According to the Canadian government, the World Health Organisation’s “new instrument” to control populations in the event of an infectious disease outbreak should be expanded so it is an “all-hazards approach.”
As part of this approach, Trudeau’s government named global health emergencies for which WHO should issue diktats. They include climate change, air pollution, and chemical contamination.
On Monday, Conservative Member of the Canadian Parliament Leslyn Lewis posted on Twitter a portion of a response to an Access to Information Request from the Canadian government about their input submitted to the World Health Organisation.
“As countries prepare to finalise the WHO Global Pandemic Accord in May, the Liberals have been lobbying the WHO to include climate change in the definition of a pandemic emergency,” she said.
The government responded to Lewis, indicating that “the new instrument should be inclusive and defined by an all-hazards approach in alignment with the [International Health Regulations].”
The response continues: “There are other global health threats that are currently building and/or could result in a global health emergency (e.g., climate change impacts) … which may be scoped out of an instrument with too narrow a focus.”
In other words, the Canadian government admitted it supports broadening the scope of WHO’s Pandemic Accord, or Pandemic Treaty, so WHO directs countries not just on infectious disease outbreaks but also on “health impacts” from climate change.
On 23 October 2023, in response to a written question from Ms. Lewis, Mark Holland, the Minister of Health, on behalf of Trudeau’s Liberal government confirmed the Government’s stance. He stated that “other global health threats, such as climate change, can impact pandemics, and we incorporate these broader considerations in our domestic pandemic, planning, preparedness, and response activities.”
At the same time, Holland confirmed that, currently, “Climate change and other global health threats are not within the scope of the Pandemic Instrument.” But he did not admit that the Government was lobbying WHO to include it.
Justin Trudeau was elected Leader of the Liberal Party in April 2013. On October 19, 2015, he led his party to victory, winning a majority government. On 21 October 2019, he led the Liberal Party to re-election, earning a second mandate. On 20 September 2021, Justin once again led the party to re-election, earning a third mandate to govern from Canadians. A Canadian intelligence report released in February 2023 suggests Beijing meddled in the 2019 and 2021 election campaigns, a continuation of a problem that was flagged 37 years ago.
At a “ladies’ night” fundraiser in Toronto in 2013, the then-hopeful politician Trudeau made his allegiances known. He told the audience: “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say we need to go green, we need to start, you know, investing in solar.”
At the time, his comments angered Canadians, particularly from those who noted China’s oppressive regime and documented human rights abuses. Has Trudeau listened to the Canadian public? Apparently not.
In 2022, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that he was invoking rarely-used emergency powers to suppress the Freedom Convoy, which led to criticism from civil rights groups. What made Trudeau’s response to the crisis even more concerning was that the protests in Canada were peaceful.
The events in Canada surrounding the Freedom Convoy represented something much bigger than the truckers and Canada’s economy. Non-violent protest is one of the few tools people without power have to resist the injustices of those who have it. To respond to peaceful protests with more power is to completely miss the point about non-violent resistance to government abuse of power.
In 1989, the Chinese government faced its own “blockade” as student-led demonstrations in Beijing attempted to impede the Chinese military’s advance into Tiananmen Square. Even though the demonstrations were peaceful, the Chinese Communist Party declared martial law and sent in the People’s Liberation Army -equipped with rifles, automatic weapons, and tanks.
What most people remember about Tiananmen Square is the image of a young man staring down a Chinese tank. But Trudeau remembers something else. For him, China’s regime represented a dream: “a dictatorship where you can do whatever you wanted.”
So, in Trudeau’s case, it should not surprise us that his government is pushing for WHO to increase its control over populations using the Pandemic Treaty and climate change.
WHO’s “Pandemic Treaty” will be considered by the 77th World Health Assembly in May. Under the treaty, the WHO will be authorised to declare a global “emergency” and enforce measures to respond to it. Once finalised, all member states are expected to sign it.
WHO’s Pandemic Treaty is a fundamental threat to our national sovereignty and personal liberty. Once signed, sovereign countries will surrender authority to the WHO in the event of a pandemic or other international “emergency” such as “global boiling.”
Sources for this article include:
- Canada Backs WHO’s Push for Global ‘Climate Lockdown’ Powers, Slay News, 10 January 2023
- Justin Trudeau Said He Admired China’s Dictatorship. Canadians Should Have Believed Him, Foundation for Economic Education, 15 February 2022
- From expose-news.com
Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm.


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Study of Toni Morrison's Novels: Sula & Bluest Eye |
Eco feminist interpretation of Toni Morrison's novels: Sula & TheBluest Eye. The present paper aims at the study of Toni Morrison's novels withan Feministic approach. IT is based on the study of three novels The Sula &The Bluest Eye. It shows how women and nature are related to each other and howboth are oppressed by the patriarchal society in the same way and how women andnature both are showing resistance towards this dominance in their own ways.All the female characters in these novels are related and affected by nature inone or other ways. This oppression is still there in the contemporary period.

domain: library


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The story of Basildon's development
can be traced here, from the earliest days through to the present, including from 1900 onwards,
a year-by-year detail of significant dates and interesting events in the towns history. Also
included are other important dates like government Acts that helped shape the future.
* * * * *
If you know the date of an
event you think should be included in the chronology, or would like to make an update or add
additional information to one already listed, please use the contact e-mail link below.


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Comparing e-commerce giants: Alibaba and Amazon
November 22, 2013 02:25 PM
China’s e-commerce leader Alibaba Group plans to go public next year, likely on a U.S. stock exchange, and analysts estimate the company may be valued at around $100 billion, close to the market valuation of Facebook.
And while this valuation is a little more than half that of U.S. e-commerce leader Amazon.com, which has a market cap of $170 billion as of today, the Chinese online retail giant booked nearly double Amazon’s sales in 2012, according to Internet Retailer estimates. Further evidence of Alibaba’s dominance in China came on Nov. 11 when the company brought in $5.75 billion in sales in a 24-hour period during its annual “Singles Day” sales event, which is the Chinese version of Cyber Monday in the U.S. This is more than three times the $1.46 billion all U.S. consumers spent online on Cyber Monday 2012, according to comScore Inc.
The leaders of the two largest e-commerce markets in the world—China and the U.S.—already compete directly with each other in China, with Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall marketplaces going head to head with Amazon.cn. As Alibaba expands, aided by the billions it is likely to raise in its upcoming IPO, the two e-commerce giants no doubt will also compete in other markets, including the U.S.
With this in mind, Internet Retailer draws on company reports and its Top500Guide.com data to break down the similarities and differences between the two online retail giants.
One basic difference between the two is that Alibaba only provides an online shopping marketplace where other retailers sell, and does not sell directly to customers. In contrast, Amazon both sells merchandise that it owns to customers and also operates a marketplace. The key metric to look at here to compare the marketplaces is gross merchandise value, or the dollar value of all items sold on each platform. Alibaba reported that the volume of transactions on its two marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, was around $170 billion in 2012.
Determining Amazon’s GMV, however, requires some guesswork, because Amazon does not report it publicly. Instead, it reports total revenue, which was $61.09 billion in 2012. Some of that came from services unrelated to consumer purchases, mainly Amazon Web Services, a business unit that rents data storage capacity and computing power to other companies. Amazon doesn’t disclose AWS revenue, but analysts estimate this at about $2 billion for 2012.
That would leave about $59 billion in revenue from sales of Amazon-owned merchandise, and the cut it takes from third-party sellers on its marketplace. Amazon has disclosed publicly that other retailers selling on its marketplace account for about 40% of the units sold on Amazon sites. And Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp., a marketing company that helps retailers sell on Amazon and other web marketplaces, estimates Amazon takes an average commission of 10% on sales by third-party sellers. Doing the math, that suggests Amazon’s own sales totaled just over $55 billion and sales by marketplace sellers $37 billion (with Amazon taking a 10% cut and booking some $3.7 billion in revenue). That would put Amazon’s 2012 GMV in the range of $92 billion, or just over half of all sales on Alibaba.
Part of the reason that Alibaba is transacting nearly double the amount online than Amazon is that the Chinese company is serving a much larger pool of online shoppers. As of the end of 2012, the U.S. had 254.3 million Internet users, and China more than double that at 571.1 million, according to the World Bank. And China has more room to increase its base of web shoppers, as only 42.3% of its population uses the Internet, compared with 81% of U.S. consumers.
In addition, Chinese people use the web differently than U.S. consumers do. “Compared with U.S. people, Chinese people prefer engaging with others through social media and mobile,” says Sun Baohong, a professor at the New York City campus of Beijing-based Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business.
The numbers bear out that assessment. As of the end of June of 2013, there were 464 million mobile Internet users in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, three times the number in the U.S. In addition, the most popular Chinese social platform, Qzone, owned by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Limited, had more than 600 million subscribers in the middle of 2013, Tencent says. In contrast, Facebook reported around 200 million U.S. subscribers at same time.
In addition to total sales volume, Amazon and Alibaba tend to diverge on such key operating metrics as average order value. The average ticket is $178 on Alibaba, while Amazon’s is a little higher at $220, according to data available on Top500Guide.com. In the past year, Alibaba has expanded into many new categories, such as automobile and financial products, so its ticket price may increase in the future. Amazon has also been moving into more luxury categories, and its average ticket may increase as well.
Amazon’s top category is books and other media, such as music and videos. In the third quarter of 2013, media represented 30% of sales on Amazon’s sites, Amazon reported. By contrast, the dominant category on Alibaba marketplaces is apparel and electronics. In the recent Nov. 11 sales event in China, four of the top 10 sellers on Alibaba were apparel brands, and three others sold electronics.
In one area, however, these two giant e-commerce companies are moving on parallel tracks, and that is in mobile commerce. Both recorded a similar percentage of sales from mobile devices in 2012—6.5% for Amazon (or $4 billion out of its $61 billion total, according to Top500Guide.com) and 7% (or $12 billion out of $170 billion) for Alibaba—and the percentages are moving up for both. In the recent Single day sales event, 15% of Alibaba’s sales came from mobile devices. Amazon’s mobile sales will increase 100% to $8 billion in 2013, Internet Retailer estimates.
Updated 2013 e-commerce sales figures and other key metrics for Alibaba and the 499 other largest online merchants in China will be available on Top500Guide.com in mid-February.

