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AFL Premiership Betting
The AFL is the most popular sport in Australia and Australians love placing bets on all the games. From March every year, hundreds of thousands of Australians attend matches to watch an exciting game and support their team. The AFL consists of 16 teams and every year in February just before the opening round of the official AFL season, the pre-premiership season cup takes place.
The winners of this cup are awarded the McClelland Trophy and this is always a good way for players to get back into the swing of things after the break, as well as a good indication of which teams are looking good for the premiership. The actual season consists of 22 rounds, with every team facing one another at least once. After the 22 rounds, the points are counted and the top 8 teams move forward to a final season of 4 weeks, which ends in the Grand Final where the team that wins becomes the season Premier.
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All the Australian bookmakers reviewed on this site will offer a future market on the AFL premiership winner all throughout the year, which means that AFL odds will fluctuate constantly.
When it comes to AFL Premiership betting, one of the favourite bets to place is the simple head to head bet. This bet is a simple win/lose bet, which requires the punter to choose which team he thinks will win the match.
There are many options available for punters to bet on individual players as well and these bets can be made for quarter time, half time, three quarter time and final score. As you can see, this gives the punter some great opportunities for winning.
Another favourite bet in AFL Premiership betting is the goal scorer bet, in which the punter must predict which player will score the most goals. This bet can be made on the first goal-kicker, last goal-scorer or simply a goal-scorer at some point during the match. On this bet, players in the forward line will have shorter AFL Premiership betting odds than back-line players.
The most possessions bet is another player bet that a punter can take out, this bet requires the punter to predict who will be the leading possession winner on the ground at any 4 stages of the match.
Quarter by Quarter Leader
This is one of the more interesting bets in AFL Premiership betting and requires the punter to predict which team will be leading at each stage in the match. There are 4 distinct periods in a an AFL match which gives the punter 16 different options to choose from and this can prove to be difficult but entertaining task.
Punters can also bet on which players will be awarded the Brownlow Medal and the Coleman Medal. Every player in every team is eligible for these medals, so betting on players is interesting as the favourite can change quite often as the season progresses.
AFL Premiership betting is very exciting and at the end of the season punters even get to place bets on the Grand Final, which is the biggest game in the entire Premiership, with exciting bets and huge prizes.
Premiership Betting Tips
The AFL Premiership is a great opportunity for fans to get their wagers in, and the more you know about the game, the better. These top tips will give you the edge when you place your wagers online:
Shop for the best odds: Check out the Australian betting sites that we recommend and see who has the best odds. Odds may often be vey similar across sites, but sometimes one sportsbook offers a better deal than the other.
Check out the bonuses and promotions on offer: Often there will be a bonus or promotion that ties in with the AFL Premiership, adding value to any punt that you place. It's a great idea to take advantage of these rewards, but always read the terms and conditions to make sure the promotion works for you.
Do your homework: The more you know abut the teams and players competing, the better your chances are of placing a solid bet. Do some research to see if there have been any major injuries or upsets, who has been playing at their peak, and who has fallen behind somewhat. This will help you back the team that comes out on top.
Look at past results: This forms part of doing your homework, but just as you'd check a horse's last few races, check a teams past performances. You can also see who does better on home or away soil and factor this in to your AFL Premiership bet.
Practice makes perfect: Betting on the AFL is great fun and it can take some practice too Start small and work your way up to larger wagers, and begin with the simplest bets before you try the more complex options.
If you are an AFL betting fan and enjoy watching the game, then visit one of our top rated bookmakers and see how exciting AFL Premiership betting is! It's easy, enjoyable, and can be very lucrative too when you back a winner.
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This pack features 8 varying shape vine chew toys. Perfect to use as is as foot toys, or use them to build or repair your own toys! Natural vine shapes are popular amongst all birds.
This size suits all size birds but especially the small to medium species.


It is the mission of the CUSD Champions to serve as role models for the youth of the Carlsbad schools and community. These exceptional Junior and Senior Ambassadors are committed to their academic achievement, demonstrating inclusiveness and character to the younger students of CUSD and model this by living with integrity and making positive choices. Please see the linked application andreturn it with the video to Mrs. Eshelman at reshelman@carlsbadusd.net by Monday May 24, 2018.


Summary: Interestingly, in this essay the young author is sympathetic to the soldier and takes close to the heart the fact that the British soldiers were called offensive names by the rioting youth. Even though some "facts" put forth in the essay can be described as speculative, the paper provides an easy to understand account of the famous events.
The Boston Massacre happened on March 5, 1770. A soldier, Captain Hugh White, was being hit with rocks, snowballs, and wood by a few colonist boys. The boys were calling the soldiers names like lobster, lobsterback, and bloodyback! As soon as the boys started calling the soldiers these names, more angry colonists filled the square. So the soldier ran to the State House door and cried for help and to be let in. But there was no one to let him in. Luckily, seven other soldiers heard Captain Hugh White and came running to his aid.
In a few minutes, the soldiers had their muskets ready to fire. The colonists were making the soldiers very angry because they thought that they couldn't get hurt. The reason the colonists thought this was because only the government could order the soldiers to fire. But as the colonists grew nearer, the soldiers had to fire. Captain Thomas Preston heard these shots and came running out. Captain Thomas Preston started running up and down the line of soldiers telling them not to fire! But all that the soldiers heard was the word "fire". So they kept firing. Finally, Captain Thomas Preston stopped the soldiers from firing, and after the smoke cleared, three colonists were dead and two were wounded. The first person to die was Crispus Attucks. The others that were wounded or dead were Samuel Maverick, Patrick Carr, James Caldwell, and Samuel Gray.
Soon, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson pushed his way through the crowd and quieted everyone down. Also, he said that the matter would be taken seriously and that they would be tried in court. It didn't look good for the soldiers because it was a Boston jury. John Adams, Samuel Adams' cousin, defended the soldiers and Captain Thomas Preston. They were found not guilty because they fired in self defense. The newspapers named the incident the "Boston Massacre" to stir up hate against Britain.
The reason the colonists were so angry was because the British made a law that had the colonists pay a duty for paint, tea, glass, and other imports and during that time British troops were sent to Boston to try and make the colonists obey the order.


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Scalable Parallel Computing Lab
SPCL_Bcast(COMM_WORLD)
What: SPCL_Bcast is an open, online seminar series that covers a broad range of topics around parallel and high-performance computing, scalable machine learning, and related areas.
Who: We invite top researchers and engineers from all over the world to speak.
Where: Anyone is welcome to join over Zoom! This link will always redirect to the right Zoom meeting. When possible, we make recordings available on our YouTube channel.
Old talks: See the SPCL_Bcast archive.
Social media: Follow along with #spcl_bcast on Twitter!
When: Every two weeks on Thursdays, in one of two slots (depending on speaker).
14 January – 11 March, 2021:
Morning: 9 AM Zurich, 5 PM Tokyo, 4 PM Beijing, 3 AM New York, 12 AM (midnight) San Francisco
Evening: 6 PM Zurich, 2 AM (Friday) Tokyo, 1 AM (Friday) Beijing, 12 PM (noon) New York, 9 AM San Francisco
25 March, 2021:
Morning: 9 AM Zurich, 5 PM Tokyo, 4 PM Beijing, 4 AM New York, 1 AM San Francisco
Evening: 6 PM Zurich, 2 AM (Friday) Tokyo, 1 AM (Friday) Beijing, 1 PM New York, 10 AM San Francisco
8 April – 20 May, 2021:
Evening: 6 PM Zurich, 1 AM (Friday) Tokyo, 12 AM (midnight) Beijing, 12 PM (noon) New York, 9 AM San Francisco
14 January, 2021 — Brian Van Essen
6 PM Zurich, 2 AM (Friday) Tokyo, 1 AM (Friday) Beijing, 1 PM New York, 9 AM San Francisco — Zoom
Enabling Rapid COVID-19 Small Molecule Drug Design Through Scalable Deep Learning of Generative Models
Abstract: We improved the quality and reduced the time to produce machine-learned models for use in small molecule antiviral design. Our globally asynchronous multi-level parallel training approach strong scales to all of Sierra with up to 97.7% efficiency. We trained a novel, character-based Wasserstein autoencoder that produces a higher quality model trained on 1.613 billion compounds in 23 minutes while the previous state-of-the-art takes a day on 1 million compounds. Reducing training time from a day to minutes shifts the model creation bottleneck from computer job turnaround time to human innovation time. Our implementation achieves 318 PFLOPS for 17.1% of half-precision peak. We will incorporate this model into our molecular design loop, enabling the generation of more diverse compounds: searching for novel, candidate antiviral drugs improves and reduces the time to synthesize compounds to be tested in the lab.
Bio: Brian Van Essen is the informatics group leader and a computer scientist at the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He is pursuing research in large-scale deep learning for scientific domains and training deep neural networks using high-performance computing systems. He is the project leader for the Livermore Big Artificial Neural Network open-source deep learning toolkit, and the LLNL lead for the ECP ExaLearn and CANDLE projects. Additionally, he co-leads an effort to map scientific machine learning applications to neural network accelerator co-processors as well as neuromorphic architectures. He joined LLNL in 2010 after earning his Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. He also has an M.S and B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
28 January, 2021 — Haohuan Fu
9 AM Zurich, 5 PM Tokyo, 4 PM Beijing, 4 AM New York, 1 AM San Francisco — Zoom
Optimizing CESM-HR on Sunway TaihuLight and An Unprecedented Set of Multi-Century Simulations
Abstract: CESM is one of the very first and most complex scientific codes that gets migrated onto Sunway TaihuLight. Being a community code involving hundreds of different dynamic, physics, and chemistry processes, CESM brings severe challenges for the many-core architecture and the parrallel scale of Sunway TaihuLight. This talk summarizes our continuous effort on enabling efficient run of CESM on Sunway, starting from refactoring of CAM in 2015, redesigning of CAM in 2016 and 2017, and a collaborative effort starting in 2018 to enable highly efficient simulations of the high-resolution (25 km atmosphere and 10 km ocean) Community Earth System Model (CESM-HR) on Sunway Taihu-Light. The refactoring and optimizing efforts have improved the simulation speed of CESM-HR from 1 SYPD (simulation years per day) to 5 SYPD (with output disabled). Using CESM-HR, We manage to provide an unprecedented set of high-resolution climate simulations, consisting of a 500-year pre-industrial control simulation and a 250-year historical and future climate simulation from 1850 to 2100. Overall, high-resolution simulations show significant improvements in representing global mean temperature changes, seasonal cycle of sea-surface temperature and mixed layer depth, extreme events and in relationships between extreme events and climate modes.
Bio: Haohuan Fu is a professor in the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, and Department of Earth System Science in Tsinghua University, where he leads the research group of High Performance Geo-Computing (HPGC). He is also the deputy director of the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, leading the research and development division. Fu has a PhD in computing from Imperial College London. His research work focuses on providing both the most efficient simulation platforms and the most intelligent data management and analysis platforms for geoscience applications, leading to two consecutive winning of the ACM Gordon Bell Prizes (nonhydrostatic atmospheric dynamic solver in 2016, and nonlinear earthquake simulation in 2017).
11 February, 2021 — Jeff Hammond
Evaluating modern programming models using the Parallel Research Kernels
Abstract: The Parallel Research Kernels were developed to support empirical studies of programming models in a variety of contexts without the porting effort required by proxy or mini-applications. I will describe the project and why it has been a useful tool in a variety of contexts and present some of our findings related to modern C++ parallelism for CPU and GPU architectures.
Bio: Jeff Hammond is a Principal Engineer at Intel where he works on a wide range of high-performance computing topics, including parallel programming models, system architecture and open-source software. Previously, Jeff worked at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility where he worked on Blue Gene and built things with MPI. Jeff received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Chicago for research performed in collaboration with the NWChem team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
25 February, 2021 — Speaker to be announced
11 March, 2021 — Speaker to be announced
8 April, 2021 — Speaker to be announced
22 April, 2021 — Speaker to be announced
6 May, 2021 — Speaker to be announced
20 May, 2021 — Speaker to be announced
Tweets by @spcl_eth

