text:
Ups and Downs: The Economic Crisis (pt. 3)
As last year's economic slowdown turned into a financial crisis, and the financial crisis into a global recession, there has been more and more reference to the Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as to the less severe downturns that have punctuated the decades since World War II. There is little mention, however, of the fact that business depressions have been a recurrent feature of the capitalist economy since the early nineteenth century, inspiring a vast literature of theoretical attempts to understand them and statistical materials for identifying and tracking them.
Perhaps the venerable concept of the "business cycle" makes few appearances in current economic commentary in part because post-war downturns were mild and short in comparison to earlier ones (economic history from the early 1800s to the late 1930s was about equally divided between prosperity and depressions, which became deeper and longer over time). The claims of Keynesian economists, after 1945, to have ended the business cycle by "fine-tuning" the economy with governmental controls did not survive the combination of inflation and stagnation that set in the 1970s. Yet the ability of the economy to bounce back quickly from hard times led newly confident "neoliberal" economists to insist that capitalism is simply prosperous by nature.
In reality, the current worldwide slump, far from a mysterious anomaly, represents the return of the capitalist economy to the dark side of its pre-World War II history.
Photos of Bushwick by Miller Oberlin.
The boom-bust cycle started up as soon as the growth of a money-centered economy and the Industrial Revolution led to the establishment of capitalism in wide enough swaths of territory for it to become the dominant social system. Before that, of course, economic life was disrupted by a variety of disturbances: war, plague, bad harvests. But the coming of capitalism brought something new: starvation alongside good harvests and mountains of food; idle factories and unemployed workers in peacetime despite need for the goods they produced. Such breakdowns in the normal process of production, distribution, and consumption were now due not to natural or political but to specifically economic factors: lack of money to purchase needed goods, profits too low to make production worthwhile. Major downturns have been identified in every decade from the 1820s forward, increasing steadily in seriousness up to the Big One in 1929. All of these moments saw declines in industrial production, sharp rises in unemployment, falling wages (and other prices), and failures of financial institutions, preceded or followed by financial panics and credit crunches. In every case, the downturn was eventually followed by a return to greater levels of production (and employment) than before. At first only the most capitalistically developed nations were affected (the 1825 crisis took in only Great Britain and the United States). But over the next hundred years, as capitalism spread across the world and countries were increasingly linked by trade and capital movements, the cycle of crisis and recovery took in ever more areas, although not all experienced these phases in the same way, to the same extent, or at the same moment.
While early-19th century champions of the free market—the ancestors of today's neoliberals—insisted that a general crisis of the economic system (as opposed to temporary disequilibria) is simply impossible, other economists responded to the evidence by speculating as to the causes of the cyclical pattern. The fact that in a market economy decisions about where to invest money and so about what is produced, and in what quantities, are made prior to finding out what quantities of particular goods are actually wanted by consumers, and at what price, seems obviously relevant to recurrent fluctuations in economic activity, in which different parts of a complex system adjust to each other over time. Another basic aspect of capitalism—that the total money value of goods produced must be greater than the total money paid out in wages in order for profit to exist—suggests an inherent imbalance between production and eventual consumption. As both of these are constant features of this society, however, it is hard to see how they can explain the alternation between periods of growth and collapses serious enough, on occasion, to give large numbers of people the idea that the system was actually breaking down. Economists searched for explanations lying outside the economy proper, such as sunspots, whose cyclical increase and diminution seemed to match the economic data closely, and might conceivably affect the economy through effects on agriculture. Other theories looked at waves of optimism and pessimism, perhaps caused by changes in death rates, to explain increases and decreases in business investment.
A more plausible explanation of the cyclical pattern, in terms of the changing profitability of investment, emerged from the major survey of economic data carried out over many decades at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Washington by economist Wesley C. Mitchell and his associates. Profit—I quote Mitchell's words, but it is a commonplace concept—is "the difference between the prices which an enterprise pays for all the things it must buy, and the prices which the enterprise receives for all the things it sells." Since a business enterprise must regularly turn a profit to continue to prosper, "the making of profits is of necessity the controlling aim of business management" and decisions about where to invest and so what to produce are regulated by the quest for profit. At some times businesses do better across the economy as a whole, earning more profit on the average, than at other times. And when average profits are high society enjoys prosperity, but declining profits can lead to depression.
What determines these changes in the profitability of capital investment? This question—which Mitchell did not really answer—bears not only on capitalists' expectations and so their willingness to invest funds, but also on their ability to invest, since the money available for investment is either drawn from existing profits or borrowed against future profits, which must then come into existence if loans are to be repaid. The question as to the average size of profits produced at any time, just because it is so basic, takes us to the heart of the economic system. As Mitchell explained the regulation of business decisions by the need for profit, "industry is subordinated to business, the making of goods to the making of money." But what determines the size of the difference between money costs and sales prices that is collected as profit?
To quote Mitchell once more, in a modern business economy, "most … economic activities have taken on the form of making and spending money." We are so used to this state of affairs that we hardly notice its historical peculiarity and forget that in the past—in much of the world, even the very recent past—most people produced much or most of their own food, clothing, and other necessities of life. So it is worth while remembering that, while money appears in many types of society, capitalism is the only one in which it plays a central role in the production and distribution of goods and services, so that nearly every object and service that we make use of in the course of a day has had to be purchased for money.
Money is basic to capitalism because this is the first social system in which most productive activity—apart from the few tasks that people still perform for themselves, like (sometimes) cooking dinner, brushing their teeth, or hobbies—is wage labor, performed in exchange for money. Most people, lacking access to land, tools, and raw materials, or enough money to purchase these, cannot produce the goods—housing, clothes, food—they need; they must work for others who have the money to hire them as well as to supply materials and tools. This money flows back to the employers when employees purchase goods they—as a class—have produced. Meanwhile, employers buy and sell goods—raw materials, machinery, consumer goods—from and to each other. Thus flows of money connect all the individuals involved in one social system.
The people who produce goods for a business have no direct relationship with the people who will buy and consume those goods or services, even though it is ultimately for these consumers that they are producing. The workers in bakeries and automobile factories do not know who will buy the bread and the cars they make, or what quantities they want and can afford. The same is true of their employers. Though capitalist businesses produce to meet the needs of anyone who can pay, as the property of individuals or corporations they are linked to the rest of society only by the exchange of goods for money, when they buy materials and labor and when they sell their products. This is why each business only finds out from its success or failure in selling its products, at sufficiently high prices to make a profit, to what extent it is meeting the needs of customers. It is only when products are sold and consumed that the labor that has made them counts as part of the total work performed under the employer-employee system that is the dominant form of production. If the goods aren't sold, the work done to produce them might as well not have been done, for they will not be used. It is thus the network of exchanges against money that binds all forms of work together into an economic system. Money is central to modern society, a society based on the principle of individual ownership (even though the vast majority of people don't own very much) because it represents the social character of productive activity in a form—bits of metal, paper symbols, or electronic pulses—possessable by individuals.
Like all forms of representation, money is an abstracting device: by being exchangeable for any kind of product, money transforms the different kinds of work that make these products into elements of an abstraction, "social productive activity." The abstract character of modern production is not only an idea, but has social reality: for businesses, the particular product they sell is of interest only as a means to acquire money that, as a representation of social productive activity in general, can be exchanged for any sort of thing. Executives move capital from one area of business to another not because they care more about automobiles than soybeans or stuffed animals, but to make money. This is what "capital" is: money used to make money. A business that does not make a profit will cease to exist, so the ability to make money—to increase the quantity owned of the representation of social productive activity—constrains what goods are produced, or even whether money is invested in the production of goods at all.
The fact that money is the most important practical way in which the social aspect of productive activity is represented allows it to misrepresent social reality as well. By being exchanged for money, natural resources like land and oil deposits are represented in the same terms—as worth sums of money—as humanly produced things. Interest—more money—must be paid for the use of someone else's money. Things that are simply symbols of money, like IOUs, including complicated IOUs like banknotes and stocks and bonds issued by companies, can be bought and sold, since they entitle their owners to money incomes and so can be treated as if they were saleable products. And since goods must be priced so that their sale allows businesses to make a profit, even in the case of actual products the amount something costs is affected by the amount people are able and willing to spend on it.
As a result, profit, as a portion of the sales price, misleadingly appears to be generated by the activities of particular firms, especially because it is appropriated by individual businesses, who compete with each other to get as much of it as possible. In reality, profit—because it exists in the abstract form of money, rather than in that of particular kinds of product—must be produced by the whole network of productive activities held together by the exchange of goods for money. It is with the goal of making money that employers buy equipment and materials from each other and labor from employees, who in turn buy back the portion of their product not used to replace or expand the productive apparatus and—let's not forget—to provide the employers with their own, generally expensive, consumables. The capitalistically-desired output of this whole process, profit, is the money-representation of the labor performed beyond that required to reproduce the class of employees (paid in the form of wages) and to provide the goods required for production. It is the whole social system that produces profit, though individual companies get to keep it.
The social character of profit can be seen in the very fact that the level of profitability on capital investment alters over time, independently of the wishes of businessmen, who, like everyone else, must adapt to the price movements that determine how well they do (it is this that gives rise to the idea of "the economy" as a set of impersonal forces like the laws of nature.) Competition for profit forces businesses to charge similar prices for similar products; since they must themselves buy goods (labor and materials), their ability to compete by lowering prices depends on the production techniques they employ. In this way, the social character of the system asserts itself through pressure on individual firms to raise productivity, insofar as this leads to higher profits.
Historically, this has led to a strong tendency towards decreasing the labor force in comparison to the amount it produces (while, of course, increasing the number of workers absolutely as the system grew). Employers first made labor more productive by assembling workers into large workshops, within which their work was divided into smaller and smaller tasks. This led to the substitution of machines for people, whenever this raised profitability, and to the invention of the modern assembly line, whose speed enforced high levels of labor intensity. By the end of the twentieth century, most production had become mechanized mass production, requiring less and less labor relative to a growing quantity of machinery and, of course, raw materials.
