These beautiful handcrafted serving spoons are hand carved from olive wood by artisans in Kibera, an impoverished area of Nairobi, Kenya. Each brass stripe on the handles is carefully inlayed by artisans to create an elegant serving set perfect for your home or as a gift for a friend.
Measurements: Length measures 10 in.


I'm dying, too. No denying it. This attraction is very bad for my mental and physical health. He probably won't even show up tomorrow night. His romantic comedy costar will distract him with an invitation to eat grapes on a sun- drenched rooftop somewhere and I . . . I could never get another chance to kiss this outrageously beautiful man.
This trip to New York isn't only a career opportunity, it's a chance to shake off my comfort zone.
Do it, Katie. Don't regret it. Don't be a coward. What's the worst that could happen?
"Just one, then," I whisper.
His green eyes go molten as he takes two big strides and swoops in. I hear my backpack hit the ground and then nothing, nothing, but Jack's mouth has any part of my focus.
To celebrate the release of INDECENT EXPOSURE, we're giving away two paperback copies of DISORDERLY CONDUCT series by Tessa Bailey!
GIVEAWAY TERMS & CONDITIONS: Open to US shipping addresses only. Two winners will each receive a paperback copy of Disorderly Conduct by Tessa Bailey. This giveaway is administered by Pure Textuality PR on behalf of Avon Romance. Giveaway ends 2/3/2018 @ 11:59pm EST. Avon Romance will send the winning copies out to the winner directly. Limit one entry per reader and mailing address. Duplicates will be deleted. CLICK HERE TO ENTER!


The film Toy Story, released on November 22, 1995, turns 22 years old today! And, to celebrate, we are giving you a look at some of the top surprises hidden by Disney Pixar in the original film. These Easter eggs, which are hidden moments and tongue-in-cheek nods to the Disney Pixar universe, aren't that noticeable and can only be spotted after you've watched the film a few times, but they do have a unique story to tell in the Toy Story universe!
Toy Story is a truly historic film by being the first feature-length film made entirely via computer animation and to this day it looks flawless! We are also super excited that Toy Story 4 is going to be released in 2018, so it makes reminiscing about the first film so special. How will you be celebrating the movie's anniversary? Scroll down for a look at some unique and surprising facts from the first film.
In the scene in the beginning of the Toy Story film where Woody is talking to all the other toys, there is a book in the bookcase behind Woody with the title "Tin Toy" and the author is Lasseter. There's a special meaning behind this! The director of Toy Story is John Lasseter and one of the first animated shorts Pixar did was called Tin Toy.
This green "Pizza Planet" truck first showed up in Toy Story, but has been seen in a variety of Pixar films since then. The vehicle also appears in A Bug's Life as a surprise next to a caravan and the caravan is also the same one that appears in Monsters Inc. Pizza, anyone?
The reference "A 113" appears in many Pixar films and it refers to a classroom number at the California Institute of Arts. It was the classroom for first year graphic design and character animation, and the room many of the animators at Pixar and Disney attended classes in. It's a cute reminder of how their education got them to where they are today!
In a scene from 1995's Toy Story, you can see a hidden Mickey Mouse in the form of a wall clock that looks like a wristwatch. It's definitely an ode to the ultimate Disney character.
In the scene where Buzz Lightyear is attempting to fly, he hangs on to a yellow and blue ball with a red star. This is a "Luxo" ball, and it first appeared in the Luxo, Jr. Pixar short as a prop for Luxo, Jr.


While the rest of us pray for the end of the month and payday, Conor McGregor appears to have splashed over €3 million on his own personalised luxury yacht.
The MMA star took to Instagram to show off his latest bling-buy - and he can be seen flicking through a glossy brochure that shows the designs for the ocean cruiser.
There's even a blurb on the cover of the pamphlet that reads: "The new 2019 Prestige Yacht - built for Conor McGregor."
The plans show that the Prestige 750 yacht will be 75ft long and include four cabins with multiple living spaces.
It's described online as "combining French savoir-faire, cutting edge technology, Italian aesthetics and unique design features that upends traditional design codes, offering an outstanding level of comfort and contemporary design.
"With multiple living spaces on deck, including a vast cockpit and an immense terrace on the flybridge, the yacht has been designed to fully enjoy being at sea, whether on open waters or at anchor."
McGregor already has a yacht called "The 188" named after his weekly benefit payments before he found stardom and riches in the UFC.
But as one of the richest sports stars in the world - it looks like he's upgrading to a bigger model.
The booklet has a quote from the Crumlin man himself which says "Chasing the dream inspires me" and also a famous line from Muhammad Ali: "He who is not courageous enough to take risk will accomplish nothing in life."
But unfortunately the boxing great's name is spelt wrong in Conor's brochure, appearing as "Mohammad" instead of Muhammad.
One social media user asked McGregor what he is going to do with his new toy.
The Crumlin man simply replied: "Sit on it."


Kitty, I tried to add your button to my blog but the picture won't show up. If you go to my blog it is above the v.t. button and you can click the spot and it goes to your site but, the little picture doesn't show up. Has anyone else had trouble or is it just me. What am I doing wrong?
I'm glad I found your blog!!! But all it does is make me really hungry, and wish i had one or all of the yummy food you post!!! You are amazing!


Tino entered as the heel here, giving people dirty looks, and taking a knee and putting his fist to the ground pose in the center of the ring before the match. Even match, Bull took some hard shots before firing up for the win.
Peyton entered first with new gear and a better than you attitude about herself tonight, she did a splits on the apron roll in to the ring, asked for the microphone and cut a short heel introduction promo about how she is "The Venus Fly Trap" of NXT. Asuka entered to a great reaction, she has a star aura about her. Well worked match, a couple fun Asuka comedy spots mixed with serious action. Hopefully we see more of these two in the future.
Riddick Moss beat Levis Valenzuela Jr.
These two have been working around the state lately, Levis has so much charisma while Riddick shows a lot of solid WWE Style wrestling ability, he's under control and everything he does is done well.
Indian music hit as three men in all black made their way to the ring, they were Sunny Dhinsa, Gzim Selmani and Lovepreet Sangha. Heel promo about how they want us to stand up and show our respect, one of which said he came from a rich oil family. They received the WHAT? treatment from the crowd.
This was a fun match, Hugo's dancing and party boy personality is easy to enjoy, and Tye can work as a heel whenever he chooses yet his Perfect Ten gestures still get a positive reaction. After the bell rang, Dillinger said this would be no dance contest, so of course this made Hugo demand a dance contest. They took turns twerking and dancing before Dillinger took a cheap shot on Hugo to get the match going.
Champs won with the assisted codebreaker type maneuver they are using these days. Very good match, as Gable & Jordan have broken through as one of the most popular acts in NXT. Scott & Dash are good old fashioned rough and tough workers and the dynamic between them and the technical wrestling of Jordan & Gable is excellent. Post match, the heels were still laying it in on the faces so Enzo Amore ran them off to a big reaction. Enzo promised that Big Cass would be back and they were going to get payback on Dawson & Wilder. Enzo shook Gable & Jordan's hands, endorsing them before leaving.
Crews won with a big slam, similar to the Blue Thunder Bomb, good finisher, still need it to get more tv time so crowds will know that's what he's going with these days. Very strong match here, two large men hitting major moves and selling the damage between them. Brawling and felt like a fight.
Good guys won when Bayley hit the Belly-To-Bayley on Aliyah. Despite using the name Marley at the recent taping, Gionna was introduced as this name, also Aliyah is what Nhooph was introduced as even though Breaking Ground focused on her so much. The majority of the match saw Emma or Billie Kay working over Adrien or Gionna, crowd was very in to Bayley, calling for her with chants and singing songs to which Emma even danced a bit to, which received a "You're Still Evil!" chant. The finish saw Gionna go to the top for a big cross body on Aliyah after Bayley had tagged herself in to then hit the huggplex on the unsuspecting Aliyah. It's great to see these types of matches because Bayley and Emma are able to keep everything together and teach the wrestlers around them by guidance or watching their actions.
Joe was out first to make sure he was the heel, spoke about how Finn was a coward and should have just given him the title match he deserved. Went on to trash Citrus Springs, calling it a "podunk town". Joe claimed he hadn't seen Finn all day but he was here for a fight, the lights went out and Finn's music hit to a big reaction, lights came back on quickly as Finn in his hoodie had hopped the barricade to sneak attack Joe. They brawled as the bell rang for this match. Joe was able to cut Finn off and really laid in to him with punches and stomps. Joe looked ferocious tonight, a dangerous, calculated heel. Finn would fire back to keep the crowd in to it and always showed fire. They teased the ref bump a few times until finally there was one, during this time Joe grabbed the NXT title and was winding up to hit a belt shot, Finn ducked it, was able to hit the running dropkick to the corner and get up to the top for the Coup de Grâce. Bálor celebrated this big win to send everyone home happy.