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Rome, Italy (WCOA 2014). The 19th World Congress of Accountants (WCOA 2014) held in Rome has come to a close and the profession has reiterated its commitment to further collaborate in order to enhance its presence worldwide.
The WCOA 2014 closed with a speech of the newly appointed IFAC president Olivia Kirtley, the 16th of the organisation and the first female leader. She takes over from Warren Allen to whom she said jokingly in her speech: "Warren you certainly left big shoes to fill, but I wear high heels."
Kirtley highlighted the importance of further strengthening the profession globally and gave the example of Rwanda which in the past 20 years has gone from 54 qualified accountants in the aftermath of the genocide and concurrent civil war to over 200 in present days.
She announced the first three countries, out of ten, to beneficiate from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) £4.935m ($8.254m) funding to IFAC for capacity building projects: Ghana, Rwanda and Uganda.
She went on to emphasise the importance of accrual accounting in the public sector and invited the participants of the WCOA 2014 to "call [their] Minister of Finance now", so that transparency and accountability in the public sector can be guaranteed.
Finally she announced that the 20th World Congress of Accountants to take place in November 2018 will be held in Sydney Australia.
The last words were left to the Consiglio Nazionale de Dottori Commercialisti e degli Eserti Contabili, the organisers of the WCOA 2014, its president Gerardo Longobardi extended the Italian institute thanks to IFAC and all the congress's participants and concluded: "Arrivederci Roma and see you in Sydney."


A glittering trail of stars sparkles through the sky, a reassuring guide that reminds us the very best things are ready and waiting for us. They are written in the stars. Chupi has always been in love with the stars, she is fascinated by the idea that we are all born under a celestial guardian.
Five sparkling diamonds light up the night sky in 14k solid gold. This delicate ring is designed to become part of your daily wardrobe, like invisible armour that is always with you.


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Somnambulists
"I've been here every year, watching us get old."
Strange to think that anyone would still be talking about a little hardcore punk band that originated from a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts, but here we are. Though we were only active from 1999 to 2004, There Were Wires somehow managed to leave a lasting impression on a deceptively large portion of the early 2000's east coast hardcore scene, and I don't think a single year has gone by that we haven't discussed a proper resurrection of the band in some form or another. Life gets in th way, of course. We're old men now, with kids, careers, families and obligations. But every time we all meet up, there's talk. Maybe we could share out some riffs and write some new songs for fun? Maybe we could record them and put out a 7"? Maybe we could release a complete TWW discography? Maybe we could even figure out a way to shake off all the rust and play a show, just like it was 2001 again?But time and time again, we get sparked, life steps in, and the plans fizzle. Maybe next year.
Still, the one thing that always stuck with us was the desire to release our final 2003 record 'Somnambulists' the way we had originally intended in 2003. We were very proud of our work on the album, and happy to find receptive audiences to our more expansive, lumbering songs. But timing is a motherfucker, and unfortunately the record dropped shortly before our label shuttered its doors. So while we didn't quite see the amount of promotion, distribution, and formats we hoped for, the album itself was (and is) very important to us. Ultimately, 'Somnambulists' reflects our final expression of our time together as a band, and for some of us, was our last musical contribution to the world.
So it was somewhere around 2016-20017 when Paul from TorJohnson Records contacted me to write some liner notes for the MOMENT discography release, and we started a conversation about possibly doing something with There Were Wires. Shortly afterwards, Casey Iodine returned from a 15-year walkabout with the intention to bring Iodine Records back to life. It was in this perfect storm of interest and support from Paul & Casey that we finally started putting the pieces together to make this vinyl re-release a reality. And like most things we ever did as a band, we made it all as difficult as possible by immediately being unable to locate the reels/DATS from the original recording - which delayed things by at least another two years.
Fortunately, the complete and utter dead zone of living through the age of Covid allowed us time and energy to persevere through our general lack of organization. Recordings were recovered, art and design were agreed upon, and podcast shows about old washed-up hardcore kids were booked. It's strange and exciting, not so much that we are so far removed from our former 20-something selves, but that so many people seem to be just as excited as we are for this project. We know there is no going back, and we know that we can't relive any part of our past and expect it to be what it once was. But we're hopeful that the people who cared about our relatively obscure punk band 20 years ago (and we know you are out there) will find some value in us dusting it off and polishing it for a few more spins on the turntable.
And hey, maybe 2022 will bring even more surprises.
Thanks for the love & support, friends.
~Jaime/TWW
Photo by: Aaron Pepelis, Return to the Pit
© 2022, Iodine Recordings Powered by Shopify


