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Birth Place: (M1) Brooklyn, New York, (stic.man) Tallahassee, Florida
Years Active: 1996 - present
Genres: Political Hip Hop, Underground Hip Hop
Dead Prez are a hip-hop duo composed of stic.man and M-1. The duo formed in New York City in 1996 and is known for their confrontational lyrics that often focus on societal issues. M-1 and stic.man met in Florida during college in the early 90s and felt an instant connection over their musical interests and political affiliations. M-1 became interested in the Black Panther Party and joined the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement in Chicago for three years. When the duo reconnected to focus on music they were quickly signed to Loud Records. The duo built a fan base based on the strength of their live shows and the large crowds they attracted. The duo began to get offers to contri...
The Wonder Years with DJ Wonder
EA Games To Release 'Skate,' The Ultimate Boarding Game, In September
Somali MC K'Naan Joins The 'Mind Control North America Tour' With Stephen And Damian Marley
Large Professor Shyheim M-1 Big Noyd Havoc


Honda Accord: Overview of Contents
A convenient reference to the sections in this manual.
Your Vehicle at a Glance
A quick reference to the main controls in your vehicle.
Driver and Passenger Safety
Important information about the proper use and care of your vehicle’s seat belts, an overview of the supplemental restraint system, and valuable information on how to protect children with child restraints.
Instruments and Controls
Explains the purpose of each instrument panel indicator and gauge, and how to use the controls on the dashboard and steering column.
How to operate the climate control system, the audio system, and other convenience features.
What gasoline to use, how to breakin your new vehicle, and how to load luggage and other cargo.
The proper way to start the engine, shift the transmission, and park; plus what you need to know if you’re planning to tow a trailer.
The Maintenance Minder shows you when you need to take your vehicle to the dealer for maintenance service. There is also a list of things to check and instructions on how to check them.
Taking Care of the Unexpected
This section covers several problems motorists sometimes experience, and details how to handle them.
ID numbers, dimensions, capacities, and technical information.
Warranty and Customer Relations (U.S. and Canada only)
A summary of the warranties covering your new vehicle, and how to contact us for any reason. Refer to your warranty manual for detailed information.
AuthorizedManuals (U.S. only)
How to order manuals and other technical literature.
Service Information Summary
A summary of the information you need when you pull up to the fuel pump.
Recirculation Control Motor Test
'08-09 models 4-door with A/T and "10 model with A/T NOTE: Before testing the motor, check for HVAC DTCs (see page 21-9). 1. Disconnect the 7P connector from the recirculation control moto ...
Accessory Power Socket Trim
Special Tools Required KTC Trim Tool Set SOJATP2014* *Available through the Honda Tool and Equipment Program; call 888-424-6857 NOTE: - Take care not to scratch the console. - Use the approp ...
Malfunction Indicator Lamp
If the indicator comes on while driving, it means one of the engine’s emissions control systems may have a problem. Even though you may feel no difference in your vehicle’s performance, it ...


Ultimate 3D CAD Software
SolidWorks is a 3D CAD software that provides an intuitive and powerful way to design and engineer products. It is used by millions of engineers and designers worldwide to create everything from complex assemblies to simple parts. SolidWorks offers a suite of tools that enables users to create, simulate, and validate their designs, allowing for faster and more accurate product development.
One of the key features of SolidWorks is its ease of use. The software has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for beginners to get started, while also offering advanced tools for experienced users. This makes it an ideal choice for companies of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. Another important feature of SolidWorks is its ability to create realistic simulations of designs. This allows engineers to test and validate their designs before they are built, saving time and reducing costs. SolidWorks also provides a range of tools for analyzing designs, including stress analysis, fluid flow simulation, and thermal analysis. SolidWorks is also highly customizable, with the ability to add custom features and macros to the software. This allows users to tailor the software to their specific needs, making it even more powerful and efficient.
- Part modeling — allows users to create 3D models of parts, including extrusions, revolved features, sweeps, lofts, and more;
- Assembly modeling — users can assemble parts into complex assemblies, with the ability to add mates, constraints, and motion studies;
- Drawing creation — includes tools for creating 2D engineering drawings, with features like dimensioning, annotations, and bill of materials;
- Simulation and analysis — engineers can use SW to simulate and analyze designs, including stress analysis, thermal analysis, and fluid flow simulation;
- Sheet metal design — SW offers specialized tools for creating sheet metal designs, including flat pattern development and bend allowance calculations;
- Mold design — includes tools for designing plastic injection molds, with features like parting line creation, mold base design, and runner and gate design;
- Weldment design — users can design welded structures and frames in SW, with features like weld bead creation and automatic cut lists;
- Surface modeling — allows users to create complex freeform shapes using surface modeling tools, including lofted surfaces and boundary surfaces;
- CAM integration — SW can be integrated with computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software to create toolpaths for machining parts;
- Electrical design — includes tools for designing electrical systems, including schematics, 3D routing, and integration with electrical testing equipment.
- Designing mechanical parts and assemblies, such as gears, bearings, and linkages;
- Creating 3D models of products and visualizing them in different environments and scenarios;
- Simulating and analyzing the behavior of mechanical systems under various loads and conditions;
- Generating 2D drawings and technical documentation for manufacturing and assembly purposes;
- Conducting finite element analysis (FEA) to evaluate stress, strain, and deformation in complex geometries;
- Optimizing designs for weight reduction, material usage, and performance;
- Creating realistic renderings and animations of products for marketing and advertising purposes;
- Designing and analyzing sheet metal parts, including bending, flanging, and forming operations;
- Generating toolpaths for CNC machines and other manufacturing processes, including 3D printing and injection moldin;
- Creating and analyzing piping and tubing systems for industrial applications.
In addition, SolidWorks offers a range of collaborative features that make it easy for teams to work together on designs. This includes the ability to share designs, review and comment on designs, and track changes to designs over time.
Overall, SolidWorks is a powerful and intuitive 3D CAD software that offers a range of features for designing and engineering products. Its ease of use, realistic simulations, customization options, and collaboration tools make it an ideal choice for companies of all sizes.


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One of the first things I wanted to do was get the Black-billed Magpie with my camera. This is a very common bird in Colorado Springs. I have a post on them from long ago but I was just learning how to use my camera. One of the places we went to bird was Sondermann Park. It had several birds on my target list which included an Eastern Kingbird. This is a beautiful trail along a stream full of birds! While I dipped on the Eastern Kingbird reported there, I picked up a life bird I wasn't expecting.
The Olive-sided Flycatcher!!! Yes! It just sat on the branch and said to us, "Here I am. Take as many pics as you want!" And I did. If this had been the only life bird I found for the day, I would have been happy. But as luck would have it, more birds would pop up along this trail.
But since it's a life bird and a first for the blog, here are some close-ups of the flycatcher. They are found in Arizona. Some of them are in trickier spots to find around the state. Some of them are too far to chase. And they do pop in Tucson during migration, but I kept dipping on this bird. When we found this handsome bird, everyone moved on to find more. Pat understands the word, "life bird" and is constantly trying to aide in my quest to find them. So when I said "life bird", Pat stood with me longer to observe the bird while the others moved further down the trail. But what we didn't realize was that there was going to be a cluster of activity along the stream's edge.
It was hard to take my eyes off of this bird, but when someone said, "Blue Jay!", I was forced to move.
But not without spotting the first of the year Downy Woodpecker! Hairy Woodpeckers are common in Arizona. The Downy is much harder to find, but in Colorado Springs, they dominate the landscape. In fact, we saw many Downy Woodpeckers, Williamson's Sapsuckers, and Northern Flickers. I think Colorado Springs is the headquarters for Northern Flickers:)
Finally! As a child growing up in Wisconsin, I had seen many birds but I couldn't trace the dates when I saw them so decades later, I discovered my first common Blue Jay that most people see. And it was awesome. Technically, another lifebird in molt:)
Another fun place to bird is Garden of the Gods. It's popular among the tourists and overall, just a nice place to hike.
|Garden of the Gods|
This area is a hotspot for Western Scrub-Jays and Magpies. There are lots of beautiful Aspen trees and red rock formations.
|Western Scrub Jay|
One last note. I have learned to balance the birding bit by birding in local areas around the neighborhoods of family and friends. Another spot that was not really birded well was Quail Lake which was 5 minutes from our place. So I jumped in the car and did a quick walk around the lake and discovered.......
|Quail Lake in Colorado Springs|
Several juvenile Common Grackles. Another life bird! I heard the "grackle" sound and watched them for quite a bit of time to make sure I was actually seeing a Common Grackle and not a Red-winged Blackbird or Great-tailed Grackle or Brewer's Blackbird:) These birds were mixed in with Red-winged Blackbirds. It was really gray and cloudy making the black on the bird tricky. But to ID Common Grackles, I looked for the yellow eyes(check), their vocalizations(check) and a variation in color from the bluish head and darker body(check). In the pics, it's hard to see that bluish sheen on the head because of the lighting.
We had a nice trip and visit. I have more photos from several other places coming up. And hopefully I will have added more data to Ebird that will be useful. Recently, four of my lists that I marked as a Hotspot for Ebird in Colorado Springs were accepted. That never would have happened in Arizona. Hopefully other Ebirders will visit and bird these beautiful parks and trails.
Keep your eyes open for the hummingbird moth below during summer and early fall:) Rumor has it that snow has fallen over there!
|White-lined Sphinx Moth|
Dear blogger friends, I will be visiting soon. I'm on vacation right now and will be back next week. There is a lot more to report, but for now I hope all of you are enjoying fall....or spring wherever you may be. All my best. More soon.....
I'm linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday. So many amazing birds out there!