domain: news


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Cleanology is first to kit staff out in uniforms made from 7,000 plastic bottles
Pioneering cleaning firm Cleanology is saving 7,000 plastic bottles a year from landfill by kitting out staff in uniforms made from recycled plastic.
Work Uniforms Made From Recycled Bottles
CEO Dominic Ponniah said: “We are extremely proud to be the first to introduce recycled uniforms within our industry. This is just the latest drive to make Cleanology a truly sustainable business. We already operate an electric fleet, and tackle portion control with our chemical-free sachets. Buying recycled, in the form of recycled uniforms, helps to close the loop even further.”
The uniforms have been rolled out following a full trial in 2019. Manufactured from a blend of plastic bottles and organic cotton, they are 100 per cent sustainable, ‘fair wear’ garments.
Over the next year, Cleanology will supply operatives with 2,000 branded polo shirts and 1,000 branded sweatshirts. Each shirt is made from around two bottles, while the sweatshirts use around three bottles. This will save 7,000 bottles from landfill and reduce the need for energy and resources to manufacture new clothing.
Cleanology has twice in a row won the Golden Service Award for sustainability, and has also been shortlisted for the European Cleaning and Hygiene Awards.
As well as being certified to ISO 14001, Cleanology was the first in Europe to introduce portion-controlled biological cleaning sachets – saving 16,092 litres of water every year. It
has cut plastic bottle use from 21,600 to 600 every year; combined with the introduction of recycled uniforms, the company will save 28,000 bottles from landfill.
2019 also saw a focus on reducing paper use, resulting in a dramatic fall of 33,000 sheets of paper each year. This improvement came from a switch to e-invoices for clients, which followed a previous switch to e-payslips for staff.

domain: economics


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While preparing to write my fictional account of the voyage of the Neko II around Africa, which Mr. Farago has been good enough to publish in serial on this site, I spent countless hours researching and reading the accounts of people fortunate enough to sail the globe in private yachts. One of the blogs I stumbled across and drew inspiration from was that of Scott and Jean Adam and their Davidson 58 pilot house sloop, s/v Quest. One of my story’s plot points involved a brush with Somali pirates. No metaphor about art, life, imitation, or the strangeness of fiction is adequate to describe the tragedy that befell this couple and their death at the hands of real Somali pirates.
- Open Carry vs. Concealed in The Truth About Guns Polls on LockerDome
Contact TTAG:(401) 835-5054
The Truth About Guns
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domain: artistic


Defense technology manufacturer Mercury Systems (Nasdaq: MRCY) has agreed to purchase Switzerland-based military and aerospace computing company CES Creative Electronic Systems for $38 million to add new avionics and platform management products.
Chelmsford, Mass.-based Mercury said Thursday it expects to close the transaction by the end of this year and will fund the deal with cash on hand.
Headquartered in Geneva, CES generated approximately $23 million in revenue over one year through Sept. 30, 2016.
Mercury CEO Mark Aslett said the acquisition also seeks to “expand (our) addressable market into commercial aerospace, defense platform management, C4I and mission computing – markets that are aligned to Mercury’s existing market focus.”
“The addition of CES adds important and complementary capabilities in mission computing, safety-critical avionics and platform management that are in demand from our customers, ” Aslett added.
CES designs, develops and manufactures for products such as primary flight control units, flight test computers, mission computers and command-and-control processors.


For some time now, privacy advocates and big tech companies have been in an uproar over congress’s Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). Given that fact, there was hope that the final draft of the bill would include some language to appease privacy advocates. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Hill has said the official conference could start this week, and have the bill on the president’s desk by the end of the year.
Though a bi-partisan group of lawmakers cited statements by tech companies in defense of this act, many companies changed their statements. Whereas it is clear that something needed to be done, a few statements said, CISA was not the way to accomplish it. As with any legislation, there are several versions of the bill. The most preferred version by privacy advocates comes from an unusual source, the Department of Homeland Security.
In review of this version of the bill, advocates feel that the DHS would do the best job collecting data, disseminating it, and scrubbing sets of personal data. It also has the strongest provisions to stop sensitive data from falling in to the grasp of the NSA. Concern for individual privacy has grown by leaps and bounds in the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 leak.
Sadly, the one that is likely to make it will sideline the DHS version, and confirm the opponents’ hesitation. The new bill would include the worst parts from both the senate and the house bills. The co-sponsor of the DHS bill, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, has been encouraged to take a stand and defend it. However, it is believed that he is under growing pressure to accept this patchwork bill by Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.
If this bill proceeds to President Obama’s desk to be signed by the end of the year, you can bet the results won’t be pleasant for anyone that is concerned with their privacy. After years of consternation and the defeat of similar bills, one was destined to go through the process and be signed in to law. In the past 8 years, privacy has never been in as much jeopardy as it is now. Though actions like this are designed to keep the public safe, they are often at the cost of individual freedoms. Although there should be a balance between personal privacy and public security, it is clear where the balance shifts in this bill.


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Apple Arcade Coming September 19th for $4.99 a Month
During their September Keynote, Apple announced that Apple Arcade will be coming on September 19th. Apple users will be able to get a 1 Month free trial upon launch. Apple is aiming to have over 100 games on the service shortly after launch, Apple showed off games from Konami and Capcom in the presentation. Apple Arcade will work on macOS, iPadOS, iOS, and Apple TV.