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Home Politico POLITICO Playbook PM: Drama in Manafort trial
POLITICO Playbook PM: Drama in Manafort trial
The judge in Paul Manafort's trial told the courtroom Thursday he may have erred in chastising prosecutors the day before. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
NEWS — "Pence announces first steps to establish Space Force by 2020," by Jacqueline Klimas: "Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday announced the first steps in the Trump administration's bid to establish a standalone military Space Force by 2020, including creating an elite group of space troops in the same vein as current special operations forces.
"Pence, in an appearance at the Pentagon, cited threats posed by adversaries like Russia and China, which are both developing anti-satellite weapons, lasers and hypersonic missiles that could threaten American reliance on space systems. …
"Pence said the administration is already working with leaders in Congress to include funding in next year's budget to stand up the new Space Force. … But the proposal to create a separate entity for space within the military is likely to draw some criticism, as previous efforts have met a lot of backlash for needlessly creating extra bureaucracy — even from within the Pentagon itself." POLITICO
— "Space Force all the way!" tweeted PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP at 12:03 p.m.
DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA — "Judge concedes fault after Mueller team protests treatment," by Josh Gerstein and Darren Samuelsohn: "The federal judge overseeing the Paul Manafort trial conceded Thursday morning that he made a mistake in chastising special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors a day earlier in front of the jury.
"Addressing the jurors before prosecutors called their first witness of the day, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis said he 'may well have been wrong' on Wednesday when he slammed the Mueller team for allowing an expert witness from the IRS to remain in the courtroom while other witnesses were testifying. …
"Mueller's team has been frustrated by repeated slapdowns from Ellis during the Manafort trial — now in its eighth day. Before court started on Thursday morning, they filed a written motion to formally protest how they had been called out over the IRS witness." POLITICO
Good Thursday afternoon. THE PRESIDENT is holding a prison reform roundtable at 4 p.m. today to discuss the "need to pass the First Step Act in Congress," according to a statement from White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley. ATTENDEES include: Govs. Matt Bevin (Ky.), Nathan Deal (Ga.), John Bel Edwards (La.), Phil Bryant (Miss.) and Doug Burgum (N.D.) and Attorneys General Pam Bondi (Fla.) and Ken Paxton (Texas). Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta will also be there, along with Jared Kushner, Zach Fuentes, Kellyanne Conway, Brooke Rollins, Shahira Knight, Doug Hoelscher, Nic Pottebaum and Ja'Ron Smith.
WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND — @realDonaldTrump at 12:02 p.m.: "This is an illegally brought Rigged Witch Hunt run by people who are totally corrupt and/or conflicted. It was started and paid for by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats. Phony Dossier, FISA disgrace and so many lying and dishonest people already fired. 17 Angry Dems? Stay tuned!"
THE LATEST ON THE INVESTIGATIONS … "Rudy's Mueller demand: No questions on Flynn, Comey," by Axios' Jonathan Swan: "Giuliani told Axios that there are two topics the president's lawyers want to rule out in order to agree to a Trump sit-down with Mueller: Why Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. What Trump said to Comey about the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
"Giuliani mentioned those as if they were minor details — totally reasonable areas for Mueller to agree to avoid. In fact, they're central to the question of whether Trump obstructed justice." Axios
— "Rudy Giuliani puts odds of a Trump-Mueller interview at '50-50,'" by CBS' Major Garrett: CBS
A message from AARP:
Will Arizona swing blue this election and what is the role of Hispanic voters over 50? The latest issue of "The Deciders," looks at Maricopa County Arizona to ask if voter turnout or identity politics will decide the day? Visit politico.com/thedeciders to learn more.
SCOTUS WATCH — JUST POSTED: "Email exposes Kavanaugh to questions about role in terrorism response," by Eliana Johnson: "A 2001 email from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is likely to reignite a debate over his involvement in making the legal case for the Bush administration's treatment of terrorist suspects — and whether he misled Congress about it.
"The email … indicates that Kavanaugh, then a White House lawyer, helped to prepare then attorney general John Ashcroft to testify before Congress on the federal government's monitoring of communications between terrorists in federal custody and their attorneys.
"Democrats are likely to seize on the communication to argue that he misled them during his 2006 confirmation to the D.C. Circuit when, pressed about whether he had helped to make the legal case for torture, he denied any involvement in discussions about the treatment of enemy combatants. The White House, however, argues that the email … strengthens the judge's case." POLITICO
— "Bush team makes decision on Kavanaugh documents to publicly release," by CNN's Manu Raju: "The records are expected to be publicly available as soon as Thursday, but they will not include documents from Kavanaugh's time serving as White House staff secretary from 2003-2006, as Democrats have demanded. Republicans have said such records would not be useful in determining how Kavanaugh would rule as a Supreme Court justice." CNN
TRADE WARS — "U.S. Seafood Industry Vulnerable to Tariffs Aimed at China," by WSJ's Heather Haddon and Jesse Newman: "Proposed 10% duties by the Trump administration last month on $ 200 billion worth of imports from China included dozens of varieties of fish, from tilapia to tuna. … An estimated $ 900 million worth of fish and seafood on that list is first caught in the U.S., sent to China for processing into items like fish sticks and fillets, and then imported by U.S. companies to sell to American consumers.
"Because fish sellers are in a low-margin business, they would need to pass on higher prices to restaurant and grocery customers, which in turn would likely raise prices for consumers, companies said." WSJ
— "U.S. carmakers hit with Chinese tariffs as trade war changes gear," by South China Morning Post's Sarah Zheng: SCMP
2018 WATCH — "The Democratic Party's New Litmus Test: Gun Control," by WSJ's Reid Epstein: "Democrats running for Congress in 2018 are pushing a muscular gun-control agenda that represents a wholesale repositioning on the hot-button issue. In this year's midterm election, gun control has become a party litmus test from which few dissent, alongside abortion rights and support for same-sex marriage.
"Six years ago, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee advised candidates in rural districts to show themselves with guns in their TV ads, the National Rifle Association made campaign contributions to 30 Democratic House candidates. This year, the NRA is financially backing just three." WSJ
— "In Virginia, Women Form an Insurgency to Try to Topple Republican Dave Brat," by NYT's Mike Tackett in Midlothian, Virginia: "For Republicans, Mr. Brat's race is a bulwark in their defensive perimeter, the kind of district they must win to keep control of the House. The area's mix of affluent suburbs and conservative rural stretches resembles the Ohio district where a Republican candidate in a House special election on Tuesday, Troy Balderson, clings to a narrow lead.
"For Democrats, [Abigail] Spanberger's candidacy represents a test of the breadth and effectiveness of their coalition of newly emboldened female voters aghast at President Trump's White House tenure — and the ability of fed-up women to build an insurgency of their own." NYT
— YA CAN'T MAKE IT UP — "This 14-year-old is running for governor before he can even vote," by WaPo's Kayla Epstein in Burlington, Vermont: "Unlike most states, Vermont has no age requirement for gubernatorial candidates, only a residency requirement. [Ethan] Sonneborn, who has lived in Bristol for 14 years — his entire life — makes the cut.
"Sonneborn declared his candidacy for governor back in August 2017, and then told his parents about it. After the secretary of state consulted with the attorney general, it was decided that he would be allowed to run, but his parents would have to sign a form acknowledging that they knew he was running and didn't oppose him doing so. No big! He got their permission." WaPo
WAR REPORT — "Dozens dead after school bus carrying children hit by airstrike in Yemen," by CNN's Hakim Almasmari, Sarah El Sirgany and Tamara Qiblawi: "Dozens of children, many under the age of 10, have been killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a school bus in northern Yemen on Thursday. The children were on a summer school field trip when their bus was struck at a market, the first stop of the day, killing 50 and injuring 77. …
"Following the strike, the United States, which largely supports the coalition's campaign, issued a statement. 'US military support to our partners mitigates noncombatant casualties,' said Pentagon spokeswoman Rebecca Rebarich, according to the statement." CNN
— Sen. Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT): "U.S. bombs. U.S. targeting. U.S. mid air support. And we just bombed a SCHOOL BUS. The Saudi/UAE/U.S. bombing campaign is getting more reckless, killing more civilians, and strengthening terrorists inside Yemen. We need to end this — NOW."
AT THE PENTAGON — "For now, Army suspends discharges of immigrant recruits," by AP's Martha Mendoza and Garance Burke: "The U.S. Army has stopped discharging immigrant recruits who enlisted seeking a path to citizenship — at least temporarily.
"A memo shared with The Associated Press on Wednesday and dated July 20 spells out orders to high-ranking Army officials to stop processing discharges of men and women who enlisted in the special immigrant program, effective immediately." AP
NBC'S TOM WINTER and JOE VALIQUETTE: "Massachusetts man arrested for threatening ICE agents on Twitter": "Brandon Ziobrowski, 33, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was arrested Thursday morning after posting on Twitter in July that he would give $ 500 to anyone who would kill an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent." NBC
IN PUERTO RICO — "Puerto Rican Government Acknowledges Hurricane Death Toll of 1,427," by NYT's Frances Robles: "[I]n a draft of a report to Congress requesting $ 139 billion in recovery funds … the Puerto Rican government admits that 1,427 more people died in the last four months of 2017 compared with the same time frame in the previous year. The figures came from death registry statistics that were released in June, but which were never publicly acknowledged by officials on the island." NYT
— REMEMBER, other independent studies have placed the death toll several thousand higher.
VALLEY TALK — NYT'S MAX FISHER: "With Alex Jones, Facebook's Worst Demons Abroad Begin to Come Home": "Developing countries' experiences with Facebook suggest that the company, however noble its intent, has set in motion a series of problems we are only beginning to understand and that the company has proved unable or unwilling to fully address:
"Reality-distorting misinformation that can run rampant on the newsfeed, which promotes content that will reliably engage users. Extremism and hate speech that tap into users' darkest impulses, and polarize politics. Malicious actors granted near-limitless reach on one of the most sophisticated communications platforms in history, relatively unchecked by social norms or traditional gatekeepers. And a private company uneager to wade into contentious debates, much less pick winners and losers.
"Facebook — and many Westerners — have long treated those issues as safely 'over there' … But chillingly similar Facebook-linked problems are becoming increasingly visible in wealthy, developed countries like the United States." NYT
MEGATRENDS — "How Your Brain Tricks You Into Believing Fake News," by Time's Katy Steinmetz: "The problem is not just malicious bots or chaos-loving trolls or Macedonian teenagers pushing phony stories for profit. The problem is also us, the susceptible readers. And experts like [Sam] Wineburg believe that the better we understand the way we think in the digital world, the better chance we have to be part of the solution." Time
MEDIAWATCH — "Tribune pulls out of Sinclair deal as conservative broadcaster's expansion plan collapses," by Margaret Harding McGill: "Tribune Media on Thursday withdrew from its $ 3.9 billion acquisition at the hands of Sinclair Broadcast Group and announced it's suing the conservative mega-broadcaster for breach of contract. The company said Sinclair failed to uphold its contractual obligation to make reasonable best efforts to get regulatory sign-off as quickly as possible." POLITICO
— Robert Donachie is heading to the Washington Examiner to be a White House correspondent. He most recently has been a Capitol Hill reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. … Beatrice Jin is joining POLITICO as a graphics reporter on the interactive news team. She most recently worked at the AP.
SPOTTED: Tommy Hicks Jr. chatting with former President George W. Bush yesterday at the Cooper Fitness Center in Dallas.
TRANSITIONS — Natalie McLaughlin is now working in media relations at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She previously was communications director for Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.). … Katie Niederee will be Senate Finance Committee majority communications director. Current communications director Julia Lawless is leaving the committee after almost eight years.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Samantha Segall, VP of government affairs at Leidos and an SAIC and Ken Calvert alum, and Zach Dittler welcomed Sophia Segall Dittler. Pic … Another pic
— Erika Richter, director of communications at the American Society of Travel Agents, and John Hauser welcomed Emma Ashleigh Richter. Pic
— Rowan Morris, director at Guggenheim Partners and an alum of Jefferies, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital, and Britta Towle, account supervisor at BATTALION PR, welcomed Madeleine Elizabeth Morris.
What issues matter most to Hispanic voters over 50. Visit politico.com/thedeciders to read the latest editorial package.
Tags: drama, Manafort, playbook, POLITICO, Trial
Democrats put Florida election law on trial