This shift has obvious consequences for the profitability of capital. If profit is the money-representation of the labor performed by employees of all of society's businesses in excess of the work required to replace raw materials, tools, and those employees themselves, then it will decline relative to total investment if businesses increasingly invest more of their money in machines and materials than in labor. Karl Marx, who first figured this out, called it "the most important law of modern political economy": the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Marx's explanation of the tendency to declining profits, noticed well before him by nineteenth-century economists, is a controversial one, to say the least. But it led to a prediction that has proved all too correct: that the history of capitalism would take the form of a cycle of depressions and prosperities. And it explains the correlation Mitchell demonstrated between changes in profitability and the business cycle.
Marx pointed out that the growth of capitalism, with its bias towards mechanization, led to an increase in the amount of money needed to continue to expand production, and so to the increasing size of individual companies. For the largest 100 firms in the United States, for instance, in real terms the amount of money invested in equipment per worker doubled between 1949 and 1962. And, of course, as increasing mechanization raised labor productivity, growing amounts of raw materials must be paid for. One consequence of this is that if the profitability of capital falls, at some point the amount of profit will be inadequate for further expansion of the system. (The General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio, then the most automated automobile factory in the world, cost $100 million to build in 1966; in 2002, GM spent $500 million to modernize the plant, which permitted reducing the workforce from 7000 to 2500. Only seven years later, GM is begging for a government handout to avoid going out of business.)
Slowing or stagnant investment means a shrinking market for produced goods. Employers neither invest capital in the purchase of buildings, machinery, and raw materials nor pay the wages which workers would have spent on consumer goods. A slowdown in investment, that is, is experienced by workers as a rise in unemployment and by businessmen as a contraction of markets. This is a self-magnifying process, as declining demand causes business failures, higher unemployment, and further contraction of demand. At the same time, since businessmen (and other borrowers) are increasingly unable to meet financial obligations, the various forms of IOUs issued by banks and brokerage houses become increasingly valueless, causing a financial crisis, while falling stock prices reflect the declining value of business enterprises. Individuals and institutions hoard money, rather than invest it. In short, capitalism finds itself in a depression.
But in a capitalist economy, what causes suffering for individuals can be good for the system. As firms go bankrupt and production goods of all sorts go unsold, the surviving companies can buy up buildings, machinery and raw materials at bargain prices, while land values fall. There is market pressure for the design of new, more efficient and cheaper machinery. As a result, the cost of capital investment declines. At the same time, rising unemployment drives down wages. Capitalists' costs are thus lower while the labor they employ is more productive than before, as people are made to work harder and on newer equipment. The result is a revival in the rate of profit, which makes possible a new round of investment and therefore an expansion of markets for production goods and consumer goods alike. A depression, that is, is the cure for insufficient profits; it is what makes the next period of prosperity possible, even as that prosperity will in turn generate the conditions for a new depression.
Given this pattern, what is unusual about the current situation is not the decline of profits visible in the global economy in the late 1960s or the serious downturn of the early 1970s, but the fact that a real depression did not materialize until 2008. Like earlier crises, the Great Depression of the 1930s, together with the enormous destructive force of the Second World War, laid the foundations for the new prosperity that came to life in the postwar Golden Age see Part 2: Risky Business. It was not surprising, in view of the history of the business cycle, that this new prosperity began to decline by the end of the 1960s. But if capitalism remained at base the same system, the economic policy practiced by governments had changed. On the one hand, the political dangers threatened by the mass social movements unleashed by the previous depression, as mass unemployment radicalized the population, were unacceptable to the governing elite of the capitalist states, especially in the context of what was believed to be an epic confrontation with Communism. On the other hand, it was also imagined that Keynesian methods of deficit financing could control the ravages of the business cycle. And in fact the continuously growing level of government spending on military and civilian projects after 1945, which increased the demand for goods and services beyond that produced by the capitalist economy proper, created prosperous conditions despite declining profitability.
In addition, the money that governments—the U.S. above all—printed to pay for all this spending, together with the credit private financial establishments were encouraged by central banks to extend to corporate and individual borrowers, made possible the debt expansion that underwrote individual consumption, corporate acquisitions and, especially from the 1980s on, ever more forms of speculation, in real estate, the stock market, and (with the refinement of derivatives) the ups and downs of speculation itself. This ever-increasing public, business, and individual debt appeared on bank and other business balance sheets as profits, despite their missing foundation in real productive enterprise.
Meanwhile, just as in earlier periods of economic decline, pressure was put on workers to work harder, while labor costs were lowered by moving plants from high wage to low wage areas or simply by using the threat of such moves to cut wages and benefits. Starting in the 1980s, spending on the socialized wage payments constituted by welfare-state programs was cut, freeing up money for corporate use. As it was supposed to, all this contributed to an actual increase in profits by lowering production costs, but evidently not by enough, given the costs of production goods, to make possible a new round of capital investment on a scale able to challenge the charms of speculation's short-run high returns. The result was the economic situation which has arrived so shockingly during the last year, though for several decades the warning signs—debt crises, recessions, bank collapses, stock market failures—were clear enough. Generally ascribed to lax regulation, greed, or bad central-bank policy, the current economic collapse is in line with the whole history of capitalism as a system. What we are faced with today is, more or less, the depression that should have come much earlier, but which political-economic policy was able to delay—in part by displacing it to poor parts of the world, but largely by an historically unprecedented creation of debt in the rich parts—for thirty-odd years.
Now the crisis is here. What form will it take? And what can be done about it? I will turn to these questions in the next (and last) article in this series.
Part 1: Up in Smoke
Part 2: Risky Business
PAUL MATTICK'S book, Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Failure of Capitalism (Reaktion, 2011) is based on articles written for the Rail.
Judah Schept's Coal, Cages, Crisis
By Jarrod Shanahan and Abby Cunniff
SEPT 2022 | Field Notes
A crumbling strip of asphalt winds through the craggy countryside of eastern Kentucky, striated with power lines sagging in every direction. Wobbly pavement markings and errant skidmarks vanish at a hairpin bend buffered by low guard rails framing a rolling, sparsely tree-spotted expanse of hills. On one side of this road stands a roughly chiseled open coal seam, marking the remnants of a former mine. On the other, a bowed chain link fence capped in razor-wire announces the outer periphery of Otter Creek Correctional Facility. This remarkable image by photographer Jill Frank adorns the jacket of prison scholar Judah Schept's Coal, Cages, Crisis (New York: NYU Press, 2022), confronting the reader with the book's central preoccupations.
Walter Corwin's A Short History of Now
By Allison Green
OCT 2022 | Theater
Walter Corwin Invites us to Experience an Intimate and Revealing "Short History of Now"
Xaviera Simmons: Crisis Makes a Book Club
In the comprehensive survey exhibition Crisis Makes a Book Club, Xaviera Simmons explains with brutal clarity the need for real gestures; land acknowledgments without Land Back will not do, and there can be no equality without reparations. As the title calls out, starting book clubs to read the literature of the oppressed without yielding the social and economic capital demanded in those very texts means nothing.
Jayson Musson: His History of Art
By Laurel V. McLaughlin
SEPT 2022 | ArtSeen
In the second video of three in Jayson Musson: His History of Art at The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM), a russet-colored-corduroy-suited, yellow turtle-necked, and well-meaning but supercilious art collector "Jay," aka Jayson Musson, gently explains to his roommate, a pot-smoking hare, Ollie: "Art history isn't that complicated. Whatever man fucks it kills and whatever it kills it fucks."
Training With Awesome
By Karl Greenberg
Chinatown Resistance: The Struggle Against Rezoning and Gentrification in Lower Manhattan
By Audrea Lim
How Hungry is America? VERY...
New York, Calling Farm Animals
By Nathan Schneider
Obama's First Foreign Policy Challenge: Create New International Standards to Resolve The Israeli-Palestinian Dispute
By William K. Barth
Pragmatism, Philosophical and Political
By Steven Ross
Meet the New Boss
Radio: Live Transmission?
Dear Doppelganger
By Lydia Stryk
Just Another City on a Hill
By Andrew Bast
Planet of Torture
By Jessica Loudis
Not Just Science Fiction
By James Arnett
Call Her "Sue,"
By Ian Crouch
Betting on the American Dream
Neural Networking
By Katie Rolnick
Who Killed Patton?
By Nicholas DeRenzo
Hodgman's World
By Christopher Michel
A Geek and Her Pilgrims
By Leigh Kamping-Carder
Carol Becker WITH PHONG BUI
A Tribute to Robert Graham (1938–2008)
By Kait Kurs
By Ian Bourland
Ellen Phelan WITH PHONG BUI
Harriet Shorr WITH ROBERT BERLIND
Phyllis Braff and Marek Bartelik WITH PHONG BUI
Le Corbusier a Life, Le Corbusier Le Grand
By Brandt Junceau
Art in the Shadow of Katrina: Exploring Prospect New Orleans
Walking the Edge of a Blade of Grass: Art and Activism of The Canary Project
By Cora Fisher
From Abstract Expressionism to Minimal Art: The Legacy of Ad Reinhardt and Tony Smith
Art Koans: Zen and the Tao in Conceptual Art
Nancy Spero: Un Coup de Dent
Brooklyn Dispatches: Tough Time, Don't Whine, Get With a "Project"
Letter from LONDON
Moving Beyond ObamArt
By Sharon L. Butler
By Nora Griffin
By Roni Feinstein
R H Quaytman Chapter 12: iamb
By Joan Waltemath
Sara Greenberger Rafferty BANANAS Vlatka Horvat Or Some Other Time
Image in the Box: From Cornell to Contemporary
Joan Banach: Citizen
Erik Schmidt: As above is so below
By Stephanie Buhmann
Lucas Ajemian and Julien Bismuth: Les Lettres Tristes
By Jen Schwarting
Andrew Forge and Fairfield Porter: Works on Paper
Uri Aran: Geraniums
By Emily Warner
Helen Mayer Harrison & Newton Harrison: Global Warming
John Walker: Drawings 1973–1975
By Dore Ashton
Flarf: From Glory Days to Glory Hole
FICTION: To be yourself, or not to be yourself
By Jed Lipinski
NONFICTION: A Pop Calypse
NONFICTION: Heaniverse
By Ben Mirov
NONFICTION: Grade School Apartheid in Mark Twain's Town
By Win Clevenger
ART: Art (vs.) World
By Andrzej Lawn
ART: Pretty Ugly
NONFICTION: Travelogue
By Melinda Cardozo
POETRY: A Poet Stretches
By Tatiaana Laine and Mark Du Mez
By Jeffrey Cyphers Wright
The Mysteries of... Rheinallt H. Rowlands: Bukowski (ankstmusic)
By David Shirley
Lost Art: Watching David Bowie Videos at MoMA
Masked Avenger Claims Yodeling Cured His Asthma
By Bart Plantenga
The Greatest Compilation Ever
Revenge of the Anti–Mega-Mix
By Tony Coulter
Keeping It Real—Or at Least Virtual
By Charles Poladian
The Whole World's Listening
Opera Reconsidered (After Sixty Years)
By Richard Kostelanetz
Doug Varone with Susan Yung
Preview: Buglisi Dance Theatre at the Joyce
By Emily Macel
An Uneasy Holiday at PS122's COIL Festival
By Mary Love Hodges
Third Annual Sugar Salon Series
By Simone Larson
Get Ready! For a Fake-Out
By Dalia Ratnikas
Reviving Coppelia: New York City Ballet Remounts a Classic
Full-Fledged Mystery in Light and Shadow: LeeSaar at PS122's COIL Festival
By April Greene
Wheeldon and Pärt at Works & Process
Genre Triumphant: The 11 Best Films Of 2008
By Tessa DeCarlo
Three Men and an Abortion
By Tim Bracy and Elizabeth Nelson
Not Like Ours
By Sarahjane Blum
Rock of Love Bus
By Mary Hanlon
In Memory: Harold Pinter
By Cristina Pippa, Jason Grote, Lonnie Carter, George Hunka, Tommy Smith, John Soltes, Lydia Stryk, Caridad Svich, Aurin Squire, and Alexis Clements
Crafting Your Weirdness* with Dan LeFranc
By Mallery Avidon
Building a New House of the Spirits: Jose Zayas and Beatriz Córdoba
By Caridad Svich
Geeks and (Bloodsucking) Freaks: Lessons From The Theater Trenches
By Robert Ross Parker
ALINE and VALCOUR or, the Philosophical Novel
By Marquis de Sade
By T. Motley
Six from Lunch Poems
By Brandon Brown
I Hope You Die
Half a Day in the Life of Angel Martinez
By M. Joseph Irwin


