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Civilisation in the Scottish Enlightenment
Lorenzo M. Cello
May 31 2015 • 617 views
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Since the 9/11 events, the so-called 'war on terror' and the rise of organised terrorism, debates about civilisation have witnessed a steady revival in International Relations (IR). A clear distrust has mounted in recent years among numerous IR scholars with regards to an excessively static understanding of civilisation as a historically stable cultural and social formation. Indeed, many endorse now a dynamic and pluralist understanding of civilisation(s) and have turned to history in order to unearth some important genealogical lines of descent of our contemporary civilisational discourses[1]. While this is certainly a welcome development, the majority of IR scholars engage only superficially (if at all) with what I consider to be a central site of observation for the emergence of a European discourse on civilisation, that is, the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed, it is in this intellectual context that the word 'civilisation' made its first significant appearance in the English language (Caffentzis, 1995). The Scottish moral philosopher Adam Ferguson played an important role in that, particularly through his 1767 Essay on the History of Civil Society (Ferguson, 1782 [1767]).
In what follows I provide a preliminary analysis of the idea of civilisation that emerged from the Scottish Enlightenment. I show that it significantly differed from the one that took hold in Europe later in the late nineteenth century and I argue that it was less of a companion to imperialism than it is usually thought. Hence, while 'civilisation and hierarchy go hand-in-hand' (Bowden, 2015), that is not necessarily true of civilisation and imperialism. Turning our attention to the origins of the Anglophone notion of civilisation both helps realising this point and equips us with a better understanding of the concept. If the Scots' notion of civilisation was certainly Eurocentric, it was also understood as a complex and indeterminate process stemming from within the specific history of a society rather than as a linear and inexorable process grounded in a teleological view of human history.
Civilisation and Imperialism before the Nineteenth Century
The semantic struggle over the concept of civilisation occurred (and still does) in a multiplicity of linguistic registers and intellectual contexts, and, among them, the Scottish Enlightenment deserves particular attention. That in IR little attention has been granted to the Scottish Enlightenment is surprising, in particular if compared to the centrality attributed to the late nineteenth and twentieth century discourses about civilisation (e.g. Gong, 1984; Salter, 2002; Buzan, 2014). I set out here to start redressing this imbalance by adding a new and important historical layer of complexity to our understanding of contemporary civilisational discourses. Historicising civilisational discourses is by no means an attempt to uncover their 'true' origin. Rather, in doing so, I remain committed and reaffirm the contingent nature of the concept of civilisation, which is at risk of being obscured by temporally overstretching the relevance of a specific understanding of civilisation – the one that prevailed in Europe since the late nineteenth century.
By the late nineteenth century the concept of civilisation was used in a discriminatory way to indicate the backwardness of non-European people through widespread references to an exclusive 'family of civilised nations'. Moreover, it was commonly held and explicitly argued that European states, and the white race more generally, had a 'special responsibility to civilize' (Keene, 2002: 120). Whereas the idea that European imperialism has a moral purpose has a long history, the emphasis on race is a feature peculiar to the late nineteenth century, when cultural, social and political differences among societies and populations were being increasingly explained through the language of the natural sciences. Yet, today this idea of a racially grounded 'civilizing mission' is all too often projected and superimposed on liberalism or even on 'modernity' and 'the West' as a whole. This move denotes a tendency to overlook the different theories, arguments and justifications that characterised European imperialism over a period of at least three centuries. The risk then, as Hutchings puts it, is 'to occlude major differences between seventeenth century and nineteenth century imperialisms and the conceptual vocabularies through which both were understood and legitimated' (2014: 390). We should thus pay more attention to the relation between ideas of human nature, empire and civilisation in different historical contexts and authors.
Since its beginnings in the fifteenth century, European colonial expansion was accompanied by attempts to rationalise the 'discovery' of human diversity in a way that was compatible with the dominant cosmological-theological beliefs of the time. Yet, only in the late nineteenth century were explanations of this diversity decidedly tethered to nations, race and science (Hont, 1995; Douglas, 2013). During the period of the European Enlightenment a multiplicity of categories was used to identify human diversity: climate, national character, race, moeurs, Kultur, stadial accounts of social developments and sociological distinctions among agricultural, hunting, and pastoral lifestyles (Keene, 2005: 140-152). Thus, the evolution of the human species tout court and, more specifically, the evolution of societies along the path of progress and civilisation, was not always a matter of biological or scientific determinism.
A sense of European superiority also found its roots in ideas about refined manners, civil government and expanded commerce. These ideas constituted the bulk of the eighteenth century 'Enlightened histories' of the Scots David Hume, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, John Millar and Edward Gibbon[2]. These socio-economic histories, and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) in particular, laid the foundations for the subsequent emergence of political economy as a 'scientific' discipline (Fontana, 1985; Walter, 2011). At the same time they played a very influential role in shaping later discourses about Western civilisation (Pocock, 1985: 37-50; Kohn & O'Neill, 2006: 194-195).
The Idea of Civilisation in the Scottish Enlightenment: Between Political Economy, Conjectural History and Moral Philosophy
It is striking to see the constancy and the frequency with which the word 'civilisation' was used by British, French and American political economists in the nineteenth century. Among a selection of eighty five books on the topic of political economy published in Britain between 1820 and 1899, I found that roughly two-thirds of them included the word 'civilisation'. This comes over as less of a surprise when we recall the central role that the notion of civility played for Adam Smith, author of the Wealth of Nations and primary point of reference for several generations of political economists. Drawing on French philosophers and their intellectual practice of the histoire raisonnée, Adam Smith and his fellow Scottish moral philosophers embarked in a less idealistic, more empirically and historically-oriented style of grand narrative based on deductive reasoning. This new 'species of philosophical investigation' – which the Scottish philosopher Dugald Steward (1793, section II) retrospectively termed 'Theoretical or Conjectural History'[3] – was adopted by the Scots with the purpose of historicising the recent emergence in Europe of 'commercial societies', as to explain their dynamics and to defend their superiority vis-à-vis other 'stages' of societal developments (i.e. hunting, pasturage, agriculture).
At the same time the 'Enlightened narratives' of these authors signalled a general dissatisfaction with natural law theories of sovereignty and their grounding on different but essentialist assumptions about human nature. While these XVII century contractarian theories of political authority recounted the formation of civil society from a pre-social state of nature, the Scots' accounts were based on a non-essentialist conception of the self, whose formation was to be observed and could only be understood within social interactions, through a self-reflexive process of judgment and action characterised by the universal capacity for 'sympathy'[4]. Based on this 'socially constructed' understanding of the subject, the 'Enlightened narratives' of the Scots reinforced the historicist tale about the progressive emergence of Europe as a civilised society of nations, from the medieval order through to the formation of contending monarchies capable of civil government and reason of state (Pocock, 1999: 309-310).
Histories of civil government intertwined with histories of civil society to recount the demise of the preceding feudal and religious order and the struggle against the spectre of 'universal monarchy'[5]. The resulting macro-narrative worked towards the consolidation of a consciousness of Europe's historical specificity and superiority. This consciousness was based on good manners and commerce, as well as on the balance of power, on diplomacy and modern warfare as means for the protection of the liberty, independence and security of all (ibid.: 20-21; 309-318). Whilst their 'stadial' histories described a civilizing process that saw European commercial societies as representing the most advanced 'stage' of societal development, civilisation was understood by the Scots not as an endpoint but as a set of interrelated historical processes and transformations in the social, economic, political, cultural and military fields (Buchan, 2006: 176).
The Scots' conjectural histories of mankind are often cited, not entirely without reason, as examples of a Eurocentric tendency to adopt a temporalizing and developmental view of humanity (e.g. Hindess, 2007; Helliwell & Hindess, 2011; Metha, 2012; Di Muzio, 2012). As the intellectual historian J.G.A. Pocock (1999: 316-318) reminds us, within these narratives the 'progress of society' was held to have occurred in the history of Europe alone, 'orientals' and 'savages' being excluded from it[6]. The 'savage' stage of societal development was expelled altogether from European history and 'the role of the barbarian himself began to change; he ceased being an "other" and became an origin of the self' (ibid: 363).
Yet, while the conjectural histories of the Scots were certainly Eurocentric, it is problematic to describe them as imperialist or to conflate them with later deterministic narratives of linear historical development and progress based on racial theories (Hall & Hobson, 2010). Indeed, it was not uncommon to find critics of colonialism and imperial expansion among the Scots (Pitts, 2005: 25-58). Hume and Smith, for instance, condemned colonial wars and imperial expansions for their exacerbating effects on the growing British public debt, which represented a major element of degeneration and corruption of commercial societies (Pocock, 1985: 125-141). Neither their support for commercial societies was unconditional, nor did their socio-economic histories univocally suggest that non-Europeans ought to be excluded from ordinary standards of political respect, inclusion, or reciprocity.
Despite the pressures from an intellectual context where the belief in deep differences among human groups was steadily growing, the Scots hold on to the assumption about the equal rationality of human beings and their belonging to a common humanity (Keene, 2005: 137-144). Like other eighteenth-century European thinkers, they retained a sense of humility and respect in the face of complex civilisations of which Europeans had only the most superficial knowledge (Pitts, 2005: 19-21)[7]. They dwelled and dueled in this context to provide explanations of human diversity in socio-economic terms. The application of the conjectural method infamously resulted in the kind of progressive narratives of societal development exemplified by Smith's four-stage theory (i.e. stadial histories). However, such 'stages' of society did not add up to an evolutionary theory of society; rather, they were heuristic devices that did not presuppose a fixed order nor did they exclude the coexistence of different 'stages' at a given point in time (Pocock, 1999: 322-323).
As it has become apparent that lines of political, economic, and legal exclusion inherited from the colonial order persist in the present, IR scholars are increasingly turning to history in order to make sense of contemporary civilisational discourses. Much attention has been devoted to recovering those lines of political and legal exclusion bequeathed to us from the nineteenth and twentieth century colonial order in the form of 'standards of civilisation'. However, less effort has gone into researching seventeenth and eighteenth century European discourses about civilisation, that is, the antecedents of the standards of civilisation.
In this article I have sketched out some of the salient traits of the conception of civilisation emerging from the Scottish Enlightenment and suggested a closer engagement with it. Like other eighteenth-century European thinkers, the Scots were not centrally concerned with dictating their theories in the service of European imperialism, but rather with the creation a European order of territorial states. The fact that Scots' conjectural histories looked 'inward' – to the history of Britain and Europe – more than 'outward' did not preclude later authors from downplaying the 'local' character of these histories and adapting them to teleological views of world history and to ideas of a civilizing mission of white and Western imperialism.
Going back to examine the concept of civilisation that emerged from Scottish Enlightenment is not only important because it is the social space where the notion of European civilisation finds its 'modern' roots, but also because it is an example of an intellectual context in which civilisation was understood as an internally diverse cultural formation and a historically fluid process. Recovering this multidimensional and dynamic conception can therefore play a role in downplaying the purchase of some contemporary theories – such as the 'clash of civilisations' – based on internally homogenous and historically static notions of civilisation and culture.
[1] See the 2014 special issue 'Rethinking the Standard(s) of Civilisation(s) in International Relations' in Millennium – Journal of International Studies 42(3).
[2] See for example David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature [1739-1740] and The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688 [1762]; William Robertson's History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth [1769] and The History of America [1778]; Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence [1763]; Adam Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society [1767]. Lord Kames Sketches on the History of Man [1774].
[3] Steward writes in an 'Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith LL.D.' (1793): 'To this species of philosophical investigation, which has no appropriated name in our language, I shall take the liberty of giving the title of Theoretical or Conjectural History; an expression which coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History, as employed by Mr Hume, and with what some French writers have called Histoire Raisonnée' (section II – Of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages).
[4] David Hume declares his intention to lay the foundations of a 'science of man' in the opening pages of his Treatise of Human Nature [1739-1740]. For a discussion of the Scottish Enlightenment's approach to the study of human nature more broadly see AHNERT, T & MANNING, S. 2011. Character, Self and Sociability in the Scottish Enlightenment, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
[5] For a conceptual history of 'universal monarchy' see BOSBACH, F. 1998. Monarchia Universalis. Storia di un concetto cardine della politica europea (secoli XVI – XVIII), Milano, Vita e Pensiero. On the prominence of the concept in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century English discourses about liberty and security see Devetak, R. 2013. 'The fear of universal monarchy': Balance of Power as an Ordering Practice of Liberty. In: Flockhart, T. D. A. T. (ed.) Liberal World Orders. British Academy.
[6] The term 'orientals' has in recent decades aquired a pejorative connotation to refer to the West's patronizing perceptions and fictional depictions of "the East" — the societies and peoples who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. 'Orientalism' – in Edward Said's famous formulation (1978) – is hardly associable to the XVIII century Scottish Enlightenment.
[7] For a contrasting view of Smith on this point and the teleological nature of his historical approach see (Hall & Hobson, 2010: 233-236).
Ahnert, T & Manning, S. 2011. Character, Self and Sociability in the Scottish Enlighenment, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Bosbach, F. 1998. Monarchia Universalis. Storia di un concetto cardine della politica europea (secoli XVI – XVIII), Milano, Vita e Pensiero.
Buchan, B. 2006. Civilisation, Sovereignty and War: The Scottish Enlightenment and International Relations. International Relations, 20, 175-192.
Buzan, B. 2014. The 'Standard of Civilisation' as an English School Concept. Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 42, 576-594.
Caffentzis, C. G. 1995. On the Scottish Origin of "Civilization". In: FEDERICI, S. (ed.) Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and its 'Others'. London, Praeger.
Devetak, R. 2013. 'The fear of universal monarchy': Balance of Power as an Ordering Practice of Liberty. In: Flockhart, T. D. A. T. (ed.) Liberal World Orders. British Academy.
Douglas, B. 2013. Philosophers, Naturalists, and Antipodean Encounters, 1748-1803. Intellectual History Review, 23, 387-409.
Ferguson, A. 1782 [1767]. An Essay on the History of Civil Society, 5th edition, London, T. Cadell.
Fontana, B. 1985. Rethinking the politics of commercial society: the Edinburgh review, 1802-1832, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Gong, G. 1984. The Standard of 'Civilisation' in International Society, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Hall, M & Hobson, M. J. 2010. Liberal International theory: Eurocentric but not always Imperialist? International Theory 2, 210-245.
Helliwell, C. & Hindess, B. 2011. The Past in the Present. Australian Journal of Politics & History, 57, 377-388.
Hindess, B. 2007. The Past Is Another Culture. International Political Sociology, 1, 325-338.
Hont, I. 1995. The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Mankind: 'Contemporary Crisis of the Nation-State' in Historical Perspective. In: DUNN, J. (ed.) Contemporary Crisis of the Nation State? Oxford: Blackwell.
Hutchings, K., Bartelson, J., Keene, E., Ypi, L., Kinsella, H. M. & Armitage, D. 2014. Foundations of modern international theory. Contemporary Political Theory, 13, 387-418.
Keene, E. 2005. International Political Thought. A Historical Introduction, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Kohn, M. & O'Neill, D. I. 2006. A Tale of Two Indias: Burke and Mill on Empire and Slavery in the West Indies and America. Political Theory, 34, 192-228.
Metha, P. B. 2012. Liberalism, Nation and Empire: the Case of J.S. Mill. In: MUTHU, S. (ed.) Empire and modern political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pitts, J. 2005. A turn to empire: the rise of imperial liberalism in Britain and France, Princeton, Princeton Unversity Press.
Pocock, J. G. A. 1985. Virtue, commerce, and history: essays on political thought and history, chiefly in the eighteenth century, Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
Pocock, J. G. A. 1999. Barbarism and Religion: the Enlightnements of Edward Gibbon, 1737-1764, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Pocock, J. G. A. 2003. Barbarism and Religion: the First Decline and Fall New York, Cambridge University Press.
Salter, M. B. 2002. Barbarians and Civilization in International Relations, London, Pluto Press.
Walter, R. 2011. A Critical History of the Economy, Abingdon, Oxon, UK, Routledge.
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Lorenzo M. Cello is a PhD Candidate at the School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. His work is concerned with the intersection between history and International Relations theory. His thesis looks at the historical relation between geopolitical and humanitarian discourses on intervention, with a particular focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In July 2015 he will join the Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary University of London as a junior visiting fellow.
ImperialismInternational Political Economy


