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Pastors Ordained, Commissioned in Final Service
GRAND RAPIDS, MI (June 16, 2006) – The newly ordained and commissioned Covenant pastors in black robes crossed the stage over which hung a banner proclaiming the vision of "Everyone to Everywhere." They received new Bibles and were vested with stoles that signified their yoking to Christ for ministry.
They stood before the hundreds of people who gathered this evening as part of the 121st Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church, the very people who earlier today had approved the calling of these individuals "as teachers, ministers of the Word, and shepherds of the flock" and who now prayed for them.
Of differing genders, ethnicities, ages, shapes and sizes, they were witnesses to the words preached earlier by Mary Miller that "the Holy Spirit pours forth unto all of us in the image of God."
That Spirit is not tame, she said, as evidenced by what happened to the disciples huddled in a Jerusalem home nearly 2,000 years ago. "This is not a quaint little dove, this is not a comforter," Miller said. "There was a fire, not in a burning bush, but in a whole house."
On that day, the Spirit unified the disciples by giving them the ability to speak diverse languages in order to proclaim "the mighty works of God," noted Miller, adding that the same Spirit will give the newly ordained and commissioned ministers the same power.
In Jerusalem, the pastors had no idea what the future held for them, and neither did the people on stage, Miller said. What she did know was that they had their work cut out for them.
She shared an old story handed down in her family that tells of an important visitor who received a tour of an underground mine. Upon descending the long shaft, he was surprised to find a large draft horse in an open area of the mine and asked how the animal could possibly be transported underground and back to the surface. One of the miners informed the visitor that the horse had made the trip only once – as a colt. It was in the mine that the horse ate, worked and had people to pet him. It was there that the horse one day would be buried.
Miller said the horse's situation might appear sad, but "it's not so bad when you get used to it.
"We kind of have the same thing today," Miller continued, as evidenced by the "blue haze" seen coming from nearly every home in any area of the country. "People go to work, come home, eat, watch TV, and go to bed." She added that the next day, "People go to work, come home, eat, watch TV, and go to bed."
"It's not that bad when you get used to it," Miller said. The new ministers, however, have the charge of guiding people who have grown accustomed to the banality and are unable to imagine any other future.
Miller began doing that work when she was ordained 25 years ago. In his introduction of her, President Glenn Palmberg told the gathering that he had been the Dean of Students at North Park Theological Seminary when Miller asked about transferring to the school because the seminary of her previous denomination didn't allow women to become pastors.
Miller helped pioneer the way for women, Palmberg said. Although the Covenant had voted five years earlier to ordain women, "they were not always given full opportunity."
She would go on, Palmberg noted, to be the first woman officer in the Covenant's history, as well as a pastor, author, spiritual director, preacher and teacher, "and a good and faithful servant."
This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 and is filed under News.


As of Rails 3.2, plugins are officially deprecated. They have been replaced by Rails Engines, a class of public methods for hooking into Rails applications. This session will explain how to write a Rails Engine from scratch or convert your existing plugin to an engine. It will also cover best practices for making your engine play well with others, and when to factor pieces of your existing Rails application code into an engine for reuse across multiple applications.
Some of the most interesting challenges programmers face today are found at the intersection of natural and computer languages. Natural languages don't have documented source code, well-defined APIs or stable release versions. There is no spec (unless it's French), and even native speakers of the same dialects disagree all the time. How, then, can you internationalize a web application without introducing significant overhead to your development process? This talk will explore some practical strategies for maintaining speed, flexibility, quality, and focus by letting your users handle localization for you.
For years, the JVM has been the runtime to beat when it comes to runtime optimization and garbage collector performance. While statically-typed languages built atop the JVM have been able to leverage those capabilities, dynamic languages have often had a more difficult time. But the times they are a'changing.
Java 7 brings to the JVM a new and powerful feature called invokedynamic. With invokedynamic, dynamic languages no longer have an automatic performance penalty. The optimizations that make Java and other statically-typed JVM languages run fast now apply to dynamic languages just as well. Imagine a world where Ruby runs as fast as Java, with nearly zero GC overhead, true parallel threads, massive heap sizes, and rock-solid stability. That's the potential of invokedynamic, the JVM, and JRuby, and I'm going to show you how it all fits together.
Once the realm of shadowy government organizations, cryptography now permeates computing. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get correct and most developers know just enough to be harmful for their projects. Together, we'll go through the basics of modern cryptography and where things can go horribly wrong.
Why Is A Math Proof Like A Unit Test?
Breaking concepts down into logical chunks, tackling them in isolation. Sound familiar? This is how we write tests, but it's also how a mathematician writes proofs. Exploring the similarities and differences between the two can bring us back to our profession's mathematical roots. In this talk, we will look at mathematical proofs and ruby code side-by-side in an effort to uncover why these sorts of puzzles are appealing. I'll explain a few mathematical methods through Ruby code, but don't worry, no math background is required. We'll examine summation notation—the mathematical loop, as well as the multiple ways of defining the Binomial Coefficient. (Refresher: remember n choose k?) After that, I'll translate a basic proof by induction into pseudo-RSpec in order to highlight the similarities between writing a test and writing a proof, such as the existence of stubs. When you leave this talk, you'll have a better understanding of what you love about test driving, and perhaps you'll learn some math in the process.
The modern browser is not the black box it used to be. We can peek inside and see how it really works—we have the source code for WebKit, Chromium, and Firefox! In this talk we'll disassemble the basic architecture of WebKit / Chromium and see how it all comes together: from receiving the HTML bytes on the wire, to constructing the DOM, fetching the resources, performing the layout, and finally painting the pixels to the screen. Armed with this knowledge, we can then dismantle some of the web performance myths found in most every "performance top 10" list, and see how we can build better and faster web apps, regardless of the framework you're using.
Clean code, pragmatic code, confident code, beautiful code. There are many coding ideals worth pursuing. I want to talk about joyful code—those techniques and idioms that surprise and delight us with unexpected elegance.
I got into Ruby because writing it made me happy, and after all these years it still finds ways to make me grin. Join me for a random walk through the Ruby language and standard library, stopping in to visit some of my favorite tools, hacks and implementation patterns. Some you may know. Others may be more obscure. My goal: to rekindle in you the joy of code, to inspire you to share that joy with your peers and with the next generation of developers, and most importantly, to bring a smile to your face!
Services, Scale, Backgrounding and WTF is going on here?!??!
You want to improve the performance of your app, or you want to keep your system composed of small, easy to understand services. You start using background jobs, REST calls, and cron. And then weird things happen.
Designing services from the start can be tricky, but there is guidance out there. Extracting services can be even trickier, and whenever there's a message queue or job processing system, it becomes very difficult to truly understand the order in which things happen in your system. If you're lucky, you've got alerting when things go wrong, but even then, what do you do about it?
This talk will go through an increasingly frustrating set of circumstances that I've seen on a regular basis at LivingSocial as we extracted code from a monolithic app into a set of services. I'll then show the solutions to these issues that make our payment processing system more or less bullet-proof, and generalize these lessons into what you can do when extracting and designing services.
Facebook, Google+, and developers in many other industries are grappling with these issues. The most resilient approaches will arise from an app's own foundations. We'll look at schemas' influence on product scope, UX, and analytics. Then we'll check out a range of approaches for bringing modern realities into any app's schema, views, and logic.
Cruft is inevitable. Whether you're working around a bug in Internet Explorer, Heroku or Ruby 1.8, our libraries and applications quickly diverge from the platonic ideal of software. In the short-term, there's no point in fretting. Rather than an indication of a development process gone awry, the technical debt merely reflects the messy reality of the surrounding ecosystem that our code lives in.
For projects that last for years, though, this can lead to a resistance to re-evaluating the original assumptions that introduced the cruft to begin with. In this talk, I will give some examples of good and bad attempts to deal with this issue in the world of open source, and make some suggestions for how you can make your projects, both open-source and proprietary, more able to cope with the slow but steady long-term shifts that surround our projects.
Tony Arcieri – A Crash Course on Celluloid: This talk will provide a quick overview of how to use Celluloid, covering the basics of how to add Celluloid to your program and begin leveraging its concurrent features.
Chris Eppstein – Naiveté: Stepping outside your comfort zone.
Sarah Mei – MRI Internals: How does a language become a language? We'll take a peek into the internals of the MRI, and explore how it came to be.
We programmers think of complexity as our enemy, and we train ourselves to avoid it. When algorithms are too complex, we know we've sacrificed performance; when code is too complex, the code is brittle and fragile. But sometimes, complexity is unavoidable, especially in the real world filled with people, laws, complex systems, and things we don't fully understand. And if we try to adopt a simple view of a complex situation, that makes things worse. But there are techniques for making sense of that kind of complexity, and for making smart decisions in complex situations.
XCode integration - is it possible?
Square manages big data, high uptime, secure payment info and large teams in an agile Rails environment. It's hard. Our system has outgrown the patterns of a young Rails app and some of what used to help has started to hurt. It's painful to have your email templates in the same project as your API backend. It's agonizing to use your main datastore for analytics, and it hurts to throw code into ./lib or require unnecessary gems. This talk is about how we've turned individual Rails pieces into separate services and scaled our codebase, data, and integration testing practices to support multiple big teams efficiently.


