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Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Third Circuit › 1994 › Joseph Wilmer, United States of America, Ex Rel., Appellant, v. Nathaniel Johnson, Director, Pretria...
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Joseph Wilmer, United States of America, Ex Rel., Appellant, v. Nathaniel Johnson, Director, Pretrial Services Division Ofphiladelphia Court of Common Pleas; the Districtattorney for Philadelphia County; Theattorney General of the Stateof Pennsylvania, 30 F.3d 451 (3d Cir. 1994)
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit - 30 F.3d 451 (3d Cir. 1994)
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)April 20, 1994. Decided July 22, 1994
Peter Rosalsky, Defender Ass'n of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, for appellant.
Deborah Fleisher, Asst. Dist. Atty., Donna G. Zucker, Chief, Federal Litigation, Ronald Eisenberg, Deputy Dist. Atty., Law Div., Arnold H. Gordon, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty., Lynne Abraham; Dist. Atty., Philadelphia, PA, for appellees.
Before: BECKER, NYGAARD and WEIS, Circuit Judges.
EDWARD R. BECKER, Circuit Judge.
This appeal from an order of the district court dismissing a petition for writ of habeas corpus presents the question whether the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits an enhanced sentence in a state resentencing proceeding brought pursuant to Pennsylvania's Drug Trafficking Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Statute, 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Sec. 7508 (1990), after the initial sentence was reversed on appeal. Resolution of this issue requires us to decide which of two arguably controlling Supreme Court decisions determines the outcome. In Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S. Ct. 1852, 68 L. Ed. 2d 270 (1981), the Supreme Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause precluded the state from seeking the death penalty at a second capital sentencing proceeding after the defendant's first jury declined to impose such a penalty. In contrast, in United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 101 S. Ct. 426, 66 L. Ed. 2d 328 (1980), the Court found no violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause resulting from a sentence enhancement under former 18 U.S.C. § 3576 following appellate review in a noncapital case. We conclude that DiFrancesco is controlling and hold that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar the Pennsylvania proceeding at issue. We therefore affirm the order of the district court dismissing the habeas corpus petition.
Petitioner, Joseph Wilmer, was convicted following a bench trial in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County of possessing crack cocaine with intent to deliver. Wilmer had been found with 61 clear plastic vials with orange caps containing an off-white substance. Two of the vials were analyzed by the Commonwealth's chemist and found to contain cocaine, 37 and 43 milligrams respectively.1 The Commonwealth timely notified Wilmer of its intent to proceed under the mandatory sentencing provisions of 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Sec. 7508, Pennsylvania's Drug Trafficking Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Statute.2
At a sentencing hearing on April 5, 1990, the issue was whether petitioner was subject to Sec. 7508(a) (3) (i), which provided for a mandatory minimum sentence of one year and a $5,000 fine when "the amount of the substance involved is at least 2.0 grams and less than ten grams."3 The evidence presented at the sentencing hearing (established through stipulation) showed that the aggregate weight of the substance when the contents of the sixty-one vials were mixed was 2.6 grams. The state did not show what portion of the 2.6 grams was actually cocaine as opposed to a non-cocaine substance used to dilute the mixture.4
The trial court held that the Commonwealth had not proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount of cocaine involved was 2.0 grams. Only 2 of 61 vials had been analyzed, and the amount of cocaine discovered in these two vials, in the court's view, did not justify an extrapolation to 2.0 grams of cocaine in the 61 vials. The court therefore refused to apply Sec. 7508(a) (3) (i) and instead sentenced Wilmer to 9 to 18 months confinement to be followed by one year of probation. The Commonwealth appealed the sentence pursuant to Sec. 7508(d), which authorizes an appeal by the Commonwealth when the sentencing court fails to apply the mandatory minimum sentence required by that statute. The Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed and remanded the case for imposition of the more severe sentence, holding that the sampling of only 2 of 61 vials was adequate to support the extrapolation. Wilmer's request for allocatur was denied by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
On December 2, 1992, Wilmer filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The sole claim raised was the alleged impingement of the constitutional right not to be placed twice in jeopardy by reason of being subjected to a second sentence enhancement proceeding under 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Sec. 7508. Respondents5 answered the petition, addressing its merits.6 The district court dismissed the petition, and this appeal followed.
On June 10, 1993, a motions panel of this court granted Wilmer's request for a certificate of probable cause to appeal and appointed counsel. After briefs were filed, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Caspari v. Bohlen, --- U.S. ----, 113 S. Ct. 2958, 125 L. Ed. 2d 660 (1993), which presented an issue virtually identical to this appeal. This (merits) panel stayed the appeal pending the outcome of Caspari v. Bohlen, --- U.S. ----, 114 S. Ct. 948, 127 L. Ed. 2d 236 (1994). We then requested and received supplemental briefing on Caspari 's impact on the case.7
We must initially determine whether the Supreme Court's decision in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (1989) (plurality opinion), bars consideration of the double jeopardy issue. Under Teague, a federal court is precluded from "granting habeas corpus relief to a state prisoner based on a [new] rule announced after his conviction and sentence became final." Caspari v. Bohlen, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 953 (citation omitted). The Teague analysis is ordinarily the first step when reviewing a federal habeas case. Schiro v. Farley, --- U.S. ----, ----, 114 S. Ct. 783, 788, 127 L. Ed. 2d 47 (1994). The rule, however, is not jurisdictional, and "a federal court may, but need not, decline to apply Teague if the State does not argue it." Caspari, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 953.
In this case, respondents failed to raise a Teague argument in the district court or in their brief on appeal. The issue was not raised until we, sua sponte, requested supplemental briefs addressing the nonretroactivity principle. Not surprisingly, the respondents now argue that Teague forecloses any habeas relief. Relying primarily on the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Caspari, they contend that Wilmer's double jeopardy argument, if accepted, would constitute a new rule which cannot be applied retroactively in a collateral proceeding.8
The respondents' argument has obvious force. In Caspari, the habeas petitioner claimed that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibited the state from subjecting him to successive noncapital sentence enhancement proceedings. The State argued, as it had in the lower courts and in its brief on the merits, that the nonretroactivity principle articulated in Teague barred the relief sought by the petitioner. Agreeing with the state, the Supreme Court declined to address the merits of the double jeopardy claim. Instead, the Court held that granting the petitioner's request for relief "required the announcement and application of a new rule of constitutional law." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 957. The Court found that "neither of the two narrow exceptions to the nonretroactivity principle applie [d] to the case," since the "new rule" was neither the type that placed "certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe" nor a "watershed rule [ ] of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 956 (quotations and citations omitted).
Recognizing the similarity between Caspari and the instant appeal, we nonetheless find the cases distinguishable. In Caspari, the State properly raised the Teague issue in the lower courts. Consequently, the Court held that it "must apply Teague before considering the merits of the claim." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 953 (citation omitted). The respondents here did not assert the Teague rule until we identified the issue and requested supplemental briefing. However, the appropriate time for arguing that Teague barred consideration of petitioner's double jeopardy claim was in the answer to the habeas petition and not in a supplemental brief requested by the court on appeal. The respondents should have been aware of the Teague defense, since Teague was decided prior to Wilmer's filing of his habeas petition. See Hanrahan v. Greer, 896 F.2d 241, 245 (7th Cir. 1990) ("Disputes about the retroactive application of constitutional decisions have pervaded criminal procedure over the last 25 years."). Moreover, in Wilmer's memorandum in support of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, he argued at length the applicability of the Eighth Circuit's decision in Bohlen v. Caspari, 979 F.2d 109 (1992), which begins with a discussion of Teague.
We hold that respondents' failure to raise the issue in the district court constitutes a waiver of any Teague defense. Schiro, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 114 S. Ct. at 788-89. Although we have the discretion to reach the State's Teague defense sua sponte, id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 789, we decline to do so in this case. In this respect we follow the lead of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Hanrahan, which declined to address the Teague question sua sponte, noting that the court need not go into a Teague analysis where the state failed to preserve an objection in the district court to the retroactive application of a new rule. 896 F.2d at 245. We therefore turn to the merits.
"It is well established that the Double Jeopardy Clause forbids the retrial of a defendant who has been acquitted of the crime charged." Bullington, 451 U.S. at 437, 101 S. Ct. at 1857 (citations omitted).9 Following an acquittal, the state cannot obtain a new trial by means of an appeal even though the acquittal appears to be in error. Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187-88, 78 S. Ct. 221, 223-24, 2 L. Ed. 2d 199 (1957). It sometimes has been explained that the prosecution gets one fair opportunity to present whatever evidence it can muster, and failing in this effort, does not deserve a second opportunity to establish guilt. Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 16-17, 98 S. Ct. 2141, 2149-50, 57 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1978).
The Supreme Court traditionally has refused to extend the Double Jeopardy Clause to sentencing. Caspari, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 955. "The imposition of a particular sentence usually is not regarded as an 'acquittal' of any more severe sentence that could have been imposed." Bullington, 451 U.S. at 438, 101 S. Ct. at 1857. First, "a sentence does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal." DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. at 134, 101 S. Ct. at 436. Second, noncapital sentencing procedures generally do not have the hallmarks of a trial on guilt or innocence. Bullington, 451 U.S. at 438, 101 S. Ct. at 1858.