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Mysore is the most beautiful city in Karnataka and is also famous as the cultural capital of Karnataka. Mysore previously served as capital to the kings of the Wodeyar dynasty who ruled Mysore for a very long span of time. Wodeyars were patrons of music and art and the rulers of the Wodeyar dynasty have made a significant contribution to the culture of Mysore. Mysore is very popular for its art galleries, museums, festivities and palaces. Mysore is famous throughout the world because of its culture and its traditions that are immensely found in the festivals celebrated in Mysore and the tradition that is followed in Mysore. Mysore has also remained famous for its cuisine all over the world and his is also a direct result of the rich culture of Mysore. Some dishes like Mysore Pak and Masala Dosa from Mysore have got their names from the city of Mysore. Mysore silk is also very famous and this has resulted in the origin of Mysore silk sarees. Mysore painting is also a rage throughout the world.
Co-Existence of Several Religions
Mysore is a city where several religions co-exist in peace and harmony. Even when the Vijayanagara Empire and Wodeyar rulers were controlling the empire of Mysore, they encouraged every culture and every religion in the city without making any discrimination. It was the continuous support and patronage of the Mysore kings in every sphere that gave rise to a distinct and unique style called “Mysore style” in fields like as architecture, painting, poetry and music. Everything related to the rich and splendid cultural heritage of Mysore is prefixed, “Mysore” that speaks about the culture of the city. Till date, the Jasmine flowers of best quality found in Karnataka are known as Mysooru Maligae which means Mysore Jasmine.
Mysore has made great advancements in every field and it has also developed into a cosmopolitan city. Mysore consists of people belonging to different religions and cultures living peacefully. People of different faiths sty together in Mysore and they live harmoniously. This is the reason why the city has developed so fast. The people who live in Mysore participate in the celebrations and the festivals of different religions. The Mysore kings have also made a significant contribution towards communal harmony by laying the stones of different religious centers in Mysore belonging to different religions and this is a tradition that is religiously followed throughout Mysore.
Religious Communities in the City
Hindu community is one religious community in Mysore that is supposed to be the largest. Muslims are also an important religious community in Mysore along with the small population of Jains. There can be no doubt in the fact that Mysore has modernized itself to a considerable extent but the city has in no way lost its touch with its rich culture and tradition. Cultural unity in the city is ultimately expressed and witnessed during Dasara festivities in the city. This is a festival that is celebrated by the entire population of Mysore and that too with great zeal and enthusiasm. Religious ceremonies are an important part of the festivities but along with religious ceremonies people also carry out different other tasks like decorating houses, distributing sweets and displaying dolls. This festival is being celebrated in Mysore since a very long time and it has become synonymous with Mysore. During the times of the kings, the main feature of the Dasara celebration was the Maharaja’s procession on the elephant back. This was the manner in which Dasara was celebrated in Mysore since the epic times and it continued during the reign of the kings of Mysore. Even today, Dasara is illustriously celebrated with similar splendor and pomp including some small changes. At present, Goddess Chamundi’s Golden Idol is carried by Royal Elephant during the procession. The culture of Mysore represents the innate charm of the old events and traditions of Mysore and its culture stands in the form of a discrete identity.
People of Mysore
The population of Mysore is around 22, 81,653. People belonging to different cultural backgrounds are found staying in this country and living harmoniously with the people of different other religions. A certain increase in the population of Mysore has been found in the recent years because of the development of the IT industry in this city. It can be said that Mysore’s population is an assimilation of modern technologists who have gathered in Mysore for work and traditional locals who have been staying in Mysore since the times of the kings of Mysore. The most common languages that are used in Mysore are English and Kannad. Two other languages that are very popular in Mysore are Hindi and Tamil.
Hinduism is the main religion in Mysore and most of the people living in Mysore are Hindus. Christian population of Mysore is also very large. The religious life and cultural practices found in Mysore are also backed by Jainism that is still found to enjoy a very special position among the people of Mysore. Buddhist, Islamic and Sikh faiths are also followed by some sections of people in the city. It is the presence of different religions in the city that has resulted in the vibrant culture of Mysore. The fairs and the festivals in Mysore play a very significant role in the lives of the people. Mysore also consists of a large number of pilgrim sites. The locals possess traditional lifestyle that is very religious and simple. Local people belonging to Mysore follow old rituals and customs. But with changes being found in several economic activities of Mysore, the culture of the city is also changing gradually. Traditional clothes are worn by the people of Mysore. Silk and cotton saris are usually worn by women. The people living in Mysore are simple, jovial and hospitable. It is the nature of the people that has made Mysore the most convivial urban region in India.
Traditions in Mysore
Mysore possesses a very rich tradition and it is evident in the city’s possession of gardens, palaces and pilgrim sites. The city is considered to be the best investment and travel destination which has resulted in large scale growth of Mysore. This growth has brought about major changes in the lifestyle of the people of Mysore who were following the tradition that was handed over to them by their rulers. People have changed their lifestyles steadfastly and they are not found to follow the old traditions anymore. Various symbols of the rich tradition and heritage of Mysore such as Mysore Tongas, traditional wrestling and Mysore Unde Neshya have now become endangered and this is because of the changes that have taken place in the lifestyle and the habits of the people. It is urbanization that has altered the traditional look of the city.
Customs in Mysore
The name Mysore has evolved from the term mahisasurana ooru or mahisuru meaning Mahishasura village. Mythologically, it is believed that a demon named Mahishasura who was bull headed was attacked by Chamundi, an incarnated form of Parvati. Parvati lived on a hill for the protection of the city and is worshipped by the people of Mysore till date. During the Dasara celebrations in the city, the temple of the Goddess located atop Chamundi Hills, is thronged by her devotees from several parts of the world who gather there to celebrate the victory of the Goddess over evil. Historically, Mysore has remained under the rule of various dynasties of rulers such as The Cholas, The Gangas, the Hoysalas, The Chalukyas, The Wodeyars and last but not the least Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. It was after the death of Tipu Sultan that the Britishers took over of Mysore and reinstated the Wodeyars who still remain to be the Rajpramukh possessing legal authorities that have been granted to them by the Indian Constitution.
Cultural Influence in Mysore
The impact of the culture and the tradition of several dynasties that have ruled Mysore is found in the culture and the custom of Mysore at present. The architecture found in the learning centers and the temples of Mysore bear an imprint of the tower structure and carvings of the Hoysalas while British influence is found in the government buildings. The city possesses a green cover and wide roads and the credit for this development of the city goes to Raja Wodeyar III. The city claims its forte and its specialties in the form of “Mysore style” which has become a brand for the city representing the unique amalgamation of culture and custom in Mysore with great pride.
Mysore paintings depicting the scenes and epic figures from scriptures carry traditional interior work by the use of Mysore gold and they form a distinct tradition in Mysore. The literature and the music of Mysore has also blossomed with activities like Vaishnavism and Veerashaivism and The Champu which is a composition revitalizing Jainism. Navodaya writing style is found in the short stories, novels, dramas and poems that came into existence under the basic influence of the Christian missionaries and the Britishers in Mysore. Even today, there are a lot of musicians and writers found budding in Mysore in search of a good platform. The era of Tipu Sultan marked the origination of Mysore silk which is considered to be the purest form of silk and is very popular for its shimmering looks and rich feel. Dishes like Mysore pak and Mysore Masale also have a significant role in adding to the popular and well preserved cultural heritage of Mysore.
Art in Mysore
Mysore is blessed with a number of museums and art galleries that hold lovely artifacts depicting art and culture of Mysore. The rich past of Mysore is very well showcased through them. They also represent lifestyle of people of Mysore and the culture that s very colorful. The culture of Mysore is of great significance because it is the culture and the tradition that is depicted in the lifestyle and the hospitability of the people of Mysore.

domain: sociology


Appeals court says DOJ can resume criminal probe of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago
A federal appeals court is allowing the Justice Department to continue looking at documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and home, upending a trial judge’s order over those documents that had blocked federal investigators’ work on them.
Read the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling . here
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About Our Builders
River Oaks includes two of Augusta's best builders, First Choice Home Builders and PDH Homebuilders. Both of our local custom home builders can provide you with a number of floor plans from which to choose. Standard features include hardwood flooring in the main living areas and beautiful tile in the bathrooms. Each home has a stunning kitchen with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, custom cabinetry, and more. Among our exterior standards, you'll find two-car garages, hardy-board with brick or stone, 30-year architectural shingles, sprinkler systems and full sodded yards. In River Oaks variety and quality are the standard! Our builders add their own special touches to each home, so that your home will be truly unique!