China's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that China and South Korea will hold their first round of talks on maritime delimitation over the Yellow Sea in the South Korean capital of Seoul on December 22.
The talks, led by South Korean Second Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, will be held in Seoul next Tuesday, the South Korean ministry said in a release.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his South Korean counterpart Park Geun Hye agreed to launch negotiations during Xi's visit to South Korea in July last year, China News Service reports.
They had agreed to launch negotiations this year on the demarcation of their maritime boundaries amid tension over their overlapping exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
Ieodo, a submerged reef controlled by Seoul, lies 149 kilometers southwest of Korea's southernmost island of Marado and 247 kilometers northeast of the nearest Chinese island Tongdao. South Korea has scientific research facilities on Ieodo.
China hopes the first-ever formal talks with South Korea aimed at resolving a maritime boundary spat would not only remove a rock of contention but also advance geopolitical aims like its territorial claims in the South China Sea, say analysts.
Global intelligence website Stratfor suggests that China wants to expand its relationship with South Korea in a bid to disrupt the structure of Seoul's alliance with the United States and Japan.
It also states that China may use maritime talks with South Korea to illustrate their commitment to bilateral communication to its rivals in the South China Sea.
The maritime dispute between China and South Korea began in 1996 after they ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) and expanded their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) to 200 nautical miles from their coastlines.


Jake LaMotta, the world middleweight champion from the Bronx whose turbulent life of violence and aggression in and out of the ring was made into a feature film in 1980 entitled "Raging Bull," died Tuesday at the age of 95, according to TMZ.
The boxing Hall of Famer, who went 83-19 with 30 knockouts in 106 career fights, began his boxing career in 1941 after he was rejected from serving in the military due to a medical issue.
The Bronx native, who had an superhuman ability to absorb punishment, earned the nickname "The Raging Bull" for his rough style in the ring as a middleweight fighter. LaMotta's most noteworthy bouts included his six-fight rivalry with Sugar Ray Robinson, of which he won just one.


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Delta White (Watford, Inglaterra; 31 de diciembre de 1981) es una actriz pornográfica, escort y modelo erótica británica.

Biografía
Delta White, cuyo nombre de nacimiento es Hannah Panayides, nació en la ciudad de Watford, en el distrito inglés de Hertfordshire, en el día de Nochevieja de 1981, en una familia de ascendencia chipriota. Antes de entrar en la industria pornográfica, presentó un programa erótico en la televisión.

Entró a grabar sus primeras escenas como actriz porno en 2007, a los 26 años de edad, en películas como Sports Babes 4, Fresh Porn Players o Babes of Pornostatic 2.

Ha trabajado en producciones de Brazzers, Killergram, Playhouse o Bluebird Films.

Decidió retirarse por un tiempo de la producción de películas X en 2013, llegando a trabajar como escort en Londres. Como actriz pornográfica apareció en un total de 175 películas, entre producciones originales y compilaciones.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Actrices pornográficas de Reino Unido
Prostitutas del Reino Unido

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
From Roma to the city, the final whistle blows for Mr Jessop
Kieth Jessop says he has known about 15,000 students during his career that included time in Roma and at schools in Salisbury, Coopers Plains, Kuraby and Calamvale.
by Kristy Muir , kristy.muir@news.com.au
BELOVED physical education teacher Keith Jessop is hanging up his soccer boots after 40 years of teaching.
It will be the end of an era as the Sunnybank Hills State School educator, who has been at the school for 34 years, retires at the end of this term.
Mr Jessop says he has known about 15,000 students during his career which also included time in Roma and part-time work at schools in Salisbury, Coopers Plains, Kuraby and Calamvale.
Keith Jessop with students Gian Perkovic and Rakshitha Vadivel. Picture: AAP/Renae Droop
The 62-year-old still hopes to get the odd day or two relief work at the school but is looking forward to taking up golf, doing some travelling, babysitting his grandchildren and enjoying life in his new apartment in Tennyson with his wife Deb.
"It has been my life," he said of living and working in Sunnybank Hills.
"It has been a great school - I have seen most of the school develop over the years … the school turned 40 this year.
"We have committed teachers and the students have been great.
"I got to see my two children Nicole (born in 1986) and Michael (born in 1989) go through school."
When Mr Jessop started at Sunnybank Hills SS in 1985 there were 550 students and about 27 teachers and in 2020 there will be 1450 students and 58 teachers.
"It reminds me that you are getting older when the younger ones (teachers) are coming through," he laughed.
"There are still a few (teachers) my age that are hanging in there."
For the past couple of years Mr Jessop has been part-time and while his retirement is bittersweet he reckons he is "taking it pretty well".
On top of teaching PE, Mr Jessop was also the conveyor for the Sunnybank district soccer competition for 30 years which involved more than 60 local schools.
"Watching their abilities and skills improve over the years and helping them reach their potential was a great feeling," Mr Jessop, who has loved soccer since he was 11, said.
" (Sunnybank Hills SS) has been a very strong soccer school.
"The most satisfaction I got was seeing them (students) get to a district, regional or state level."
Keith poses for a photograph at the school with former student and now teaching colleague Sharon Ratz. Picture: AAP/Renae Droop
When Mr Jessop thinks back on his teaching years a few key moments stick in his mind including how he'd spent about four years sleeping in a tent when he took students away on school camping trips across southeast Queensland from Carnarvon Gorge and Springbrook to Moreton Island and Stradbroke Island.
"I probably went to 10 different locations," he said.
His other fond memories include taking five teams to the southeast Queensland soccer championships and helping fundraise to get the sports hall.
Mr Jessop wants to thank principal Geoff Mill, the administration staff and his fellow teachers for their love and support over the years.
"Teaching is a job you can't do by yourself," he said.
"Geoff is very motivated, loves doing what he's doing and inspires all the staff - he is a good mentor to the younger staff."
Mr Jessop's peers say he is a "legend of the school and district" when it comes to sport.
He is the "backbone of this school" and he is "the history of Sunnybank Hills State School", according to staff members.
Sunnybank Hills State School principal Geoff Mill said Mr Jessop had been an "integral member" of the school's staff during the past 35 years.
"During that time he has built a reputation as a highly valued physical education specialist teacher," he said.
"But Keith has provided so much more than that to the life of our school. His support and care of children and their families, along with his colleagues has left a powerful impact upon the lives of so many.
"Keith is respected and loved within our school community. He was always there to help others, whether it was personalised coaching for a child, or arranging extra team training sessions, to driving children to sporting trials so they didn't miss out on an opportunity.
"Across the school, if there was ever a working bee or a barbecue to cook, Keith was always there to lend a hand."
Mr Mill said within the larger educational setting, Mr Jessop had played an important role in the District Sporting Association.
"Over the many years he has willingly taken on roles in management and coaching to ensure children had a rich sporting experience," he said.
"We all wish Keith a well-deserved, happy and long retirement."
A farewell afternoon tea will held for Mr Jessop at Runcorn Tavern.
keith jessop
education keith jessop retirement school

