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Madeleine Blais is a professor of Journalism at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Previously, she worked for the Boston Globe, the Trenton Times, and Tropic Magazine of the Miami Herald from 1979-87 where she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. She is the author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle (1995), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in nonfiction and named one of the Top 100 sports books of the 20th Century by ESPN; The Heart Is an Instrument; Portraits in Journalism (1992); and Uphill Walkers: Memoir of a Family (2001).
Another Martini, Another Lobster
The last time my mother and I spoke at length was in the late afternoon on the Sunday before the midterm elections in November in 2006. The year's light was fading fast, and I remember putting the receiver back in the cradle as shadows overtook my study. My mother still had her own place, on High Street in Mystic, Connecticut, which always seemed like the perfect address for a hippie back in the 60s, maybe not so perfect for your mother. My mother's hands were gnarled by then, curled up with arthritis she preferred not to acknowledge. Her lungs were barely functioning; she blamed the labored breathing on what she called the smudgy weather, not on permanent congestion and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She who had struggled for her entire adult life to go from 136 pounds down to 128 was now bird-like, disappearing, yet when she had tea she insisted on Splenda. In my eyes, she was a beautiful wreck, wrinkles and all, thanks to good cheekbones and a still flashing intelligence.
The summer had not been not an easy one on the East Coast. Heat wave after heat wave was followed by rain and by bugs and then more heat and the crankiness that comes with it. The jokes about global warming started to sound not like jokes. The summer was especially hard on my mother: like a lot of people of Irish ancestry, she possessed a low melting point that makes the double whammy of high temperatures and humidity especially disabling. She had fallen in May, not a bad fall, just a short downward swoop from her reading chair onto the floor, but that fall and one a few years earlier, in the summer of 2004—after a swim, on the beach, she had tripped and dropped to the sand, hurting her elbow—took more out of her than seemed either fair or possible.
She still had her belongings carefully ordered as well as her lists of books to get from the library and she had a table filled with her correspondence. But now the notion that she was actually living on her own was just a fiction. For all practical purposes she had moved in with my sister Maureen, and she was housebound except for the occasional trip by car with another sister Christina as the competent chauffeur. (We said she was in a-sistered living, if anyone asked.) She welcomed the simple pleasures in a way that was unusual for her (she did not want to appear to be someone who could be fooled or easily appeased): the sound of a hard rain, a lemon cookie, a burst of music from her grandson Greg at the keyboard. She herself could play music by ear, complicated classical compositions as well as old parlor songs like, “I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard.” She liked coming to my house where, in an injustice, her least musical child possessed the only real piano. She found solace sitting at that altar, and her fingers, not just stiff with age—one which had been broken and it had never healed properly—yet she moved them with miraculous lightness back and forth, up and down. From those curled up hands which could barely open a box of cereal would pour forth the most skilled series of notes you could imagine, each and every one a perfect herald of the next.
Oh, how she resisted some of what she perceived as the more humiliating aspects of aging, all that relying on others for the simplest of things, those bossy questions from strangers in the medical profession about whether she had eaten enough or remembered to take her pills or wanted a nice glass of prune juice.
She aspired to a queenly demeanor even at the end.
When we wanted to get her one of those 911 medical alert necklaces, she declined, icily, “No, thank you. I already have enough jewelry.”
She made it to Election Day that year, but shortly afterwards an attack of pain, perhaps a heart attack, a stroke, some kind of angina, brought her to Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut: Eugene O'Neill territory, filled with fog horns and familial drama, a fitting locale if there had to be one.
Tethered to tubes and to beeping machines and caught in a tangle of bedclothes, more than once she tried to make a break for freedom. The mask on her face, the needles in her arms: nothing would have pleased her less, for any number of reasons, not the least being vanity. She had lived to a glorious age, ninety three, but we could tell she wanted more.
There was no real one cause of death, other than the complications brought about by overall frailty. She was swaddled in sheets for six days straight. At one point she tried to scrawl a message on an envelope and the woman who so treasured written communication was incapable of producing more than a squiggle. She was fading but not totally faded. We put water on her lips, held her hands, tried to massage the crackly skin on her feet, the lax flesh on her legs. She was never a toucher and it was hard now to touch her: what if she flinched? What if she thought it was just a lot of New Age nonsense? She never really liked the post Vatican Two custom of the Kiss of Peace in the Catholic Church in which, before the altar is prepared for the Eucharist, worshippers shake the hands of strangers and urge peace upon each other. She loathed fakery in general and fake friendliness in particular, all this pressure for intimacy put her on her guard: what if you did not like the person whose hand you were shaking or you preferred to say inside a private prayerful reverie?
The obituary read, in part:
Maureen Shea Blais, born on May 1, 1913, died Sunday November 12 after a short illness. Daughter of the late Michael I. Shea, former mayor of Chicopee, and Madeleine Mahony Shea, she attended Chicopee High School and Bridgewater State College, graduating in 1934. Her husband, Dr, Raymond Blais, died in 1952. She was the mother of Madeleine Blais of Amherst, Ma., Jacqueline Blais of Alexandria, Va.. Christina Rodgers of Noank, Ct., Maureen Klein of Noank, Ct., and Michael Blais of Madison, Ct. and was predeceased by her oldest child, Raymond, in 1998. She left six grandchildren: Robert and Andrew Rodgers, Nicholas and Justine Katzenbach, and Christopher and Gregory Klein. She lived most of her life in the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts where she was a member of the Granby Public Library Board of Trustees for twenty two years, including head of the board for six years, a member of the Democratic Town Academy, and a fourth grade teacher at the defunct Ursuline Academy in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1981, she retired to Mystic, Connecticut where she continued to work as a substitute teacher in the Groton school system and as a docent at the Mystic Seaport Museum.
A seasonal resident of Groton Long Point since the late fifties, people always said they knew summer was here when they saw her in the water long before everyone else. As a Democrat, she was thrilled with the results of last week's election, in particular when she learned that Peter Welch, the son of lifelong friends, was elected to Congress in Vermont. Her favorite writers ranged from Edward Bellamy, author of Looking Backward, who lived next door to her in the childhood home in Chicopee, to Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Maeve Binchy, Alice McDermott, and Anita Brookner. She loved many places, including Ender's Island in Connecticut, Reginald's Tower in Waterford, Ireland, and the Summit House on Mt. Tom in the Holyoke Mountain Range. In a world that insists on dumbing things down, she insisted on smarting things up. A stickler for using the correct word, the correct table manners, and the correct grammar, she deplored lapsed standards such as the custom of older people being addressed by their first names without permission or the lack of formal attire at formal occasions.
We could have been less glowing.
We could have said she was crabby in the mornings.
We could have pointed out that she complained entirely too much about the dew point.
We could have alluded to the cigarettes she turned to for solace, until at the end they got replaced by the portable oxygen tanks she refused to use in public.
The scale of her vanity was breathtaking. She never wore eyeglasses though she read incessantly and I honestly believed until several months before she died that she did not need them and that by some marvel the presbyopia, or loss of the ability of the eye to focus, which is a universal component of the aging process, had somehow bypassed her. The truth is she didn't want anything to compete with her cheekbones and she kept hidden, in her purse and around the house, a standing army of magnifying glasses to be whipped out and employed when no one was looking.
She talked way too much about the place of her birth and her upbringing in Chicopee, Massachusetts, making it sound like Shangri-la.
It was, to her. She remembered it as a safe haven, watched over by her father, a doctor with an ethnic clientele, specializing in the delivery of Irish babies and Polish babies, curing Irish coughs and Polish coughs. The river was clean then, its banks filled with arrowheads. Someone today visiting Chicopee for the first time might find it a hodge-podge of honorable, if humble, working class dwellings and salt of the earth restaurants, which specialize in wiener schnitzel and cabbage and which brag about the chef's pedigree as a sausage-maker, a town that might now be more picturesque without the sucker-punch it experienced during the 60's when urban renewal cut the downtown in half. But if you had never been to Chicopee and you had only one thing to go by—the tone in my mother's voice when she invoked its name, a blend of loyalty, pride, and outright dreaminess—you would definitely pick it over Paris, Nantucket, and the Napa Valley, combined.
We could have also said that she was born on May first, and she was remarkably immature about her birthday. Because it involved baskets and blossoms (forget for the moment all that international nonsense about the workers of the world uniting) and trumpeted, in her mind, the true end of winter in New England, she thought it was the best birthday you could have. We could have said that when she was younger, and not yet old, and we, my younger brother Michael, my sisters and I, were launching our own adult lives, we knew better than to call her at night: at night came the monologues, the regrets, the long simmering resentment at all the doors that shut so long ago, the bottomless sorrow over the way my brother Raymond's life unraveled (mental illness; no good drugs at the time), her lamentation made all the worse if stoked by sherry.