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Portland man linked to six 'gunpoint robberies,' police say
Pamplin Media Group
Deondre L. Rosemon arrested after alleged Walgreens robbery using replica guns on Jan. 23, police bureau reports.
Portland Police Bureau has arrested a man they say is linked to six robberies committed using "realistic looking replica firearms."
Deondre Laron Rosemon, 46, was arrested Jan. 23 after he allegedly robbed a Walgreens, 1620 N.E. Grand Ave., the day before.
Police say Rosemon was tracked from the scene to an nearby apartment complex courtyard, where police say he ditched a backpack with two fake pistols and two stolen cell phones inside.
In a news release on Sunday, police described five other robberies they believe Rosemon committed, and said additional charges were expected, though none appeared in the court system immediately on Monday.
The other incidents are:
• The robbery of a hardware store on Jan. 8, at 7:26 p.m. on the 200 block of Northeast Broadway
A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
• The robbery of a video store on Jan. 10 at 10:56 p.m. on the 200 block of Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
• The robbery of a cellphone store on Jan. 17 at 4:56 p.m. on the 1000 block of North Lombard Street
• The robbery of a convenience store on Jan. 21 at 3:54 a.m. on the 1300 block S.W. 11th Avenue
• The robbery of a video store on Jan. 21 at 10:10 p.m. on the 300 block of NW Broadway.
Rosemon has 28 felony convictions and 5 misdemeanor convictions on his record, according to court docs, and was on supervised release for a case of first-degree arson at the time of his arrest.
Rosemon remains inside the downtown jail at this time.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Rise of Iron update for Destiny is expected to launch in September of this year, and it will be filled with a bunch of new tasks for players to try and accomplish. To start, it is reported that players would have to climb up "Felwinter Peak." That's not all as they would have to claim a new social space wherein brand new missions, as well as characters, await the players' arrival.
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Destiny: Rise of Iron will be released for the game on the 20th of September this year. The update will only be for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Those who have the PlayStation 3 version of the title will sadly not be able to get the update.