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We're all stronger when we work together. Maybin Mission partners with community organizations to reach kids all across the country, providing them with educational, cultural and athletic programming.
Streets to Peaks provides life-enriching outdoor experiences that inspire young people to overcome challenges, set long term goals and dream big for their futures.


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Tag: Artemy Magun
A Bill of Goods
"Commander [watch]. Death to spies: commissioned by the GRU of the USSR."
Source: Kitenhome, where the watch is identified as a "vintage men's wrist watch" from 1990. It is priced to sell at $29.99.
Only the blind can claim that Vladimir Putin wants to revive the Soviet Union. On the contrary, he has built one of the most Darwinian and irresponsible capitalist systems on the planet. Only its imperial ambitions and the normalization of permanent theft bear any relation to the late Soviet state. Only the fear of the return of a totalitarian regime, which struck several generations in Russia, has delayed a left turn among the young. But the war has finally started it.
After February 24, the protest against the Putin regime, amplified by antiwar sentiment, was embodied in a digital resistance movement. The global media has been largely silent about this fact, but military commissariats in Russia burn down every few days, freight trains with weapons or raw materials for military factories derail, and the walls of houses and fences are covered with huge pro-Ukrainian graffiti at night. Volunteers take care of Ukrainians forcibly displaced to Russia and help them flow to Europe. This resistance is horizontal and egalitarian, and it is mainly engaged in by twenty- to thirty-year-olds. What values drive them?
The range of the views of this new left is wide — from anarcho-federalism to social liberalism — but at its heart is a clear demand for equality and a restart of the state with an economy focused on personal self-realization, the satisfaction of basic needs, and the protection of rights. As Russians come to accept responsibility for the terror inflicted on Ukraine, we can expect turbulence to last for decades. But one reason for optimism is the likely fact that any new Russia — or several Russias — will be leftist.
Source: Nikolay V. Kononov, "The Russian Left Is Standing Against Putin's War in Ukraine," Jacobin, 4 September 2022. Thanks to Charles Keener and Marxmail for the heads-up. This same article was published in Tribune on 29 August 2022.
Mr. Kononov is identified by Tribune as the "editor-in-chief of Teplitsa Journal, a Russian-language media outlet about activism." I had trouble finding this "journal" online until my boon companion suggested it might have something to do with the so-called Teplitsa sotsial'nykh teknologii ("Greenhouse of Social Technologies"), an organization that describes itself as a "support system for NGOs and activists." Teplitsa Journal is only referred to as such in Mr. Kononov's Anglophonic ventures outside the "hothouse" of Russia's overhyped (and in fact mostly nonexistent) "anti-war movement." Teplitsa Journal is not a "Russian-language media outlet," but a section on Teplitsa's website.
Among other things, Mr. Kononov recently published an interview there with the philosopher Artemy Magun. This passage in particular struck me as another "bill of goods," this one intended not for wobbly-kneed western leftists, but for Russian "dissidents" eager to blame anyone else but the Russian regime and an overwhelmingly compliant Russian society for the brutal, utterly unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
— What is the source of the war?
— A mutual misunderstanding among three countries and cultures: Ukraine, Russia, or rather its leadership, and the West, by which I mean Europe and the US plus Japan and South Korea. Imperial chauvinism comes from Russia, nationalism comes from Ukraine. And on the third hand, there is the as it were universal imperialism of the United States, infused with their special version of civic nationalism.
US relations with other countries are based on soft power, hegemony. This involves not only the dominance of the dollar and financial institutions, not only technological innovations, but also the assertion of national democratic and humanistic values.
As for Russia, it is not only the collapse of one ideology and the misunderstanding of another, but also economic dependence. Russia does not have high-tech products, not only due to backwardness and corruption, but also because many markets have not been opened to it. The free trade space turned out to be not entirely free. For example, Russia was not admitted into the European Union, by and large, except for its energy resources. Do you remember the conversation with Ukraine in 2013–2014 about the common customs zone? Ukraine then refused to join the Russian-Belarusian customs union and was going to sign an association agreement with the European Union, and the Russian elites argued that the loss of its partners in production chains would be economically painful — and it really would have been. Why am I saying this? Imperialism as political economic rivalry among capitalist powers — this situation exists, it is not contrived. And until 2022, everything really did resemble the beginning of the twentieth century, before the First World War. But that's why it seems to me that the economic factors that led to the war cannot be considered the main ones. Ideological and political [factors], in my opinion, were more important.
— And what are these factors?
— [After the collapse of the USSR and a sharp decline in its influence in the world], the rejection of communism or socialism as a kind of humanistic perspective became a framework factor. Instead, a liberal democratic ideology was proposed that is contradictory. It asserts a universal order of human rights, and at the same time electoral democracy, which is based on national sovereignty. Plus neoliberalism, which asserts the autonomy of economic entities and total competition among [them].
Now there is pressure from the West under the auspices of the universalist empire, aimed at building global liberal democratic institutions. The trick is that this global program and policy is not entirely global. The West, arriving [in the former Soviet bloc] with the universal idea of democracy, did not fully implement its program. They entered undemocratic countries, tried to build democracies there, but they were in no hurry to spend money — nothing like the Marshall Plan was offered anywhere else. Instead of strong support for these countries, a neoliberal political economy was devised, which played a disastrous role by turning their populace away from America.
Source: "In Russia, activism is an existential, heroic choice," Teplitsa sotsial'nykh tekhnologii, 15 August 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
The most discussed session at the congress was the session featuring spokespeople from grassroots anti-war initiatives, who were allotted the standard hour and a half for six presentations. Vika Fas of Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAS) boasted that the movement, founded by activists on February 25, already had sixty cells in Russia and thirty abroad.
"If you don't know about FAS yet, you should read about us on Wikipedia. I think it's interesting to observe a grassroots initiative that has become so popular in six months… Feminism was not taken seriously until we gained media weight, but we need international support for our communities and assistance in the form of grants," she said in a passive-aggressive manner.
Alexander Belik, a spokesperson for the Movement of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service, said that after February 24, they had fielded a good number of requests for assistance from military personnel already deployed in Ukraine.
"Everything is happening quite successfully: you can still refuse conscription and even from serving if you're already serving there. Everything is possible with due perseverance," he said.
The recorded live stream of the Congress of Free Russia (Vilnius, 31 August 2022).
The panel discussed by Ilya Azar begins at the 2:54:00 mark.
Maria Novikova thanked [the organizers] for maintaining gender balance at the session and explained that the NITKA project had tried out different formats, but had settled on an "unusual and creative" TikTok account.
"Our audience is not intellectuals who get everything as it is, but ordinary people who need enlightenment. Not only cringeworthy videos about Putin's battalions are popular [on our account], but also serious videos about various aspects of the war in Ukraine and the crackdown in Russia," she said.
NITKA, Novikova says, has already garnered more than nine thousand subscribers, and one video has been clicked more than two million times.
The project Media Partisans, according to Olga Demidova, arose when it became clear that due to the fact that large numbers of protesters were being detained by police during protests, "it [was] pointless to take to the streets in Russia."
"At first, everyone [sic] wanted to stop the war and Putin, but it takes time."
"Many saw that their protest did not bring results, and they were disappointed, so you need to choose small goals and set realistic tasks," she explained.
Media Partisans has seven projects: for example, a Telegram channel featuring anti-war artwork and instructions on how to safely distribute leaflets and stickers, as well as the Brave Partisans bot (@bravepartizanbot), where you can get an assignment for a performance or posting leaflets.
Timofey Martynenko of the Vesna Movement boasted that the anti-war rallies and marches in late February and early March were held at the behest of his movement, and talked about other projects, in particular a service for sending appeals to State Duma deputies.
"The same people are seated in the State Duma, and it is vital to show them that a huge number of people oppose the war," said the activist.
At the end of his talk, Martynenko said that Vesna does not believe that Russians have a "slave mentality" or that there is a "bloodthirsty 'deep folk' who love Putin."
"It is vital to talk about the depoliticization of Russian society, about civic involvement, about how democratic institutions and the media have been destroyed."
"The problem is not that we are monstrous imperialists at the genetic level, but the monstrous centralization of Russia and the destruction of local self-government," Martynenko tried to persuade the audience.
Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, conversations about TikTok and a service for sending appeals to Russian MPs seemed frankly lightweight, but the young people were clearly pleased with themselves. After the session, I asked the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, Refat Chubarov, who had traveled [to the congress] from Kyiv, what he thought about the anti-war movement in Russia.
"I would thank them for what they are doing, and it would be sincere. But it's all very childish. And they also have to be very careful, because an incorrect diagnosis can lead to incorrect treatment," Chubarov replied.
The head of the Mejlis said that he had gone up and talked to Martynenko because he strongly disagreed with his "pompous claims that Russians do not suffer from imperialism and servility."
"About a million Russian nationals [sic] pulled up stakes and settled in occupied Crimea without any remorse. What the fuck? That's what imperialism is. When we [Crimean Tatars] returned [to Crimea] in the late [19]80s, we didn't evict a single [Russian] family. I personally purchased the rooms where my mom had been born. When we return to Crimea again, none of those who settled there after 2014 will [be allowed to] live in Crimea. No servility? But what is it when a mother says that her son is being held [as a POW in Ukraine], but immediately adds that he is defending Russian interests? What Russian interests?" said Chubarov.
Source: Ilya Azar, "On the threshold of great achievements: a congress of the Russian emigration took place in Vilnius," Novaya Gazeta Europe, 4 September 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader
The ballrooms of the Grand Vilnius Resort, set on a golf course on the outskirts of the Lithuanian capital, were a universe away from the front lines in the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Donbas. And while the motto of the Congress of Free Russia was "Be Brave Like Ukraine," this was a gathering of Russians who have fled their country out of fear of what Mr. Putin's regime might do to them.