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The type of theodicy proposed by Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) provides a case for the existence of a perfectly good and omnipotent divine being (ie. God) in the face of the presence of evil suffered by worldly creatures, and the theoretical problem generated thereby. In doing so, he utilises both Christian theology and neo-Platonic philosophy.
Unfortunately, the Augustinian theodicy fails ad hoc to both coherently account for the existence of evil in the known universe and to consistently defend the existence of a perfectly good ultimate reality (God) in the face of that existence. In short, Augustine falls short of attaining exactly what a theodicy is structured to accomplish.
It appears that the main problem here functions around the attempted reconciliation of philosophical and theological ideas and the combination of conceptions which by themselves could be considered to be sound. For example, the argument for evil as the privation of good taken from Christian theology may be sound in itself, but when it is combined with the philosophical existentialist conception of necessary 'non-being' it is found to be untenable on the grounds of philosophical inquiry.
Although this theodicy may have been quite applicable to the 4th-5th century world, modern philosophy enjoys many more years of critical inquiry and enables an identification of it as wholly inadequate. Instead of departing with a clear understanding of evil and of God as a perfectly good and infallible reality, one is left wondering what exactly the purpose of evil in the universe entails, and appreciating God as a contradiction of Christian faith. In his attempt to reconcile both theology and philosophy, Augustine fails to remain coherent within the confines of both.
(1) God is a perfect reality.
(2) A perfect reality is an omnipotent being.
(3) An omnipotent being could single-handedly create a world in which genuine evil was not a part.
(4) A perfect reality is a morally perfect being.
(5) A morally perfect being would desire creation of a world in which genuine evil was absent.
(6) The existence of genuine evil in the world would mean that there is no perfect, omnipotent, morally perfect being who created it.
(7) Genuine evil does exist in the world.
(8) Thus there is no perfect, omnipotent, morally perfect being who created the world (ie.God).
 David Ray Griffin, "Augustine and the Denial of Genuine Evil." In The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings, ed. Michael L. Peterson (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 213.
The first strand, and that on which the entire theodicy stems from, is that of the goodness of creation. According to Augustine, everything in the world is by nature derivatively good as it represents the divine creativity, positive will, and endorsement of the perfectly good being who created it. Important to note in this strand is that Augustine equates existence with goodness, rendering even what human beings would consider to be evil as essentially good.
The second strand, possibly the most decisive of his whole theodicy, is that of denoting worldly pain and suffering as sin and its consequences - particularly of that first initial human sin which resulted in the 'Fall' of humanity. It is within this strand that we find Augustine's argument that all pain and suffering is caused by misuse of human free will. Because of the gravity of the transgression of the first human beings and the severe punishment meted out in response, humanity faces a world in which they are susceptible to death and disease and sin. According to this view, absolutely no human being is deemed to be truly innocent and shall suffer just consequences throughout their worldly lives.
Thirdly, Augustine proposes the 'Fall' of humanity as a great good within itself, known as the doctrine of felix culpa. In order to uphold the notion of a perfectly good and moral divine being, it is contended that in allowing His free and rational creatures (ie humanity) to sin - thus permitting the existence of evil in the world - God intended to bring about an even greater good than would have been possible without it. According to Augustine, this greater good is that of final redemption.
Finally, in connection to his argument of the inherent goodness of creation, Augustine designates evil as a 'non-being' – that is, the privation of something good. According to this view, evil represents nothing more than a deficiency of something good and has no positive value of its own. In other words, there exists no genuine evil, only the metaphysical evil of sin which, when understood in light of the doctrine of felix culpa, is good as it forms the basis for an even greater good.
Do you agree with the author's evaluation of the Augustinian theodicy?
Now that the key strands of Augustinian theodicy have been discussed, it is possible to critically evaluate the validity of his premises, and whether or not they can be taken as sound.
Underlying the Augustinian theodicy is a strong foundation in the omnipotence, immutability and omniscience of God. Unfortunately, this foundation threatens to undermine the whole theodicy as it seemingly contradicts the reality of free choice and will.
Key to the Augustinian understanding of God as omniscient is the conception of God as immutable, as God knows everything it is logically impossible that this knowledge can be increased or decreased. It thus follows that God is prescient, that he foreknows everything that will ever happen. According to this understanding, there is no possibility that human beings could do different to what God foreknows; it is necessary that a human being do/will what it is that God foreknows that they will do/will.
Similarly, the Augustinian definition of God as omnipotent renders human free choice and will logically impossible. The presence of evil in the world as a sin and the punishment caused thereof suggests that in the operation of their free will, human beings can go contrary to the divine will. However, according to this definition of God there is nothing in the world that does not exist unless willed by Him which, in addition to contradicting human free will, places the blame for sin and evil at His very feet.
Needless to say, these understandings of God render human free will as illusory, and are directly at odds with the Augustinian notion that human beings are morally responsible for their sins. It is thus that I believe these most fundamental premises to wholly contradict the entire argument that God allows evil to exist as just punishment of those who misuse their free will.
In order to justify the premise that there exists no genuine evil in the universe, Augustine employs a biblical and neo-Platonic approach of the universe as inherently good. According to the biblical aspect of this approach, the universe is inherently good as God has specifically willed and affirmed it. The neo-Platonic aspect denotes being and goodness as irrevocably intertwined, and understands them as emanations of the ultimate divine Being.
In order for this understanding to not be rendered as a purely emanationist theory - vital if it is to not be completely divorced from its Christian context - it is necessary to appraise its validity within Christian theology. It is here that difficulties are encountered as the Christian gospel clearly states that there is nothing which is ultimately good but God alone (Mk 10:18). It is thus clear that this argument is at the very least partially incoherent when applied within a Christian framework and accordingly cannot stand as a wholly consistent argument for the absence of genuine evil in the universe. Furthermore, the fact of this incoherence throws the door wide open to suspicion regarding Augustine's understanding of evil and God's role therein as it suggests that God created a universe in which evil nature is a feature. According to this. He is responsible for such natures and the presence of evil in the universe as a whole.
According to the Augustinian use of the doctrine of the 'Fall', humankind was created as perfect creatures and was placed by God in a perfect milieu. However, these perfect creatures transgressed and became the location for the creation of evil ex-nihilo. It is thus that they are now found to be wholly responsible for the existence of sin and evil in the universe.
Unfortunately for the theodicy, I believe that it is clear that this argument is entirely unsound as a philosophical premise, as it inevitably encounters an incontrovertible 'catch 22' which renders God as ultimately responsible for the moral failings of humanity. If it is true that humankind was created as unqualifiedly perfect, then how exactly was it that they came to sin? It is logically impossible that such beings would have the capability to needlessly sin in the first place. It is thus necessary to assert that humanity was not created good in this sense, rather that they were formed as morally imperfect beings. However, if this is the case then God is responsible for our ability for moral failing and thus cannot justly punish us on account of what Augustine considers as our misuse of free will.
Furthermore, the connection between this account of the 'Fall' and the present situation of the universe regarding evil operates fundamentally on a historical understanding, viewing the 'Fall' as a concrete historical fact. However, I believe that scientific knowledge regarding the order and structure of nature suggests this to be logically unlikely.
This doctrine states that God, who is perfectly good, allows evil to exist in the form of sin only to enable him to bring about a greater good (ie redemption) than would have been possible without it. However, when considered in light of another conception of Augustine's theodicy, the doctrine of eternal damnation, this argument is rendered incoherent.
According to the doctrine of eternal damnation and punishment, the majority of humanity will never be liberated from their aberrant state and God will never bring a greater good out of the evil of sin. As such, the divine will insofar as He brings about this greater good is left as frustrated. However, the Augustinian theodicy operates on the basis that God is omnipotent and omniscient. As such, the will of God is unable to be frustrated and He foreknows everything that will ever occur. It is thus that this theodicy encounters what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle in the notion of a God who creates beings that He knows will be left outside the boundaries of the greater good of redemption, whose evil will never be vindicated within the universe by that good.
But how exactly does this fit with the understanding of a perfectly good God? If God has created the nature of those who He knows will never be redeemed, how is it then possible that this perfectly good God operates as blameless in regard to evil? Is it not then a case of Him creating individuals whom He knows will bring about unanswered evil in the world?
According to this argument, evil has no positive existence of its own but rather operates as a privation of something good. This is not to deny that evil is present in the universe, but rather evil exists as something which is understood as a 'negatively positive' reality, as not having any existence of its own without connection with the reality of good.
However, this affirmation is rendered as arbitrary when it is taken outside of the Christian framework, which functions on the principle that it is good that is primary, not evil. When understood as apart from this arrangement, it makes no logical sense that good should be taken as primary over and against the superiority of evil as an absolute component of the universe. This is most clearly seen when examining the human experience in which both evil and good are encountered as equivalently imminent and imperative in the course of living as mortal beings in a physical world. It is thus that in the absence of a Christian structure, this argument fails to explain even the base reality of evil in the universe.
Furthermore, the inconsistency which plagues Augustine's theodicy is evident in the fact that the argument of the goodness of creation cannot be validly upheld in light of the Christian theological context and yet that of evil as the privation of good cannot be accepted without such a framework. I believe that in the face of such logical incoherence and inconsistency this premise cannot be taken as sound and must accordingly be dismissed as a valid conclusion for the nature of evil from the argument that creation is inherently good.
 Which is rendered from a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2.
 John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 171.
Draper, Paul. "The Problem of Evil." In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Inquiry, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, 332-351. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Feinberg, John S. The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004.
Frankfurt, Harry G, "The Logic of Omnipotence." In Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, edited by Louis P. Pojman, 281-282. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998.
Griffin, David Ray. "Augustine and the Denial of Genuine Evil." In The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings, edited by Michael L. Peterson, 197-214. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Hume, David. "Evil and the God of Religion." In the Problem of Evil: Selected Readings, edited by Michael L. Peterson, 39-56. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
Leibniz, Gottfried. "Theodicy: A Defense of Theism." In Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, edited by Louis P. Pojman, 172-177. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998.
Mackie, J. L. "Evil and Omnipotence." In Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, edited by Louis P. Pojman, 186-193. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998.
Murray, Michael J. "Theodicy." In the Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Inquiry, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, 352-373. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Phillips, D.Z. The Problem of Evil & the Problem of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.
Pike, Nelson. "God's Foreknowledge and Human Free Will Are Incompatible." In Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, edited by Louis P. Pojman, 261-271. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998.
Thanks for taking an interest and taking the time to comment guys! It's heartening to see that other people find this stuff as fascinating and engaging as I do!
What you have described is the paradox of free will, and something I have trouble getting my head around. The Abrahamic God is understood to be omniscient, yet our free will as human beings by its very nature contradicts this characteristic. It's a tough one and I'm still trying to figure my way through it. I'll keep you posted haha.
Thanks for the critique - the theoretical problem I described was taken from the work of David Griffin and is purely a bare-bones argument from logic. The problem you present is exactly that which with I take issue regarding many of the classical arguments for the existence of God. Many, while they have their own valuable lessons to teach, are antiquated and need to be revised in order to be either rejected or applied within the modern context. Unfortunately, the most common responses to difficult moral and theological questions find their roots in theodicies and theologies such as Augustines. It is an irritating habit.
Thanks for posting this hub. It is well written and tackles the issue head-on. There is perhaps a slight weakness in your presented argument in steps 5 and 6, but the weakness is not fatal to your argument.
"(5) A morally perfect being would desire creation of a world in which genuine evil was absent."
There is a question of how to judge the likelihood of our being able to make these distinctions about what an absolute goodness "would desire." It opens up the possibility for the Christian argument to make an entry into the arena.
Unfortunately for that Christian argument, it fails on too many levels to be considered a coherent presentation. The argument fails and is "resurrected" only by the traditional appeal to authority and abdication of responsibility found in the easily recited excuse about God's infinite wisdom being too difficult for mortals to comprehend.
Those who try to "explain" where you went wrong simply miss the points you have made. But who would expect them to avoid trying? …with all of the same arguments and all of the very same (logically unfortunate) results.
Interestingly, there are arguments for the existence of god, but the Christian or other Abrahamic ones don't cut the mustard. That kind of a god is so full of contradictions that no logic can excuse, that he becomes the ultimate contradiction in an otherwise fairly well-regulated Universe.
I find this to be an endlessly fascinating topic.
Regarding "The Theoretical Problem of Evil"
Evil is made possible through free will. With free will God really did make a boulder so large even He can't move it. A free will is a will apart from His. Free will makes us creators. We add things to this universe that are not 'of God' but are 'of us'. For us to have our own minds and wills, then evil must be possible. Evil simply being harmful actions outside of God's will.
Also, God's omnipotence does not remove, or contradict, free will. God having fore-knowledge of our actions does not remove our capability to choose freely in any given moment. Besides, it is possible that humans can do something God did not anticipate. An example can be seen in Genesis 6. In this chapter it's explaining why the flood was necessary. It says the 'sons of God' had children with the 'daughters of humans', who it explains are mortal and only live 120 years. It then makes the interesting statement that God "regretted putting humans on the earth". If Adam/Eve were the introduction of free will into the world, a world that was otherwise "good" as deemed by God in Gen1, because free will is a will apart from His, even with God's ability to see all time all at once, He could not know what would happen once free will was introduced until it was done. Having made humans in the same 'image' and 'likeness', He did not anticipate the 'sons of God' (Adam's descendants) mating and procreating with humans, which then introduced free will into humanity, making them 'wicked'. Wickedness is only possible through free will. From God's perspective there are two timelines in this scenario, one without free will and one with. Until free will was a part of reality He really couldn't know what would happen. Another example is God's testing of Abraham. If Abraham were never put in a position where he'd have to make that choice, then God would not be able to see His choice because it doesn't exist. God actually had to create the situation that then made Abraham make a decision so God could then see it.


