text:
Fools and Our Money
It never gets mentioned much in the dramas about our founding fathers, but one of the big reasons for the American Revolution, was money. You see, the British Empire was about two goals; power and wealth. The American colonies represented quite a bit of each, and while the phrase 'cash cow' did not come into use until much later, it's a apt phrase to describe how the King and Parliament saw them. This, in short, meant that whenever the British government decided it needed to raise funds, an early and popular plan was to raise taxes in the American colonies. This reached a point where the colonists were angry enough to protest, and when complaints were ignored, to resist. I mention this, because our Federal government seems very much inclined to go down the same road.
A good example is the price of gasoline. There is a great deal of talk about concern for the consumer, but no serious action. Indeed, despite promising to lower gas prices to below $2 a gallon, the present Congress has sat idly by while prices instead doubled. Plans have been suggested which could address the problem, both in the short and long term, yet the government stubbornly clings to unproven hysteric theories rather than act in prudent fashion. Neither party is really addressing the problem from the perspective of the average citizen. As usual.
The federal government gets more than two trillion dollars of our money every year, yet they manage to run a deficit and to waste a lot of it on garbage projects to please their own egos. Two trillion dollars is about fifteen thousand dollars a taxpayer, every single year, not including the taxes you pay to a city, county, state or other tax authority. Leaving statistics aside, you have to pay when you get your wages, you pay every time you buy something, you pay for where you live, any nearby schools, a lot of your roads and bridges, and all sorts of fees even when you don't use what they're paying for. You get taxed on your phone – if I recall correctly, we are somehow still paying for the Spanish-American War, you get to pay taxes everytime the US government decides it wants to help someone else. That's one thing when we are helping disaster relief, but something else when we are paying folks for not working, for a politically motivated cause, or for their personal campaigns. And then, after all this paying without our consent or in many cases much informing, we get to file income tax returns, which if done wrongly will lead to threats and penalties by the government.
As we celebrate the anniversary of our independence from Britain, it might be time to notice that someone else wants to make us their colony, their cash cow for whatever they please. And perhaps it is once again time to make clear that we are the nation, not those mandarins – Republican or Democrat – who claim 'public service' but only serve their own.
Labels: taxes
Americans Do Not Retreat
Over at Wizbang, Jay Tea and I have been bantering the 'Joe Horn' case, discussing various aspects of it and what it means to the greater society. Along the way, Jay mentioned the concept of 'duty to retreat'. The concept is based on the idea that when faced with an aggressor, a person has a moral duty to avoid confrontation, to give up ground and back away. That when a criminal gets it in his head that he wants to take something, we should just let him do so. That if he hurts someone, we should not try to prevent it. That the most we are allowed to do, is to stay out of the way, and if we feel guilty about doing nothing we can call the police later on and they will file a report about it.
This concept frankly strikes me as obscene, but more to the point, it is un-American. Concepts like duty to retreat seem to be very much how Liberals see the world. Such a concept explains how they can see Iraq's freedom from Saddam Hussein as a bad thing - we should not have taken him down, you see, it was somehow "wrong" to free millions of innocent Iraqis from a mad dictator. Same thing in Afghanistan; the Left would argue that even an evil usurping group like the Taliban somehow constituted a 'sovereign government', which we were wrong to confront and remove, even though they protected and supported Al Qaeda and the monsters who committed 9/11's horrors (for which the Left also blames America - we should not have gone outside our borders, you see, should not have promoted business anywhere in foreign lands, even where we were invited, should not have raised living standards and therefore expectations in third world countries, etc.). We see it in Europe now, where governments facing seditious thugs trying to tear apart their societies, actually apologize to the monsters and tell the victims not to make trouble. The established traditions and cultures of more than a thousand years are being dismantled, by the very governments which shuold be defending them, because those governments fear confrontation. It is a worse offense than cowardice, because a coward only shames his own name; the proponents of this concept would coerce a general condition of fear and self-loathing, all in the name of appeasement.
But I said this concept is un-American. Some who hate President Bush for protecting the nation, have claimed that his decisions and directives have hurt our standing in the world. I say rather the opposite, that the iron in his spine makes us taller in the view of everyone else. More and more nations copy the American model, in government, in business, and in culture. And what's more, President Bush is well in line with American tradition on that point. It is important to note that our nation was born in blood, though not a fight we wanted to have. When the British took to not only occupying major American towns in order to enforce its tax decrees, but quartering troops in American homes, they sparked a general rebellion which grew to drive a new nation into being. When the Barbary pirates raided our vessels and demanded tribute, we did not answer long with money, but soon replied with naval gunnery. The War of 1812 may well have been foolish, but by the time it was over, Europe knew better than to dictate terms to us. When we went to war with Spain over Cuba and the Philippines, we did not settle for a diplomatic victory, but removed Spain from those countries. And to address our attitude in World War 2 towards our enemies, one need only consider any of the public statements made by General Patton or Admiral Halsey. Only when we let ourselves get talked into considering our missions to have limits, do we lose wars. When we do whatever is necessary to win, we win easily.
This does not mean that war without restraint is always the most desirable, but it does mean that when we are attacked, we are right to answer in full force. When our objective protects our homeland, we are right to put our goals ahead of other nations'. Our friends must ever be aware that we will accomplish our missions, and our enemies must be made to know that there is no greater foolishness than to provoke our wrath. Mister Obama is very much wrong on that point - there must indeed be preconditions to any meeting with an adversary, the chief being that our enemies must know that they cannot hope to defeat us, that any attack against us will be answered, fully but in such time and manner as suits our plans, no one else.
Americans do not retreat.
Posted by DJ Drummond at 12:32 PM No comments:
Joe Horn, The Fourth of July, and Forgotten Duties
On November 14 of 2007, Pasadena resident Joe Horn called 911 because two men were breaking into his neighbor's house. As time progressed and the police had not arrived, Horn became increasingly angry and worried as time progressed and the police did not arrive, angry that the burglars would get away and worried that just sitting in his house doing nothing might make him a target. Finally, against repeated urging from the 911 operator (who is not, just to be clear, a police officer or authorized to issue commands to the public) to stay in his home, Horn left his house, got his shotgun from his car, and when the two burglars, Diego Ortiz and Miguel de Jesus, emerged from the neighbor's house, Horn accosted them, they entered his yard, and Horn shot both men to death. This past week, a grand jury declined to press charges against Mr. Horn.
I was uncomfortable with the story initially, because a number of points were unclear. Horn had threatened to kill the burglars while on the phone with the 911 operator, yet he had also expressed fear for his own safety. Which one was the larger motive in getting his gun? One of the men he shot was shot in the back and the other in the side, yet a police officer who witnessed the shooting testified the two men came from the neighbor's yard onto Mr. Horn's yard. I am a strong proponent of defending your home and family, but a bit less sure about shooting someone just because you think they will get away with a crime.
But as I thought about it, I began to recognize significant points, the first of which is that I was not there. That is, the facts are relayed from Mr. Horn, the police, any witnesses, and the forensic data, and worse, they are filtered through a biased media. More than one media company chose to presented only edited versions of Horn's 911 communication, even though full unedited versions were released by the police. Almost any position taken by someone hearing the story will be biased by his or her preconceived opinion.
I also realized that the people attacking Mister Horn were, unintentionally, explaining why he had every right to do as he did. A lot of folks were saying that everything would have been just fine if Mr. Horn had just stayed in his house and not confronted the burglars. Think about that. A homeowner who has the right to go where he wants on his property is being told to ignore a crime going on right next to him, to not look at the criminals so he can report to the authorities, to not try to stop the crooks who are committing a crime right there, to basically just sit there and hide like a trapped animal.
There is something fundamentally wrong, something clearly evil, about suggesting that criminals should not be hindered, while honest folk should be told to hide out of the way and do nothing. That attitude can explain a lot of why crime is so bad in places; if crooks have the run of things and the honest folk run away and do not confront them, do not witness their crimes and report detailed descriptions, and the rights of citizens are degraded while thugs are emboldened, then no good can possibly come of it.
The next claim was that the police can handle crime, and doing anything to confront a criminal would just get in their way. That's wrong on at least two levels. First, while I have great respect and appreciation for police officers in general and for many specific individuals I know, it has to be said that the pathetic track record of the police in solving - let alone preventing crime should be considered in this incident. Not to be cynical, but the police – at their best – react to events and may catch criminals at some point in the future, In the mean time, criminals continue to plague innocent victims, and have learned that the police are no real threat unless they are caught in the act. In my own experience, I have been robbed three times at gunpoint, my wheels were stolen off my car in 2003, my whole car was stolen in 2005, and an angry neighbor once smashed a side window of my car. In none of those cases did the police ever catch the crooks. In the case of the angry neighbor, the guy left a note explaining why he smashed my window – he said I was parked 'in his space' (in a lot with no assigned spaces), yet the police refused to arrest him, saying they 'had no real evidence'. In the case of my stolen car, the car turned up three weeks later shot full of bullet holes – it had apparently been used in a robbery attempt, yet the police made no attempt to collect evidence from it, such as fingerprints or pieces of bullet, etc. The simple fact is that very few crimes matter to police the way they do to the victim. The second point, is that legal experts will tell you that in terms of the law, the police are not actually required to protect you. They work for the government, and have no specific directive whatsoever to protect you. Not that they could, though – even if you were on the phone to 911 when someone breaks into your house, the police could not possibly get to your house before the criminals could kill you. The operative lesson here, is that the only real defense is self-defense. And that, speaking bluntly, means having access to deadly force and the will to use it, if necessary.
Some folks will get mad at that. Such people were quick to blame Mr. Horn for, in their opinion, acting as judge, jury, and executioner. But they are wrong in such claims. Folks need to understand that an ordinary citizen is not a law officer or a court. That puts limits on what they may do, but it also means they are not limited in the way a court is. If I have a gun and am attacked, I do not have to do anything about the 'rights' of the criminal, I do not have to consider legal procedures when dealing with a crime happening right in front of me. Criminals deserve no advantage or privilege, and if a homeowner shoots a burglar, only the most perverse interpretation of law or civil rights could pretend that the homeowner is culpable.
This all started because two criminals forgot that a homeowner with a gun is not held to the same conditions as a man with a badge, that a neighbor is not required to just hide in his home while crooks do as they please - some might even argue that a good neighbor has the moral responsibility to get involved.
Some folks have, rather hysterically, called Mr. Horn a racist, simply because the men he killed were Hispanic while he was white. But that is an absurd notion on its face. The 911 call made no reference to race whatsoever; Mr. Horn was reacting to a break-in of his neighbor's house, not the appearance of the criminals. The tape gives no reason to think that Mr. Horn knew what race the men were until he confronted them. Also, the tape shows that three seconds elapsed from when Horn warned "move and you're dead" to when he first fired. An undercover police officer who witnessed the shootings told the grand jury that the men approached Horn, entering his yard in the process. That they turned when he started shooting does not in any way change the character of their behavior or Horn's right to use force.
I should also note the character of the decedents. Diego Ortiz and Miguel de Jesus were illegal aliens from Colombia, and suspected in a number of burglaries. De Jesus was on parole when he died while attempting another burglary. These were not upstanding citizens, and while the death of anyone is a serious concern, it is impossible for any rational person to consider either of the two to be innocent victims in this matter.
So what does all this have to do with the Fourth of July? What do I mean by saying there are forgotten duties? It comes down to the character of our nation, even our identity. Time was, that Americans understood that we cannot depend on others for our own safety, that sometimes we have to do something difficult, even unpleasant, in order to protect ourselves, our families, and our neighbors. We carry rights and with them comes responsibility. Those rights in the first Ten Amendments, they are meant to be used, and for the welfare of our nation. It's not about just your own house and your own interests, but your neighor's place and your community. It's about standing for more than just a slogan, being willing to do the heavy lifting, to take on the inconvenient chores to make things better for everyone. We all know this at some level, we all teach our kids to be responsible and to think of others. We teach our children to learn and use good judgment, and exercising that judgment shows in a lifetime of decisions and consequences. Sometimes those consequences are hard, as Mr. Horn has learned. And sometimes we have to stand against a tide of slackers, of the lazy or even the thuggish, to protect everything we know to be good against its dissolution. Fortunately, violence is rarely necessary to address this duty. We serve it in many ways, from work to civic responsibility, to community activity and faith life. But we all have work to do. Our country needs us, and no excuse will do.
Election Cycle Number 8
One thing people do every so often, is to look for trends. One fave trend has been to look at elections ending in 0, but this is not one of those years. I found it interesting to consider some of the odd Presidential elections in years ending in 8:
1988: Governor Mike Dukakis is lionized in the press for his supposed economic prowess, the "Massachusetts Miracle". In the fall, however, he is effectively trounced by the relative lightweight, Vice-President G.H.W. Bush, the first Bush to surprise and annoy the Democrats.
1968: The ugliest election of the generation. Unpopular President Lyndon Johnson decides not to run again, but will not do much to support a candidate. Charismatic candidate Bobby Kennedy is assassinated, VP Hubert Humphrey wins the nomination but not much support, Governor Wallace leads the South in revolt and splits the Democrat vote, handing the White House, incredibly, to Richard Nixon.
1948: Unpopular President Harry Truman is written off early as hopeless, but makes a bold comeback and wins an improbable victory. However, he never gains his party's full support, and he spends much of his time fighting to get anything done.
1928: Charismatic and popular Herbert Hoover doesn't have to do much to win the White House. Two years later, as the Great Depression takes the country by the throat, it appears Hoover is still not doing much.
1908: Honoring a promise not to run for re-election, Popular Teddy Roosevelt hands the reins over to William Howard Taft, a man so inept that four years later, Republicans and Democrats alike are screaming for change.
What can we expect in 2008? Whatever we get, don't plan on the predictable!
The W Factor, Still Alive
Over on Wizbang, I put up an approval poll on Dubs. As expected, regular people think he's doing a pretty good job. Not perfect of course, but a whole lot better than he gets credit for. I always thought so, not least because I have watched the guy since he was running for Texas governor when I didn't know much about him and thought he was not all that big a deal. Funny thing about W, folks have been trashing him for years, and it never sticks, not where it matters, It's not Teflon, because there are a lot of folks who get their jollies smearing the guy, wishing he were assassinated, comparing him to all sorts of brutal leaders (even as their own party coddles just such monsters, but that's nothing new, either), insulting him and ignoring every accomplishment he does, even as empty suits like Barack Obama cruise to high popularity and fund-raising success precisely because he has nothing in his resume but boasts and ego. I think it's because we recognize, at some deep level, the fact that there is always a guy we can depend on. He's not the smartest, maybe, but he gets the job done. He's not the smoothest talker, but he says what he means. He's not a favorite with Hollywood or the media, but he sticks to his core principles and pays whatever it costs to stay true to the most critical missions. In any town, there are people who get their picture in the paper, and there are people you can call when your car breaks down in the pouring rain at 3 AM. There are people who have millions in the bank, and there are people who don't have much but they will make sure you have what you need. There are people who can impress you with how smart they are, and there are people you can trust to keep their word. Folks like Bush, they're not glamorous or slick or witty. But you can depend on them. This fall, both of the candidates might want to think about the fact that for millions of us voters, we may like a good show but we will only trust the nation's leadership to a man we can trust to mean what he says, to do what he promises, and to carry on even when everyone – including some of his best former buddies –deserts him for a few bucks and the limelight. Bush is going home after this term, but that doesn't mean the nation does not still need someone a lot like him.
Posted by DJ Drummond at 8:44 PM 1 comment:
Joe Horn, The Fourth of July, and Forgotten Duties...


