a town which consisted mostly of dark and gritty places. As we were deciding the direction we wanted to take Warhammer: Vermintide 2 in, we concluded that we wanted more variety to the environments the players could visit.
This is one of the very first maps that we revealed in Vermintide 2. The main goal was to wow our community with a bright level, strikingly different from our darker themes in the previous game. Before Helmgart fell, it was heavily fortified with guard towers and cannons lining the top of the walls surrounding the city. Up on the ramparts you can see the entire city vista, which was also something we really wanted to show off to our fans.
The story of this mission is centered around an abandoned mine, from which its workers had suddenly started disappearing – leaving behind no trace but gnawed bones. As you progress further into the mine you find that is in fact a troll cave, in which Chaos cultists transform regular trolls into Chaos trolls.
A lot of inspiration was taken from older mines from the 19th centurynd even older, and the end product became a mix of the two. The general theme of this environment was to create a dark and claustrophobic space, where the darkness of the cave lingers in silent threat of what may lurk further within.
This map takes place in the city of Ussingen, a town known for its sharp Red Cheese. The city has already been razed and plundered by the time you get there, consumed entirely by the forces of the Dark Pact.
Empire in Flames is a visual representation of the destruction the forces of Chaos intend to deliver to the world and the true evil that they can perform. Using elements such as smoke, collapsed buildings, and a near colorless palette brought the whole impression of the map together.
Thanks for reading! We hope that you will have as much fun with the game as we had making it. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is out now on Xbox One and is available on the Microsoft Store.
Vía https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/07/13/the-locations-of-vermintide-2-available-now-xbox-one-xbox-game-pass/ ʕ ᴖᴥᴖʔ Subscribe to me here on Youtube!


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Lance Armstrong's slap on the wristbands
I'm holding out for a hero.
What makes me hurl about Lance Armstrong's downfall isn't so much his marathon hypocrisy, or even the generations of wristbands bearing false witness to nobility.It's that few are talking about the runners-up, the also-rans, those possibly squeaky-clean cyclists in his wake who were cheated of glory. As Armstrong gets stripped of his trophies and titles, shouldn't we be adorning someone else with his sloppy-second laurels?
You argue: They were all probably doping to get where they got. It was a culture of cheating. Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France, vows to blot out not just Armstrong's record but the entire field of competition by negating seven years of championship races from 1999-2005. Like it never happened.
This seems a classic sweep-it-under-the-rug response. Can't we try a little harder to boost my spirits and prove performance-boosting doesn't run so rampant? Bloomberg has reported, indeed, that of the handful of cyclists who stand to inherit Armstrong's tainted spots in history, three of them drip in doping scandals of their own.
I wanted to believe Lance Armstrong was superhuman. We all did. I mean, just look at him.
We thought Lance Armstrong — an anti-hero despite the superhero name — knew no bounds. Rather, he knew no rules. And oh, snap! What about all those souls inspired to wear his Livestrong wristbands; maybe their good works can cancel out his bad.
But I need a hero. And not just a woe-is-me whistle-blower like Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service teammate Dave Zabriskie, whose testimony propelled the International Cycling Union (UCI) into doing the right thing. Yeah, OK, pat on the head, nice to see the conscience-raising.
A rhinoceros beetle grub. I'm told these mealy things make fine meals for the pygmies in the Congo — that children will stand around a tree waiting for someone to burst it open like a piñata, so they can collect handfuls and take them home to be cooked.
C'mon, sports is about being in awe. I want some AWE-SOME now. Let's dig deep and elevate a story about some lone cyclist who had to wrist-band his bike together as a poor kid in the Congo and subsist on rhinoceros beetle grubs, who fell down a lot, maybe lost a limb, but got back up. I don't know. You tell me. I know nothing about cycling. I know little about sports, as you can probably infer.
But this doping debacle has suddenly gotten personal. It's the U.S. team, and that's us. And it's getting to be where there's a hall of shame in every sport. Baseball's Barry Bonds-men. My New Orleans (non-)Saints. I've even read (Googled, just now) charges about basketball games being thrown — for money! (yeah, this happens in soccer all the time, but the NBA?)
Not to sound naive. But why does competition lately seem to bring out the worst in us? Including politics, which has been reduced to keeping score and gaming the system. Is there no end to the lengths we'll go to win, win, WIN?
It's no wonder I prefer art over athletics. There's no disputing its awesomeness, even when there are tricks at play.
So, until someone can show me an honest, high-achieving athlete, this guy, below, gets my vote for greatest cyclist EVER, for elevating athleticism to an art form. Give Danny Macaskill some of that Lance Armstrong money for his mad skills.