text:
Reader's Emporium
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Seven Up (Stephanie Plum #7)
Fiction > Crime, Mystery & Thriller
Author: Janet Evanovich
$22.99(AUD) inc GST
The seventh Stephanie Plum adventure takes you on the ride of your life! Sunday Times bestseller JANET EVANOVICH blends wit, adventure and comedy. Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum thinks she's going after an easy FTA: a senior citizen charged with smuggling contraband cigarettes. But when she and Lula show up at his house, they get more than they bargained for - a corpse in the woodshed and an old man on the lam. Stephanie's mind is on other matters, however, because she has two proposals to consider: vice cop Joe Morelli is proposing marriage, and fellow bounty hunter Ranger is proposing a single perfect night...
Janet Evanovich now lives in New Hampshire but, like Stephanie Plum, grew up in New Jersey. She has won major crime fiction awards for her Stephanie Plum novels: ONE FOR THE MONEY was presented with the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Award and the Dilys Award, TWO FOR THE DOUGH won the CWA Last Laugh Award and THREE TO GET DEADLY was awarded the CWA Silver Dagger for 1997. Her web site address is www.evanovich.com.
Imprint : Headline Review
Publication date : March 2005
Author : Janet Evanovich
© Reader's Emporium 2021

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


FABB produced simulation of I-66 Trail.
VDOT has been very open to public input on improving the proposed parallel bicycling/pedestrian trail for the Transform the I-66 Outside the Beltway project. So, FABB is asking everyone to take a few minutes and send an email to VDOT with comments and ideas on how to make the trail better. The deadline for submitting comments is Friday, June 30, 2017.
To help you with this, FABB is providing the following contact information and details about the proposed parallel trail for your use.
Comments should be sent to Transform66@VDOT.Virginia.gov.
You can also send messages to The Honorable Aubrey L. Layne, Jr., Virginia Secretary of Transportation through the Governor's office at https://governor.virginia.gov/constituent-services/Communicating-with-the-governors-office.
Comments that will have the most impact are those that are specific to a particular segment of the trail, especially if near your home or where you ride. Please use the material below as needed and try to keep comments constructive. Don't hesitate to share ideas about potential fixes. The engineers and designers have said that they welcome other's thoughts. Also, be sure to mention how you might use the trail and where you live (city or neighborhood).
The project significantly benefits northern Virginia by connecting adjoining neighborhoods and future transit facilities. This not only facilitates daily multimodal commutes to work but also can help reduce congestion by allowing citizens to use bikes for short trips for local errands and shopping.
The proposed trail expands Fairfax County's bike network, providing an extensive new east-west bike/pedestrian route plus connections to the W&OD trail, the Cross County Trail, and others.
The creativity in developing many of the underpasses, grade separated, and other crossings to help cyclists and pedestrians on the trail safely traverse intersections. Hope that this and the creativity applied to the Route 7 trail bridge will continue to be applied to all of the segments of the I-66 trail.
The proposed installation of bike counters to gather data on usage will be very welcomed, especially if improvements to the trail are made to insure that it is an appealing, safe, and healthy transportation option.
11 access points to the trail are a good start to increasing connectivity and encouraging use.
The potential noise impacts on trail users could be high on those sections between the sound wall and the highway. Beyond exposing the users to the dangers of high decibel noise, cyclists and pedestrians may have difficulty hearing the bells, horns, and shouts of other users passing them. The noise impact on users inside the sound wall should be analyzed before construction begins and the results should be used by VDOT in selecting the safest and healthiest location for placement of the multiuse trail.
The exposure of trail users to pollution when the trail is between the sound wall and highway not only may have negative health impacts on regular users but may discourage many from using the trail. At a minimum, the pollution levels and health effects should be analyzed and made available to potential users. EPA research concludes placing a shared use path outside of the sound wall will improve air quality by 50%. .
The current plans have the trail on the same grade as the highway. With only a concrete and fence barrier and a 12-foot shoulder separating trail users from I-66 traffic, the proximity to traffic may discourage some people because of perceived dangers from the nearby motor vehicles.
The trail inside the wall is very exposed and with no natural buffers to protect users from weather and noise. During the summer when heat is radiating off the highway and the trail's pavement, the absence of shady sections to provide some relief could discourage trail use.
The trail would benefit from additional access points through the sound wall. This will improve accessibility and provide users a sense of security knowing that they have more options to get off the trail if needed. While access will be provided at many of the overpasses, Jermantown Road, near Yoenas Park and Dunn Loring at Gallows Road should be provided for connectivity to transit, recreation locations and shopping destinations.
Our understanding is that in many areas the trail will only be 8-feet to 10-feet wide with 2-foot shoulders. We hope that, with grade separation and other improvements that the trail can be widened where possible to accommodate users, especially when utility vehicles using the trail as a service road are present.
A major concern is that if the trail is not improved it will be so unappealing that it will not be used. An underutilized trail could then be used by opponents of trails and similar multimodal transportation options to then argue against them, seriously undermining VDOT goals for reducing congestion.
A well-designed shared use path will provide a safe, healthy, and enjoyable experience for trail users of all ages. Comments by FABB members will go a long way to insuring that VDOT places the trail as far from the traffic lanes as possible and makes this goal a reality.
There is a portion of the Fairfax County Parkway Trail between Huntsman and Modisto which runs between a sound barrier wall and the roadway. You always feel like you are in a very noisy wind-tunnel when passing through there on foot or by bicycle. This is a short section of the trail. I can only imagine that the noisy wind-tunnel effect would be worse alongside I-66.


Nevsun Resources Ltd. is describing an attack on its Bisha mine in Eritrea as an " act of vandalism," an account that contrasts starkly with African media reports saying the mine was bombed by Ethiopian fighter jets.
In a statement released Sunday, Nevsun said vandals caused minor damage to the base of a tailings thickener at the mine during the night shift on Friday, releasing water into the plant area.
But the Ethiopian news site Tigrai Online said it had confirmed a report that the Ethiopian air force bombed the mine on Friday. Sudanese newspaper Al-Sahafa was the first to report that the attack was a military operation from Ethiopia.
"The Bisha gold mine which is about 150 km from the city of Asmara is on fire and a huge fire and smoke can be seen from far away," the reports claimed.
But Haywood Securities analyst Stefan Ioannou said he believes Nevsun's account over the online news report. He noted that the company's shares opened just 3% lower than Friday's closing price of $4.55 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, suggesting most investors weren't taking reports of an air strike very seriously either.
The Tigray region, in Northern Ethiopia, borders Eritrea, which won independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The relationship between the two countries has been tense, including a 1998 war over border territory. Tigrai Online advertises itself as independent, but its stance is pro-Ethiopian. The report suggests the purported attack was supposedly related to an Ethiopian helicopter held by Eritrea.
A source close to Nevsun said the company is not sure what happened and isn't ruling out any possibilities until it completes an investigation. Nevsun's statement said the company has implemented additional safety precautions and no employees were harmed.
Nevsun owns 60% of the Bisha mine, with the Eritrean government owning the remaining 40% through the Eritrean National Mining Co. The mine is extremely important to the Eritrean economy, which would make it a logical target for the government's enemies.
Nevsun has faced a very rocky ride to develop Bisha. Back in 2004, Eritrea's autocratic government kicked all the mining companies out of the country for no apparent reason. They were welcomed back a few months later, and Nevsun was able to strike a development agreement.
When Nevsun started building the mine in 2008, the government forced the company to use a state-owned contractor called Segen Construction for some of the work. Allegations eventually surfaced that Segen employed slave labour at the site. Nevsun could not say for certain that slave labour was never used at Bisha, but it did take measures to prevent it from happening in the future.
Ultimately, Nevsun endured and built a very profitable and successful operation. But the Eritrean political risk continues to hang over the company, making the stock very cheap compared to its peers. Last year, rumours surfaced that a Qatar-backed private equity fund called QKR Corp. was eyeing a bid for Nevsun, but no offer ever surfaced.


At SIGGRAPH 2018, Mo-Sys will showcase its new StarTrackerVFX tool at Waskul Entertainment's StudioXperience broadcast studio and technology space. The patented optical camera tracking system will be used to demonstrate how it brings virtual and real worlds together in real time, removing the complexities, time and budget constraints associated with virtual production. The StudioXperience space is sponsored by HP and NVIDIA.
Mo-Sys will demonstrate a real-time composite of interviews filmed on a green screen and rendered by the Unreal Engine, which reduces the need for costly fixes in post. The green screen footage and camera tracking data captured will then feed into The Foundry's NUKE compositing suite, where VFX will be added in just twenty minutes completing the full-VFX workflow on the fly.
In a separate demonstration, the StudioXperience stage will also showcase camera tracking from Mo-Sys' industry-proven StarTrackerTV solution for TV studios and broadcasters, combined with real-time rendering from Zero Density. StarTrackerTV is currently used by over 100 broadcasters and facilities providers including BBC, Sky, ESPN, FOX, CNN, NHK, ZDF and NEP.
StarTrackerVFX simplifies an otherwise complex process of aligning a moving camera within the virtual environment. Its direct plug-in for the Unreal Engine enables users to film actors in front of a green screen and effortlessly immerse them in photo-realistic environments. The camera tracking data is recorded with a timecode stamp and can be exported as FBX camera data for post-production, re-rendering and visual effects.
StarTracker is an upward facing sensor that attaches to any broadcast or film camera. It points at the ceiling, rather than looking forward and uses retro-reflective stickers also known as stars as a reference. These are robust, inexpensive, easily installed and offer immunity to changes in light. A one-time 30-minute procedure auto-maps the sensors position and references it to the real world, after which no further star calibration or homing' is required.
As part of the StarTrackerVFX toolbox, the StarTracker ViewFinder also benefits directors, DOPs and VFX supervisors. It's mounted to a handheld monitor and tracks every movement; acting as a window into the virtual world that allows them to frame the scene and create camera moves without the need to guess where objects are.
Mo-Sys founder and owner Michael Geissler commented: StarTrackerVFX lets creatives tell the best version of their story. The end-to-end streamlined solution takes the technical worry away from using CG backgrounds with no compromise on quality. Its advanced technology lets users move the camera freely and understand what the scene will look like in the end.
StarTrackerVFX from Mo-Sys will be demonstrated in partnership with Waskul Entertainment from August 12th to 16th at SIGGRAPH 2018. Waskul Entertainment's StudioXperience broadcast studio and technology space is sponsored by HP and NVIDIA.