Hanging over the three-day gathering was the knowledge that — while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been hailed as a hero for refusing to flee Kyiv — many Russian dissidents who have stood their ground are either dead, or jailed by their government.
Source: Mark Mackinnon, "Russian dissidents squabble over how to ensure Putin's defeat," The Globe and Mail, 2 September 2022
hecksinductionhour protest, social media, society, war and peace, youth, zeitgeist Leave a comment September 6, 2022 September 6, 2022 8 Minutes
Centre for Independent Social Research: "We Don't Scold or Praise — We Do Research"
"We Don't Scold or Praise—We Do Research": Why the Authorities Want a Research Center Declared a "Foreign Agent"
Viktoria Vzyatysheva
paperpaper.ru
Petersburg's Centre for Independent Social Research (CISR) could be declared a foreign agent. Among the particulars laid against it are a video of a discussion during which someone spoke critically of the authorities, an abstract of a book with the word "politics" in the title, and a brochure containing advice for judges, which was vetted by judges themselves. CISR's staff insists they do research and are proud of foreign financing. Paper got to the bottom of the conflict, finding out how sociological studies differ from politics, and how terrible the status of foreign agents is for sociologists.
How the work of a research center was deemed a "political action"
CISR was among the few research centers that the authorities demanded register as a foreign agent. On March 12, it received a formal written warning from the Ministry of Justice demanding that it place itself on the registry. The ministry deemed that CISR, which receives foreign funding, was engaged in political activity
As the center's employees tell it, they had been expecting this since passage of the law on foreign agents in 2012, but had continued to hope, nevertheless, that the status of foreign agents would not be applied to research organization. In 2014, the Constitutional Court has issued a clarification to this end. Soon, however, the Center for Social Policy and Gender Studies in Saratov was placed on the registry, and their fears arose again.
"According to the Ministry of Justice," says Oksana Karpenko, executive director of CISR, "any form of public activity that does not involve praising Russian legislation or various government policies is a "political action" whose goal is to put pressure on the government and shape public opinion negatively. Under these circumstances, it is hard to explain that sociology is an apparatus for society to reflect on itself. When this apparatus breaks down, when society is incapable of taking a sober look at itself, taking joy in its achievements and admitting its weaknesses and imperfections, this leads to a loss of equilibrium. Without it, an upright position can be maintained only with prostheses that rigidly lock society into place. These prostheses are now being tried out on independent media, nongovernmental organizations, and dissidents."
The Centre for Independent Sociological Research was founded by researchers from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1991 as an alternative to the Soviet academic system. It was unaffiliated with any university and from the outset worked on an interdisciplinary level with experts from different universities.
CISR's researchers say that its main methodological difference from classical sociological institutes has been its focus on qualitative methods. Karpenko explains that while most sociology has to do with statistics, polls, and charts, CISR's studies are based on talking to people and trying to understand what guides them in making certain decisions, how conflicts arise, and how opinions on sensitive issues are shaped.
"We focus on those issues that are relevant. We don't make diagnoses or prescribe treatment, we don't scold or praise—we do research. We attempt to understand how society works, and we try and tell people about the outcome of our work in an intelligible form."
Oksana Karpenko
According to Karpenko, CISR has no clear profile. The emphasis has been on the interests of specific researchers, and often their work has become an area of focus at the center. In the late 80s and early 90s, CISR's founders were focused on social movements, including nationalist and democratic movements; they also researched the so-called brain drain, poverty, and genders. Later, CISR took up migration and ethnicity, environmental issues, the development of scientific research organizations, and the informal economy (corruption).
Three grievances: video of a discussion, the word "politics," and advice to judges
The Ministry of Justice identified three grounds for its warning when it demanded that CISR register as a foreign agent. One of them was a video recording of a lecture by Irina Olimpieva, a Ph.D. in Economics, entitled "Russian Trade Unions in Search of Political Leverage: The Evolution of Political Strategies and New Political Ambitions."
The lecture itself dealt with the influence trade unions have on social policy. According to Olimpieva, the role of trade unions in Russia is extremely limited, whereas in foreign practice, mechanisms for influencing social policy are often enshrined in law. However, in recent years, trade unions have been forced to become more active politically. Olimpieva's study, launched in 2006, was funded by a grant from a Russian foundation.
However, the Ministry of Justice had no beefs with the lecture itself, but with the discussion of the lecture, which was posted on CISR's website.
As the ministry wrote in its conclusion, "During the course of the discussion, seminar participants made statements that gave a negative assessment of current legislation."
"Researchers are now expected only to approve current policy or, perhaps, as in Soviet times, mention 'certain minor shortcomings.' This is essentially a ban on criticism, at least on the part of independent research organizations," argues Olimpieva.
Another project the ministry deemed "political activity" was a brochure entitled "Conducting Impartiality Training as a Basic Component of the Professionalism of Magistrates and Organizing Psychological Relief Rooms for Magistrates." The brochure was intended for psychologists working in the judicial system, and was based on training workshops and interviews with judges conducted by CISR.
In its conclusion, the Ministry of Justice wrote that the brochure forms "a negative public opinion," and "the judgments of the authors are aimed at generating a negative public response."
The objective of the workshops was to enhance the impartiality of magistrates, an institution that has emerged relatively recently in Russia, in the early 2000s. During the sessions, the judges talked about the difficulties of making decisions and examined them with psychologists. CISR researchers said the judges themselves were enthusiastic about the training sessions.
However, they vetted the entire brochure. Otherwise, "it would simply would have been impossible to publish," the people at CISR explain.
"Judges in all countries have problems with impartiality, so that is why similar workshops are held all over the world. And for this purpose special systems of psychological supported are developed that are aimed at helping the judge disengage from personal predilections when making decisions, and be objective and impartial," explains Olimpieva.
Irina Olimpieva
The third grounds for the warning was a presentation of a book entitled The Politics of the Apolitical: Civic Movements in Russia, 2011-2013. The Ministry of Justice determined that the book had a "political focus" and could influence "decision-making by state bodies." CISR staff claim the book is a purely academic monograph written by professional sociologists, graduate students from various universities.
"It is not even a matter of the book's content: the research topic and the title were sufficient. But it remains a mystery how placing information about a research publication on the website of a research center constitutes what the law describes as 'political activity,'" says Karpenko.;
Artemy Magun, dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology at the European University in Saint Petersburg, says that by paying attention only to the word "politics," one can go to absurd lengths and ban all political science departments at public universities, which a priori have no right to engage in politics.
"There is an element of politics in everything. The fact that you put up a road sign is also some kind of public statement. This border is quite flexible, and can be moved back and forth at will. But we believe that sociology exists as a science, and that it is not reducible to ideology or public relations. Meaning that we can arrive at more or less objective knowledge of society by examining it in the richness of its ideological affiliations."
Why foreign funding is good for research
At CISR, they point out they have never concealed foreign funding and, on the contrary, have been proud of their research grants. Since the moment of its inception, CISR has subsisted mostly on money from foreign foundations and organizations. CISR has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of Finland, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the German Research Society, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and European universities and institutes.
Since the law on foreign agents has been adopted, argues Olimpieva, everything the organization had considered an achievement, has now been considered a minus.
"In our view, grants from international foundations and organizations indicate the high level of professionalism of our staff. But when foreign financing is leveled as a charge, no one even wants to understand what the 'foreign' sources are and what they finance. The word 'foreign' is already grounds for accusations of hostile intentions. Paradoxically, the higher the professional achievements of an organization, the more suspicious it is from the viewpoint of the law on foreign agents."
Magun says that, on the contrary, international foundations avoid influencing research altogether and act as impartially as impossible.
"In some cases, the Russian institutions set the agenda, while the international foundations nearly always give absolute carte blanche as to the work's content. International foundations go out of their way to exclude the ideological influence of donors. Scientific rigor is the basis for issuing grants. It is simply a higher level of quality."
According to Karpenko, the commonplace that the one who pays the piper calls the tune "manipulates people's attention, causing them to see a threat in the very fact financing from abroad and closing their eyes to the content and quality of the intellectual product."
Why sociologists cannot be foreign agents
In the near future, CISR intends to appeal the warning and prove they are not involved in politics. They are afraid of receiving the foreign agent status not primarily because of the additional required reporting or new inspections, but because of the negative image that would arise around the organization.
According to Karpenko, CISR's experts can find it difficult to establish contact with an interlocutor. If they are forced to introduce themselves as foreign agents, an interview might be called off, and the sociologists would risk not being admitted to certain organizations at all.
"For the research we do, it is important to establish relationships of trust with informants. When we go into schools or talk with officials, policemen or pedestrians, we are trying to understand how society works in a particular segment, why certain problems arise. We do no want people to be afraid to talk to us. The Constitutional Court ruled that the phrase 'foreign agent' supposedly has no negative connotations. As sociologists, we can say this is not the case."
Thus, the people at CISR say the status of foreign agent will simply make it impossible for them to work professionally, because many areas of society will be closed to them.
You can sign this letter of support (in English) for CISR. It has so far collected over 1,300 signatures of researchers and scholars from around the world.
Photos courtesy of paperpaper.ru
hecksinductionhour obscurantism, petrograd, politics, putinism, regime, rights, zeitgeist Leave a comment May 4, 2015 January 23, 2018 7 Minutes