In DiFrancesco, a case involving a statute similar to the one at issue in this appeal, the defendant was convicted in federal court of violating the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, 18 U.S.C. § 3575, a statute predating the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Section 3575 provided for an increased sentence upon proof at a sentencing hearing that the convicted defendant was a "dangerous special offender." After the defendant was found guilty of the racketeering counts, a dangerous special offender hearing was held. The district court made findings of fact and ruled that the defendant was a dangerous special offender within the meaning of Sec. 3575, but the court's sentence resulted only in one additional year of imprisonment beyond that which the defendant had received on the racketeering counts.
Section 3576 of Title 18 provided for an appeal by the government to correct a sentence imposed after Sec. 3575 proceedings. The government appealed, claiming that the district court had abused its discretion in imposing such a lenient sentence. The court of appeals rejected the government's position, concluding that the risk of substitution of a greater sentence upon an appeal by the government under Sec. 3576 violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the increase of a sentence on review under 18 U.S.C. § 3576 did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Specifically, the Court rejected the contention that the imposition of a sentence under that statute constituted an acquittal of a more serious sentence that could have been imposed, because a defendant had no expectation of finality until the statutory appeal process was completed.
In contrast, in Bullington, a capital case, the Court carved out an exception to the general rule that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not apply in the sentencing context.10 The Court held that the state could not seek the death penalty at a second capital sentencing hearing without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause where the defendant's first jury had declined to impose that penalty. See also Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 104 S. Ct. 2305, 81 L. Ed. 2d 164 (1984) (expanding Bullington to include cases where a judge determines the sentence in a capital sentencing proceeding). Although the Court reaffirmed the general rule that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit imposing a harsher sentence upon retrial, it held that a capital sentencing hearing is not a typical discretionary sentencing hearing. It noted that under Missouri law the prosecution in a capital sentencing hearing does not merely recommend a sentence, but undertakes the burden of proving certain facts beyond a reasonable doubt in an effort to obtain the harshest sentence. The sentencer's discretion also is severely cabined because the sentencer is limited to the choice between life and death.
More importantly for this case, the Bullington court distinguished DiFrancesco as follows:
In only one prior case, United States v. DiFrancesco, has this Court considered a separate or bifurcated sentencing procedure at which it was necessary for the prosecution to prove additional facts. The federal statute under consideration there, the "dangerous special offender" provision of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3575 and 3576, requires a separate presentence hearing. The Government must prove the additional fact that the defendant is a "dangerous special offender," as defined in the statute, in order for the court to impose an enhanced sentence. But there are highly pertinent differences between the Missouri procedures controlling the present case and those found constitutional in DiFrancesco....
451 U.S. at 440, 101 S. Ct. at 1859.
The Court went on to discuss the important procedural differences between Missouri's death penalty statute and the federal dangerous special offender statute. They included that the federal judge has a number of sentencing choices under 18 U.S.C. § 3575, whereas a Missouri jury must choose between life and death, and that the government in a Sec. 3575 proceeding need only prove that the defendant is a dangerous offender by a preponderance of the evidence, whereas the state in a capital sentencing proceeding must prove the existence of an aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 440-41, 101 S. Ct. at 1859. The Court also noted that the statute at issue in DiFrancesco expressly provided for appellate review of a sentence on the record of the sentencing court. Id. In essence, the Court saw the sentencing determination in Bullington as constituting an acquittal for lack of evidence. By necessary implication, the sentencing determination in DiFrancesco was not an "acquittal" because, given the more lax procedures used at the sentencing hearing, it was not a trial-like proceeding.
Against this background, we turn to Wilmer's double jeopardy claim as it relates to a resentencing proceeding under 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Sec. 7508. Wilmer argues that the constitutional protection against double jeopardy bars resentencing in his case. Specifically, he claims that the state trial court "acquitted" him of the Sec. 7508 mandatory sentence in a sentencing proceeding that was more like a trial on the issue of guilt than a typical discretionary sentencing hearing. Wilmer grounds his argument on the Supreme Court's opinions in Bullington and Rumsey.
After reviewing the relevant caselaw and the state statute at issue in this appeal, we reject petitioner's argument. We are satisfied that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit an enhanced sentence in a state resentencing proceeding brought pursuant to 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Sec. 7508. First, we draw instruction from the Supreme Court's decision in DiFrancesco. The statute at issue there specifically provided that the sentence was subject to appeal. The Court found that under such circumstances the defendant "is charged with knowledge of the statute and its appeal provisions, and has no expectation of finality in his sentence until the appeal is concluded or the time to appeal has expired." Id. 449 U.S. at 136, 101 S. Ct. at 437. Like the defendant in DiFrancesco, Wilmer had notice of Pennsylvania's mandatory sentencing statute and its appeal provisions. Section 7508(d) expressly states that the Commonwealth "shall have the right to appellate review of the action of the sentencing court." Thus, the petitioner had no expectation of finality in his sentence until the Commonwealth's appeal was concluded or the time for appeal had expired.
In DiFrancesco, the Court also noted the human considerations that bar a prosecution after an acquittal. Id. at 136, 101 S. Ct. at 437. For example, the defendant will be subjected to anxiety and insecurity and the possibility that he or she may be found guilty even though innocent. The Court opined that those considerations have no significant application to the prosecution's statutory right to have a sentence reviewed because the limited appeal and subsequent resentencing does not approximate the ordeal of a trial on the basic issue of guilt or innocence. Id.
Like DiFrancesco, the resentencing proceeding under Sec. 7508 will not subject the petitioner to a second trial. As we read the opinion of the Pennsylvania Superior Court, on remand the trial court has no choice but to impose the appropriate mandatory minimum sentence set out in Sec. 7508; no further trial-like proceedings appear necessary. Indeed, from our reading of Sec. 7508(d), it does not appear that further proceedings would ever be required on resentencing where a trial court refused to impose the mandatory minimum sentence. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Jones, 413 Pa.Super. 482, 605 A.2d 825, appeal denied, 531 Pa. 652, 613 A.2d 557 (1992); Commonwealth v. Logan, 404 Pa.Super. 100, 590 A.2d 300, appeal denied, 528 Pa. 622, 597 A.2d 1151 (1991); Commonwealth v. Brown, 389 Pa.Super. 66, 566 A.2d 619 (1989). But even if additional proceedings were necessary, the Commonwealth would do nothing more than offer a chemical analysis of the entire mixture11 to show that the two vials that were tested really were representative of the entire population of vials.
The prosecution's burden of proof under Sec. 7508 also suggests that the sentencing proceeding does not resemble a trial. Pursuant to Sec. 7508(b), the trial court invokes the mandatory sentencing statute if it determines by a preponderance of the evidence that the section applies. This standard, which is the same standard involved in DiFrancesco, "stands in contrast to the reasonable-doubt standard" at issue in Bullington, 451 U.S. at 441, 101 S. Ct. at 1859.
In light of the caselaw, the standard of proof required at sentencing proceedings is certainly a factor in determining whether the imposition of one sentence constitutes an acquittal of another. More precisely, the use at a sentencing hearing of a preponderance of the evidence standard of proof rather than the traditional beyond a reasonable doubt standard is significant. See Bullington, 451 U.S. at 440-41, 101 S. Ct. at 1859. The lower standard of proof signifies a more lax procedure which in turn signifies that a hearing is not, in the Bullington calculus, trial-like. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. at 118-19 n. 1, 101 S. Ct. at 427-28 n. 1.12
We also draw instruction from the Supreme Court's decision in Caspari where it stated, albeit in dictum, that, had it decided the broader question of whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars an enhanced sentence in noncapital cases, it would have limited Bullington and Rumsey to the capital sentencing context. The Court stated that " [b]oth Bullington and Rumsey were capital cases, and our reasoning in those cases was based largely on the unique circumstances of a capital sentencing proceeding." Caspari, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 954. The Court explained that its prior decisions "clearly establish that a sentenc [ing in a noncapital case ] does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 955 (citations and quotations omitted).
We have previously considered a double jeopardy challenge to a statutory scheme designed, as is Pennsylvania's here, to reduce the discretion of the sentencer by providing for a government appeal of an improper sentence. In United States v. McMillen, 917 F.2d 773 (3d Cir. 1990), the government appealed a sentence imposed under the United States Sentencing Guidelines after the defendant had started serving the sentence, arguing that the district court had erred in not adjusting the sentence upward pursuant to Sec. 3B1.3. This Court agreed and remanded for an increased sentence. In doing so, we rejected the argument that the government's appeal violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.
Relying on DiFrancesco, we explained that the prohibition against double jeopardy is not implicated where a statute specifically provides for the government to obtain appellate review. We noted that Congress had provided the government with the means to appeal an incorrect application of the federal sentencing guidelines in 18 U.S.C. § 3742(b). Id. at 776-777 & n. 6. Thus, the defendant was charged with the knowledge that the government could appeal and had no expectation of finality until the appeal was concluded or the time for appeal had expired. We see no real difference between the federal government's right to have an enhanced sentence meted out at a subsequent sentencing proceeding under the Guidelines and the circumstances presented by this appeal.
In sum, we do not think that double jeopardy protection attaches to sentencing proceedings under Sec. 7508. The statute expressly grants the state the right to appeal a sentencing determination; thus, the petitioner did not have a reasonable expectation of finality in the original sentence. Moreover, the sentencing proceedings are not, within the Bullington calculus, so trial-like as to implicate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Here, the Commonwealth made only the showing it had to make under the preponderance of the evidence standard. The petitioner offered nothing in rebuttal. In fact, at the actual hearing, all that happened in terms of presentation of evidence was that the parties stipulated to a single fact--the total weight of the substance. We fail to see how this resembles a trial. See DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. at 124, 101 S. Ct. at 430.