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Q: Efficiently serialize data in Java and read with Javascript I would like to write data in Java and read that back via Javascript. Currently I'm using json but due to one huge array (of doubles) this approach is slow (parsing and network).
What is a good alternative? I found massage pack but this seems to be a bit overkill for what I'm trying to do. I would rather use a simple solution like base64 but couldn't make it working on the javascript reading site. Or should I use the "charset=x-user-defined method"? (is it more efficient?)

A: You could try protobufs.  There isn't an official implementation for Javascript, but there are (at least) a couple of 3rd-party implementations:  Google Protocol Buffers - JavaScript
Protobufs is reputed to be both fast and to have a more compact (non-textual) representation than JSON and XML.

A: Well, I wasn't satisfied with the existing solutions (either to much overhead or too slow when using simple json). So here, for the records, an html5 solutions via 'arraybuffer'
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.open('GET', url, true);
    xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer';
    xhr.onload = function(e) {
        if (this.status == 200) {
            var dv = new DataView(this.response);
            var json = {
                "info" : {
                    "took" : 0
                },
                "route": {
                    "time": 0,
                    "distance": 0,
                    "data" : {}
                }
            };

            var i = 0;
            json.info.took = dv.getFloat32(i);
            i += 4;
            json.route.distance = dv.getFloat32(i);
            i += 4;
            json.route.time = dv.getInt32(i);
            i += 4;
            var locations = dv.getInt32(i);
            var tmpArray = [];
            json.route.data = {
                "type" : "LineString",
                "coordinates": tmpArray
            };
            for(var index = 0; index < locations; index ++) {
                i += 4;
                var lat = dv.getFloat32(i);
                i += 4;
                var lng = dv.getFloat32(i);
                tmpArray.push([lng, lat]);
            }
            callback(json);
        } else
            errCallback(e);
    };
    xhr.send();

To make this working with the cross origin policy you need to enable it on the server (response.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*")) and on the client (jQuery.support.cors = true). Here the full working example with a simple Java servlet using DataOutputStream. As alternative there is the json fallback.
An alternative approach would be to encode all the numbers into a string and put this into a json (via base64).
Another interesting project I stumpled upon was http://binaryjs.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Digitalization poses diverse challenges for international technology and industrial firms like the FEV Group and their IT teams: A company- wide ECM strategy was needed to fulfill the various requirements of the departments. One requirement was the digitalization of increasingly complex business processes. The second was the need to provide all of the international locations with direct access to information and to facilitate information sharing. Finally, FEV needed a solution for handling its growing document and data volume. ECM gives FEV a means of fulfilling various special requirements and of digitally representing new strategic tasks on a global and consistent technological platform. FEV decided to go with the Doxis4 iECM suite to implement its ECM strategy worldwide. The first projects are already complete.


RentPay Renters Insurance Home Services Moving Services Blog. A small village, Biscayne Park is a part of Miami-Dade County and was founded in the 1920s by Arthur Griffing. The town was finally incorporated in 1933 by a vote of its 113 citizens.
Search Key Biscayne, FL real estate for sale. View property details of the 447 homes for sale in Key Biscayne at a median listing price of $1,280,000.
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In the world of modern car restoration and custom building, there are many steel reproduction panels available for the more popular collector cars. If a replacement panel is available for a damaged area of your particular car, the task is relatively straightforward. What happens then if there is no prefabricated piece available for your particular application? You could search for a used section at a salvage yard specializing in collector cars, but this not always the solution. The only alternative is to make it yourself.
You may think that, since the original part was created in a huge press at a stamping plant, this is impossible, right? Well, fortunately the tools and equipment are readily available to create just about any shape in metal you could imagine. Keep in mind that in the early 20th century, before modern stamping equipment was developed, automobile, locomotive, airplane and marine panels were all fabricated by hand. In fact many exotic European sports and race car bodies were created entirely by hand as recently as the 50's and 60's. Many of today's one-off customs have bodies fabricated by hand.
English Wheel – This device has been around for a long time. The early versions were somewhat basic, and constructed with extremely large and heavy castings. This was a requirement when fabricating airplane radial engine cowlings, and especially heavy gauge steam locomotive panels.
The English Wheel functions by passing a sheet of metal between the upper (or rolling) wheel and the smaller, lower (or anvil) wheel with a slight adjustable tension applied. The anvils are interchangeable, with the choice of radii based on the final contour desired. Though simple to operate, the English Wheel requires a great deal of patience and practice to master.
All the advantages of today's machining and welding technology, as well as metallurgy science, means that modern wheeling machines are available at a relatively low price, while also offering a high degree of precision and quality. Eastwood offers a comprehensive array of English Wheel sizes and accessories designed to help form virtually any metal item ranging from intricate artwork pieces and motorcycle components such as tanks and fenders, to large automotive panels such as hoods, roofs, and more.
Planishing Hammer – The term "planish" means to smooth. The basic idea is to first create a shape in a piece of metal by rough forming it with forming tools or mallets, followed by smoothing out the surface by planishing it with a planishing hammer. Before today's modern pneumatic designs were available, these were generally manually foot or hand powered. This was quite effective, but very time consuming and tiring. With precision pneumatic components and controls, this step can now be accomplished quickly and accurately with very little effort. The planishing hammer essentially functions by passing the formed piece between a reciprocating "hammering" hammer and a stationary "die". The dies, like the anvils of the English Wheel, are interchangeable, with various surface radii chosen to most closely match the contour of the finished project.
Shrinker/ Stretcher – These tools are invaluable when there is a need to create those impossible-to-buy pieces such as auto body windshield/rear glass openings, wheel opening lips, door opening doglegs, and headlight openings. Starting with a piece of metal of any length and having a 90 degree angle bend (where each side is an inch or so), you can produce any combination of curves and in any direction you need.
The Shrinker functions by actuating a set of jaws which draw the edge of the metal inward from opposite directions causing it to "shrink" and generating an inward curve in the piece.
The Stretcher is the opposite of the Shrinker, in that it functions by actuating a set of jaws that spread the edge of the metal outward in opposite directions causing it to "stretch, " and generate an outward curve in the metal.


SEAT has concluded the first half of 2018 with the brand's highest ever sales result, the company has announced. From January to June 2018, the carmaker's global deliveries increased by 17.6% to reach a total volume of 289,900 vehicles (2017: 246,500). This figure represents an increase of more than 43,000 cars compared to the same period in 2017, and breaks the record set in 2000 (278,500). National results for Ireland also show a substantial rise in car sales during the first six months, with SEAT Ireland's market share up a significant 14.1% when compared to 2017. The total market was down -4.5% in the first half of 2018, but SEAT Ireland's sales performance increased by 13% giving an impressive 3% market share. This year's overall brand success is spearheaded by SEAT's cutting-edge SUV range: the SEAT Ateca and the SEAT Arona, which account for almost half (48.6%) of total volume sales, year to date. Ateca sales are up by an impressive 10% in comparison to 2017 and account for over a quarter of sales (26.5%) for the first half of 2018. The SEAT Arona, which arrived to Irish shores in November 2017, continues to be a favoured choice for Irish motorists, accounting for 22% of sales during the six-month period.
On September 18th, the new large 7-seater Tarraco SUV will be revealed, which will complete SEAT's SUV range. Tarraco, the Latin name of the city of Tarragona, was chosen by popular vote by over 140,000 enthusiasts who participated in the final phase of the #SEATSeekingName competition. And true to form, SEAT's new SUV will be presented at the Tarraco Arena in the city of Tarragona. The Tarraco will be joined by the CUPRA Ateca, the first new model of the CUPRA brand. CUPRA, which has always been SEAT's ultimate expression of sportiness, was created to captivate car enthusiasts around the world. An SUV that signals the start of a new era, the CUPRA Ateca offers versatility like no other brand. Unique, sophisticated and powerful, it is the best example of a model which perfects the balance between sportsmanship, fun at the wheel and ease of use in everyday life.


text:
GAME enters administration, CEO quits, 227 stores close
Following the announcement last week, GAME has entered administration. MCV report that 227 GAME and Gamestation stores have closed. 2104 employees have lost their jobs, 40% of the Game Group's UK workforce.
CEO ian Shepherd has announced his resignation, effective immediately. He's stepping down to allow administrators, PriceWaterhouseCooper, to take charge. Shepherd said that they'll "make big changes, both to the store estate and in the office, but will be doing so with a view to creating a trading business that he can attract a buyer for."
Game Group will need a buyer. The Royal Bank of Scotland are among those rumoured to be considering putting in an offer, but we'll have to wait and see who, if anyone, steps forward to buy the beleaguered retailer.
"The best thing we can do now is demonstrate clearly, to an administrator and to potential buyers, that this is a great business filled with great, committed people. We have a rocky road ahead, but this is not the end for this business on the High Street. Stay with it," said Shepherd in his final message.
GAME reward points and gift cards are no longer valid, GAME stores no longer offer refunds or game exchanges and hardware trade-ins have been suspended. The GAME and Gamestation sites have been taken down. It all feels very final. Best of luck to those who lost their jobs today.
Amazon Prime Day deals: PC, laptops, video games, PC components


It's time to get the fields ready for the season!!!!
Milwood Little League has offered Tee Ball, Baseball and Softball programs to thousands of kids, ages 4-18, since its founding in 1955. The fields, which are known as Vanderberg Park, are located at 3401 Lovers Lane (Kalamazoo, MI 49001), behind Milwood Elementary.
Vanderberg Park is currently the host site of the Central Regional for the Intermediate Division (50/70). For over 20 years, Vanderberg Park was the host site of the Big League Softball World Series.