domain: biology


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Baobab Garden is a garden conceived between two cultures, the Asian through its garden and the bamboo, and Africa through a symbolic baobab. These two inspirations become entangled to form only one. At the heart of this nature emerges the spirit of the Forest the Baobab. Today, there are only relics of forest completely constituted by Baobab where reigned vast forests. The oppression of the man on forests was never as so strong as it is today, in our eyes of European and by this insight I wanted to restore a little of wisdom into this world.
The inspiration behind this design is the affection for the simplicity and insight of Mondrian abstraction and symbolism with a touch of character and authenticity denoted in the historic Square Kufic calligraphy. This design is a manifestation of coherent fusion between styles advocating the message that there is a possibility of mixing different seemingly contradictory style regarding the naked eye observation while when digging deep into the philosophy behind them there would be similarities that would result in a coherent artwork that is appealing beyond obvious comprehension.
Tahrir Square is the backbone of Egyptian political history and therefore reviving its urban design is a political, environmental and social desideratum. The master plan involves closing off some of streets and merging them into the existing square without upsetting traffic flow. Three projects were then created to accommodate a recreational and commercial functions as well as a memorial to mark Egypt’s modern political history. The plan took into account sufficient space for strolling and seating areas and a high green area ratio to introduce color to the city.
Bubbles is the proposal for a smog-proof urban botanical garden. Designed for cities with air qualitiy problems, the buildings which finance the park are moved to the edges of the plot to make space for the garden in the centre. The park is covered by a light-weight and economic ETFE surface. The allows for a controlled climate for the plants and for an enclosed space which contains fresh filtered air.
For 25 years Bari has been absorbed by a debate on the future of the iron sea which separates its historically defined part and the expansion one. The project is part of a MArch degree thesis from the Polytechnic of Bari, about the 'Grande Bari' plan, involved to solve this issue. The goal of the project is to make the station a pleasant, clear and safe to use place, solving the problematic node of the tracks moving from the Centre of the City. The new infrastructure is sustainable and produces energy thanks twelve structural trees made of recycled steel with solar roof on the top.
A Palace for Nature reinvents the idea of creating luxury into something meaningful, creating life and nature through a self-sustainable botanical oasis in the desert. The heart of the palace is an oasis covered by a central dome, the design is inspired by the Sidra Tree, which is native to Qatar and is a symbol for perseverance, solidarity and determination.
Good design deserves great recognition. Everyday, we are pleased to feature amazing designers who create original and innovative designs, amazing architecture, stylish fashion and creative graphics. Today, we are presenting you one of the World’s greatest designers. Checkout an award-winning design portfolio today and get your daily design inspiration.

domain: geography


The Tide Radio
Tide Radio is an Adult Album Alternative station that plays an eclectic mix of musical selections. We have over 5,000 hand-picked songs from artists like Tom Petty, Adele, Grateful Dead, Florence and The Machine, as well as up and coming artists that will soon be household names. Great music is always our first priority; however, you can tune in on weekdays to hear The Morning Show with Andy Harris, on air interviews with local businesses, and our lunchtime request hour where our listeners pick the music. Tide Radio is here to connect you with your hometown news from our all digital newspaper, WYDaily.com.
HOW TO LISTEN
You can listen to The Tide wherever you are and on any device — for free anytime, anywhere.
- Online - Listen on mobile, desktop or tablet with The Tide stream via the website, TideRadio.com
- On the Road - Driving is the perfect time to listen to The Tide! Add 92.3 and 107.9 to your presets.
- Amazon Echo - Just say “Alexa, play 92.3 The Tide.”
- Google Home - Just say “Hey Google, play 92.3 The Tide.”


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Ha ha ha! More
Funny Picture Dump Of The Day 30 Pics
Funny Pictures | Cute Pigs | Chocolate Cake
Quick,call Darth ... he's my father...NOOOO! hee hee :)
One of my students gave me a note today. It said "Your the best English, teacher" ... Apparently I'm not
Forget dancing like no one is watching. Dance like a toddler. They don't even care if there's music.
Aivan! On joo samoja vaatteita, joita saattaa pitää useammin, mutjoo pesukone, pesukone ✌if they wonder..
Ha ha ha ha ha ha so me I'm never normal I'm weird
then repeatedly throw it into the trash and still dont remember the directions lol
Dump A Day Funny Pictures Of The Day - 56 Pics More

domain: entertainment


TOPEKA, Kan. – A Kansas man being pursued for child support by the state after he donated sperm to a lesbian couple is asking a judge to rule in his favor before a trial.
An attorney for William Marotta filed a motion this week in Shawnee County District Court asking for the summary judgment for his client, contending that the Kansas Department for Children and Families is asking the court to do “what no court has ever done” in concluding that a sperm donor is a father when neither the donor nor the biological mother is seeking that result.
The state contends that Marotta must pay child support because he is the father of a girl born to a lesbian couple in 2009.
According to legal filings, in 2009 Marotta answered an ad on Craigslist posted by Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, a lesbian couple in Topeka, who were offering $50 per sperm donation.
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Marotta said he met with the couple and agreed to donate to them without accepting the money. He said he and the couple signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities.
Three years later, after the couple sought state assistance for the child, the Kansas Department of Children and Families sought out of them the name of the father and said they would not provide assistance unless they provide the name.
After the couple provided Marotta’s name, the state claimed he was the baby’s father and needed to support her.
The state filed a motion in May seeking a summary judgment in its favor. Timothy Keck, a co-counsel for the state, contended in that motion that the contract between Marotta and the couple was invalid because they didn’t follow a Kansas law that requires a licensed physician to perform the artificial insemination in cases involving sperm donors.
Keck’s motion also asked the court to order genetic testing on the child but District Judge Mary Mattivi put that request on hold while she considered other issues.
Marotta’s attorney, Benoit Swinnen, argued in his motion that the court should apply well-settled law to conclude that the sperm donor contract in Marotta’s case is valid and enforceable. He also asked that the court find Marotta is not the girl’s father and that he has no responsibility to pay any child support or other expenses related to the child.
An Aug. 13 status hearing is the next court action scheduled in the case.


Breaking News from Dahlonega GA
Find the latest Dahlonega GA News from the most up to date source on all headlines and breaking stories from around the world.
Dahlonega man charged with DUI in wreck that injured motorcyclist
DAHLONEGA, Ga. –– Benjamin Jacob Bruner, 20, of Athens was seriously injured Tuesday when the Suzuki motorcycle he was riding struck the rear end of a Dodge Dakota that was backing out of a private driveway on Ben Higgins Road.
Military college cadet faces uncertain future after devastating car accident on his way to school
DAHLONEGA, Ga. — A military college cadet with dreams of becoming an officer in the U.S. Army was in surgery again Thursday and faces an uncertain future after he was seriously injured in a traffic wreck on his way to school.
Motorcyclist taken to hospital after wreck in Lumpkin County
A motorcyclist struck a pickup truck that was backing out of a private driveway Tuesday morning in Lumpkin County, according to Georgia State Patrol. State patrol Cpl. J.A. Caldwell said a trooper responded before noon Feb. 12 to Ben Higgins Carlton Seitz roads.
Georgia business owner owing over $300,000 in back taxes admits he tried to bribe IRS agent, agrees to leave country after prison
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia business owner has pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe an IRS agent to reduce his tax burden. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Magdaleno Garcia Alonso offered cash to an IRS agent who audited his tax returns in 2015 and 2016 if she reduced the amount of money he ow
UNG fraternity suspended by national organization, university
A fraternity at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega has been suspended by their national organization after allegations of alcohol misuse. The Georgia Delta chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon was investigated for allegations of alcohol misuse at an unauthorized, off-campus event, according to a
Police: Man accused of taking thousands of dollars from UNG vending machines
University of North Georgia officials and their vendor believed money was going missing from the vending machines on campus over the Christmas break. When a UNG officer met with the suspect Jan. 30 at the Fulton County Detention Center, a man reportedly “admitted to taking money from the vending mac
GARY EDWARDS: Peach Belt cuisine
FLORENCE, S.C. -- After a successful home stand, the Francis Marion University men’s basketball team takes to the road this weekend to play the University of North Georgia on Saturday afternoon, and then Young Harris College on Monday evening.
Mobile home heavily damaged by fire in Dawson County
Crews with Dawson County Fire Services made quick work of knocking down a mobile home fire on Elliott Family Parkway Friday morning. Firefighters were dispatched at 10:48 a.m., according to a press statement from Dawson County Emergency Services. They arrived at the scene at 10:55 a.m. and had the f
Forsyth County: Plant a Tree on Georgia Arbor Day
FORSYTH COUNTY, GA — Residents are invited to celebrate Georgia Arbor Day by attending a tree planting ceremony at The Orchard at Chattahoochee Pointe (5790 Chattahoochee Pointe Dr.) as well as planting their own trees. A limited number of free Swamp Chestnut and Dogwood tree seedlings will also be
Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at University of North Georgia closed after underage drinking incident
A fraternity has closed at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega following an incident of underage drinking that hospitalized one student in December. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter was shuttered by the national organization in conjunction with UNG, which has also suspended the organization.
Norm's Tasting Notes: The Three Sisters Winery
#nb-38-12 Can you find good wine in North Georgia? You bet you can! Whether it be the French Bordeaux style, "Meritage", or the smooth blended red, "Fat Boy Red", a local favorite. The wines from Three Sisters Vineyards are all pleasing to the palate, and provide choices for almost any range of tast
Georgia woman pleads to hauling kilos of drugs on I-75
MACON, GA (WALB) -- A Tifton woman pleaded guilty in Macon federal court Wednesday on a drug charge after she was arrested for carrying four kilos of meth and cocaine in her car with the intent to distribute.
Police: Man wanted for Hard Rock shooting in Atlantic City arrested in Georgia
Police say a man wanted for a shooting at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City has been arrested in Georgia. Emory Chapman, 39, of Pleasantville, was taken into custody Thursday by FBI agents in Atlanta.
7 of America’s best hospitals are in Georgia, according to a new report
Of the nearly 175 hospitals in Georgia, seven facilities were recently recognized as the country’s best of the best. That’s according to a new report from Healthgrades, for which analysts ranked the top 250, top 100 and top 50 hospitals in the United States “based solely on clinical quality outcomes
Georgia soldier comes home from Afghanistan after daughter’s sudden death
The 5-year-old daughter of a National Guard soldier died unexpectedly last weekend, and her father hurried home to Georgia from his deployment in Afghanistan, according to a news report.
Georgia drivers must make more stops for school buses
Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday signed a bill into law revising the state’s traffic regulations for driving past school buses stopped to load or unload students. Now drivers must stop for school buses stopped to load or unload passengers unless they are driving on a highway divided by a grass median, unpa
Teen accused of molesting young boys testifies ‘that’s not who I am’
Saying he was mad and confused when learning of the allegations against him, a 16-year-old took the stand Thursday, Feb. 14, in his defense against multiple charges of aggravated child molestation.
Aurora, Illinois police respond to active shooter at Henry Pratt manufacturing business
Authorities are investigating the report of an active shooter at a suburban Chicago facility. The City of Aurora confirmed there is an active shooter near Highland and Archer. Several local media outlets are reporting a massive police response at a manufacturing facility in Aurora, Ill.
Atlanta rapper 21 Savage booked into S. Georgia jail on felony warrant
It was a busy day for Atlanta rapper 21 Savage Friday, starting with a pre-taped appearance on Good Morning America, followed by being booked into a South Georgia jail on a felony theft by deception warrant. He was later released, according to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office.
Georgia National Guard's first black female pilot gets surprise sendoff
HENRY COUNTY, Ga. - The Georgia National Guard's first black female pilot got a surprise send-off in Henry County Friday. Channel 2's Steve Gehlbach was at Stockbridge Elementary School, where students packed the gym to celebrate Lt. Andrea Lewis.