I Hate Lance Armstrong (blogs.dallasobserver.com)
October 23, 2012 Terry Byrne	athleticism, athletics vs. arts, Barry Bonds, cheating, cycling, grub, hall of shame, Lance Armstrong, New Orleans Saints, nude Lance Armstong, rhinoceros beetle, Tour de France, wristbands	Leave a comment


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Mizuho Bank, Ltd. (President & CEO: Koji Fujiwara) and Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc. (President & CEO: Yasumasa Mukai; "MHIR") today launched a service entitled Mizuho Environmentally Conscious Finance ("Mizuho Eco Finance") through which we will take action alongside our clients to advance the shift to a low-carbon society. Today Mizuho signed an agreement with Sapporo Holdings Limited (President and Representative Director: Masaki Oga) as our first client for this new service.
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At Mizuho, we are working to further incorporate sustainability initiatives into our strategy and strengthen our group-wide framework for promoting sustainability. We will draw on our expertise as a financial services group to proactively provide a wide range of solutions, including providing capital financing support to businesses that are contributing to the shift to a low-carbon society.
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Product name Mizuho Eco Finance
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Looking at benchmarks mainly pertaining to disclosure of information as the main criterion (listed below), Mizuho will score companies on a 5-step scale from AA (best) to D by evaluating each company's environment-related disclosure of information in light of the social conditions and characteristics of the relevant industry. We are launching this service with the intention of promoting appropriate disclosure of information related to environmental considerations based on the expertise that Mizuho Information & Research Institute has cultivated through research and consulting work for the public and private sectors.
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potw2203 — Picture of the Week
A silent sentinel
17 January 2022: Like a silent sentinel, ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST) stands under the scattered stars of the Milky Way in this ethereal Picture of the Week. The VST, which recently celebrated its 10th birthday, is located at ESO's Paranal Observatory along with its namesake, the Very Large Telescope (VLT). However, the VST serves a very different purpose to the VLT. Rather than scrutinising small patches of the sky in great detail, it constantly scans much wider areas of the sky, mapping and cataloging celestial sources ranging from nearby stars to distant galaxies. ESO's Paranal Observatory, in Chile's Atacama Desert, is an ideal location to carry out ground-based astronomy. It boasts over 300 clear nights per year and its remote location, far from light pollution, gives rise to skies that are dark enough to see the Milky Way in the stunning detail captured in this image.
A cosmic caramel swirl
10 January 2022: This picture of the week looks almost good enough to eat! However, despite its resemblance to a mouthwatering caramel swirl it is in fact an image of the NGC 1300 galaxy, located approximately 61 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. NGC 1300 is a spiral galaxy, with a bar of stars and gas –– seen here crossing the image horizontally –– and a central ring of intense star formation. The image is a combination of observations conducted at different colours –– or wavelengths –– of light. The golden caramel glow corresponds to clouds of molecular gas, the raw material out of which stars form. These data were taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. The bluish regions in the background reveal the distribution of slightly older, already formed stars, imaged by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO's Very Large Telescope ...
When giants meet
3 January 2022: A very bright and large point is the undisputed protagonist of the top half of this picture of the sky above ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile's Atacama Desert. Yet if you take a closer look, you will notice it is not just one point, but two, very close to each other. What you see is, in fact, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn are the two largest planets in the Solar System, almost 320 and 95 times as massive as the Earth, respectively. They are not rocky, like the Earth or Mars, but are mainly made up of hydrogen. They both have tens of moons, many of which we think did not form together with the planets they orbit, but were instead captured at a later stage by their strong gravitational fields. Conjunctions occur when two objects are aligned in the sky. ...
Enviable views
27 December 2021: From its dome on Cerro Paranal in Chile's Atacama desert, the ESO-operated Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) enjoys a stunning view of not only the majestic southern heavens, but also of the nearby mountainous peak, home to ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). Conceived and developed by a consortium of 18 universities in the United Kingdom, VISTA is the world's largest telescope entirely devoted to mapping the sky in infrared light. It carries out six public surveys taking up the majority of its observing time. The goal is to discover objects such as brown dwarfs, variable stars and ancient quasars, shed new light on fields such as the nature of dark matter and galactic structures, and even help create a 3D map of about five percent of the entire observable Universe. But why observe in the infrared? Because it allows VISTA not only to admire the cool side ...
Season's Greetings from the European Southern Observatory!
20 December 2021: As 2021 comes to an end, we send our best wishes to you and your families! Like its predecessor, this last year has been challenging to most of us. Here at ESO we have worked hard to continue exploring the Universe and sharing its wonders with you while keeping our staff safe and protected. On behalf of everyone at ESO, we wish you a healthy end of the year and a wonderful start of 2022!
Into the vortex
13 December 2021: This week's picture may just hypnotise you! Resembling a vortex or an optical illusion, the starry circles draw you deeper into this breathtaking mountainous landscape of Chile's Atacama Desert, home to ESO's La Silla Observatory. Each circular streak represents an individual star which maps out a star trail. Such trails are due to Earth's rotation, which causes the stars to seemingly move across the sky, slowly tracing out perfect rings centred on the south celestial pole as they do so. A photograph like this therefore requires a long exposure to capture the passage of time. La Silla is located some 2400 metres above sea level, and offers perfect observing conditions for long-exposure shots like this; the site experiences over 300 clear nights a year! Here, ESO operates two of the most productive 4-metre class telescopes in the world: the ESO 3.6-metre telescope which is home to the world's foremost extrasolar ...