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Japan's Rakuten Buys Viber Messaging Service for $900M
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten also owns Buy.com and Kobo.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/japans-rakuten-buys-viber-messaging-service-for-900m
Instant messaging app Viber has been acquired by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, owner of Buy.com and Kobo, for $900 million.
The free messaging and VoIP service boasts a global user base of 300 million registered users, and spans smartphone, tablet, and PC platforms.
"Simply put, Viber understands how people actually want to engage and have built the only service that truly delivers on all fronts," Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said in a statement. "This makes Viber the ideal total consumer engagement platform for Rakuten as we seek to bring our deep understanding of the consumer to vast new audiences through our dynamic ecosystem of Internet services."
Viber joins the 40 services that help make up Rakuten's Web ecosystem, which is centered around a "Super Points" rewards program. Rakuten has approximately 225 million global members, while Viber's user base grew more than 120 percent last year.
"Rakuten is one of the world's most important Internet companies. It is truly dominant in its home market of Japan and has been rapidly expanding globally," Viber CEO Talmon Marco said. "This combination presents an amazing opportunity for Viber to enhance our rapid user growth in both existing and new markets."
"Sharing similar aspirations with Rakuten, our vision is to be the world's No. 1 communications platform and our combination with Rakuten is an important step in that direction," Marco said.
For more, see PCMag's review of Viber for Android and the slideshow above.
Apple Will Let Dating Apps in the Netherlands Use Alternative Payments
Fortnite Returns to iOS Via Nvidia GeForce Now Game Streaming
The Best Weather Apps for 2022
By Max Eddy & Jordan Minor
TikTok & Beyond: The Best Mobile Video Editing Apps