Grief sometimes loots the present, creating havoc in the form of unbidden memories. I think of my mother alone all those years—not much money, marginalized the way single women, especially of her generation, often were—and how she still persisted in being counted. It took the form of red lipstick and pretty hats, of the right word spoken in a modulated tone, of a brooch so striking that when she wore it at the age of ninety two to a chowder palace called Abbott's in the Rough in Noank, Connecticut, a much younger man (oh, say, seventy five), paused to pay her a compliment. He was a complete stranger, “with,” said my mother, ever the reporter of social nuance, “a very refined manner. You could tell he was somebody in this world.”
Her self-respect took the form of holding her head high when she went to the conferences with teachers so smug in their 1950s certitude that my older brother's failures to measure up in the classroom despite his desperate efforts to conform and to concentrate were due to something she was doing wrong, and not at all driven by chemistry. It took the gloss of the elocution lessons and white gloves she forced on her daughters, the education she ensured for all of us except Raymond who never finished high school—his dropping out of school was the first unmistakable sign of Big Trouble—as well as the lace mantillas she saw to it we wore to church. Yet I have long known that the mother who brought me up was not precisely the same woman who brought me into the world. Her widowhood, and the demands it placed on her, was a never-ending shock. When we were little, we would drive to the Quabbin Reservoir in the next town over, to alternately admire and quake at the scenery with a ghost story at its core. When the reservoir was created, the townspeople were given ample time to evacuate. Yet the myth persists: entire villages still exist beneath the surface, pickled in time and in water.
She lived one life, with a shadow life pulsing beneath it, the life that would have been hers had my father lived.
Among the tributes after her death: “She was one of those grand dames who you thought would go on forever. You never expect women like her to leave us. A mighty oak has fallen,” and “Even at the end, she could rule a room.”
The burial took place at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Chicopee, Massachusetts, on November 16th, fifty four years to the day after my father had died. In a novel, if a coincidence of that sort were introduced so late in the game, it would be considered bad writing, as tinny and overbearing as a fraudulent sales pitch.
In life, it is just the way the cards got played.
We barely spoke as we committed our mother to the earth. Overhead, the skies were gray, cloudless, low-slung, and without song. The service was intended to be private, as she would have liked it: sinn fein, as the Irish say, meaning we ourselves or, as my mother translated it, ourselves alone. Yet, even then, someone showed up, an old man named Timothy Murray, a doctor, from Springfield, my father's best friend from their days on the football team at Holy Cross, driven by a young granddaughter. Too weak to even get out of the car, Tim spoke from out the window, rehearsing the old days. He had let his hair, under a tweed cap, grow long, down to the collar of his shirt, and the craggy spotted face had a ragtag nobility. He worried the past as he spoke to us: there were allusions about not enough insurance and how my father's friends figured out a way to juggle some numbers to improve the cash flow in the aftermath (the after math) of his death. (An answer, or at least a glimpse of one, to the question that dogged us in that small New England town so many years ago: How do they manage, after all?) To think of the sense of loyalty that prompted Tim to find us on that day so many years into what became the future after our father had died. How did he even know where to find us and when? “Oh,” he said, “I have my ways.”
He looked away, towards the trees and headstones in the distance, silent, perhaps contemplating that old age-old riddle, referenced in just about every English class I ever took, the one that waylays even the poets: “Who will mourn the dead the dead mourn?”
“Everyone's gone now,” he said, “I'm next.” (Three months later, he fulfilled his own prophecy, dying on his 96th birthday.)
My mother had a poem by Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska posted on her fridge, held up by the distinctly non-lyrical magnet, “Maureen, stick to your diet.”
Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings;
to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain from everything it is not;
to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes.
An extraordinary chance to remember for a moment a conversation held with the lamp switched off;
and if only once to stumble on a stone, end up soaked in one downpour or another,
mislay your keys in the grass; and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep not knowing something important.
I think of my mother's attraction to the poem as her final effort at plumbing the mysteries that float through every day life whether we bid them attention or not. Life is the time when you can forget you are alive, when you can let your guard down, the time to get soaked in the rain, to stare at the waves, to lose the keys in the grass. It is the time to waste time—to indulge in the moment and willfully forget the pressing matters of the day. To waste time implies the opposite of what we all know to be true. It implies that time is an infinitely renewable resource, that it will never run out. To lollygag, to wallow in beauty, to take forever to sip a cup of coffee, to touch a lover—all great acts of defiance.
The day my mother discovered Szymborska's poem, she tore it from the New Yorker in her usual impatient way so that in the end it looked both treasured (posted dead center on the appliance) and mauled (the ragged edges, the rip in the middle.) She read it out loud more than once and pounced, with positive glee, on the image of the lamp switched off: “Don't you remember how I used to love to do that, how I used to like to turn off all the lights and talk in the dark?” Oh yes, that moment when the company of others really feels like company, when the wine bottle is nearly empty, the dregs of the coffee have gone cold, the candle is now just a stub, when the past is with us, but at an amiable distance, a door that keeps slamming in the breeze, when talk itself is the one thing left. I do remember; she did do that, she did sit in deliberate darkness and hug it to herself while she spoke.
We named my sister Jacqueline curator of our mother's belongings, the word curator possessing the right note of loftiness. Jacqueline, the least material-driven, now owns the barometer our mother used to bang with such fury, wondering what kind of storms the day might bring, the dining room table with the clawed legs, the tea wagon bought in the 1920's from McEnery's Department Store in Brooklyn, and the Sheffield candlesticks. Jacqueline would edit what was left, and decide who got what when.
Now it is my sisters' and my turn to be the grand dame: maybe all four of us, combined, can equal one, if we really try.
Toward the end of her life, I called my mother just about every day. I mentioned this to someone who seemed to think I was overdoing it, someone who failed to see that extreme old age is a planet that requires constant visitors. I can channel my mother's voice now in reaction: “Typical,” she would likely say, “just typical of the kind of muddled thinking that is so prevalent in this world, to treat routine kindness as a disease, to look upon filial duty as a sign of weakness. I'll tell you what's muddled. It's all those people who act as if the worst thing anyone can do is to smoke a cigarette.” (Instead of being proud that she eventually gave up smoking, she could sometimes be aggressively peevish about it.)
I would save up screwy headlines and news stories for when my mother and I talked, knowing she would want to sink her teeth into them as well as whatever gossip I could muster from the old friends in her circle who were still alive, but the truth is the gossip was slim pickings. People in their ninth or tenth decade occupy a demographic not known for its antics. Even now, I often have the wish to call her, to relay family news or to discuss the dew point, at sodden length if need be, or to share some fresh outrage or juicy tidbit. Several years have now passed: several new fall crops of cider at Atkins, her favorite market. She would have been dismayed to learn that DNA testing has proven the Scotch, Irish, Welsh and British are all one people: she thought of the Irish as their own unique race. She would have found Sarah Palin beyond the pale and I doubt she would have ever forgiven John Edwards for the hoops he went through to hide his conniving nature from his wife and everyone else. She would have liked George Clooney in Up in the Air (she always worried about people being out of work) and she would have liked Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, admiring the fictional Olive's perspicacity and her personality, composed of what she would surely see as a familiar combination of irritability and feistiness. My mother's taste in reading leaned to the quiet and the unsung: she would have loved Colm Toibin's Brooklyn, shy and soft-spoken, yet also a heroic tale, the descent into hell and back again, embodied by that most marginal of creatures, a young woman with no means at the mercy of strangers in a new land.
How I wanted to tell my mother about a wedding I went to on the Lower East Side at the oldest synagogue in New York City, where the groom and his attendants dressed in business casual while the bride was Vera-Wanged to the hilt, capacious train and all, and how everyone jived down the aisle to Al Green's “Let's Stay Together” and later the wedding couple danced to “Love and Happiness” written by the bride's grandfather, Sammy Cahn, and how a tiny dog in the arms of a bridesmaid served as the ring bearer. A rabbi presided and an Irish blessing was read. At the reception, Japanese food was served, there were cousins from Ireland, the band played salsa, and the mother of the bride wore red silk trousers; yes, red. So American, we would have agreed. Modern, too.
And then there is the news of the family: Jacqueline took a buy-out, Mike might move to Rochester, Chris' oldest boy is engaged, Maureen's youngest just graduated from Colby.
We would have talked about all these things, and so much else, with the lamps switched off, murmuring, laughing, sharing silence, in the dark, in the hour of memoir.