Jim Iyke is Enjoying Daddy Duties!
Nollywood actor Jim Iyke welcomed his son a while ago (click here if you missed it) and he has fully thrown himself into daddy mode. It's adorable to see.
Taking his first trip to Miami with his son, he shared a photo of himself and his girlfriend at the airport enjoying some quality family time.
See some more shots of Jim Iyke being a doting father below.
This don't look right…but all the same Congrats to the parents!
Why do I feel his trying to get back at something? I will give him d benefit of a doubt on marrying this chick! The last pix is very nice & good for him. Hopefully now that his son is here, that will change he arrogant, rude style. Yes I said it becuz I have seeing it on several occasions including at d airport.( thanks to God I didn't run up to him LOL) poor the ones who did.. That's why I really don't give a HOOT abt Ninja celebs cuz u don't know what to expect from them when u say hi. So I keep it PUSHING. In my Ez voice * I don't F*with U/them*..
There is a post I am frantically looking for. Been here for like 40 minutes *wails*. It's on a lady who was talking about the shame of losing her child and how she felt like it was her fault. I've been looking through and I can't find it. I read it the other day! Have you deleted the post? Help!
ATL FINEST u are so right jim iyke is so rude and full of himself …while in london he cannot even afford a taxi he keeps relying on wealthy nigerians to pick him up lol…useless…anyway the pics are cute.
what does being rude have to do with not being able to catch a cab?
I asked a question. Can I get a response please?
Sorry Abi …..The story is by Bolatito idakolo, she is married to Bez d musician. U can check it on google since u ar unable to find it here.
Thanks I checked Google, it didn't come up. Oh well!
One of the fakest person u will ever come across. Broke azz punk, this babe mama go hear am she never no watain she get herself into.
Hmmmm, make i just waka pass biko!!!
…way to go Jimmy!!! Nice work on finally starting a family. Now you are a real man. Unlike all those other no-good hoochie-papas who are afraid to be fathers in these trying times. Nothing but respect. Continue to be a good father; and remember your son is part you, and part your beautiful wife, so treat his mother with love and affection as you would your son. In other words, you did not make him alone all by yourself. Cheers mate!
I just want to understand you, are you insinuating that if a man doesn't have a child, he's not a "real man"? It appears that is what you are saying in plain English but I don't want to assume. IF that is indeed what you are insinuating then I don't think that is a fair assessment at all and it is a horrible generalization.
AND this your other statement "Unlike all those other no-good hoochie-papas who are afraid to be fathers in these trying times"….what does that even mean, do you even know or are you just writing so you can say that you contributed to a BN post? So these supposed good for nothing gigolos (as I translate no good hoochie papas to mean) should bring children into the world in "these trying times" (as you put it) even if they can't afford it? You also fail to realize that there are some men (whether married or not, employed or not) who would love to have children but are presented with health issues either on their part or on the part of their wives/girlfriends. It can be that those same men are great uncles, godfathers, mentors etc so are those acts of kindness they bestow on those children they love and care for negated because they aren't the spawns of their loins?
My guy, which kain antiquated, patriarchal thinking be dis wan nawwwwwwww eh? My broz, please it's not worthy of a Nigerian gentleman to spew this type of archaic line of reasoning, please reconsider your perspective. When you write, step away from the computer, come back in 30 minutes, read it again before you post it into the world, okay?
Jim have something in common. Thank God for that. Congrat to papa chi boy.