This Ain't My First Rodeo—It's My Second!
I can't believe baby Ava is now 2 years old! It's incredible how time flies. It feels like it was yesterday that I was just at her 1st birthday party.
Raquel and Shaun did such a cute job with decorating their home in a complete cowgirl theme. Shaun actually made the sign with Ava's name on it. On top of it all, Raquel made the hat for the top of Ava's birthday cake. There was a horse for all the kids to ride, along with a petting zoo, piñata and cotton candy machine. Raquel and Shaun pulled out all the stops for Ava.
It was such a beautiful way commemorate this little beauty turning two years old.
To see all the photos from Ava's 2nd birthday, please scroll through below.
Raquel & Shaun: Thank you so much for having me capture Ava's birthday. Such special moments!


We stayed on the outskirts of Santa Rosa at Tara Bella winery for two nights. The accommodations, just above the barrel room, gave us a wonderful view of the 18-acre vineyard. From Santa Rosa, we explored Napa valley. On the hunt for California's best Malbec, we tasted a variety of California reds at both Ladera and Merryvale Wineries. This was a perfect 2-day introduction to wine country.


Alnwick slipped to a disappointing 4-0 defeat at the hands of Heaton Stannington with all four coming in the second half of a game heavily affected by the strong wind of Storm Frank writes Media Officer Mark Craggs.
The draw for Alnwick Town Football Club Christmas raffle draw was completed today at 3pm in the Clubhouse.
Below are the list of winners. We have contacted almost all those who came out of the draw.
Thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket to help support the club.
After the first three games of Adam Laidlaw's reign being away (with one being postponed), Alnwick now return home to face Thornaby (Writes Media Officer Mark Craggs).
Alnwick face an Esh Winning side that sit below us in the table but have picked up points in recent games, gaining four in the last six, as we travel to West Terrace on Saturday.


The technique i used on this paint was mix the colors with a lot of medium, to become more liquid and moved it in different directions until i got the effect that i want then when its dry after few days i paint the bright colors on top choosing the topic i feel i need to add.
This painting took me a few months to feel satisfied with it and feel that I had enough.
I know it may not have been produced in a professional way like the way you teach us through your program. It's just what I did at the beginning while teaching myself by myself.
Now I am trying to learn the good technique from your lessons.
The story behind this painting is that I am always feeling hurt from this life. It has always been unfair to me. Lets say just between me and myself, so that's why I name it "Hard Life."
I used canvas and oil paint.
Hopefully your journey in this life will be a road easier traveled. I can feel the pain in the picture and this I think is your intent. Sort of like a "hell in earth" scenario. Well done! The 2nd photo has a much brighter color to it and I know you are pleased with your work. I especially like the contrasting colors that are presented.
Thank you for sharing the work and the story behind it.