La Silla's new gem
6 December 2021: This family portrait of the telescopes residing at ESO's La Silla Observatory was captured in 2019 during the breathtaking sunset over the outskirts of Chilean Atacama Desert. Standing tall at the front of the portrait is one of La Silla's new family members: BlackGEM, an array of optical telescopes which will join soon the search for some of the most powerful and dramatic events in the Universe, such as merging neutron stars and black holes. This robotic array was developed by Radboud University (from where it is remotely controlled), the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), and the KU Leuven. These exotic events cause ripples in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves. BlackGEM will work together with gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO and Virgo to pinpoint in visible light the sources responsible for gravitational waves. This will allow for bigger telescopes — such as ESO's Very Large ...
Bumps in the heavens
29 November 2021: Just as people at a busy crossroad may accidentally bump into each other, so too can galaxies in the Universe! But in this case, the outcome is more dramatic than a small nudge. When two galaxies clash, they merge into each other, giving birth to a new, bigger one. One example is the NGC 7727 galaxy, shown in this image from ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile. Located 89 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius, NGC 7727 is believed to be the result of a clash between two galaxies that occurred about one billion years ago. The consequences of this tremendous cosmic bump are still evident in the peculiar, irregular shape of NGC 7727 and the streams of stars in its outer regions. The image was taken in visible light as part of the VST-ATLAS survey. The goal of the survey is to map a vast ...
Creator of stars
22 November 2021: Powerful lasers leave the dome of one of the four Unit Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory in Chile. The beams reach a layer of the atmosphere about 90 kilometres above the ground, very rich with atoms of sodium. The lasers make the sodium shine, creating artificial stars in the sky. But why? Earth's atmosphere distorts light reaching us from cosmic objects, decreasing the sharpness of astronomical observations. This is the same reason why stars seen from Earth appear to "twinkle". To correct observations for this effect, astronomers have developed a technology known as adaptive optics, where a flexible mirror is deformed hundreds of times per second to counteract atmospheric turbulence. However, to calculate the necessary corrections, adaptive optics need reference stars close to the observed object. Such stars are not always ideally placed, though, which made astronomers come up with the idea of using lasers ...
It's a car! It's a train! No, it's Jupiter!
15 November 2021: Yes, the bright light you see in the centre of this picture, shining below the Milky Way's dark, pinkish belt, is in fact the king of the planets in the Solar System! Jupiter is flanked by two hills hosting ESO's Very Large Telescope (left) and VISTA (right) in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System and the third brightest object in the night sky, only outshone by the Moon and Venus. Naming it after the god of the sky and thunder is certainly fitting! Mainly made of hydrogen and helium, one of Jupiter's most distinctive marks is the famous great red spot on its surface, the largest storm in the Solar System. Jupiter has been observed by the 8.2-m telescopes of the VLT on more than one occasion. The VISIR instrument captured a stunning high resolution infrared image of Jupiter, key to understanding ...
Caught in a spiral
8 November 2021: The image shows a pair of overlapping spiral galaxies, NGC 3314a and b, in the top left, caught in a majestic cosmic dance — captured by ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST). But don't let the perspective fool you! They are, in fact, not interacting at all. The two galaxies, located between 117 and 140 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra, are actually physically unrelated and only appear to overlap when viewed from Earth. This unique alignment gives astronomers the opportunity to measure many properties of the galaxies, such as how dust absorbs starlight, and hence gain insight into their composition and evolution. There is another hidden secret in this picture if you look closely at the lower right region: beyond this stunning cosmic dance you will find a faint yellowish smudge, the signature of an ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG). UDGs are objects as large as the Milky Way but ...
Planet SPECULOOS
1 November 2021: The Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars (SPECULOOS) telescopes sited at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert are usually the ones looking for new worlds, but this picture actually captures the observing site looking like a planet itself. This is constructed using a photography technique called stereographic projection, whereby a spherical image — like a 360º panorama — is projected onto a plane. The mission of SPECULOOS is to detect terrestrial planets as they pass between us and their parent small, cool star in the solar neighbourhood, leading to a tiny, regular dimming in the star's brightness. Exoplanets discovered by this so-called transit method can be studied in great detail, including making precise measurements of their mass and radius, and analysing their possible atmospheres and potential for life. SPECULOOS, whose name is inspired by the sweet treat famous in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany, comprises four telescopes, each ...
25 October 2021: Captured with the MUSE instrument mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), this image shows the innermost regions of the distant spiral galaxy NGC 5248, also known as Caldwell 45. Located around 59 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Boötes, this galaxy is notable for having not one but two rings around its centre. These rings are characterised by "hot spots" of starburst activity. Starburst regions, seen as an orange glow in the picture, are where stars form much more frequently than usual. MUSE, which stands for Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, is attached to Yepun, one of the four 8.2-metre telescopes that make up the VLT. MUSE decomposes the light of every single pixel within its field of view into its constituent colours or wavelengths. This allows researchers to map complex mechanisms within extended objects, such as analysing the formation of stars in galaxies.