text:
Veículo de lançamento superpesado () (SHLLV), é um veículo de lançamento capaz de levantar mais de 50 toneladas (pela classificação da NASA) ou 100 toneladas (pela classificação soviética/russa) de carga útil em órbita terrestre baixa (LEO), mais do que um veículo de lançamento pesado.

Apenas dois veículos de lançamento superpesados alcançaram a órbita carregando uma carga útil de classe superpesada de mais de 50 t, Saturn V (1967–1973) e o Energia (1987–1988), enquanto um veículo de lançamento superpesado está atualmente operacional, Falcon Heavy (2018 - presente), mas ainda não transportou uma carga útil de >50 t para a órbita. Dois veículos de lançamento superpesados estão em desenvolvimento: SpaceX Starship e o da NASA Space Launch System.

Veículos

Aposentados
 O Saturn V foi um veículo de lançamento da NASA que fez 12 lançamentos orbitais entre 1967 e 1973, principalmente para o programa Apollo até 1972. A carga útil lunar Apollo incluiu um módulo de comando, módulo de serviço e o Módulo Lunar Apollo, com uma massa total de 45 t. Quando o terceiro estágio e o combustível de partida da órbita terrestre foram incluídos, o Saturn V realmente colocou aproximadamente 140 t na órbita terrestre baixa (LEO). O lançamento final do Saturn V em 1973 colocou o Skylab, uma carga útil de 77.111 kg, em LEO.
 O Energia foi um veículo de lançamento projetado pela União Soviética para lançar até 105 t na órbita terrestre baixa (LEO). O Energia foi lançada duas vezes em 1987 e 1988, antes do programa ser cancelado pelo sucessor do governo russo na União Soviética, mas apenas a carga útil do segundo lançamento entrou em órbita. No primeiro lançamento, lançando a plataforma de armas Polyus (aproximadamente 80 t), o veículo não conseguiu entrar em órbita devido a um erro de software no estágio de lançamento. O segundo lançamento lançou com sucesso o orbitador Buran.

O ônibus espacial da NASA diferia dos foguetes tradicionais porque o orbitador era essencialmente um estágio reutilizável que transportava carga internamente. O objetivo do Buran era ser uma cópia reutilizável do Orbitador da NASA, mas não um estágio de foguete, pois não tinha motores de foguete (exceto para manobras em órbita). Dependia inteiramente do lançador descartável do Energia para chegar à órbita.

Operacional

 O Falcon Heavy está classificado para lançar 63.8 t para a órbita terrestre baixa (LEO) em uma configuração totalmente descartável e uma estimativa de 57 t em uma configuração parcialmente reutilizável, na qual apenas dois de seus três foguetes auxiliares são recuperados. Em setembro de 2020, a última configuração está planejada para ser lançada no início de 2021, mas com uma carga útil muito menor sendo lançada para a órbita geoestacionária. O primeiro lançamento de teste ocorreu em 6 de fevereiro de 2018, em uma configuração na qual a recuperação de todos os três propulsores foi tentada, com o Tesla Roadster do Elon Musk de 1.250 kg enviado para uma órbita além de Marte. Um segundo e um terceiro lançamentos lançaram cargas úteis de 6.465 kg e 3.700 kg.

Comparação

 Inclui massa de módulos de comando e serviço Apollo, Módulo Lunar Apollo, Adaptador de espaçonave/LM, Unidade de instrumento Saturn V, estágio S-IVB, e propulsor para injeção translunar; massa de carga útil para LEO é sobre 122.4 t.
 Estágio superior necessário ou carga útil para realizar a inserção orbital final.
 O Falcon Heavy voou apenas em uma configuração em que todos os três foguetes auxiliares devem ser recuperados, o que tem um limite de carga útil teórico de cerca de 45 toneladas; o primeiro lançamento em uma configuração onde um foguete auxiliar é deliberadamente descartado está planejado para julho de 2021.
 Foguetes auxiliares laterais recuperáveis e o foguete auxiliar central descartado intencionalmente. A primeira reutilização dos foguetes auxiliares laterais foi demonstrada em 2019, quando os usados no lançamento Arabsat 6A foram reutilizados no lançamento do STP-2.
 Não inclui massa seca de espaçonave.

Projetos propostos

Propostas chinesas
Longa Marcha 9, um foguete de 140 t para LEO foi proposto em 2018 pela China, com planos de lançar o foguete até 2028. O comprimento da Longa Marcha 9 ultrapassará 90 metros, e o foguete teria um estágio central com um diâmetro de 10 metros. Espera-se que o Longa Marcha 9 carregue uma carga útil de 140 toneladas na órbita terrestre baixa, com uma capacidade de 50 toneladas para a órbita de transferência Terra-Lua.

Propostas indianas
Na Índia, houve várias menções sobre o conceito de vários projetos e configurações de foguetes pesados e superpesados, capazes de colocar 50 a 100 toneladas em LEO e 20 a 35 toneladas em GTO em várias apresentações de funcionários da ISRO que foram estudados entre as décadas de 2000 e 2010, principalmente especulado para ser uma variante do Unified Launch Vehicle movido por motores SCE-200 agrupados, atualmente em desenvolvimento. A ISRO confirmou que está conduzindo uma pesquisa preliminar para o desenvolvimento de um veículo de lançamento superpesado que está planejado para ter uma capacidade de elevação de mais de 50-60 toneladas (presumivelmente em LEO).

Propostas russas
Yenisei, um veículo de lançamento superpesado usando componentes existentes em vez de empurrar o projeto menos poderoso Angara A5V, foi proposto pela RSC Energia da Rússia em agosto de 2016.

Uma revitalização dos foguetes auxiliares da Energia também foi proposta em 2016, também para evitar empurrar o projeto Angara. Se desenvolvido, este veículo poderia permitir à Rússia lançar missões para estabelecer uma base lunar permanente com logística mais simples, lançando apenas um ou dois foguetes superpesados de 80 a 160 toneladas em vez de quatro Angara A5V de 40 toneladas, implicando em lançamentos de sequência rápida e vários encontros em órbita. Em fevereiro de 2018, o projeto do КРК СТК (complexo de foguetes espaciais da classe superpesada) foi atualizado para erguer pelo menos 90 toneladas para LEO e 20 toneladas para a órbita polar lunar, e para ser lançado do Cosmódromo de Vostochny. O primeiro lançamento está programado para 2028, com pousos na Lua começando em 2030.

Propostas dos Estados Unidos
O Space Launch System (SLS) é um veículo de lançamento descartável superpesado do governo dos Estados Unidos, que está sendo desenvolvido pela NASA em um programa bem financiado há quase uma década, e atualmente está programado para fazer seu primeiro lançamento em 4 de novembro de 2021. Em 2020, está programado para ser o principal veículo de lançamento para os planos de exploração do espaço profundo da NASA, incluindo os lançamentos lunares tripulados planejados do Programa Artemis e uma possível missão humana subsequente a Marte na década de 2030.

O sistema SpaceX Starship é um veículo de lançamento totalmente reutilizável de dois estágios para órbita, desenvolvido de forma privada pela SpaceX, consistindo no foguete auxiliar Super Heavy como o primeiro estágio e um segundo estágio, também chamado de Starship. Ele foi projetado para ser uma espaçonave de longa duração para transporte de passageiros e carga. O teste do segundo estágio está em andamento, e um teste orbital do foguete completo está planejado para não antes de setembro de 2021.

A Blue Origin tem planos para um projeto após seu foguete New Glenn, denominado New Armstrong, que algumas fontes da mídia especularam que será um veículo de lançamento maior.

Projetos cancelados

Numerosos veículos de lançamento superpesado foram propostos e receberam vários níveis de desenvolvimento antes de seu cancelamento.

Como parte do projeto lunar tripulado soviético para competir com a Apollo/Saturn V, o foguete N1 foi secretamente projetado com uma capacidade de carga de 95 toneladas. Quatro veículos de teste foram lançados de 1969 a 1972, mas todos falharam logo após a decolagem. O programa foi suspenso em maio de 1974 e cancelado formalmente em março de 1976. O conceito de design do foguete soviético UR-700 competiu com o N1, mas nunca foi desenvolvido. No conceito, deveria ter uma capacidade de carga útil de até 151 t para a órbita terrestre baixa.

Durante o projeto Aelita (1969-1972), os soviéticos estavam desenvolvendo uma maneira de vencer os estadounidenses até em Marte. Eles projetaram o UR-700m, uma variante nuclear do UR-700, para montar a espaçonave MK-700 de 1.400 t em órbita terrestre em dois lançamentos. O foguete teria uma capacidade de carga útil de 750 t. O único Foguete Universal a passar da fase de projeto foi o UR-500, enquanto o N1 foi selecionado para ser o HLV soviético para missões lunares e marcianas.

O General Dynamics Nexus foi proposto na década de 1960 como um sucessor totalmente reutilizável do foguete Saturn V, tendo a capacidade de transportar até 450-910 t para a órbita.

O UR-900, proposto em 1969, teria uma capacidade de carga útil de 240 t em órbita terrestre baixa. Nunca saiu da prancheta.

A família estadounidense de foguetes Saturn MLV foi proposta em 1965 pela NASA como sucessora do foguete Saturn V. Teria sido capaz de transportar até 160.880 t para a órbita terrestre baixa. Os projetos do Nova também foram estudados pela NASA antes de a agência escolher o Saturn V no início da década de 1960.