domain: design


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Mail purchase marriage stats suggest that mail order brides are extremely easy to find. It truly is true that you have many cases of infidelity inside the marriages today. So , for what reason mail order brides have become so popular? Well, overseas brides free for the reason that most people want to be with a person of their own tradition, religion, race, country and other such criteria. Mail purchase brides are such partnerships where persons live in countries where such marriages aren’t very common similar to US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Then, moving on towards the second key question, accumulated lots of information about mail purchase brides’ statistics and indicating that all mail order marital relationship statistics are most definitely comfortable and appropriate means to search a perfect partner for marital relationship and a life-long marriage. Almost half of all via the internet internet users out of across the globe include met or know another individual who seems to have registered using a mail buy bridal site or an excellent service. Of course, if you do a lot of research, you will find that they are generally women via various countries including: US, Canada, Down under, Western Europe, Latin America, Eastern Asia, Russia and Eastern The european union. And as you understand, these are produced countries wherever mail order brides are incredibly common.
Delicious factors why women via these countries migrate to other countries to marry. Some could find their true love while some could find a family or friend within a different country. There are some others exactly who may need some cash which they are able to get through mailbox order marriage statistics. Awkward, the result is precisely the same. This is a wonderful way to fulfill their dreams of marriage in international land and to live happily ever after.
The question then is usually how submit order wedding brides can achieve larger success rate in terms of finding the true love? Which is possible only when they enroll with legit and reliable mail purchase bride organizations. In fact , they can do their own background check just before selecting a suited match. They will make use of several tools like matchmaker solutions and others to discover the required information on potential partners. They will also employ various communication methods which include e-matches, speaking, emails while others to increase their chance of success in finding the ideal match.
Once the applicants have obtained the necessary affirmation from all mail order wedding brides agencies, they will start looking because of their suitable match. Nonetheless this does not signify they will merely sit and wait for a ideal person to research. Of course, it is important to notice that there are lots of people who are attempting to fulfill the dreams although only a few of these become successful by it. Therefore , it is very important to set high goals for themselves and to always keep their reason high. They need to always make sure that they remain realistic and they keep the eyes to the goal. At the end of the day, if that they still think that they have failed, they should understand that their failures are not using their matchmaker but with themselves.
There are several reasons why submit order wedding brides have an excellent success rate among women looking for a ideal husband. It can be obvious that ladies received from these kinds of standards of living have big moral standards and they are careful not to break any guidelines. In addition they ensure that the men they are a part of respect their family worth. This is one of the main reasons why all mail order birdes-to-be have this sort of a high effectiveness. Most of these women belong to solid Christian family members where they may be taught to respect their husbands as well as the rest of their very own family. This is exactly why they generally behave in the manner they do and this is the reason why they make sure that their home values are strictly used.


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How to start selling gadgets
In light of the health crisis currently affecting the world the COVID-19 lab test has been the subject of a lot of interest. More than 100 manufacturers authorized from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make COVID-19 tests. The COVID-19 test is not all identical. Certain tests are more precise and deliver more rapid result. The tests also come with different cost. These differences can make choosing the test in a confusing manner. Understanding the COVID type is best for you can make the assessment process simpler.
There are two kinds of COVID tests that are PCR (polymerase chain reaction) as well as tests for antigen. The former is more exact and reliable method of the determination of your quarantine status. It is also slower and is less precise. The test results usually show that the test is positive in a matter of days.
Each week, CDC analyzes around 80, 000 positive COVID-19 samples. The samples are then sent to laboratories that are specialized to be sequenced. The sequencing of genomes can reveal new variants or mutations that could pose a threat to the population. These tests are crucial for monitoring and health surveillance.
The dominant COVID-19 variant is micron. Since April, it’s been the dominant COVID-19 variant. But, the newer COVID subvariants are outcompeting old subvariants. BA.4.6 in addition to Ba.5. These two types have higher resistance to antibodies. The variants that are resistant are less obvious due to their presence in your nasal passage. They’re nearly four times immune to the BA. They’re better at getting around preexisting immunity.
COVID-19 symptoms should be reported to your doctor as soon as you can. A doctor will help you determine the right test for you. In the event that you are in need of a PCR or antigen test, it is recommended that you test at least three to five days following an event that is high risk. It is possible to qualify to get a COVID kit through the federal government if you weren’t vaccination-free. Many insurance providers will pay for the cost of a COVID test if you possess it. If you don’t have insurance , you could be required to pay.
While they’re less sensitive than PCR However, antigen tests can be completed faster and more effective than PCR. The tests for antigen are able to detect small particles of protein that are on the virus’s surface. If the infection in the body is considered to be the one that is the most destructive, the test is most reliable. Antigen tests can be used for quarantine determination, but they don’t detect active infections. They may help you determine whether you’ve had exposure to SARS-CoV-2 previously.
You should also get tested in case you plan to travel. All travelers must submit that they have a positive COVID test. To confirm your results, but it’s possible to obtain a PCR test. The results will assist your physician ascertain if it is necessary to separate yourself from the rest of your body or not.
The Zoe COVID Study Symptom Survey has recently revised its top COVID-related symptoms. The symptoms can range from fatigue to headaches, runny nose and cough. The ZOE app can be used to identify symptoms.