text:
Macuta ist ein portugiesischer Kolonialmünztyp, der in den westafrikanischen Besitzungen Angola und Portugiesisch-Guinea (heute Guinea-Bissau) in Umlauf war.

Das Wort ist wohl afrikanischen Ursprungs und bezeichnete ursprünglich ein Stück Kleiderstoff. Diese Stoffstücke wurden häufig als (Zwischen-)Tauschware an Geldes Statt für den Handel in Westafrika verwendet.

Die Münzen wurden ab 1762 geprägt. Es gab sie in Stücken zu Viertel, Halben und Ganzen in Kupfer. In Silber wurden Münzen zu 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 und 2 Macutas ausgeprägt.

Münze
Wirtschaft (Angola)
Historische Währungseinheit (Afrika)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


NEBB's credibility is built by maintaining integrity through high standards, quality programs and demonstrated capabilities of its certified firms. This is achieved through NEBB's Quality Assurance Program (QAP).
The NEBB QAP ensures swift, single-source mediation and resolution of disputes between NEBB Certified Professionals and their customers. Under the QAP, NEBB will intervene on any project if the customer feels that a NEBB Certified Firm has failed to perform in accordance with NEBB Procedural Standards.
Download the NEBB Quality Assurance Program brochure and application for Conformance Certificate.
Please email the QAP application to Sheila Simms, at sheila@nebb.org.


Herding Grasshoppers: Look! It's The Sun!
Good golly, Miss Molly, for today at least, spring finally came. We rushed accelerated through our school work so we could get out in it. Wyatt and Tate got busy mowing the neighbor's lawn (two mowers), and that was a CHORE. The grass was knee high, thick, and damp. But they got it done.
Took a walk down into a neighborhood park and saw mallards, wood ducks, red-wing blackbirds, crows, and - the highlight - bald eagles coming and going from their nest, high in a cottonwood tree. Gunnar and Tate have dubbed them the Regal Eagle family, and they do look very majestic. But did I bring a camera? Uhhh... no.
I let the kids stay up late, eating chocolate chip cookies and watching The Gods Must Be Crazy, 2, and I am pooped. So, pics of their big adventure... tomorrow.
Oh my goodness - you watch The Gods Must Be Crazy 2?? Did your family enjoy it??
What other SA'n movies appear round your way?
Hope your heat wave is lengthy and lovely!
Felicity, we have the two-DVD set and have loved them for years. But I don't know any other SA movies. Can you recommend some? Maybe we can find some on Netflix.
Sun? What is this sun you speak of? We might see it on Saturday - it was 48 on Monday and 49 yesterday. Matt keeps asking when "fake spring" will leave, so that "real spring" can arrive! It is supposed to be 70 on Saturday (sweltering)!
Chocolate chip cookies and THe Gods Must Be Crazy sounds like a great reward to me!
Sun here today too!!! I've never seen such a dark and wet spring. Should I say I'm glad I don't live on the west coast? We have both movies of The Gods Must Be Crazy. They're great! Rest up :o)!


text:
Q: mySQL Relational Tables Say I have 3 tables Products, Orders and Orders Product
Products Table

ID | StockNum | Description | Price
4  | 452SB    | Black       | 45.65
5  | 752SA    | Green       | 17.12

Orders Table

ID  | OrderNum | Total  |
14  | 12312    | 79.89  |
15  | 12313    | 45.65  |

Orders Product Table

ID  | OrderID  | Product  | Qty   |
45  | 14       | 452SB    | 1     |
46  | 14       | 752SA    | 2     |
47  | 15       | 452SB    | 1     |