Com base nas recomendações do relatório de síntese de Stafford, o First Lunar Outpost (FLO) teria contado com um enorme veículo de lançamento derivado de Saturn conhecido como Comet HLLV. O Comet teria sido capaz de injetar 230.8 t na órbita terrestre baixa e 88.5 t em um TLI, tornando-o um dos veículos mais capazes já projetados. O FLO foi cancelado durante o processo de design junto com o resto da Space Exploration Initiative.

O Ares V dos Estados Unidos para o Programa Constellation pretendia reutilizar muitos elementos do programa do ônibus espacial, tanto no solo quanto no hardware de voo, para economizar custos. O Ares V foi projetado para transportar 188 t e foi cancelado em 2010.

O Veículo de lançamento pesado derivado de Ônibus Espacial ("HLV") foi uma proposta alternativa de veículo de lançamento de levantamento superpesado para o programa Constellation da NASA, proposto em 2009.

Uma proposta de projeto de 1962, Sea Dragon, previa um enorme foguete lançado pelo mar de 150 m de altura, capaz de elevar 550 t à órbita terrestre baixa. Embora a engenharia preliminar do projeto tenha sido feita pela TRW Inc., o projeto nunca avançou devido ao fechamento da Seção de Projetos Futuros da NASA.

O Rus-M foi proposto como uma família russa de lançadores cujo desenvolvimento começou em 2009. Ele teria duas variantes superpesadas: uma capaz de levantar 50-60 toneladas e outra capaz de levantar 130-150 toneladas.

O Sistema de Transporte Interplanetário da SpaceX foi um conceito de veículo de lançamento de 12 m de diâmetro lançado em 2016. A capacidade de carga útil era de 550 t em uma configuração descartável ou 300 t em uma configuração reutilizável. Em 2017, os 12 m evoluíram para um conceito de Big Falcon Rocket com 9 m de diâmetro, que foi renomeado como SpaceX Starship.

Ver também
 Comparação de sistemas de lançamento orbital
 Lista de foguetes
 Foguete de sondagem, veículo de lançamento suborbital
 Veículo de lançamento leve, capaz de elevar até 2.000 kg até a órbita terrestre baixa
 Veículo de lançamento médio, capaz de elevar 2.000 a 20.000 kg de carga útil para a órbita terrestre baixa
 Veículo de lançamento pesado, capaz de elevar de 20.000 a 50.000 kg de carga útil para a órbita terrestre baixa

Superpesado

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


I think it's a known fact that waiting in line isn't anybody's favorite pastime. If it is…I need to meet this person! The reality is, though, that we will spend time in our lives waiting in line. Even at places like Walt Disney World. As much as we'd like to Fast Pass our way through all of the lines and life and general, that's not happening.
Our recent trip to Walt Disney World was unique for us as it was the first time we went on a trip with just our oldest two girls (11 and 9 years old). Previously, we had to divide and conquer the lines and to Ride Swap passes. We had secured quite a few Fast Passes, but there were still lines to be had and waiting for shows to start. We quickly planned out some ways to pass the time in the lines while still having fun with each other. I think it made the experience more fun because we have fun memories of waiting in line together instead of everybody doing their own thing.
Here are some of our favorite ways to pass time while waiting in lines at Disney.
If you have a great memory, pick some postcards up outside of the parks to save a little money. Then fill them out while you are waiting in line. You can mail them to family that didn't go on the trip, or even to yourself to have waiting for you at home when you return, or shortly after. If you take them to the store at the front of Magic Kingdom (Newsstand), they will add a Disney stamp for you! You can also buy postage here and find a mailbox just outside of the store to get them on their merry way.
Lindsey has more tips for mailing postcards from Magic Kingdom Mailboxes.
This was hands down everybody's favorite game to play while waiting in line. Heads Up was $0.99 in the iTunes store and I think it's free on Google Play. It was worth the $0.99. There are categories you can chose from and multiple people can play. We even found people around us would join in and try to get the person with the "card" on their head to guess what it said. This is the same game that you've seen Ellen play on her show, or similar to headbands. When you are in the park, you can unlock the Disney deck for free!
Not to long ago, the Disney Experience App added the ability to see menus for restaurants and even place your meal order for counter service restaurants. Talk about a time saver. You can figure out what you want to eat without waiting in the food line, place your order and then let them know by finding the "Mobile Orders Here" sign and checking in. Once you are there, you won't have to wait in the food line. You pay for the order with your Disney account and your meal or snack is ready in no time. When waiting in the counter service line for a Dole Whip that was about 10 people deep, I signed into the app, paid for my order and walked over to the Mobile Order area and saved us a ton of time.
Even if you aren't ready to order, it helps to see the menus and decide where and what you'd like to eat.
I had no idea how competitive you could get with Rock, Paper, Scissors, but these two definitely proved it was possible. Not only would they play in lines waiting for rides, but they also played waiting for us to get off the ship and onto Castaway Cay. There are even strategies for this game!
Do you like pairing up different Disney or Marvel characters to see who would win? It's super simple to toss out two names and ask another person who they think would win and why?
Who would win between Prince Eric versus Genie?
Who would win between Black Panther and The Hulk?
Who would win between Thor and SpiderMan?
Who would win between Cruella DeVil and Maleficent?
It's totally up to you and who you pick and the options are endless.
"I spy with my little eye" is always a good one especially with little kids. Just make sure to note that it needs to be something you can see even after the line moves. After all, the line will eventually move!
This is kind of similar to who would win, but instead you get to decide what you would rather do.
Would you rather have a Genie and three wishes, or would you rather have a glass slipper?
Would you rather be Ariel with land legs or be a mermaid?
Would you rather eat and dream of eating honey all day like Pooh, or would you rather go to Neverland and never age?
If you need more ideas, I found a fun set of would you rather prompts you can use.
Recently announced to launch in Summer of 2018 is the Play Disney Parks app. This will be another fun way to pass the time. The app will be free on both iOS and Android.
Sometimes waiting in lines at Walt Disney World and Disneyland (and many other places) isn't fun, but there are a lot of ways to kick up your line waiting experience and make it just as fun as the actual ride. Or at least close!
If you don't like waiting at lines, check out a Disney VIP tour where the guide acts as your fast pass and you get to ride all of the rides or experience all of the things. I've written about my VIP experience if you want more information.
A snack and a postcard…can't go wrong with either!
The Heads Up game was so much fun I downloaded it on my phone too!
I STILL have not downloaded HeadsUP on my phone. And I need to do it this week so I can get the free Disney Pack when I'm on property!!! Home is where your wifi connects automatically…….
Yes, you need to do it! Surprisingly it wasn't hard to do it in the park or get the extra deck…just don't do it in Norway…bad signal there.
these are all great tips. I think adding the order ahead option at the restaurants is great.