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Bruce Springsteen Releases Rarity-Filled Concert From 2008
Dave Lifton Published: April 15, 2017
Jim Dyson, Getty Images
With his tour of Australia and New Zealand completed, Bruce Springsteen has resumed releasing classic concerts from his vault. Yesterday (April 14), he gave fans his Aug. 23, 2008 show from the Scottrade Cetner in St. Louis.
The blurb on the concert's listing reads, "On the 2007-08 Magic tour, fans began bringing song-request signs. Bruce seemed to revel in the challenge, while the suggestions also appeared to inspire him to resurrect songs he hadn't played in decades. There's no finer show to capture this fan-artist dynamic than this outstanding performance in St. Louis on 8/23/2008 including the surprise opener of the Crystals' 'Then She Kissed Me' and Chuck Berry's 'Little Queenie' during the encore."
In addition to those two covers, Springsteen also aired out rarely-played-these-days songs like "Rendezvous," "For You," "Drive All Night" "Detroit Medley" and Harold Dorman's "Mountain of Love," which he hadn't performed since a New Year's Eve concert at Philadelphia's Tower Theater in 1975.
This marks the first archival concert from Springsteen this year. Shortly before Christmas, he gave an official release to his Nov. 22, 2009 concert from the HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y. It contained the only full-album performance of his debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., and was the final E Street Band show with Clarence Clemons, who passed away a year and a half later.
You can purchase the show from his website.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Aug, 23, 2008 Setlist
1. "Then He Kissed Me"
2. "Radio Nowhere"
3. "Out in the Street"
4. "Adam Raised a Cain"
5. "Spirit in the Night"
6. "Rendezvous"
7. "For You"
8. "Mountain of Love"
9. "Backstreets"
10. "Gypsy Biker"
11. "Because the Night"
12. "Not Fade Away" / "She's the One"
13. "Livin' in the Future"
14. "Cover Me"
15. "Mary's Place"
16. "Drive All Night"
17. "The Rising"
18. "Last to Die"
19. "Long Walk Home"
20. "Badlands"
21. "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"
22. "Jungleland"
23. "Detroit Medley"
24. "Born to Run"
25. "Dancing in the Dark"
26. "American Land"
27. "Thunder Road"
28. "Little Queenie"
29. "Twist and Shout"
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Source: Bruce Springsteen Releases Rarity-Filled Concert From 2008
Filed Under: Bruce Springsteen
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https://oxfordre.com/politics/search?btog=chap&f_0=keyword&q_0=campaign
Full Article (20)
Contentious Politics and Political Violence (2)
Governance/Political Change (2)
Groups and Identities (2)
Political Anthropology (1)
Political Behavior (11)
Political Institutions (3)
Political Values, Beliefs, and Ideologies (3)
Politics, Law, Judiciary (1)
Quantitative Political Methodology (1)
Keywords: campaign x
The Meaning, Origin, and Consequences of Populist Politics
Matthew Singer
Scholars disagree about whether populism is best understood as a collection of specific policy proposals, a party organization led by a charismatic leader, or political rhetoric that conceptualizes politics as the conflict between a conspiratirial elite and the public will. Valid cross-national indicators of these concepts have been developed but are limited in their scope. The emerging data suggests that populist organizational and rhetorical strategies remain relatively uncommon and vary in their frequency across geographic regions but are used by parties across the ideological spectrum and frequently are winning electoral strategies. The most commonly explored correlates of populism's rise are social and economic exclusion, weak political representation, economic and corruption crises, and diffusion across countries. Populists' embrace of anti-elite sentiment helps explain their electoral appeal among voters who also agree with populist parties' policy programs. We know much less, however, about the factors that explain how populists maintain their power once they are elected or the consequences of populist rule for democracy.
The Effects of Negative Advertising
Conor M. Dowling and Yanna Krupnikov
Since the 1960s there has been an increase in the amount of negative advertising in American campaigns. Although only 10% of advertisements aired in the 1960 campaign were negative, in the 2012 campaign only 14.3% of aired ads were positive. The increase in negative advertising has raised questions about the effects these types of ads may have on the electoral outcomes and the political process at large. Indeed, many voters and political actors have assumed and argued that negative advertising will have negative consequences for American politics. Although many news consumers and people interested in politics make many assumptions about the role of negativity in politics, the effect of campaign negativity on the political process is ambiguous. If there is a relationship between negativity and political outcomes, this relationship is nuanced and conditional. Although negativity may, under certain conditions, have powerful effects on political outcomes, under other conditions the effects of negativity are minimal. Moreover, while there is some research to suggest that this type of campaigning can produce negative consequences, other research suggests that negativity may—at times—be beneficial for the political process.
The Demobilization of Protest Campaigns
Tijen Demirel-Pegg
All protest campaigns move through cycles of escalation and de-escalation and ultimately demobilize. Some campaigns demobilize quickly as protesters reach their goals. The 2011 Egyptian uprising, when protesters left the streets after they brought down the Mubarak regime, for example, is a case of rapid demobilization. Others, like the 2011 uprising in Bahrain, demobilize over a longer time span before protests come to a complete halt. In Bahrain, the government first cracked down on the opposition by bringing in foreign troops and then continued to repress protesters until the protesters ended the campaign in 2012. Regardless of the length of time it takes for protesters to leave the streets and stop the protests, demobilization is a complex process. Numerous factors, such as severe repression, government concessions, countermobilization of opposition groups, leadership changes, or even unexpected events, can all bring about demobilization. These factors and strategies may occur simultaneously or sequentially, but usually one or a combination of them lead to the demobilization of a protest campaign. Moreover, demobilization is a dynamic process, as it continues to evolve out of the endogenous interactions among governments, challengers, bystanders, and, in some cases, as in Bahrain, external third-party actors. Even though every protest campaign eventually demobilizes one way or another, the demobilization phase has generally attracted less scholarly attention than the onset and escalation of violent and nonviolent forms of collective action. For a long time, most scholars addressed demobilization indirectly within the context of the repression-dissent nexus as they explored why repression backfires and escalates dissent in some cases, while it succeeds in demobilizing the opposition in others. Nonetheless, factors besides state repression contribute to the demobilization of dissent. In other words, a state's accommodative tactics, as well as individual, organizational, or even regional and systemic factors that interact with the state's actions, have the potential to shape when and how political dissent demobilizes. More recently, scholars have begun to examine why and how protest campaigns demobilize by stepping out of the repression-dissent nexus and focusing on a variety of other factors related to organizational structures, regime types, individual-level constraints, and contingent events that affect the trajectory of campaigns. At the same time, recent studies on state repression have also begun to focus more heavily on the different causal mechanisms that explain how a state's repressive tactics can lead to demobilization. While this new line of research has made significant contributions to our understanding of the demobilization of protests, we are still left with important questions about the demobilization process that have yet to be answered.
Do Campaigns Make a Difference?
The study of political campaigns is very varied in the political science literature. On the one hand, campaigns can involve groups of citizens working together on a local issue of concern to them, such as preventing an airport expansion from threatening their community. Only a relatively few people are likely to be actively involved and the goals of such a campaign are fairly clearly defined and limited. At the other end of the scale a campaign can consist of a broad social movement that is trying to influence public opinion and bring about changes in public policies on really big issues like climate change and global warming. Large numbers of people are likely to be involved and the goals are broad and ambitious. In between these two extremes, a whole range of campaigns with different objectives and strategies are to be found in contemporary democracies. This article focuses on election campaigns which are in an intermediate position between these two. Early research suggested that such campaigns were not very important but subsequent research shows that they are influential both in increasing turnout and changing the party choices that individual electors make.
Change and Continuity in African Electoral Politics Since Multipartyism
Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle
Between 1990 and 2015, 184 multicandidate presidential elections and 207 multiparty legislative elections were held in some 46 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. What does the routinization of multiparty electoral politics mean for political life in Africa? Much that is unexceptional and recognizable about African elections is well worth documenting, since most international accounts of African elections focus on their more exotic side. In fact, candidates engage in standard political rhetoric in mass rallies and undertake campaign stops around the country. Many make use of social media to communicate with citizens. Voters reward office holders who have delivered good economic performance; they pay attention to the professional backgrounds and personal qualities of candidates and their policy promises. Opposition parties win legislative seats and subnational offices, as well as the presidency, albeit more rarely. While the routinization of high-quality elections has deepened democracy in some countries, there is tremendous cross-national variation in election quality across the continent. The relationship between elections and democratic deepening is mediated by national political circumstances that vary across the region. Even in cases where incumbents do not resort to oppressive tactics during campaigns, the patterns of presidential dominance typically create tremendous incumbency advantage at the executive level. Elections neither necessarily advance nor prevent further democratization. Instead, they should be conceptualized as "political moments," which temporarily create greater uncertainty and heightened attention to politics, which can either lead to democratic gains or bring about regression. However, citizens across the continent are resolute in their commitment to elections. As opposition parties gain greater experience in office, as an older political elite transition out of politics, and as voters continue to access unprecedented information, the continent is likely to experience a democratic deepening in the longer term.
Voting Advice Applications
Diego Garzia and Stefan Marschall
Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online tools that assist citizens with their voting decisions. They are offered to voters before elections in many countries and have experienced remarkable success. Recently flourishing research on VAAs addresses this phenomenon and provides explanations for the dissemination and popularity of these tools. Moreover, VAAs have been analyzed regarding their effects on political parties, candidates, and on voters in regard to their electoral behavior. Research shows that using a VAA indeed makes a difference, while the effect depends strongly on the way a VAA is designed and by whom it is used. The abundance of data generated by VAAs bears potential for comparative studies of public opinion and party systems over time and across countries, and thereby bridges research on VAAs to general questions of political science research.
The Changing Nature of Political Party Membership
Susan E. Scarrow
Party membership has long been an important channel for political participation in many countries. Strong membership organizations have helped parties win elections and stay connected with voters between elections, and membership opportunities have helped to mobilize some citizens who might otherwise have stayed out of politics. Yet in the last quarter-century, long-established political parties in parliamentary democracies have, with a few notable exceptions, experienced sharp enrollment declines, while newer parties have developed modest memberships at best. This has led many observers to question the continued viability of membership-based political parties. However, that is not the whole story. While some signs point to the obsolescence of party membership, there are other indications that parties are trying to reinvent the form, whether as a passport to individual political empowerment or as a pathway to digital citizenship. Most strikingly, many parties are experimenting with new procedures that give members a direct say in important party decisions. In this sense, the paradoxical story of party membership in the early 21st century is one of numerical decline accompanied by a possible increase in political relevance.
Politicians with Disabilities: Challenges and Choices
Sally Friedman and Richard K. Scotch
Persons with disabilities make up a large and significant segment of the American public; however, Americans with disabilities have rarely been considered an important political constituency or received public (or scholarly) attention in terms of their representation among political candidates or office holders. To the extent that people with disabilities have been addressed in American political discourse, they have been associated with the receipt of public benefits and services instead of being thought of as people with the potential to actively participate. Having a physical or mental impairment has typically carried with it a considerable degree of social stigma, and to be disabled is, in the minds of many, to be incapable and incompetent, dependent on others, and even morally questionable. Thus, for much of American history, the perception of an individual as disabled has been inconsistent with the personal qualities that the voting public and political gatekeepers view as desirable for public officials. While there have always been politicians with disabilities in government, many of them have chosen to hide or minimize the visibility and extent of their impairments. However, cultural changes in part provoked by the disability rights movement have meant that many impairments have become less discrediting, and that people with disabilities are more likely to be seen as having the potential to be contributing citizens. The number of political candidates and officeholders with disabilities appears to be increasing, and some have chosen to include or even highlight their disabling condition as they present themselves to their constituents.
Election Campaigns and Political Mobilization In Africa
Dan Paget
Politicians mobilize people to vote by devising messages and imparting them to those people. Many studies examine African electioneering through a framework that distinguishes between programmatic, clientelist and charismatic appeals. Some, but not all, African politicians appeal to people by adopting particular policy positions, the strict sense of "programmatic appeals." However, almost all solicit peoples' support by stressing their sincere intentions and their abilities to pursue uncontroversial aspects of public policy, otherwise known as "valence appeals." Parties' historic records and their locations in government or opposition affect which issues they can claim to own and which they stress in their campaigns. While appeals over public policy are commonplace in African electoral politics, so too is clientelism. Many politicians give voters gifts, in the form of favorable distributions of public service delivery, in-kind goods, and cash. However, few of these gifts constitute contingent exchanges of goods for votes. Instead, political largesse is used to flatter, to impress and to convince voters of politicians' virtue. In this respect, public policy and clientelism frequently appear in African elections side-by-side. "Political appeals" is employed by many as an organizing concept which orders the study of political messages. It sheds light on how electoral politics affects public policy. However, it also obscures. A separate canon of work studies political discourses in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the most studied subjects in this strain of the literature is populism. African populisms have been conceived of by some as discourses that unite disparate groups against an elite, and as an electoral strategy that draws together particular constituencies by others. Whichever definition one takes, African populists are rare. Only a handful have been identified. Nationalists are much more common in sub-Saharan Africa. Politicians and parties have constructed national missions that act as master discourses, which subsume and order all manner of political issues. Some politicians that employ nationalist discourses stress their liberation credentials as qualifications to govern and delegitimize opponents who did not participate in the struggle. National revolutions or liberations are portrayed as ongoing projects with indefinite points of completion which give nationalism its regenerative qualities. Other nationalisms stress threats from rival groups, whether strangers within the nation's borders, or nefarious forces abroad. Likewise, ethnic discourses are commonplace in sub-Saharan Africa, but their rhetorical contents differ. Some valorize an ethnic people. Other express an ethnic group's victimhood, or grievances, or fear of rival group threats. Equally, the goals that they espouse differ. Some propose compensation, others reconciliation, others still the capture of the central state, the devolution of state power, or the creation of a separate state of their own. Equally, they are contested and used by a variety of actors. Ethnicities are created from both above and below. They are used not only to mobilize people for mass actions to but make normative claims on politicians. More broadly, politicians strive to develop conceptions of political morality. They present themselves as moral leaders and recharacterize various political issues as questions of morality or moral character. Putting these common discursive frames aside, African politicians employ any number of esoteric discursive frames which are not found elsewhere. Grand discourses aside, African politicians employ numerous rhetorical and symbolic techniques to suggest, reframe, perform and charm. While messages win people's support, those messages must be imparted, through mass media or face-to-face contact. Political parties mobilize enormous resources to expose people to their messages on the ground. The ground campaign has received little attention to date, but a scattering of studies show that parties strive to gain local presence. Some establish branches and others recruit local actors. They rely on these local actors to organize their ground campaigns and employ a variety of targeting strategies.