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Sovereign Chemical Company is an industry leader committed to exceeding the needs of our global suppliers and customers by delivering exceptional service, quality and inventories to be there when you need us most. We build relationships that build business. We continually work together toward... Read More
Since 1985, Interbusiness Group has been engaged in the field of rubber chemicals, specializing in the production and trading of curing agents and accelerators for special elastomers. Through these efforts, we have become an international market leader.
Wacker is among the worlds leading chemical companies. Products range from silicones, binders and polymer additives for diverse industrial sectors to bioengineered pharmaceutical actives and hyperpure silicon for semiconductor and solar applications.

domain: chemistry


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Compare & Book online accommodation worldwide
Accommodation in Alexandria Bay
This accommodation offer in Alexandria Bay is sorted by price. You can choose from 7 accommodation offers in Alexandria Bay in total. Due to fewer accommodation options in Alexandria Bay, we recommend that you search for accommodation also near Alexandria Bay. By entering the dates of your stay, determining the distance from the destination Alexandria Bay and using other filter tools you can select the best possible lodging for you. The entered dates of your stay are crucial for the most accurate accommodation offer as it derives all the online information on pricing and availability for Alexandria Bay overnight stay. Then you can book the selected Alexandria Bay hotels, apartments, B&B etc. immediately.
45302 State Route 12, Alexandria Bay
2.4 km from Boldt Castle and Yacht House, Rock Ledge Motel is situated in Alexandria Bay and provides rooms with free WiFi. All rooms boast a flat-screen TV with cable channels and a private bathroom.
9 Anthony Street, Alexandria Bay
Set in Alexandria Bay, Anthony House boasts accommodation a 14-minute walk from Boldt Castle and Yacht House. This property provides both WiFi and private parking free of charge.
17 Holland Street, Alexandria Bay
Riveredge Resort Hotel in Alexandria Bay boasts accommodation with a seasonal outdoor swimming pool and a fitness centre. The resort has air-conditioned rooms with a private bathroom and free WiFi.
31 Holland St, Alexandria Bay
Offering a full-service marina on the Saint Lawrence River, this Alexandria Bay hotel offers an outdoor swimming pool and a games room with billiards. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property.
43615 State Route 12, Alexandria Bay
Swan Bay Resort Premier RV Park & Marina offers pet-friendly accommodation in Alexandria Bay. Free WiFi is available throughout the property and free private parking is available on site.
Accommodation close to Alexandria Bay
19 Front Street,
(4.9 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Located on Saint Lawrence River in 1000 Islands’ historic village of Rockport, this accommodation boasts on-site Rockport Cruises. A waterfront restaurant is available as well as satellite TV in most rooms.
24 Selton School Road,
(6.8 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Featuring an on-site restaurant and scuba diving school, this Thousand Islands B&B is a minute's walk from a magnificent 40 km bicycle and jogging waterfront trail along the St Lawrence seaway. Spacious guest rooms include free WiFi.
148 Ivy Lea Road,
Ivy Lea, Canada
(7.6 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Located in Ivy Lea, Ivy Lea Serenity features air-conditioned accommodation with a balcony and free WiFi. The property provides free private parking.
108 Ivy Lea Road,
(7.9 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Located just off the Thousand Islands Parkway, this Ivy Lea motel has beautiful views of the river and islands. Local boat rentals, marinas, tours and hiking trails are within 10 minutes' walk.
409, 1000 Islands Parkway,
(11.1 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Located on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, this waterfront resort boasts its own boat dock, hiking trails, and free Wi-Fi. The Smuggler’s Glen Golf Course is on site.
255 Thousand Islands Parkway,
(13.7 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Situated in Gananoque, 10 km from Thousand Islands Playhouse, Riverview B&B features air-conditioned rooms with free WiFi. Free private parking is available on site.
200 Riverside Drive,
(16.8 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Located on the waterfront of the St. Lawrence River, this Clayton, New York hotel offers an indoor pool and an on-site restaurant.
846 King St East,
(18.1 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
This hotel is located in Gananoque, in the Thousand Island region of Ontario. It features an Olympic-sized seasonal outdoor pool.
785 King Street East,
(18.2 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Offering an outdoor pool, Travelodge Gananoque is located in Gananoque. Free WiFi access and a continental breakfast consisting of bagels, cereal, toast, yogurt and fruits are available.
777 King Street East,
(18.2 km distance from city Alexandria Bay)
Located just 2 km from 1000 Island Charity Casino, this Gananoque, Ontario hotel offers spacious rooms with free Wi-Fi. The hotel features an indoor pool, sauna and well-equipped gym.