If product information changes (Price or Description) this would throw off all previous order information, whats the best solution for this?. Also does it make more sense to be storing the product ID instead of the StockNum?
** Update **
Does This Make More Sense?  Also everything marked with ID at the end is FK
Products Table

ID | StockNum | ProductDetailsID |
4  | 452SB    | 8                |
5  | 752SA    | 9                |

Products Details Table

ID | Description | Price
8  | Black       | 45.65
9  | Green       | 17.12

Orders Table

ID  | OrderNum | Total  |
14  | 12312    | 79.89  |
15  | 12313    | 45.65  |

Orders Product Table

ID  | OrderID  | Product  | Qty   | ProductDetailsID |
45  | 14       | 452SB    | 1     | 8                |
46  | 14       | 752SA    | 2     | 9                |
47  | 15       | 452SB    | 1     | 8                |

A: You can add the fields Price and Description to the Orders Product table and copy the values when you create the row. This allows you to read the values as they were by the time of the order execution
Orders Product Table

ID  | OrderID  | Product  | Qty   | Description | Price
45  | 14       | 452SB    | 1     | Black       | 45.65
46  | 14       | 752SA    | 2     | Green       | 17.12
47  | 15       | 452SB    | 1     | Black       | 45.65

And yes, using Keys is always preferable
UPDATE
About foreign keys. Display them like this
Products Table

ID | StockNum | ProductDetailsID |
4  | 452SB    | 8                |
5  | 752SA    | 9                |

Products Details Table

ProductDetailsID | Description | Price
8                | Black       | 45.65
9                | Green       | 17.12

A: Using ID is a better solution.
You need to employ a concept called foreign key. This is why relation databases are called relational -- because you use foreign keys to relate records in different tables. It does not just give you a simpler and more robust design, but also a speed improvement, once your tables got populated with thousands of records. Nice things to google: "sql foreign key", "sql relations".
Some helpful URLs:
Article from MySQL Documentation about MySQL Foreign Key Syntax
Article from w3school about SQL Foreign Keys

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home Newsroom New Rapid Valley Fever Screening Improves Turnaround Time
New Rapid Valley Fever Screening Improves Turnaround Time
Valleywise Health has become one of the first health care organizations in the country to implement a new rapid screening for Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever), saving a significant amount of time and money.
The technology – developed by IMMY and adopted by the Valleywise Health laboratory in 2018 – returns results in as little as 20 minutes. Prior to this, Valley Fever tests were sent to a specialty lab in California and took an average of two weeks to get results.
"This is the first major development for a rapid Valley Fever test in 50 years," said Wesley Candelaria, MPH, M(ASCP), Clinical Lab Director at Valleywise Health. "It's completely changed the way we respond to Valley Fever and is helping patients get the care they need faster."
IMMY approached Valleywise Health to trial the FDA-approved Sona Coccidioides Antibody Lateral Flow Assay in the Spring of 2018. Valleywise Health laboratory professionals and District Medical Group physicians ran hundreds of samples to prove it was appropriate for our patients before officially implementing it. Since then, over 1,500 tests have been ordered.
"It's a risk to administer certain medications if patients have Valley Fever, so physicians were left balancing treatment options while they waited for the results. Now, physicians can manage patients' care faster and more confidently with this new rapid test," said Candelaria.
The test itself is surprisingly simple, using a small sample of the patient's blood, adding a test buffer to make titer dilutions, and then adding the lateral flow test strip.
"It's kind of like a pregnancy test," said Candelaria. "If the patient has the antibody in their blood, it will make a line on the test strip."
Valleywise Health was recently selected from thousands of applicants to present on this new rapid Valley Fever test at a national conference in Washington D.C., hosted by the Infectious Disease Society of America.
Click here to see the presentation poster.
Mark Dewane and Mary Rose Wilcox elected to lead the Maricopa County Special Health Care District Board of Directors
Young family chooses Valleywise Health for great care
Community Newsroom