Observing across the spectrum
18 October 2021: Cast against the background of a magnificent sunset above the Chajnantor Plateau in the Atacama Desert, the antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) keep watch over the skies. ALMA, of which ESO is a partner, is the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence. The beautiful shades of orange and red that illuminate the sky as the Sun sets behind the horizon teach us an interesting physics lesson. As it passes through the Earth's atmosphere, sunlight with shorter, bluer wavelengths gets scattered off the molecules of gas and dust in the air more than that with longer, redder wavelengths. As the Sun approaches the horizon, light that reaches the Earth's surface takes a longer path through its atmosphere, and most of the blue part of its visible spectrum gets scattered away. The light that reaches our eyes dyes the sky around the setting Sun in stunning hues of red. ...
A dusty welcome
11 October 2021: A person's welcoming silhouette is outlined against one of the Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile, as the coalsack nebula waves its majestic hello as a dark smudge in the middle of the night sky. This is one of ESO's Very Large Telescope's four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes, which also includes four giant 8.2-metre cousins, the Unit Telescopes (UTs). Depending on the needs of each observing project, the ATs can be repositioned in up to 30 different observing locations along a system of tracks and act together as part of the VLT Interferometer. The interferometer combines the light the ATs or the UTs capture from celestial objects with a technique known as interferometry, allowing researchers to observe the cosmos in incredible detail. The Coalsack Nebula is the most prominent dark nebula in the sky. In the Southern hemisphere, these dark clouds are more prominent ...
4 October 2021: Each family has its own traditions and the staff at ESO's Paranal observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile are no exception. Before the observations start, people meet on the observatory's platform to enjoy the sunset, accompanied in this picture by one of the 1.8-metre diameter Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The ATs can be moved along rails, and they work together as a single, "virtual" instrument, the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), which uses interferometry to combine the light collected by the individual telescopes and probe the cosmos with much sharper eyes. The VLT also comprises four static 8.2m Unit Telescopes, which can work either as standalone telescopes or with the VLTI. The orange colour of the Sun and the sky at sunset is caused by the Earth's atmosphere. This scatters the light reaching the Earth from space in different directions, depending on the colour. ...
Twilight Glow
27 September 2021: The low twilight Sun highlights the clouds hanging over the Chilean Atacama landscape in this Picture of the Week, bathing the scene in deep, fiery red light. The image is dominated by the Purico Complex, a clump of volcanic mountains whose highest peak reaches a whopping 5703 metres in elevation! A single vehicle is visible on the remote road below, kicking up a stream of opaque dust in its wake, and towards the left of the image is a cluster of buildings...and a single antenna. This is the ESO-operated Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), one of the highest telescopes in the world. APEX is designed to work at submillimetre wavelengths between infrared light and radio waves, which are key to revealing some of the coldest, dustiest, and most distant objects in the Universe. Over the years, it has explored a wide range of astronomical phenomena, probing the wild early lives of ...
La Silla Family Photo
20 September 2021: In this Picture of the Week, taken by drone, you can see nearly all of the telescopes at ESO's La Silla Observatory snaking along the top of the 2400-metre saddle-shaped mountain and into the distance. One for the La Silla family album! La Silla is located on the outskirts of Chile's Atacama Desert, far from human-made light pollution in an area famed for its dark, clear skies. It was ESO's first observatory, inaugurated in 1969, and remains at the forefront of astronomy today, with around 300 scientific papers using observations from La Silla telescopes published every year. The most prominent telescope in this image is the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, home to the world's foremost exoplanet hunting instrument: the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS. Thanks to the observations made with HARPS, astronomers have worked out that there are likely billions of rocky planets in the temperate zones around ...
13 September 2021: Looking at this photo might make you feel a little topsy-turvy! This Picture of the Week captures both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere at once — the whole night's sky in one mind-bending image — something that would be impossible to see in real life. To create this image, photographers Petr Horálek and Juan Carlos Casado took two pictures at observatories located at the same latitudes in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The top half is a photo taken at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias' Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma in the Canary Islands, 29 degrees north of the equator, whilst the bottom half was taken at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, 29 degrees south of the equator. When digitally stitched together, they create a continuous sweeping view of the night's sky. One of the most noticeable features in this picture is the ...
6 September 2021: Like Atlas holding up the sky in the Ancient Greek myth, it looks like ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) is supporting the Moon in this extraordinary picture of a total lunar eclipse at the Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert. The photograph was taken on 26 May 2021 by astrophotographer Yuri Beletsky and it is featured in the ESO Calendar 2022. To take this Picture of the Week, some detailed planning was required on the part of the photographer. Careful calculations allowed him to pinpoint a location nine kilometres to the east of Paranal, where the setting lunar eclipse would be briefly visible just above the domes of the telescopes, glowing faintly in the early morning twilight. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and Moon align, with the Earth between the Sun and Moon. The Earth's shadow blocks direct sunlight, so that the only light reflected from ...