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Reflection: Rebecca Hallman Martini, Founding Editor
Rebecca Hallman Martini, University of Georgia
Dear TPR Readers,
As I prepared to write my final piece as a TPR editorial team member, I read the other letters and reflections written by the incoming team. I am excited by their smart, progressive guidance, and cannot help but feel especially inspired by the strong voices of the two graduate co-editors, Morgan Banville and Yanar Hashlamon. When I started this journal in 2014, I envisioned TPR as a place for new and emerging scholars, not only to publish their work, but also to learn more about the publishing process in writing center studies. As these voices became more prominent, TPR's mission seemed to shift, to also become about social justice and about, as Yanar explains it, "dwelling in discomfort." In this way, TPR is not simply a place for emerging scholars to learn; it is a place for them to speak and for the rest of us to listen.
When we listen, we can learn so much about how our field operates and how we need to change. It is my hope that TPR continues to be a place for these scholars in our field. I hope TPR continues to publish the messy and the risky, the research that calls out and demands accountability, and the writers who are not initially ready for publication but can be through mentorship and guidance. I hope TPR will be transparent about its publication process and give writers the benefit of the doubt as they are recognized as people learning how to make their way through the odd and often unsupportive experience of academic publishing. I hope TPR will be a space for the experimental rather than the safe, the new rather than the familiar.
I owe much gratitude to many people who believed in TPR from the beginning, especially Kevin Dvorak, the president of IWCA when the journal started, and to all of the attendees of the 2014 IWCA Summer Institute. What I originally pitched as a blog for graduate students became TPR. Thanks to Sherry Wynn Perdue for serving as the first professional co-editor and for her early support and guidance; to Kelsey Hixson-Bowles for teaching me a great deal about editorial organization and professionalism; to Ashley Cerku for being the first Managing Editor and for staying on board well beyond her original term (she is the kind of person I wish I had with me for every project I do, as her careful eye is what kept TPR afloat in the early days and on top things it later down the road); and to Travis DuBose for saving the journal's platform almost single-handedly. Without him, TPR would not have been open-access and multimodal, and his cleverness and skill helped establish the journal as more accessible and inclusive venue. Thanks to my dear friend and collaborator, Travis Webster, whose work in developing and co-editing TPR's first special issue with me, "Writing Centers as Brave/r Spaces," helped me to realize all that TPR could become. Thank you to all of the authors who have trusted TPR with their work, the reviewers whose selfless work over the years and commitment to TPR's vision has made the journal possible, and to IWCA for supporting the journal since its beginning.
Above all, thank you to TPR's current editorial team: Nikki Caswell, Yanar Hashlamon, Morgan Banville, Randall Monty, and Karen Moroski-Rigney. I am so thrilled that you have all chosen to invest your time, energy, and creativity in TPR, and I cannot wait to see what comes next.
Book Review: Re/Writing the Center: Approaches to Supporting Graduate Students in the Writing Center
Dyslexia in the Writing Center: Multimodal Strategies
Emotional Labor, Postnatal Writerly Identity: Postpartum Depression and the Writing Center
Reflection: Ashley Cerku, Former Managing Editor
Reflection: Karen Moroski-Rigney, Managing Editor
Reflection: Morgan Banville, Graduate Co-Editor
Reflection: Nikki Caswell, Editor
Reflection: Yanar Hashlamon, Graduate Co-Editor


Resource access synchronization within concurrent processes or threads is implemented using various constructs such as semaphores, monitor locks, Mutex, etc. The algorithm supporting most of these structures works by keeping at bay all other concurrent processes or threads till the current process accessing the resource has successfully relinquished the resource. This works very well as race conditions are controlled and shared data state remains consistent. The problem with this approach is performance in terms of system response. When each thread has to wait for the other to finish accessing the resource before it can proceed, a long line waiting threads can easily build-up, which obviously translates to relatively slow system response. In this paper, we propose contextual synchronization model to avoid where applicable, the unnecessary build-up of threads waiting for access to the resource. This model describes different contexts within which a resource access can be executed. Each model is ascribed different priorities of which different policies were applied. The most important feature of this model is that the context representing plain resource access will not cause any race condition if all other threads are accessing from the same context. The result of our experiment shows that context-based synchronization performs better than Java given the same number of threads.
Keywords: Aspect-oriented programming, synchronization, resource, and concurrent process.


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text:
Advice For Dealing With Boss
Dealing With Clients
Coming to you pre-recorded from the Netcast Studios.
No, this is live.
If you believe this is live, I've got a bridge for you.
Myself, and Paul. And Andy's still on vacation for another week.
In the Caribbean.
Andy come home, we miss you.
How come I don't get two weeks off?
I'll give you two weeks off. With pay.
Without pay.
With his pay.
I'm sold.
So Paul, what are we going to talk about tonight?
We're going to talk about client,
Tales from the client.
Client war stories.
Client war stories?
Lee, who's the most
See, I have all wonderful clients. How could I have a war story with one of my clients?
Oh come on. You got laid or something. Tell me something interesting.
I got laid? Oh I want to hear this story.
You know, what are one of the most interesting client kind of meetings you've ever had?
I had a interesting meeting the other night, actually. I drove all the way up to Calastoga, and I met with some friends who actually Paul, you happen to know who the company is
He went to jail, but we won't mention that.
Here we go. No, no. This is a bad start.
Anonymity.
Well, there's a lot of stories around, but it was wonderful. Because when I got there, everybody hugged everybody, which I liked that. I like to have meetings with clients where everybody hugs.
Well, that's a San Francisco kind of thing.
Hey, hugging is not San Francisco. Hugging is just nice.
It is. And it's wonderful.
And friendly.
And you know, now I think everybody out there by now knows that I do consulting that is all FileMaker work, it's all programming, basically,
But I have one of the most wonder clients, and we all, and I hug most of my clients. That's just the way it is.
Oh hug. So tell me about, I mean, what's the uh,
You're lookin for dirt, aren't you?
Look at you Mr. Commentator. He says everything's wonderful, and his life is going great, and you're like no, no, really. Let's hear the dirt.
Let's hear what really went bad.
You remind me of those Hollywood trash, whatever, you know. Magazine things,
Right. The Tabloids.
I mean, for the most part, all I have are really good stories. I mean my clients from a personal standpoint of view, are not problems. I mean computers can be a problem, software can be a problem, those things are problems, but the people I work with are great.
Ok, just tell me interesting, just tell me
Oh hey, Mr. Soapbox guy, why don't you tell a story, put Lee on the spot here.
Yeah, let's hear some of your dirt here, Mr. Sanneman.
Well it's not dirt, first I have a client, and some clients have the same meeting every week.
That's true.
And I mean, you know, I work with a couple clients that you keep telling them the same thing over and over and over again. And I guess you just tell them, I guess it's like 17 different ways, it's sort of like drip torture, and you eventually try to get them to move a little bit on the behavior. But
Behaviors are hard to move. So sometimes it takes
Repetition.
Yeah. And those are a little frustrating as clients.
Now, I have a question related to our listeners, and hearing things over and over again. We've tried not to repeat too much on our shows, sometimes we do occasionally. And I wonder if that's helpful?
I don't think that's a big deal.
Do you think it helps?
We all go see, well you don't see movies because you're not like that. But the normal people like to go see movies all the time, and there's only plot lines to a movie, or something like that.
In the world, yeah.
And that's why movies are boring.
And there's a bad guy and a good guy, and the girl gets saved.
And most the movies now are a lot of explosions and bangs.
Right. They're chase scenes. It's the same old movie. And good guy always wins. But it's interesting,
Except in European film...
Mark John said:
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Having a clogging drain can be a major problem. Best case scenario, your sink is draining slowly. Worst case scenario, it smells foul, is not draining, and is unhealthy for the people in your home.
As such, it is understandable that you would want to take care of it ASAP, but to do so, you should should hesitate before reaching for a bottle of liquid drain cleaner.
Drain cleaners come in many different forms and formulas. Despite the variety available for purchase, they all work in a similar way. After you pour them down the drain, they hit the blockage and start a chemical reaction. This chemical reaction produces heat and gas, which together dissolve and work out the clog, clearing the drain. Chemicals commonly used in these products include lye, caustic potash, peroxide, bleach, and hydrochloric acid, all of which have the potential to be very dangerous.
Why Can These Liquid Drain Cleaners Be Problematic?
When you are weighing using a liquid drain cleaner against calling a plumber for help, it would seem that the drain cleaner wins hands down. It's cheaper than a plumbing service, and if you already have it in the house, it's faster too. But once you understand the problems liquid drain cleaners can cause, you will understand why using them isn't the best choice to make.
All commercial drain cleaners are toxic, and the off-brand varieties are exceptionally bad. The fumes the cleaners put off when used are dangerous to inhale and can irritate the nose, throat, eyes, and lungs. These dangerous fumes are present for hours after the use of the drain cleaner, posing health problems for everyone in your home or business.
While the exact chemical formula of the drain cleaner can vary, nearly all commercial drain cleaners will have hydrochloric acid as one of the ingredients. While this chemical is highly effective at dissolving the items clogging your pipes, it is also effective at eating away at the pipes themselves. This weakens them, especially with repeated use, and can result in the need to replace the pipes much sooner than natural aging would demand.
Sometimes the item clogging your drain cannot be easily dissolved by a chemical solution. And in some cases, the reason your pipes are not draining correctly has more to do with a damaged pipe than a clog within it. In these cases, liquid drain cleaners are not going to help you.
While there are necessary household items that are also dangerous to children and pets, if you don't need one of those items, why have it around and raise the risk? Liquid drain cleaners are dangerous even to smell, making them a serious hazard in homes with pets and children.
Try using a plunger. For sinks, use a plunger designed specifically for the sink. Never use the same plunger as you use for the toilet.
Use a more natural remedy, such as baking soda and vinegar.
Purchase a snake tool to work out the clog yourself.
If you are ready to get professional assistance, give us a call. Our trained technicians are here and ready to get to work for you. No matter the reason for your drain trouble, we can offer you the solution you need.


Educated at Royal Art Academy in 1875, Lund worked primarily with land and cityscapes from Scandinavia. Lund was influenced by Peter Mønsted concerning his use of colour and lights. Lund also worked with porcelain while he painted and worked for the Royal Porcelain Fabric from 1872-1895 and worked with Herman A. Kähler from 1886-1888. Lund is known for his great ability to capture the Nordic charm and his scenes always shines with lights and charisma.
Carl O.J. Lund is listed in artprice.com where he has been sold for $2,469.