The order of the district court denying Wilmer's petition for a writ of habeas corpus will be affirmed.
The specific amount of cocaine found in the two tested vials was brought out at the trial rather than at the sentencing hearing
Before the 1990 amendments, Sec. 7508 provided in relevant part, as follows:
(a) General rule.--Notwithstanding any other provisions of this or any other act to the contrary, the following provisions shall apply:
(3) A person who is convicted of violating section 13(a) (14) or (30) of The Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act where the controlled substance is coca leaves or is any salt, compound, derivative or preparation of coca leaves ... shall, upon conviction, be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment and a fine as set forth in this subsection:
(i) upon the first conviction when the amount of the substance involved is at least 2.0 grams and less than ten grams; one year in prison and a fine of $5,000 or such larger amount as is sufficient to exhaust the assets utilized in and the proceeds from the illegal activity ...;
(b) Proof of sentencing.--Provisions of this section shall not be an element of the crime. Notice of the applicability of this section to the defendant shall not be required prior to conviction, but reasonable notice of the Commonwealth's intention to proceed under this section shall be provided after conviction and before sentencing. The applicability of this section shall be determined at sentencing. The Court shall consider evidence presented at trial, shall afford the Commonwealth and the defendant an opportunity to present necessary additional evidence and shall determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, if this section is applicable.
(d) Appellate review.--If a sentencing court refuses to apply this section where applicable, the Commonwealth shall have the right to appellate review of the action of the sentencing court. The appellate court shall vacate the sentence and remand the case to the sentencing court for imposition of a sentence in accordance with this section if it finds that the sentence was imposed in violation of this section.
On December 19, 1990, the Pennsylvania Legislature amended this section to make the mandatory minimum depend not just on the amount of substance involved but rather the aggregate weight of the compound or mixture. The amended provision now reads: "when the aggregate weight of the compound or mixture containing the substance involved is at least 2.0 grams and less than ten grams...." 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. Sec. 7508 (Supp.1993) (emphasis added). The amendment has no applicability to this appeal
The total amount of cocaine in the two analyzed vials had been shown only to be eighty milligrams
Respondents are as follows: (1) Nathaniel Johnson, Director, Pretrial Services Division of Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas; (2) the District Attorney for Philadelphia County; and (3) the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania
The respondents properly conceded that petitioner had exhausted his state remedies under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)
Wilmer has represented that the state trial court has continued the resentencing pending the outcome of this appeal
A state conviction and sentence become final for the purpose of retroactivity analysis when the availability of direct appeal to the state courts has been exhausted and the time for filing a timely petition for a writ of certiorari has elapsed. Caspari, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 953. Wilmer's sentence became final on December 17, 1992, ninety days after September 19, 1992, the date the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the petition for allocatur and he did not petition the Supreme Court for certiorari
The Double Jeopardy Clause is made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707 (1969)
At issue in Bullington was the Missouri death penalty statute, which provided for a separate sentencing proceeding at which the prosecution had to prove the existence of an aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt. At the guilt phase of the defendant's trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of capital murder. At the sentencing hearing, the jury returned a verdict fixing the defendant's punishment at life in prison without the possibility of parole. The defendant appealed his conviction and won a new trial on a jury fair cross-section of the community claim. The state then served notice that it would again seek the death penalty on retrial. A defense motion to strike the notice, grounded in the Double Jeopardy Clause, was granted. Following an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari "in order to consider the important issues raised by petitioner regarding the administration of the death penalty (footnote omitted)." Bullington, 451 U.S. at 437, 101 S. Ct. at 1857
As we read the record, after the two vials were tested, the contents of all 61 vials were dumped together and weighed. Thus, testing of additional vials would no longer be possible
We use the phrase "Bullington calculus" advisedly. We are acutely aware that the sentencing proceedings with which federal judges regularly deal these days are driven by facts that are often developed in extensive sentencing hearings. While these may sometimes feel trial-like, they differ markedly from actual trials, see generally Edward R. Becker, Insuring Reliable Fact Finding in Guidelines Sentencing: Must the Guarantees of the Confrontation and Due Process Clauses Be Applied?, 22 Cap.U.L.Rev. 1 (1993), and, at all events, are not trial-like within the "Bullington calculus."
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The Positively Present blog by Dani Dipirro is on poooint! The "A Happy Life is Not a Perfect Life" gave a few (6) great ways to help us live happy!
Number 1 "Stop Criticizing and Judging" is EVERYTHING. I think as an society as a whole has a hard time being real and opening up is because of the fear of being judged. Its hard to open up to people that we don't know super well or do a "bona fide" social media post because naturally we are worried that that the person on the other end will jump to conclusions about your life. I wish we had an easy solution on how to get rid of the judgmental looks, comments, feelings that you get from others. But really it just comes down to starting with yourself! We are our own worst critic! Keep your mind open and find a way to help those who are in need. People will follow your lead! Next time your mind wants to jump to criticism or a judgmental thought find a way to get to know that person better. I'm sure the judgmental first thoughts will be completely wrong about him/her.


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text:
Frances Puglisi
Published 12:00 pm Monday, August 30, 2021
AMELIA – Frances Lee Banty Puglisi, beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother was carried to her heavenly home early Sunday morning, Aug. 29, 2021. She peacefully passed at her home surrounded by her family.
Frances was an amazing woman with many different talents, gifts and love of the Lord, which she shared with her family, friends and anyone she met along her way. She loved children, so she and "Pug," her husband were blessed to raise five children. Their family grew through the years with 13 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. She was happy to hold each new "little one" as they joined her family and her hugs and kisses will be missed by all.
Frances loved to work in the dirt. The beauty of her plantings could be seen at each home in which the Puglisis lived and on the table where they ate. She was a phenomenal cook, specializing in her fresh vegetables and meats, hot biscuits, sweet tea and delicious desserts. Some of her happiest days were those when the entire Puglisi family gathered together to celebrate birthdays, Christmas or Fourth of July. Frances is preceded in death by her husband of 57 years, L.W. (Pug) Puglisi who passed in 2004, her parents, Richard and Mary Banty, of Capron and her much loved brother, David Banty of Capron.
Frances will be greatly missed by her five children, Cherry Puglisi Wilcox, Amelia, Virginia, Theresa Puglisi Black, Jacksonville North Carolina, Tony A. Puglisi, Greensboro, Georgia, Wayne Puglisi (Patty), Richmond, Virginia and Lee Puglisi Williams (Allen), Amelia. In addition, her presence will be missed by her grandchildren, Wayne Alan Wilcox, Matthew Wilcox (Jacinda), Travis Black (Jennifer), Angela Nobles (Larry), Kimberly Ambros (Jason), Alan Puglisi (Alli), Jessika Puglisi, Samantha Puglisi, Sara Puglisi, Drew Williams, Joshua Williams, Katie Williams and Lauren Williams in addition to her 12 great-grandchildren. She will be mourned by her sister-in-law, Betty Banty of Franklin and her nieces and nephews. Visitation will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 1 at the Hillsman-Hix Funeral Home in Amelia from 6 to 8 p.m. Funeral services will be held at the Amelia Baptist Church, 9101 Amelia St., Amelia, Virginia 23002 on Thursday, Sept. 2 at 11 a.m. A graveside service will be held in Capron at 3 p.m. on Sept. 2 at the Capron Cemetery at the Banty Family plot. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Amelia Baptist Church at the address listed above or the J.T. O'Neil Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 101, Amelia, VA 23002.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Tag: Plagues
Plagues are massive biological (or sometimes physical like hail) forces of destruction. The covid-19 virus is a pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of people. Locust have been ravaging crops across five countries in Africa and Asia leaving millions hungry. Bark beetles devour millions of acres of trees from Mexico up into Canada. Killing millions of sharks every year has exploded the jellyfish populations, which wipe out other fisheries.
Revelation in the Old Testament (OT)
From the beginning, God warned that He would remove life-sustaining resources when people refused to stop breaking His laws in the Bible.
The Curse of Heat and Drought [1]
Death of Crops and Herds; Droughts and Famines; Diseases and Plagues from Ticks (Lyme Pandemic) Mosquitoes (Malaria) and Viruses (actual image of COVID-19 virus pandemic). All these are cause for death in Deuteronomy 28, the Bible.
"Covid-19 Virus" by NIAID-RML.
Moses' prophecies in Deuteronomy 28 are repeated in Revelation; God sends plagues, removes life-sustaining resources, and civilization collapses.
The simplest way to know the future is to look at the past. God made it abundantly clear that His beautiful laws build us up and disobedience to those laws tears us down. At some point, if we do not turn back to God, He will stop us from not only destroying ourselves through lawlessness, but everyone around us. Instead of God's blessings (that build up through obedience to His laws), we open the door to curses (that tear us down through disobedience to His laws).