domain: literature


Awards Daily talks to Emmy-winning actor Courtney B. Vance about his role as CL Franklin on National Geographic’s Genius: Aretha.
In National Geographic’s Genius: Aretha, Aretha Franklin (Cynthia Erivo) had many influential men in her life, from music producer Jerry Wexler (David Cross) to husband/manager Ted White (Malcolm Barrett). But the one man who proved to be the most influential was her father, CL Franklin, played by Courtney B. Vance, a complicated character in Aretha’s life.
“CL Franklin was no different from any other—taking advantage of situations,” says Vance. “I just know that all I could do [as an actor] was understand the content. I approach this like anything else, knowing we’re all people. No one really thinks that they’re a terrible person.”
CL frequently cheats on his wife and makes some questionable decisions for his daughter, like not allowing her to finish school when she got pregnant with her second child at the age of 14. And yet, by the end of the limited series, we, too, like Aretha care for him in a way that we don’t completely understand.
A Once-in-a-Generation Voice
One thing that CL knew about Aretha was that she was special, once-in-a-generation voice. So naturally he took her on the road with him during his gospel tours, even though she was very young. Not surprisingly, he would hook up with women on tour, but sadly his own 13-year-old daughter would become pregnant to one of the men on tour. Vance speculates why CL put his own daughter in this position, knowing his own propensity for philandering.
“Why did he take her out there? He shouldn’t have. I actually believe he knew after his wife died that he had to do something when Aretha was in her catatonic state. He knew he had to get her back. Should he have had her stay in his room or have someone watching her 24/7? He should have done that.”
Just as Aretha was a once-in-a-generation voice, in many ways, so was CL, a renowned Detroit minister who was friends with many influential Black people. His impact on a congregation is evident in the “Amazing Grace” episode, when he speaks to the audience toward the end of Aretha’s performance (“Black folks know the call-and-response in their body,” says Vance. “It happens pretty quickly”), showing complete mastery of everyone’s attention. The tension in that episode also speaks to CL and Aretha’s influential voices.
“He was famous, and she became famous and eclipsed him and they weren’t together in that transition.”
CL’s Hold on Aretha
In the final episode of the limited series, CL is shot during a home-invasion, putting him in a coma for five years. Vance says “it ain’t fun” to be playing a real-life character who experiences such a sad demise.
“You can love the wonderful idea that I get to rest now, but the reality is that I’m dead. But not only dead, but dead for five years. Aretha kept him in that state for five years. I can’t conceive of that. That, too, speaks to her love for her father.”
Vance also believes that they had an unspoken bond when it came to realizing her talent.
“Despite the differences they had, she knew in her base core she wouldn’t be who she was if he hadn’t put her out there. There’s something he knew about her and something she knew about herself that only her father knew.”
All episodes of Genius: Aretha are available on Hulu and National Geographic.


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domain: agronomy


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Publisher description for Weird Metronome
Weird Metronome is a program that acts as a metronome, displaying a blinker and using your computer's speakers to play its beat. But this isn't just any old metronome. I designed it with Easter European folk music in mind, so my main priority was to have it be able to play any weird meter you want. The result is that you can set it to play a measure of any length you want, with emphasis on any beat(s) you want, with sounds chosen from a Library of nearly fifty percussion instruments. I also designed Weird Metronome to be Compact and efficient. I stayed away from all the pretty buttons and displays that you'll see on other metronome software, because those just tent to make a confusing, unfamiliar interface that's too often painfully slow. Well, you can tell that this baby's no-nonsense right from the start. The interface is straightforward, clear, and easy to use. Finally, I wanted to make my metronome program free, because that's what I always wanted back before I made it. So it is! Please use it in good health, and I Hope you get as much use from it as I and thousands of others do.

domain: design


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This station serves Allerton, a residential area in Liverpool to the southeast of the city centre. It lies on the Liverpool to Manchester Line.
West Allerton Train Station is served by trains travelling between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Oxford Road. Other stops on the route include Liverpool South Parkway and Warrington Central.
The station is situated on Booker Avenue (postcode L18 4RD), a predominantly residential street. There’s no car park at the station but street parking is available.


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(CNN)Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi instructed CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday that she’s “completed” with President Donald Trump but would not drawl whether she instructed Democrats in the support of closed doorways that she’d pretty look Trump “in jail.”
“I’m completed with him,” Pelosi instructed Raju at the Fiscal Summit from the Peter G. Peterson Basis.
“I develop not even have to communicate about him,” she acknowledged, adding, “My stock goes up at any time when he assaults me, so what can I drawl, but let’s not expend too worthy time on that attributable to that is his victory, the diverter-in-chief, the diverter-of-consideration-in-chief.”
Tensions between Pelosi and Trump beget escalated in the previous week after Pelosi reportedly instructed Democratic leaders in deepest that she needs to seem the President “in jail.” When asked about whether she made the remarks, Pelosi acknowledged she would withhold what she instructed fellow Democrats in the support of closed doorways deepest.
“Did you in fact drawl that, did you in fact drawl that the President, you’d pretty look him in jail,?” Raju asked.
Pelosi replied, “When we beget got conversations in our caucus they live in our caucus. Enact folks deem there’s some impeachable offenses that the President dedicated? Yes. How severe are they? Are they prison? Many folks deem they’re.”
The President lashed out at Pelosi over the “jail” comments final Thursday in an interview with Fox News, calling her a “injurious, vindictive, contaminated particular person.” The interview took situation on the seventy fifth anniversary of D-Day whereas Trump modified into at the Normandy American Cemetery in France. Pelosi contrasted her habits in Normandy with the President’s pronouncing that after she modified into interviewed she deliberately didn’t attack the President.
“The foremost rule of our (congressional delegation) is we never criticize a president of the US when we are out of the country. Now we beget heaps of time to develop that after we’re support home,” she acknowledged.
For the length of the the same interview, Pelosi acknowledged that an impeachment inquiry is “not off the desk,” but moreover downplayed the probability that Home Democrats will trail down the route of impeachment.
When asked if she would enhance an inquiry if a majority of her caucus needs to trail forward with it, the speaker brushed off the count on, pronouncing that “or not it’s not even shut in our caucus” and later pronouncing, “why are we even speculating on hypotheticals?”
Correct now, there are spherical 60 Home Democrats who enhance an inquiry, a quantity that has risen in newest weeks but is restful a allotment of the final complete of Home Democrats.
Pelosi has to this point resisted starting up an impeachment inquiry, whilst a increasing collection of Home Democrats beget acknowledged publicly they’re in settle on of starting up one.
The Home speaker has consistently downplayed the probability of impeachment and has outlined a high bar for the components she must seem met earlier than transferring forward, including that she must seem bipartisan enhance. And to this point, finest one Republican lawmaker in Congress has indicated they would enhance an impeachment inquiry: Justin Amash of Michigan.
When pressed on whether she believes the President has dedicated crimes pretty than work, Pelosi acknowledged special counsel Robert Mueller’s document demonstrates evidence of obstruction of justice, but then declined to communicate about it extra.
“I deem the Mueller document very clearly spells out a minimum of 10 or 11 instances of obstruction of justice, but I’m not here to beget that dialogue,” she acknowledged at the occasion. “That’s for the committees.”
Raju moreover asked Pelosi if she does deem the President may possibly well well probably moreover just beget dedicated crimes, doesn’t she beget an duty to pursue an impeachment inquiry?
“My duty is to develop no topic we develop in the valid come likely,” she replied.
This account has been up to this point with extra dispositions Tuesday.