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Q: What is the correct way to properly get an image from the gallery on Android 10 without using requestLegacyExternalStorage? I have been trying to get an image from the gallery so I can upload it. However, every time I get a "File not Found" exception. All the SO questions I have found are seriously outdated suggesting to use the  requestLegacyExternalStorage which is only a temp fix.
According to the documentation, we are supposed to use a content resolver -- but that crashes.
I show the picker via:
val intent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_PICK)
intent.data = MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI
intent.type = "image/*"

and in the fragments onActivityResult
   data.data?.let { uri ->
         Log.d(TAG, uri.toString())
         requireContext().contentResolver.openInputStream(uri).use { stream ->
             //this is where the crash happens
         }
    }

The manifest has:
 < uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" tools:ignore="ScopedStorage" />

 < uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
 <queries>
        <intent>
            <action android:name="android.media.action.IMAGE_CAPTURE" />
        </intent>
        <intent>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.PICK" />
            <data android:mimeType="image/*" />
        </intent>
    </queries>

I can see the URI as:
content://com.google.android.apps.photos.contentprovider/-1/1/content%3A%2F%2Fmedia%2Fexternal%2Fimages%2Fmedia%2F62/ORIGINAL/NONE/image%2Fjpeg/1163354121

What is the correct way to do this?
The stack trace:
2021-12-06 13:14:37.676 4304-4304/net.mycompany.myapp E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
    Process: net.mycompany.myapp, PID: 4304
    java.lang.RuntimeException: Failure delivering result ResultInfo{who=null, request=1935067080, result=-1, data=Intent { dat=content:xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxxx.xxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx flg=0x1 clip={text/uri-list U:content://com.google.android.apps.photos.contentprovider/-1/1/content%3A%2F%2Fmedia%2Fexternal%2Fimages%2Fmedia%2F63/ORIGINAL/NONE/image%2Fjpeg/1254790127} }} to activity {net.mycompany.myapp/net.mycompany.myapp.ui.activities.JobDetailsActivity}: java.io.FileNotFoundException: Failed to validate: content://media/external/images/media/63
        at android.app.ActivityThread.deliverResults(ActivityThread.java:4418)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.handleSendResult(ActivityThread.java:4460)
        at android.app.servertransaction.ActivityResultItem.execute(ActivityResultItem.java:49)
        at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.executeCallbacks(TransactionExecutor.java:108)
        at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.execute(TransactionExecutor.java:68)
        at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1830)
        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:106)
        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6831)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
        at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:493)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:858)
     Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: Failed to validate: content://media/external/images/media/63
        at android.database.DatabaseUtils.readExceptionWithFileNotFoundExceptionFromParcel(DatabaseUtils.java:144)
        at android.content.ContentProviderProxy.openTypedAssetFile(ContentProviderNative.java:698)
        at android.content.ContentResolver.openTypedAssetFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1471)
        at android.content.ContentResolver.openAssetFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1308)
        at android.content.ContentResolver.openInputStream(ContentResolver.java:1028)
        at net.mycompany.myapp.ui.fragments.jobdetails.PhotosFragment.onActivityResult(PhotosFragment.kt:225)
        at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager$9.onActivityResult(FragmentManager.java:2905)
        at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager$9.onActivityResult(FragmentManager.java:2885)
        at androidx.activity.result.ActivityResultRegistry.doDispatch(ActivityResultRegistry.java:392)
        at androidx.activity.result.ActivityResultRegistry.dispatchResult(ActivityResultRegistry.java:351)
        at androidx.activity.ComponentActivity.onActivityResult(ComponentActivity.java:647)
        at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentActivity.onActivityResult(FragmentActivity.java:164)
        at android.app.Activity.dispatchActivityResult(Activity.java:7454)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.deliverResults(ActivityThread.java:4411)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.handleSendResult(ActivityThread.java:4460)
        at android.app.servertransaction.ActivityResultItem.execute(ActivityResultItem.java:49)
        at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.executeCallbacks(TransactionExecutor.java:108)
        at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.execute(TransactionExecutor.java:68)
        at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1830)
        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:106)
        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6831)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
        at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:493)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:858)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Babs should get out more often. Living in a Hollywood bubble will twist your mind.
Streisand offended women who voted for President Trump by making the assumption that we "don't believe in our own thoughts". She thinks we only voted for Trump because our husbands did.
She's so wrong. The opposite is true.
The Trumpettes started as a group of four wealthy and well-connected women seeking to get Trump elected president back in 2015. It has mushroomed into thousands of supporters nationwide and even throughout the world, leading to numerous television appearances and articles about Trumpette found, Toni Holt Kramer and her cause.
The Trumpettes are just one example of many groups of women across the country who supported Trump from the beginning.
We know so many other independent women who were also early supporters of candidate Trump long before their husbands were on board.
It would seem that she is the one living in the past because she still thinks women aren't following their own path.
It would seem Trump supporting women are the ones looking to the future more than the leftist women. One of the driving forces for so many women is the thought of what kind of country we'll be leaving our children. With socialism knocking at our door, women we know have never been more concerned.
STREISAND "LOVES" HER COUNTRY…WELL, WE DO TOO!
We've got news for Ms. Streisand, we love our country too.
What institutions are being assaulted? We don't see institutions being assaulted but we see the president being assaulted every day in the media and with lies from politicians.
Are women being assaulted? We have no idea why that was bought up because it looks like the only one doing the assaulting of women would be Democrats. Michael Avenatti?


The big event on April 5 was an evening of adrenaline-inducing art choosing excitement and one heck of a party! But don't worry, you can still catch some Anonymous Art Show action until May 1. Check out the artwork at The Gallery and even take some home for yourself. Each piece of artwork is just $50.
Shop local, support local artists, take home something original.
The Gift Shop showcases a selection of high quality, handcrafted artwork created by Sea to Sky artists and artisans.
We Heart Local Art showcases local artists whose artwork is featured in local businesses. We love art and you do too, so let us tell everyone about it! Look out for the We Heart Local Art sticker around town or check out our online Culture Maps used by guests to take a self-guided tour of all things art in Whistler, including studios, art galleries, and the We Heart Local Art Businesses.


The D5600 is equipped with a range of features that encourages users to capture and communicate their memories and favourite moments. Featuring a vari-angle LCD monitor that flips out and rotates, greater creative freedom in photography expressions is made possible. The touch screen operation that is a perennial favourite with the D5000-series has been further enhanced with the addition of a crop function for use during playback zoom, and a frame advance bar that lets users scroll through images in playback mode easily. Time-lapse movie function from the more advanced Nikon D7200 has also been incorporated into this DSLR, providing users an opportunity to experiment and expand their visual story-telling with stunning time-lapse videos. AF-P lenses realize fast and quiet AF operation via the adoption of a stepping motor* for AF drive.Vibration Reduction (VR) provides an effect equivalent to a shutter speed 4.0 stops* faster.Compact and lightweight, DX-format compatible, 3.1x normal zoom lens with 18-55 mm* focal-length range and f/3.5-5.6 maximum aperture.Two aspherical lens elements are employed to deliver superior optical performance with minimal lens aberrations.Adopting a setting system using the camera menus, lens settings can be performed on the camera.
Nikon extends its range of SnapBridge-compatible cameras with the D5600, a mid-range DSLR designed for hobbyists who want to explore the creative world of photography. Like its predecessor, the D5600 with 18-55mm lens uses the same 3.2" vari-angle touchscreen, 24-megapixel DX-format sensor, EXPEED 4 processor and 39-point AF system. It also comes with a host of new features, including time-lapse movie mode, Bluetooth and NFC connectivity, and enhanced touchscreen functionality.
Get creative with the 24.2 megapixel Nikon D5600. Sync photos to your smart device as you shoot with SnapBridge. Enjoy finer textures and crisper detail, plus greater light sensitivity. The ISO range of 100-25600, expandable to 6400, its ideal for taking shots under tough light conditions. Compatible with all DX-format NIKKOR lenses, you can change up your lens for detailed close-ups, wide-angle landscapes or distance photography. The D5600 is lightweight and tough enough to take anywhere. Use the vari-angle touchscreen to take creative shots with ease, by tilting, flipping or rotating. Tap the touchscreen to focus and shoot, just like a smartphone. The included 18-55mm lens can be used for wide-angle photography or everyday shots, this makes it an excellent walk-around lens. Keep it with you and youll be ready to tackle a whole host of situations. Camera model number d5600 + af-p 18-55 vr. Product specification: 24.2 megapixels. 3.2in screen with TFT LCD technology and live view. CMOS sensor type. Lens focal length 18 - 55mm. Continuous shooting up to 5 frames per second (JPEG). Continuous shooting up to 5 frames per second (RAW). Shutter speed of 30 to 1/4000 sec. Lens information: Standard lens. Aperture f/5.6-22. Silent wave motor. 55mm filter. Features: Viewfinder with optical adjustment. 39 focus points in the viewfinder. ISO range from 100 to 25600. 1080p video capture with sound. Built-in flash. Hot shoe for additional flash. PictBridge compatible. Memory card compatibility: SD, SDHC, SDXC, . General information: Colour: black. Eyecup, shoulder strap, battery charger. Rechargeable battery. Weight 670g. Size H9.7, W12.4, D7cm.