text:
Эзе́нг () — коммуна на северо-востоке Франции в регионе Гранд-Эст (бывший Эльзас — Шампань — Арденны — Лотарингия), департамент Верхний Рейн, округ Мюлуз, кантон Сен-Луи. До марта 2015 года коммуна административно входила в состав упразднённого кантона Юненг (округ Мюлуз).

Площадь коммуны — 9,14 км², население — 2336 человек (2006) с тенденцией к росту: 2541 человек (2012), плотность населения — 278,0 чел/км².

Население
Численность населения коммуны в 2011 году составляла 2503 человека, а в 2012 году — 2541 человек.

Динамика населения:

Экономика
В 2010 году из 1678 человек трудоспособного возраста (от 15 до 64 лет) 1315 были экономически активными, 363 — неактивными (показатель активности 78,4 %, в 1999 году — 71,4 %). Из 1315 активных трудоспособных жителей работали 1245 человек (704 мужчины и 541 женщина), 70 числились безработными (26 мужчин и 44 женщины). Среди 363 трудоспособных неактивных граждан 117 были учениками либо студентами, 93 — пенсионерами, а ещё 153 — были неактивны в силу других причин.

На протяжении 2011 года в коммуне числилось 1044 облагаемых налогом домохозяйства, в которых проживало 2459 человек. При этом медиана доходов составила 34627 евро на одного налогоплательщика.