Populist Politics in Africa
Danielle Resnick
Although widely used in reference to the Americas and Europe, the concept of populism has been less frequently applied to political dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa. Populism is variously viewed as a political strategy aimed at fostering direct links between a leader and the masses, an ideational concept that relies on discourses that conjure a corrupt elite and the pure people, and a set of socio-cultural performances characterized by a leader's charisma, theatrics, and transgression of accepted norms. A cumulative approach that combines all three perspectives allows for identifying episodes of populism in Africa. These include historical cases of populist regimes in the 1980s as well as more contemporary examples of party leaders in the region's democracies who use populism in their electoral campaigns to mobilize subaltern groups, especially those living in urban areas. As found in other regions of the world, those African leaders who have ascended to the presidency on the back of populism typically exert anti-democratic practices once in office. This reaffirms that populism can allow for greater representation of the poor and marginalized in the electoral process, but that populists' celebration of popular will and supposedly unmediated ties to the people become convenient justifications for bypassing established institutions and undermining the rule of law.
Political Parties and Regime Outcomes in Multiparty Africa
Adrienne LeBas
Since the early 1990s, most African countries have experimented with multiparty elections, but the building and institutionalization of political parties has proven difficult. In many countries, parties—including those holding power—are fluid, volatile, and lack grassroots structures. In others, the party landscape remains surprisingly similar to Van de Walle's assessment: "[consisting] of a dominant presidential party surrounded by a large number of small, highly volatile parties." As Van de Walle points out, ruling parties—including the ex-single parties that continue to rule in many of Africa's hybrid regimes—have advantages that mean that elections are not fought on a level playing field. Ruling parties may use repression against challengers, or they may manipulate voter registration, constituency redistricting, and other aspects of electoral administration. Incumbents can also take advantage of state resources, and a decline in patronage resources has been a powerful driver of electoral turnover in regions. But differences in election competitiveness in Africa are not only a function of repression, manipulation, or access to patronage. Differences in both ruling party and opposition party organizations have independent effects on parties' ability to win elections, on the loyalty of mass constituencies, and on the conduct of election campaigns. New scholarship has started to take these differences in party organization seriously, and this will enrich our understanding of how voters in sub-Saharan Africa navigate political choice. Research on parties and party systems highlights the degree to which these factors differ across countries and over time, complicating standard narratives that often privilege clientelism and ethnicity as the primary—and largely uniform—influences on voter behavior and government accountability on the continent.
Expectancy Theory and the Election of Judges: Do Judicial Campaigns Really Stink?
Michael J. Nelson and James L. Gibson
Even though most judges in the United States stand for election in the context of strong normative objections to the practice of electing judges, political scientists have produced a surprisingly thin theoretical framework for understanding how judicial campaigns affect voters. This paucity of research is particularly surprising given the increasingly politicized environment in which judicial elections operate. The literature on judicial campaigns is well-served to draw upon the well-trodden research about campaign effects for executive and legislative office. In some important respects, however, judicial contests differ from those for executive or legislative office. To this end, the Expectancy Theory pioneered by James L. Gibson provides an important theoretical development, emphasizing that the effects of judicial campaigns are highly conditional upon variation in voters' willingness to tolerate different types of campaign activity. Moreover, the effects of campaigns are highly dependent on the context of both institutional design and voters' own experiences with judicial elections.
Dynamic Process Tracing Methods in the Study of Political Decision Making
Philip Chen
Understanding how individuals make political decisions in a complex and ever-changing world requires recognition of the dynamic nature of the environment, as well as theoretical and methodological strategies to address these complications. As the scholarly understanding of the limits of human cognition expands, researchers can no longer rely on decision-making models that assume unlimited time, resources, and/or abilities of voters. Fortunately, dynamic process tracing models demonstrate the information processing component of decision-making, turning the focus away (slightly) from the decision outcome and toward the ways that people come to these decisions. These models derive from weaker, but more accurate, assumptions about the cognitive abilities of humans and provide critical insight into both the factors that voters consider when making decisions and the ways voters incorporate those factors into their decisions. In addition, thanks to the work of Lau and Redlawsk, these processes are directly observable with their Dynamic Process Tracing Environment (DPTE). Researchers relying on dynamic process tracing models are now able to assess the influence of political and demographic factors on the pattern, content, and amount of information voters access and rely on when making political decisions. These models offer a more realistic view of voter abilities than rational choice models, as well as providing greater insight into the process of decision-making (rather than the outcome of the process) than much of the work deriving from the Michigan model of public opinion. Additionally, the DPTE offers advantages over earlier static information board studies. Rather than seeing one's self in conflict with decades of public opinion research, however, scholars in the dynamic process tracing tradition would be wise to consider their work as complementary. A focus on political variables as outcomes misses a crucial cognitive step: the evaluation of environmental stimuli through the lenses of short- and long-term predispositions. As scholars seek to understand why voters possess certain attitudes, they should ask how those attitudes were formed in the first place. Dynamic process tracing models allow for theorizing about and empirically testing components of the decision-making process previously left uninvestigated.
Field Experiments on Political Behavior
Peter John
Field experiments allow researchers on political behavior to test causal relationships between mobilization and a range of outcomes, in particular, voter turnout. These studies have rapidly increased in number since 2000, many assessing the impact of nonpartisan Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) campaigns. A more recent wave of experiments assesses ways of persuading voters to change their choice of party or alter their social and political attitudes. Many studies reveal positive impacts for these interventions, especially for GOTV. However, there are far fewer trials carried out outside the United States, which means it is hard to confirm external validity beyond the U.S. context, even though many comparative experiments reproduce U.S. findings. Current studies, both in the United States and elsewhere, are growing in methodological sophistication and are leveraging new ways of measuring political behavior and attitudes.
Party Finance in Latin America
Kathleen Bruhn
Modern representative democracy cannot function without political parties, however rudimentary. Parties in turn cannot function without money. The subject of party finance is therefore central to the construction of contemporary democracies. Latin American countries have attempted to meet the challenges of preserving democracy while providing for political parties across three main areas of financial regulation: provision of public finance, regulation of private finance, and limiting campaign spending. In all three areas, transparency (reporting), oversight, and enforcement of existing legal regulations remain important problems for the health of the political system. In the late 20th century, Latin American countries increasingly turned to public finance as a way of supplementing existing systems of private contributions. This trend seems to have been inspired both by a desire to reduce the inequalities inherent in Latin America's socioeconomic structure and by efforts to contain and prevent episodes of scandal and undue influence generated by private contributors. Public finance particularly benefits small parties and parties with fewer connections to the wealthy sectors that tend to dominate private contributions. Public finance may contribute to the institutionalization of both party organizations and party systems, but it may also weaken the dependence of parties on their members and supporters in ways that undermine representation. Private finance in Latin America remains largely obscure. We know that relatively few private donors account for the lion's share of party donations, but it is unclear in many cases exactly who donates, or what their money buys. It is therefore difficult for voters (and analysts) to determine the structure of party obligations to donors and to hold parties accountable. Partly as a result, drug money is believed to have penetrated the political systems of many Latin American countries, especially but not exclusively at the local level. Campaign spending limits, including limits on the duration of campaigns and campaign advertising, have been employed in some cases to try to contain costs and thus reduce the incentives of parties to seek out private donations, especially of questionable origin. Lax enforcement, however, limits the impact of these initiatives.
Religious Communication and Persuasion
Benjamin R. Knoll and Cammie Jo Bolin
Religious communication affects political behavior through two primary channels: political messages coming from a religious source and religious messages coming from a political source. In terms of the first channel, political scientists have found that clergy do tend to get involved in politics, and church-goers often hear political messages over the pulpit, although not as frequently as might be expected. Sometimes these political messages are successful in swaying opinions, but not always; context matters a great deal. In terms of the second channel, politicians use religious rhetoric ("God talk") in an attempt to increase their support and win votes. When this happens, some groups are more likely to respond than others, including political conservatives, more frequent church attenders, and racial/ethnic minorities. The scope and effectiveness of religious communication remains a field ripe for further research, especially in contexts outside of the United States.
Referendums in the European Union
Derek Beach
Referendums are frequently used to ratify European Union (EU)–related propositions. Since 1972 there have been in total 46 EU-related referendums, excluding third-country referendums on EU-related matters. While referendums are constitutionally mandated in some countries in order to ratify new treaties, other referendums are held for either normative or for political reasons. Referendums deal with topics that are less familiar to voters, where key issues typically do not map onto domestic political cleavages. This means that we should expect that campaigns and the information they provide about the issues and the positions of political actors might matter more in framing issues than in first-order national elections. While there is by no means a scholarly consensus, recent research has shown, for instance, that an issue that dominates media coverage can impact how voters evaluate a proposition. Finally, what do we know about voter behavior? While referendums on EU affairs have been criticized as being decided by "second-order" factors such as government popularity, there is evidence that when a proposition matters for voters, voting behavior is more dominated by issue-voting. Recent research has drawn on advances in cognitive psychology to investigate the impact of attitude strength and personality characteristics for voter behavior.
Voter Information Processing and Political Decision Making
Alessandro Nai
Contemporary political information processing and the subsequent decision making mechanisms are suboptimal. Average voters usually have but vague notions of politics and cannot be said to be motivated to invest considerable amount of times to make up their minds about political affairs; furthermore, political information is not only complex and virtually infinite but also often explicitly designed to deceive and persuade by triggering unconscious mechanisms in those exposed to it. In this context, how can voters sample, process, and transform the political information they receive into reliable political choices? Two broad set of dynamics are at play. On the one hand, individual differences determine how information is accessed and processed: different personality traits set incentives (and hurdles) for information processing, the availability of information heuristics and the motivation to treat complex information determine the preference between easy and good decisions, and partisan preferences establish boundaries for information processing and selective exposure. On the other hand, and beyond these individual differences, the content of political information available to citizens drives decision making: the alleged "declining quality" of news information poses threats for comprehensive and systematic reasoning; excessive negativity in electoral campaigns drives cynicism (but also attention); and the use of emotional appeals increases information processing (anxiety), decreases interest and attention (rage), and strengthens the reliance on individual predispositions (enthusiasm). At the other end of the decisional process, the quality of the choices made (Was the decision supported by "ambivalent" opinions? And to what extent was the decision "correct"?) is equally hard to assess, and fundamental normative questions come into play.
Gender Stereotyping in Political Decision Making
Nichole M. Bauer
Women are under-represented at every level of elected office in the United States. As of 2018, women held just under 20% of seats in Congress, 25% of state legislative seats across the country, only six women serve as governor, and, of course, a woman has yet to win the presidency. The political under-representation of women is not unique to the American context. Indeed, women's under-representation is a feature of other Western Democracies. Even under the leadership of female prime ministers, women hold only 32% of seats in the United Kingdom parliament and 31% of seats in the German parliament. Conventional wisdom suggests that feminine stereotypes may disadvantage female candidates. Feminine stereotypes characterize women as sensitive, emotional, and weak, and these are qualities voters do not traditionally associate with political leadership. Rather, voters associate political leadership with masculine traits such as being tough, aggressive, or assertive. The extent to which voters use these stereotypes in political decision making in the American context is not entirely clear. There are three ways that feminine and masculine stereotypes can affect political decision making: candidate strategies, campaign news coverage, and vote choice decision. The alignment between masculine stereotypes and political leadership frequently pressures female candidates to emphasize masculine qualities over feminine qualities in campaign messages. Motivating these masculine messages is the perception that voters see female candidates as lacking the masculine qualities voters desire in political leaders. Male candidates, because of the alignment between masculinity and leadership roles, do not face this pressure. Female candidates will, however, highlight feminine stereotypes when these strategies will afford them a distinct electoral advantage. The use of masculinity in candidate strategy leads the news media, in turn, to use masculine stereotypes rather than feminine stereotypes in their coverage of both female and male candidates. The ways that candidates and the news media engage with gender stereotypes affects how voters use these concepts to form impressions of female and male candidates. Voters will use feminine stereotypes as heuristics to form impressions of the ideological and issue priorities of female candidates. Feminine stereotypes can hurt the electoral prospects of female candidates, but the negative effect of feminine stereotypes only occurs under a limited set of conditions. Voters will use feminine stereotypes to rate female candidates negatively when female candidates explicitly emphasize feminine qualities, such as being warm or compassionate, in campaign messages. But, voters respond positively to female candidates who emphasize positive masculine qualities. In sum, whether gender stereotypes affect voter decision-making depends on the extent to which voters see messages, either from campaigns or the news media, that reflect femininity or masculinity.
Dynamics, Endogeneity, and Complexity in Protest Campaigns
Karen A. Rasler
There is an argument that nonviolent civil resistance or protest campaigns should be studied as dynamic and complex phenomenon, rather than a single case comprised of various attributes, such as size, scale, and scope, which are then compared with other cases. As protest campaigns have increased all over the world during the last few years, international relations scholars have begun to devote more time and resources to studying them systematically with new data projects and analytical tools and methods. In light of this emerging research program, one needs to understand that protest campaigns contain large-scale processes of political contention that evolve across time and space. Such evolutionary processes are the result of the interactive relationships among multiple governmental and nongovernmental actors. These interactions reflect "highly interdependent sets of actions and reactions" that generate causal mechanisms and intersect with other large-scale processes which can produce similar and dissimilar outcomes across different political contexts. An argument will be advanced that a "relational mechanisms-process" approach articulated by McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly provides analytical leverage over such complexity. Most, international relations scholars, unlike social movement scholars, are not familiar with this approach. So, the effort herein is to not only make the case for a relational mechanisms-process approach but also to illustrate it with a partial analysis of the Egyptian uprising on January 25, 2011, which led to Mubarak's resignation. The end result is a call for theoretical and empirical research that bridges two communities of scholars, one that is dominated by sociologists (social movement scholars) and the other that is dominated by political science (international relations political violence scholars).