The nation of Egypt experienced those curses through the ten plagues of Moses. The nation of Israel experienced those curses after many warnings by the prophets bringing the fall of Samaria in B.C. 722 and the fall of Jerusalem in B.C. 586. From the beginning, God forewarned all the major consequences of sin–curses that would tear down–in Moses' fifth book in the Bible in the Old Testament (OT), Deuteronomy 28-29. All the nations of this earth will experience those curses–for all will have turned away from God in lawlessness (against the laws of God in the Bible, not the corrupted laws of men)–during the days of Revelation (the last book in the Bible in the New Testament (NT)) surrounding the second coming of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
For decades, we have been seeing the beginning of the curses of Deuteronomy gradually mounting across the world in dual fulfillment of both Moses' prophecies and Jesus' prophecies in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. In the first four (4) trumpets, bowls, and seals of Revelation, our planet's lands, oceans, terrestrial waters, and skies are disintegrating and diminishing life-sustaining resources. These are the curses humankind brings upon ourselves because of our sins in combination with the judgment of God against those sins. Jesus declares, "Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters," (Rev 14:7) for He alone can heal our planet. "If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land," (2 Chron 7:14). The world will reject God and His laws (Psa 2). Even the church will fall away into apostasy (2 Thess 2:1-4). Jesus said that this global decline leading to catastrophe would come just like the days of Noah–plenty of warnings before the total collapse of civilization–and commands us saying, "Be ready," (Matt 24:37-44).
Here are a few of God's warnings of His judgement from the very beginning. The same principles apply. Such warnings and events began in the Pentateuch and continued throughout the prophets. What happened to one nation in the Prophets will eventually happen to the world in Revelation. Egypt's fall in the day of Moses was only one such example. These Old Testament (OT) prophecies are the foundation filling in the details for the coming global judgment in Revelation. "For I, the Lord, do not change," (Mal 3:6) "Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters," (Rev14:7) Compare them to what we see happening on earth today. (I'll do that later in depth in five chapters covering events today on the land, seas, waters, skies, and extreme weather.)
Deuteronomy 28 & 29 compared to Revelation
Scorching Heat on Land (Rev 7:16; 8:7; 16:8-9)
Deut 28:22 The Lord will smite you . . . with fiery heat.
Deut 28:23 The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron.
Destruction of Waters (Rev 8:10; 16:4-6, 12)
Deut 28:24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
Deut 29:19 It shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, "I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land with the dry."
Deut 29:22-23 They see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, and will say, "All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath."
Destruction of Crops and Herds (Rev 6:5-6)
Deut 28:22 The Lord will smite you with . . . blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish.
Deut 28:30 You shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.
Deut 28:38-40 You shall bring out much seed to the field but you will gather in little, for the locust will consume it. You shall plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm will devour them. You shall have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off.
Deut 28:42 The cricket shall possess all your trees and the produce of your ground.
Migrations, Conquests, and Wars Involving Life-Sustaining Resources (Rev 6:2-4; 13:7)
Deut 28:25 The Lord shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies.
Deut 28:29 You shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.
Deut 28:31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey shall be torn away from you, and will not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you will have none to save you.
Deut 28:33 A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually.
Deut 28:47-53 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. Moreover, it shall eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also leaves you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the increase of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you. Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you.
Deut 28:64-66 The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. So your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life.
Deut 29:28 The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them into another land.
Diseases and Massive Death of Humans (Rev 6:8; 13:15; 16:2, 11)
Deut 28:21-22 The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish.
Deut 28:26-27 Your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. The Lord will smite you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.
Deut 28:35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and legs with sore boils, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
Deut 28:59-61 The Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which, not written in the book of this law, the Lord will bring on you until you are destroyed.
Deut 28:62-63 Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the Lord your God. It shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you.
In Deuteronomy 28 and 29, God made it crystal clear that following His beautiful, edifying laws would build up a person or people, while disobeying them would tear down not just the individual–but as sin spread–the family, the neighborhood, the community, the city, and eventually the country. When sin spreads across country to country–think of today's global communication, global transportation, global economy, global education, global travel, . . .–then as during the days of Noah, the whole world would be torn down. Human sin is poisonous enough, but when God adds pure justice through His judgment to stop the disease of darkness deteriorating the earth, Revelation says there will be a global collapse of civilization. This will be the end of man's reign his way through to sin and destruction and the beginning of Christ's reign on earth God's way rebuilding the planet back to Eden. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done."
Deuteronomy 28 fills in details between the lines for Revelation's declivity of earth's ecosystems foreshadowing the first four trumpets, bowls, and seals. However, the ten plagues in Exodus provide the most powerful comparison to the plagues of Revelation. What God has done before (to one nation), He will do again (to all the nations on earth). In the next chapter, let us compare the ten plagues of Egypt to today's global condition and the emerging plagues of Revelation on this planet today. We are forewarned.
[1] The Curse of Heat and Drought Image by Tumius on Pixabay: climate change, drought, environment, desert. "Tiger Mosquito" Image by Wikilmages from Pixabay. "Carcass" of Kudu by Ivko Horvat from Pixabay. "Tick" by Marc Pascual from Pixabay. Tick carries Lyme pandemic. Droughts and Crop Loss found on Wikimedia Commons for 2012 Drought in U.S. C.f. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "Drought ranks second in terms of national weather-related economic impacts, with annual losses nearing $9 billion per year in the U.S." https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/drought-and-climate-change." "Starving Child" by Dr. Lyle Conrad, public domain. PD-U.S. Gov source at http://phil.cdc.gov/ image ID:6901. Picture of the Day on Wikimedia Commons on August 16, 2008. The innocent suffer from the sins of leaders. Personal note: I once picked up a child off a street in Bangladesh who looked just like this picture. No hospital would take him because doctors said, "He could die any minute." With a lot of prayer and the family's permission, an Australian orphanage eventually opened a place for him. A year later, I received a picture of Amin–fat, healthy laughing with friends, receiving education. God answers prayer.
[2] Actual image of real "Covid-19 Virus" by NIAID-RML. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH). Photo from scanning electron microscope showing SARS-CoV-2 (yellow), also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the U.S. emerging from the surface of humans cells (pink/blue). February 30, 2020. Article: "New Images of Novel Coronavirus-SARS-CoV2 Now Available." https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/novel-coronaviru-sars-cov2-images. nytimes.com coronavirus update on 7/17/20: In U.S., 3,512,700 infected and 137,000 died. In world, 13.5 infected and 583,960 died. John Hopkins CSSE: Top countries in infections and deaths: (1) U.S. (2) Brazil (3) Russia (4) Mexico (China is lower and leveling as government takes action).
First Trumpet and Bowl in Revelation
A third of the earth will be burned up.
NASA Satellite: Earth Is Burning
Burning earth includes fires, droughts, deforestation, and pests destroying massive forests decreasing carbon sinks and increasing carbon sources.
Rev 8:7 [Part A] The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and [Part B] a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
Rev 16:2 [Part A] The first angel went and poured out his bowl in the earth; and [Part B] it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image.
NOTE: Part A is mostly symbolic (except the angel(s) is real). Hail, fire, and blood, as well as, pouring out the bowl on earth represent the tremendous power of God coming down from heaven onto the earth to execute His judgment (Rev 14:7). Part B is literal. Please look at NASA's yearly "Wildfires from Space" showing satellite photos from space taken by MODIS revealing massive fires all over the earth.[1]
The word for "burned" in Revelation 8:7 is used three times, but the word "fire" is not there. Some may assume that the land, trees, and grass burn only from fire. However, vegetation can be "burned" by heat waves, droughts, pests, even "ice burns" as in the tundra due to warming, as well as literal conflagrations.
Global temperature rise is generating heat waves and droughts, desiccating soils and vegetation, augmenting ferocity and frequency of fires. The increasing numbers of forest fires are in direct proportion to earth's rising temperatures.[2] Since atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)and global temperatures are steadily increasing, it is no surprise that most of earth's warming has taken place in the last 35 years, with the six warmest years on record since 2014–every year to 2020 (as I write).[3] The USDA reported that around the world, fire seasons are an average of 78 days longer than they were in 1970, and the number of acres scorched each year has doubled since 1980. The hotter it gets, the worse the fires. Forests cool lands, store water, and release water vapor necessary for rain. The fewer forests, the less water, the worse the fires, (the more greenhouse gases go into the atmosphere), the worse the heat; a dearth of forests creates hotter weather. Hotter weather ignites hotter fires.
"By most accounts, deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world's roads" (transportation is 14% and deforestation is 15%).[4] By August 2019, the Brazilian Amazon had 75,336 fires since January. This number exceeded the previous year by 85%. Brazil's space research agency (INPE) said that humans were primarily to blame due to slash and burn. NASA's Earth Observatory released images showing the smoke was so bad that it darkened the skies above São Paulo at midday.[5] Twenty percent of the Amazon has already burned down. At the current rate of burning, the Amazon will be savannah or desert by 2100.