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Is he Willoughby or is he Hillenkoetter, or neither?
In 1950, as General MacArthur's forces advanced on the Yalu River, his intelligence head, General Charles Willoughby, dismissed information that Chinese "volunteer" forces were already in Korea, buttressing MacArthur's determination to drive to the Chinese border. In contrast, CIA head Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, warned of a significant threat from the Chinese. In line with his previous treatment of the OSS, MacArthur froze the CIA out of East Asia.
The rest is history. In his meeting with President Truman at Wake Island, MacArthur claimed that the Chinese could not field more than 50,000 at a time when nearly 260,000 troops had already entered Korea. As allied forces approached the Yalu, the Chinese struck.
The result was a disaster. The Eighth Army was routed again and its South Korean allies destroyed. Thousands of allied troops died and were wounded.
(Recent pop culture reference, here).
It's always dangerous to reason by historical analogues (see review of Neutstadt/May), but perhaps it's useful to highlight parallels.
A tendency to dismiss the idea the Chinese will retaliate.
Insulation of the advisory process from the rest of the relevant bureaucracy.
Dismissal of the idea of effective retaliation, even if the other side decides to strike.
Over-optimism of the efficacy of forces as hand, as compared to those of the opposing side.
So, is Kudlow Willoughby. Or, in internal deliberations, is he Hillenkoetter? Or is he merely a cipher? And is Trump MacArthur (the MacArthur of late 1950, when he was nearly 71, and not the MacArthur of Corregidor)?
More on stumbling to trade war, here.
This entry was posted on August 4, 2018 by Menzie Chinn.
Kudlow is the furthest thing from Hillenkoetter for 2 reasons. Kudlow is not bright enough to give any President credible advice. But more importantly Kudlow all his life has kissed up to his political masters. Kudlow kisses up to Trump as that is what Trump wants. Ever wonder why Kudlow did not have a job at the CEA or NEC under Reagan, Bush41, or Bush43? As much as I disagreed with the economic policies of the previous GOP Presidents, they at least wanted honest advisers. Trump wants fan boys which is why Kudlow has his job.
I suggest Haberstam's The Coldest Winter……..
The civilian citizenry elected leadership must always have control over the military, for we all know what happens when it doesn't.
I'm trying to think of other suitable examples. Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon might be analogous.
On an "it's all about me" note, I once shook the hand of a Chinese man who was a pilot for China during the Korean war. His son was a colleague of mine at a Chinese University. The odd thing was, it was after I had had a work related quarrel with the son (that we had not resolved and probably never would resolve), and then saw them walking together on a residential sidewalk. I wanted to show my respect to his Dad as a military guy. I had good intentions but I have a slight suspicion I only succeeded in annoying the both of them more than anything else. As is consistent among mainland Chinese, they both put a good face on the exchange, but I'm about 98% certain the son would have strangled me near to death had his elderly father not been present.
Like many of us, I am not really greatly familiar with the intimate history of the Korean War. But I do remember from my reading, that experts were against MacArthur's planned landing at Inchon. So it is difficult to determine which expert is right at any given time. Which is why respect is due to those Generals who take responsibility and act in their best judgment. Hindsight is always easier.
Plenty of folks objected to MacArthur's island hopping to the Philippines. Lots of unnecessary bloody battles. The Navy and Marines island hopped straight towards Tokyo building B29 bases for the two bombs that ended the war.
Ironic thing is I'm currently reading William Manchester's magisterial biography of MacArthur, "American Caesar." MacArthur's Philippine campaign actually suffered very few casualties compared to what was going on in some of the battles in the European theater. In many cases he adroitly sidestepped heavier Japanese fortified areas and cut off supply lines. The Yalu debacle aside, MacArthur was a fine field commander and his conscientious rule over Japan right after the war is a classic of how to do things in the right way.
The Inchon thing was strategically brilliant, operationally it was very risky. The risks were: was Inchon defended, was North Korean artillery available, tide tables were very tight. MacArthur went ahead, luck favored the bold in this case. US Marines grabbed a working port that could have been 'bracketed' by artillery, but was not.
In the Bataan area MacArthur neglected ammunition and subsistence logistics! Maybe MacArthur thought the navy would interdict the Japanese, not knowing the technical issues the navy was experiencing with very widespread torpedo misfires. While keeping the air corps parked in clusters to prevent saboteurs costs his air power.
The Torpedo misfire in this movie and the fix are not far from history. Naval Postgraduate School released a good paper on why you don't pass a live fire test because you assume the failed test point was the anomaly. Einstein was consulted on the mechanical physics of the "firing pin" fixed in the movie.
There is a legend among old army logistics officer, I once know that there was no anti freeze at Clark Airfield for the reciprocal engine airplane engines so they were overheating. The quartermasters at San Francisco said; "it is not cold in the Philippines" and pulled the shipment off the transports.
The Korean affair was not a high point in MacArthur's long career! US Eighth Army suffered for his 'attitudes'. Walton Walker the 8th Army commanding general was killed in the operations pulling away from the Yalu.
It would be interesting to know, the percentage of family members of U.S. soldiers (and South Koreans for that matter) who died around that area of Changjin Reservoir and the Yalu River, who associated or mentally connected their family member's death with a completely unnecessary, dumb, and assumably "outside the chain of command" decision by MacArthur. The man is still lauded as a "great American" to this day. But how many of those families were ever made aware or educated on the fused-tight connection between MacArthur's individual decision and those men's deaths??
I wager, a very low percentage.
The Chinese and North Koreans made their decisions and those deaths are their deal (in my opinion)—but the South Koreans and Americans deaths— related to this Changjin Reservoir deal—those deaths lie at MacArthur's doorstep in my book.
Ah, I don't thinking 'speaking truth to power' is Kudlow's thing. And I'm not sure he's stupid enough to believe what he says in public. Not sure I can publicly say what that makes him, but I'll bet your dad had a pungent Chinese folk saying that would cover his type. Willoughby was, apparently, (stupid enough) and wrote a thousand page hagiography showing it. There a certain mindset, imputing almost super-human powers of observation and understanding to the Leader, that flourishes in these situations and that, I think, is what all those claims that Trump is playing multi-dimensional chess boil down to.
Maybe not but Stephen Moore really is that stupid.
The Chinese retaliated right away, after we put tariffs on steel and aluminum.
So, the arrogant communists won't give an inch, like claiming almost the entire South China Sea.
And we declared war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. Your name is PeakWilloughby.
Separate issues. You're not very good at compartmentalizing things when you think race is involved, are you??
Life is cheap in China, except for the communist elite (in more ways than one), and it has over 1 billion more people than the U.S..
PeakTrader: I'm unsure how this is relevant to the point that MacArthur-Willoughby made a serious error in ignoring data (captured Chinese soldiers) and outside (of Tokyo HQ) intelligence in assessing the likelihood of substantial Chinese intervention.
Menzie Chinn, maybe, they thought as Americans, not communist Chinese elites.
That is, Communist Chinese aggression.
The U.S. infringed a little into Communist China's huge trading advantage, slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the communists retaliated quickly.
The point is Communist China is willing to take much bigger losses than the U.S., like in the Korean War, because it values life as much as the Soviet Union.
Enough of this stupid garbage. The Chinese are better at this than the economic morons you worship so they are likely going to win this trade war as Trump and his cheerleaders are even dumber than they are racist.
Tens of millions Chinese people died in WW2. The Japanese invasions and some two hundred years of partial colonization of China by foreign powers left many thinking Chinese the realization that only way to save China and its people from total destruction is to take control of China and its people's fate in Chinese people's own hand, build a China that is strong to protect its people and prosperous to lift the lives of its people. The high costs for keeping China save and secured from hostile foreign forces were unavoidable due to China's lagging behind in modern science and technologies then. Losing few hundreds thousands Chinese lives fighting in order to defend several hundreds of millions of Chinese people is a high price China had to pay to avoid millions more deaths instead. The current China is no longer so outgunned in any domain that any hostile power could get away without paying a very high price for any act of aggressions.
It should be noted, the communists took control of China in 1949.
Apparently, you're privy to classified info the rest of us can only dream about getting.
Peak, all the readers of this blog have been dying to know for awhile now, could you also identify for us when the Berlin Wall came down??
apparently peak loser has access to wikipedia!
The main mistake Mac Arthur made was he underestimated the PLA's fighting spirits and prowess despite being completely outgunned in air, on land and sea. It wasn't a stretch to suggest that no one could have imagined the PLA could have a chance against the then world's best fighting forces of USA plus several thousands of allies troops, fresh from victories in WW2. China's intervention was preceded by repeated and clear warnings from China to UN forces not to cross 38th parallel. Similarly, the China India border war, China Vietnam war were all preceded with China's repeated and clear warnings. So is the current trade war.
"it has over 1 billion more people than the U.S.". So?
Yes China has 4x the population of the U.S. And California has 5.5x the population of Arizona.
Oh wait – you prefer Arizona as a higher percentage of their population is white. Of course you kept dishonestly telling us people are fleeing California. The statistics will show otherwise but it would be nice if a lot of those non-white Californians left Cali to move right next to your lilly white residence in good old Arizona!
trump has serious issues with black athletes. Is this related to the fact trump has small "hands" and they have very large "hands"??
Guess what? Trump is winning!
" The U.S. trade deficit widened in June for the first time in four months as exports fell and imports grew. Politically sensitive trade gaps with China, Mexico and Canada all increased.
The Commerce Department said Friday that the deficit in goods and services — the gap between what the US sells and what it buys from other countries — rose 7.3 percent to $46.3 billion in June from $43.2 billion in May. U.S. exports slid 0.7 percent to $213.8 billion; imports rose 0.6 percent to $260.2 billion, led by increases in medicine and crude oil.
For the first 3 months of 2018, the trade deficit was higher than that of the first 3 months of 2017. The second quarter for both years are similar even with that temporary soybean export boom. I bet the trade deficit for the rest of the year 2018 will be higher than what we saw for the 2nd half of 2018.
Will the Trump cheerleaders admit to losing this trade war? Of course not – they will find something else to spin. They always do!
Has Kudlow told Trump about this? Does Kudlow even know about this?
Kudlow, PeakDishonesty, and Jay Sekulow are very much alike. "I had bad information" is Sekulow's excuse for all of his past lies!
In Peaky's case – it is very bad information.
Ah yes – Dean Rusk. The moron who gave us the Vietnam War disaster. PeakStupidity relies on the dumbest people as his experts.
Communist China, after 1949, is much more aggressive than pre-1949 China, and difficult to assess in 1950, given so little history.
If a war could stop further and bigger wars and bring decades of peace for China, it is a worthy war in the eyes of China leaders.
history shows the "experts" on korea and china back in the days of the war were incorrect. decision making was based on inaccurate information provided as a means to appease those in power. how is that any different today on the economic front, with guys like kudlow and moore filtering through only pro-trump and pro-tough guy soundbites to the president, to appease the bully in chief in his trade wars? you really think "goldilocks" kudlow has any interest in reviewing and acknowledging information that may not create his desired spin?
I appreciate that Menzie is frustrated with the discussion here, which has irrelevantly focused on MacArhur. But then Menzie seems to be a bit off here. it is unclear that Kudlow is Willoughby in this current scenario, although it is also unclear that he is doing anything to offset the real Willoughbys. Those would seem to be Pater Navarro Number One Willoughby followed by Commerce Sec. Ross, with Trade Rep. Liighthizer a third. Kudlow looks more reasonable than any of them, and limited as it was does seem to have played a role in getting Trump not to impose auto tariffs on the EU, against the mass advice of the Gang of Willoughbys.
Frankly, this whole thread has been off, although all of you arguing over MacArthur are just completely out to lunch playing irrelevant history games.
I slightly modify my last comment. I now see this public statement by Kudlow downplaying China's ability to respond. So, yes, he is publicly playing Willoughby, although it is unclear there is anybody in the admin pushing back against this tide that Trump clearly favors, certainly not the three people I mentioned, who are further into war with China than Kudlow, especially Navarro, who was shouting at Mnuchin in front of Chinese negotiaters in Beijing a few months ago. Maybe Mnuchin is the voice of reason, sort of.
And, in case anybody does not know, China has more means to retaliate than just trade barriers, which would on the surface seem to favor the US. They can do what they did to the South Koreans not too long ago, institute consumer boycotts against US companies operating in China. It is speculated they are holding back on that for now, both to be a last resort and also because those are hard to control or stop once unleashed.


text:
Подол () — село,
Беляковский сельский совет,
Семёновский район,
Полтавская область,
Украина.

Код КОАТУУ — 5324580403. Население по переписи 2001 года составляло 232 человека.

Географическое положение
Село Подол находится на правом берегу реки Хорол,
выше по течению на расстоянии в 2,5 км расположено село Грицаи,
ниже по течению на расстоянии в 5 км расположено село Демченки (Глобинский район),
на противоположном берегу — село Беляки.
Вдоль русла реки проведено несколько ирригационных каналов.

История
Село указано на трехверстовке Полтавской области. Военно-топографическая карта.1869 года как хутора без названия

Примечания


text:
package com.facebook.buck.rules.coercer.concat;

import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import org.junit.Rule;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.rules.ExpectedException;

public class JsonTypeConcatenatingCoercerFactoryTest {

  @Rule public ExpectedException thrown = ExpectedException.none();

  @Test
  public void testCreateReturnsCorrectCoercerForInt() {
    assertTrue(
        JsonTypeConcatenatingCoercerFactory.createForType(Integer.class)
            instanceof IntConcatenatingCoercer);
  }

  @Test
  public void testCreateReturnsCorrectCoercerForString() {
    assertTrue(
        JsonTypeConcatenatingCoercerFactory.createForType(String.class)
            instanceof StringConcatenatingCoercer);
  }

  @Test
  public void testCreateReturnsCorrectCoercerForMap() {
    assertTrue(
        JsonTypeConcatenatingCoercerFactory.createForType(Map.class)
            instanceof MapConcatenatingCoercer);
  }

  @Test
  public void testCreateReturnsCorrectCoercerForList() {
    assertTrue(
        JsonTypeConcatenatingCoercerFactory.createForType(List.class)
            instanceof ListConcatenatingCoercer);
  }

  @Test
  public void testCreateReturnsSingleElementCoercerForUnsupportedType() {
    assertTrue(
        JsonTypeConcatenatingCoercerFactory.createForType(Boolean.class)
            instanceof SingleElementJsonTypeConcatenatingCoercer);
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


A Stash by Melanie Amini ★. Created on Apr 21, 2016.
A collection of all things Coffee on the web. Find great coffee around you using the Discovering Coffee Map. Use this stash to find your favourite coffee online and products to help you make that perfect brew at home and more.