domain: travel


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If you frequent my blog, you’ve probably noticed that while I love gourmet food, I tend to lean towards quick and easy recipes that I can disguise as fancy. I’m all about the 1-2-3 – as long as it tastes good. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want to take the time to make something from scratch that rivals any dish at a 5-star restaurant. If you have your technique down, and you put love into your food, the results can be beyond extraordinary.
The story of this recipe goes back about a year, when I learned to make pasta from scratch at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts. I could not believe how incredibly easy it was. We made the pasta dough before I could even blink, and rolling it through the pasta machine was so much fun. Filling our homemade ravioli with duck confit and bathing it in demiglace sauce made me realize just how luxurious pasta can be. I went home that night dreaming up all sorts of amazing pasta creations, none of which actually happened. Until now.
If you don’t know this about me already, I’ve got a thing for mashup recipes. I just love to deconstruct traditional recipes and break them down into playful ideas. So when I learned to make pasta from scratch, it was only natural for me to take it the next level and dream up something crazy. I had this idea to deconstruct mushroom barley soup into a ravioli. I’d make barley ravioli, fill it with flanken and smother it in a velvetty wild mushroom sauce.
It was all a dream, until one day, a couple of weeks ago, my friend Melinda and I decided to plan a day of cooking together in my kitchen. Melinda is an adventurous cook who’s not afraid to try anything. She blogs about her kitchen experiments on kitchen-tested where she shares many of her fabulous recipes.
We were brainstorming about cooking ideas and I came back to the deconstructed mushroom barley ravioli that I had wanted to make for so long. Since Melinda is a big dessert person, we decided to do ravioli 2 ways. I would tackle the savory part of the meal while Melinda would do a dessert ravioli. Melinda is obsessed with s’mores so I wasn’t surprised when she came up with the idea to make a fried graham-cracker-crusted chocolate ravioli stuffed with chocolate and marshmallows.
Being the dedicated foodies/bloggers that we are, we decided that it would be fun to blog about our cooking experience and share the recipes while linking to each other’s posts. And so here we are.
One of the best parts of making this dish was getting to use my Le Creuset dutch oven for the first time! I had wanted the pricey pot since forever, I just couldn’t bring myself to splurge on it. Luckily, I won a $500 gift card to Williams Sonoma after winning 2nd place in The Mushroom Channel’s Swap It or Top It Contest for my portobello mushroom burger with sundried tomato aioli. As soon as my gift card came in the mail, I knew just what I would spend my winnings on! A dutch oven was #1 on my list, followed by a good quality electric knife sharpener.
The night before Melinda was to come, I sharpened up my knives with my new machine and went to work braising short ribs in my new dutch oven. I prepared the pasta dough in my food processor, following a recipe from Lidia Bastianich, the queen of Italian cooking. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to make the pasta dough! It came together in no time – exactly as Lidia had said.
Cooking day was finally here and we were beside ourselves with excitement. Melinda settled in to my kitchen and checked out my photography “studio” (aka the corner in my kid’s playroom). We started off our day with some s’mores coffee (an Archer Farms limited edition that I was saving for my s’mores-loving friend!) and got right down to ravioli-making. With my dough and meat already prepped, we rolled out the pasta dough and filled it with short ribs. While Melinda helped with the pasta, I got to work on the incredible wild mushroom sauce. It was so rich and flavorful, we could barely hold out while we photographed it. After sharing some shots with our fans on Instagram, we finally sat down to savor the fruits of our labor. The fresh barley pasta, paired with the shredded beef and velvetty mushroom sauce was truly reminiscent of mushroom barley soup. All in all: success!
Barley Ravioli with Short Ribs and Wild Mushroom Sauce
2 lbs. boneless flanken (short ribs)
1 tsp olive oil
s&p, to taste
1 leek, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 cup dry red wine (I used merlot)
6 sprigs thyme, divided
4 cups beef or chicken broth
2 large shallots, peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chopped assorted mushrooms (I used oyster, shitake and baby bella)
1 tbsp flour
Heat a dutch oven and drizzle with olive oil. Season flanken with salt & pepper and sear on both sides. Remove from the pot. Add leek, garlic, carrot and celery and saute (add more oil if needed) for several minutes. Deglaze the pan with wine. Return the meat to the pot and add 4 sprigs of thyme, broth, salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil and place in the oven for 3 hours at 300 degrees.
When the flanken is ready, remove the meat from the pot and break it apart into shreds. Place a fine mesh sieve over a small pot or bowl and strain the cooking liquid through the sieve. Once the vegetables have been separated from the cooking liquid, remove the sprigs of thyme from the vegetables and mix the vegetables with the shredded flanken. If the mixture is dry, add up to 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid.
Take the remaining cooking liquid that you strained through the sieve and place it in the freezer (for about 20 minutes) so that the fat has a chance to congeal. Remove the fat and set the sauce aside.
In a saute pan, saute the shallots and garlic until fragrant. Add mushrooms and cook over high heat so that the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms caramelize. Add the flour and saute until golden. Add the reserved cooking liquid, 2 sprigs of thyme, salt and pepper and cook until thickened. If the mixture is too thick, thin it out with a bit of beef broth. If it is too thin, continue to cook until reduced and thickened.
recipe from Lidia Bastianich
1⅓ cups all-purpose flour
⅔ cup barley flour
2 large eggs
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons water
In a bowl, combine the eggs, oil and water and whisk to combine. Put both flours in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, and blend for a few seconds to aerate. While the food processor is running, pour the egg mixture through the feed tube. Process for about 30 seconds, until a dough forms and gathers on the blade. If the dough does not gather on the blade or process easily, it is too wet or dry. Feel the dough, then work in more flour or ice water, in small amounts, using the processor or kneading by hand. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface, and knead by hand for a minute, until it’s smooth, soft, and stretch.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let stand for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
Divide the pasta dough into four parts and cover so that it doesn’t dry out. Working one at a time, roll the dough through a pasta machine into about 1/16″ thickness. Place rounded teaspoonfuls of flanken filling 1″ apart over half the sheet of pasta. Brush around the filling with water to moisten and fold the sheet over, pressing down to seal. Cut into squares with a ravioli press, pastry wheel or knife. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add ravioli and cook for about 2 minutes, until ravioli float to the top and are tender. Remove with a spider or slotted spoon and serve immediately with mushroom sauce.
NOTE: Since only a teaspoonful of filling is used in the ravioli, I had quite a bit of leftover shredded meat. It is so flavorful and delicious, I’m sure you won’t complain, but if you’d like, you can reduce the amount of flanken to 1 lb. so you don’t have much leftovers.
VARIATION: While I love the idea of making barley pasta dough with this recipe, you may use wonton wrappers, if you do not wish to make pasta dough from scratch.
Now that you’ve “sampled” my barley ravioli with wild mushroom sauce, it’s time for some dessert! Head on over to kitchen-tested for a step-by-step guide to making Melinda’s fried smore’s chocolate ravioli!
Here are some outtakes from our lunch together! I hope you had fun reading about our ravioli adventure!

domain: food


text:
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Void Vikings Rated 3.9542 Stars Fight aliens and collect loot in this 2.5D space shooter! Action - Shooter - Multidirectional Tap Heroes Rated 3.9236 Stars Embark on an epic journey through the lands to grow ever stronger and defeat your enemies! Adventure - RPG Witch Hunt Rated 4.3419 Stars Defend the crystal. Obliterate enemies with magic. Action - Other How to Raise a Dragon Rated 4.4337 Stars The dragon: a majestic and complex beast. How is it born? How does it live and die? Action - Platformer - Puzzle
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Soft Precision 5 Points Complete a level with 60% of Precision Medal Stats.
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Firestarter 25 Points Escape the raptor Medal Stats.
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That one bounced! Rated 3.9808 Stars KV2 Encounter Comedy - Parody PokeGen XY Rated 4.0312 Stars Our Hero faces the biggest challenge he has ever faced.....women Comedy - Parody BONK! Rated 4.4354 Stars BONK! Action Bringing you bullsh- Rated 4.1388 Stars A few shorts done for an animation course Comedy - Original

domain: game


text:
Here’s the greenwater garage deal: We provide supplies and a creative workspace. You bring a friend and some snacks if you like. We guide your process. You will learn something new. We change it up and offer a variety of experiences. You bring your courage and clever conversation. Everyone has fun. Come once, belong forever.
We’ve set our summer schedule! During the summer months, there is no need to reserve a spot unless you are bringing groups of 6 or more. If you want to guarantee a seat, just let us know you are coming by emailing email@example.com and we’ll give you priority.
We are running a pay-at-the-door system and drop-ins are welcome. We prefer cash or check, but we can take credit cards also.
Come to greenwater garage to learn something new and make something cool!
Keep watching this page in June for more arts learning opportunities!

domain: artistic


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Posts in category "Conference Final"
It goes without saying that Saturday night’s playoff elimination at the hands of Real Salt Lake was an incredibly gut-wrenching defeat for the Fire. It’s tough any time a team bows out of a competition due to penalty kicks, but this one was especially painful for Chicago – who has now been eliminated from the... Read more »
A common saying amongst those in the soccer world is that a penalty kick shootout is a cruel way to decide a match. After Saturday night, the Chicago Fire knows that saying back to front. 120 minutes of action saw the Fire and Real Salt Lake knotted at 0-0 so it all came down to... Read more »
The Fire couldn’t have asked for much more from last Saturday’s 2-0 win over New England. Advance in the Eastern Conference playoffs? Check. Do it against a bitter rival? Check. And do it all in style? Oh my, yes. Check. That’s what can happen when the Fire plays some of its most inspired soccer at... Read more »
Tickets for the Saturday night’s Eastern Conference Final between the Fire and Real Salt Lake sold out today. The sellout is the second consecutive for the Fire – who will sell a very limited amount of standing room only tickets for the game. If you’re sitting on some cash, you can buy the so called... Read more »
After up and down regular seasons that saw one team consistently dissatisfied with its results and one team barely scrape its way into the playoffs, it’s only fitting that the Chicago Fire and Real Salt Lake take each other on. Both teams will enter the Eastern Conference Final feeling that they have something to prove... Read more »
With only three days remaining before they take on Real Salt Lake in the Eastern Conference Final, the Fire is looking for all of their injured players to return to the field to help Chicago advance to its first MLS Cup Final since 2003. Unfortunately for the Fire though, it doesn’t appear as if all... Read more »
The two remaining MLS Conference Semifinal series were decided today, with the Houston Dynamo and the L.A. Galaxy earning their places in the Western Conference Final. The teams booked their tickets to the final — which will be played next Friday at the Home Depot Center — courtesy of two 1-0 victories. Houston was the... Read more »

domain: news


New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has again defended last Thursday's decision to issue a high alert for the city's underground train system.
Michael Bloomberg says the threat was credible
Mr Bloomberg, who insisted the city did not overreact, was speaking after US media reported that the alleged subway threat was a hoax.
"I don't know that it was confirmed that it was a hoax at all," he said.
Extra security measures were scaled down on Monday, after officials said the period of the threat had passed.
But on Tuesday, US reports cast doubt on the credibility of the threat.
They said the informant who had told US officials about the plan to attack the subway with briefcases and pushchairs packed with explosives had later admitted to making it up.
They also said that the three suspects he identified in Iraq appeared to have no links to any plan or known extremist groups.
Mr Bloomberg said the informant had passed a lie detector test, the Associated Press reports.
The FBI and White House officials had earlier expressed their doubts about the alleged threat, which was said to involve more than a dozen operatives in Iraq and the US.
But Mr Bloomberg defended his actions, saying: "When somebody makes an allegation and it looks like there is some credibility - and clearly there was credibility here - you go and you act on it."