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Cheney's Iran?
Is the US preparing the way for a decisive pro-Shiite alliance with both the Iraqi Shiites and the incumbent Iranian regime? Or is it preparing the way for a confrontation with Iran?
By some accounts, Iraqi Shiites are currently facilitating a diplomatic opening between the US and Iran.
Stratfor offers the following interpretation of recent events:
Iraq's most senior Shiite politician, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, was in Iran on May 21 to undergo medical treatment after being rushed to the United States for testing a few days earlier. But it is unlikely that his trip is actually health-related; rather, al-Hakim flew to Iran from the United States to deliver the U.S. response to Tehran's proposed framework for negotiations at the first direct public U.S.-Iranian meeting over Iraq, to be held in Baghdad on May 28….
When Iran relayed its terms for the talks, it did so by having an Iranian official hand-deliver the proposal to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker; this took place during a three-minute meeting on the sidelines of the May 4 international conference on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. A version of that report was also leaked to a Saudi paper in an attempt to placate the Arab states (especially Saudi Arabia) that are wary of any U.S.-Iranian accommodation on Iraq. Because of the sensitive nature of U.S.-Iranian communications, the Bush administration chose to use al-Hakim as a conduit for transmitting its response.
The US-Iranian dialogue is, as noted by Stratfor, "sensitive" because Sunni Arab forces are wary of a US "tilt" toward a Shia Gulf.
Indeed, Sunni Arab suspicions seem to grow more pronounced with each passing day.
IraqSlogger has translated a recent interview with Saleh al-Mutlak, previously celebrated by Secretary of State Rice for taking positions that represented "considerable maturing of the Sunni political leadership."
Mutlak seems to fear the US and Iran are already de facto allies in Iraq:
In general, US policy towards Iran is vague, and unclear, and there are those who believe that the controversy is agreed upon, and is not a real controversy.
And in the result that the goals that Iran seeks in Iraq, they are the same goals that America seeks. Iran wants a weak Iraq, and fragmented to a certain extent, and this is an American goal. And whether there is coordination on this matter or not, they are walking on the same path and (towards the same) goal.
At the same time, Mutlak is critical of Sunni Arab neighbors for abandoning Sunni Arab Iraq to Iranian political dominance.
Unfortunately, the Arab countries, and at the forefront of them the neighboring countries are remiss with regards to Iraq, as they, at least have even not moved to stop the Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs.
All of this suggests that the US is, indeed, tilting toward a Shia Gulf.
Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the Bush administration is united in its policies toward Iran.
According to a report by Simon Tisdall in the Guardian, some US officials–all anonymous–are still speaking in very hawkish terms about Iran and its role in Iraq.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."
So, who are the remaining Iran hawks?
Right Zionists like Richard Perle remain quite hawkish about Iran and are very hostile toward dialogue with the Iranian regime, but do they have friends in the administration calling the shots on Iraq and Iran?
Cheney is the most likely ally, but he appears to be supporting the diplomatic discussions with Iran.
He recently explained his position to reporters:
QUESTION: Is it possible to both have a hard line on Iran, as you did on the aircraft carrier, and talk with them about Iraq? But are you still both going in different directions?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: They're separate issues. The President made clear the conversations in Baghdad are between ambassadors — focused on the situation in Iraq and what we believe is Iran's interference in the internal affairs of Iraq.
Not exactly the warmest words of greeting, but neither is it a critique of the diplomatic opening.
Moreover, Robin Wright at the Washington Post suggests that Cheney has been instrumental in facilitating the "medical care" for al-Hakim that has taken him to the US and Iran.
Vice President Cheney played a role in arranging for Hakim to see U.S. military doctors in Baghdad, who made the original diagnosis, and for the current medical treatment in Houston, the sources said.
If Cheney is facilitating dialogue between the US and Iran, then who is busy screaming about Iran to Simon Tisdall at the Guardian?
There are, of course, Right Arabist Iran hawks from the worlds of diplomacy (i.e., James Akins and his Iran Policy Committee) and within the military brass (i.e., Zinni and others).
Steven Clemons suggests that "Bush is allowing Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice to play good cop, bad cop with the Iranians."
So, which cop is bluffing?
Is this the start of a "beautiful relationship" between the US and Iran? Or is this the prelude to a policy of regime change?
Either way, my bet is that Cheney doesn't leave office without trying to go beyond containment.


The pollster found that 48 per cent of the more than 18,000 people it reached online in 23 countries agreed that "religion provides the common values and ethical foundations that diverse societies need to thrive in the 21st century."
A bare majority — 52 per cent — thought otherwise. They agreed with the sentiment that "religious beliefs promote intolerance, exacerbate ethnic divisions and impede social progress."
There was wide regional variation in the results. Respondents in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, where there are large Muslim populations, overwhelmingly said they believed religion was a force for good, while respondents in European countries tended to disagree with that.
About two-thirds of Americans polled thought religion was a force for good, but only 36 per cent of Canadians thought the same.
The two men will debate the question of whether religion is a force for good in the world.
The avowed atheist has written that organized religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."
Hitchens, who is battling esophageal cancer, added that if "religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world."
Blair will argue the opposite side. He converted to Roman Catholicism after leaving 10 Downing Street in 2007.
Blair has spoken often about the role of faith in his life since leaving office and has formed the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which promotes "respect and understanding" among the world's major religions.
He will argue an understanding of faith is necessary in a world of globalization and rapid social change.
"Religious faith has a major part to play in shaping the values which guide the modern world, and can and should be a force for progress," he said earlier.
The moderator of the debate said it's not about the existence of God.
"We have asked Mr. Blair and Mr. Hitchens to wrestle with the more immediate question facing developed and developing nations: is religion a force for peace or conflict in the modern world?" said Rudyard Griffiths, co-organizer of the Munk Debates.
The debate, at Roy Thomson Hall, quickly sold out. A live video stream of the debate can be watched online for $4.99.
The Munk Debates are a series created through the Aurea Foundation, a Canadian charity established by businessman and philanthropist Peter Munk.
Notes on the poll: Ipsos Reid said its online panel included respondents aged 18-64 in Canada and the United States and 16-64 in all other countries. The respondents were polled between Sept. 7 and 23. About 1,000 were polled in each of Canada and the United States.
Re: Is Religion a Force for Good? US, Saudi Arabia say yes.. Canada and Europe say no.
I would've gone with the yes.
It's some dudes that make religion negative, not the religions (or most of them, I guess) themselves.
You still with that thing of moving there?
Still, Canada ain't even the lowest. Go Sweden!
I really don't have a problem with religion, just the people that think they are better than others because they believe in a higher power and those who look down at others because they believe in higher power.
I would definitely vote "no".
(Mainstream) religion imposes ridiculous and outdated moral codes on millions of people. It claims, contrarily to science, that the universe and Earth were created not by clusters of light cases which condensed, but by a giant and vengeful interstellar ghost.
It's ironic that the two countries which implement absurd religious morality as law and in doing so infringe upon human rights are the ones that voted "Yes". But it's to be expected, since they're indoctrinated from a young age in the brilliance of Islam and omnipotence of God.
I'll also add that I'd be terrified to post anything this frank on VGC, so...hooray for Southsky?
"We're going to take food away from millions of New Yorkers because Christianity says gays are bad"
29% is still too high for my liking!
any of you see the Blair-Hitchens debate on the same issue btw?
I'm Christian and don't agree with that sentiment. Keep in mind that not all of us are so single minded.
Obviously, there are more religious people in Saudi Arabia and the USA....Religions are a force for good if you are religious....I doubt drug dealers and rapists are religious...so why would they stop doing things that are said to be bad by the religions they were born with ?
I really don't have much to add here...just wanted to comment on how awesome Kantor's avatar is.
GodOfWar_3ever wrote: (1)Obviously, there are more religious people in Saudi Arabia and the USA....(2)Religions are a force for good if you are religious....(3)I doubt drug dealers and rapists are religious...(4)so why would they stop doing things that are said to be bad by the religions they were born with ?
I'd have to say I would have never guessed that Saudi Arabia would agree more with American than any European country.