text:
22nd March 2006: Speech by HRH Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al–Saud at a buffet reception in honour of Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki at the Travellers Club in London.
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all I would like to thank you for inviting me and my wife Fadwa here tonight, to this special reception, to meet old friends and to make new ones. I hear the Saudi British Society is a fountain of knowledge and good friendship – and as American President Woodrow Wilson once said: "Friendship is the only cement that holds the world together." My friends, it is a tremendous honour to have been appointed Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
My task is to make sure that our relationship, our friendship, continues to evolve. I will be following in the footsteps of my predecessors, Prince Turki Al Faisal, Dr Ghazi Algosaibi, Nasser Al Manquor and others before them. Though the style may differ the mission is the same. This is an important post and I was both gratified and humbled when I was instructed by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah to take up this assignment.
My family have always loved England, and I have been a frequent visitor to London since I was a young. My first visit was in the early 1960s with my family. It made a big impression on me. And it was the first of many visits, which helped me build up understanding of Britain and the British people and I've witnessed the changing face of Britain. Saudi Arabia is also a constantly evolving and changing society.
The development of the Kingdom in the seventy years since it was reunited by the late King Abdulaziz is remarkable by any measure. And that development is on going. You, our friends, have witnessed and taken part in the physical evolution of the Kingdom's infrastructure - roads, cities, schools, hospitals – we couldn't even dream of 50 years ago. But you must now look at the evolution of our society. Last year we held our first elections, the Shura Council was expanded again, new laws and regulations were brought in, we became a member of the World Trade Organisation. We started to modernise and reform our education system. Women are taking a more prominent role in our society. We are planning and building for our future. The King Abdullah City being built north of Jeddah is going to be the biggest economic city in the Middle East. It is an inspiring project, which will attract and bring investment to the Kingdom and create jobs for our young people.
Ladies and Gentlemen, many people in the west have an outdated image of our part of the world and our way of life which they constantly fall back on. It wrongly influences the way people deal with us. They see us in a negative stereotyped unsophisticated way. It is an image that has nothing to do with us – but it has stuck.
More recently and more dangerously the Muslim world has been equated with extremism and terrorism. This is an image that is both damaging and offensive and one that we are keen to dispel. Terrorism is an evil which is against people of all faiths and all communities. These evil criminals have been condemned by government and religious authorities in the Kingdom. The killing of innocent people goes against everything that we believe in.
As a Muslim I know we were not created to destroy one another but to work together towards better understanding and a better future. Extremism is fostered in by mistrust, misunderstanding and double standards. Understanding and honesty is vital between our communities and faiths, in our dealing with one another in the increasingly small world in which we all share.
We would like the people of Britain to get to know the real Saudi Arabia, from rural communities like those in the mountains of the Asir to booming economic oil centres like Dammam. From the political capital of Riyadh to the cosmopolitan commercial city of Jeddah. And we can never forget our sacred responsibility for the Two Holy cities of Makkah and Medina. But we will have to work hard to reach this goal of better understanding, not just for our own sake but for the sake of our children and of our future.
Britain and Saudi Arabia have a long standing friendship. Being friends means more than liking and respecting one another. It means learning to appreciate someone else's point of view without feeling that it is an attack on your own views. Friends are people who listen to one another. As Albert Camus, the French novelist said: "Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow, don't walk behind me, I may not lead: just walk beside me and be my friend."I believe that as true friends we can and must be honest with one another. And so I am speaking to you today as an honest friend.
The West is constantly making decisions about the Middle East, that the people of the Middle East have to live with. Of course our opinions are asked, usually given and regularly disregarded. We are constantly being told that the West operates an activist approach to foreign policy based on values as well as interests. But whose values and whose interests? Globalisation has made the world a smaller place. We can send an email to a hundred people around the world at the touch of a button, stocks and shares are sold back and forth across our globe in nanoseconds. We see news on our television screens as it happens across the planet. There is no time difference that counts, no pause for thought in our communication and interaction.
We have tumbled head first into a global economy and now we are being told that we need to develop the politics of globalisation. This is worrying to us in our part of world. Whose politics? As civilised humans our aim is the same. We want, you want, we all want a peaceful, prosperous and secure world for our children and our children's children. A world where we live in harmony with one another as our creator intended. It doesn't mean that we will all take or need to take the same road to reach that ultimate goal.
Our history defines us and defines each and every society and the path it takes. When we speak we do so with a real understanding of the intricacies of our society and how it works and some knowledge of how it differs from societies in the West. Our friends in the West don't wake up every day in Riyadh or Cairo – Jericho or Jerusalem; Baghdad or Basra. Their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters and cousins don't live there, don't live the every day reality of the situation, and can rarely understand the dynamics that make it flourish.
British friends of the Kingdom here today probably come closer to understanding our society than many. You have lived there and worked there, if only for a short time. You have made friends in the Kingdom and in other parts of the Arab world. You have bought food in our markets, heard the call to prayer echo round our city streets and entered our homes as guests. It gives you more understanding. And because of that, we appeal to you to help us to help others understand a little more about our life, to persuade others to listen a little bit harder to what we have to say. Our region has been torn apart by injustice, war and terror. We look at our neighbours in Iraq and reel in horror at the conflict that surrounds them and is on our doorstep. Many Iraqis today believe the invasion of Iraq has unfortunately, resulted in the possibility of sectarian war, with neighbours fighting neighbours and bloody battles within as well as between tribes.
Much as many people wish this situation had never occurred, we cannot go back. The West cannot blame the Arab world for a reaction which we knew was perhaps inevitable. But equally the Arab world can't continue to blame the West for taking the decision that they made with good intent to invade Iraq. We all have to live with the reality, of the situation in Iraq today - and work together towards a better tomorrow for a united and peaceful Iraq. Once again the key word is together. Let us look at our other neighbours.
The situation in the Palestinian occupied territories is one of despair. In the recent elections the Palestinian people turned to a different party. Hamas came to power, not because of their reputation abroad but because they offered the possibility of a tangibly better future to the Palestinian people. For the Palestinian desire for peace, prosperity and security. But perhaps we should not judge their predecessors for giving more concessions than they received in return. Instead we should look at our Western friends who committed themselves as friends of both Israel and the Arab world to trying to bring about resolution to this conflict - but who have repeatedly failed to act fairly or with a sufficiently strong will to bring about peaceful resolution.
Nearly four years ago Saudi Arabia came up with the Prince Abdullah plan – which was embraced by all communities as a positive and comprehensive solution. Israel has yet to respond. As your friends, we sometimes feel that although you appear to listen, you do not hear what we are saying. This is frustrating and aggravating and creating division between our people.
We want our friends to hear us, to understand that we want to work together to find solutions to these problems before it is too late. The United Kingdom is key in helping us to reach that goal. Because of Britain's history and its historical relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Arab world as a whole, its views have an important international impact.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a special relationship between us. There has traditionally and historically been a tremendous amount of interaction between our two countries – and our two peoples in trade, investment, education. training and cultural exchange. Our relationship, founded on mutual strategic interests, has blossomed into friendship. A friendship we value and that it is our responsibility to maintain and develop.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening to me this evening and for welcoming us as true friends. We look forward to getting to know all of you much better. I and my wife Fadwa, who is a real partner and supporter in this mission, will always welcome you at the embassy.
I also value the support of my colleagues and all of the embassy team and we all value your support
Thank you and God bless.
Banner images at the top of this page: Midan Addarajah, Jeddah ⁄ Angel of the North by Anthony Gormley
www.saudibritishsociety.org.uk


Outgoing Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law on Friday GOP proposals to strip the Democrat who just won the Nov. 8 gubernatorial election, Roy Cooper, of many of his powers.
After losing one of the closest elections in years, McCrory refused to concede, instead proposing massive voter fraud throughout North Carolina was behind his defeat. (It wasn't, and it didn't work.) But now it would seem congressional Republicans have turned to stopping Cooper by new means beyond the ballot box.
North Carolina Republicans have offered a preview of the future. Republicans will rule or no one will. Welcome to Trumpland.
The bill introduces numerous restrictions on Cooper's authority, including stripping his control of election boards, requiring senate approval of cabinet picks, ending his ability to appoint trustees to the state university system and forcing Cooper to keep on hundreds of McCrory's appointees. Republicans introduced the measures during a surprise session attended by hundreds of demonstrators, who called the move a blatant power grab intended to defy the will of voters.
According to NBC, the bill "also makes elections for appellate court judgeships partisan by requiring candidates to be listed on the ballot alongside their political party."
Once more, the courts will have to clean up the mess the legislature made, but it won't stop us from moving North Carolina forward.
Officially, Republicans called the surprise session to approve a $201-million aid package for Hurricane Matthew victims, NBC added, but later proposed and approved the new restrictions. Cooper, in turn, has proposed to turn to the courts to protect the power of his future administration.
"This is one of the greatest coups we've seen in modern-day America," House Democratic Leader Larry Hall said, according to the New York Times. "This is an effort to nullify the clear vote of the people."
"I think they're doing this because they think they can get away with it," University of North Carolina constitutional law professor Michael Gerhardt added.
McCrory's administration was rocked by myriad controversies, including his support of a transphobic law restricting the right of trans people to use bathrooms according to their gender identity to a voter ID law thrown out by the courts on accusation of racial bias. But this latest move aims to ensure his successor will have limited power to chart a different course for the state, despite his clear victory in the elections.
Some observers warned this unusual tactic could be a prelude to Republicans, including Republican President-elect Donald Trump, adopting it elsewhere.
"In effect, the Republican leadership aimed to secure unprecedented unilateral control over the state of North Carolina," Prince University Department of African American Studies chair Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., wrote in Time, later noting, "I suspect that if Trump doesn't get his way, he will try, as the Republicans in North Carolina are doing, to flout democratic norms — to throw democracy into the trash bin."