In February, Eva, a 16-year-old girl from a rural village in Tanzania, asked her government a simple but powerful question: Will you listen to me? Today, she got her answer!
After Eva and her classmates at Mlowa school wrote a letter to their local leaders last year, asking for water and sanitation facilities to be provided at their school, they were ignored. So instead of giving up, she decided to team up with ONE and Restless Development to start her own campaign asking you to #StandWithEva—and you did!
In just four months, 150,000 of you have joined your voice with Eva’s and asked the Tanzanian government to provide Eva and her classmates with water at their school, so that they can stay in class and learn, as opposed to using precious lesson time walking to collect water.
— Oscar Kimaro (@Osckim) 2 June 2016
Today, along with her classmates, Eva met with the Tanzanian Prime Minister to deliver this message:
My name’s Eva. I’m 16 years old. I’ve lived all my life with my family in Malinzanga, a small village in Tanzania.
There are lots of problems with my village. One of the biggest problems that we face is the lack of water.
Me and my classmates have to walk 7 kilometers to fetch water from the nearby river. The whole community uses the the same river for cooking, cleaning, washing and drinking. This means many people get stomach ache and other diseases. And for girls, it’s making the journey for water can be dangerous. Some are assaulted, resulting in early pregnancies and forced marriages too.
But I’m not here today to only tell you about the problems we face. I’m here to tell you how we can stand up, be heard, and solve them. And why you should too.
I’ve learned that the voice of young people like me is important and should be heard. Last year I decided to take action. I decided to use my voice to bring about change in my village.
I wrote a letter to President Barack Obama calling for leaders to commit and deliver their promises. And he replied. He even read my speech at the global summit where the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed. Something big like this has never happened in my family. I felt happy and it inspired me to do more locally about the lack of water.
In February, me and my classmates launched a petition to speak up about this issue to you, our leaders. Roughly 150,000 people have signed the petition. I never expected that so many people would support us, people from all over the world. We even got our District Commissioner to sign the petition!
We believe that if we can attract the attention of the leaders, then changes can take place in Malinzanga.
I want to achieve a better life for me, my family and the whole community,but we – my whole community, and young people like me everywhere – need to work together with our leaders.
It is you, our leaders who must help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. Today, I am asking; how will you help us achieve one of these Goals and help us get clean water in Malinzanga? With the whole world watching, this is Tanzania’s chance to show leadership on the Sustainable Development Goals and secure a better future for its citizens.
My final message is to my fellow young people. My petition is just the beginning. Let’s believe in ourselves, if we use our voices, we will be heard and we can change our lives for the better!
This is an amazing moment, not only for Eva and our incredible members who’ve helped to make this possible, but for young people everywhere who want to make a change in this world.


text:
|Product name||(R)-alpha-Lipoic Acid (R-ALA)|
|Other names||(R)-(+)-α-Lipoic acid, (R)-(+)-A-Lipoic acid, R-ALA, R+ALA,
R[+]-Alpha Lipoic Acid, RALA, Sodium R-Lipoic Acid,
thioctic acid, 1,2-dithiolane-3-pentanoic acid
|Appearance||Slightly yellow crystalline powder|
What is R-Alpha lipoic acid?
Alpha-lipoic acid consists of two different forms (isomers) that have vastly different properties. The “R” form is the biologically active component (native to the body) that is responsible for lipoic acid’s phenomenal antioxidant effect. The “S” form is produced from chemical manufacture and is not very biologically active. Typical alpha-lipoic acid supplements consist of the “R” and “S” form in a 50/50 ratio. That means a 100 mg alpha-lipoic acid supplement is providing 50 mg of the biologically active “R” form.
Alpha lipoic acid is made by the body and can be found in very small amounts in food sources such as spinach, broccoli, peas, Brewer’s yeast, brussel sprouts, rice bran, and organ meats.
Alpha lipoic acid supplements are available in capsule form at health food stores, some drugstores, and online. For maximum absorption, the supplements should be taken on an empty stomach.
Mechanism of action of R-Alpha lipoic acid:
How does R-Alpha lipoic acid work? Alpha-lipoic acid and its reduced metabolite, dihydrolipoic acid (DHLA), form a redox couple and may scavenge a wide range of reactive oxygen species. Both alpha-lipoic acid and DHLA can scavenge hydroxyl radicals, the nitric oxide radical, peroxynitrite, hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorite. Alpha-lipoic acid, but not DHLA, may scavenge singlet oxygen, and DHLA, but not alpha-lipoic acid, may scavenge superoxide and peroxyl reactive oxygen species. Alpha-lipoic acid has been found to decrease urinary isoprostanes, O-LDL and plasma protein carbonyls, markers of oxidative stress. Further, alpha-lipoic acid and its redox couple DHLA have been found to have antioxidant activity in aqueous, as well as in lipophilic regions, and in extracellular and intracellular environments. Finally, with regard to alpha-lipoic acid’s antioxidant activity, alpha-lipoic acid appears to participate in the recycling of other important biologic antioxidants, such as vitamins E and C, ubiquinone and glutathione. Exogenous alpha-lipoic acid has been shown to increase ATP production and aortic blood flow during reoxygenation after hypoxia in a working heart model. It is thought that this is due to its role in the oxidation of pyruvate and alpha-ketoglutarate in the mitochondria, ultimately enhancing energy production. This activity, and possibly its antioxidant activity, may account for its possible benefit in diabetic polyneuropathy.
Health Benefits of R-Alpha lipoic acid
Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) is a powerful antioxidant that helps protect your cells from oxidative damage related to aging and environmental stress. Many of the benefits of Alpha Lipoic Acid is from its’ anti-oxidant properties and the associated ability to fight free radicals and regenerate other anti-oxidants. ALA supplementation can support your energy metabolism and help rejuvenate your cells. ALA can also encourage glucose uptake by the body’s cells. The key benefits are summarized as below:
Research in the last decade has strongly implicated oxidative damage within the cells, caused by free radicals, as the cause of many of the degenerative disorders of aging. Included in this group is Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and a host of other conditions. Studies have shown that oxidative damage is seen throughout various portions of the brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients.
Anti-oxidants have been shown in numerous studies to halt or reduce oxidative damage in cells and, in many cases, stabilize and even reverse the cell damage. There have been multiple studies in the medical literature indicating that anti-oxidants can have beneficial effects in slowing down and perhaps even reducing the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, etc.
Energy Production : Alpha-lipoic acid supports cellular energy production. It is an essential cofactor for several enzymes in the Krebs metabolic cycle that extracts a maximal amount of energy from glucose. It supports glucose uptake and may improve its utilization. Because Alpha-lipoic acid is soluble in water and fat, its benefits are enhanced because it can move into all parts of cells to deactivate free radicals. R-Alpha-lipoic acid is also important for generating energy in the body, and deficiencies may result in the slowing of the metabolic rate.
Helps Recharge Other Antioxidants
ALA is an important nutrient. First, because it is a powerful antioxidant, it works to scavenge free radicals. Second, ALA helps regenerate vitamins C and E, which are also antioxidants. To neutralize free radicals, vitamins C and E must give up part of their atomic structure. ALA makes them useful again by replenishing this part.
Metabolism : Alpha -lipoic acid is involved in the breakdown of the branched-chain amino acids, leucine, isolecuine, and valine. It also plays an important role breaking down alpha-keto acids.
Important for Brain Health
Especially important for brain health, ALA is one of the few antioxidants that can pass the blood brain-barrier, which enables it to protect brain tissue and prevent free-radical damage.
Help for Glucose Management
ALA is also well known for its use in diabetes support. It is a key factor in the metabolism of glucose, making it useful energy for the cell. ALA has been used successfully in Germany to treat diabetes since the 1960s. Numerous human clinical studies have verified the efficacy of ALA in supporting blood sugar levels.
Dosage of (R)-alpha-Lipoic Acid(R-ALA)
The following doses have been studied in scientific research:
For treating type 2 diabetes and improving symptoms such as burning, pain, and numbness in the legs and arms: 600 or 1200 mg daily.
Standard dosages of Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) tend to be in the range of 300-600mg; with little differentiation as to whether the racemic mixture of ALA (S- and R- isomers) or Na-R-ALA results in higher blood levels.
Alpha-lipoic acid appears to be absorbed via transporter-related means, and despite being inherently fat-soluble it does not require dietary fatty acids to be absorbed from the gut. ALA supplementation can be taken in a fasted state.

domain: health


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It can be hard to pick the right make and model of vehicle to buy today. There are a lot of options from manufacturers around the globe available. Yet, for those who are looking for a top of the line vehicle that offers some key unique qualities, check out the Volkswagen cars in Philadelphia. This could be one of the best investment decisions you make, especially if you want quality that is affordable.
What Makes Volkswagen Unique?
The Volkswagen cars Philadelphia that hit the market are going to be a good investment option for you because Volkswagen is a very reliable brand. They are designed with a bit more of a simplistic design, which keeps them a bit more affordable, too. They are a conservative vehicle in terms of their styling, but not in the way of their overall features or technology. In many ways, these vehicles are standouts in their classes because of the features they offer.
You can expect that the Volkswagen cars in Philadelphia will turn heads. You can also expect an outstanding amount of technology on board as well. This can provide you with a comfortable and very safe ride while giving you the look you want on the road.
With such a range of vehicle options, this make can be a good choice for many of today’s drivers. Take a closer look at the Volkswagen cars in Philadelphia that could be the right choice for your next investment. You may find this is exactly what you need and want in a new vehicle.