domain: politics


text:
Hi Kimberley -
This is a tough call.
If all your kitties except Q-tip are fine, you might
consider taking Q-tip but leaving the other cats
unless Q-tip is particularly bonded to another kitty
and you think that having the other kitty/kitties
less stressful for Q-tip.
I posted a similar question here a month or so ago, (I
was planning a short trip and was having a hard time
finding a reliable pet-sitter (I'd never used one) who
would be able to come by 2x a day to pill my heart
kitty. A few people responded that their vet suggested
they take the cat with them - because they - more than
anyone else will notice a change in the cat. Other
people suggested that I ask the vet's techs to cat
sit - they have experience etc. I started to explore
that option - but the handful of people I contacted
were unwilling/unable to help out.
I asked my cat's cardiologist about taking my cat with
me (9 -10 hour one-way trip) and she felt that she
could not recommend it. Her fear was that the stress
of the trip and the unfamiliar environment would
precipitate CHF. I would certainly try to track down a
few vets along the route and in your destination town.
Some of the people subscribed to this group were able
to recommend vets to me.
Given the circumstances, I decided to take my cat ,
but at the very last moment, a friend whom I did
trust, offered to house/cat sit. The sitter was a
friend who had been in the house several times and
my two cats feared.
As for whether or not the 6 hour car trip will be
stressful that depends on the cat. My two cats used
to go for 8 - 10 hour car trips 3-4 times/year. When
they were kittens - it was no big deal. As they got
older, they didn't like being confined to their travel
cage and they would cry and cry for about 20-40
minutes before settling down for the trip.
Once I get to the destination, they want out of their
crate and they spend the next hour or so exploring the
new environment so they seem to deal with new places
pretty well, but each cat is different.
I have a large metal cage for travel. It is for a
medium sized dog. I built a peg-board shelf for it
and when I travel with them, I put a small litterbox
(cardboard box from a case of canned cat food), food
dish and water supply. The water bottle I use is a
large bottle like those that you would find in a
gerbil cage - except it holds a liter
of water. Usually one kitty sleeps in the litter
the other on the shelf. When they were younger (12
wks to 18 mo), they used the litterbox during the trip
and they ate and drank. Once
they were older (5 years), they mostly just sleep.
Nala, Camille and Cozette
> I am going to be going to a conference for work the
> last week in September.
> The conference is about 6 hours from my home. Now,
> the question is, should
> I take Q-tip and the other kitties with me.
> 1. I can watch her health conditions.
> 2. I know she is getting her medicines and eating
> 3. Someone will be around her all night every night
> and she can sleep with
> us. She gets upset when we go out of town.
> Will a drive that long be stressful?
> How will she adjust to the hotel room?
> 1, I could get a pet sitter, but expensive, plus
> Q-tip is my cat and
> doesn't really take to other peoples.
> 2. My mom could come check on her twice daily, but
> 1. I don't trust my mom
> to medicate her with all her pills and supplements
> since she is a holy
> terror to pill, and my mom gave but on medicating
> her crf cat because it was
> too hard and she seemed to be doing ok without the
> medications. 2. She
> HATES HATES HATES my mom. She growls and snarls at
> her. Probably because
> my mom smells like dog. 3. My mom would show up
> whenever..maybe 7am one day
> and 10 am the next and have a royal fit when I asked
> her to fit on a
> schedule because she is doing me a favor... Need I
> go on....
> 3. Boarding....No
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American Idol 3
Tina Knowles quit Instagram this week following a misunderstanding about Jennifer Hudson. Full Story
American Idol Season 3 contestant John Stevens is recovering from a serious accident in which he was hit by a van.
Jennifer Hudson will wrap-up her six-month run in Broadway's The Color Purple on May 8.
Jennifer Hudson and James Corden performed a duet featuring public domain songs on The Late Late Show.
'American Idol's top-earning artist of 2015 was Adam Lambert, beating out Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood
American Idol's top-earning artist of 2015 might surprise fans of the franchise.
Jennifer Hudson has opened up about her family's murders in a magazine interview.
Fantasia Barrino wed fiance Kendall Taylor over the weekend.
Jennifer Hudson will soon be making her Broadway debut.
Jennifer Hudson has opened up about the revealing bathing suit picture she shared over the summer.
American Idol reject William Hung certainly hasn't been rejected in his love life.
Jennifer Hudson showed off her bikini body in a photo collage she shared on Instagram Tuesday.
Jennifer Hudson is ending her stint as a Weight Watchers spokeswoman after four years and a loss of 80 pounds.
The Voice and Jennifer Hudson were honored during The 40th Annual People's Choice Awards 2014.
Jennifer Hudson was definitely in the giving mood this holiday season.
- Amy Adams
- Ashley Thomas
- Briana Ramirez-Rial
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- 'Dancing with the Stars' cast to reportedly include Charo and Rashad Jennings
- 'The Bachelor' star Nick Viall: I may be dumping all 30 of my bachelorettes
- Tarek El Moussa on 'Flip or Flop' future with Christina El Moussa: "We haven't 100 percent made the decision"
- Andi Dorfman and Nick Viall go at it on 'The Bachelor'
- 'Dancing with the Stars' cast to reportedly include Heather Morris, 'The Real Housewives' star Erika Girardi
- 'The Bachelor' couples: Whom did 'The Bachelor' stars and their final picks end up with ultimately?! (PHOTOS)
- 'The Bachelor' spoilers: Who are Nick Viall's Final 3 bachelorettes and who's his final pick?
- 'Dancing with the Stars' cast spoilers: 'The Bachelor' Nick Viall reportedly confirmed for cast
- Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama reportedly pass on 'Dancing with the Stars'
- Nick Viall -- See 20 of 'The Bachelor' star's sexiest pics! (PHOTO GALLERY)
- Bob Harper suffers heart attack at gym, left unconscious for two days
- Raven Gates -- 11 things to know about Nick Viall's 'The Bachelor' bachelorette
- Normani Kordei reportedly the Fifth Harmony member to join 'Dancing with the Stars'
- 'Dancing with the Stars' pros and their significant others: Who's dating and married to whom?! (PHOTOS)
- Corinne Olympios -- 11 things to know about Nick Viall's 'The Bachelor' bachelorette
- Judge Joseph Wapner of 'People's Court' fame dead at 97
- Rachel Lindsay -- 11 things to know about 'Nick Viall's 'The Bachelor' bachelorette
- 'Flip or Flop' star Tarek El Moussa talks possible reconciliation "maybe 10 years from now" with Christina El Moussa
- Vanessa Grimaldi -- 11 things to know about Nick Viall's 'The Bachelor' bachelorette
- Rachel Lindsay on decision to find love on 'The Bachelorette': Dating in the real world was not easy!
- 'The Bachelor' star Nick Viall reportedly in talks for 'Dancing with the Stars'
- 'Flip or Flop' star Christina El Moussa reveals how she and Tarek El Moussa broke divorce news to daughter
- Rachel Lindsay on 'The Bachelor' star Nick Viall letting her go: I was shocked but it's his loss!
- 'Dancing with the Stars' cast spoilers: Nancy Kerrigan and Fifth Harmony member reportedly competing

domain: news


Monday, November 7, 2016
MEDIA MONDAY / NOBELIST CALLS OBAMA’S TENURE HISTORIC SUCCESS
In Defense of Obama
The Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, once one of President Barack Obama’s most notable critics, has written a cover story for Rolling Stone magazine on why Obama is a historic success: Here’s an excerpt.
“...Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn’t deserve it.
“Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward – and it’s working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it’s much more effective than you’d think.
“Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy.
“Am I damning with faint praise? Not at all. This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don’t care about the fact that Obama hasn’t lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn’t quite say, a big deal...”


text:
I love to eat the sweet-smelling flowers of the cactus.
They are the perfect complement to a tasty dish, and when I feel full, I can even have a few with my tea, even though they don’t have a sweet scent.
So when I see a lot of herbal teases out there, I think to myself, ‘What would that tea smell like if it was a plant?’
The answer: It would be like the smell of a freshly picked rose.
The cactus leaves are actually edible, and they are often eaten raw.
I think that’s why herbal teasers are so popular.
It’s also why I’ve been obsessed with trying some herbal teacups lately.
Some of them I can’t wait to try, but others are on my to-try list.
Here are my favorite herbal teabags.
I like the taste of the tea, but the price is too good for me.
(Courtesy of Nita Zimina)Nita Zimbardo, co-owner of Nitala, has been making herbal teapots for nearly a decade, starting with her husband’s family, who made herbal teaquiles in the 19th century.
Since then, she has perfected her craft, and she uses only premium ingredients.
The teacup has an average weight of just over 1 pound, but Nita says she likes to make the teacers as small as possible to fit in the palm of her hand.
She says the herbal teahouse, or herbal tea pot, comes in a variety of sizes and can be used for a variety a teas.
She says that you don’t necessarily need to be a tea lover to enjoy herbal tease beverages.
I’m a tea addict, so I have to be very careful when it comes to my teas.
“A tea lover should be able to identify and appreciate the floral scent, the texture and the flavor.
You don’t need to know how to make tea to enjoy this tea, says Nita.
It’s all about how you enjoy it.
In her book, The Art of Tea, she writes that tea should taste like you have tea with.
Nita uses a tea cake, but you can also use a tea mug or even a cup, and the teahouses are usually made of glass or ceramic.
The teacout is also a great way to experiment with different types of herbs, since the teapot can hold up to 12 teas at a time.
It can also be used as a stand-alone, herbal tea kettle, which makes it easy to make and store.
You can also create a DIY herbal teashop with a simple kitchen tool or even the ability to create an elaborate herbal teatip with a few tea cups and a bowl.