This is one of the feedback cycles fueling global warming. According to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), half the world's forests have been cleared by deforestation. In 2017, humanity destroyed an expanse of tropical forest nearly the size of England.[6] According to researchers from the University of Maryland, a third of that area (14,000 sq. mi.) was primary rainforest. In 2015, massive forests burned in Indonesian islands presenting serious health threats to millions of people across Southeast Asia.[7]
Global warming is already igniting unprecedented mega-fires and extending fire seasons in the U.S. "Between 1950 and 2000 the number of major fires on the American continent increased from two per decade to fifty per decade."[8] Randy Anderson, a twenty-four-year head wilderness firefighter pointed out that in 1987, the biggest fire in the western U.S. was the Dude Fire burning 20,000 acres, shocking everyone. "Today, we're seeing 400,000 acre fires."[9] The U.S. Forest Service reports that "each year, an average of more than 73,000 wildfires burn about 7 million acres of private, state and federal land and more than 2,600 structures."[10]
In the California fires of 2007, 2008, 2012, and 2015, an average of a million acres were burned in each of those years.[11] The governor of California stated, "There's no more fire season, we have wildfires year around."[12] Over the last 10 years, an average of 745,000 acres burned per year in that one state. According to Harvard University scientists, the area burned by wildfires in the American West is expected to increase by 50 percent by 2050 due to rising heat and drought; the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies by 175 percent.[13] By 2018, the biggest fires in California's history raged across the country. "In California, 15 of the 20 largest fires in state history have burned since 2000."[14]
It is no surprise that the most damaging fires are on the West Coast where droughts and heat are pounding the land. The East Coast has the least amount of fire damage, a fact that is correlated to the projection of increasing the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes with more Category 4s and 5s, as well as greater rainfall rates in hurricanes. So the West will be hotter and dryer, especially in spring and summer (augmenting fires), while the East will be warmer and wetter, especially in fall, winter, and spring (suppressing fires).[15]
Tom Swetnam, professor at the University of Arizona, is a world expert on tree rings and has samples going back 3,000 years. He concludes that over the last hundred years the climate impact on forests has been hotter and dryer increasing the number of fires, the length of fire seasons, and the intensity of fires making them six times more destructive as they cover six times more area than they did between 1970 to 1986. Forest fires have become so hot, that they "burn through the soil, so that the soil erodes, and it can take trees up to a thousand years to grow back."[16] Because of global warming, the wildfire season is now averaging 78 days longer than it did just 30 years ago.[17]
Due to the warming climate, the bark beetle has doubled its reproductive cycle and expanded its territory from lower California, across the Rockies, far into Canada and Alaska unleashing a plague that has killed 45 million acres of pines devastating entire forests into a tinder box of dead trees just waiting for one match or one lightning strike.[18] Diana Six, professor of Forest Entomology and Pathology at the University of Montana, who has been studying this pest for sixteen years, stated, "The death of all the trees from beetles and fires is setting off a vicious cycle. All the carbon released by the dead trees will speed up the rate of climate change which will only lead to higher temperature, more beetles, and more fires."[19] This is a positive feedback loop. A few decades ago, Canada and Alaska were cold enough to kill the beetles and keep their numbers small allowing forests to survive. Today, the beetles are so comfortable with the rising temperatures that they have reached plague-of-locust proportions, killing tens of millions of acres of forests, preparing them for the fire, and moving on. "All the trees . . . shall the (insects) consume."[20]
During the 2003 European heat wave, 71,000 people died from the heat while goliath forest fires scorched dry terrain equal to the size of Luxembourg, consuming orchards, houses, and eighteen lives. Such wildfires will become increasingly common in Spain, southern France, Turkey, and the Balkans, as the subtropical arid belt moves northward spreading Sahara-like weather into southern Europe.
Warming climate will turn extensive boreal forests (found in a continuous belt across northern Alaska, Canada, and Eurasia) into a carbon-and-methane time bomb.[21] The boreal area is also called the taiga, a Russian word for a swampy, damp forest. The boreal forest is the largest forest ecosystem on the planet comprising 11 percent of earth's terrestrial surface. Unlike most temperate and tropical forests where carbon is predominantly stored in living trees, 80 percent of the carbon in boreal forests is in the soil.[22] About 231 billion metric tons of carbon is stored in boreal soils, while 58 billion tons of carbon is stored in live vegetation.[23] The world's boreal forests–plants and soils–contain more than one-third of the planet's terrestrial stores of carbon, which if released would have a disastrous effect pushing the climate past tipping points into run away global warming.[24]
CBS News reported on the morning of June 21, 2020 that the hottest temperature ever has been recorded for the Arctic at the town of Verkhoyansk (67.5°) at 100.7°F, which is 32 degrees above normal and almost unheard of. Usually this town is one of the coldest spots on Earth. As a result of hot-dry conditions, numerous fires rage nearby and smoke is visible for thousands of miles on Satellite images. Parts of Siberia have been toasting for weeks remarkably above normal since January. Above the Arctic Circle, Khatanga hit 78°F (46 degrees above normal and shattered the previous record by an astounding 22 degrees). The average heat across Russia from January to May 2020 is so shocking because these temperatures were projected for 2100. Last summer, Markusvinsa in Sweden in the Arctic Circle hit 94.6°F. With the warming and drying, unprecedented Arctic fires made summer 2019 the very worst fire season on record.[25] Imagine how those temperatures are thawing the "perma"frost and releasing the methane all across northern Russia!
In 2016, there were over 30,000 fires burning 3 million acres in the U.S. In 2015, wildfires burned more than 10 million acres. "Researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate that by 2050, the total amount of acreage burned annually will be at least twice as high as it is today" due to global warming.[26] During the same time, Canada was evacuating 88,000 people. ("One of the largest evacuations in North America," said Bill Stewart, the co-director of the University of California's Center for Fire Research at UC Berkeley). They lost 1,600 structures in the Fort McMurray fires that burned over 1,000 sq. km. (about 386 sq. mi.).
In the summer of 2019, Europe suffered another scorching heat wave that headed into Greenland melting the top of the mile-deep ice sheet (which is usually the coldest place and never melts). At the same time in northern Russia and Siberia, more than 100 "intense and long-lived wildfires" broke records for over two months cloaking more than 4.5 million sq. km. (almost 2 million sq. mi. remembering that the U.S. is 3.5 million sq. mi.) in smoke visible from space. Satellite photos over the North Pole showed over half the land mass in flames from boreal and Arctic wildfires breaking records in scale and duration. Ice in the Arctic and Greenland is melting at record-breaking levels.[27] In the summer of 2019, 700,000 acres burned in Canada, and 230 fires raged across Alaska pouring carbon dioxide (CO2), and even worse methane (CH4), into the skies.
In 2020, California and Oregon broke all records for wildfire destruction and smoke pollution turning skies a dark orange. In Oregon on September 11th, hundreds of thousands were evacuating on top of a half million (more than 10% of the 4.2 million people in the state) because of uncontrolled wildfires. Gov. Kate Brown said that over 900,000 acres (larger than Rhode Island) had burned in the last 3 days. That was almost double the land burned in a typical year. [31]
The orange darkened skies blotting out the sun are blanketing the state with air pollution so bad that it threatens the health of everyone. "What's notable is that it's everywhere," said Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center at UC David. "So no matter which way the wind blows you're getting hit by smoke and ash. It's pretty brutal." The health effect of wildfire smoke over the state include irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, asthma attacks, and increase risk of heart attacks and stroke. Wildfire smoke increases the smog-forming pollutants in the air. The levels are in the danger zone. [34]
At the same time in 2020, California began September having already broken previous records with 3 million acres of scorched earth. Fires have become so numerous and vast that they actually join up in what is referred to as "complexes"–"the scope of which the state has never seen." Last Thursday (9/10/20), the August complex, which was produced by 37 fires merging in and around Tehama County, became the largest recorded in California at 471,000 acres. [32] Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director at Cal Fire, stated, "We are hitting the record books in ways that we never would have imagined, and definitely not records that we like breaking." California's wildfires are growing bigger and moving faster leaving less time for warnings and evacuations. "We have seen multiple fires expand by tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours, and 30 years or more ago that just wasn't fire behavior that we saw," said Jacob Bendix, a professor of geography and the environment with expertise in wildfires at Syracuse University. Ever warming temperatures and years of drought related to global warming are prime factors for this trend. US Forest Service forester Steve Lohr observed, "When you have a fire run 15 miles in one day, in one afternoon, there's no model that can predict that. the fires are behaving in such a way that we've not seen." [33]
There is no doubt in any scientist's mind that increasing trend in fire days, fire zones consumed, and intensity of fires is the product of global warming. Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist professor of Earth System Science at Standfor University has documented just how much worse California's fires have become as the planet has warmed. His studies showed, "The frequency of extreme wildfire weather during the autumn season in California has doubled in the last four decades." Now, the fire season is essentially year-round. [35]
Earth has always had fires, but those humanity saw were smaller, cooler, less frequent, less deadly. With rising global warming, the fires are hotter, longer, cover more area, destroy more forests, kill too many people, and decrease a major carbon sink (a sink absorbs CO2 out of the air) while becoming a carbon and methane source. The first trumpet sounded and "a third of the earth was burned up."[28]
The first bowl was poured and "a loathsome and malignant sore" appeared on the people who worshipped the beast of Revelation.[29] The beast has not yet appeared, neither has this disease. However, as previously noted with the pine park beetle and mosquitoes in Alaska, warming climate change does expand the territories of agents and vectors and the diseases they carry, including all tick-borne diseases (Lyme), all mosquito-borne diseases (malaria), and other protozoan diseases (dysenteric amoeba). In the U.S., I was rarely ill. When I moved to Africa near the equator (hot and humid), sicknesses rocketed in our family including frequent malaria and intestinal and skin parasites. As a family, we went from visiting the doctor once a year in the U.S. to every month or more in Africa. Everything from bacteria to worms grows better in warm, moist environments.
Both the trumpet and the bowl are linked to the land. With warming weather, the land burns, crops and herds decrease the food supply, pests and parasites against crops and man increase . . . the human body weakens and is more susceptible to disease. However, how Revelation's malignant sore disease is linked to both the land and the mark (666) is still a mystery.
As NASA has said, "Something on earth is always burning. Satellite photos reveal the shocking extent.
As Revelation says, "A third of the earth (will) burn."