domain: design


text:
Wedding Dresses 200 to 300
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Wedding Dresses 200 to 300
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (526)Wedding Dresses 200 to 300
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I ordered a customised size and it was perfect! Seller responds in a timely manner as well. Very pleased with this purchase!
By Priyanka Holman
High quality dress. Came in quickly and fit perfectly! Would purchase from this site again for my bridesmaids!
By Very happy
I ordered the dress February 20, it was delivered April 8. The dress is beautiful, I did make a few changes when placing my order. I requested adding a peticoat service as I wanted a ball gown style rather than A line. I requested 2 inches be added to the sleeve length. I requested a corset back instead of zipper. It all met and surpassed my expectations. The dress is so beautiful. The quality is amazing. Josh was the BEST customer service representative. Worth every penny.
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! Thank you!
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I love this dress! It is sooo beautiful and comfortable. I have received many compliments from my friends. Really expect the wedding now. Thank you Dressafford. Will definitely come back to order more!
By Catherine Mullin
Arrived just in the nick of time! Will be perfect for the wedding in LA, Slinky lace material and gorgeously fEmmynine shape...no adjustment needed. Cant wait to wear it :))
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Unfortunately mine did not fit as expected but I give 5 stars because I received the dress quickly and well made and was given a refund when it didn't fit. For those reasons - customer service is very good.
By Kellan Dunne
Lovely! Dress looks great in person. A great price and great quality! Estella was very responsive and accommodating.
By Lianne Bird
Oh my goodness this dress it??s gorgeous! It fits beautifully and I was a little anxious being a size 16 and a 42 double D, I was afraid it wouldn??t fit but I sent my measurements and it??s so elegant and beautiful. I don??t know what I??m more impressed with the dress or the customer service, this company takes care of their customers! They got back to all my questions promptly. I will say it took a little while to get to me, that being said I was well aware that it would take at least 20 days. They have it posted on the website and so it came as no surprise, and it is well worth the wait! Thank you thank you thank you!
Lucy is easy to communicate with and made buying my gown a stress free process. I tried my gown on immediately upon receiving it (shipping was quick). The dress fits perfectly, I likely won't take it for any alterations either. The lace and fabric lining is extremely comfortable and I can't wait to wear it for my wedding in April!
Absolutely beautiful and super fast shipping! Thank you ;)
By Signe Liv Hennessy
Gorgeous quality fabric and the dress is really well made. It was too big for me, but I will just get it altered. Estella is very communicative and reply fast. It does take longer to produce than what it says, my dress took around 4 weeks.
- View more