Достопримечательности (фотогалерея)

Примечания

Ссылки


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Ashley Benson, Troian Bellisario, and More "Pretty Little Liars" Stars Reunite at German Comic Con
This fills the Rosewood-sized hole in my heart!
Randy Holmes/Getty Images
The days of decoding messages from "A" may be long behind us, but that doesn't mean that Pretty Little Liars fans have stopped loving the iconic series. As it turns out, the cast is just as nostalgic as we are, as evident by their epic reunion at German Comic Con on Saturday, December 7.
Several stars including Ashley Benson, Troian Bellisario, Janel Parrish, Keegan Allen, Ian Harding, and Tammin Sursok were all in attendance at the event, and, naturally, a ton of pictures and videos ensued. Ashley, who portrayed Hanna Marin during the series' 7-year run, posted a series of clips to her IG story, including footage of her and Troian (Spencer Hastings) posing with fans making the classic "shh" gesture. In another video, the entire group is seen laughing and joking around, with Keegan (Toby Cavanaugh) doing a silly dance that was luckily caught on camera. The videos were subsequently captured and shared by fans, who were understandably excited to see the cast reunite.
Tammin, who played Jenna Marshall, shared a series of photos as well. "Got to see some familiar faces❤" she wrote on Instagram.
Members of the PLL Army soon took to social media to share their excitement about the reunion. "Omg I can't believe a PLL reunion is happening right now I'm so emotional," one person wrote on Twitter, while another exclaimed: "I can't believe there is a PLL reunion and we are RIGHT THERE WITNESSING IT."
https://twitter.com/joeybouzek/status/1203289725659942912
https://twitter.com/lovatotreehill/status/1203342502381735936
This truly memorable PLL reunion took place a few months after its spinoff series, The Perfectionists, was officially cancelled after just one season. The second venture into the PLL universe followed Mona (Janel Parrish) and Alison (Sasha Pieterse) as they traveled cross country to Beacon Heights University, where they soon became tangled up in yet another murder mystery.
It remains to be seen whether or not this is truly goodbye to seeing our favorite PLL characters on screen (after all, the cast has dropped hints about the possibility of a movie someday), but for now, we'll be satisfied with adorable reunions like this to fill the Rosewood-sized hole in our hearts.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Yes, Troian Bellisario Knows About Her "A" Baby Name Conspiracy
Keywordspretty little liarsashley bensontroian bellisarioJanel Parrish


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Home NHL Central Division Stars Road Trip Starts With a Win
NHL Featured
Stars Road Trip Starts With a Win
Chris Bugajsky
The Dallas Stars improved to 11-7-2 after a dominating 6-2 win at the Barclays Center against the New York Islanders. Sunday's game was the first road game of a stretch that features seven road games in an eight-game span.
Ben Bishop got the nod for Sunday afternoons game after posting a shutout in overtime against the Boston Bruins Friday night. Bishop stopped 37-of-39 shots Sunday and now holds a 2.37 GAA and a .923 save percentage on the year. Anton Khudobin will likely start Monday night's game which will give Bishop the game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday.
During the Stars 6-2 route of the Islanders, there were a number of milestones that were hit. Roope Hintz recorded his first career NHL goal on a pass from Jason Spezza which happened to be Spezza's 900th career point.
Defenseman Gavin Bayreuther tallied his first NHL point in only his second game after he got the primary assist on Alexander Radulov's first goal of the game. A few minutes after Radulov netted career goal #99 he recorded his 100th on a breakaway.
The Stars top line of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and Alexander Radulov had a stellar game that put them back on track. Between the three of them, they recorded a total of nine points that led to four of the Stars six goals. In addition to Radulov's two goals, Seguin added a goal and two assists while the captain tallied three helpers. The top line had struggled as of late following a hit start, however, this performance may quiet the critics for the time being.
Life without Klingberg
John Klingberg has missed the past four games due to a hand injury and is not scheduled to return until the middle of December. However, Klingberg's absence has given an opportunity for the other defenseman to step up. Most notably Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell. Lindell was one of the reasons the Stars came out on top today after his first career two-goal performance. Lindell who has been Klingberg's defense partner for the vast majority of his career has carried the load, averaging 25 minutes of ice per game.
After Sunday's win against the Islanders, the Stars will stay in New York to face the Rangers on Monday night. The Rangers are currently 10-8-2 and have won seven of their last 10. Dallas has won six of their past 10 with two overtime losses. Monday's game is scheduled for 6 pm central time and the Stars will play game two of a road-and-road series.
Cover photo credit: Blitzweekly.com
Chris Bugajsky covers the Dallas Stars for Full Press Coverage. Follow Chris on twitter @CBugajsky14.
Esa Lindell
Jason Spezza
Roope HIntz
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As Injuries Mount for the Sabres, Another Move Needs to Happen
Bruins Lose Another One In OT
It's Time for the Sabres to Make a Move


"Let our public outcry and pastoral concern be heard: a pastor who has chosen to follow Christ's mission of social justice and embrace ministry with the poor has now found himself in danger," says United Methodist Bishop Ciriaco Francisco of the Manila Episcopal Area.
The Manila Episcopal Bishop encourages both church workers and the laity to keep up their faith, as they take part in relevant and contextualized ministry. "When God commanded us to love our neighbor, we were given a mandate to engage acts of compassion and acts of justice. These express our way of evangelism and sense of mission in the communities where we are called to serve," adds Bishop Francisco.
Bishop Francisco condemned the attempted murder on Rev. Marvin de Leon, a pastor of MC Navia Sr. Memorial UMC in Bulacan, as he narrowly escaped assassin gunfire on December 13, 2018.
"Desperation and cowardice move those behind such murder attempts intended to harass and martyr a minister who has sought to faithfully fulfill his mission mandate as a pastor of the needy and oppressed. As a Church, it is our duty to proclaim good news for the poor by engaging practical programs for ministry with the toiling majority in the communities where we work. Rev. de Leon is simply exercising pastoral responsibility," says Bp. Francisco.
In addition to serving as a local church pastor, Rev. Marvin de Leon currently volunteers as the General Secretary of KARAPATAN, (Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights) of the province of Bulacan in Central Luzon.
Rev. de Leon's compassion for the poor and commitment to stand with them in their pursuit of better lives led him to become an active supporter of the workers of NutriAsia, the biggest producer of liquid condiments in the Philippines. When workers went on strike after 50 workers were terminated for protesting the dismissal of five union leaders and members in July 2018, Rev. de Leon was one of the ministers violently dispersed in the middle of their ecumenical prayers.
In the second week of October, a man came to the church and introduced himself as a representative of the NSO (National Statistics Office). Rev. de Leon asked for his identification card, but the man only showed a driver's license that Rev. de Leon could tell was fake. Rev. de Leon confronted the man telling him, "You are not a true employee of NSO. You must be an intelligence agent." The man immediately departed and was picked-up by a companion riding on a motorcycle.
On December 1, 2018 at approximately 9AM, Rev. de Leon noticed two men wearing helmets and riding-in-tandem at the front of his local church. They stared at the church for 5-7 minutes and then left. Rev. de Leon perceived that he was being harassed.
Bp. Francisco expressed that an attack on church peopled is an attack against the teachings of the church to pursue justice, truth and peace.
"We pray that these evil acts against the church will end. We do our ministries in obedience to our calling to care for the neglected, the marginalized, and those who made poor because of unjust systems. Our faith calls us to action. We are being attacked because we are taking the side of loving our neighbor. These attacks must stop," said Bp. Francisco.