The Maricopa Association of Governments will solicit public discussion this week of its efforts to limit Valley light pollution, a simmering issue for Arizona astronomers and the local business community.
MAG, a coalition of local governments that serves as a planning agency for the Greater Phoenix area, is designing model outdoor-lighting ordinances that local jurisdictions can adopt. However, MAG does not have authority to enforce proposed standards.
Cities and towns must decide how much of the code they will apply to their outdoor-lighting regulations.
On Tuesday, MAG will host a public meeting for stakeholders, continuing its public discussion of proposed standards.
Outdoor-lighting regulation is a sensitive issue that often triggers conflicting interests.
Astronomers say limited outdoor lighting is crucial to stargazing, and they stress that astronomical research is lucrative for Arizona.
According to a 2008 study released by the Arizona Arts, Sciences and Technology Academy, astronomy research nets Arizona $250 million a year and is a key source of annual revenue.
But representatives from the Valley's business community have formed a coalition to block recommendations that they believe could jeopardize the viability of small businesses.
For example, a curfew on illuminated signs, one of the issues being discussed for the lighting ordinance, would be a bad advertising move, members of the coalition said.
The goal is to encourage efficient use of outdoor lighting - for instance, pointing lights directly at the area that needs light - and also to provide alternative lighting and sign options for businesses, said Heidi Bickart, project manager of MAG's Dark Sky initiative, which the agency launched in 2008.
Tuesday's meeting will focus on developing potential alternatives that all parties can agree to, Bickart said. There currently is no sign-lighting curfew in Maricopa County.
The county Board of Supervisors last week approved amended sign regulations in its zoning ordinance, allowing the county to push through sign permits that have been on hold while certain sign rules were being amended, said Darren Gerard, deputy director of county planning and zoning.
Gerard's staff initially recommended a curfew, asking businesses to turn off their signs at 11 p.m. or at the close of business if later than that.
The curfew would have lasted until sunrise. But commercial-interest groups opposed the curfew, Gerard said, and planning and zoning officials decided not to impose a curfew for now. The county could revisit a sign curfew based on MAG's final outdoor-lighting recommendations, Gerard said.
Business-coalition members say MAG's lighting proposal is restrictive and unsafe, that it is impractical for businesses to turn off their lights at night, and that it is bad for marketing.
"It's all about being seen and found," said Michelle Ahlmer, executive director of the Arizona Retailers Association.
James Carpentier, legislative consultant with the Arizona Sign Association, said signs are not major light impediments to astronomers.
Restrictions on lights should focus on larger fixtures such as street lights and billboards, he said.
But Dark Sky proponents say lighting and signage go hand in hand. One illuminated sign at night may not be of concern, but when added up, they make a difference, said Richard Green, director of the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory based at the University of Arizona.
"We can actually measure, in the Tucson area, when the curfew goes into effect. We see a measurable change in the brightness of waste light that goes into the sky," Green said.
The lights of downtown Phoenix illuminate the horizon. A discussion begins this week on ways to reduce light pollution, which astronomers say interferes with research that brings money to the state. Businesses say restrictions would hurt marketing efforts.
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text:
At the American Bar Association's Annual Meeting, which was held in Atlanta from August 5-10, 2004, a number of Sutherland attorneys participated in various sessions:
On Thursday, August 5, Tom Byrne was a panel member during the Judicial Division's "What Judges Need to Know About Business Valuations and Corporate and Commercial Litigation" seminar. The program focused on emerging issues confronting judges who must deal with business valuation, digital discovery disputes, and cutting-edge corporate and class action litigation problems. For more information, please click here.
- Allegra Lawrence-Hardy spoke at the Section of Business Law Committee on Diversity's "Building Your Career – Successful Women Lawyers and Other Experts Explain How To Navigate the Muddy Waters" on Friday, August 6.
- The ABA's Commission on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education presented "Brown v. United States of America: Debating the Issues Past, Present, and Future" on Saturday, August 7. This special event culminated a year of programs commemorating the Brown decision, as some of the nation's top judges, lawyers, scholars and policy experts debated four key issues emanating from the decision that remain unresolved today. The program was moderated by the Commission's chair, Professor Charles J. Ogletree of Harvard Law School. Among the judges for the trial were The Honorable Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court and The Honorable Robert Benham of the Supreme Court of Georgia. John Payton, of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and Theodore M. Shaw, of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, represented the plaintiffs, and Sutherland partners Al Lindseth and Rocco Testani represented the defendants. Sutherland partner John Munich sat on the jury. For more information, please click here.
- Phil Moïse spoke at the Section of Business Law Committee on Health and Biotechnology's "Building a Life Sciences Practice: The Challenges of University Technology Transfer - A Corporate Lawyer's Perspective" on Saturday, August 7. For more information, please click here.
- Amy Dosik spoke at the Section of Business Law Committee on Nonprofit Corporations' "'Well You're a Lawyer,' Said the Pastor/Rabbi/Mullah: What You Need to Know About Representing Religious Organizations" on Saturday, August 7. For more information, please click here.
In addition, Sutherland sponsored or co-sponsored several events throughout the course of the meeting:
- Sutherland was a co-sponsor of the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice meeting. For more information, please click here.
- Sutherland was a co-sponsor of the Young Lawyers Division meeting. For more information, please click here.
- Sutherland sponsored the Consumer Financial Services Committee of the Section of Business Law meeting.
- Sutherland supported, in conjunction with sponsors the Georgia ABC Committee, the National Association of Women Judges, the ABA Young Lawyers Division, and the legal department of Coca-Cola, a service project that was held on Saturday, August 7, at 1:00 p.m. Lawyers spent the afternoon at the University Community Development Corporation's Tyler Place CDC in Atlanta helping with construction, painting, clean-up and other maintenance jobs around the center. This was the fourth year that a community service project was incorporated with the ABA's Annual Meeting.
For more information on the ABA's 2004 Annual Meeting, please click here.

domain: law


text:
Blackpool councillors have teamed up with Northern Rail to help brighten up a run-down train station in the resort.
Greenlands councillor Christine Wright and Layton councillor Kath Benson announced their plans to ‘spruce up’ Layton railway station alongside members of their communities with a new Friends of Layton Station group.
Coun Wright said she was inspired to tackle the run-down state of the station after using trains running from the platform regularly throughout November.
She said: “You look around and realise the station is in a state of disrepair even though it could be made to look so much better without a great deal of expense.
“The wooden shutters that covered the windows have been ripped away by vandals and have fallen off with age.
“The fence is in need of repairs and the trees around the station need pruning.The grass verges need attending to.
“If people took the time to get involved and help spruce it up it could be a real picture.
“We’ve been in touch with Northern Rail who are going to work with the owner of the station house to carry out some repairs and get in touch with Layton Primary School about doing some artwork to be displayed at the station.
“We want to give people the chance to make friends and also gain some pride in their community. Everybody has something to give.
“I certainly think the group will help improve the station and hopefully if we can clean it up it won’t get vandalised again.”
People who are interested in joining the Friends of Layton Station group are encouraged to get in touch with Coun Wright or Coun Benson by calling the Town Hall in Blackpool town centre on 01253 477477.


MICHIGAN / ILLINOIS – Syriac Chaldean Eric Esshaki of Birmingham lost the Congressional elections in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District to leading incumbent U.S. Dem. Representative Haley Stevens. With 97% of votes counted, Eric Esshaki (39) lost with 47.8% to 50.2%. Haley Stevens is up for her second term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Syriac Assyrian Sargis Sangari (51) of Skokie, Illinois, is lost to U.S. Dem. Representative Jan Schakowsky in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District. Jan Schakowsky is up for her twelfth term in the U.S. House of Representatives.