domain: medical


text:
Throughout the spring
semester, we saw each other once a week or so. We worked hard on
keeping it fun and keeping our mouths shut.
We'd enacted a conspiracy for the new year, and we both did what we
could to keep it going.
It was a fucked-up mess.
His part in the conspiracy was to let me think that everything had been
all his fault, to pretend he was now changing his ways so we'd get
through the rest of the year without too much pain. My part was
to pretend that I actually believed that he still wanted to be my
I tried to act
happy. This was, after all,
what I'd asked for.
The year shot by. NCAA
signing day came; I accepted athletic and academic scholarships.
I'd be playing soccer at a well-respected but small liberal arts
college a few
hours away from Dallas. I'd gotten some looks from universities
back east for my academics, but I didn't want to go far from home, and
I wanted to play soccer. The college I chose fit both
Matt had also been
given a significant scholarship to play football for a university up
north that had been looking at him since the previous year. When
we signed on the dotted line, another piece of the past let go, and we
pointed ourselves toward the next chapter of our lives.
As the semester went on, Matt
chose the year's new Posse members. I knew that when spring got
here, so would the Posse beach trips. I had already decided I
wouldn't have time for the beach anymore.
The last weekend in February,
I was over at Angie's studying. She was sitting at her desk, and I was
stretched out on her floor with my books and papers. Her parents
had gone to a concert at Bass Hall in Fort Worth. Over the past
month or so, we'd been talking together about our impending graduation;
it seemed to me that all the seniors, in ways distinctive to each of
gradually disengaging from this place that had dominated their lives
for so many years.
At one point in the evening,
she looked up from her homework and said out of nowhere, "Andy, I
think we need to talk."
I took a deep breath, sat up,
She closed her book.
"It's coming down fast, isn't it?"
Leaving. Starting over somewhere else."
"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I
guess it is."
She looked at me sadly, and
said, "I love you, Andy."
I went over to her, pulled her
into me, and kissed her for a long time. Then, pulling away, I
said, "I love you too, Angie."
She sighed. A tear
fell. "High school romances..."
"I love you more than that," I
"Maybe," she said. "But
what do we know? We're
going off to different
schools. It might as well be different planets. You know
"Yeah, it is," I said softly.
"Andy, I've been thinking
about this," she said. "It's gonna hurt no matter what and no
matter when. God, I don't want us to just leave things like they
are, like we're this great happily-ever-after couple, and then we go
off to college and gradually the whole thing just dies. That
would kill me."
She began crying softly.
I held her in my arms.
"What are you saying?"
"I think we need to break up,"
she said. "I think we need to do it now, and put some distance
I didn't know what to
say. It wasn't as though I hadn't been
thinking along those lines myself.
"I don't know what's going to
happen in my life," she said. "I know what I want to do; and
I...I wish I could...could have you with me forever," she sobbed.
"But with everything so different next year..."
My heart was in my
throat. "Angie, you don't have to tell me," I said. "I think
Silence hung in the air
between us. Then I leaned in and kissed her. We kissed for
several minutes; desperation pulled us together tightly.
Finally, pulling away from me,
she sat down on her bed. "I think I could love you forever," she
said. "How would we know, though? Let's make a clean break
now, while we still can. I...maybe someday we'll find our way
back to each other if it's meant to be."
Battling for composure, I
said, "I fuckin'
"I do too," she said.
She began to unhook the chain
from her neck that held the promise ring I'd given her. "Take this."
"No, Angie," I said,
stricken. "God, no. Keep it. Take it off your neck,
okay, but please...keep it."
She nodded, crying. Then
she stood up and walked over to her closet, and put the ring in her
I had to summon the will power
to hang tough, because part of me was reeling, wondering how many more
things I'd have to lose before my senior year was over.
I took her in my arms
and began kissing her again. My hands moved up her back, and down
to her hips. Tomorrow would be what it had to be; tonight I needed
"Angie," I said, "I want to
make love to you one last time."
She smiled through her tears,
and caressed my back and my butt as she held me close. Then she
began unbuttoning my shirt. "I haven't ever loved anybody this
she told me. "Always remember that."
We undressed each other
She pulled me into her bed,
and we made love.
The sex was bittersweet; I'd
never experienced it like that before.
After it was over, lying next
to her, I said, "I'll always love you."
She put her hand in my hair
and stroked my head, then moved lower to my neck and back, and then
down to my butt. As she caressed me, she kissed me on the chest
and said, "Don't forget me next year."
I swallowed hard. "I'll
never forget you. Ever."
Too soon, the clock downstairs
struck midnight. It was time to go. I got up and began
getting dressed. "How are we gonna do this at school?" I
asked. "How can we be around each other without..."
"I don't know," she
said. "We're in so many of the same things. Andy, we can't
just shut each other out. It's not like I want to avoid you or
never think about you. I just have to dial it all down, you
know? And so do you. Let's keep it friendly at
school. And we can be together when our friends do stuff
together. But don't come over any more, okay? And don't
call." She wiped her eyes with her hands.
Blinking back the wetness in
my own eyes, I said, "God, Angie, I can't believe how fuckin' hard this
"I know," she answered.
you know it's right."
"Yeah." I put my shoes
on and stood up to leave. She walked me to the front door, and
before I opened it and walked away, I pulled her to me one last time
and kissed her; it was long, and passionate, and so sweet.
She broke the kiss and pulled
away from me, crying softly. "Andy, go now; please. I can't take any
this. I'll see you in school Monday, okay?"
"Okay," I said.
And with that I opened her
front door, walked through it, and closed it behind me for the final
Breaking up with Angie
accelerated the process of disengaging myself from the world as I knew
it and getting ready for a new life. From that point on, I began
walking through my current life as if it was something of a ghost
town. Things began to seem less real.
During the final months of the
school year I watched myself from a distance, going
through the motions of my last days of high school. I hung out
with Matt once in a while, in a hopeless attempt to make
the most out of the time that we had left together. I
gave spring soccer season everything I had, and threw myself into my
studies. I went to parties, spent time with my young Varsity Bro, and
did my part to organize the Posse beach trips--trips I'd decided I
wouldn't be taking. But there was an odd, detached quality to all
my efforts. In everything I did, a numbness had settled in on me.
I came to appreciate that
quality, and I cultivated it.
Late in April, Matt came over
to the house one Thursday afternoon. I was playing a video game;
my door was open and he walked right in. "Hey," I said.
He came in and sat on my bed,
watching me play.
When I finished, I powered
down the machine and turned to
look at him. He nodded, wordlessly.
"I came to talk to you about
something," he said tentatively.
"What is it?"
"I want to ask you something,"
he said. "I'm gonna cut to the chase, bro. I want to know
if it's okay if I ask Angie out."
The surprise must have shown
on my face, because he quickly added, "I'm not talking anything
serious. I mean...well, that's not right, exactly. I
don't mean I'd be just playing
around. She's a nice girl."
I nodded, staring at my hands as he continued. "We talked about
the two of
you. I want to get to know her better. And she and I--we
have something in common."
I looked up at him.
Something blazed in his eyes, something that was daring me to take him
on over that line.
But the fight, the passion,
had drained out of me over the past few months.
"We're not together anymore,"
I said coldly. "I got no say over who she dates. I got no
say over who you date either." I turned back to my video game.
"You fuckin' do," he said,
bitterness flaring up suddenly in his voice.
I ignored it.
"You want my blessing? Fine. You have it. Go ahead
and ask her out," I said.
He scowled at me. "Look,
"Give it a rest," I said,
dismissing him as I pressed the "power" button on my game machine. "I'm
not interested. Go ahead and ask her
He sighed deeply. "Andy,
why, why, why do you keep"—
I turned back, ready for a
Why do I keep calling you on your
attitude? Well, fuck
that. I threw it back at him: "What the hell are you
He saw the look in my eyes
and shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing," he said.
After a moment, he continued.
"Okay, then, I'm taking that as a 'yes' from you. Just remember I
"You asked," I replied,
summoning all the indifference I could. "I said it was
fine. What's the problem?"
"Like you don't know,"
he said, as he walked out.
In May, a number of our
classmates threw senior parties. I'd just as soon have been left
alone, but it seemed rude to crawl into a hole and ignore these people
I'd spent ten years
with. So invariably I'd find myself at places
where Matt and Angie had come with each other.
I can't say I was jealous or
angry. I can't say I felt much of anything. I was past
grief. Miles past it, on into something else I didn't even know
how to define.
Matt and Angie dated for a
but a couple of weeks before graduation time they stopped seeing each
other. At a
party right before graduation, I asked Angie about it once when we had
a moment together.
"He's nice," she said.
"But we don't have much in common. Not much, anyway."
"We could never be alone
together. Even when we were alone. There was always someone
else there with us. Haunting us both."
I looked up at her.
"Andy, what are you doing?"
she asked quietly.
"I'm doing what I thought we
both decided on," I said.
"I'm not talking about with
me," she said.
She turned her head slightly;
I followed her eyes as they stopped, momentarily, on Matt. He was
laughing and joking with a small crowd across the room. She
turned back to look at me, her face a silent accusation.
I stared into her eyes.
"Sometimes things happen you can't fix," I said. "I got
control over the way people think about me."
"You're wrong," she said
quietly. "You're wrong about so much."
"What do you know about it?" I
said, glaring at her.
"More than you do," she said,
glaring right back at me. "A hell of a lot more, apparently."
"Yeah, well, you're free to
think what you want," I said. "I know what I know."
About that time Jessica Hanson
came up and started talking her usual drivel, rescuing me. I
listened politely for awhile then walked off to talk to somebody else.
Graduation weekend came.
At the baccalaureate ceremony, Matt gave the class president's
address. He hadn't even asked me to help him with it. He
hadn't needed to. It was warm and sincere, and it said what it
supposed to say. Angie gave the salutatory address. She did
a fine job, as always. I was proud of both of them.
The graduation ceremony was
held the next day in the big stadium at SMU. I don't remember
much about it. I smiled when Matt and Angie crossed the stage;
we'd made it to the end.
I went to a graduation party
that night. I spent the entire evening by myself, drinking
Jack-and-Coke. People came up to me to talk all night. Over
and over again. Rehashing ten years. Reminiscing, laughing
at old times, old times that would have ripped into me like a knife in
the gut if I hadn't developed a real talent lately for going
numb. So I endured all that, along with everyone asking me
endlessly about where I was headed, about where Matt was headed.
I said enough to be polite, and kept pouring the booze down. Matt and I
made eye contact across the room several times. A nod, a smile, a
My best friend that evening
was Jack Daniel's. It
didn't talk back; it didn't stare at me or
accost me with silent accusations; and its only desire was to float me
I don't remember driving home.
The next morning I was
awakened by Danny. "Move, asshole," he said, kicking me.
I was lying in the hall
upstairs outside the bathroom door.
"God, how much did you have to
drink? I can smell it all over you," he said. "Get the fuck
up and go to bed; I don't want to have
to hear Dad come up here
and rag on your sorry ass."
I forced myself off the floor,
and dragged myself back toward my room. Danny called out, "Andy."
"What?" I muttered.
"You been walking around like
a fuckin' zombie for weeks, and now you just lay there drunk on your
goddam ass, blocking the door to the bathroom. What the fuck is
wrong with you, anyway?"
I thought back on Danny waking
me from my nightmare last September. "I already told you," I
mumbled. I fell into my bed and slept.
The clock radio came on at
I know all
there is to know
about the crying game;
my share of the
there are kisses,
where you are,
no more of the
I slammed the radio off, and,
steeling myself, climbed out of bed. I walked to the bathroom and
threw down a couple of aspirin to dull the ache in my head.
Max Miller was the head soccer
coach of the team I'd be playing for in the fall. The
Monday morning after graduation he called me on the phone.
"Congratulations on your
graduation, Andy," he said. You ready to play college soccer?"
"Excellent," he said.
"I'm calling all the incoming freshman
just to let all of you know
expect from you for the
"Okay," I said.
"Soccer season begins early,
and I'll need you boys in shape when you hit campus," he
mailing you a workout regimen. It's mostly
cardio, but I want you to do some weight training at a gym this summer. Can you still work
out in your high school's weight room?"
"Yes, I can," I replied.
"Good," he said. "Now
about the cardio. If you'll do what the sheet says you'll be in
good shape. If you don't, the first month of practice is going to
be pure hell. I think you'll find college-level soccer a step up
from your high school play."
"That won't take much," I
Max laughed. "Good
point," he said. "Never mind the high school team. I know
you've had good coaching in club soccer. The main difference from
club is that the game is going to be faster and you'll need to be in
top cardio shape from the moment you hit the field come August.
Every year I have freshmen who don't believe me, and they don't make
it through August workouts. Can I trust you to believe me?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Good. I need you here
on campus the first Sunday in August. Classes won't start until
the end of the month, but I'm going to assemble the team for an
afternoon orientation meeting that first Sunday afternoon, and
attendance is mandatory."
"I'll be there, Coach," I
said. "And I'll be in shape."
"All right then," he said.
I hung up the phone.
Things are finished here, I thought; my new world just called.