It truly is most common to see teenagers, or at least teenagers, indulging in'glowsticking' dance (dancing whilst waving a shine rod at the air) or putting on glow in the dark necklaces or bracelets on a nighttime out. But, various models of the glow rod technology can also be used in several services and products for kids, that are also enchanted with the bright luminescence of glow sticks.
Glowsticks have spread in popularity all over the world, and can now be noticed at any huge open atmosphere function, from man Fawkes' Nighttime into Chinese New Year. They can be sold at these events so that revelers can have fun'glowsticking;' or using them as jewelry; but additionally because they're a fantastic approach to keep tabs on people. Kiddies specifically can often be tracked by getting them to utilize brightly-coloured glow in the dark necklaces or bracelets. In dark, crowded conditions, it considerably reduces a mother or father's inevitable stress to keep their kiddies visible; along with their reliable bright gentle and very low priced, there's no better way to achieve that than using shine sticks. What helps make them even better is the simple fact that, for most kids, shine from the darkened jewellery or toys are a magical special cure glow in the dark rocks!
Nowthere are lots more options for children's shine from the black products. One among the most obvious could be that the possibility of shopping for multiple-use LED glow sticks, and which is turned on and off, and taken fully to a lot of unique occasions. Therefore children can celebrate with them Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Night, then play them at xmas, also still have their shine sticks willing to make use of see in the New Year!
youpersonally. If those seem overly complex or fiddly, you can go the simple path of buying clothes with shine in the darkened styles or amounts on for the young ones. This will make them subway out uniquely in audiences, and also without a further trouble compared to a normal dressing for a nighttime outside.
There is absolutely no reason never to bring that special glow indoors. There certainly are always a complete assortment of night lights offered which utilize exactly the same eco-friendly tech, and are amazing for little ones that could still become considered a small fearful of the dark. Many of these night lights alter colour, for additional pleasure; a few combine alert clocks together with shine in the dark nighttime light; and also some come in many shapes of children' favourite figures. All shine at the dark night lights help children to truly feel protected and safe in the nighttime time. Plus it doesn't stop at conventional night light: why don't you secure your son or daughter some glow in the dim stars? These are able to be adhered into your ceiling, replicating the actual night sky for an all natural, soothing kind of nighttime light – or just one acceptable for budding astrological geniuses!


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text:
package uk.ac.ed.inf.proj.xmlnormaliser.parser.dtd;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

import uk.ac.ed.inf.proj.xmlnormaliser.parser.dtd.DTD.DTDType;

/**
 * A class with a static method to parse a DTD into a POJO
 * TODO: multiple attributes
 * TODO: handle entities
 * TODO: parse/represent element type definition better + detect the DTD type
 * @author Tomas Tauber
 *
 */
public class DTDParser {

	public class DTDParserException extends Exception {
		private static final long serialVersionUID = 2667105558275959268L;
		public DTDParserException(String message) {
			super(message);
		}
	}

	private static final Pattern ELEMENT_REGEX = Pattern.compile("<!ELEMENT\\s+\\w+\\s+[^>]+");
	private static final Pattern ATTLIST_REGEX = Pattern.compile("<!ATTLIST\\s+\\w+\\s+\\w+");
	private static final Pattern DOCTYPE_REGEX = Pattern.compile("<!DOCTYPE\\s+\\w+");
	private static final Pattern TOKEN_REGEX = Pattern.compile("(#)?(\\w|_)+[\\*]?");

	private DTDParser() {
	}

	/**
	 * Gets all tokens from a given children string
	 * @param children
	 * @return array of tokens
	 */
	public static String[] getTokens(String children) {
		if (children.equals("EMPTY")) {
			return new String[] {};
		} else {
			Matcher tokens = TOKEN_REGEX.matcher(children);
			ArrayList<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
			while (tokens.find()) {
				result.add(tokens.group());
			}
			String[] resultarray = new String[result.size()];
			return result.toArray(resultarray);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Extracts the main information from DTD string and returns an object
	 * @param document string to parse
	 * @return the DTD object containing all information
	 * @throws DTDParserException
	 */
	private static DTD extractInformation(String document) {
		DTD result = new DTD();
		Matcher elements = ELEMENT_REGEX.matcher(document);
		// find element definitions
		while (elements.find()) {
			String element = elements.group().replace("<!ELEMENT", "").trim().replaceAll("\\s+", " ");
			String elementId = element.substring(0,element.indexOf(' '));
			String elementDefinition = element.substring(element.indexOf(' '),element.length()).replaceAll("\\s+", "");
			if (elementDefinition.indexOf('|') != -1) {
				result.setType(DTDType.DISJUNCTIVE);
			}
			result.addElement(elementId);
			result.addElementTypeDefinition(elementId, elementDefinition);
		}
		Matcher attributes = ATTLIST_REGEX.matcher(document);
		// find attribute definitions
		while (attributes.find()) {
			String[] attlist = attributes.group().replace("<!ATTLIST", "").trim().split("\\s+");
			String elementId = attlist[0];
			String attributeLabel = "@" + attlist[1];
			result.addAtribute(attributeLabel);
			result.addElementAttribute(elementId, attributeLabel);
		}
		return result;
	}

	/**
	 * Parses an inner DTD string (with a doctype) and returns an object
	 * @param document string to parse
	 * @return the DTD object containing all information
	 * @throws DTDParserException
	 */
	public static DTD parse(String document) throws DTDParserException {
		DTD result = extractInformation(document);
		Matcher doctype = DOCTYPE_REGEX.matcher(document);
		// find the root element
		if (!doctype.find()) {
			throw new DTDParser().new DTDParserException("Root node not found.");
		} else {
			result.setRoot(doctype.group().replace("<!DOCTYPE", "").trim());
		}
		return result;
	}

	/**
	 * Parses an external DTD string (with a provided root node) and returns an object
	 * @param document string to parse
	 * @return the DTD object containing all information
	 * @throws DTDParserException
	 */
	public static DTD parse(String document, String root) throws DTDParserException {
		DTD result = extractInformation(document);
		result.setRoot(root);
		return result;
	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
La trilogia europea è una trilogia cinematografica scritta e diretta dal regista danese Lars von Trier che comprende i suoi primi tre lungometraggi: L'elemento del crimine (1984), Epidemic (1988) ed Europa (1991).

Temi
I tre film non costituiscono una trilogia narrativa ma sono uniti da temi comuni e da comuni esplorazioni stilistiche. Il tema portante è la decadenza sociale dell'Europa del secondo dopoguerra. Tutti e tre i capitoli della trilogia raccontano di un personaggio le cui azioni idealistiche finiscono col perpetrare il problema che cercano di risolvere. Anche la più recente trilogia (ancora incompleta) USA - terra delle opportunità ha a che fare col collasso sociale e con gli effetti negativi del comportamento idealista.

Un altro dei temi comuni della trilogia è quello dell'ipnosi:

Generi
La trilogia sperimenta inoltre le convenzioni del film noir.

Serie cinematografiche

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


SWTOR patch 1.3 is live and we immediately have 3 active instances of the imperial fleet on "The Red Eclipse". Let's hope the content is good enough to have people stay. Talking about patch 1.3 (and yes, when haven't we mentioned it these past days ;)) remember we mentioned the free recruit PVP gear? Well, if you already have the set or better you can also get 320k credits for it. This works for any character you level to 50!
Durability loss due to normal wear and tear will be reduced.
Zombie bears for the witch doctors got a pathing fix.
Unique monsters didn't drop the amount of loot they were supposed to.
They also announced the existence of patch 1.0.3b which should be releasing somewhere this week. This patch should increase the drop rate of items in (late) hell and inferno.
Finally don't forget that tomorrow is the GuildWars 2 stress test event.
If you want to be ready to play tomorrow as soon as you get home, why not start the patching tonight. Just start your already downloaded client and it will update. There are unfortunately no patch notes floating around just yet.
We are not sure if they will allow free server transfers like they do during the weekend events. In case they do: Wipus Frequentus is on the Vabbi server. Come join us!