(PRWEB) March 25, 2013
Recently, Wuxi Glory Plastics, a China leader in plastic molding, has dropped the prices of their high quality blow molding and injection molding services. According to a spokesman for the company, the new prices are very competitive in the industry, and customers can place orders online at their website of plastics-molding.com.
“We are excited to launch such a promotion for our extensive blow molding and injection molding services. We plan to make our services available for customers, and expand our market share as well,” says the spokesman.
The company has strict quality control regulations and rejection standards which are carefully monitored by its expert team of highly qualified engineers and designers having a relevant industry experience of several years. Being an industry leader, Wuxi Glory understands its customers’ needs and offers one stop solution for various requirements. In addition to their molding services, their website is loaded with important information on the different processes related to plastic molding.
Injection molding is basically about getting complex molds for several uses by solidifying the heated and melted thermoplastic material. This kind of molding is used for mass production. On the other hand, blow molding is carried out by blowing compressed air into the preform placed in a mold. Once the preform acquires the shape of the mold, it is removed and cooled. Both these processes require advance machinery and experts to handle it. Wuxi Glory Plastics has both.
Wuxi Glory Plastics is a China based company founded in 1995. Within a few years the company has managed to become the industry leader in plastic molding services. With its high quality services and industry competitive prices, Wuxi Glory Plastics is most popular among its customers.
For more details of their products and services please visit the website: http://www.plastics-molding.com


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Nanomedicine Journal (NMJ), Abbreviated as Nanomed J, is a libre open access () peer-reviewed quarterly publication by the Nanotechnology Research Center of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS). Authorized by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology as a scientific-research publication, NMJ publishes original research papers, review articles, short communications as well as letters to the editor on empirical and laboratory results, preclinical studies and clinical trials related to the applications of nanotechnology to medical sciences.
Note: Manuscript submission, processing and publication are Free of Charge.
Nanomedicine Journal has been indexed in
Web of Science - ESCI


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Spend your weekend at the Dubai Marine Beach Resort and Spa
A great way to celebrate any day is to go out and book a getaway. Dubai Marine Beach Resort and Spa is tranquil and tropical for those who love scenic and serene nature. Being majestic and splendid surrounded by sandy beaches and magnificent sunsets, it's a paradise for travelers. A tropical experience away from the hustle-bustle of the City, spend a day or two amidst the picturesque beach of the Arabian Gulf. The Dubai Marine Beach Resort and Spa host various events and festivals to keep up the festivities and culture alive. Be a part of the festivity and get an Early Bird Offer when you book in advance with our Dubai Marine Beach Resort and Spa Promo Codes.
Plan a vacation at the mesmerizing Dubai Marine Beach Resort and Spa
Indulge in the luxurious beach resorts and go for an Aroma Spa, one of the most premium spas in Dubai. Apart from the aroma spa, you can also enjoy and rejuvenate your senses with facial and body treatments which also include a Moroccan bath experience in a newly built Hammam. A renovated gym with the latest in Cybex cardio and strength workstations is a treat for every fitness enthusiast. There are two lit tennis courts and visitors can also opt for professional training from the tennis instructor. Any basic equipment can be rented from the Dubai Beach Resort and Spa's Club Reception. The resort also hosts table tennis!
All activities and dining follow the safety measures due to the ongoing pandemic situation. The Dubai Beach Resort and Spa is situated near Jumeirah Beach Road. The Resort is conveniently located from the Sheikh Zayed Road, World Trade Centre, International Airport, Dubai Mall, Downtown Dubai, Dubai International Financial Business Centre, Bur Dubai, and other shopping malls.
Activities and Entertainment at the Dubai Beach Resort
Spend a day or two on the private beach, enjoy the spa or play at the tennis court in this beautiful resort. Book online at the Dubai Beach Resort and Spa website with our special discounts and exclusive coupons. Avail of the Early Bird Offer on special days and get rooms at a discounted price rate. Enjoy your time at the fitness center, or indulge in dining and entertainment, visit the barefoot lounge, or feel like royalty at the executive suites.

domain: travel


text:
This morning we headed out to the door to check out Hamilton's first Zinefest ( more on this later), its been really chilly so we have been rugging up in layers that can be easily shed if need be.
This week I received a cheerful package of goodies from Australian artist Jubly Umph who designs and works with water colours and Indian ink. Today I thought I would rock these sweet little Pineapple earrings. They are made from stainless steel and coated in resin which is great when you have sensitive ears as I do, I have had them on for 3 hours and there is no tell tale burning itch.
I ADORE flamingo's! This sweet little print is going to be framed!

domain: artistic


While the Roca Team go from strength-to-strength in the EuroLeague, it is in the Betclic Elite that AS Monaco Basket is shining brightest: the team’s latest win against Boulogne-Levallois marks the 17th consecutive home win in the French league.
The weekend began with an away fixture in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where AS Monaco played Virtus Bologna on Friday 9th February.
It was a close contest, but the Italian side saw their 11-game winning streak at home brought to an end by a driven Roca Team intent on gaining a place in the EuroLeague Final Four. The game ended 78-81 in Monaco’s favour.
Post-match, Obradović praised his team’s performance, saying, “It’s an extraordinary win for us. It’s always very hard to beat this kind of team like Bologna at home. A real play-off match, with a big physical battle. We stood firm as a team, and we showed great chemistry tonight. We can dream big for the rest of the competition.”
Next came a Betclic Elite challenge against Boulogne-Levallois in the Salle Gaston Médecin on Sunday 11th February.
Here, AS Monaco excelled again, defeating the visitors 84-72 to extend their winning streak at home in the domestic French league to a stunning 17 games over the last two seasons.
Obradović used this game as an opportunity to rest key players, such Mike James, Alpha Diallo and Mam Jaiteh, ahead of a demanding upcoming schedule and thus allowed other members of the Roca Team to get their moment in the spotlight.
Petr Cornelie, who showcased his talents as a power forward, later emphasised the importance of winning such games.
“We expected it to be a tight game. You have to know how to win this kind of game, that’s the most important thing. And that’s the bottom line. For the group dynamic, it’s always good to stay on this winning streak,” he said after the match.
AS Monaco’s schedule continues with a Coupe de France match at home versus ASVEL on Tuesday 13th February before they face Le Mans in the Leaders Cup on Friday 16th February.
Photo credit: asmonaco.basketball


text:
About 85,200 results
|Even as the discourse of habit took shape in psychology studies, self-help tracts, and social reform inquiries, its aesthetic realization in the novel performed the crucial task of synthesizing these psychological and sociological ...|
Bartlett Jere Whiting - 1977 - 555 pages
|H2 Habit (Custom, Use) is a second nature 1797 Makemie Writings 182: Habit |
becomes fixed like a second nature. 1757 Smith Works I2. 96: Custom ... is justly
called a second nature. 1776 WStewart in Naval Documents 5.70: I . . . asked him
|Combining careful interpretive analysis with wide-ranging historical scholarship, Chandler presents a challenging new account of the political views implicit in Wordsworth's major works.|
|The stories that Duhigg has knitted together are all fascinating in their own right, but take on an added dimension when wedded to his examination of habits.”— Associated Press “There’s been a lot of research over the past several ...|
|Habit is second nature. — Such action as this is consensual ; — we have |
endeavoured to give its physical explanation in the foregoing chapter. When the
power of acquired habit becomes so complete that it can be exerted
independently of ...
Crina Archer, Laura Ephraim, Lida Maxwell - 2013 - 224 pages
|new habit, a new instinct, a second nature, so that our first nature withers away.”|
33 We create for ourselves a “second nature,” allowing our “custom— ary
inherited nature” to “atrophy.” This, he admits, can be a disheartening and even ...
Tom Sparrow, Adam Hutchinson - 2013 - 356 pages
|This supposition illuminates his profession that he wants to be seen in his “simple|
, natural, ordinary” mode, “without straining or artifice. ... 2 Montaigne is not the
first to use the word for custom, as opposed to habit, to refer to second nature.
|In focusing on the perfective nature of a habit it is clear that he is discussing |
habits as virtues. ...and by perfect I mean that which is disposed in accordance
with its nature. . . .for when the mode is suitable to the thing's nature, it has the
aspect of ...
|These works are packaged and produced by BiblioLabs under license by ProQuest UMI.|

domain: library


text:
- 140 grams biscuit
- 100 grams chocolate sauce
- 80 milliliters heavy cream
- 40 grams chocolate sauce
- 40 grams strawberry jam
Put biscuits into a ziploc bag and crush until find crumbs.
Combine crushed biscuits with the chocolate sauce and mix until combined.
Line a mold with plastic wrap. Press mixture onto the sides with your fingers.
With the leftover crumbs, flatten and mold into a circle to fit the top.
Pour strawberry jam and chocolate sauce inside, followed by heavy cream.
Place the round piece of pressed biscuit on top and press the edges together to secure.
Carefully invert onto a plate and remove the plastic wrap. Top with sprinkles and enjoy.