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Mother and Baby Home report deemed "cold" and "callous" as Gov faces backlash
The Irish tenor vs. Torre
Irish tenor Ronan Tynan has called former Yankee manger Joe Torre ' a clown' and 'petty' and said it was 'painful to see people throw stones" after Torre said he did not not deserve a world championship ring after the 2000 world series. Torre wrote in The Yankee Years" that Tynan and actor Billy Crystal were "Steinbrenner cronies" who should never have got rings before coaching staff members who were overlooked. This week Tynan, who has performed 'America the Beautiful' for the Yankees at the seventh inning stretch for years to great acclaim hit back. Speaking to Irishcentral.com writer Mike Farragher he said 'I bought the book and read it and the clown wrote about me," he said. 'I mean I like Joe and all but I guess he took issue that the scouts didn't get a ring and I did it was all so petty." "I was surprised that was brought up as an issue. George Steinbrenner is passionate about the sport and the Yankees and loved to win, If you were part of it he included you if he thought you were part of the win. The Yankees are good people and it is painful to see people throw stones at people you think a lot of it."
IrishCentral Staff Writers
Ronan Tynan
Irish tenor Ronan Tynan has called former Yankee manger Joe Torre ' a clown' and 'petty' and said it was 'painful to see people throw stones" after Torre said he did not not deserve a world championship ring after the 2000 world series.
Torre wrote in The Yankee Years" that Tynan and actor Billy Crystal were "Steinbrenner cronies" who should never have got rings before coaching staff members who were overlooked.
This week Tynan, who has performed 'America the Beautiful' for the Yankees at the seventh inning stretch for years to great acclaim hit back.
Speaking to Irishcentral.com writer Mike Farragher he said 'I bought the book and read it and the clown wrote about me," he said. 'I mean I like Joe and all but I guess he took issue that the scouts didn't get a ring and I did it was all so petty."
"I was surprised that was brought up as an issue. George Steinbrenner is passionate about the sport and the Yankees and loved to win, If you were part of it he included you if he thought you were part of the win. The Yankees are good people and it is painful to see people throw stones at people you think a lot of it."


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HomePosts tagged 'a new kind of christian'
a new kind of christian
A New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren
May 11, 2019 MJH Books, Christianity, Classic Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Mediaeval Christianity, Monks, Oriental Orthodoxy, Patristics, Roman Catholicism, The Bible a new kind of christian, brian mclaren, emergent christianity, evangelicalism, hypermodern, postmodernism, soteriology
The short version: This book is written in the genre of a novel which I think is a really good way to explore those ideas bundled together as 'postmodern'. It is geared towards disillusioned American evangelicals who still love Jesus but find a lot of problems in the way church is done and stuff is talked about in the year 2000 (a lot of these problems persist to this day). It is good at asking hard questions, but the few answers are sometimes too vague as to actually be helpful or only highlight more problems. The concepts of modernism/modernity and postmodernism/postmodernity as assessed. Sometimes I think there are factual errors in these discussions. Nonetheless, this book is good at problematizing — and I think a lot of people found it refreshing to start thinking about different ways of being Christian that did not mean abandoning historic orthodoxy.
18 years later, I am not sure I would recommend the book. This is because McLaren imagined the imminent arrival of postmodernity, yet we have found ourselves living in the hypermodern instead. For example, instead of a pluralist culture where Christianity is one respected voice amongst many, we have a situation that I was recently told is called 'postsecular' — secularism is so deeply ingrained in our society's ways of operating that we are living in the truly secular age forecast by Charles Taylor years ago. That is to say: The book is good, but limited in part because of the new directions our culture is taking and has taken, unanticipated by 2001's new kind of Christian.
Cultural assessments and critiques like this are probably meant to only have a certain shelf life.
I'll set aside where I suspect the factual errors are in the description of modernity, and focus on the conversations about Christianity. The conversation partners clearly want to rise above the division of conservative/liberal, which is nice but likely impossible. Throughout, the main pomo fellow, Neo, says, 'People think in this binary fashion. The conversation is actually up here.' It's a nice way of dodging answers. Nevertheless, a question raised cannot be un-asked.
For example, when the question of salvation comes up, this book gets really twitchy. I think McLaren was reacting against some unhealthy approaches to the question used by American evangelicals and fundamentalists. One of the questions about salvation was the question of universalism vs inclusivism vs exclusivism; the first means everyone is saved by Jesus' saving power; the second means everyone who puts their faith in Jesus is saved along with certain people of other religions like the Calormene in C S Lewis' The Last Battle; the third means only those who put their faith in Jesus are saved. Neo says that this question isn't the Bible's main concern, and the Bible is more concerned with living out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Except the Bible does have things to say that have bearing on the question. I would rather the new kind of Christian be humble in his or her answer, whichever of the three, than come up with some pomo pseudo-logic to avoid answering.