It was a relief to have one
I spent as much time as I
could outdoors that summer. When I wasn't conditioning, I was
doing landscaping and lawn-maintenance work, making a wad of money
to set aside for my first year in college. The heat was
oppressive, and there was no coastline in sight; Dallas was landlocked,
and I was beached.
That suited me fine.
I worked on my body and worked
at my job;
I got up early, went hard at it, and rolled into my
bed early at night. I dated a few girls, and had a little sex.
Mainly I tried to focus on the future.
But I couldn't shut the past
out completely. Things kept coming up to remind me that it still
Years before, Matt and I had
planned to throw the Mother of All Graduation Parties on the beach on
July 4 after our senior year. In fact, we'd pledged to each other
that after we'd gone our separate ways we'd come back every summer and
make it a yearly blow-out, inviting all our friends from the old
days. For this first one, we'd already been told by Ruben's
parents that we could use their condo; we'd
rent several adjacent
condos for guests.
Both of us had planned and saved for
this party for a couple of years now. We'd been putting money
into a savings account for the occasion, and our parents had
even been helping out with some significant contributions.
It wasn't something I could
walk away from. The past was like that; it seemed
easy--inevitable--to walk toward something new, but not nearly so easy
to shrug off all that had come before.
So throughout April, May, and
June, we stumbled and sputtered through making arrangements, setting
things up, deciding on who was coming, and all the other deadly details
required us to be together, think together, talk together. And somehow
we got the thing planned.
Finally, the day came.
I'd agreed to go down with Matt a day ahead. Ruben would be
coming up the next morning.
We drove down in his van with
a whole load of supplies. The conversation was light and not too
strained, though dotted with our now-characteristic stops and starts.
As we crossed over onto the
island, I could feel my chest tightening. The dread increased as
we got closer, and as we parked at the condo and began to unload, I
couldn't say a word.
Matt was also
We made our way to the third
floor and walked down the corridor to the condo. I put the key in
the lock and opened the door.
When I looked into the condo, September
sledgehammered back into me. The wind left me, and a
moan escaped my lips.
Nervously, I looked back at
Matt. Our eyes locked for a moment.
I turned back toward
and moved further in; my eyes went toward the sliding glass door to the
I could see beyond the balcony.
I could see the beach.
Just about the time it became
too much to deal with, the familiar numbness descended on me,
and from that point through nearly the whole rest of our stay, I didn't
feel much of anything.
We got the place set up.
Matt took the front bedroom and I took the back. Then we threw on some
beachwear and walked down to the ocean. We swam a little, and
walked along the beach, talking quietly. Never about anything of
consequence: Summer jobs; starting college; what we
thought of our new coaches; communication we'd had with
them; what they'd asked of us during the summer months; who
we'd been out with during the summer.
It was almost scripted, and it
barely scratched the surface. I could have done it in my sleep.
As evening fell, we went
inside and played a little poker, watched a little TV, drank a couple
of beers. I went to bed around midnight; about thirty minutes
later, I saw the rest of the lights go out as Matt turned in for the
The next day drifted along for
me in the same anesthetized haze. Ruben showed up around
eleven. And as the guests arrived late that afternoon, I pressed
some internal "party mode" button and went through the motions of
smiling, laughing, welcoming, joking, drinking.
Angie came with Justin;
it barely registered with me.
The party was a big success
and everybody had a great time. And why not? The Dynamic
Duo knew how to throw a fuckin' party.
Only once did my facade falter.
Toward the end of the evening,
after the party had started to mellow, we were all sitting around a
campfire on the beach. Matt had his acoustic guitar out and was
entertaining the crowd with a sing-along, pulling songs from his famous
setlist. The group was drunk enough to participate in the
singing. Somebody called out, "Do one by yourself, Price."
The rest of the crowd shouted and clapped in agreement.
Matt thought for a minute,
then said, "Okay,
I'll do one, but not by myself." He looked over at me.
"Andy, get your ass over
He motioned with his head for me to
come over and join him. As the group cheered, I squirmed. I
had no intention of doing it.
walked over to
him, sat down next to him, and said under my breath, "This is your
gig and you're on your own here. I'm not singin' with you."
"Yeah, you are; it's a duet,"
he said. "You'll know it."
I didn't want to make a
scene over it. As
I shrugged in acquiescence, he turned back to the group, and said,
"This one goes kinda
high, so it'll show you what a woman I am." Everybody laughed.
He took his guitar in hand,
and began plucking out a plaintive intro that jolted me out of my
numbed state: It was a ballad--"More Than Words"--from the
Extreme CD he'd gotten me for Christmas.
"Take the low part," he
whispered, as he segued toward the opening lines.
Is not the
words I want to
hear from you.
that I want you not
But if you
it would be
To show me
how you feel!
My heart was racing.
What the fuck? The tender melody was battering the door of
months' worth of my defenses.
The low part was coming up, so I tried
get a grip. I took a breath and joined him for on
the next lines:
Is all you
have to do to make
wouldn't have to say
that you love me,
I stopped singing as he took
the over the solo. Turmoil churned inside me.
He kept looking at me as
he sang. Goddammit, why was he always fuckin' looking at me?
you do if my heart
was torn in two?
words to show you
love for me is real.
you say if I took
those words away?
couldn't make things
saying "I love you."
Wracked with pain, I still
sang my part where I needed
to. I knew the harmony and the lyrics by heart. But every
line came at me as an assault, as his eyes seemed to search the depths
I turned my head away from him and toward the crowd as the next verse
I've tried to talk to
you and make you understand,
have to do is close
reach out your hand,
close; don't ever let
Is all I
ever needed you to
wouldn't have to say
that you love me,
The lyrics went into recap,
and the song wound down. Matt's final guitar licks were
note-perfect, and his tenor voice was plaintive and true.
After we'd finished, there was
an awed silence. Then the group went nuts, cheering and
clapping. He looked at me and smiled.
it was an anguished
smile--a smile that held a thousand accusations, a thousand pardons, a
thousand hurt questions...and utter incomprehension.
It felt like I'd been punched
in the gut.
And I felt naked and exposed. A tear went down my cheek and I
quickly wiped it away, hoping nobody noticed. Hoping above all
that he hadn't noticed.
Nobody did; they were too busy cheering.
And he was too busy acknowledging his crowd.
But though I could shake the
urge to cry, I couldn't shake the impact.
A lightning bolt ripped
through my brain: Could I have been
wrong all this time?
Before I could carry myself
off with that question, a part of me I knew and nurtured well stepped
in and spoke up with force.
grip, goddammit. Whatever it is you're imagining about him, you
need to forget
it. You know what he thinks of you.
From somewhere else in my
head, another opinion tried to push its way out: But did you see how he looked at you? And
what about the song? Why did
I sighed. I had to stop
living in the past. Matt and I were history, and none of it was
my fault. I
wasn't ashamed of who I
was and how I felt about him, and it wasn't my problem that he couldn't
deal with it. The numbness washed back over me. I wasn't going to
let him hurt me with my love for him. I'd wrapped that love up
and pushed it away from the soft center of me months ago.
I smiled my perfect lie of a
smile back at him, and shook hands with him in a perfect betrayal of
the "secret handshake" we'd always used with each other. Then I
got up and walked away.
I walked back to the condo,
went into my bedroom, closed the door, climbed into bed, and turned off
We wound the trip down without
incident. The next day came, and we cleaned things up, said
goodbye to our guests and saw them off, then packed up and began the
Conversation on the way back
was much the way it had been on the way down. I drove most of the
way home this time. When he dropped me off at my house, he got
out with me and helped me unload my stuff onto the front porch.
After we'd finished I walked with him back to his van.
Climbing into the driver's
seat, he grinned at me and said, "Wow,
bro; we did it. It was a great time, don't you think?"
"I think everybody had a
blast, Matt," I said softly.
"Man. Our senior
party. All those years when we'd talked about it. Seemed
like it would never happen, right?" His words were questions.
Requests. But I didn't know what it was he was asking.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said,
looking down at the pavement.
A leaden silence threatened to
intervene. I stepped in to fill it. Looking up at him, I
said, "I guess we gotta start
saving for next year, right?"
He smiled again.
Man, we'll have lots of new stuff to catch each other up on.
It'll be even better than this one, because..."
He paused and cleared his
"Anyway. I'm headin' home. Talk to you later."
"Later," I said.
As I walked to the porch, I
shook the beach sand off.
July came to an end. I
was due at college for training camp the next week. Matt was due
at his university for training camp a week before that.
The night before he was
scheduled to leave, he called me up. It had been two weeks since
we'd last spoken.
"Well, tomorrow's the day, I
guess," he said.
"Yeah, I know," I said slowly.
Neither of us seemed to be able to continue.
Finally he said, "My mom's out
of town with her
job and she won't be back for a week. She's gonna fly up and see
me when I've gotten settled in for a week or so. We've already
said our goodbyes and there's nobody here to..."
"Look, I'm mostly loaded up,
just a few final things. I'm probably gonna leave around ten
tomorrow morning. Do you think you could--I mean, would you come
by early and spend a couple of hours with me, you know, help me pack
the last stuff, and just...I don't know...just...just kind of be here
when I leave?"
"Of course," I said quietly.
"I know it's early, but I..."
He fell silent again.
I said, "I'll come around
"I'd like that," he said.
"Matt," I said, jumping in
before he'd had a chance to say more, "I know what you feel and I've
already dealt with it. Let's leave it alone, bro. It doesn't
matter. We're movin' on. You don't owe me any explanation
or any words or anything, and it wouldn't change much anyway."
"I don't owe you?" he
said. I heard him take in a sharp breath.
After another suffocating pause, he
glad you're coming tomorrow."
"I'll see you then," I said,
and hung up.
We talked friendly and laughed
a lot that next morning; there were dim echoes of the old
days. But as I walked the final few items out to Matt's van, and
watched his room transform from a dwelling-place to a museum, a dark
cloud of regret descended on me. With every step I took, with every
item picked up and loaded into his van, with every trivial word
exchanged between us, I wanted to beg him to forgive me--forgive me for
loving him, forgive me for being someone who made him uncomfortable.
But it was too late. And
it was all a moot point. We were leaving the road we'd walked
together and were heading out on new--and separate--ones.
And anyway, I couldn't fix the
bad feelings he had about me just by wishing he didn't have them.
Over and over again during
those two hours, I tightened and tensed and held myself in check, in
control. I would not--could
not--lose it in front of Matt.
Finally the van was packed and
the hour had come. We closed his front door behind us and walked
toward his van.
As we stood by the van, he
shuffled his feet, stared at the ground, jingled the keys in his
pocket. Then, looking up at me, he said, "Well,..."
And suddenly, I knew, in a
horrible flash of insight, that I had been wrong.
All the conflict, all the
pain, all the waste; all the hatred for "not being like him": it had
never come from him; it had always come from me.
And, looking at him, I began
to have some comprehension of how he must have felt over the past year.
Ten years collapsed in ten
seconds, and as I stood there, looking at him, the scene merged with
one from a different time and place:
up at his face; his
steel-blue eyes locked onto mine and held us both there, frozen. There
was no sound, no movement, for what must have been forty-five seconds,
as his piercing eyes both took in my compassion and silently expressed
his own deep devastation.
We moved toward each other at
the same time and embraced stiffly, awkwardly. He slapped me on
the back, held the embrace for a bit, and then pulled away. He
smiled, wiped the corner of his left eye with a finger, and said, "I'll
e-mail you. You got my cell number. Or I'll
catch you on IM; you know, make sure you're studying.'"
"You know it," I said,
blinking back tears and laughing a little, "but I think it'll be the
other way around."
We smiled at each other
awkwardly. "I'll always be your friend, Andy," he said, looking
me in the eyes.
I couldn't meet his stare for
long. I looked down at the ground and said quietly, "I know."
And for the first time since
September, I believed it.
Which made it worse.
He climbed into the van and
rolled down the window. "Good-bye, Andy," he said.
"'Bye, Matt," I said. I
held my hand out to him; he gripped it tightly. Desperately.
I made myself let him go.
I stood in his driveway as he
backed out of it. Then I stepped out into the street and watched as his van
seemed to get smaller and smaller. Finally,
it disappeared from view altogether.
I walked slowly toward the
front door of his house and tried the handle. He'd forgotten to
I stepped in and slowly made
my way up to his room.
I stood in the doorway,
staring in, for a long time.
Then I walked in, went over to
and picked up the pillow he'd left behind. I pulled it tightly
against me, burying my face in it, breathing in his scent.
I took it with me as I turned
and walked away.
That night, lying on his
pillow, I dreamed of two young boys playing together.
Copyright 2005 by Adam Phillips
Well, here we are. This is the place I stopped writing last
year. Long-time readers know that Cross-Currents has undergone some
revision over the last couple of months. It's time for me to
start writing a new chapter, and
this year I'll try to get new chapters out a lot faster than I have in
It's been a long, strange trip, and I thank new and long-time readers
alike for years of email support, and in some cases, ongoing online
College looms ahead for Andy. I hope to have a new chapter ready
for you soon. You can email me at firstname.lastname@example.org, and
I'll do my best to reply.