text:
Preview: Blood Child Chapter 3
February 11, 2015 January 25, 2015 / rosereads
Coverart by Steven Warrick
Atalik's body, according to the county records, was interred on his estate in the family mausoleum. The magnificent mausoleum rivaled that of Heinrich Schliemann's in Greece, shaped like a temple with marble columns and carved reliefs. It wasn't an original part of the estate but had been built shortly after the property was purchased.
The architect, Matthew Rodriguez, worked on many of the renovations made to the estate. The mausoleum was one of his last projects. He was fascinated with secret passages and giving his clients a little something extra in each design whether they requested it or not. He died in a car accident returning to the city one weekend after a party at the estate. His will, which was immediately contested by his family, left everything, including his portfolio, to the count. It even when so far as to say that Atalik was the sole executor, which gave Atalik the right to dispose of his body however he choose. Knowing Matthew's mother was old-school Catholic, he had the body cremated and the ashes mixed in with the cement for a planned extension to the house's foundations. Atalik had everything in it shipped to the estate.
Atalik liked to infer that he came from old money, so the deceased members of the Bath family were moved from their original resting places to the mausoleum after its completion. It cost him a pretty penny in bribes to move the bodies and begin a cemetery on private land. At one moment he even thought of abandoning the project due to cost, but being defeated by a penny was not something he could allow. Eventually the site was even sanctified by a member of the local clergy to ensure the peaceful rest of its inhabitants. He had never had close relations with any of his family after he graduated from high school. The few living relatives he did have stayed as far away as they could. None of them ever seemed tempted to ask their cousin for a favor beyond being left alone.
According to Em, her father had a secret crypt built in the basement of the house for himself and his "special" wives. It was for the three women who gave him a child. Each one received a cash payment of a million dollars and a swift divorce, and died within two years.
Each was brought back to the estate and interred. All total, Atalik was married seven times, but only three of his wives survived him. Helena Jacqueline Antoinette Bath was in the process of divorcing the old scoundrel when he died. She left the house prior to the funeral, taking her small spending allowance with her. Her refusal to stay and see him buried surprised no one, once she knew the contents of the will. In the nearly decade-long marriage, he had never changed his will. It hadn't been changed since the year after Emily was born. Her allowance was a provision of the will that allowed for her to receive a cash disbursement of three thousand dollars once a month for five years after his death; after that time the amount would be cut in half. The money was less than a third of what Antoinette spent in a month on clothing, beauty treatments, and entertainment. It was her entertaining of young men that incited the divorce proceedings.
The first time Em saw the crypt was when she was six years old. The youngest, most precocious of the children, she was always wandering away or, in the words of the nannies and tutors, sneaking off. It truly wasn't malicious. She was just a naturally curious and restless child. Mihaly called her Houdini because of her repeated seemingly impossible escapes from their lessons and training. One moment she was working quietly alongside her brothers, and the next she was gone. It didn't seem to matter who was watching her; there was always a moment when no one was looking, and she knew how to take advantage of it.
She was smart enough never to explore when her father was in attendance. More than one nanny was fired for failing to keep an eye on little Em. It was impossible in his mind that she could be so clever or they so absent-minded.
It was late in the evening when she slipped out of her room and made her way to the basement. Like the rest of the estate, it was unbelievable huge and mostly off-limits to the children. The buildings were under constant repair and renovation since its purchase. In her young mind, the basement, with its stone floors, timbers, and dust, was King Minos's labyrinth beneath his Cretan palace, where Athenian youth were sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Minotaur.
Em was pretending to be the hero, Theseus, who saves the princess from the beastly Minotaur, when she heard the rhythmic sounds of footsteps hitting the stone floor in unison. She swiftly moved behind one of the wine racks. Her father, his manservant, Gerald, and four robed men came into the chamber. The men, who worked in various positions on the grounds, were carrying a long ebony box. The party came to an abrupt stop at the far end of the room. It seemed like they would have continued to walk forward into the stone wall if Gerald's arm had not flowed up as a signal to stop.
Fear and intrigue held her tightly in place. She thought they would merely be depositing the crate and returning momentarily. After all, there was no place for the men to go except the way they came. She crouched as low as she could while still keeping an eye on the strange group.
Her father raised his arms and began muttering in Latin. When he finished, a section of the wall slid back, and the ensemble entered the newly formed doorway. Em nearly snickered at her father's horrid elocution; had she demonstrated such poor pronunciation, she would have received a beating that would continue until she corrected the error. Consequently, she and her siblings practiced continually, drilling one another until they had mastered each lesson. Mihaly led his younger siblings in these drills. Sometimes they sneaked into one another's rooms to prepare for assessments. No matter how intensely they practiced, their father and the tutors always found a reason to punish them.
The door closed as quickly as it had opened. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it didn't deter Em. This mystery was too much for her to pass up, so she waited, watching, shivering on the icy floor. The Minotaur was safe for another night.
By the time they came out of the chamber, Em had nearly fallen asleep; only the return of rhythmic footsteps sounded just in time to keep her from nodding off completely and banging her head on the floor.
She waited until after the stomping sound had ceased to echo before she moved to investigate. It didn't take her long to find the floor latch and open the crypt's door. Secretly, she praised the Hardy Boys novels she had recently finished for helping her quickly locate the trigger for the door. Not that she would ever tell Mihaly, who had suggested the series. It just wasn't proper to let your big brother know you thought he was cool or appreciated his advice.
The chamber was lit from an aperture running around the perimeter between the wall and stone floor. A shiver dashed down her spine when she noted the eerie similarity of this chamber to the one in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum."
In the center was a stone sepulcher with her father's name etched into it, along with his birth date and an epitaph—the date of his death waited to be carved. Along the walls three ebony boxes exactly like the one she had seen carried in were standing on end facing the sepulcher, except these boxes appeared to have glass fronts. There was one for each of the three walls before her.
Had Em been a fearful child, she would have run from the room and not taken another step. However, the physical and emotional abuse she had endured prevented her from experiencing the normal fears of a six-year-old child; she had seen too much and knew it wouldn't kill her.
The boxes were like shiny bobbles left out for a magpie to snatch; the least she could do was inspect them. Em moved towards the one on the left for no other reason than her eye had turned in that direction. As she advanced on her target, an unexpected queasy feeling built in her stomach. She attributed it to the cook's latest experiment, not knowing any better.
There are some things in this world that every child should be prevented from seeing, but Em continued forward, as she always had and always would. It only made sense in her mind to keep moving. She had no way of knowing what the crypt truly held or how similar its contents would be to one of Poe's chilling tales.
The faint light caused her eyes to strain; however, the figure of a woman was becoming clear. Forward. Always forward. A foot away from the glass, details came into focus. Another chill ran through Em. The woman's face was obscured by a veil, so Em tried to balance on her tiptoes for a better look. Her failure landed her face first on the frigid stone floor.
Her head ached, but her eyes widened when she read the name—Marcella E. Bath, her mother's name—etched on the base in golden script. To her credit she didn't scream or run from the room. She did crawl to the next black casket and then the last, reading the names of her brothers' mothers.
Making her way back up to the main house, Em began to build a wall between her consciousness and the new knowledge, trying to shred apart the carefully constructed mental configuration that kept her young mind from collapsing in on itself. Children, after all, are the ultimate survivors. Forward, just keep moving forward. Back out of the basement, through the kitchen to the back staircase, up to the second floor, and down the hall to the nursery.
At six years old, she still slept in the nursery and would continue to do so until she turned eleven, when she had her first period. The decor of the nursery reflected Atalik's predatory nature. The furnishings were all dark wood, and a mural of a jungle took up the largest wall in the room. The animals weren't cute or cartoony, but realistic. In two of the corners, a hunter was positioned with rifle in hand, aiming toward the animals in the center. The opposing walls contained trophies from Atalik's various hunting expeditions. A pair of kudos with their stately spiraled horns took up positions on either side of the door, with a lioness positioned directly over it. A few of the nannies interviewed by Atalik declined the position after seeing the room he had so thoughtfully decorated for his children.
The light flicked on as soon as she entered; Atalik sat on the bed, patting it slightly. His face wore its usual sinister smirk, a forewarning of his intentions. Em didn't even freeze for a single moment. Hesitation would only make things worse. Forward she walked, taking her place beside her loving father and silently sliding the last brick in place. She had learned not to flinch when her father reached for her.
His hands gently brushed the hair away from her forehead. The grin dissolved when he noticed the mark blooming on her temple.
"Tell Papa how this came to be."
"I was playing, and I fell, Papa."
"And where was Ms. Kasik?"
She tilted her eyes down, trying her best to appear demure and innocent; manipulation was a survival skill she had learned early.
"Mmm," she said as she bit her lips slightly, "I went into the cellar when she wasn't looking."
"The cellar is out of bounds, young lady."
"I know, Papa. I apologize for breaking the rules. I wanted to play where the boys wouldn't hear me. They think playing Theseus and the Minotaur is moronic."
"I see. And that is how you got the bruise, fighting the Minotaur again?"
Em nodded a shy affirmation. The wicked grin returned as Atalik tucked her into bed, placing a tender kiss on her forehead. Exiting the room, he chose the door leading to Ms. Kasik's room.
As much as he relished disciplining his offspring, he never tolerated anyone else doing so without permission. The offense was especially odious if a visible mark resulted. Ms. Kasik was clearly guilty of neglecting and thereby injuring her charge.
The next day Miss Amber Russo, the nanny for her brothers Andras and Sandor came in to prepare her for breakfast. Em asked about her nanny and was dismissed quickly. The next week a new nanny was hired, a Ms. Ingrid Picador from Newark, New Jersey. She would remain with the family for three years before exiting in a similarly mysterious manner.
Atalik had a hedge maze built on the property for the amusement of the children. Em was allowed to play in the maze without her brothers under the supervision of her new nanny. She never went into the basement again to play.
The fate of Ms. Andrea Kasik is unknown. No record could be found of her being employed after her dismissal. She wasn't the first or last employee to go missing over the twenty-five years that Atalik lived at the estate. Detective Anderson told me when I spoke with him that there wasn't anything they could do. No one could find anything substantial to link the estate with their disappearances—no bodies, no evidence, no crime. Strangely enough, very few missing persons cases were filed. They just vanished. Charges couldn't be filed based on rumors and speculation.
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