As a tech leader or business owner, you understand that staying ahead of the competition requires more than just ambition — it demands data-driven decision-making.
That's where DevOps metrics come into play.
With just a little data, you can improve team performance, process efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
That’s not to say it’s easy. Implementing DevOps metrics has its challenges. It requires a strategic mindset, collaborative culture, and commitment to continuous improvement. However, the results are optimized workflows and processes on which you can build a solid foundation for scaling your business.
This article will explore key DevOps metrics and how to measure them to set relevant performance KPIs. We’ll then discover how to use these metrics to scale your business effectively.
The 5 Pillars of Process Maturity
DevOps combines and automates processes, practices, and tools used in software development and operations to increase the quality and speed of development life cycles.
Business process implementation has five key pillars, known as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). This model focuses on five maturity levels for the implementation and continual improvement of service or product development into your business model.
The five pillars have many variations, but initial, repeatable, defined, capable, and efficient are the original stages. An alternative is culture, automation, measurement, sharing, and feedback. Each stage has the same concept; their labels have just evolved over time.
Here’s an example of the five pillars of process maturity with short descriptions for each:
There are multiple metrics and frameworks that can be used to implement and measure the success of DevOps in your team. Let’s explore these in the section.
Principle-Based DevOps Frameworks
There are three main principle-based frameworks in DevOps. Principle-based refers to a practical approach with broad guidelines as opposed to a rules-based approach with prescriptive steps.
The Accelerate Framework
Authors Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim explore what sets high-performing tech companies apart in their book, ‘Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations.’
It is in this book that the Accelerate DevOps framework originated, which focuses on technical practices and management practices in DevOps teams for high-performing tech organizations. You can think of it as a study of the best practices of a DevOps team.
The three key areas of focus in technical practices are:
- Continuous delivery: Continuous delivery includes areas like version control, continuous integration, deployment and test automation, and test data management. Although continuous delivery is a principle of its own, it is used as an umbrella under the Accelerate framework. The reason behind this approach is that DevOps teams performing at top levels are executing these elements simultaneously rather than in isolation from one another.
- Architecture: High-performing DevOps teams were found to do most testing without the need for an integrated environment, deploy new applications independently of applications they depend on, and prioritize testing and deployability above the latest technology.
- Product and process: Customer feedback is sought regularly throughout development, working in small batches, experimenting, and continually optimizing processes. This was found to deliver value, fix bugs quickly, and enable a customer feedback loop.
There are two key areas of focus in management practices. These are:
- Lean management and monitoring: The Accelerate framework found that minimal approval processes lead to better software delivery performance than teams needing third-party approval. Monitoring capacities with work-in-progress limits and visual project management tools also improves performance.
- Cultural: The framework puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of creating the right working environment for better DevOps performance. Collaboration and learning are two key ingredients to this, with a supportive and encouraging approach to teamwork. These teams should be supported by transformational leadership. People in this position tend to be motivational, intellectually stimulating, and recognize their team’s achievements.
‘Lead time for changes’ is a DevOps metric we’ll explore in more detail below. It measures how long a code change takes from a developer's commitment to being successfully deployed into production. Applying this metric within the Accelerate framework, you can measure and improve the speed and efficiency of your software delivery process, leading to faster and more reliable deployments.
The Three Ways Framework
Introduced in The Phoenix Project, authored by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford, and appearing in The DevOps Handbook, the Three Ways framework improves DevOps performance by focusing on the principles of flow, feedback, and continuous learning.
Here’s a look at Three Ways framework:
- The First Way: Flow Thinking:
The first way is to achieve an uninterrupted flow of work from development to operations and deliver value to customers quickly and reliably.
‘Lead time to production’ is a metric you can use here by measuring the time it takes for a code change to go from initial commit to being deployed into the production environment and aiming to reduce the lead time by optimizing the delivery pipeline, automating processes, and minimizing manual interventions.
- The Second Way: Amplify Feedback Loops
The second way establishes fast and effective feedback loops throughout the software delivery process to enable continuous learning, improvement, and quality assurance.
Taking the ‘mean time to detect (MTTD)’ metric, you calculate the average time it takes to detect an issue or anomaly after a code change is deployed to production. Focus on reducing MTTD by improving monitoring, alerting systems, and feedback loops to quickly identify and address issues.
- The Third Way: Culture of Continual Experimentation and Learning
The third and final way encourages a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and risk-taking to drive innovation, adaptability, and organizational growth.
The ‘change failure rate’ metric is ideal to apply here. You track the percentage of code changes that result in failures or issues after deployment. Create a culture of experimentation by setting a safe environment for testing, learning from failures, and continuously improving processes to reduce the change failure rate.
The CALMS Framework
The CALMS framework embodies the principles of culture, automation, lean, measurement, and sharing. It is an ideal option for teams looking to transition to a DevOps approach to software development and eliminate development and operations teams working in silos.
You’ve already heard of the creator of the CALMS framework because he co-authored Accelerate and The DevOps Handbook, detailing the Accelerate and Three Ways frameworks, respectively. Jez Humble created the CALMS framework as a suitability assessment for whether companies are set up and ready to implement DevOps processes.
Similar to the CMM, but specifically for the administration of DevOps, you can use the CALMS framework to test if your business is ready.
These are the five pillars to follow:
- Culture: Your development and operations teams have been working within their groups, each with their own processes and communication styles. You must nurture a sense of shared responsibility to ensure a DevOps-ready culture.
- Automation: DevOps is about streamlining processes, speed, and efficiency. The key? Automation. Your teams need to prepare to automate manual tasks and procedures wherever possible. This step will support the continuous building, testing, deployment, and monitoring of software releases that comprise the DevOps lifecycle.
- Lean: The principles of the lean methodology, a business and project management approach, are used to minimize waste and optimize value streams. You must keep working capacities realistic and visualize project statuses to speed up processes.
- Measurement: Your company may be ready to roll out DevOps if you’ve got this far and your teams are committed to collecting and analyzing data to improve processes.
- Sharing: In addition to a culture of shared responsibility, your teams need to be open and willing to share data and information, ensuring everyone aligns with the same shared goals and is not competing. This final assessment point ensures smooth hand-offs and fast growth.
Challenges with DevOps Implementation
One of the biggest challenges with implementing DevOps is the resistance to culture change. You have two teams, each with their own processes, tools, and communication styles. Transforming them into one cohesive unit with shared goals, responsibilities, and metrics is a significant transformation. Maintaining high morale and a transparent approach to each step of the implementation process is vital to ensure smooth sailing. The cost of new tools and methods also needs to be considered.
If your team prefers following rules-based frameworks, it may be quite the shift to begin working with principle-based frameworks. It is fast-paced and often evolves with the team, so it can be complex to navigate for workers who have used traditional approaches for many years or new team members fitting into the dynamic.
Finally, the continuous flow of work can cause various vulnerabilities with software releases deployed without data encryptions or authentications and buffer overflows. This can put DevOps teams at risk of security breaches, so it’s essential to tighten processes around this while your DevOps team matures. This is also why implementation shouldn’t begin until the CALMS framework has been used to assess if you’re ready.
Why Are DevOps Metrics Important?
As discovered above, shared goals and metrics can be challenging for teams rolling out DevOps within a business. Without DevOps metrics, there would be no testing or measuring and no improvements to the development. It would just be iterations of the same software based on hunches and ideas, throwing it out into the abyss, and then trying something new. Without feedback or product success metrics to understand how something performs, there is no direction.
For example, finance departments want to keep costs as low as possible, whereas developers want to keep performance as high as possible. These two goals may not align unless risks have been assessed and the teams understand each others’ targets.
Where your developers may choose to ship an incomplete product and deal with it later, the cost of this impact causes technical debt. Implementing DevOps can align the goals and strategies of both teams, and you can help your developers understand the cost impact of their technical decisions.
This is just one small part of DevOps and the importance of shared metrics.
Understanding DevOps Metrics
Implementing DevOps and understanding principle-based frameworks is one thing, but DevOps metrics are where you really start to see the benefits of this collaborative approach to the software development life cycle. Like most business strategies, there are endless metrics you could choose to measure for growth, depending on your industry, audience, and goals.
Google Cloud’s DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) team is the longest-running research team of its kind. They originally found four key metrics to measure the performance of the ‘elite’ in DevOps. However, there has since been a fifth key metric added to the mix, and their cluster analysis only detects three levels of DevOps team: high, medium, and low, with ‘elite’ being a thing of the past.
The 4 Key DORA Metrics
Here’s a closer look at the four DORA metrics:
1. Deployment Frequency (DF)
DF measures how often you successfully release to production. This metric is about consistency and is an excellent indication of goal completion.
Teams under the ‘elite’ category would consistently deploy to production multiple times daily, whereas low-performing teams would be closer to once every six months.
Improving DF is as simple as releasing several minor updates. The main benefit of doing this is highlighting any process blockers, bottlenecks, or complex projects requiring attention. Larger teams may prefer deploying at regular intervals by building Agile release trains; this will help to remove the overwhelm of extreme pace and many people.
2. Lead Time for Changes (LTC)
LTC refers to the time it takes a commit to get into production. This metric is a good indicator of team responsiveness and agility as it measures how quickly they can act on user needs and demands.
The legacy ‘elite’ standard would aim for less than one day for LTC, whereas lower-performing teams could take more than six months. Performing at the lower end of the scale for LTC is likely due to inefficient processes.
You can improve this metric by improving automation processes, especially testing. By enhancing your continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, you can get updates to production faster. However, one risk to watch out for here is sustainability. If your team cannot sustain this improved pace, you could face poor user experience and potential security vulnerabilities.
3. Change Failure Rate (CFR)
CFR is the percentage of deployments causing a failure in production. Failure could be downtime, rollbacks, or degraded service. This metric shows you the effectiveness of your team when deploying changes.
Elite performance benchmarks are 0-15%, where high, medium, and low performance all fall under 16-30%.
Improving CFR is about quality over quantity. Companies release varying numbers of changes and, therefore, have varying numbers of failures. However, the highest-quality modifications will result in fewer failures, whether they deploy changes twice a year or twice a day.
4. Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)
MTTR is how long your team takes to restore service from a failure or disruption. Not only does this metric measure your team's agility, but it’s also a good gauge of the stability of your software.
If you’re aiming for an ‘elite’ level, you’d need to be looking at less than an hour for MTTR. Low-performing teams can take over six months.
You can boost MTTR by focusing on minor, quick releases, making failures easier to find and fix. You could also explore feature flags to give your team more control — especially if they’re experimental.
There’s one more metric to cover.
Bonus metric number five is reliability. This metric was discovered later by the DORA team (2021) due to previously measuring availability as a benchmark for reliable software. However, it was decided that reliability better encompasses availability, latency, performance, and scalability. It is essentially the inclusion of measuring operational performance alongside development.
Other Notable DevOps Metrics
- Cycle time: Cycle time is the total time from starting a task to final delivery. On the surface, it tracks the working speed of your team. However, you can dive deeper into this metric to find bottlenecks like long queue times and long-running pull requests.
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): MTBF measures the average time elapsed between system failures, downtime, or incidents. This metric evaluates the reliability and stability of your software systems, highlighting the effectiveness of your preventive maintenance and error mitigation strategies.
- Mean Time to Detect (MTTD): This is the average time it takes for your team to acknowledge a failure. A low MTTD indicates efficient monitoring and alerting systems, allowing for quick incident response and resolution.
- Time to Mitigate (TTM): The time taken to fix an issue once detected is the TTM. This metric helps assess incident response and resolution processes, indicating the efficiency of your teams in addressing and recovering from issues.
- Change Lead Time (CLT): CLT provides a benchmark for the end-to-end change implementation process, including development, testing, review, and deployment. A shorter CLT signifies faster delivery cycles and increased agility.
- Defect Escape Rate: The defect escape rate is how many bugs are missed during testing and released into production – how many ‘escaped.’ This metric is ideal for tracking if you want to improve testing and automation processes.
How to Set KPIs With DevOps Metrics
Now that you have a good understanding of the metrics you can use to implement and optimize DevOps in your business, you’lll want to explore key performance indicators (KPIs) to set some targets and benchmarks for your team.
Metrics vs. KPIs
You may be wondering what the difference between metrics and KPIs is. A metric is what you measure. It’s a quantifiable measurement that provides data about a specific performance aspect. Not all metrics are necessarily tied to specific goals or targets.
On the other hand, KPIs are a type of metric strategically selected and defined to reflect the most critical aspects of performance and progress toward strategic goals. KPIs are typically tied to objectives and often have associated targets, thresholds, or benchmarks that need to be achieved.
Setting KPIs for Your DevOps Team
The first step to setting KPIs for your DevOps team is linking DevOps metrics with your business strategy and goals. By prioritizing the most essential metrics to track, you can begin to establish targets and benchmarks for continuous improvement. Selecting the right metrics requires considering your company size, product, and market. Focus on what will provide the most actionable insights, avoiding the common pitfall of metric overload.
Monitoring your KPIs is just as important as setting them. Explore data visualization tools to provide your team real-time data on intuitive dashboards. This ensures complete visibility, provides accountability, and allows everyone to work together on shared goals, aligning development and operations teams and supporting the adoption and maturity of DevOps.
Taking the DORA core metrics, we can see the benchmarks for each metric based on the elite, high, medium, and low-performing teams. This table can help you set KPIs for your own business, depending on what you qualify as a priority.
When setting your KPIs, considering your team and business carefully without comparing them to other companies is best. If we look at CFR as an example, the benchmark is the same for high, medium, and low performance. This will depend heavily on your deployment frequency but can also affect it the other way around. If your team is spending all their time fixing failures, they spend less time developing and releasing updates. KPIs may also change as your DevOps team matures. Airtight automation and testing processes should automatically mean you can raise the bar on your targets.
How to Use DevOps Metrics to Scale
With the global DevOps market expected to hit $24.71 billion by 2027 (a compound annual growth rate of 22.9%, based on the $10.84 billion market size in 2023), take this as your sign if you’re looking for the best time to begin implementing it into your business.
DevOps not only accelerates development, reducing time-to-market, but it also improves collaboration by eliminating silos, enhances quality with continuous testing and feedback loops, and utilizes resources efficiently, which saves money. Finally, it is easily scalable, supporting business growth to new limits, with 83% of IT decision-makers accessing higher business value by implementing DevOps in 2021.
Performance Measurement and Continuous Improvement
Monitoring performance is the key to scaling a business that utilizes DevOps. It’s a fast-paced approach with a constant production workflow, so measuring and reporting should be just as frequent. DevOps metrics allow you to track the performance of your development and delivery processes. By quantifying key aspects such as deployment frequency, lead time, and change failure rate, you can identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement. This enables you to optimize workflows and processes often.
Tracking metrics like change failure rate and mean time to recovery helps you identify trends that allow you to detect issues early. This proactive approach means you can take corrective measures and minimize the impact on customers, providing reliability – another vital ingredient for scaling at high quality.
Finally, using DevOps metrics will help to mature your DevOps team by opening a culture of continuous improvement. Feedback loops promote learning and growth; there must always be room for experimenting with different approaches.
Which DevOps Metrics Support Business Growth?
When setting KPIs, most metrics should be considered within your team and positioned for growth rather than compared with other businesses and groups at different maturity levels.
For example, a low LTC could show that your team is efficient, but if they cannot maintain the pace, it’s not sustainable and could eventually affect user experience. This metric should be measured over time rather than setting a KPI to match a high-performing, or even elite, mature DevOps team. Setting KPIs to reduce LTC month-on-month, quarterly, or yearly demonstrates growth within your team and business.
CFR is a valuable metric because not everyone has the same number of failures or issues, but by putting a percentage on this, you can measure how successful your deployments are. Your team may have very few failures if they release changes infrequently, but if each release is causing an issue, the CFR will be very high. If you follow CI/CD practices, you may see a higher number of failures, but if your CFR is low, you will have an advantage because you have speed and quality supporting growth. MTTR should also be measured over time to ensure steady growth.
DORA found that teams of all development performance levels saw better results when focusing on operational performance. This could mean setting KPIs for incident reports or open tickets, application uptime, and availability.
A high number of open tickets could represent an issue with your customer satisfaction, but aiming for a decrease over time reflects growth in this area. You could delve deeper and measure response and queue times to accelerate the improvement of this metric.
The one metric that combines both development and operations wholly as a DevOps team is the cycle time. This opens the floor for building a culture of feedback and growth. As other metrics improve and automation matures, you should expect cycle time to reduce. If your customer service is high and development failures low, you’ve found a winning combination to scale your business.
Embrace A Metrics-Driven Culture For Long-Term Success
We’ve discovered how data-driven decision-making can be implemented by tracking and measuring appropriate DevOps metrics. The correct approach can benefit team performance, process efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
While all DevOps frameworks revolve around culture, collaboration, and continuous improvement, identifying which framework and metrics apply to your growth strategy will support your business to scale most effectively.
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The Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has extended its proselytizing efforts to the Soviet Union. Hundreds of Soviet college and graduate students have been brought to America for an all-expenses-paid immersion in the ways and beliefs of the church, which suggest that Mr. Moon may be the new messiah.
The visits, billed as educational excursions, are but one of a broad range of church-sponsored activities in the Soviet Union. In April, Mr. Moon met with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and expressed support for the political and economic transformations under way in the Soviet Union. Church-affiliated groups like the World Media Association have sponsored conferences in Moscow and discussions were begun on possible joint ventures in fields like computers and ballet.
Recruiting for the educational trips started this summer, and three groups have already visited America under the joint sponsorship of the church-affiliated International Leadership Conference and Novosti, the Soviet press feature syndicate. The goals, church officials say, are the same as those of many other current Soviet-American endeavors: peace, mutual understanding, "closeness to your neighbor."
'Learning a Lot of History'
"We're learning a lot of history," said Aleksei, a 28-year-old graduate student at Moscow's Institute of Physical Culture, said, recalling the lectures attended at the Ramada Inn outside of Hagerstown, Md., on this, his first visit to America. "They talked about how the history of Israel is connected with Christianity. How Christ was the Messiah.
"Then it seems as if there is going to be another messiah. In our time. They have shown us how the texts show that Korea is the country where he will appear. Then it seems as if he may be here. Then it seems he may be Sun Myung Moon."
Another of those attending, Irina Treibich, a student at the Institute of Management in Moscow, was enthusiastic about the experience in an essay she wrote in English for her hosts after she and about 200 others, with ages ranging from 20 to 28, spent five days sightseeing and five days in intensive lectures and seminars at the conference in Hagerstown.
Lectures and Discussions
"To my mind it is a very good idea what Soviet students took part in such conference, because it help to unification of whole world," Miss Treibich wrote. "Unification of all peoples, of whole countries, I think, it's only way which save all people."
At the conference, according to the Soviet students attending, lectures alternated with small-group discussions, at which attendance was strictly enforced. Curfews were enforced by polite, insistent proctors, and the schedule and setting insured only fleeting contact with outsiders. The format, according to an expert on the Unification Church, strongly resembles the church's introductory sessions with people the church regards as potential converts.
Sponsors of the exchange, both Soviet officials and American members of the Unification Church movement, say mutual understanding and not conversion, is the objective of the exercise. The students and their hosts, however, had slightly different memories of what was discussed.
'Framework of Religion'
"They are having lectures on economics," said Tony Devine, an official of the International Leadership Conference.
Aleksei said, "Mostly it's about religion."
Natasha Boldareva, a 23-year-old graduate student at the Physical Culture Institute in Moscow sat by the swimming pool at the Ramada Inn and said, "This is delightful." When asked the topic of the lectures, she answered: "Many different things. Economics. History. But everything is seen through the framework of religion."
Aleksandr Borisov, a dean of Moscow's Institute for International Relations, who accompanied the students, said: "We are trying to increase the spiritual basis of our politics. We are trying to understand problems through the prism of religious tolerance."
'I'm a Materialist'
Some of the students were more practical. "No, I don't agree with what they're telling us; I'm a materialist," said one young man, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used. "But how else am I going to see America?"
"They're getting to see American democracy," Mr. Devine said. But none of six students interviewed at the Ramada Inn on Nov. 5 knew that the American elections were being held the next day. Televisions had been removed from the students' rooms "so that they wouldn't stay up all night watching during the conference," Mr. Devine said.
Many of the recent visitors were clearly impressed with the trappings of American life and with the warmth of their hosts. "Almost everything about this is positive," said Aleksei, though he compared the "pressure to conform" with his Soviet Army experience.
Two other students expressed puzzlement at their inability to meet with American students other than those who were part of the lectures and discussion groups and the organized sing-alongs that opened each day's activities. Others were taken aback when a discussion group leader said the church had chosen a wife for him. One or two students were openly skeptical about their hosts.
'They Are Sweet With Us'
"They are sweet with us; sweet, sweet, sweet -- too sweet," said Igor Garilsky, 25, a student at the Institute for International Relations, who said he had read a book on the church before he came. As he spoke in a hall after midnight, his hosts patrolled the corridors of the Ramada Inn with walkie-talkies on their hips, enforcing the curfew by insistent requests that students retire for the night. One occasionally put his ear to the door of a room, apparently to hear who was inside. The two sexes were forbidden to mingle after curfew.
The Unification Church traces its roots from the Christian tradition and focuses on a belief in the imminent arrival of a new messiah. The Soviet visits come as the church, which has tax-free status as a bonafide religion, has changed its public image. The organization whose members once sold flowers at airports has now spawned affiliate organizations that underwrite film projects, have assembled parcels of real estate in Manhattan and publish newspapers including The Washington Times, The New York Tribune and Noticias del Mundo.
But Mr. Moon still selects spouses for his followers, who are then married by the thousands at mass ceremonies. The charges of brainwashing that came from former church members and their families are still heard, and the California Supreme Court last year upheld the right of two Californians -- who claim they were brainwashed -- to sue the church for fraud.
Appealing to the Unsettled
Marc Galanter, a professor of psychiatry at New York University and author of the book "Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion" (Oxford University Press, 1989) said the Unification Church had great appeal to people living in unsettled times. The students taking part in these exchanges grew up when Communism and cynicism were the twin faiths of everyday life, and arrived at adulthood to find most ideological, economic and political verities shredded in a national orgy of disillusionment.
"A large part of the reason the cult movements had the success they did in the late 1960's and 1970's was that the society was in turmoil," Mr. Galanter said. "There was the Vietnam war, all the civil turmoil. Youth had lost faith in the ideologies they had been offered.
"I think there's a definite parallel" with the situation of Soviet youth today, he added. Dr. Galanter, when told of the conference at the Ramada Inn, said it resembled some of the introductory sessions offered by the Unification Church in the United States.
Igor Drobyshev, a representative of Novosti who accompanied the students from Moscow, disagreed. "They don't try to indoctrinate the student," he said. "They wanted the students to get acquainted with this religious trend in the world. The activities of this church are based on human values, and the idea of those values is very popular right now in the Soviet Union."
But Mr. Garilsky agreed with Dr. Galanter, saying: "They see this as their chance to drive a wedge into the Soviet Union, and this is their wedge. Maybe only a few people here will become convinced. But that's fine for them. They can go back and, as we say, 'scatter flowers.' "