text:
Hedge Funds Are Betting On SemGroup Corporation (SEMG)
Published on October 28, 2019 at 12:40 pm by Nina Todic in Hedge Funds, News
We can judge whether SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There's no better way to get these firms' immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market when we factor in known risk factors.
Is SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG) a superb stock to buy now? The best stock pickers are buying. The number of long hedge fund bets inched up by 2 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that SEMG isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (see the video below).
Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds' small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
Unlike former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, our long-short investment strategy doesn't rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. Let's take a look at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG).
How are hedge funds trading SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG)?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 15% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 12 hedge funds with a bullish position in SEMG a year ago. So, let's examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group has the biggest position in SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG), worth close to $16.2 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Point72 Asset Management, led by Steve Cohen, holding a $15.2 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other professional money managers that hold long positions consist of Renaissance Technologies, Stuart J. Zimmer's Zimmer Partners and Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro's PAR Capital Management.
Now, key hedge funds were leading the bulls' herd. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, initiated the biggest position in SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG). Point72 Asset Management had $15.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Stuart J. Zimmer's Zimmer Partners also made a $7.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint Capital, Jonathan Soros's JS Capital, and Thiru Ramakrishnan's TVR Capital.
Let's now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG) but similarly valued. We will take a look at National Western Life Group, Inc.(NASDAQ:NWLI), The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. (NYSE:GBX), Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB), and Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI). All of these stocks' market caps are similar to SEMG's market cap.
NWLI 8 17676 -1
GBX 14 19968 3
PACB 22 155804 3
GCI 14 121005 -2
Average 14.5 78613 0.75
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $79 million. That figure was $65 million in SEMG's case. Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Western Life Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NWLI) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. SemGroup Corporation (NYSE:SEMG) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on SEMG as the stock returned 43% during the third quarter and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Is SEMG A Good Investment Right Now?Is SEMG A Good Stock To Buy?NYSE:SEMGYahoo Finance
13G Filing: Iridian Asset Management and SemGroup Corp (SEMG) Here's What Hedge Funds Think About SemGroup Corp (SEMG)
What's the Deal With These Stocks Getting Pounded? 13D Filing: Harvest Fund Advisors LLC and Semgroup Corp (SEMG)
Is SemGroup Corp (SEMG) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds? Here's What Hedge Funds Think About SemGroup Corp (SEMG)


A Bachelors Honours degree with 2:2 or equivalent in a required subject. If English is not your first language you'll need IELTS 6.5 (Academic) or above.
The course will improve the practical management skills of nutritionists and provide an important insight into contemporary developments in nutrition and behaviour for a range of healthcare professionals and graduates.
This course encompasses the role of nutrition from preconception to old age and includes topics such as in-utero programming, infant feeding practices, the development of food likes and dislikes in children, food promotion, psychological factors contributing to the development of obesity including appetite and weight control, disordered eating behaviours, prevention of diet-related disease, and the role of diet in normal ageing and age-related conditions.
On this course you will usually be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, demonstrators, technicians and research students.
Advanced Research Methods: This module will provide an overview on experimental, survey and qualitative research analysis together with the relevant data analytic techniques and statistical analytic software. The unit will also reflect recent developments in medical research such as the need for effect size, power and sample size calculations.
Contemporary Nutrition: The aim of this unit is to enable you to develop and broaden your in-depth knowledge of the latest research findings within the context of the interaction between nutrients, physiological functions and the health conditions they influence. The course of lectures will aim to provide integrated information on nutrition, physiology, health and disease and public health applications – all in one unit.
Nutrition and Brain Function Across the Lifespan: This module provides an advanced insight into the interaction between nutrition and brain research and gives a core of knowledge about the role of nutrition in brain disorders from pre-conception to old age. It is designed to discuss the topical issues, such as development, neurological and neuro-degenerative disorders, neuro-protection and recent theories of the neuro-immuno-endocrine axis.
Nutrition, Health and Psychology: The course of lectures will encompass a review of recent evidence and current thinking on the control of appetite, food intake and the regulation of energy balance. You'll develop a detailed understanding of the interplay between the physiological and psychological (behavioural) regulatory processes underpinning the control of feeding and energy intake with a view to improve the health and quality of life among individuals and groups in the community.
Nutrition in the Prevention and Management of Disease: This module examines foundations of nutrition, for example macro nutrients and micro nutrients, vitamins, methods of assessing dietary intake and nutritional status, energy and nutrient requirements, metabolic pathways related to nutrition, and function of nutrient digestion and absorption. It also evaluates the prevention and management of disease in the community setting, for example gastro intestinal disorders (i.e., celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and irritable bowel syndrome), food intolerances and allergies, obesity and metabolic disorders, cancer and heart disease.
Dissertation Project: This is a student-managed piece of work that is undertaken with guidance from academic supervisors. The unit encourages you to draw on prior learning and aims to develop your ability for independent study and project management. It seeks to expand your knowledge and/or practice in a complex professional context. A large and varied range of dissertation projects are offered, including both laboratory and clinically based.
Evidencing Professional Learning: A unique feature of the MSc programme is the work-based element embedded within the Evidencing Professional Learning unit. Typically student's will spend a minimum of 12 days engaging in professional practice activities in health care, community or the private sector.


This paper provides information on the existing arrangements and future plans for the training and development of school heads.
A 10-day Primary School Administration Course with a 6-month post-course action plan/project work is being offered to newly appointed primary school heads in the public sector to help them acquire the basic management knowledge and skills for effective school management. Seventy-eight courses have been conducted so far for 1,618 newly appointed primary school heads.
A 9-day Secondary School Administration Course with a 6-month post-course action plan/project work is being offered to newly appointed secondary school heads in the public sector to help them acquire management concepts and skills for effective school management. Twenty-eight courses have been organized for 569 newly appointed secondary school heads.
3.	Apart from the above courses, half-day or one-day in-service courses/workshops/seminars are frequently organized for serving school heads to enhance their understanding in school administration, curriculum development, special education, counselling and guidance, information technology, etc.
4.	To assist schools in the implementation of School Management Initiatives (SMI), ED has since 1992 commissioned local tertiary institutions to run a 30-hour training programme for school supervisors, heads and assistant heads. The programme covers school-based management, reform management, developmental planning and evaluation, resource and financial management, staff development and appraisal, team spirit and collaboration, effective leadership, cooperation between schools, continuous learning for schools, etc. Up to now, 318 school heads have attended and completed the training. Since June 1998, ED has also organized district-based or school-based workshops and seminars to provide similar training for heads of non-SMI schools.
The modules will contain essential knowledge for school leaders to lead the schools effectively. The programme will include modules such as Managing Policy and Planning, Managing Learning, Managing Resources, Information Technology, Marketing and Networking, Action Research etc.
The participants will be required to undergo a final assessment process.
6.	The programme will be managed by the Education Department with inputs from tertiary institutions, principals' associations and educational bodies. Experienced principals and selected experts from other sectors such as commercial, legal, public administration etc. will be invited to serve as speakers and facilitators of the modular courses, in order to broaden the perspectives of our participants and to enable them to keep abreast of leadership development in other fields.
7.	Parties concerned in the education sector will be consulted on the training programme when the details are drawn up. About $30 M has been earmarked for the training programme in the next three years.


text:
Stars celebrate Thanksgiving with a culinary battle on all-new special 'MasterChef Junior: Celebrity Showdown'
Thu, Oct 25th 2018 09:25 am
Thursday, Nov. 22, on FOX
Celebrity Competitors Include Terrence Howard, Eric Stonestreet, Lil Rel Howery, Alyson Hannigan, Jerry Rice & Emmitt Smith; winner of each battle earns a $25,000 donation to charity of choice
This Thanksgiving, "MasterChef Junior" gives fans something to be thankful for, when multi-Michelin star Chef Gordon Ramsay and award-winning chef Aarón Sánchez invite celebrities, their kids and some fan-favorite alumni into the "MasterChef Junior" kitchen, where they'll show off their culinary skills in exciting contests for charity on the all-new "MasterChef Junior: Celebrity Showdown." The special airs Thanksgiving night, Thursday, Nov. 22 (8 p.m. ET/PT), on FOX, immediately following "NFL on FOX," in which the Dallas Cowboys face the Washington Redskins.
In between these epic battles in the "MasterChef Junior" kitchen, host Ramsay will chat with lifestyle expert, businesswoman and TV personality Martha Stewart to swap holiday-themed recipes for the whole family to enjoy.
The two-hour special features three unique battles, putting each celebrity competitor to the test - with more than bragging rights at stake - the winners earn donations to the charities of their choice. Additionally, the contestants will face their challenges with a sous chef by their sides, whether it be one of their own children or former "MasterChef Junior" contestants.
Here are the "MasterChef Junior" match-ups:
•Eric Stonestreet and "MasterChef Junior" season five contestant Shayne vs. Terrence Howard and "MCJ" season six finalist Avery.
In a holiday-themed "Mystery Box Challenge," these two TV dads will battle it out with help from some "MCJ" kids. "Empire" star Howard (@terrencehoward) pairs up with Avery while "Modern Family's" Stonestreet teams with Shayne to cook.
•Alyson Hannigan and her daughter, Saty, vs. Lil Rel Howery and his daughter, Brittni.
It's a parent-child tag-team challenge! TV star Hannigan (@alydenisof), of "How I Met Your Mother," cooks with her 9-year-old daughter, Saty, while star of FOX's "Rel," Lil Rel Howery, partners up with his daughter, Brittni (age 9).
•NFL Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith and "MCJ" season six winner Beni vs. NFL Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice and "MCJ" season four winner Addison.
From going head-to-head on the field to making plays in the kitchen, two NFL legends see who will come out on top in this cooking matchup. Smith (@EmmittSmith22), formerly of the Dallas Cowboys, gets an assist from the most recent winner of "MCJ," 11-year-old Beni. Rice (@JerryRice), who played for the San Francisco 49ers, will be teamed up with "MCJ" season four winner, 13-year-old Addison.
Categories: ~ Entertainment ~ Food ~