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Smolnícka Huta() est un village de Slovaquie situé dans la région de Košice.

Histoire

Première mention écrite du village en 1828.

Notes et références

Village en Slovaquie
Commune dans le district de Gelnica

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Sundays With Writers: Whiskey & Charlie by Annabel Smith
One of the privileges of having this space has been doing our Sundays With Writers interview series. The other privilege has been getting to sneak peek books before they hit store shelves so I can share them with you. Whiskey & Charlie was provided to me by NetGalley a couple of months ago and I simply could not put it down. I even included it last month in my must-read list! This book will be hitting store shelves on April 7th, but I already read the exciting news that this one has been selected as a Target Book Club pick for April.
How exciting is that for our featured author today?
Whiskey and Charlie might have come from the same family, but they would tell you two completely different stories about growing up. Whiskey is everything Charlie is not – bold, daring, carefree – and Charlie blames his twin brother for always stealing the limelight, always getting everything, always pushing Charlie back. By the time the twins reach adulthood, they are barely even speaking to each other.
When they were just boys, the secret language they whispered back and forth over their crackly walkie-talkies connected them, in a way. The two-way alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, delta) became their code, their lifeline. But as the brothers grew up, they grew apart.
When Charlie hears that Whiskey has been in a terrible accident and has slipped into a coma, Charlie can't make sense of it. Who is he without Whiskey? As days and weeks slip by and the chances of Whiskey recovering grow ever more slim, Charlie is forced to consider that he may never get to say all the things he wants to say. A compelling and unforgettable novel about rivalry and redemption, Whiskey & Charlie is perfect for anyone whose family has ever been less than picture-perfect.
This story is incredibly moving and bittersweet. The author does a great job tackling the difficulties of sibling rivalry, what it would be like to be a twin, and how even when we don't always like our family members, they are always our family and loved.
To me though, the most ambitious element of this book is that the author uses the phonetic alphabet for each chapter that perfectly weaves into the story and adds another level of charm to this book.
Please grab a cup of coffee and settle in for this fun interview with Annabel Smith today!
The story of Whiskey & Charlie, identical twin brothers now estranged, was such a beautiful telling of the messiness and challenges of sibling rivalry. In telling their story, you adopted the phonetic alphabet, something these two were fond of using on walkie-talkies as kids, as the chapter names for your book. How did you decide to incorporate this unique element in your book and did these names actually help to drive the plotlines of your story?
I've always been interested in novels which have unique structuring principles, like David Nicholl's One Day. When I began writing the book that became Whiskey and Charlie, I had recently learnt the phonetic alphabet. I decided to explore the possibility of structuring the novel around the alphabet. Some chapters were easy: Charlie, Juliet, Oscar and Mike all became characters in the novel; Lima and Quebec became the settings for various episodes, definitely taking the novel in directions it might not otherwise have gone! Certain chapters haunted me: how was I going to build part of the story around 'Yankee' for example? But it all came together in the end, and for a novel that tells the story of the communication between two brothers, the two-way alphabet feels like the perfect metaphor.
Why was there a title change from Whisky & Charlie Foxtrot to just Whiskey & Charlie with the US release of your book? How did you feel about that?
David Shafer released his novel Whiskey Tango Foxtrot in August 2014 and the team at Sourcebooks were concerned people may confuse the two books. I was disappointed at first, but the title is just one small part of a book: it's what's inside that counts and that hasn't changed.
Was writing your first book, A New Map of the Universe, easier than writing this second one? I think as readers we think the debut must be the hardest.
I definitely found writing the second novel easier. With my first novel, A New Map of the Universe, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never written anything longer than 8,000 words and every time I contemplated the size of the whole, I became completely paralysed. By the time I came to write Whiskey and Charlie I at least had the confidence of knowing I could write a book, because I'd already proved it to myself. Of course there were different challenges to face – each book has it's own problems that have to be worked through, but the alphabet structure gave me a starting point for each new chapter, which helped me overcome the terror of the blank page.
How much research did you do to prepare for Whiskey's coma and writing the medical terminology and explanations that were given to the family? What did you find most surprising about comatose patients?
I did a huge amount of research on coma, because I didn't have any knowledge about it at the outset, either theoretically or experientially. I read medical websites, hospital information pamphlets, and coma support group message boards, as well as studying the stages of death and grief. It was important to me to understand the physical side of coma as well as the psychological implications for family and friends. The two most surprising things I learned were firstly, how many additional things can go wrong when someone is in a coma, and also, how people can emerge, relatively intact, from comas that last for many months or occasionally even years.
The Small Press Network issues the MUBA's (Most Underated Book Awards) each year and Whiskey Charlie Foxtrot was one of the 2013 selections. How did it feel to make that list and do you think this is what helped with the book being issued in the US?
I was so thrilled to be on the Most Underrated Book Awards shortlist. It was flattering to have someone acknowledge that it perhaps deserved to have more attention than it got. But I don't think that was a factor in the US publication. That came about because my Australian publisher showed it to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks during Frankfurt Book fair and Shana thought it would resonate with a US audience.
What do you have in store for us in your next book?
My third novel, The Ark is quite a departure from Whiskey and Charlie. It tells the story of a group of scientists and their families who retreat into a bunker during a post-peak oil crisis, exploring human nature in desperate times. It is a contemporary version of an epistolary novel, told through emails, blog posts, text messages and memos and is accompanied by an interactive website with a fan fiction hub. However, despite its more experimental nature, it is similar to Whiskey and Charlie in the sense that it explore human relationships and how extraordinary circumstances can reveal people for who they really are.
If you could tell anyone to read one book (other than your own) what would that book be?
My all-time favourite novel is Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, the incredible story of a prolonged embassy siege and the relationships which form between the hostages and their captors. Patchett has the most incredible insight into human behaviour and her prose is simply gorgeous. I have read this book at least half a dozen times and I get something new from it every time.
You can connect with Annabel Smith on GoodReads or through her website! I'm always thankful for these moments with writers and I hope you will pick up this amazing book! You can always connect with me on GoodReads,through our books section of our site, and you can read our entire Sundays With Writers series for more author profiles. Happy reading, friends!
Published March 22, 2015 by:
It's the 3 Little Things: Naturally Calm, Loving My House, & the Perfect Spice
How to Shop Secondhand for Your Fashion Capsule Wardrobe