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Brian Mull | NCAA.com | October 31, 2015
College basketball: Why the game could be faster this season
March Madness Moments: Tourney to remember
It's certain to happen this season on many occasions, in the earliest college basketball games. A defender will put two hands on a guard who is driving to the basket. An official will blow his whistle and call a foul. And a fan will yell: "Come on ref, let them play!"
What the officials are trying to do this season, through a series of mandates by those who govern the sport, is redefine the way the game is played. After years of discussion, the Men's Basketball Oversight Committee, the Rules Committee and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) agreed that action must be taken to reduce physical play and return the game to its free-flowing roots.
Of the rules changes made during the offseason, shortening the shot clock from 35 seconds to 30 seconds has probably received the most discussion. Yet the roughly 25 rules implemented to help increase pace and stretch freedom of movement should make a greater impact on the game. The three officials who run the floor are expected to enforce the rules consistently during every Division I men's basketball game.
RELATED: How will the shortened shot clock affect games?
The initiative is listed on page eight of the 2015-16 NCAA Men's Basketball Rule Book:
The rules committee has embarked on an officiating initiative with the intent of reducing the amount of physical play and allowing more freedom of movement by requiring enforcement which is closer to the intent of the rules book. To this end, the rules committee has identified several areas of concern noted below:
Handchecking / Body Bumping
Physical Post Play
Offensive initiated contact with defender
In the past, a veteran official might have trusted his judgment to determine if the dribbler or defender gained an advantage, then decided whether or not to call a foul. That gray area has been removed in specific instances, said John Clougherty, who officiated 12 Final Fours and four national championship games and for the last 11 years has been the supervisor of officials for the Atlantic Coast Conference and Colonial Athletic Association.
Rule 10-1.4 in the NCAA men's basketball rulebook lists the following acts as an automatic foul:
a. Keeping a hand or forearm on an opponent
b. Putting two hands on an opponent.
c. Continually jabbing an opponent by extending an arm(s) and placing a hand or forearm on the opponent;
d. Using an arm bar to impede the progress of a dribbler.
"Let's think about blow-by moves," Clougherty said. "One guard is guarding the dribbler and there's a blow-by down into the lane and the defender puts that armbar on him. Officials have been trained in the past to see how the play develops from the beginning to the end. That thinking is no longer. Once they see that armbar on the dribbler, on a blow-by move, that is a foul. You can use the word absolute."
If the emphasis on cleaning up the game sounds familiar, that's because it is. The 2013-14 season began with a similar tone. More fouls were called, especially early in the season. In games involving Division I teams, scoring increased from a historic low of 66.9 points per team per game in 2012-13 to 70.3 in 2013-14. The spike could be attributed to an increase in fouls called per game (17.7 to 19.2) and free throws shot (19.8 to 22.6) in regular-season games.
"Last year there was a lot of slippage and we went back to business as usual," Clougherty said. "The rules committee, competition committee and NABC decided we have to have not just a change, but a cultural change. It's going back to more of a skilled game."
The shift from free-flowing action to physical play evolved over years, Clougherty said.
Weight room training became an integral part of college basketball. Point guards are built like middleweight champions now and power forwards wouldn't look out of place on a DI defensive line.
Clougherty officiated the 1985 national championship game. Heavy underdog Villanova shot a NCAA finals record 78.6 percent against Georgetown, which was considered the best defensive team in the nation.
The video above reveals players who are thinner. There's minimal holding, pushing, shoving and overall defensive interference - acts now commonplace.
"How do you get it back?" Clougherty said. "I think you have to take some drastic measures."
J.D. Collins, the NCAA's new supervisor of officials, has told Clougherty and other conference supervisors what he expects to see when watching games on television.
RELATED: Which programs produce the most NCAA players?
"If we're not doing as he'd like, I'm going to get a phone call," Clougherty said. "And I have no problem with that. We've had our clinics and we've studied video that I've put together and my guys know what's expected from them."
Clougherty made it clear that officials had no official input on the rules changes, it's simply their job to enforce them. Those who don't, however, won't receive NCAA tournament assignments, he said. A repeat offender could even lose regular-season assignments.
"The hard guys to change won't be the young guys," he said. "It's the guys who have had success. Notable referees that you know. They've had success for years refereeing a certain way and they're expected to change."
He doesn't anticipate the transition to stricter enforcement will be painless. He just wants steady improvement as the season unfolds, leading to a better product.
"We're going to see, possibly, more fouls and more free throws, but we would hope there's going to be an adjustment by the referees and an adjustment by the coaches and then it will trickle down to the players, and they'll play without the use of their hands," Clougherty said. "That's all we're hoping. We don't want games filled with a lot of free throws and a lot of fouls. If you look at the NCAA instructional video, there's going to be push back, frustrated coaches and officials. But I've told my officials, you've got to stay the course."
Men's college basketball national championship history: We analyzed the height of every title-game starter. Here's what we learned
Since the start of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, the average height of a starter has increased by roughly 3.5 inches.
The Auburn Tigers men's basketball team entered the 2021-22 season with five new roster additions and plenty of questions. Now, halfway through January, the 16-1 Tigers sit No. 1 in NCAA.com's Andy Katz's Power 36 rankings and No. 2 in the AP Poll.
UCLA's record 88-game winning streak: How Notre Dame upset the Bruins in 1974
UCLA men's basketball won 88 games in a row from Jan. 1971 into Jan. 1974 before Notre Dame upset John Wooden, Bill Walton and the Bruins. Here's a look at that day.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This tape may extend beyond the intellect of the rebel scum, delving into such topics as the descent into and long journey out of the Dark Side. We don't want our men to find their way out, so this tape will be squashed in as quickly and quietly a fashion as the empire can muster. It gets interesting when they discuss the power of the Bowie Codpiece, a mythical force sensitive object that has telepathic abilities far more powerful than any the empire has yet discovered. We will continue our search for the Codpiece until the rebels have nothing to support them. The search continues! Vader out.
ps: who let the droids get on the mic in this one? Somebody's gonna get force choked.


also tried watching the video on youtube but got the same message again.....!!!!!!!!!!
yes video private. just go on youtube to see it properly.
Why the video is set to Private?????????, I am really eager to see the event!!!
Offline voice messaging input FTW!!!
Can't wait to have JB on my s3!
Uh oh, he just said 12 Core GPU. I guess Quad Core is Obsolete now huh? Quad Core is too slow now huh? You gotta have that 12 Core GPU inn your phones now even though he said it was for the Nexus 7 tablet. 12 Core or Bust now right?
i bet tim cook are banging his head right now.


It can be very confusing if you are setting out to buy a new desktop computer without help. When your computer is out of date or is no longer working is the time when you are faced with the task of finding a new one. To make buying easier, read the article below.
If you want to buy a Mac but you also want to run PC programs, think about getting Parallels for Mac. This software gives you many contemporary features. Doing this allows you to work with any software or program. You will, however, have to separately purchase the needed PC operating system that goes with it.
There are some things you should keep in mind if you want to buy a gaming desktop. Make sure that there is a video card and a lot of memory included. Special controllers and keyboards are also available that will enhance all your gaming play.
In order to start off your desktop computer shopping process, begin by writing down all the functions you need it to accomplish. The equipment you buy will depend on what applications you want to run on it regularly. If you do gaming, your needs will be much different than a use who just uses email and does online shopping.
If big video files are in your future, you'll want to purchase a desktop that has a DVD optical drive. A CD drive may not be enough for bigger multimedia files. You'll need the space that a DVD brings to the table. Sure, it's more money, but it'll be a real help over the course of your desktop's life.
Does the computer have enough memory? A desktop needs to have enough memory for the tasks you need to do. If you plan to store a large quantities of date on your desktop computer, memory will be a consideration for you when purchasing your computer. Are you constantly taking pictures? You must answer these questions honestly in order to find the most suitable computer for your needs.
If you continue to have questions about finding the right computer, this article should have at least helped. Don't be shy about asking for assistance or insight from store employees as well. Best of luck to you!


THREE fantastic goals in the first half from Cameron Norman, Craig Parker and Cameron King ended Weymouth's promotion hopes as King's Lynn Town took a 3-0 victory in their Evo-Stik Southern Premier Division play-off semi-final.
Weymouth had earned the tie by finishing fifth in the league while King's Lynn Town finished three points and three places ahead of the Terras, who could not claw back their three-goal deficit.
Weymouth were unchanged after beating Hitchin Town 3-0 at the weekend, thanks to second half goals from Calvin Brooks, Abdulai Baggie and Brandon Goodship.
King's Lynn Town made one change to the side that beat Chesham United 3-1 at the weekend as Ryan Fryatt came in for Dion Frary.
Heading into the match the Linnets could boast one league defeat at home all season, while the Terras had bagged 14 wins on the road in the league this season.
There was a penalty shout in the first minute when Michael Gash got into the box for the home side and went down but his appeals were waved away.
Moments later Baggie got through and fired a shot that King's Lynn goalkeeper Alex Street got down to save.
Soon after Goodship had a fantastic chance as he went close after he one-on-one and took a shot that prompted another fine save from Street.
But after 13 minutes King's Lynn took a huge step to victory with two goals in three minutes.
A foul by Thiago Caze da Silva gave away a free-kick 25 yards out that Norman planted into the right-hand corner of the net with a wonderful strike.
In the 15th minute Parker then fired a brilliant 30-yard half-volley past Weymouth goalkeeper Will Dennis into the net.
Eight minutes later Callum Buckley received a yellow card for a foul on Ryan Hawkins and from the free-kick the ball fell to Ryan Jarvis who hit his shot high and wide.
The home side were dominating and Weymouth were struggling to create chances to get themselves back into the game.
And the hosts lead was duly extended as King fired in a terrific 30-yard volley into the left-hand side of the goal to give Weymouth a mountain to climb if they were to maintain their promotion hopes.
King's Lynn began the second half with good pressure on the Weymouth defence, who were doing well to hold firm.
Weymouth were trying to get forward and begin the comeback but when Ben Thomson had the ball taken off him Toby Hilliard raced down the other end and fired across goal.
Goodship then was about to shape a shot but Frazer Blake-Tracey cleared out for a Weymouth corner, which Gash subsequently cleared before Parker had an effort which Dennis had to clear away from his goalline.
Weymouth made a double substitution in the 59th minute to try and rescue something from the match.
Soon after Josh Carmichael had a long range shot drift wide.
Parker and Fryatt went close with two efforts in quick succession as the Linnets twice went close to making it four.
Corners from Simon Lappin were putting Weymouth under serious pressure late on as the Terras were forced into a tough spell of defending.
Norman then delivered a free-kick which Stephane Zubar cleared away as the Linnets were dominating late on.
Gash went close as he lifted a shot over the bar for the Linnets.
A shot from substitute Josh Wakefield saw Street come out of the Linnets' goal and clear out for a corner, which was then dealt with by the home side's defence.
Three minutes of added time were given but the match had gotten away from the Terras at this point.
The home side had been dominant, with their three superb first half efforts proving the difference between the two sides.
Weymouth could not come back and their superb season, that has seen them claim 30 league wins and 97 points, ends with defeat to the Linnets.
King's Lynn now face a play-off final at home to Slough Town after their 3-1 triumph over Kettering Town, with the winner taking their place alongside champions Hereford in the National League South next season.