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Is binge-watching still frowned upon if you're being educated by what's on the screen?
Documentaries can be incredibly thought-provoking, evocative, and emotional films to watch. Whether you're into true-crime, the human body, or wildlife, you're sure to find something suited to your interests from Netflix's wide selection.
We decided to sort through and pick out the very best (and most fascinating!) gems for you.
If anyone asks why you were MI. for the past week, just tell them you were learning things.
As arguably one of the most well-known documentaries on Netflix, "Blackfish" is worth a watch. (I mean, a 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes means they did something right.) The stirring 2013 film follows the complex story of an orca named Tilikum, who lived in captivity at Sea World and ultimately killed three people.
Chances are you've heard a Bob Marley song in your lifetime. But do you know his backstory? Follow the reggae legend all the way back to his home in Jamaica in the 2012 documentary "Marley," and learn about his illegitimate children and cancer diagnosis. The film will give you a newfound understanding of one of music's most prolific artists.
3. "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"
Food-porn enthusiasts are sure to love this film, which chronicles Jiro Ono's path to becoming one of the best sushi chefs in the world. The narrative of the story is incredibly riveting and includes how Ono's dedication affects his family, most particularly, his sons.
This documentary, which came out last year and is named after the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery (except when considered punishment for a crime), is powerful, to say the least. Coming at just the right time in our social and political landscape, the film dives deep into the systemic race problem in America for African Americans, from Jim Crow to mass incarceration.
Cat-lovers will unite over "Kedi," which shows the daily life in Istanbul, Turkey, through the eyes of street cats. Even if you don't like cats, "Kedi" is a beautifully shot film.
6. "Under the Sun"
The way North Korea is portrayed in media makes it seem like an abstract and dystopian country. "Under the Sun" beautifully captures the human story that lies behind the country's militant wall by candidly following around a young North Korean girl named Zin-mi.
7. "Food, Inc."
Even if you don't swear off meat after watching this 2008 documentary on animal maltreatment in the food industry, you'll gain a new perspective on big business and corporations.
8. "Casting JonBenet"
"Casting JonBenet" is one of this year's hit documentaries. It takes the true-crime genre to new heights by exploring the 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Local actors are brought in to try out for a dramatization of the case, but in the end, their audition tapes are what make up the documentary. It's haunting, to say the least.
9. "The White Helmets"
With 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an Oscar win under its belt, "The White Helmets" is a must-watch documentary. It follows the daily lives of White Helmets, who are Syrian Civil Defense volunteer rescue workers, as they risk their own safety to help those in war-torn Turkey and Syria. Prepare to be inspired.
10. "Welcome to Leith"
This disturbing 2015 documentary takes a look at the small town of Leith, North Dakota, which is being overtaken by white supremacists. It gives a peek into a part of society overlooked by many Americans.
Thumbnail/banner image credit: Flickr user Ginny