This flavored coffee is a party in your mouth. Like the roasted pecans from a nut cart, it is a very robust flavor. Sweet and nutty, it completely envelops the drink as a whole and is probably our second favorite in our arsenal.


text:
Detours with locals. Travel tips you can trust.
CitiesChevronDown
Will.i.am called a Qantas flight attendant racist on Twitter. Now the airline is offering her legal support.
By Hannah Sampson
Drew Jones
November 18, 2019 at 2:17 p.m. EST
(Washington Post illustration; Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Qantas Airways is backing its flight attendant — verbally and possibly legally — after musician will.i.am called her racist in tweets over the weekend.
"We rejected claims of racism and have since asked will.i.am for a retraction of that claim," the Australian airline said in a statement. "We fully support our crew and the great work they do ensuring safety of all those on board. Absent a retraction, and if the crew member wanted to take the matter further, we'd certainly be willing to provide legal support for them to do this."
The Black Eyed Peas singer had not responded to the carrier's statement by Monday afternoon, but earlier in the morning he continued to defend his behavior on the plane and handling of the ordeal.
I am in the public eye & I behave even when I have a bad day...my mother raised me to be polite & treat people with respect...being a public figure puts extra guards rails so I stay polite & serve...everyone should operate with respect. especially people who serve the public https://t.co/bDKRkNEPrj
— will.i.am (@iamwill) November 18, 2019
Will.i.am tweeted on Friday (Saturday in Australia) that during a trip from Brisbane to Sydney, a flight attendant behaved aggressively toward him after he didn't hear a public address because he was wearing noise-canceling headphones. He said he "quickly and politely" put his laptop away when asked, but the flight attendant — whose name he included — escalated the situation by calling the police.
"I was intimidated by 5 police officers when I landed...for what? I put away my laptop when she asked...why would she feel threatened by me to call the police? What did I do wrong? I wasn't out of hand.. I was polite & did what she asked... now you're asking me to take abuse?" he tweeted.
Get ready for the 19-hour flight: Qantas sets record for ultralong trip
After initially tweeting that he didn't "want to believe she racist," will.i.am posted tweets accusing the crew member of being exactly that. His use of her name drew a swift rebuke on Twitter. He also tweeted at the airline with the hashtag #racistflightattendant.
Another Twitter user who claimed to be on the same flight appeared to corroborate will.i.am's account, as the singer noted in his defense.
I was on the same flight and couldn't believe the appalling behaviour of the flight attendant. My apologies on behalf of Australia.
— Kate Selway (@kate_selway) November 16, 2019
Qantas responded to the incident Saturday with a statement to The Washington Post, saying: "There was a misunderstanding on board, which seems to have been exacerbated by will.i.am wearing noise cancelling headphones and not being able to hear instructions from crew.
"We completely reject the suggestion this had anything to do with race."
Some observers accused will.i.am of abusing his platform of more than 12 million Twitter followers to direct online hate toward a person doing her job.
In response, the Grammy winner claimed he didn't intend for anyone to target the flight attendant and said he was speaking for others by calling out wrongdoing. He included an image of a threatening message sent to the woman and asked followers not to send verbal abuse her way.
"I am posting so that this doesn't happen again...it shouldn't happen to a Aboriginal, Latino, African, LGBTQ White, Red or anyone... everyone deserves to be treated with respect...," will.i.am tweeted.
Turns out, misbehaving on a plane could cost you big money
Cruise company bans passenger for life after she 'recklessly' stands on railing for a photo
Recent incident over attire highlights the ambiguity in airline dress codes
The Travel Enthusiast
Travel news, guides and tips for anyone looking to get away.
Advice|Go ahead, order the room service french fries
All-inclusive resorts want you to forget their cheesy reputation
Everything you need to know about using AirTags to track luggage


text:
Portia hoggi är en spindelart som beskrevs av Zabka 1985. Portia hoggi ingår i släktet Portia och familjen hoppspindlar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Externa länkar

Hoppspindlar
hoggi


text:
John Grosse
Professional Toastmaster
Email: info@johngrosse.co.uk
John Grosse ~ Professional Toastmaster & Master of Ceremonies
John became a professional Toastmaster in 1990 after serving 30 years as a Metropolitan Police Officer.
After training with the London Guild of Toastmasters, during the past 26 years he has performed at hundreds and hundreds of events – Weddings, Masonic Ladies' Nights, Charity Balls, Award Ceremonies etc at all types of hotels in central and outer London, in and beyond the Home Counties including Bath, Banbury, Bournemouth, Cambridge, Daventry, Eastbourne, Oxford, Letchworth, Nottingham, Southsea, Winchester and Worthing.
His has been equally at home working in castles & stately homes as much as at golf clubs, village halls, pubs, river boat steamers and marquees in fields.
He has met thousands of people during his work and he believes that he has enhanced their events at least as much as he has been enriched by their acquaintance.
In 2016 at the age of 76 he thinks that he should slow down and spend more time with his wife and family. So, although not retiring completely, John has stopped advertising his services and closed his 'marketing' web site. He will continue to perform at his regular engagements and in helping out colleagues in emergencies.
Toastmasters' General Council
Having been inspired by prominent Toastmasters before him, Joyce Sterland, Gordon Sainsbury, Dudley Walters & Christine Akehurst to name but a few, he has actively supported the Toastmasters' General Council for over 20 years.
After Joyce Sterland's retirement in 2009 he became its Hon Secretary and for 9 years has tried to help it develop as the much-needed national representative body for professional Toastmasters. In October 2018, facing a major heart operation, he stood down to allow others the opportunity to take the lead in this great and glorious undertaking.
Whilst not actively seeking Toastmaster work for himself, John will be pleased to advise on the service that Toastmasters can provide and find a Toastmaster for anyone who needs that service.
©2016 John Grosse
Website by Ballynet


Elemer by Marton Perlaki describes a world of chances and combinations, revolving around the manipulation of one central figure before his camera. We do not know who Elemér is – indeed, Perlaki suggests we do not need to know – and as we witness him moving and appearing before the camera he is sculpted, both gesturally and literally. His movements, in turn, elicit the witty, hallucinatory and strange from simple still lives, landscapes and portraits made in Perlaki's native Hungary.
Perlaki began Elemer after starting to collect cigarette cards – the disposable objects of the early 20th century that contain on one side, a household tip, and on the other, an image. He describes how 'On first glance, the images look silly and nonsensical, but when flipped over these pictograms suddenly make sense'. This flipping of the card continues throughout Elemer – birds, bubbles, bricks, potatoes and Elemér himself are broken from their contexts, they crash and collide with one another. Within this form of bricolage – this flipping of the cards – Perlaki brings out the absurd from the factual, the delicate from the concrete.


text:
Cadmium zinc telluride, (CdZnTe) or CZT, is a compound of cadmium, zinc and tellurium or, more strictly speaking, an alloy of cadmium telluride and zinc telluride. A  direct bandgap semiconductor, it is used in a variety of applications, including semiconductor radiation detectors, photorefractive gratings, electro-optic modulators, solar cells, and terahertz generation and detection.  The band gap varies from approximately 1.4 to 2.2 eV, depending on composition.

Radiation detectors using CZT can operate in direct-conversion (or photoconductive) mode at room temperature, unlike some other materials (particularly germanium) which require cooling. Their relative advantages include high sensitivity for X-rays and gamma rays, due to the high atomic numbers of Cd and Te, and better energy resolution than scintillator detectors.  CZT can be formed into different shapes for different radiation-detecting applications, and a variety of electrode geometries, such as coplanar grids  and small pixel detectors, have been developed to provide unipolar (electron-only) operation, thereby improving energy resolution. A 1 cm3 CZT crystal has a sensitivity range of 30 keV to 3 MeV with a 2.5% FWHM energy resolution at 662 keV. Pixelated CZT with a volume of 6 cm3 can achieve 0.71% FWHM energy resolution at 662 keV and perform Compton imaging.