text:
Police launch murder probe after human remains are found inside bags in submerged shopping trolley at river beauty spot in Suffolk
- Police were called to River Stour in Sudbury at around 4.30pm yesterday
- Walker reported finding bin bags inside shopping trolley submerged in the water
- Suffolk Police have confirmed that the bones in the bags are human remains
A murder probe has been launched after human bones were found inside two black bin bags in a submerged shopping trolley at a Suffolk river.
Suffolk police were called to the River Stour between Meadow Gates and Croft Bridge in Sudbury yesterday at around 4.30pm after the bags were found.
The incident is being treated as suspicious and police have confirmed the remains are human.
A walker reported the bin bags to a park ranger who moved them from the shopping trolley before realising they contained bones and calling the police.
There are now two police scenes – one around the area of the river where the bags were discovered and the other around the spot where the bags were moved to.
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Jones, of Suffolk police, has called for people to get in touch with any information
Suffolk police were called to the River Stour in Sudbury yesterday around 4.30pm after a bag of bones was found
A bag containing 'human remains' has been found in a submerged shopping trolley at the River Stour in Sudbury
Police have launched a murder investigation and hope analysis of the human remains will lead to a suspect.
A Suffolk police spokesman said: 'A sensitive and methodical process will now take place over the coming days as the bones are examined and forensic tests are conducted.
'Various other investigative work and searches will also be carried-out, which will need to utilise a number of specialist resources.'
A Home Office post-mortem examination is due to take place tomorrow, but a police spokesman said the investigation will take time.
The area has been cordoned off by Suffolk police as they try to work out when the trolley was dumped in the water
Detectives believe that other people may have already seen the trolley and want to know when it was dumped into the water
Circled is the bag of bones which police have confirmed are human remains
There are now two police scenes – one around the area of the river where the bags were discovered and the other around the spot where the bags were moved to
Inspector Kevin Horton, Local Policing Commander for Sudbury, said: 'We appreciate that local residents are likely to find this discovery alarming and as such we will be increasing police patrols in the town to provide reassurance.
'Officers are also likely to remain at the scene over the weekend and in to the early part of next week.
'Discoveries such as this are extremely rare – especially in Suffolk – and as such we do not believe there is any cause for concern to members of the public.
'We would ask anyone with information about this discovery to make contact with the Major Investigation Team immediately.
'This includes anyone who believes they saw the bags in the river prior to yesterday afternoon, or saw the shopping trolley either in this location or elsewhere along the river.'
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The State of Vermont HAZMAT Team was created in 1994 to assist all fire departments in Vermont with managing hazardous materials incidents. The Team’s authorizing legislation as well as the creation of the HAZMAT Team Chief can be found in Vermont Statutes, 20 V.S.A. § 33.
The purpose for the Team’s creation was and remains to work with the fire chiefs before, during and after hazardous materials events in their municipalities. By having HAZMAT Technicians located across the entire State supported with three HAZMAT response vehicles, the Vermont HAZMAT Response Team (VHMRT) endeavors to have highly trained and equipped personnel on scene quickly when requested by the Incident Commander.
In addition to the HAZMAT trucks the Team can call upon any of the 18 HAZMAT trailers positioned in local fire departments around the State. These trailers contain equipment which may be used for operations level HAZMAT response as well as to perform “gross” and “technical” decontamination.
The Team is housed in the Division of Fire Safety in the Department of Public Safety.
Hazardous Materials Response can eat up large amounts of time, equipment and personnel resources. In fact, the response to a large HAZMAT incident could cost a department their entire year’s budget. Vermont Statutes allow for the fire department to recover costs directly associated with the response to a HAZMAT incident.
Chief's Contact Information
Chief, VT Hazardous Materials Response Team
EPCRA (Tier II) Program Manager
Cell (802) 585-4468


text:
Be sure to check out the Simon Says Stamp Store!
Welcome to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, don't ya luv Wednesday's...I know I do. The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge always has something fabulous to share! This weeks challenge is have a heart, if you visit my blog often, you know I luv hearts and luv love! One of my favorite challenges. We are using the amazingly cute and practical goodies form reverse confetti...check out all the awesome stamps and dies!
Don't forget every week at Simon Says Stamp we give away a $50 voucher...woohoo...definitely worth playing for!
I adore reverse confetti products, they are so easy to use...luv the amazing dies too! I have used the double heart garland, stamped not confetti cuts, and with love stamp set. I have done a little ink smooshing on the background of this cute shaped die shape and then stamped the sentiment using my misti for a fabulous black image, used ranger jet black ink! I used tim holtz worn lipstick ink. I then stamped a smaller sentiment on black paper for the cute tab, added a few die cut hearts, enamel dots and some twine to complete me card. Add a little glimmer to your life....sparkle & shine, kindness!
retro sketches: sketch/rs200
Let's Go Shopping!
click on IG icon to follow ME!
use #ssswchallenge on IG


text:
Barry Callebaut offers a range of cocoa powder products with varying levels of cocoa content and flavor profiles, from dark and intense to lighter and more delicate. The company’s cocoa powders are often used in the production of chocolate products, cakes, cookies, and other baked goods, as well as in hot beverages like hot cocoa and coffee.
Barry Callebaut is committed to sustainability and sources its cocoa beans from sustainable farms and cooperatives. The company has implemented a range of initiatives to support cocoa farmers and promote responsible farming practices, including the Cocoa Horizons Foundation, which aims to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities.
Barry Callebaut cocoa powder is widely available for purchase online and at specialty food stores. If you’re interested in trying it out or using it in your cooking or baking, you may be able to find it at a retailer near you.


Vipcolor VP660 Desktop Water Resistant Color Label Printer
VP660 equipped with the Memjet® technology, the VP660 delivers labels at an impressive speed of up to 8 inches per second. This printing press’s high-resolution capacity, reaching a maximum of 1600 dpi, ensures meticulous detail and vibrant color replication on every print. Whether printing intricate barcodes, high-resolution graphics, or precise text, the VP660 ensures optimum quality.
The VP 660’s innovation extends to its water-resistant printing capabilities. Utilizing Advanced Water Resistance Ink Technology, it produces enduring labels that can withstand harsh conditions. This feature makes the machine suitable for generating water-resistant labels and stickers that can be used in environments that demand durability such as beverage packaging, chemical products, or outdoor equipment labels.
The machine hosts individual 250ml ink tanks, one for each of the five colors, which can be replaced separately when depleted. This design promotes efficiency and cost-effectiveness, minimizing ink wastage. Moreover, the sturdy metal construction enhances the longevity of the printer, supporting its use in heavy-duty industrial settings.
The VP 660 also excels in user-friendly operation. Its onboard color touchscreen interface offers an intuitive user experience, and compatibility with Windows printing drivers and label design software allows for seamless integration into most business setups.
The industries that stand to benefit from the VP660’s capabilities are manifold. For the food and beverage industry, its water-resistant label production can revolutionize packaging efficiency. Pharmaceutical and chemical industries also benefit significantly, where detailed, enduring labels are a necessity.
Commercial packaging services can leverage the VP660’s fast and precise printing capabilities to create vibrant, customized packaging labels that can elevate brand presentation. The printer is also well-suited for marketing and event companies, as it enables swift production of resilient promotional stickers and labels.
In conclusion, the VP660 from VIP Colour is a highly efficient, durable, and precise digital label printing press. Its water-resistant label printing capability makes it a valuable asset in diverse commercial and industrial sectors. With the VP660, businesses can optimize their label production process, delivering high-quality, durable labels and stickers that withstand a wide range of conditions. It’s an investment that promises significant returns in productivity, efficiency, and quality.