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Luxurious Crepe Coatdress by JG Hook®: This sophisticated scoopneck dress has so much to offer. Beautiful silhouette skims the figure without clinging while functional half-placket with signature JG Hook buttons adds distinctive style. For parties and events, some pumps and pearls are all you need.
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Edinburgh Summer Sessions - The 1975, Tom Jones, Travis, Lionel Richie, Michael Kiwanuka, McFly and Simple Minds to headline
Guns N' Roses announce huge outdoor gig in Scotland
Felix Buxton of Basement Jaxx to unveil special solo project in Edinburgh
Sparks announce brand new album and 2020 UK tour
Yungblud adds two more Scottish dates to UK tour
Review: The King and I, Edinburgh Playhouse
Posted on 19th October 2019 19th October 2019 by Gary Flockhart
Edinburgh Summer Sessions – The 1975, Tom Jones, Travis, Lionel Richie, Michael Kiwanuka, McFly and Simple Minds to headline
Guns N' Roses announce huge outdoor gig in Scotland
Tradition states that your head should never be above the King of Siam's but on this occasion you would be forgiven for a more relaxed meeting with his majesty as the The King and I rolls into Edinburgh for the latest part of its world tour.
Set in the 1860s, this classic musical tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a young English widow and the King of Siam after she accepts a job teaching his children in the royal palace. Cultures clash when East meets West as Anna helps the King keep his country safe from colonisers and modernise the monarchy.
The story raises some unavoidably contentious issues though. Based on Anna and the King of Siam, a 1944 semi-fictionalised biographical novel by Margaret Landon, the imperialistic undertones have not aged entirely well.
Keeping that aside though, the production itself is a marvel. Based on Rodgers and Hammerstein's Academy Award-winning 1950s musical The King and I, the production includes all the classics from the hit movie, such as I Whistle a Happy Tune, Getting to Know You and Shall we Dance? all of which are beautifully delivered by a live orchestra.
Annalene Beechey is delightful as disciplined school teacher Anna Leonowens. She oozes style and class, reminiscent of the likes of screen legend Julie Andrews, and her co-star Jose Llana, who plays the troubled King, also delivers a fine performance throughout. Cezarah Bonner is scene-stealing as head wife Lady Thiang and Paulina Yeung delivers both a vulnerable and strong performance as peasant girl Tuptim.
It is a lavish production too: 22,000 handmade flowers were made for the garden scenes; over 2,500 metres of fabric was used for those intricate costumes; singing bowls and props were all sourced 5,800 miles away in Japan; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Not an ounce of detail goes spared in this sophisticated top class production.
The King and I is often credited as being one of the greatest Hollywood musicals of all time – and for fans of the film this production will certainly not disappoint.
The King and I is at the Edinburgh Playhouse until Saturday, 26 October 2019
Words: Aimee Stanton
Posted in News, Theatre, Top Stories	Tagged Edinburgh Playhouse, going out Edinburgh, musical theatre, Musicals, The King and I, theatre, what's on Edinburgh
Thom Yorke to kick off solo tour in Scotland next summer
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Joseph J. Sitt is the founder and CEO of Thor Equities, a multifaceted international real estate development company that specializes in value-added investments in shopping centers and mixed-use urban developments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Mr. Sitt, 47, was born and raised in Brooklyn, and from childhood was taught the value of hard work, entrepreneurship and social responsibility. His first business venture, as a New York University undergrad, was implementing a lucrative system of weekend parking lots at the flea markets at Aqueduct and Roosevelt racetracks.
Mr. Sitt developed a strong interest in retail at an early age. He founded Ashley Stewart (now part of Urban Brands) in 1991, which focused on serving the urban consumer, a traditionally underserved market segment overlooked by most national retailers. The company experienced considerable success in a relatively short period of time, growing to over 380 stores in 100 cities that generated approximately $400 million in annual sales. A key to Mr. Sitt's success at Ashley Stewart and Urban Brands was identifying and leveraging the best urban real estate opportunities for its stores. In 1998, Sitt deaccessioned his interest in Ashley Stewart and focus his energy primarily on the development and acquisition of prime real estate in urban markets with his real estate company Thor Equities.
Today, Thor Equities has an international retail, office, hotel, and residential portfolio valued at more than $5 billion and totaling more than 15 million square feet, and is a leader in urban real estate development, leasing and management. Mr. Sitt also serves as Chairman and Managing Principal of the Thor Urban Property Funds whose investors include pension funds, investment banks, top-tier college endowments, and foundations. Notable developments under Thor's umbrella include the award winning restoration and redevelopment of the historic Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, London's historic luxury landmark Burlington Arcade, and the Takashimaya building in the heart of Fifth Avenue—one of the most heavily trafficked and valuable retail streets in the world. Thor is also one of the largest landowners on Fifth Avenue.
Thor Equities has invested heavily in key emerging markets, especially Latin America. Notable projects include the development of a stretch of luxury European boutiques, including Gucci and Ferragamo, on the Avenida Presidente Masaryk in Mexico City and the formation of Thor Urbana Capital, a recently launched partnership between Thor and GFA Grupo Immobiliaro, which focuses solely on maximizing investment and developments throughout Latin America and South America.
In addition to Thor Equities and Thor Urban Real Estate Fund, Mr. Sitt oversees Thor High Street Advisors, which provides tenant representation and advisory services to retailers seeking premier retail locations around the world, and TOWN Residential, a full service, tailored luxury residential brokerage service in New York City.
Mr. Sitt is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and various universities including Columbia University, New York University, and Notre Dame and is an active board member of The Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, one of the most renowned and respected community development organizations in the country. He also serves on the board of the Real Estate Roundtable in Washington D.C., the Department of Real Estate at Baruch College, and is a member of the Partnership for New York City. He was an honoree of Crain's New York's annual "40 Under 40" list in 2004 and has been named by the New York Observer in its annual list as one of the most powerful people in New York Real Estate. Harvard professor Michael Porter and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) have also honored him for his commitment to fostering healthy competitive business conditions and new opportunities in inner city neighborhoods. He is a graduate of New York University.
Mr. Sitt is also the president and founder of the Sephardic Heritage Museum (SHM) which is currently developing books, documentary films, and a museum chronicling the life and history of the Syrian Jewish community in effort to foster a broader understanding and increased dialogue between the United States, Syria and Jewish and Muslim peoples. Mr. Sitt received permission from the Syrian Government to restore and manage the historic Jewish temples and cemeteries in Syria including the great Synagogue of Aleppo—a 3,000 year old synagogue and cemetery established by Israel's King David. He also serves as Vice President of the SFF Food Fund which helps feed over 2,000 people in need.
Mr. Sitt has spent much of his career in youth development and education. Mr. Sitt serves on the Boards of Brooklyn's TAB High School and Flatbush High School and most proudly, through a teen program, has acted as an ongoing mentor and guidance counselor to wayward youth in various New York City communities.