text:
Store Directories
Rooftop Pavilion and Sky Terrace
Event Space Enquiry
A Modern Marvel in the Heart of Heritage and Culture
Situated at the gateway to Little India, Tekka Place fuses rich heritage with contemporary living. A sprawling combination of accommodation, retail shops, restaurants, as well as event and performance spaces; Tekka Place is a hub for travellers, families and patrons to shop, dine, live and play in comfort as they explore the bustling streets of one of Singapore's most historic and culturally vibrant areas. Surrounded by Singapore heritage sites, Tekka Place is sure to provide fascinating discoveries and selections for everyone.
A Global Gastronomic and Retail Experience
Catering to the diverse communities in the area, Tekka Place's main block features an eclectic mix of 80 curated retail outlets for shoppers to indulge in retail therapy. Meanwhile, foodies enjoy a selection of restaurants, themed cafes, gastrobars and a food hall, bringing a range of international cuisines and signature local flavours to delight hungry taste buds. For tourists, convenience comes in the form of the Citadines Rochor Singapore Hotel, which sits right above the mall to make your visit feel more like home.
Bringing Cultural Experiences to You
Embracing the unique culture and rich heritage of the surrounding area, Tekka Place's Annex Block features a Rooftop Pavilion and Sky Terrace with a calendar of exciting year-round activities. Collaborating with heritage organisations and local communities, it is the place to be for visitors to become closer to the area's ethnic culture and immerse themselves in Singapore's rising art and performance scene.
Go Anywhere, Easily
Tekka Place is easily accessible via major expressways as well as the Downtown and North- East MRT lines. When you're done discovering what the ethnic district of Little India has to offer, take off to explore popular attractions like the Bugis district or Orchard Road with just a few trains stops or a minute's drive.
Tekka Place,
2 Serangoon Rd,
Tekka Place
© 2019 Tekka. All rights reserved.
Web Design by Firstcom Solutions


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Plans for 51 new homes in Broughton near Preston are refused
This is why police were pulling over vans on the A59 Liverpool Road outside Preston this morning
Police task forces net £16m of drugs across Lancashire
Crack police task forces have seized drugs worth more than £16m and made almost 1,000 arrests across Lancashire in their first year, according to latest figures.
By Brian Ellis
Friday, 6th November 2020, 4:08 pm
Commissioner Clive Grunshaw with task force officers in Chorley.
The squads, which were set up 12 months ago to respond to public concerns about organised crime in the county, have been praised for the "fantastic" job they have done to clean up the streets.
"They have been an overwhelming success,"said Lancashire's Police and Crime Commissioner Clive Grunshaw, who promised more task force officers would now be recruited in the future to target drug dealing, theft and anti-social behaviour.
And the senior officer in charge of local policing in the county, Ch Supt Sam Mackenzie, added: "I'm really proud of the work they have done over the past year - they are an impressive bunch."
Head of local policing Ch Supt Sam Mackenzie says task forces have done a "fantastic" job.
The task forces, totalling just 40 officers, were brought in to re-connect with the public after almost a decade of cutbacks to the county's police service.
"At the time it seemed that 40 officers for the whole county was just a drop in the ocean," said Commissioner Grunshaw. "But their success in just 12 months demonstrates what can be achieved.
"We now know we can invest even more going forward because we know the difference they are making - the statistics are evidence of that.
"The rationale behind this was to re-engage with communities and deliver what the public have been asking for - and in some cases demanding - which is the disruption of organised crime, taking drugs off the streets and gathering and acting on intelligence they give us.
"It is that proactive policing which has been degraded over years of cuts to the service. It's been a massive success."
Much will depend on funding from central government, but Lancashire has already budgeted to introduce a rural task force across the county. Officers are currently being recruited and could be in post by January.
It is hoped the new rural squad will have the same sort of impact in areas of Lancashire where criminals prey on remote communities to steal expensive farm machinery and plant.
Ch Supt Mackenzie said engagement with the public was vital in both rural and urban areas to tackle crime. And in the first year of the task forces more than 20,000 people have passed on their concerns about local crime in a questionnaire on the Stay In The Know About Lancashire website.
"The information they give us means we can target our activity down the street level," he said. "As people tell us more and more we can take action.
"I'm obviously delighted with the success achieved by the task forces in their first year. But, more than that, I feel a real sense of pride in the work they are doing. They didn't exist 12 months ago and they came in and picked up the mantle and have done a fantastic job."
The statistics for the first year show:
Drugs: Worth more than £16m seized, with Blackburn-with-Darwen and Hyndburn topping the list on £4.7m, Blackpool second on £3.9m, Chorley and South Ribble (£1.5m), Burnley (£1.35m) and Preston (£1.2m).
Arrests: The Preston Task Force detained 220 people, Chorley and South Ribble (192), Pendle and Ribble Valley ((135), Lancaster and Morecambe (126), Blackpool (75) and Fylde and Wyre (34).
Intelligence: More than 1,300 items of intelligence were passed on by the public over the year, with Burnley (268) and Pendle and Ribble Valley (241) providing the most. In Preston 122 tip-offs were received, Chorley and South Ribble (81) and Blackpool (182).
The task forces executed a total of 224 warrants, with Preston carrying out 70 of those and Blackpool 44.
Officers seized £66,000 in cash and around 50 vehicles, as well as £20,000 in plant and machinery.
To contact your local task force go to: www.stayintheknow.co.uk/LancashireTalking
It is thanks to our loyal readers that we can continue to provide the trusted news, analysis and insight that matters to you. For unlimited access to our unrivalled local reporting, you can take out a subscription here and help support the work of our dedicated team of reporters.


- Praise God for the steady progress on the BLF French translation of the "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement" materials - perhaps the largest and most complicated projects to date.
With 99% now translated, the current focus is on revisions. Back in May BLF Éditions' Fred Mondin and BLF USA's Rory Clark spent marathon sessions of "six-days-a-week, pull-out-all-the-stops, 8-12 hour days" in Rory's basement! They worked through the Study Guide (Lessons 9, 12-15) and nearly 50 articles, focusing on the longest, most difficult articles and material. Add that to Rory's three trips to France this year. These long blocs of time together (especially face-to-face in the same time zone) are really paying off.
Please continue to pray as they approach the finish line of this monumental project and for its impact for Jesus Christ in the entire Francophone world.
- Please pray for the upcoming BLF USA board meeting in the Wheaton, IL area, this September 8th. Please pray for God's hand on and wisdom for the lives of each of the board members, staff and visitors who will be attending this strategic time of prayer, planning and action.
There are over 275 people groups in the Francophone world (mostly in Africa) that are 0.1% (or less) Christian and have never had a movement to Christ among them. These peoples (and the entire Francophone world) will be among the topics discussed on September 8th. Please pray for His wisdom at this board meeting.
-- Praise God for an excellent recovery for BLF USA board president Tom Rice from a recent surgery. He is doing quite well.
-- Please pray for one of BLF board member Pam Lisle's daughters who had a friend and co-worker who was shot and killed during a robbery. Pray for healing to all involved. Also, praise God for another one of Pam's daughters, recovering from a serious illness and how she is using the challenge to reach out to other teens walking through tough health issues.
-- Please pray for the Phillips - Nathan, Annie and their son Benjamin, as they are back in the US from BLF Éditions in France, meeting with supporters and working on various projects in the US.
- Please pray for BLF Canada and for BLF Éditions, our international partners in the outreach to the French speaking world.


text:
Man withdraws effort challenging conviction
CROWN POINT — A man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting a northwestern Indiana police officer in 2014 has withdrawn his effort to challenge his conviction.
Carl Le'Ellis Blount filed a petition last year alleging Lake County prosecutors threatened him to get him to plead guilty to murder in the shooting death of Gary Patrolman Jeffrey Westerfield. He said prosecutors threatened to file murder charges against him in two other cases and to seek the death penalty.
The Post-Tribune reports the 30-year-old asked to withdraw his petition in April, but a reason wasn't given. The Lake County prosecutor's office earlier denied Blount's allegations.
Blount pleaded guilty in 2017 in return for prosecutors not charging him in connection with a double slaying in Gary, also in 2014.
You have read 0 of 8 free articles this month.