domain: literature


text:
The suspect accused of setting a fire over the weekend at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo has been extradited from Fort Wayne, Ind. and is being held in the Wood County jail.
Randy Linn, 52, a trucker from St. Joe, Ind., is being held in lieu of $400,000 bond, Wood County Sheriff's Office deputies confirmed late today. He is scheduled to appear at 8 a.m. Thursday in Perrysburg Municipal Court on two counts of aggravated arson, and one count each of aggravated burglary and carrying a concealed weapon.
Mr. Linn, was transported today from the Allen County jail in Fort Wayne. He is accused of intentionally setting the mosque on fire Sunday. Federal and Ohio authorities named him as “the person of interest” captured by a surveillance camera outside the Islamic Center in Perrysburg Township during the fire on Sunday.
It’s not clear yet what the motive was in setting the fire.
Mr. Linn is a driver for Shambaugh & Son, a construction engineering services building headquartered in Fort Wayne. It also has an office in Perrysburg Township at 25559 Eckel Road — less than three miles from the mosque.
He was arrested at his workplace at about 3:30 p.m. in parking lot in the 7600 block of Opportunity Drive, Indiana authorities said. Shambaugh & Son headquarters are at 7614 Opportunity Drive in Fort Wayne.

domain: law


I installed a Sharp Shooter Supply trigger on my "new" 300 Win Mag.
Much better than the stock trigger in terms of safety at low pull weights, and offers pretty much the same adjustable features as the Timney trigger I used on my last "sniper" rifle.
The Timney was easier to install, the SSS trigger has more travel (which is a good thing for some shooters). The SSS trigger can be adjusted down to break like a glass rod, but I left maximum engagement (which equates to most trigger travel) for safety.
I like the simplicity of the Timney, but I like the the feel of the SSS just as good.
Bottom line up front? Between Timney and SSS buy the one you can get for cheaper.


text:
AMD has been doing a fantastic job of competing at the heights of CPUs.
However, while the GPUs have been cost-effective, nothing has really set out to challenge the heights of the powerful GeForce RTX series as of yet.
WCCFTech has revealed a source close to them that reports AMD will be releasing their new Zen 3 CPUs and RDNA 2 GPUs come October 2020. The same source says that the Zen 3-based Ryzen 4000 CPUs and the RDNA 2-based Radeon RX Navi 2x graphics cards would be announced prior to release a few months earlier, so users can look at August or September.
With this type of release, AMD will have a simultaneous GPU and CPU high performance platform for gamers looking to go all-in on a single brand.
Should the new GPUs prove to be competitors to the RTX, then NVIDIA may have to force a price drop in cards, or perhaps look at announcing their next series of consumer cards, the RTX 3000 series.
If that is the case, it could see a 40 percent increase on the 2080 Ti performance, according to other rumours.