Revelation is happening now.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/484444main_firemap_ or "NASA – Wildfires: A Symptom of Climate Change."
[2] Al Gore, The Future (New York: Random House, 2013) 337.
[3] Years of Living Dangerously, "The Scariest Climate Change Facts," p. 3. https://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/science/scary-facts.
[4] "Deforestation and Its Extreme Effect on Global Warming," Scientific American, 2016. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deforestation . . . . Between 2000 and 2009, 32 million acres of tropical rainforests were cut down each year.
[5] Retrieved from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/newsworld/what-you-should-know-about-the-fires-raging-in-the-amazon on August 22, 2019. The article sites Reuter's, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, NASA, INPE, Global Forest Watch in World Resources Institute, and Huff Post.
[6] Retrieved from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tropical-forest-the-size-of-england-dstroyed-in-2018-report.
[8] Compiled from data from the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center, 2010; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report, 2005. Emmott, 164-165.
[9] Documentary: "Years of Living Dangerously," episode 2, "End of Woods." Miniseries by Roaring Fork Film Production, created by Joel Back and David Gelber, 2014.
[10] U.S. Forest Service, "Fire," www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/fire.
[11] "List of California wildfires," October 23, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California)wildfires.
[12] Ibid., comment stated by former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who oversaw many of the fires.
[13] "Years of Living Dangerously," episode 2, "End of Woods."
[14] Tim Wallace, "Three of California's Biggest Fires Ever Are Burning Right Now," August 10, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/10/us/california-fires.html.
[15] EPA, "Future of Climate Change," https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/future-climate-change. The article is citing Jerry Melilo et al., Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, USGCRP, 2014. C.f. The U.S. National Climate Assessment, 2014. C.f. IPCC (2013), Climate Change 2013, The Physical Science Basis. From the Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press) 2013.
[17] Years of Living Dangerously, "The Scariest Climate Change Facts," p. 10. http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/science/scary-facts.
[18] National Research Council of the National Academies, Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2013) 21.
[19] "Years of Living Dangerously," episode 2.
[20] KJV, Deut 28:42. The specific insect mentioned in this verse is the whirring locust. NASB and ESV translate this a "cricket," the KJB as "locust," the NEV as "whirring locust," the CJB as "bugs," the GNV as "grasshopper," the NJB and NLT as "insects." Sometimes the Bible gives one common specific example to portray a general principle that applies across many examples. This is why some translations use more general terms that would be better understood across continents. USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), "Bark Beetles, 2014. www.fs.fed.us/research/invasive-species/insects/bark-beetle. The U.S. Forest Service (fs) cited "unprecedented bark beetle mortality (41.7 million acres across multiple ownerships) in 2011." 800-832-1355.
[21] borealforest.org. www.borealforest.org/index.php?category=world_boreal_forest. Lakehead University, Canada.
[22] Elizabeth Nelson, et al., Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, "Combating Climate Change Through Boreal Forest Conservation: Resistance, Adaptation, and Mitigation," June 2007. www.greenpeace.org/canada/Global/canada/report/2008/4/combating-cc-boreal-forest . . . .
[23] Earth Observatory, NASA, "How Boreal Fires Impact Global Climate," earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BOREAFire/boreas_fire_4.php.
[24] Andrew Freedman, "Arctic's Boreal Forests Burning At 'Unprecedented' Rate," July 22, 2013. www.climatecentral.org/news/arctics-boreal-forests-burning . . . .
[25] Jeff Berardeli, "Arctic records its hottest temperature ever," CBS News. https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/arctic-records-its-hottest-temperature-every/ Retrieved on June 21, 2020.
[26] Andrew C. Revkin, "Burning Economic Issues Behind America's Wildfire Problem," August 1, 2016. Retrieved from http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/01.
[27] Rafael Cereda. Retrieved from https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/26/if-you-re-worred-about-the-climate-in-Europe-spare-a thought-for-the-Arctic-circle-this-year.
[28] Rev 8:7.
[29] Rev 16:3.
[30] NASA satellite photo of South American and African Fires. NASA satellite photo of Amazon Fire burning for weeks. NASA photo "Wildfire 1." "Forest Fire, River, and Deer" by Wikilmages from Pixabay.com. "Bark Beetle Found in Ponderosa Pine" on Wikimedia Commons. "Bark Beetle – Destruction of Forest" by Akveniam on Wikimedia under Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. "Trees are cut down in Drei Annen Hohn (Harz -Germany) because of destruction due to bark beetles."
[31] Gillian Flaccus and Andrew Selsky, the Associated Press, September 11, 2020; https://www.msn.com/en-us-news-us-evacuate-now-wildfires-grow-in-oregon-as-500k-flee/
[32] Anita Chabria, Paige St. John, Luke Money, et al. for the Los Angeles Times at https://www.msn.com/en-us-weather-topstories/california-s-staggering-fire-toll-a-record-3-million-acres-and-it-s-still-early/
[33] Megan Diskin for USA TODAY at https://www.msn.com-en-us-news-us-in-california-august-complex-fire-becomes-state-s-biggest-blaze-ever-at-a-whopping-471-000-acres/
[35] Radio.com. Retrieved on Sept 11, 2020 at https://www.msn.com/en-us-weather-topstories/climate-change-is-worsening-california-s-wildfires/
[36] Wikimedia Commons images of wildfires from various places.
[37] Wikimedia Commons images of high smoke pollution from various places.


text:
The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women
The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women by Connie Willis
Purchased 141 times
See more Fantasy
Got garlic? Silver bullets? A handy stake or a cross? Vampire fans take heart. Despite naysayers who believe the genre has been literally sucked dry of all creativity and originality, British horror maven Jones has assembled an impressive volume packed with period classics and fresh takes before and after the 21st century. This toothsome anthology opens with Anne Rice`s only vampire short story, "The Master of Rampling Gate," a traditional romantic piece from 1986; other selections meet, or surpass, this fine beginning. one of the best original tales is "Outfangthief," a stylish debut from Gala Blau, about lost children, a topic also brilliantly explored by Roberta Lannes`s "Turkish Delight." Melanie Tem`s "Lunch at Charon`s" and Nancy Kilpatrick`s "La Diente" feature biting social commentary. "Forever Amen," by Elizabeth Massie, provides a magical time-traveling twist. Outstanding reprints include "Jack," by Connie Willis, exploring WWII; "Aftermath," by Janet Berliner, a dark biblical piece; Kathryn Ptacek`s "Butternut and Blood," a Civil War horror; and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro`s elegant Saint-Germain tale, "A Question of Patronage." But the most exciting reprint has to be Mary Elizabeth Braddon`s "Good Lady Ducayne," an 1896 novella published a year before Bram Stoker`s Dracula. Apart from a few anemic originals and dubious reprints, this is a robust anthology sure to satisfy even the most jaded blood thirst.
A book by Connie Willis
Connie Willis (Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis, Connie Willis ) Born in Denver (Colorado) on December 31, 1945. When she was only 12 years old, her mother died in childbirth. After the death of the mother, numerous relatives began to appear in their house, whose hordes seemed to act out of the best intentions, but corny brought more discomfort than caring for the girl. Instead of spending energy on repelling their attacks, Connie found solace in books that showed reality, gave a way to reconciliation with the thought of the departure of loved ones from our mortal world, helped to form her own approach to such phenomena. True, Connie read a lot, not only about the events associated with death, but also about UFOs. She discovered the science fiction of Robert Heinlein - she liked his saga "I have a spacesuit - I will travel", imbued with good humor. Crammed with childhood ambitions, she decided in the future to write a sequel to this book by Heinlein (the novel "Apart from the Dog" is the best illustration of the fulfillment of this desire). Willis was one of the best in English and teaching at Northern Colorado College and University, and upon graduation she became an elementary school teacher. True, after her marriage to physics teacher Courtney Willis and the birth of her daughter Cordelia, she decides to still become a professional writer. A young mother and a newly minted star in the sky of science fiction published her first short stories in the early 80s. And although in the future her style often changed from work to work, Willis is known as an author who writes in the genre of the comedy of morals, her works are often permeated with satire and humor, she often has a light sparkling style in which she undertakes to reveal the most serious and complex topics.
but you may also find a horror story with deadly seriousness. One of her favorite topics is time travel. To date, having received 9 Hugo awards, 6 Nebula awards and a dozen Locus awards, she continues to live in the small town of Greeley, Colorado. However, first things first. Connie`s first SF publication is considered to be the story "Santa Titicaca" (1971), but she gained fame with the publication of a novella in the spirit of traditional realism "Fire Service" about a student historian who was part of the fire patrol of St.
Paul`s Cathedral in London during the fascist raids of the Second World War (1983, double prize - "Hugo" and "Nebula"). Moreover, in the same 1983, she still received "Nebula" for "A Letter from Cleary" - a sentimental story about the hardships of the post-apocalyptic life of a simple family among the roaming gangs of thugs looting after nuclear explosions. Willis`s prose is remarkable in that she prefers to reveal the characters of her heroes through the plot and almost does not use descriptions for this purpose. Thanks to this interesting technique, her stories are always easily recognizable, and this despite the fact that among them there are no two alike. Willis deliberately tries his hand at a variety of writing styles: the traditional realism of the "Fire brigade" coexists with the fabulous motives of "The Father of the Bride", and those - with the dashingly twisted comedic situations of "Blue Moon" [ 1984, Blued Moon, so similar to Heinlein`s Year of the Jackpot]. In the same 1984, she participates in a solid campaign in the creation of the sixth "Berserker" (together with P.