text:
Q: Syntax Help for If, Else on Razor Index Page I have a table on an index page in my razor page app. If the Applicant Last Name is null (or field is empty in database), I would like to have the Applicant Company Name be placed in the cell instead.
I'm just not getting the syntax correct though. Here is what I currently have. Note: The comma between @obj.ApplicantLHame and @obj.ApplicantFName seems to be an issue as well. I would like this to look like: Doe, John
Results currently do not return any Applicant Company Names and @obj.ApplicantLName @obj.ApplicantFName returns DoeJohn (w/o the space)

                    Referral No / Tax Map No

                    Municipality

                    Referring Board

                    Applicant

                    Application Type - Class

            @foreach(var obj in Model.Referral)
            {

                @obj.RefNoComplete
                @obj.RefMunicipality
                @obj.RefAgencyName

                @if(@obj.ApplicantLName is null)
                    {
                        @obj.ApplicantCompany
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        @obj.ApplicantLName, @obj.ApplicantFName
                    }

                @obj.ApplicationType - @obj.CurrentClass

                @obj.TaxMapNo
                @obj.Comments

            }

A: Your code in order to work you will have to make it look like below:
@if (obj.ApplicantLName is null)
{
    @obj.ApplicantCompany
}
else
{
    <text>@obj.ApplicantLName, @obj.ApplicantFName</text>
}

or you can replace it with the following one line code.
@(obj.ApplicantLName is null ? obj.ApplicantCompany : obj.ApplicantLName + ", " + obj.ApplicantFName)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


This API has 2 method calls: getList and getInfo. GetList call takes the parameters of a state's abbreviation or state FIPS code, and a yes-or-no for multiple-state indicator, and returns all the broadband providers in that state. GetInfo call takes FRN number of a broadband provider, and return information about the provider.
We are providing this API to increase the value of the transparency of broadband providers providing service in each state. Filers with the FCC must get a registration number whose company names, parent names and subsidiary names often change from state to state and region to region. Providing a single place for understanding the complex naming of these providers will benefit consumers.
In case there is any exception on the server side it is caught and the http status code 500 is returned. (INTERNAL SERVER ERROR). The status description contains the detailed reason for the failure.


Today the first words I spoke were "thank you".
Then I began to notice that the next four or five times I opened my mouth to speak it was to say thank you or "you're welcome".
I walked up to yoga training in absolute reverence for the beauty of those interactions. How lucky am I to have so many things to be thankful for in the first hour of my day.
On my walk I saw a cab completely run over two seagulls. There was a flock of them flying around 9th avenue- I thought that was so beautiful and rare.
The cab completely drove over them as if they weren't there. I cried for a few blocks as I walked. I kept looking back to see the one seagull who had really been flipped, he was in shock. Just standing there. Neither died, that I know of.
I'm grateful that I allowed myself to be how I felt in that moment.
All too often my vocal chords are sore from holding back tears. Do you ever feel that way? Like your throat hurts – not a sore throat per se but a strained throat.
I felt it this evening while watching Queer Eye on Netflix.
I wonder why I hold myself back from crying. I grew up learning that crying was dramatic and that it didn't solve any problems, that it only just made things worse for other people if I cried.
It felt so cathartic though to cry over the birds. It feels like a release of trauma. So trauma doesn't turn into ama – unresolved.
The truth does not always set one free. Holding back the truth of the moment never sets one free. So if you can't let out the truth of the moment what do you do?
Well this is what I discovered today – even if something is true that doesn't mean it needs to be in my life if i want something better. We don't have to accept what is true id what is true isn't what we want out of life. Acknowledge yes. Accept- not my fairy tale. If it's not what I want, it needs to be replaced.
So I cried over the beautiful birds. I don't always let myself be in this way.
I want to give myself a voice though. So here is what I have done today – spoken gratitude over the situation that I cannot control. Gratitude for what is and for what I want to perceive. Learning to believe it until I see it. Creating my reality based on the possibilities of what I can imagine. Sometimes what already exists – the "truth" is not what we want to be our truth. So …byeeeeeeee… ya know ?
Giving myself my own truths. Speak upon them until they appear.
Many many things have arisen today. But what I keep coming back to is this – what happens if the first words we all spoke everyday were – Thank You.


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Motionless In White Release "Another Life/Eternally Yours: Motion Picture Collection" EP, Releases New Video
Music Mayhem August 10, 2020
Today, Motionless In White have unveiled a new EP, entitled Another Life/Eternally Yours: Motion Picture Collection. Produced by Justin Deblieck and mixed by Steve Sopchack, the EP is available now on all streaming platforms.
The band commented on the new project, saying, "With all of the down time of not touring, we wanted to take the opportunity to try something we've never done before. We give you, 'Eternally Yours: Motion Picture Collection' (Feat Crystal Joilena) and 'Another Life: Motion Picture Collection' (Feat Kerli). Thank you to Crystal and Kerli for your amazing vocals that helped transform these versions into something truly special. Thank you to Justin Deblieck for your ever-brilliant talents that shine so bright throughout these tracks, and thank you to Steve Sopchack for your keen ear and dedication to mixing this project. We hope you all enjoy and are still staying safe out there."
For the project, the acclaimed Scranton, PA band reimagined, and reinvigorated two fan favorite singles: "Another Life" and "Eternally Yours."
Additionally, they included brand new cinematic instrumental tracks for both. For this big screen-worthy interpretation of "Another Life," they recruited dark pop Estonian artist Kerli to contribute an emotionally charged vocal. Over a bed of orchestral strings and sparse piano, frontman Chris Motionless locks into a haunting and hypnotic duet with her. The official music video offers a ghostly counterpoint and alternate view of the original, as well.
Meanwhile, Motionless In White enlisted Australian vocalist Crystal Joilena to join this nocturnal take of "Eternally Yours." Classically-inspired piano cuts through swells of strings as the vocals reach heavenly heights on a solemn promise. Punctuated by lasers and galactic vignettes, the accompanying visual complements the song's otherworldly energy.
A highlight of the group's latest album DISGUISE [Roadrunner Records], the original "Another Life" ascended to the Top 15 at Active Rock Radio, becoming their highest-charting single to date. It has notably gathered 9.5 million views on the official music video, not to mention, Beartooth frontman Caleb Shomo recently remixed "Another Life."
Motionless In White stormed into 2020 in support of their latest album DISGUISE. Available now at all DSPs and at www.motionlessinwhite.net, DISGUISE made an explosive chart debut upon release, debuting at #4 on Billboard's "Top Album Sales" chart while also claiming #2 on the "Hard Rock Albums" chart, and #27 on the SoundScan/Billboard 200 — Motionless In White's third consecutive Top 30 entry on the overall chart. DISGUISE is highlighted by a series of singles, including "Brand New Numb," "Undead Ahead 2: The Tale Of The Midnight Ride," and "Disguise," the latter joined by a haunting companion video directed by frequent collaborators Jeremy Danger and Travis Shinn. In addition, "Another Life" was joined by an official visual, directed by Max Moore.
ANOTHER LIFE/ETERNALLY YOURS: MOTION PICTURE COLLECTION EP TRACK LISTING:
"Another Life: Motion Picture Collection" (feat. Kerli)
"Eternally Yours: Motion Picture Collection" (feat. Crystal Joilena)
"Another Life: Motion Picture Collection" (Instrumental)
"Eternally Yours: Motion Picture Collection" (Instrumental)
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