Various python and non python books available each day (free for 24hrs) that you would normally be charged payment for from packpub.
Be aware that I might not list every book so be sure to check packtpub each day to not miss out on something.
Disclaimer: I am not connected to packpub in anyway, I just get books from them and i'm letting others know about them.
is this related to all these free ebooks from O'Reilly? 7 of them are for Python (scroll down). i don't know how long this offer lasts. the form requests an email address. i don't know if it is verified or if throw-away email addresses will be accepted.
This is not from oreily.
I've been getting free books from them pretty much every day since around the start of 2015.
I thought about downloading "How to Make Mistakes in Python," but I figure I've got that covered.
I have downloaded this from another place. But I know well how to make mistakes in Python.
Only 2 Hrs left to claim this book for free :cry: .


text:
O Heinkel He 46 foi uma aeronave desenvolvida pela Heinkel, na Alemanha. Um avião de reconhecimento monoplano monomotor, serviu a Luftwaffe até aos primeiros meses da Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando foi substituído por outras aeronaves mais modernas.

Foi usado pela Legião Condor na Guerra Civil Espanhola, e pela Força Aérea da Hungria, até ao final da Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Aviões produzidos na Alemanha
46
Aviões militares de reconhecimento
Aviões monoplanos
Aviões monomotor
Aviões da Segunda Guerra Mundial
Aeronaves da Luftwaffe

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Home Banking & SSC All you would like to know about the NITI AAYOG
Law Blogs
All you would like to know about the NITI AAYOG
By CL -
NITI Aayog or The National Institution for Transforming India came into existence on the 1st January, 2015 by means of a cabinet resolution, replacing the erstwhile Planning Commission. The change was one of the big ticket reforms announced by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi  during his first Independence Day address after assuming office. The new think tank that the government came up with is aims to promote co-operative federalism and foster a spirit of harmony among the Union and State governments.
Why is NITI AAYOG required?
Let us start with enumerating the reasons which led to such a change in the planning corridors of the government i.e. the shortcomings of the Planning Commission and the reason for NITI Aayog.
The Nehruvian think tank was primarily tasked with formulating the five year plans for the government and deciding on the allocation of funds to state governments. However, with age it failed to understand the local resources and requirements of the states.
Planning Commission was concerned with the planned budget of the states however, in the recent past, most of the planned funds under the budget were lying unused and a majority of expenditure is being incurred under non-planned expenditure and hence, there is hardly a need to have a think tank for planning the funds.
The Planning Commission made a declaration that any person spending Rs 32 daily in an urban area and Rs 26 in a rural area cannot be called poor. The statement not only was irresponsible but showed the vacuum that had crept between Planning Commission and reality. This marked the first episode of voice of dissent rising from economist, questioning the existence of the Planning Commission.
Also, coalition politics has set a strong foot in the local and national political fabric of the country and hence, there was a growing need to decentralise planning.
Planning Commission was seen to be adding on to the red-tapism in the country and hence, was a hindrance to the economic development.
Quite a lot of Planning Commission's development schemes failed because of their "one size fits all' approach. To put it in simpler words – The Planning Commission always came up with one scheme which was to be implemented in the similar manner in each and every state irrespective of the local problems being faced by the state.
Thus, from the time of its inception in 1950 till 2014 much has changed in the country. India has moved from a mere demand of food security to profitable agriculture for which it is important for the government to become an enabler and Planning Commission failed to update itself as per the aspirations of the emerging neo-middle class and hence, was asked to wrap up.
Structure of NITI AAYOG
DESIGNATION NAME BRIEF
Chairman Prime Minister Prime Minister is the ex-officio head of the Niti Aayog
Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya Well known economist
Ex- officio Member 1 Rajnath Singh Minister of Home Affairs
Ex-officio Member 2 Arun Jaitley Minister of finance; Minister of corporate affairs; Minister of information and broadcasting
Ex-officio Member 3 Suresh Prabhu Minister of Railways
Ex-officio Member 4 Radha Mohan Singh Minister of Agriculture
Full time Member 1 Bibek Debroy Economist
Full time Member 2 V.K Saraswat Former Secretary, Defence R&D
Full time Member 3 Professor Ramesh Chand Agriculture Economist
Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant  Ex-Secretary DIPP, Government of India
Here is a structural diagram to depict the structure of Niti Aayog.
All the full time members of the NITI Aayog hold a rank equivalent to that of a Minister of State in the union council of minister, however, this is just a name sake equivalence specified by the government, this does not entitle them to interfere in the decisions of the council in anyway, their field of work is primarily restricted to NITI Aayog only.
Apart from the members specified above, the Aayog also has special invitees. Currently, there are three ministers who are working as special invitees under the NITI Aayog: Smriti Irani (Minister for Human Resource Development), Nitin Gadkari (Minister for Road transport and Highways; Minister for shipping) and Thawar Chand Gehlot (Minister for Social Justice and empowerment). Prime Minister can invite experts to be a part of NITI Aayog, as and when needed.
Next thing of importance in the structure of NITI Aayog are the councils. By the resolution note released by the cabinet, NITI Aayog has various councils working under its name; let us have a look at all of those.
The first and foremost is the Governing Council which has the Prime Minister as its chairman and the following members : All the ex-officio members, full time members, the vice chairperson of the Aayog, Chief Minister of all states and UTs and Lieutenant Governors of the centrally administered Union Territories.
The Governing Council is stated to be the only body where the PM will directly interact with CMs and LGs to talk about the future course of policy making of the union government in accordance with the hopes and aspirations of the people of various states and UTs.
Under the governing council are three sub governing councils which are actually sub groups of chief ministers headed by one of the CM themselves, to check the progress of various schemes and report the hardships being faced by the state governments in their implementation.
First is the sub group on Centrally Sponsored Schemes: The group had deliberations on the Vision 2022 of the union government and discussed various provisions and allocations made to the states under various Centrally Sponsored Schemes. Though, the sub group has members from selected states, consultations are held on a wider scale involving representatives from all the states and consensus is built before submitting the final report.
Second sub group on Skill Development: The group was constituted to address issues pertaining to human resources, especially youth and to work on scientific methods on moving towards creating a pool of skilled manpower. This group too has submitted its report to the Prime minister.
Third subgroup on Swachch Bharat Mission :The sub group was created to look into the financial needs of the Swachch Bharat mission and give insights on the budgetary, technological and institutional requirements of the same. This sub group too has submitted its report to the Prime Minister.
The third working group in the NITI Aayog is the task force. At present, there are two task forces working on Agriculture development and poverty alleviation. These task forces are mainly comprised of bureaucrats and free of any political control. They are also allowed to appoint experts as and when required.
Here is a diagrammatic representation of councils and their hierarchy.
Functions of NITI AAYOG:
Once the structure of NITI Aayog is known, it is very important to understand the deliverables expected from the NITI Aayog , while there is no clarity on whether or not the Aayog will continue with the five year plan exercise, there are other discreet functions that the NITI Aayog is expected to perform and will be judged on. These are:
The Aayog is stated to function as the policy think tank of the government. Along with that, it will also work on assessing the effectiveness of the on-going schemes.
In the course of it, the Aayog will also be taking up case studies of other nations and adopting their best practices in terms of good governance and sustainable development.
The prime reason for the birth of NITI Aayog is to promote co-operative federalism. Many of you must not be clear about how will exactly NITI Aayog do this? For those who are not very clear with the functions of the Planning Commission, I will elaborate. Planning Commission too had the PM and all the CMs as its members but it was turning to be more of a dictatorial body where all the developmental decisions were taking place at the level of union government and meetings were mostly used up in dictating those to the state CMs. Opinions though expressed did not make much of a difference, where as in NITI Aayog decision making is being done on a joint level by both the Union and the State governments, thus, taking into account needs and wants of citizens at every level including panchayats.
NITI Aayog is stated to promote private participation in the country keeping in view the changing needs of the world, and also come up with policies to reduce red tape.
The Aayog will work not only on poverty alleviation but poverty elimination.
There will be regional councils to work on specific issues like, drought problems, development works in left wing extremism affected areas etc.
Use social media and ICT to maintain its transparency all the time.
While the NITI Aayog is one of the most ambitious reforms of the government towards "minimum government, maximum governance", it carries on itself a huge burden of the nation's expectations, specially at a time when the world as a whole is passing through turbulent times, and policies made at this time will steer the nation either towards a developed one or push it further down the backward scale. But, it has been "so far so good" for the NITI Aayog until now.
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Nishanth March 30, 2016 at 10:27 am
Will there be any questions on this in the CLAT exam?
suhasini March 30, 2016 at 11:29 am
They might ask questions like- 1. Planning Commission was replaced by which organization?
2. NITI Aayog is a constitutional or statutory body or an advisory body?
Nisha April 16, 2016 at 8:49 pm
its an advisory body , right?
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California-based SpaceX's test launch of its Falcon 9 rocket will be the first big test of President Barack Obama's plan for human spaceflight.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - California-based SpaceX has laid out a Friday timetable for the first test launch of its Falcon 9 rocket — and the first big test of President Barack Obama's plan for human spaceflight.
The company said Friday's launch window will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff has been put on hold for weeks while Air Force officials checked out SpaceX's flight termination system, or FTS. The system is designed to let range officials destroy the rocket in the event it goes out of control.
"We are now looking good for final approval of the FTS by this Friday ... just in time for our first launch attempt," SpaceX said Tuesday in a statement.
NASA is giving SpaceX $278 million to develop and test the Falcon 9 and its Dragon capsule for use in transporting cargo to the International Space Station. If SpaceX is successful, it could benefit from $1.6 billion in supply contracts through 2016.
SpaceX was founded by Internet millionaire Elon Musk eight years ago to offer low-cost launch alternatives. Each Falcon 9 launch is projected to cost about $50 million, compared with an estimated $138 million or more for an Atlas 5 launch provided by United Launch Alliance.
Obama's space plan calls for commercial providers such as SpaceX, as well as United Launch Alliance and Orbital Science Corp., to send crew as well as cargo to the space station once safety requirements are satisfied.
Such commercial options would take the place of NASA's Ares 1 rocket development effort, which would be canceled if Congress signs off on the president's plan. That cancellation is controversial in part because it would likely lead to thousands of layoffs among the space agency's traditional contractors.
Apollo moonwalkers Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan were sharply critical of NASA's current direction during House and Senate hearings last month. They doubted that commercial launch providers would be able to deliver on their promises, and they said the plan was likely to push America out of first place among spacefaring nations.
Apollo 17's Cernan, who was the last man to walk on the moon in 1972, complained that companies such as SpaceX "don't even know what they don't know."
In such an environment, the success or failure of the Falcon 9's maiden launch could have a crucial influence on the debate in Congress as well as the White House's future course. SpaceX is paying the bill for this development flight, conducted in advance of the tests required by NASA.
Friday is the earliest opportunity for launch, but Space X stressed that the flight could be delayed further. A second launch window already has been reserved for Saturday.
"As always, weather will play a significant role in our overall launch schedule," the company said in Tuesday's statement. "The weather experts at the Cape are giving us a 40 percent chance of 'no go' conditions for both days of our window, citing the potential for cumulus clouds and anvil clouds from thunderstorms."
The company said its primary goal during this flight would be to gather data for the flights to come. "It would be a great day if we reach orbital velocity, but still a good day if the first stage functions correctly, even if the second stage malfunctions," SpaceX said. "It would be a bad day if something happens on the launch pad itself and we're not able to gain any flight data."
But SpaceX said it would continue with Falcon 9 development even if this first rocket fails on the pad.
"If we have a bad day, it will be disappointing, but one launch does not make or break SpaceX as a company, nor commercial spaceflight as an industry," the statement read. "The Atlas rocket only succeeded on its 13th flight, and today it is the most reliable vehicle in the American fleet, with a record better than shuttle."
This report includes information from msnbc.com's Alan Boyle and NBC News' Jay Barbree.