text:
The Struggle to Affirm the Dignity of the Poor in a Society
The Struggle to Affirm the Dignity of the Poor in a Society in which we don’t Count
by S’bu Zikode, Presented in Mexico City on 6th August 2012
Before Abahlali baseMjondolo was formed the shack dwellers in South Africa were considered by government and some other people in our society to be the undeserving poor. This claim came as the result of the perception that the poor are lazy, uneducated and people who do not think and therefore do not count the same as other human beings. The general public, civil society and the media could not defend the poor against this indignity. The media had little or nothing to report on anything that surrounds shack dwellers, be it good or bad, that considered us as human beings or citizens. We were mostly seen as a threat to society – as a problem to be controlled. When shacks were on fire radios and televisions would not air or broadcast this. On the other side the state would refuse any provision of basic services to the shack settlements or to engage us as citizens. We have always been considered as people who cannot think for ourselves. Someone from somewhere else would always be hired and paid to think for us, to represent us and to take decisions on our behalf. This has been the state mentality towards the poor. It has also been the mentality of most NGOs and of most of civil society. It has also been the mentality of what we have called the regressive left – that part of the left that thinks that its job is to think for the poor rather than with the poor. The rights that we have on paper were always refused in reality. This included our rights as citizens and our rights to the cities. Whenever we asked for our rights to be respected, for our humanity to be recognized, we were presented as troublemakers, as people that were being used by others, or as criminals. Our request to participate in the discussions about our own lives was taken as a threat.
Abahlali has been mobilizing to build the power of the poor from below. We try to make sure that the poor remain permanently organized and strong. This has helped to build a strong voice for the movement. As a result of the power that we have built from the ground up we have been able to speak for ourselves in many spaces that were previously barred to us. For us it is important that, just as we occupy land in the cities, we must also occupy our own space in all discussions.
Today, as a result of our struggle and the struggles of other poor people, we see a slow shift away from seeing shack settlements as something to be bulldozed without any sense that there are human lives in these places. There is now recognition that there are human lives in the shacks. Basic services such as water and sanitation, refuse collection, road access, electricity etc which were being denied are now being rolled out. In Durban the eThekwini Municipality has long had a policy that forbids electrification of any shack settlement in the city. Today this killer electricity policy is under review and a pilot project to roll electricity in some four settlements has begun. This progress has come through the years of struggle and the power of the organized poor.
For many years shack settlements were seen as a problem to be solved by eradication. This was the logic of apartheid but it came back to South Africa after apartheid through the way that the UN Millennium Development Goals were interpreted. In South Africa the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial government wanted to be seen as smart and leading the way in carrying the mandate of the MDGs by introducing the then ‘Slums Act’ which would have led to mass evictions We took that Act to the highest court in our land - the Constitutional Court - where it was ruled unconstitutional. This judgment has a lot to say about transforming the understanding of shack settlements so that we can all see them as communities to be integrated in our urban centers. It has a lot of emphasis on the need for the state to conduct meaningful engagement with communities. This means that while shack dwellers wait for their permanent homes basic services and support would have to be provided. The new developments would have to be co-designed with the people that will live in them. Participatory and democratic development via in-situ upgrades should be promoted and supported in order to put a stop to all unlawful evictions and corruption. Well located land is to be released for housing development.
As a movement we have succeed in building a real challenge to the eradication agenda and to the eviction of shack dwellers from citizenship as well as good land. The government’s approach to housing has lost its credibility through the struggles of the poor around the country. But houses for the urban poor have not yet been built at the pace and in the manner that respects shack dwellers. Therefore our struggle has only gone half of the way that it needs to go.
But we are proud and happy that we have built communities and a strong movement. We have stopped evictions in the areas we were ware strong and changed the perception that development can happen in our own neighborhoods without us. We have refused just to be told what will be done to us and to be excluded from democracy and decision making. We have concluded that there will be nothing for us without us. The state and anyone wanting to upgrade or develop our communities is required to co-plan with us and have to have meaningful engagement with us on all issues. Slowly, slowly it is being understood in wider society that shack settlements are not eyesores to be bulldozed but communities to be upgraded. It is slowly being understood that if land is allocated by the market the poor will always be excluded from the cities. We are slowly building more alliances in our struggle for a conscientious society based on respect and dignity for all people.
These shifts have come after years of struggle to be counted as human beings. These shifts have come after years of discussions where we have worked out our vision for a society where real freedom, equality, justice and dignity are the rule of the day. These shifts have come as a result of our own hard won living politic. They have come as a result of our own courage to insist that everyone’s life and intelligence counts the same. That everyone deserves the same equal opportunities as everyone else. That the social value of land should come before its commercial value. That all the production and gains of the country should be fairly distributed to all its inhabitants. That in dealing with all of the above we should start with the worst off. As Anglican Bishop Ruben says “the last shall be first”.
However the government still shows no political will to engage meaningfully with the shack dwellers and poor people’s movements. The state and its politicians impose its party opportunists to monopolize and hijack the system and politicize services so that only party members benefit. The state continues to build transit camps and force people into these places where they are left to rot. The state continues to harass, beat, arrest and even kill activists who are calling for real freedom and democracy for all. Our struggle has a long and hard road to travel before we can say that we have started to build democratic cities.------------ http://www.abahlali.org
Sekwanele! No House! No Land! No Vote! Everyone Counts
The Poor People's Alliance: Abahlali baseMjondolo, together with with Landless People's Movement (Gauteng), the Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal) and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, is part of the Poor People's Alliance - a unfunded national network of democratic membership based poor people's movements.

domain: sociology


text:
I legit adore the way Björk's Vulnicura has been so upfront and direct about making the vagina-as-heart the focal point of its context, much to the uncomfortable chagrin of creaky boys internet-wide. Imagine if they had to live through the '70s! All the blood and the periods, my god!
The clip for "Family" is an animated, real-life version of her new Vulnicura album art, or should I say
the art is a still from the video it is officially called a "moving album cover." In this, she weaves together the gaping hole in her chest with yellow thread and mercury balls, and transforms as a full person in sunshiney chartreuse, doing the work on herself to become whole again. Maybe it's obvious but as performance art, it's effective and relatable as hell.
Contact the author at email@example.com.


text:
Link to this page: https://secure.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/629/9832
From The Socialist newspaper, 16 June 2010
Northern Rock throws workers on the dole
Northern Rock workers are stunned to hear that the bank is now planning another round of job cuts. Last week workers were hit by a redundancy bombshell of 650 job losses out of 4,500 staff. This works out to be one in seven of the workforce!
Paul Phillips, Newcastle Socialist Party
Workers leaving Northern Rock HQ after the news were saying how they felt it had been coming for a long time. And the remaining workers will still suffer - the managers are going after their own workers' pension pots by getting rid of the final salary pension scheme.
Northern Rock has been going through a restructuring process since its nationalisation in 2008. Since then we have already seen 2,000 job losses which were mainly based in Newcastle and Sunderland.
This is really only a sneak peek of what is to come. These job losses have come at a particularly bad time for the North East which is expecting massive spending cuts from the coalition government.
Unite has been quick to condemn these job losses and is quite rightly concerned that it could even be 1,000 job losses. Whether these hard words will be translated into tough action by the union we will have to see.
But Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ) has already been on the streets campaigning to stop this job cutting madness! Now with its important support from the Unite union, YFJ is looking at ways it can coordinate with Unite to defend the jobs and working conditions of the Northern Rock workers.
All of this is being justified to make Northern Rock 'sellable' to the private sector. It is also obvious that the government is trying to make nationalisation a bad word to make it easier to hand it back to the private sector and to poison the words of the socialist and trade union movement.
The Socialist Party and Youth Fight for Jobs are demanding the permanent nationalisation of the banking sector under democratic workers' control and management - not run in the interests of profit but for working class people.
Such a banking system could offer cheap loans and mortgages for housing and small businesses.
Donate to the Socialist Party
Coronavirus crisis - Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- Our 'fighting coronavirus workers' charter', outlines a programme to combat the virus and protect workers' living conditions.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our special coronavirus appeal.
In The Socialist 16 June 2010:
Millionaire ministers savage public services
'Bloodbath budget' day protests and meetings
Comprehensive education under attack
Opposing 'Dickensian' academy schools in Waltham Forest
National Shop Stewards Network
Come to the NSSN conference
Unison local government conference: Delegates face huge struggles
Northern Rock throws workers on the dole
Wales Unison: Socialist Party member elected
NHS Scotland - ConDemned to terminal decay
Southampton library staff strike to save jobs
Save the Big House
Socialist Party editorial
Labour leadership contest dominated by right wing
Socialist Party news and analysis
TUSC plans for future elections
BP's value plunges as oil spill worsens
Willetts approves tuition fees hike
Bloody Sunday report appears 38 years late
IDS's 'anti-poverty drive' attacks the poorest!
High speed trains and high priced fares
Why we don't back the Queen's pay claim
Tower Hamlets: Jobs, homes and services - not the racist EDL!
International socialist news and analysis
Greece: A test bed for 'austerity' and resistance
Spain: Millions of public sector workers strike over brutal cuts
Portugal: Mobilisation against austerity reaches new level
Socialist Party Scotland launched at packed and inspiring meeting
The Socialist 16 June 2010 |
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