This is only one example of many. It leaves the book intellectually unsatisfying. I am, perhaps, more 'modernist' than I'd like to admit, but since the first moderns were mediaeval, and I like the rigour of Boethius and Anselm, I'll take the label.
I do agree that late twentieth-century American (and Canadian) evangelicalism (which, not modern Christianity at large, is the real target of the book) needed a readjustment regarding the word salvation. Neo insists that the way evangelicals approach the question, of 'getting saved' and going to heaven, is selfish. I'm not sure that it's selfish; it's too small, however, and I appreciate the bigness of Neo's vision when he incorporates the cosmos into the question.
But human salvation means the salvation of persons, and this is part of the biblical doctrine of salvation. When I think of salvation on the human level, I am certainly not thinking of a 'Get out of Hell Free' card in a heavenly Monopoly game. My reading of the Fathers, medievals, and Orthodox thinkers has been leading me down new paths about participation in Christ and the ongoing work of salvation and such. This sort of richness of human salvation would have benefited the book simply because it tempers evangelicalism without gutting it.
This or something like it could be my tune for almost all of my disagreements with this book. For example, looking for a third way of ethics that is neither fundamentalist moralising nor liberal social works with no regard for inner character (that's not quite how it's phrased) — you mean Roman Catholicism? There's a different kind of Christianity with a powerful social teaching and regard for the despised and rejected as well as moral standards as high as those of any evangelical — except at least Catholics can drink beer!
I could go on because it is easier to complain than to praise. There is much good in this book in terms of shaking things up — What do you believe about the Bible? What about salvation? Your own? Others'? Those outside the church? What is the relationship between church and kingdom? What do we do regarding other religions? Science and religion? etc., etc. Some of the answers are satisfying, some are correction course ('Hey, the Bible is mostly stories!'), some are unsatisfying in the extreme.
In the end, this chief weakness still comes back to me, though. The characters foresee a future where Christians re-engage ancient and medieval spiritual practices (yay!). They imagine training for ministry that includes reading broadly through the whole tradition in terms of time and space (yay!). They engage in endless periodization (ancient – medieval – modern – postmodern) (blah). But the ideas of ancient and medieval, let alone Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity are never presented as options for those disillusioned with the options currently on offer in modern Christianity.
From what I see, this problem would plague the emergent movement until it fizzled out. They want the pretty, evocative stuff of ancient/medieval Christianity (incense, icons, candles, compline, pilgrimage, mysticism, even fasting and almsgiving), but not the intellectual rigour of an Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, or John of Damascus. The existence of Roman Catholics is noted, but the richness of the Roman Catholic tradition rarely engaged.
This is true of all three of McLaren's books that I've read — and the reviews of A New Kind of Christianity show him ramping it up with his 'Greco-Roman thesis' that the biblical plot of creation – fall – redemption – glory was an importation from Platonic philosophy (it's not; it bears little to no resemblance to Platonism; I do not know where he got this), or that if you reject penal substitutionary atonement theory you reject Christ's death atoning for us (all Christians before Anselm must be confused, along with all of Eastern Christianity) — if he had read the Fathers and the medieval and Byzantine theologians deeply, he would not have made these errors. He may still have been a heretic, but at least an informed one.
In the end, if you are disillusioned with contemporary evangelicalism and want to find a different way of being Christian, this book may be helpful. On the other hand, why not just read Ephrem the Syrian, or Sebastian Brock's excellent book about him, The Luminous Eye? Or Isaac of Nineveh? Both are online for free, after all. There you will find a different kind of Christian who yet affirms the reliability of Scripture and the Nicene faith without all the hazards of either evangelicalism or liberalism.
An Old Kind of Christian
May 4, 2019 MJH Uncategorized a new kind of christian, bill kinnon, brian d mclaren, brian walsh, emergent christianity, emerging church, postmodern, tradition, truth is stranger than it used to be
I have recently begun paternity leave, and I've decided that, besides not formally doing work for ten weeks, I'll also take a moment away from reading ancient, mediaeval, and Orthodox books for a little bit, to sort of, um, freshen the brain. Read books 'normal' people read. So I've put my 'fun' reading of Statius' Thebaid on hold and have started Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and my Christian-y reading of St Anselm's Prayers and Meditations has been switched for Brian D. McLaren's A New Kind of Christian.
I realise I'm 18 years late to this party (and was 18 when the book came out), so any meditations I have on a book that thought it was cutting-edge in 2001 may be a little inappropriate. I will not be able to recapture what it must have been like to have been 36 reading this book back then.
Also, I have read two of McLaren's books already, one in 2004 (More Ready Than You Realize) the other in 2006 (A Generous Orthodoxy), and I have to admit that I liked them, but neither was revolutionary or game-changing. Finally, for my own 2001-02 context, I did read, in 2002, Walsh and Middleton's Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be, my introduction to postmodernism.