Even as I write this post, I feel like I am breaking some sacred code. I want to share something with you, something I enjoy so much that by sharing it I am also lessening my enjoyment at the same time.
I did a semester abroad in Italy back in 1999, when they still had the lira, and we spent a lot of time discussing the coming impact of the Euro in my business classes, which was already being introduced to the public. This "introduction" was mostly by signs placed on cash registers reading, "1 Euro = 1,936 Lire." Some places even went so far to list both prices on items.
I studied in Castiglion Fiorentino, a tiny town that was unfortunate enough to be the home to three groups of 100 American students throughout the year. We were the fortunate ones, and of course now I realize it more than ever. I remember looking through Texas A&M's description in the big College Board book of ALL universities when I was a junior in high school. I saw the "Study Abroad Program in Italy" and I literally made my mind up then to do it, six years later.
At the time, this town had one internet point, in the library way at the top of the hill, and it charged you a scatto, a measurement which could be around 220 seconds and had you paranoid the whole time you were using their Windows 95 computer and modem. Of course, a long line of students were behind you. One pay phone inside our building meant no private conversations and again that same line. Now, I see people studying here walking around with cell phones, and there are internet cafes everywhere. There were no blogs (I saw over 100+ mentions of this town on Technorati today) in my day, no digital cameras, no camera phones. It's only been 7 years but the experience they are having is completely different from mine.
I was voted "Most Likely to Return" by my fellow classmates, and it looks like they were right. I didn't go back immediately after, like I had thought about at the time. I knew my MIS degree would have a half-life (I took a class in COBOL, folks) that would demand immediate usage of my skills or I would miss the boat completely.
We spent a lot of time eating bad food, as most tourists are forced to do, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tired and hungry, we just wanted a place to sit down, eat and recoup.
After striking out many times with stale sandwiches and reheated, limp pieces of pizza, I found this place. I found this place right under my nose! It's probably my favorite place in all of Italy, I like it so much.
Note to the wise: They DO close for summer holidays, usually all of August. I made this embarassing discovery in 2002 when I tried to bring my family there for a quick lunch. Oops.
The inside of this place hasn't changed in seven years, and there's no need to. A row of tables lines each side of this narrow hole-in-the-wall, with the oven and workers in the very back. The tables are thick solid wood placed so close together that it often leaves you with your back up against another customer. But no one really notices, because they are concentrated on the food.
Gosh, you're killing me! I love Tuscany! My favorite region, besides Sicily. I would love to live there and if I actually did move to Italy (I'm figuring things out right now), it would be there.
I've been there. It's beautiful. Must have been a wonderful place to study.
Hi I love your writing about Italy, it makes me homesick! I spent six months on Florida State University's Florence Program in Firenze in 1975 and have been back several times so far, hope to return many times more.
There was a special little restaurant that I went to one time that was on one of the streets leading to the Duomo, there was no sign, nothing but a red door in a long wall of practically nothing (no windows or other doors for a long ways either direction, I seem to remember). They served peasant food, bringing huge bowls of various items to long tables where everyone sat. It must have been one price to eat all you want because nobody kept track of what you ate exactly, I even ate garden snails! Not the big fat escargot snails but little bitty ones with conical shells sauteed in garlic butter, they were so good. I remember big bowls of greens and pasta and stuffing myself until I could barely walk, it was all so delicious. By any chance would you happen to know where that little red-door peasant's restaurant is exactly so I can find it the next time I return?
@Karl, I've never heard of it but perhaps someone else that comes across this post will!