Anderson, E.
Bryant, S.
Donaldson, L.
Niven, F.
Saberhagen and Roger Zelazny). And, although the novel "The Sidon in the Mirror" (1984), which tells about the fact that one should not succumb to bad influence, and the full of humor "Blue Moon", and "Spice Pogrom", and "Chance" (1987), so and remained nominees for the awards, in 1988 Connie`s new success follows - "Lincoln`s Dreams" - the story of unrequited female love brings her the J.
Campbell Memorial Prize, and the story "The Last Winnebago" about disappearance all dogs after the pandemic on Earth - both Hugo and Nebula in 1989! Connie Willis - the foremost fighter of humanistic science fiction - successfully leads a correspondence duel with representatives of cyberpunk. In the first half of the 1990s, she won an unconditional victory. Judge for yourself - "At the Hotel Rialto" "Hugo" -1990 wins, a story about the vicissitudes of female physiology "Even with the Queen" (1992) - "Hugo", "Nebula" and the Locus magazine prize, the novel "The Book of the Doomsday "About a difficult time travel in the 14th century in the midst of the plague epidemic (1993) - a repetition of a triple success among readers (" Hugo "and" Locus ") and fellow writers (" Nebula ")," Locus "prize for the novel "Close Encounter" (1993) and the collection "Impossible Things", a year later the story "Death on the Nile" about a liner wreck with tourists continuing their tour under the supervision of Anubis (1994) again brings Connie the "Hugo" award, and the novel " Remake "(1994) Locus Award! Hmm ...
dear reader, don`t rush to believe that Connie stopped there. We still have plenty of exclamation marks for this incomparable writer, no matter how much she is compared to P.
Woodhouse! At the end of the 20th century, Connie harvests three Hugos for the story The Soul Chooses Its Own Society (1997, also the Locus Prize), the novel Without Talking about the Dog (1999, again with the Locus Prize ), and the story "Winds of Marble Arch" (2000). Readers of the magazine "Locus" also praised the excellent creations of Connie "Bellwether" (1996), "Newsletter" (1997). While listing the award-winning works, we forgot to mention three novels by Connie, co-authored with Cynthia Feliz, imbued with "Australian" motives. The first of these, "Water Witch" (1982) tells the story of the struggle on an arid planet for the power and influence of the father of a girl whom he passes off as a witch capable of causing a rainstorm. Light Raid (1989) describes a war between western and eastern North America, striking each other with high-power laser beams. And finally, "Promised Land" (1997) intrigues us with the adventures of a girl who came from the world of high technologies to a swampy province to receive an inheritance after the death of her mother, and who learned that she also inherits a husband by law after their betrothal in childhood. Married to a physicist, Connie Willis writes extensively about scientists at the forefront of science. We have already mentioned the "Fire Protection" and "The Book of Doomsday". This topic includes "Unexplored Territory" (1994) about the study of alien planets, the novel "Bellwether" (1996, "Locus") about the study of the theory of chaos and "natural" accidents, as well as the novel "Passage" (2001, "Locus" ) on the study of cases of clinical death and other transcendental phenomena around and near death. Connie Willis does not adhere to conventions, where all the bohemian sf gathers, has a "defiantly normal appearance." In an interview with Mile High Futures magazine, she admitted to attending church and that some of her best ideas came from her adult Sunday school class. Moreover, she even started writing for women`s magazines, and not only is not ashamed of this, but even claims that this gives her some more useful skills. However, all this did not stop her from receiving her now ninth Hugo Award for the story "Inside Job" in 2006. Science Fiction Laboratory . Official Site . Awards and prizes: Nebula Award, 1982 // Novellette -> Fire Watch (1982) Nebula Award, 1982 // Short Story -> Letter from Cleary / A Letter From the Clearys (1982) Hugo Award, 1983 // A Short Story (Novellette) -> Fire Watch / Fire Watch (1982) Asimov & # 039; s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1987 // Novella -> Spice Pogrom (1986) Nebula Award, 1988 // Novella -> The Last of the Winnebagos (1988) John W.
Campbell Award, 1988 // Best SF Novel -> Lincoln`s Dreams (1987) Hugo Award, 1989 // The Last of the Winnebagos (1988) Nebula Award, 1989 // Novellette ) -> At the Rialto (1989) Asimov & # 039; s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1989 // Novella -> The Last of the Winnebagos (1988) Nebula Award, 1992 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Nebula Award, 1992 // Novel -> Doomsday Book (1992) Theodore Sturgeon Award, 1993 // Honorable Mention -> Even the Queen (1992) Hugo Award, 1993 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Locus Award, 1993 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Asimov`s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1993 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Hugo Award, 1993 // Novel -> Doomsday Book (1992) Locus Award, 1993 // SF Novel ) -> Doomsday Book (1992) Hugo Award, 1994 // Short Story -> Death on the Nile (1993) Locus Award, 1994 // Short Story -> Close Encounter (1993) Asimov & # 039; s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1994 // Novellette -> Hotel / Inn (1993) Locus Award, 1994 // Collection -> Impossible Things (1993) Locus Award, 1996 // Novella -> Remake ( 1994) Locus Award, 1997 // Novella -> Bellwether (1996) Hugo Award, 1997 // Short Story -> The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion (1996) Locus Award, 1998 // A short story (Novellette) -> Newsletter (1997) Locus Award, 1999 // Roman NF (SF Novel) -> To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop`s Bird Stump at Last (1998) Hugo Award, 1999 // Roman (Novel) -> To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop`s Bird Stump at Last (1998) Hugo Award, 2000 // Novella -> The Winds of Marble Arch (1999) Locus Award, 2002 // SF Novel -> Passage (2001) Hugo Award, 2006 // Story (Novella) -> Inside Job (2005) Hugo Award, 2008 // Story (Novella) -> All Seated on the Ground (2007) Locus Award, 2008 // Author Collection -> The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories: a Connie Willis Compendium (2007)
The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women PDF
Connie Willis (Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis, Connie Willis ) Born in Denver (Colorado) on December 31, 1945. When she was only 12 years old, her mother died in childbirth. After the death of the mother, numerous relatives began to appear in their house, whose hordes seemed to act out of the best intentions, but corny brought more discomfort than caring for the girl. Instead of spending energy on repelling their attacks, Connie found solace in books that showed reality, gave a way to reconciliation with the thought of the departure of loved ones from our mortal world, helped to form her own approach to such phenomena. True, Connie read a lot, not only about the events associated with death, but also about UFOs. She discovered the science fiction of Robert Heinlein - she liked his saga "I have a spacesuit - I will travel", imbued with good humor. Crammed with childhood ambitions, she decided in the future to write a sequel to this book by Heinlein (the novel "Apart from the Dog" is the best illustration of the fulfillment of this desire). Willis was one of the best in English and teaching at Northern Colorado College and University, and upon graduation she became an elementary school teacher. True, after her marriage to physics teacher Courtney Willis and the birth of her daughter Cordelia, she decides to still become a professional writer. A young mother and a newly minted star in the sky of science fiction published her first short stories in the early 80s. And although in the future her style often changed from work to work, Willis is known as an author who writes in the genre of the comedy of morals, her works are often permeated with satire and humor, she often has a light sparkling style in which she undertakes to reveal the most serious and complex topics. but you may also find a horror story with deadly seriousness. One of her favorite topics is time travel. To date, having received 9 Hugo awards, 6 Nebula awards and a dozen Locus awards, she continues to live in the small town of Greeley, Colorado. However, first things first. Connie`s first SF publication is considered to be the story "Santa Titicaca" (1971), but she gained fame with the publication of a novella in the spirit of traditional realism "Fire Service" about a student historian who was part of the fire patrol of St. Paul`s Cathedral in London during the fascist raids of the Second World War (1983, double prize - "Hugo" and "Nebula"). Moreover, in the same 1983, she still received "Nebula" for "A Letter from Cleary" - a sentimental story about the hardships of the post-apocalyptic life of a simple family among the roaming gangs of thugs looting after nuclear explosions. Willis`s prose is remarkable in that she prefers to reveal the characters of her heroes through the plot and almost does not use descriptions for this purpose. Thanks to this interesting technique, her stories are always easily recognizable, and this despite the fact that among them there are no two alike. Willis deliberately tries his hand at a variety of writing styles: the traditional realism of the "Fire brigade" coexists with the fabulous motives of "The Father of the Bride", and those - with the dashingly twisted comedic situations of "Blue Moon" [ 1984, Blued Moon, so similar to Heinlein`s Year of the Jackpot]. In the same 1984, she participates in a solid campaign in the creation of the sixth "Berserker" (together with P. Anderson, E. Bryant, S. Donaldson, L. Niven, F. Saberhagen and Roger Zelazny). And, although the novel "The Sidon in the Mirror" (1984), which tells about the fact that one should not succumb to bad influence, and the full of humor "Blue Moon", and "Spice Pogrom", and "Chance" (1987), so and remained nominees for the awards, in 1988 Connie`s new success follows - "Lincoln`s Dreams" - the story of unrequited female love brings her the J. Campbell Memorial Prize, and the story "The Last Winnebago" about disappearance all dogs after the pandemic on Earth - both Hugo and Nebula in 1989! Connie Willis - the foremost fighter of humanistic science