Anyway, having laid out a bit of my own modern context (I use that word on purpose), I also assume any regular reader knows that I am a Classicist and ecclesiastical historian who specialises in Patristics with research interests that stretch into the High Middle Ages and an eclectic, East-leaning Anglican devotional life, having been raised in a charismatic Anglican parish.
Before beginning this book, my thoughts were largely as follows. My sister-in-law once observed that Brian McLaren was not that revolutionary in these early books; he was mostly just explaining postmodernism to middle-aged people. In the end, however, the emerging church as a movement has proven itself largely spent. McLaren's book A New Kind of Christianity set him not merely outside the bounds of evangelicalism but of any orthodoxy, however generous (for some solid critique, I direct you to Bill Kinnon, since I know and trust Bill). He demonstrated himself simply another liberal; he was running so fast to find something new that he ended up in the 1990s in 2010.
The only other two names ever associated with the emerging church that I can think of are Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll, and I'm sure I'll get in trouble for daring to mention Driscoll's name with such illustrious company — for Driscoll has proven himself simply another Reformed megachurch pastor who happens to be edgy. Bell decided to catch up with the Episcopal Church in affirming universal salvation and gay marriage. Oh, yes, Peter Rollins; he seems not really to be a liberal simply because he is so very different. But he's by no means anywhere within the boundaries of historic orthodoxy — he may be the only one to have succeeded in becoming a new kind of Christian.
When I first asked a couple of years ago the question, 'What happened to the emerging/emergent church?', I found a video on YouTube of one less-famous member chatting with a slightly more famous guy. The less famous emergent guy had emerged into Roman Catholicism, and the other had turned out a Pelagian who rejected the Nicene Creed not on any logical grounds but on the highly individualist notion that the men who wrote it had to place telling him what to believe. It was a strange conversation to watch.
So it seems that in trying to embrace postmodernism, many associated with emergent have ended up modern(ist) in one way or another — the individualistic Pelagian who also rejects Nicaea; the guy who bailed out and became Catholic; the Reformed pastor; the guys who are really not so different from the liberal mainline, itself a product of modernity.
This, of course, is no surprise. Contrary to all the exciting things being said in the first 46 pages of A New Kind of Christian (this is as far as I have got), postmodernism was simply a self-critique of modernism, which is what modernism has been doing for most of its existence. The idea that postmodernism may actually simply be an outgrowth of the modern mindset, that it may actually be modernism dressed up in fancy, new jargon, first came to my attention in a 2009 or 2010 issue of Adbusters. Since then, I've seen or heard of a growing critique of postmodernism.
So McLaren, et al., for all that I know their books helped a lot of Christians work through important issues and critique the modern church, failed at becoming a new kind of Christian.
I realise this post is already long-ish, but my other thought, a thought that also inspired the title, and one which I hope to explore further, is that perhaps an old kind of Christian is what we need, but neither a modern(ist) one nor, indeed, an irrecoverable pre-modern one. Brian Walsh and others have dug into those of us who think that we should hunt down pre-modern Christianity to find moorage in the sea of postmodernity. (Brian Walsh has also succeeded in slowly drifting in liberalism in his embrace of the postmodern; where are the orthodox postmoderns?) Rather, I think of a spirit-infused prophet of old who has drunk deeply of the Fathers and can body forth for us in our current context, be in post- or not, the ancient, medieval, Byzantine and even (gasp!) modern wisdom the Spirit has poured into the Church.
One may argue that that kind of Christian sounds like a postmodern Christian as imagined 18 years ago. The difference is that, unlike a Peter Rollins who provides a long-running critique of the whole Christian project, or McLaren who doesn't really seem to understand the medieval world (or didn't, back in 2001 when he wrote this book, based on how he uses Lewis' The Discarded Image), this is someone from within the tradition who embraces it, is infused with it, and loves it to bursting, because the tradition is the manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth, because the tradition is the Holy Spirit at work in the world of men, because the tradition is the life story of the Body of Christ.
Postmodernism, that is, late stage modernity in its current manifestation, has a liking for story and song. Is tradition not simply the story of the church? Is it not the song sung by the Spirit in His people over these long years? Let us go deep into the Christian tradition, East and West, and prayerfully seek the wisdom of the mystics and liturgists and saints and poets and theologians who have brought us here, and use them as guides to bring us to Christ.
It is Christ who will lead us onward.


Mark Newbold, 43 (chartered accountant), Kylee Newbold, 37 (head of arts at an Auckland secondary school and jewellery maker), plus dogs Frida and Stanley.
We underestimated the need to mask areas well when we started painting – this meant we had a lot of clean-up to do. Masking tape is the way to go.
When we originally designed the bach, we thought it would become a minor dwelling, so we designed the kitchen without an oven. Now that we love the bach and are planning to extend it, we're trying to work an oven into the design.
Our first night in the bach was a huge highlight. We'd both dreamed of having a bach for years but never thought we could make it a reality until we were much older. We're definitely stoked to have this little space and try and make the most of it.
How did your budget forecast compare to your actual spend? How did you keep track of costs during renovations?