text:
About UsOur PracticeContactTopics
Environmental Law +
Monitoring the Environmental, Health & Safety and Energy Landscape
Catching Up on the 2021 Clean Water Act Releases
By Bob Melvin on September 21, 2021
Posted in Environmental Compliance & Permitting
The latest season of Clean Water Act (CWA) changes are now streaming from the courts and federal agencies. The Biden administration and lower courts have picked up where prior administrations and the U.S. Supreme Court left off, as we reported last year in Binge-Watching the Clean Water Act Cases and Rules. Unless Congress somehow finds bipartisan support for legislative fixes, we expect contentious CWA rulemaking proceedings to resume and protracted CWA litigation to prosper. These actions constrain land developers, utilities and companies with projects or operations that impact wetlands or other water features. These decisions might also give environmental groups and agencies stronger grounds on which to base CWA claims targeting sewers, pipelines, tanks, and other systems that leak or seep wastes into groundwater.
Maui's Functionally-Equivalent Point Source Discharges into Groundwater
In July, a federal court in Hawaii found that the County of Maui has violated the CWA by injecting its treated sewage into the ground without a CWA discharge permit, becoming the first court to apply the Supreme Court's 2020 interpretation of when CWA permitting requirements apply to pollutant sources flowing into the ground before reaching surface waters. In the 2020 County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund decision, the Court held that such an indirect discharge only requires CWA permitting if it is the "functional equivalent" of a "point source" directly discharging into CWA-regulated "navigable waters."
On remand, the district court in Hawaii granted plaintiffs summary judgment, Hawaii Wildlife Fund et al v. County of Maui (D. Haw. Jul 26, 2021), based on an analysis of all seven factors suggested in the Supreme Court's decision, as well as other considerations. The court held that, on balance, the treated sewage injections were the functional equivalent of direct discharges into the ocean. The court stuck to its position that the transit time and distance from the wastewater's injection point to its entry into the ocean were relatively short and also emphasized the raw volume of discharged wastewater, as an additional factor that it found relevant in this case. The July ruling gave little consideration to the dilution and chemical transformation of specific chemicals in the treated sewage after ground injection, focusing instead on the fate of the injected wastewater as a whole. Experts generally agreed that all of the well injections on the island eventually reach the ocean. More specific studies were able to trace roughly two percent of this wastewater to specific seeps found on the ocean floor. The court noted that, even if it considered only "the wastewater that emerges at the monitored seeps," the County's discharge "would amount to millions of gallons of wastewater" reaching the ocean, in a condition that no party argued was "devoid of pollutants."
In September, the Biden administration took another step toward expanding the government's view of such CWA jurisdiction by formally rescinding a guidance memorandum published by the Environmental Protection Agency in the final days of the Trump administration. While the scope of the Supreme Court's "functional equivalent" standard will inevitably be shaped by future judicial and administrative rulings, these initial decisions suggest that the circumstances when CWA liability attaches to these indirect point source discharges may be growing.
Defining "Waters of the United States"
When it wrote the CWA, Congress asserted jurisdiction over pollutant discharges into "navigable waters," but defined this critical term only as "waters of the United States" (WOTUS). Thus began the mystery surrounding which water and wetland features are protected under both the CWA § 404 "Dredge and Fill" and the CWA § 402 "NPDES" permit programs. Over the next five decades, courts and the federal agencies have pushed competing views of WOTUS.
The Obama administration attempted to consolidate these interpretations in its 2015 "Clean Water Rule," including a concurring opinion offered by Supreme Court Justice Breyer in the divided 2006 Rapanos decision. This interpretation would extend CWA jurisdiction to wetland and waters possessing a "significant nexus" to navigable waters in the traditional sense by significantly affecting "the chemical, physical, and biological integrity" of such traditional navigable waters. The 2015 rule was effectively trumped (so to speak) in 2019 when the next administration cast it aside, temporarily reinstating the government's pre-2015 regulatory definition. As part of its "repeal and replace" initiative, the Trump administration eventually adopted the 2020 Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR). The NWPR favored Justice Scalia's plurality opinion in Rapanos, holding that WOTUS should extend only to "those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water … described in ordinary parlance as [streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes]" and "only those wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are [WOTUS] in their own right."
To no one's surprise, the Biden administration published Executive Order 13990 on January 25, 2021, declaring its science-based approach to rulemaking and revoking several directives issued by the Trump administration. The revoked orders included President Trump's Executive Order 13778 embracing Justice Scalia's narrower interpretation of WOTUS. On June 9, 2021, the new administration followed these marching orders by announcing plans to propose two rounds of rulemaking, an initial rule that would withdraw the NWPR, again reinstating the agencies' pre-2015 WOTUS definition, and a second regulation that would adopt a new definition for this critical CWA term.
In August and early September, the agencies held a series of public meetings and opened a docket for submission of written comments to inform their pending rule proposals. The agencies emphasize their plans to consider the CWA § 101(a) objective to "restore the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters," the latest peer-reviewed and relevant science, practical WOTUS implementation approaches, and the experiences of a diverse range of stakeholders including landowners, farmers, environmental groups, and disadvantaged communities with environmental justice concerns. The agencies' WOTUS outreach program therefore includes planned consultations with state and tribal authorities and ten regional roundtables to provide input from the "full spectrum of stakeholders" and to "highlight similarities and differences across geographic regions." To establish a "durable" WOTUS definition that can survive judicial scrutiny and not become the next target for repeal, the Biden administration appears to recognize the importance of factoring the CWA § 101(b) objective, preserving the States' primary regulatory role in the development and use of land and water resources. The agencies also seek input on "how climate change affects the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters" consistent with President Biden's broader directives in Executive Order 13990.
In response to several challenges proceeding against the 2020 WOTUS rule, the government has also moved to remand the NWPR back to the agencies for further revisions. On its website, the U.S. EPA has posted copies of these pleadings as well as agency data suggesting a narrowing effect on WOTUS from the NWPR during its first year of implementation. Fewer dredge and fill permit applications are being filed and far fewer are being required under CWA jurisdictional determinations, especially in arid states. So far, federal courts in South Carolina, Massachusetts New York, and California have granted the government's remand motions, but only one Arizona decision, Pasqua Yaqui Tribe v. U.S. EPA (D. Ariz. Aug. 30, 2021), has granted the challengers' related requests that the 2020 NWPR also be vacated.
While still arguing for remand of the NWPR without vacatur in other cases, the government seems comfortable with the Arizona district court decision, as shown by the EPA website posting pre-2015 WOTUS terms and implementation guidance and stating: "In light of this order, the agencies have halted implementation of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule and are interpreting 'waters of the United States' consistent with the pre-2015 regulatory regime until further notice." Following this September 3, 2021 announcement, the Army Corps of Engineers has applied the pre-2015 WOTUS rule when issuing formal jurisdictional determinations (JDs), while allowing its prior JDs to remain in effect.
The agencies are promising to propose a more "durable" WOTUS definition that addresses the concerns raised with both the 2020 NWPR and the 2015 Clean Water Rule. Certainly, the Trump and Obama administrations staked positions on either sides of the WOTUS gap created by Congress when it adopted the CWA without a satisfactory definition of its most essential term. Whether the Biden administration can bridge this gap or simply feed the insatiable appetite of CWA litigants is still the unsolved mystery that brings us back to this drama time and again.
Tags: clean water act, CWA, wotus
Bob Melvin
I am a Robinson+Cole Partner with more than 25 years of experience counseling clients on environmental, health and safety compliance, sustainability, emergency response, brownfield, and other site remediation and development projects. I currently co-chair the firm's Sustainability Group and previously worked as an…
I am a Robinson+Cole Partner with more than 25 years of experience counseling clients on environmental, health and safety compliance, sustainability, emergency response, brownfield, and other site remediation and development projects. I currently co-chair the firm's Sustainability Group and previously worked as an environmental engineer for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (now CTDEEP). I represent companies and organizations on related concerns arising in real estate and corporate transactions, as well as enforcement, cost recovery and other proceedings before agencies and courts. These clients include aerospace and other manufacturers, stone and aggregate producers, metal finishers, municipalities, developers, educational institutions, and water and wastewater utilities. My full firm bio can be accessed here.
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They were the first women to win the prize since Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who died last month, was named as the laureate in 2004. Most of the recipients in the award's 110-year history have been men, and Friday's decision seemed designed to give impetus to the fight for women's rights around the world.
But it really is about more than just equal rights for women.
Numerous studies have shown that empowering girls and women translates into significant improvements in child health, nutrition, education and their communities' economic development. This is true in both poor countries and wealthier countries.
It's not just about women's rights and peace-making. It's about what works.


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Burakovsky scores in OT to give Kraken 4-3 win over Devils
SEATTLE — Ryan Donato had two goals and an assist for Seattle, and Andre Burakovsky scored 1:10 into overtime to give the Kraken a 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.
Donato powered Seattle to an early 2-0 lead, but New Jersey rallied. Erik Haula's short-handed breakaway goal at 6:04 of the third period tied it at 2.
Brandon Tanev put the Kraken in front again at 7:51, but New Jersey forced overtime with another late goal. Nico Hischier jabbed the rebound off Jack Hughes' shot past Seattle goalie Martin Jones with 1:14 left, capping an extended flurry of activity around the net after the Devils pulled goalie Mackenzie Blackwell.
It was the second straight game that New Jersey forced overtime with a late goal after pulling the goalie. Hughes scored with 8.6 seconds left in regulation against San Jose on Monday. The Devils eventually won in a shootout.
Burakovsky's 13th goal of the season slipped under Blackwell's pad and snapped a two-game losing streak for Seattle. It was the Kraken's 27th win, matching the team's total from its inaugural season.
New Jersey had won five straight games overall and seven in a row on the road. It missed out on a chance to sweep a five-game trip, its longest of the season.
Damon Severson scored midway through the second period to pull New Jersey within 2-1.
Jones made 27 saves and won for the eighth time in his past nine starts. Blackwood made 36 saves for New Jersey, keeping the Devils in the game by withstanding an early onslaught of shots by the Kraken.
Donato scored nearly identical goals, snapping an eight-game stretch when he failed to find the back of the net. Donato scored in five of six games in December and then went cold with just four points during the eight-game goal drought.
He got his first goal came at 12:27 of the first when he snapped a wrist shot from the right circle over Blackwell's glove and under the crossbar.
The second goal came from nearly the same spot on the ice and gave Seattle a 2-0 lead at 4:52 of the second.
New Jersey F Nathan Bastian returned after missing 22 games with an upper-body injury. … Seattle played without F Jaden Schwartz (undisclosed) and D Justin Schultz (undisclosed). Schwartz missed his fourth straight game, while Schultz missed his third game of the season. Schultz was limited to a season-low 10:12 of ice time on Tuesday in Edmonton.
Kraken host Colorado on Saturday.
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I graduated from Georgetown University and after graduation remained in Washington, DC to work for Deloitte Consulting in the Federal Strategy and Operations practice. My clients were primarily Federal healthcare agencies. I am interested in innovation in primary care and particularly solutions that address community needs, wellness, and prevention. While at Wharton, I interned with DaVita Healthcare Partners and analyzed patient experience data from their primary care clinics. After Wharton, I will be staying in Philadelphia and returning to Deloitte Consulting. I was the co-president of Wharton Global Health Volunteers, a non-profit board fellow, and communications TA at Wharton.