There will be additional seminars and workshops on 27 and 28 August.
For anyone not interested in Randori competition there is the embu competition.
This is a chance to set goals now, a year ahead and train and work hard.
Special training sessions are planned to help you all with the rules and strategy for competition.
I have attached the Invitation and Tournament Program and Conditions documents.


I think today every girl incorporates at least one crop top or maybe more than one in her closet. But if you haven`t such a chic essential in your wardrobe you must buy it immediately! Click here to find a lot of trendy crop top ideas like cool bow sleeve or striped, pretty embroidered or low square neck, classic black or white crop top outfits and order the best one for yourself.
In any case, don't be shy and wear crop tops without any doubts! Be sure they suit all body types and you're no exception!
Crop tops are so versatile that you just need to find a way in which you can be comfortable in wearing them as there are million different ways you can style crop tops. But here you must remember the most important thing: when you want to dress a crop top it shouldn`t look like as you're going to the beach! It should look cool and gorgeous!
So now my aim is to show you some of the most popular ways on how to style crop tops to make your look perfect.
Crop tops became increasingly popular during the 90s. The Spice Girls, Cristine Aguilera and Britney Spears are considered as the trendsetters of "belly shirts". Today the same fashion trend continues!
A halter, short or full sleeve crop tops with your high waisted jeans always make your look more attractive and sexier. All you need is just to add a pair of heels or boots as they fit this casual street style very well.
Wearing a midi or maxi skirt may seem a little bit conservative. But if you match it with a crop top it will look completely different and more flirtatious. Just pay attention what you`d like to stress – if you're wider up top and a bit narrower at the hips put on a halter crop top, if you want to accent your long legs it would be better to dress full sleeve crop top with a high waist midi or maxi skirt.