fiction - successfully leads a correspondence duel with representatives of cyberpunk. In the first half of the 1990s, she won an unconditional victory. Judge for yourself - "At the Hotel Rialto" "Hugo" -1990 wins, a story about the vicissitudes of female physiology "Even with the Queen" (1992) - "Hugo", "Nebula" and the Locus magazine prize, the novel "The Book of the Doomsday "About a difficult time travel in the 14th century in the midst of the plague epidemic (1993) - a repetition of a triple success among readers (" Hugo "and" Locus ") and fellow writers (" Nebula ")," Locus "prize for the novel "Close Encounter" (1993) and the collection "Impossible Things", a year later the story "Death on the Nile" about a liner wreck with tourists continuing their tour under the supervision of Anubis (1994) again brings Connie the "Hugo" award, and the novel " Remake "(1994) Locus Award! Hmm ... dear reader, don`t rush to believe that Connie stopped there. We still have plenty of exclamation marks for this incomparable writer, no matter how much she is compared to P. Woodhouse! At the end of the 20th century, Connie harvests three Hugos for the story The Soul Chooses Its Own Society (1997, also the Locus Prize), the novel Without Talking about the Dog (1999, again with the Locus Prize ), and the story "Winds of Marble Arch" (2000). Readers of the magazine "Locus" also praised the excellent creations of Connie "Bellwether" (1996), "Newsletter" (1997). While listing the award-winning works, we forgot to mention three novels by Connie, co-authored with Cynthia Feliz, imbued with "Australian" motives. The first of these, "Water Witch" (1982) tells the story of the struggle on an arid planet for the power and influence of the father of a girl whom he passes off as a witch capable of causing a rainstorm. Light Raid (1989) describes a war between western and eastern North America, striking each other with high-power laser beams. And finally, "Promised Land" (1997) intrigues us with the adventures of a girl who came from the world of high technologies to a swampy province to receive an inheritance after the death of her mother, and who learned that she also inherits a husband by law after their betrothal in childhood. Married to a physicist, Connie Willis writes extensively about scientists at the forefront of science. We have already mentioned the "Fire Protection" and "The Book of Doomsday". This topic includes "Unexplored Territory" (1994) about the study of alien planets, the novel "Bellwether" (1996, "Locus") about the study of the theory of chaos and "natural" accidents, as well as the novel "Passage" (2001, "Locus" ) on the study of cases of clinical death and other transcendental phenomena around and near death. Connie Willis does not adhere to conventions, where all the bohemian sf gathers, has a "defiantly normal appearance." In an interview with Mile High Futures magazine, she admitted to attending church and that some of her best ideas came from her adult Sunday school class. Moreover, she even started writing for women`s magazines, and not only is not ashamed of this, but even claims that this gives her some more useful skills. However, all this did not stop her from receiving her now ninth Hugo Award for the story "Inside Job" in 2006. Science Fiction Laboratory . Official Site . Awards and prizes: Nebula Award, 1982 // Novellette -> Fire Watch (1982) Nebula Award, 1982 // Short Story -> Letter from Cleary / A Letter From the Clearys (1982) Hugo Award, 1983 // A Short Story (Novellette) -> Fire Watch / Fire Watch (1982) Asimov & # 039; s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1987 // Novella -> Spice Pogrom (1986) Nebula Award, 1988 // Novella -> The Last of the Winnebagos (1988) John W. Campbell Award, 1988 // Best SF Novel -> Lincoln`s Dreams (1987) Hugo Award, 1989 // The Last of the Winnebagos (1988) Nebula Award, 1989 // Novellette ) -> At the Rialto (1989) Asimov & # 039; s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1989 // Novella -> The Last of the Winnebagos (1988) Nebula Award, 1992 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Nebula Award, 1992 // Novel -> Doomsday Book (1992) Theodore Sturgeon Award, 1993 // Honorable Mention -> Even the Queen (1992) Hugo Award, 1993 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Locus Award, 1993 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Asimov`s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1993 // Short Story -> Even the Queen (1992) Hugo Award, 1993 // Novel -> Doomsday Book (1992) Locus Award, 1993 // SF Novel ) -> Doomsday Book (1992) Hugo Award, 1994 // Short Story -> Death on the Nile (1993) Locus Award, 1994 // Short Story -> Close Encounter (1993) Asimov & # 039; s Readers & # 039; Awards, 1994 // Novellette -> Hotel / Inn (1993) Locus Award, 1994 // Collection -> Impossible Things (1993) Locus Award, 1996 // Novella -> Remake ( 1994) Locus Award, 1997 // Novella -> Bellwether (1996) Hugo Award, 1997 // Short Story -> The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion (1996) Locus Award, 1998 // A short story (Novellette) -> Newsletter (1997) Locus Award, 1999 // Roman NF (SF Novel) -> To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop`s Bird Stump at Last (1998) Hugo Award, 1999 // Roman (Novel) -> To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop`s Bird Stump at Last (1998) Hugo Award, 2000 // Novella -> The Winds of Marble Arch (1999) Locus Award, 2002 // SF Novel -> Passage (2001) Hugo Award, 2006 // Story (Novella) -> Inside Job (2005) Hugo Award, 2008 // Story (Novella) -> All Seated on the Ground (2007) Locus Award, 2008 // Author Collection -> The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories: a Connie Willis Compendium (2007)
TOP picks for Connie Willis fans:
Cats Prowl at Night
How to Host a Killer Party
Before I Met You
Haven of Darkness


text:
Op bezoek bij meneer Green (Visiting mr. Green) is een toneelstuk van de Amerikaanse auteur Jeff Baron dat in vele landen is uitgevoerd.

Verhaallijn
De 86-jarige weduwnaar meneer Green is bijna aangereden door een auto die bestuurd werd door de jonge zakenman Ross Gardiner. Gardiner is veroordeeld voor roekeloos rijden, en krijgt de taakstraf meneer Green zes maanden lang wekelijks te bezoeken.  Wat begint als een komedie van twee mensen die geen zin hebben samen in één kamer te zijn, ontwikkelt zich tot een hoopvol drama, als familiegeheimen onthuld worden en oude wonden opengereten.

Geschiedenis
Het stuk ging op 20 juni 1996 in première tijdens het Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge (Massachusetts), met Eli Wallach in de hoofdrol. Het is in 45 landen opgevoerd en vertaald in 23 talen.

De Nederlandse versie ging in februari 2000 in première in de Koninklijke Schouwburg in Den Haag met John Kraaijkamp sr. en Dirk Zeelenberg als acteurs. In 2015-2016 werd het vertolkt door Bram van der Vlugt en Oren Schrijver.

Onderscheidingen
 Drama League (New York), genomineerd voor beste toneelstuk
 Greek Theatre Awards, beste toneelstuk
 Molière Awards (Parijs), genomineerd voor beste toneelstuk
 Turkish Theatre Awards, beste toneelstuk
 Israeli Theatre Awards, beste toneelstuk
 Mexico Theatre Awards, beste toneelstuk
 INTHEGA Prize (Duitsland), beste reizende toneelstuk
 ACE (Argentinië), genomineerd voor beste buitenlandse toneelstuk
 Kulturpreis Europa, 2001
 Florencio Prize (Uruguay), beste buitenlandse toneelstuk

Amerikaans toneelstuk

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Google will likely introduce a 7 inch Nexus tablet at the Google I/O conference later this week. But the folks at Gizmodo Australia stole a bit of the company's thunder today by publishing some of the most important details.
The information comes from a leaked training document, and fits pretty well with all the rumors we've heard to date. It also fits with what Asus pretty much told us 6 months ago: that the company was working on a 7 inch tablet with a quad-core processor and price tag of $249 (or less).
The Nexus 7 is expected to be built by Asus, and it will feature a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display and a 1.3 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor.
It will reportedly have 1GB of RAM and be available with 8GB or 16GB of storage. Gizmodo reports that the 8GB model will sell for $199, while the 16GB version will cost $249. While the leak comes from Australia, the prices are in US dollars.
The tablet is said to be running Google Android Jelly Bean (which will likely be Android 4.1), and will include NFC, a 1.2 MP front-facing camera, and 9 hours of battery life.
Gizmodo's obtained document also includes the picture shown above, giving us an idea what the tablet will look like. Not surprisingly, it looks like a piece of glass with a small border around the sides — just like nearly every other tablet we've seen in recent years.
As a Nexus device, this tablet would be a flagship product for both Google and Asus. Google uses the Nexus program to showcase the latest available hardware designed for its Android operating systems, and the Google Nexus One, Samsung Nexus S, and Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones have been the devices Google has recommended for developers over the past few years.
They also tend to be first in line for software updates from Google, and include versions of Android exactly as Google designs it, without any modifications such as HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz.
One of the unintended consequences of ultrathin bezels is that your hand can accidentally launch a function while holding the screen. This is more of a problem with the smaller (7″) tablets than the larger (10″) ones. It is like the way hardware keyboards shrink to the point of being unusable as devices get smaller.
and with glass all the way to the edge it can make it hard to hold (too slick) especially when laying down — put a little electrical tape on the bezel of the KF and it was much easier to hold.
It has to have HDMI, please! With the number of Tegra 3 devices and the fact that it's not technically limited like Tegra 2, the XBMC folks might actually become interested in a port.
I'm looking forward to a Nexus tablet. There will finally be something to replace the Xoom wifi in terms of pure Android experiences on tablets and relatively fast updates. If this tablet is real it sounds pretty good. I hope there is a 32GB version for $300.
If they sell this for $200, it'll bump a number of existing tablets out of the market.


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