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Killing our Elephant's for Government Votes
Februar 23, 2018 Juni 24, 2014 von jenman
A journey of many miles to Namibia's north-eastern Kunene region, along rough desert roads that require a lot of patience and more than a little luck, is one that offers a reward that makes it worth your while. This reward is the sighting of the unique desert-adapted elephants, whose gently swaying gate and intelligent, wise eyes, make any distance of ragged road a worthwhile undertaking, if only for a single spotting.
Sadly, however, as recently reported in an article in the Daily Maverick, penned by Don Pinnock, these gentle giants are increasingly under threat from all sides, including political, environmental and hunters.
While news of poachers is by all means nothing new, a recent report is set to ignite a storm of protest the world over. This report claims that hunting permits were issued for six desert elephant bulls to be killed for meat, in exchange for the villagers voting in favour of the ruling party, SWAPO. And with the country's national elections taking place later this year in November, fears stand that this horrifying trend is set to continue, as the ruling party attempts to gain support where it's previously had very little in the more isolated communities of the country.
According to the article, the "meat-for-votes" deal will see the meals from the six elephants shot, given to each person in the rural areas, who will receive only about $1 worth of meat. This deal was made despite advice from several qualified scientists and conservationists who spoke out against it. Further evidence of the deal comes from a spokesperson for the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Romeo Muyunda, who confirmed that permits for the hunting of six bulls had been issued. Of the incident, Muyunda claimed that: "the local people need to benefit from the elephants in some way or another, or they will begin poaching them."
Once a storm of protests flooded into the Ministry, they issued a press release that urged the public to "ignore these inaccurate, false reports and assumptions on our elephants and sustainable utilisation practices," threatening that "illegal" NGOs "working against the wildlife conservation activities of the government" ought to "refrain from this irresponsible behaviour before action is taken."
Despite these tactics, the fact remains: the Ministry does not refute these hunting permits, and instead attempted only to show that there is no such thing as desert-adapted elephants. They claimed that they're normal African elephants, which allows them to state that the elephant population of Namibia is healthy, rather than having to admit to the dangerously low numbers of these special desert-adapted giants.
Rather shockingly, the same press release then continues to note the need to cull "problem" elephants and points out that trophy hunting "has grown to be one of the most important industr[ies] in Namibia in terms of its strong contribution to the Gross Domestic Product, employment creation, and the well-being and social upliftment of our rural people."
Laura Brown, the Director of Desert Lion and Elephant Conservation, sees things differently. For her, the fact that these desert elephants are unique is non-negotiable. She states that they have been able to adapt to the extreme fluctuations of weather climate in the desert (where the annual rainfall is below 100mm a year) through the means of learned behaviour that enables them to master the art of survival in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
Despite the government's claims that around 300 desert-adapted elephants remain in the Kunene region, Conservationists disagree, stating that there are no more than 100 left, 18 of which are mature bulls, of which the hunting permits are said to have been issued for 6.
Brown believes that poaching, habitat destruction and over-hunting has reduced the male-to-female ratio in the herd of desert elephants to about one to 13. "This decline destroys the social cohesion between the animals, which in turn makes the whole herd become more aggressive and restless. It depletes the gene-pool, exposing this unique population to inbreeding and the last of only two desert-adapted elephant populations to the threat of extinction."
Attempts to remedy the issuing of these permits by buying them back have been met only with decline. Basil Calitz, Tour Operator and Lodge Owner in Uis, offered to purchase a permit from Nick Nolte Hunting Safaris, but was told that the Government would not allow it. And Anton Louw from Live Trophy reports that he too had approached the government with an offer to not only buy the permits, but to replace the elephant meat with beef. "We confirm that we are offering to buy the permits, as well as supply an equal measure of meat," he said. "We are prepared to assist in establishing sustainable food production initiatives to support the affected communities." Sadly, however, his offer has so far been ignored.
While the war against poaching rages on worldwide, what's going on in Namibia leaves nothing but a queasy unease in your stomach. When a Ruling Government is willing to trade the lives of an endangered species, only to retain its position at the head of a country, questions need to be asked, and people need to be held accountable. For such decisions do not only effect the people of Namibia, but every individual on the planet. And when the future generations are destined to learn about the desert-adapted elephants only from text books and online encyclopaedias, it becomes all the more vital that something be done to stand up and fight for these gorgeous creatures, who cannot fight for themselves.
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The BLT SMS-4U is a 12 channels Video Server, with simultaneous recording while playback, featuring full HDTV capability, stereoscopic recording for S3DTV and ready for 4K/UHDTV. Recording sources can be separated cameras (ISO-Cam use) or High Speed Cameras to perform Super Slow Motion up to x8. The extended version, 8R4P allows up to 8 cameras recording or 2 High Speed cameras. Multiple Playback channels configuration can be either multiple independent users or coupled as Program/Preview to allow live instant action editing. Multiple Audio interfaces (SDI, AES/EBU, Analog and MADI) up to 128 Audio recording tracks. Thanks to its compact and limited size (5 unit rack), SMS-4U is particularly suited for live sport and news applications for Studio and OB VAN.
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SportTouch is the BLT integrated production suite consisting of a BLT Videoserver SMS-U Series, RUS Control Panel and the RUS-TAB (touch screen tablet style control panel).
This unleashed solution provide a new production work-flow used for applications such as sports slow-motions, clip contribution, on the fly high-lights creation, DVE, Zoom, Telestrator and graphics.
The RUS-TAB tablet operation offers an intuitive interface with user friendly gestures like smartphones do: It is fun!
This allow it to be used either as extension by the reply operator or to enable direct control by commentator and on-air talent.


Oswego County and its residents have played a unique role in the history of New York State and America. Learn the legend of Silas Town, an American spy and Revolutionary War hero who helped turn the tide of the war, as well as the story of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Hear stories of the Fort Ontario Refugee Shelter, the only shelter in the United States for victims of war-torn Europe during World War II.
Throughout the county, you'll discover that the Iroquois, French and British armies, the Oswego Canal, and the Underground Railroad have all left their mark on the pages of time. Explore this fascinating heritage in area museums, historic sites, cemeteries and local libraries. For more information, check out our Historical Guide.


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Father cries when family surprises him with new puppy
By Carolina Sanchez, FOX 26 News
Nemo & Lucy
ONTARIO (FOX 26) - Few things can mend a broken heart or a troubled mind.
But for James Xuereb the answer seems to always be the same: a loving dog.
A video of James receiving a Bichon Frise as an early birthday gift has gone viral and touched the hearts of many.
In the video, you see his daughter Jaleen handing him a card as he sits unwittingly on the couch.
The photo on the card is almost a dead giveaway -- a photo of a Bichon. But what's written inside and the story behind it brings the 52-year-old man to a heartfelt cry.
It read: "Hi, my name is Lumo and I am a boy Bichon. No, I am not Nemo, nor could I ever be Lucy, but my mommy brought me to bring you some happiness back into your life. So, as we walk in this journey of life together, may we create our own wonderful memories and reclaim the beautiful memories that you had with Nemo and Lucy. Love, Lumo."
What elicited such a strong emotion?
More than 13 years ago, James was going through a state of depression. Nothing would cheer him up. That's when, according to Jaleen, his wife Wanda brought him home Nemo, a Bichon Frise puppy. James instantly fell in love.
"He had an attachment to him. He leaned on him for anything and everything," says Jaleen of their relationship.
To James, Nemo was another one of his kids. His best friend.
After two years, the family decided Nemo needed company, so they brought home Lucy, another Bichon.
Both dogs, as is common with small breeds, suffered from a congenital heart defect.
Sadly, in late August, Lucy, 11, suffered a cardiac arrest that took her life. Two weeks later, things went from bad to worse.
Nemo's health was deteriorating. His lungs were filled with liquid and he had a hard time breathing. The Xuereb family had to make the difficult decision to put down their 13-year-old companion to stop his suffering.
"My dad was on edge," Jaleen recalls. "He didn't want to talk about [Lucy and Nemo]. He would leave the room if we did. Or he would start crying."
Meantime, the family put up photos and contemplated ways to make Xuereb feel better.
So Wanda decided it may be time for a new dog. She researched breeders, and found Fern Klapman-Flett's Bichon Lovers in Simcoe, Ontario.
In October, Wanda, and her daughters Jaleen and Jade, went to the breeder to meet a new litter.
"We went back in November to make our pick," Jaleen said. "When we walked through the door, one came up to us and kept pulling on my mom's pants."
It was number 25, and he kept coming to them and tugging at them.
"That's how we knew."
Next came the card, the heartfelt cry, and tiny Lumo.
Lumo's name is a testament to the family's fallen -- L-U for Lucy, M-O for Nemo -- the two whose deaths were too much to bear.
But thanks to Lumo, James can finally talk about Lucy and Nemo and smile.