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2014 Lincoln MKZ Pros and Cons: Why (Not) This Car?
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The folks at Lincoln probably thought they had a fantastic car in the latest MKZ, introduced as a 2013 model. They started with the widely praised new Fusion midsize sedan, gave the car unique styling inside and out, and added a few high-tech features not available on the Ford. Yet the reaction from both the automotive press and the general public has been a resounding "meh." What happened? Is the second-generation MKZ simply not good enough, or have reviewers been unfair?
My previous review was based on a test drive of a 2013 Lincoln MKZ with the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Figuring that more time in the car might increase my appreciation, and that a different powertrain might suit the car better, I recently spent a week in a 2014 MKZ Hybrid.
I did like the MKZ more this time around. It probably does deserve a better reception than it has been receiving. And yet it's also not hard to see why people aren't more enthusiastic about this car.
Clean lines from round nose to tapered tail. more MKZ photos
Floating center console dominates the MKZ's interior.
Tested: 2014 Lincoln MKZ
4dr Sedan 141-horsepower 2.0L I4 Hybrid CVT FWD
Compared: 2014 Lexus ES
4dr Sedan 156-horsepower 2.5L I4 Hybrid 6-speed shiftable CVT FWD
Why the 2014 Lincoln MKZ?
Compared to the ES
Price or payments
Better Worse
"Price" as the #1 reason to buy a Lincoln MKZ might come as a surprise. I certainly didn't consider price among the pros initially. After all, the MKZ's reputation as an overpriced Ford is among the primary reasons it does not sell better. And the tested, moderately optioned car listed for the not inconsiderable sum of $42,420. Then I ran the MKZ Hybrid through TrueDelta's apples-to-apples comparisons.
To arrive at the comparison car, I dropped the tested MKZ Hybrid's $695 "platinum dune tri-coat" paint and $195 rear inflatable seat belts, and added a $1,200 sunroof, for a revised bottom line of $42,730. A similarly equipped Ford Fusion Hybrid Titanium lists for $4,000 less. But the Lincoln includes about $3,200 in additional features, among them adaptive dampers, steering-linked LED headlights, a power tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel, a power decklid, and real wood trim. Adjust for these, and the Lincoln emerges a mere $800 higher. Surprisingly close, if you value the MKZ's additional features and especially if you also consider that its warranty is a year longer.
The hybrid does fare better in this price comparison than the regular MKZ because Lincoln thought that marketing the fuel-efficient powerplant as a "no-cost option" would boost the car's sales. Lately this marketing claim isn't as accurate as it used to be. Both variants continue to share a base price, but the sticker on the non-hybrid MKZ adds a $1,000 credit. This remains half the $2,000 upcharge for the hybrid powertrain on the Fusion, and one-third the $2,880 premium for the Lexus ES hybrid. The last seems even larger when you consider that the base engine in the Lexus is a V6. A V6 adds $1230 to the MKZ's price, bumping the bottom line $230 above the hybrid's.
The upshot: a Lexus ES 300h lists for a substantial $6,370 more than the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. Adjust for the Lincoln's additional features, and its advantage widens to nearly $9,000. The MKZ even undercuts the Toyota Avalon Hybrid by $1,705 despite having about $4,000 in additional content.
Such a value play is usually the province of the Koreans. Alas, Hyundai and Kia don't yet offer a near-luxury hybrid. A Kia Cadenza lists for about the same as the MKZ when both are fitted with V6s, but the Lincoln includes about $3,000 in additional features.
Feature availability
In every one of the price comparisons I ran the Lincoln MKZ had far more features than the other car. If something's available on a competitor, it's likely available here, and then some.
Standard features include adaptive shocks, a push-button PRND selector, steering-linked all-LED headlamps, LED tail lamps, reconfigurable LCD instrumentation, illuminated door sill trim plates, real wood trim, and a key that can be left in your pocket. Optional features include a self-parking system, adaptive cruise control, multi-adjustable massaging heated-and-cooled front seats, a 700-watt THX-certified audio system, and a full array of collision warning systems.
Lincoln seems especially proud of a huge single-pane panoramic sunroof that retracts over the rear window. Personally, I don't feel this option provides enough of a benefit over the dual-pane panoramic sunroofs offered in competitors to justify its $2,995 price. The huge piece of glass does span nearly the width of the car, but the opening itself is considerably narrower, likely due to the need to package side curtain airbags. A conventional single-panel sunroof is also offered, for $1,200.
Perhaps relevant to more people than the big glass roof: the MKZ is easily the least expensive luxury sedan you can buy with massaging front seats. Others in its price range do not offer the feature. Sadly, this option was not on the tested car.
Rear pillar flows cleanly into broad shoulder over rear wheel. Complex surfacing.
Attractive theme, but too much hard plastic. And controls could be easier to operate.
I wavered on whether or not to include fuel economy among the reasons to buy a Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. With the possible exception of its grille, no aspect of the car has been more controversial. As with other current Ford hybrids, owners found they could not match the original EPA estimates, in this case 45 mpg for both city and highway. Ford recently caved to pressure, revising the MKZ Hybrid's EPA ratings downward to 38 mpg city, 37 mpg highway and compensating owners for the difference.
Which numbers are more accurate, the old or the new? Even with a cold start in near-freezing weather Gayla (who works the pedals like the typical American) managed over 34.6 mpg in the suburbs (based on the trip computer). With a trip computer reset after the engine was warm and much more effort put towards maximizing efficiency, I observed 51.6 with a two-way suburban trip. Taking the highway downtown and back, I observed 47.4 mpg.
So the original EPA ratings are doable, just not when driving the car the typical American way, with a heavy foot and the AC blasting. Braking is at least as important as acceleration. Wait too long to start slowing down for a red light, as most Americans do, and the car's kinetic energy will be used to heat the brake rotors rather than being channeled back into the battery pack. When the battery is fully charged, the car can and will cruise for a few miles on electricity alone.
The Lexus ES 300h's EPA ratings are a couple mpg higher than the Lincoln's. My experience with the related Camry Hybrid suggests that the Lexus will also have a real-world advantage, but one small enough to consider them "about the same."
The only other midsize luxury sedans offering similar fuel economy are diesels from Germany, such as the Mercedes-Benz E250 BlueTEC. Though these are much quicker than the hybrids, they are also far more expensive. How much more? If you have to ask...
With a mantra ray-inspired instrument panel that sweeps down into a floating center console, vibrant displays, and touch-sensitive controls, the MKZ's interior is not only dramatically different from the Fusion's interior, but simply dramatic. Unfortunately, design intent is one thing, design execution another (see the cons below).
Caveats notwithstanding, the Lincoln MKZ's interior styling is less cluttered, more artful, and more distinctive than the Lexus ES's.
I similarly admire Lincoln's attempt to give the second-generation MKZ a much more distinctive exterior than the first. The sedan's rounded nose, concave rear pillars, and tapered flanks recall the elegant streamlined locomotives of the 1930s. Even though I remain unsure whether this shape is to my personal taste, it's inarguably stylish and interesting.
Lexus similarly sought to dial up the drama and create distance from a mainstream sibling with the ES's own 2013 redesign, but the resulting exterior design isn't nearly as sleek or as dramatic.
The MKZ's split grille, inspired by that on classic pre-war Lincolns, has attracted more criticism than any other aspect of its design. Some people see a mustache, others a baleen whale. But it's integrated into the oveall design better here than on other Lincolns. And is the spindle grille of the Lexus more attractive?
Why Not the 2014 Lincoln MKZ?
Powertrain performance
Partly thanks to active noise reduction, the Ford/Lincoln 2.0-liter hybrid powertrain is smoother and quieter than the 2.5-liter Toyota/Lexus unit. The sound remaining after the electronic countermeasures is a few octaves lower than the buzz in the Lexus.
But the Ford/Lincoln engine is also considerably less powerful. While the Lexus ES 300h can get from a dead stop to 60 mph in a respectable eight seconds, the MKZ Hybrid takes about nine. Though quick by early 1980s standards, a nine-second run registers as sluggish with today's luxury sedan buyer. With either engine, matting the accelerator instructs the CVT to rev the engine to its power peak, then hold it there. Especially in the Lexus, with its louder, buzzier engine, this is not a pleasant experience.
I didn't mind the MKZ Hybrid's limited shove because I generally drove it casually. A 118-horsepower electric motor supplements (and often entirely substitutes for) the 141-horsepower gas engine. Their combined 188 horsepower smoothly and effortlessly shunt the car around town as long as you're not indulging any adolescent fantasies.
If you want to indulge those fantasies, though, you'd better step up to the MKZ's optional 300-horsepower 3.7-liter V6. Or, if you want both power and efficiency, spend the big bucks for a German diesel or an American Tesla.
Rear seat room & comfort
Rear seat headroom and knee room are borderline tight in the Ford Fusion. In the Lincoln MKZ they're tighter still. Six-foot passengers might still fit, but not comfortably. Even without sufficient space for toes beneath its front seat, the Lexus ES's rear seat is far roomier.
Grille inspired by classic Lincolns has few fans. But it works for me on the MKZ. LED headlights.
The Lincoln's fatal flaw. Too tight.
Front seat room
The MKZ's center console might be more stylish and sportier than the one in the Lexus ES, but it's also much higher, and cuts into perceived roominess. People seeking an open, airy interior won't find one in the Lincoln.
As in the Ford Fusion, the base of the MKZ's windshield is high and distant, harming forward visibility and driver confidence. The view forward seems more open in the Lincoln than in the Ford because the instrument panel drops down from the base of the windshield, but it's still far from ideal. In the other direction, visibility is limited by thick rear pillars and, when open, the optional large sunroof.
Controls and instruments
As in other Fords and Lincolns, the touchscreen-based infotainment interface has improved, but some virtual buttons and touch-sensitive controls remain too small and too closely space to tap without taking your attention off the road for a few potentially critical moments.
I like the number of instrumentation options, and find the driving style evaluator helpful, but clicking back and forth among the various displays becomes tedious.
The instrumentation in the Lexus isn't as thorough or as informative. It doesn't provide a detailed driving style evaluation. And its mouse-like controller also has a fair number of critics.
Other features of the 2014 Lincoln MKZ
Materials & workmanship
Last year I listed materials among the reasons not to buy an MKZ. This time around my evaluation is more mixed. Some materials inside the MKZ are easily worthy of the car's price. The brown hides in the tested car looked and felt richer than most. The sides of the high center console are padded. The same bits in the Lexus are hard plastic.
But the top surface between these padded sides remains hard plastic. It's perhaps as good as hard plastic gets, but doesn't look or feel worthy of a luxury sedan. Most of the fits are precise, but Ford designed the instrument panel trim to not quite align with that on the doors. Consequentially, this particular fit appears shoddy.
Front seat support & comfort
Seat evaluations are highly subjective. For me, the MKZ's standard front seats are very good, but short of outstanding. Compared to the seats in the Fusion, they're narrower and more firmly contoured, but have smaller side bolsters. The optional multi-contour seats address the bolster deficit, and also add three-level lumbar and massage. But few people are going to drive this car in a manner that requires much lateral support.
The hybrid's battery reduces the Lincoln MKZ's trunk volume from 15.4 to 11.1 cubic feet. The Lexus ES 300h's trunk can hold an extra cube. But if you need much more space the Lincoln's rear seat folds to expand the trunk, while the ES's does not.
Ride smoothness
The primary benefit of the MKZ's adaptive dampers seems to be a more insulated, even velvetty ride at low speeds than you'll find in the Fusion. Overall the Lincoln feels more luxurious and more composed than the Lexus. It seems quieter, too, especially when accelerating. This said, the MKZ rides a touch hard over some bumps, especially if the chassis is set to "sport."
The Ford Fusion tackles imperfectly paved curves with more composure than any other mainstream midsize sedan. The same can be said of the MKZ in its class--as long as we exclude RWD-based sedans from the class.
The Lincoln's multi-mode adaptive shocks have little evident impact on handling. In "comfort," the steering feels lighter than in the Ford, enhancing perceived agility. And, saddled with a 3,828-pound curb weight and semi-buried driving position, the MKZ needs all the enhancement it can get in this area. In "sport," the MKZ's steering feels firmer and tighter, but doesn't provide much more feedback. Unfortunately, the steering and suspension cannot be set separately, so if you want the firm steering you also get a firm ride.
The MKZ most lags rear-wheel-drive competitors (but never the squishier Lexus) when hustled. There's a lot of weight up in the nose with either the hybrid or the V6, and the chassis tuning doesn't do enough to counteract this. Push the MKZ hard, and it plows towards the outside curb. Even in less vigorous driving the MKZ feels nose-heavy, and just plain heavy. Despite its poise, the Lincoln can't quite deliver a sporty driving experience even when fitted with the powerful V6 and all-wheel-drive.
Overall, I enjoyed driving the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid more, even much more than I expected to. Its styling is distinctive and elegant, its interior is mostly well-finished, and it has a more luxurious sound and feel than the Lexus with which it competes. In hybrid form, the MKZ is far from quick, yet this engine somehow best suits the not-quite-sporting character of the midsize Lincoln while returning excellent fuel economy when driven appropriately. The 2.0T engine lacks refinement, while the 3.5-liter V6 encourages comparisons with rear-wheel-drive competitors that the Lincoln cannot win.
So, why hasn't the Lincoln MKZ been more of a success? Well, while it might look and drive better than the Lexus ES, people don't tend to buy the Lexus because of how it looks and drives. They buy it because it has a reputation for reliability, relatively low depreciation, and excellent customer service. And Lincolns don't have much of a reputation in these areas. Plus the MKZ has less interior space than people tend to expect in a 194-inch-long sedan.
People who do buy cars based on how they look and drive tend to favor the European brands, and perhaps Cadillac. Against those competitors the MKZ doesn't compare as well, especially not in performance and handling. But it is also much less expensive and, in hybrid form, more fuel efficient than all save the diesels.
Ultimately, the problem with the MKZ could be that its combination of attributes don't cohere, at least not at a glance. It's more stylish, sportier, and tighter inside than the Lexus, yet still not quite a driver's car, and somehow makes the most sense in sluggish hybrid form. If you can get your head around this combination, and find it appealing, then the MKZ's relatively low price could seal the deal.
Smoother and quieter than the engine in the Lexus ES hybrid, but less powerful.
Fairly tight, but at least the rear seat folds.
See more 2014 Lincoln MKZ photos
Lincoln provided an insured car with a tank of gas for a week. Hernando Mejia of Meade Lexus in Southfield, MI, helpfully provided a test drive in a Lexus ES 300h, to refresh my memory of that car. He can be reached at 248-372-7124.
2014 Lincoln MKZ pros and cons, according to Michael Karesh: the best reasons for buying (or not buying) the 2014 Lincoln MKZ. Join TrueDelta to post your own impressions.
Response from thosgbell
11:49 am August 26, 2014
I drove one of these from Detroit to Grand Rapids in July, 2014, and was impressed. It was my first drive in a Lincoln since the 1960's (yes, the '60's). I've driven the Fusion before, in rental car trim, so I wanted to see what an 'upscale fusion hybrid' would be like. I also have mixed feelings. My wife and I could get used to this car and its features - we have a Hyundai Azera now - and reap the benefits of hybrid technology (better fuel economy comes in handy between Social Security checks). The luxury was impressive, the gadgetry worked well, and both of us liked the ride. I didn't like the A pillar intrusion into my vision to the left, however. We will consider this one and match it against a Hyundai Sonata Limited Hybrid (we can get a pretty sizeable discount for loyalty if we buy a Hyundai again). We won't consider the Lexus.
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