We were spot on with our $100,000 budget. With Mark being an accountant, he kept a close eye on everything and priced out all of the costs accurately. He communicated regularly with our project manager/builder to keep track of everything going on.
The use of simple building materials such as ply, helped keep the budget in check, while plenty of vintage homeware, including this Felix the Cat clock, give the bach character.
while being bold in its use of colour and geometric forms.
Decked out The interior may be tiny, but the covered deck increases the living area and is a favourite spot for the Newbolds to spend time with visiting family and friends over coffee or a colddrink.


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Vancouver BC, Canada, Feb. 26, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: SYH) (OTC Grey: SYHBF) (Frankfurt: SC1N) (the "Company") is pleased to announce, that further to its news releases dated January 29, 2015 and February 10, 2015, it has closed its non-brokered private placement to raise gross proceeds of $1,250,263.50. Due to strong response from investors, the Company increased its non-brokered private placement financing to $1,250,263.50 from the initially targeted $500,000 as set out in the Company's news release dated January 29, 2015. The amended financing will be completed through the issuance of up to 25,005,270 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.05 per unit. Each Unit consists of one common share and one non-transferable share purchase warrant ("Warrant"), with each whole Warrant entitling the holder to purchase one common share for a period of five years at a price of $0.075 per share.
In connection with the financing, Skyharbour issued a total of 197,855 finder's warrants to finders (the "Finder's Warrants") who introduced certain subscribers to the private placement. The Finder's Warrants are on the same terms as the Warrants. The Company also paid to finders a cash total of $9,892.75 in connection with this financing. The Unit Shares and Warrants issued under the private placement and any shares issued pursuant to the exercise of the Warrants and Finder's Warrants are subject to a four month and one day hold period under applicable securities laws and imposed by the TSX Venture Exchange.
Skyharbour intends to utilize the proceeds of this private placement for the continued exploration of the Company's uranium projects in the Athabasca Basin and for general working capital purposes. Skyharbour is planning a winter drill program at its 100% owned Falcon Point Uranium Project (previously the Way Lake Project) located 55 km east of the Key Lake Mill, which will be the Company's first work program on the property since acquiring it from Denison Mines in the summer of 2014. The program will focus on diamond drilling high-priority targets including areas in and around the current uranium/thorium resource at the JNR Fraser Lakes target.
Additionally, Skyharbour and the Western Athabasca Syndicate plan to commence a field program at the Preston Property in March that will consist of further exploration of high-priority targets, as well as geophysical and geochemical surveys to identify new targets. The 246,643 hectare Preston Uranium Property is the largest individual property proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit and the recent discovery made by NexGen Energy on the Rook-1 Project.
Skyharbour Resources Ltd. is a uranium and thorium exploration company and the operator of the Western Athabasca Syndicate which controls a large, geologically prospective land package consisting of five properties in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. Skyharbour also owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point (formerly Way Lake) Uranium Project on the east side of the Basin which hosts an NI 43-101 compliant inferred resource totaling 7.0 million pounds of U3O8 at 0.03% and 5.3 million pounds of ThO2 at 0.023%. The Company owns a 60% interest in the Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin strategically located 25 km southwest of Cameco's McArthur River Mine. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions.


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Q: Random point generation for 2 dimension points with range from -5 to +5 in python how can i create 5 random point for each x and y coordinate within certain range in python. I came across rand function but I was not able to find how to proceed further for 2dimension points.

A: You could write a function like this, to generalise the functionality a little:
import random

def random_point(dimension=2, min_c=-5, max_c=5):
    return [random.randint(min_c, max_c) for _ in range(dimension)]

print(random_point())

This will print a random 2-dimensional point in space as a list of coordinates, with coordinated between -5 and 5 inclusive.
To get the x and y separately, you could do:
x, y = random_point()

If you're absolutely sure you only need a 2-d point between -5 and 5, you could do this:
x, y = (random.randint(-5, 5) for _ in range(2))

But I'd recommend the first approach for being cleaner and more reusable.


Rachel Zoe is settling down for a holidays and divulgence some of her family's favorite holiday traditions.
The designer and CEO of Rachel Zoe, Inc. told PEOPLE how she and husband, Rodger Berman, ready for a holidays.
"Someplace comfortable like Cabo or St. Barths, and also cold and friendly like Aspen — we are a large ski family," Zoe said.
The businesswoman and entrepreneur, pronounced her boys "love all of a holiday parties" and, while a family is Jewish, they suffer all a opposite anniversary celebrations.
Her youngest also celebrates his birthday during a gratifying period, with Kai branch 4 on Sunday.
With a finish of a year fast approaching, Zoe also spoke about a prominence of her year, that focused on her dual sons.
The holidays also meant a time for holiday dressing, something a stylish mom of dual says she does not let a continue – generally Los Angeles' unseasonably comfortable weather.
Rachel Zoe's tip for sauce for this holiday deteriorate – be as glamorous as a season.