References

External links
 National Pollutant Inventory - Cadmium and compounds

Cadmium compounds
Zinc compounds
Tellurides
II-VI semiconductors
Nonlinear optical materials
Terahertz technology
Electro-optical materials


DriverMax www.bleepingcomputer.com//whats-a-good-free-automatic-driver-installer/ Award-winning driver updating software, DriverMax is the optimal solution for your computer. DriverMax finds and downloads the best drivers for your PC for: . Device Doctor: Free Driver Update, Driver Download Software support.hp.com/za-en/drivers Freeware Driver Update Download Device Doctor Updates Windows XP, Vista, We're adding more each week; For more details see our Features page . My Drivers - Download www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network/000005600.html My Drivers, free and safe download. My Drivers latest version: Keep a backup copy of all your system drivers. 7; Good; Good. Your rating: Your rating. 0. OK. Systweak Advanced Driver Updater to Keep Device Drivers Up-to-date my-drivers.en.softonic.com/ Scan, download, and install the latest drivers for your system to enhance The best reasons to subscribe to Advanced Driver Updater come from our customers. Drivers - Microsoft Download Center security.stackexchange.com//can-you-trust-driver-download-websites Find and install the latest hardware drivers you need. Popular Hardware drivers downloads. 01 2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components. This download will install a set of components that can Site feedback. Microsoft. How to get the Latest Driver/Firmware Updates for your Dell? | Dell US www.thewindowsclub.com/free-driver-update-software-windows Jun 3, 2016 Open an Internet browser to the, Dell Product Support Page. Select where you want the drivers to be download, the default is the Desktop, .
Updating Your Drivers and Operating System - Blizzard Support www.synaptics.com/resources Visit the driver manufacturer's website to obtain the most up-to-date driver. Contact the driver manufacturer for Driver Downloads. AMD / ATI Driver Download . Adobe - PostScript printer drivers : For Windows www.acer.com/drivers/selection.html By downloading software from the Adobe Web site you agree to the terms of Adobe Universal PostScript Windows Driver Installer 1.0.6 (for Windows 95, 98, . Driver Booster Free - Download https://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/ Driver Booster Free, free and safe download. Driver Booster detects outdated drivers on your PC and allows you to download and install 7.2; Good; 550. Driver Download Sites? - Forum Thread - PC Advisor www.freewarefiles.com/category/drivers.php Can anybody recommend a good driver download site? I need a Motorola SM56 PCI modem driver for Win 98 SE. The Driver Guide site has it but the process is . Best driver website?? - TechSpot Forums www.pcworld.com/article/245576/driver_update_utilities.html Oct 25, 2006 I'm desperate search for the driver of a Downloads Would you give me the url(s) of the best website(s) that host drivers for all kind of .


text:
Jones, Thomas (c. 1765–1805)
Thomas Jones (c.1765-1805?), a bricklayer, and Jeremiah Leary were found guilty on 30 March 1784 at Bristol, England, of breaking into a house. Their death sentences were commuted to 14 years transportation on 31 May 1784. Sent to the Dunkirk hulk on 18 August 1785 the men were dispatched to the Friendship in February 1787 and arrived at Sydney in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet.
Jones was sent to Norfolk Island on the Sirius in March 1790. Jones was off stores, working two acres in March 1792. He was still at Norfolk Island in 1796. There was a Thomas Jones still living on the island in 1805. A 'Jones', freeman, who died on Norfolk Island on 7 June 1805 may have been Thomas Jones.
Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 200
HMS Sirius 1786-1790 website http://hmssirius.com.au/thomas-jones-convict-friendship-1788/ — accessed 19 January 2021
Leary, Jeremiah (criminal associate)
'Jones, Thomas (c. 1765–1805)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/jones-thomas-31389/text38841, accessed 30 January 2023.
Warwickshire, England
1805 (aged ~ 40)
Norfolk Island, Australia
Friendship (1788)
First Fleet (1788)
Key Places
Dunkirk hulk (Plymouth, Devon)
Crime: theft (house)
Sentence: death
Commuted To: 14 years
Court: Bristol
Trial Date: 30 March 1784
Pre-transportation
Occupation: bricklayer


"What was I thinking?" This is the question that kept running through my head on Friday night – the night before my first half marathon. Less than six months before I thought anyone who ran more than a 5k for fun was insane. Less than six months before that I was among those who swore I'd never run unless someone was chasing me. With a knife. And there was a delicious fruity and alcoholic drink waiting for me when I was safely away from said knife-wielding maniac.
Well, there I was, my alarm set for 4AM, running gear meticulously lain out – double and triple checked (because I'm a little obsessive like that) waiting for sleep. It came intermixed with dreams of showing up naked or, even worse, without my race bib. Thoughts like, what if I have to use the bathroom on the course? and what if I break an ankle half a mile from the finish line? plagued me. At one point I woke up cursing the friends who talked me into a race with promises of glory and pride and bling! Did I mention that among these friends was your favorite runner and mine, Meridith? Thanks, Mer.
I decided that 3:45 was close enough to 4am and rolled out of bed. Up and at 'em! I threw on my clothes – what a process it was to figure out what I was going to wear! All winter I had been training in sub-freezing weather, but that morning it was 50 degrees. Yikes! Too warm for cold weather gear, not quite warm enough for my regular stuff. So I found a happy medium. Then it was time for breakfast. Peanut butter and sliced banana on wheat toast. For the record, yuck. But it works.
After a few last minute words of advice from my runner husband and a kiss for luck, I was out the door by 4:50. My stomach was still churning when I met my friends at the rendezvous point for carpooling into DC. Thank goodness for the former DC-dweller turned suburbanite who drove us downtown, because the rest of us would've been completely lost. Fast forward: we park in the lot, hit the portajon, take Metro to the starting line. It was there that we discovered the VIP portapotties. Yes. V.I.P. porta potties. Complete with red carpet and velvet ropes. Who knew? After seeing the lines for the not-so-important-people restrooms, I briefly wished I had forked over the cash for the climate controlled, easily accessible luxury.
Then it was time to find our corrals. Since the girls I rode in with are considerably faster than I, we headed in opposite directions. I found myself in corral 30 and luckily made a new buddy – another first timer with fast friends in an earlier corral.
She made waiting for the start so much less stressful. Don't get me wrong, I was still bouncing on my toes anxious but, had Angie not been there, I might have had a very different experience.
The energy at the race was fantastic! Because it was a Rock 'n' Roll event, there were great bands along the course and those who lived on the course put their boomboxes on their front porches or had their car stereos blasting. Good thing too! The local cell and data network was so overloaded because of the influx of people that my Pandora app wasn't working! The volunteers at the water and Gatorade stations were fantastic, but the cheering crowds, some with signs, some handing out beer, made the race!
I started out strong. I kept telling myself to slow down and try not to bonk. It totally worked for the first 5 ½ miles. Then came the hill. I will have nightmares about this hill for the rest of my life. The elevation climbed from 24 feet to 197 feet in less than 1/3 of a mile. When I tell you that it looked (and felt) like we were going straight up, I do not exaggerate. Probably 85% of the people around me had to walk it, and some even did so backwards to take the strain off their hamstrings and shift into using their quads. It was rough.
My legs were fried by the top and it really messed with the rest of my race. At that point I made a conscious decision that I would basically power walk uphill and only run the downhills. I wasn't happy about it, but I did what I had to do to get it done. Thankfully, the end of the race was downhill so I was able to run through the finish line and smile for the cameras.
I collected my medal (which, if it wasn't so darn heavy, I would wear it until the ribbon gave out) and headed through the finishers' chute. I was very happily surprised when I turned at the sound of my name and realized that Victoria, another of my favorite Scoot a Dooters, had found me in the midst of 25,000 people.
All in all, it was great day. I am incredibly proud that I completed the course and have a shiny new medal to show for it.
I am hopeful that the whole experience will be like childbirth in that it's pretty painful, but worth it, and a few days later you want to do it all over again. It better be since Meri and Vic suckered me into signing up for another half in six weeks. Yikes!
Keri is a stay-at-home mom to twins who loves to travel and over-indulges in historical fiction. She has been known to tone down her innate awesomeness in order to make those around her more comfortable.
Everyone has to start somewhere! We want to hear about your firsts – whether it be your first run, 5k, 10k, half marathon, or marathon. What did you do beforehand that worked well? What would you do differently?
This entry was posted in Guest Post, Race Recap and tagged 1/2 marathon, DC, guest post, half marathon, keri, rnrusa, rock n roll marathon, Washington DC. Bookmark the permalink.
I remember my first half about 2 years ago. I felt like I was going to puke and pass out at the end, it was a little terrifying but I haven't gotten that feeling since and NOW I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH. and as a DC resident, I can assure you there's nothing to be feel about–RnR goes up some particularly brutal hills.
Thanks, Nicole. I definitely had that puke and pass out feeling by the end, too. I checked the next half – the Nike Women's Half – and the course takes a hard left before getting to that nasty hill into Adams Morgan. (Whew!! Meri and Vic would have to drag me kicking and screaming to the start line if that weren't the case!) Hopefully this will eliminate the puking and passing out.
wow, that looks like soooo much fun. We are going to Washington next year on vacation and i am hoping to plan our trip around this race!!!
Come prepared for the St Paddy's Day festivities, too! There were plenty of leprechauns about!
haha it sounds like so much fun!
Congratulations, Keri! I ran my first half marathon last year and it was such an accomplishment that I cried when I crossed the finish line. Then, I ran my first 5k in September (yes, my first race was a half), peed my pants a little as I crossed the finish line, and almost vomited (I pushed myself). Then, I ran two more half marathons in February, each one faster…and it was amazing. I am TOTALLY addicted to half marathons now! So proud of you and can't wait to hear about your next one!!!!
You're insane! You went straight to a half? Well, it gives me hope anyway that next time won't be so bad!
My first was a 5k three years ago, it was super local and I didn't check the race course out. It was so flipping hilly, I didn't think I was going to make it. I have no learned my lesson in to checking out the course before hand so I know how to. Water pace myself.
Ouch! That happened on my last 5K, only it was the organizers' issue. When they posted the elevation change of about 100 feet they neglected to mention that that was the NET change and the whole course was hills!! Ugh!
Congrats on your first half! So exciting! And yay for more half marathons coming up soon! I actually ran my first half at the end of February and my second is next weekend, so I'm basically doing what you're doing. Running was tough the week after the race so I don't know if I did a great job maintaining my endurance for race #2, but we'll find out soon!
Before hand diced fruit cup and gramcracker with water around 6am before 9 am start. Put on sunblock arm warmers it was coolish and getting sun burnt is never fun.