text:
Government Cloud Market Size And Forecast
Government Cloud Market was valued at USD 20.52 Billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 52.70 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 13.5% from 2020 to 2027.
Factors such as growing digital transformation among industries, rising penetration of internet and mobile devices across the world, and increase in consumption of big data are the primary drivers fostering the market growth. The Global Government Cloud Market report provides a holistic evaluation of the market. The report offers comprehensive analysis of key segments, trends, drivers, restraints, competitive landscape, and factors that are playing a substantial role in the market.
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Global Government Cloud Market Definition
Cloud computing is transforming businesses across different industries by delivering hosted services through the internet with significant cost benefits. The private sector is already benefiting from cloud computing, and government organizations have started to exploit the technology. Cloud computing offers diverse advantages for governments. Government budget on ICT expenditure is significantly reduced with cloud computing, as the computing resources are outsourced to cloud providers. Also, calculation of expenses on ICT resources has become easy as the pay-per-use pricing model is used in cloud computing to charge the utilization of resources.
Governments also benefit from the reduced cost of maintenance of resources since the resources are shifted to the cloud provider. Cloud computing offers a simpler, scalable, and more flexible system as compared to conventional computing systems. These benefits offered by cloud computing are driving its demand in demand in government sector. The Cloud Computing technology provides an arrangement for the expandable data and computing power on the cloud directly activating the management by the user. The public sectors and agencies are benefited with cloud technology and maintain the equilibrium of economy and proficiency with reliability, security, and compliance. The flexibility and scalability of the services tend to increase operational effectiveness, improves the citizens’ services, with the power technology. It widely finds its application in government agencies such as intelligence and bureau, military, and other government platforms.
Government organizations are recognizing the advantages of information technology to increase operational efficiencies. They are also focusing on reducing the cost of IT ownership through cloud computing. Thus, efficient service delivery capability and cost saving are the major drivers of cloud computing adoption in government. Asset management, monitoring, and threat detection and prevention are some of the key Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions adopted by governments. Governments are also adopting cloud for storage, risk compliance management, disaster recovery, and identity access management applications.
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Global Government Cloud Market Overview
Factors such as growing digital transformation among industries, rising penetration of internet and mobile devices across the world, and increase in consumption of big data are the primary drivers fostering the market growth. Federal agencies and other government departments across the globe are realizing the importance of maintaining and controlling cloud data for continuity and compliance purposes.
The government cloud helps these agencies manage and store their data securely and efficiently. This results in enhanced and unified teams that can handle bigger projects at an effective cost. Cloud hosting services can be advantageous for government agencies and other small departments. These services can be rented for the computing power and data storage requirements, as often as needed, rather than incurring a one-time investment for procuring the servers and handling the ongoing expenses for maintaining the expensive data centers.
In addition, the government cloud provides greater computing capabilities when implementing disaster recovery solutions, as it enables government agencies to configure customized settings for backup, with regards to the data and application types, sequence, and backup location. It involves the replication of application and data on a virtual machine, and the data can be recovered automatically when a disruption occurs.
Furthermore, with the growth in the use of cloud, managing and securing multiple accounts via cloud is increasing at a fast pace. This has resulted in the increased adoption of IAM solutions. Earlier, organizations used to consider IAM as a capital expenditure, which was purchased and implemented on-premises. There was a huge cost structure associated with the successful implementation of IAM projects, which required months of rigorous work. However, the trend is now changing continuously, due to the growing cloud market. Implementing and accessing IAM solutions and services via cloud have become easier, due to the limited capital required for the initiation and the less time spent on implementation. With the growth of SMEs, the adoption of IAM solutions across organizations has also increased.
However, the lack of standardization in the regulatory policies is expected to hamper the growth of the market. Regulatory policies vary from country to country and organization to organization. Many countries do not have a consigned body to govern these policies. Therefore, the policies have to be regulated and implemented taking into account the regional factors, such as macroeconomic risk factors, along with the business requirements. Organizations have started implementing risk and compliance solutions along with audit management solutions to help overcome this restraint.
Global Government Cloud Market: Segmentation Analysis
The Global Government Cloud Market is Segmented based on Service Model, Component, and Geography.
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Based on Service Model, the market is bifurcated Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Among the mention service models, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) holds largest market size as it provides is the capability to transfer work to the cloud at the time of peak demand for on-premises systems. This helps users save their capital resource that may get used for the cost of additional servers. IaaS supports the government agencies and help them realize their cost savings and efficiencies while modernizing and expanding their IT capabilities with limited capital resources.
Government Cloud Market, By Component
Based on Component, the market is bifurcated into Solution, and Service. The services segment is expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period. The services segment includes integration and migration; training, consulting, and education; and support and maintenance. Lowering the cost, business agility, and business continuity, through a policy-driven and software-defined cloud, are the major driving factors, triggering government service organizations to shift to a cloud world.
Government Cloud Market, By Geography
• North America
• Asia Pacific
• Rest of the world
On the basis of regional analysis, the Global Government Cloud Market is classified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the world. North America is expected to hold the highest market share and dominate the Government Cloud Market during the forecast period. North America is the foremost potential market due to the presence of a large number of players offering government cloud solutions and services in this region. North America is the most mature region in the Government Cloud Market, as most of the large enterprises are located in this region.
Key Players in Government Cloud Market
The “Global Government Cloud Market” study report will provide a valuable insight with an emphasis on the global market including some of the major players such as HPE, IBM, Google, AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, and VMware.
Our market analysis also entails a section solely dedicated to such major players wherein our analysts provide an insight into the financial statements of all the major players, along with its product benchmarking and SWOT analysis. The competitive landscape section also includes key development strategies, market share and market ranking analysis of the above-mentioned players globally.
Global Government Cloud Market Report Scope
|Key Companies Profiled|
HPE, IBM, Google, AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, and VMware
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• Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market based on segmentation involving both economic as well as non-economic factors
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• Analysis by geography highlighting the consumption of the product/service in the region as well as indicating the factors that are affecting the market within each region
• Competitive landscape which incorporates the market ranking of the major players, along with new service/product launches, partnerships, business expansions and acquisitions in the past five years of companies profiled
• Extensive company profiles comprising of company overview, company insights, product benchmarking and SWOT analysis for the major market players
• The current as well as the future market outlook of the industry with respect to recent developments which involve growth opportunities and drivers as well as challenges and restraints of both emerging as well as developed regions
• Includes an in-depth analysis of the market of various perspectives through Porter’s five forces analysis
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domain: geography


text:
1 set of 2 bracelets from sea stone beads
These 2 pretty little beaded bracelets made from sea stones are a truly unique find. These small stones were found and collected by hand to make these bracelets real little treasures for your pleasure and pride. This true gift of nature is sure to seduce you. It will quickly become your favorite accessory that will accompany you with pleasure to your chic or casual outfits.
Beads from real sea stones, elastic
Diameter: 8 cm (without stretching the rubber band)


text:
Our dear friend Lee, has unfortunately been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her initial symptom of a lump appeared less than 2 months ago. Her mammogram showed an initial diagnosis of the tumor as “suspicious for malignancy” and subsequent ultrasound and core biopsy revealed Stage I Breast Cancer, with a size 1.5cm mass.
On August 31, 2018, Lee underwent surgical removal of her breast mass and is recovering well. Unfortunately, the actual malignant tissue excised during surgery was 5cm in size and pathology determined that Lee has Stage II Cancer.
The irony of Lee's disease is that she now finds herself in the shoes of the thousands of individuals whom she’s helped fight this same battle. Having worked her entire professional career in the medical field – as a CNA, CMA and CRC – Lee spends her days alongside the army of professionals who dedicate themselves to fighting cancer, improving patient outcomes, and most importantly caring for and supporting their patients.
As an honored and loved member of San Luis Obispo’s medical community, Lee has dedicated her 22 year long career to this field – most recently as a Clinical Research Coordinator where she plays a critical role in clinical trials that will ultimately provide for better care for cancer patients, and lead to greater prevention and remission of cancers.
Lee is the person you want on your team if you have cancer, but today, Lee needs our support.
While she is insured and has the Oncology "Dream Team" saving her life, not all costs are covered. According to the American Cancer Society, out of pocket expenses for insured breast cancer patients can range from $10,000 to $70,000. None of us could afford that huge financial burden without help.
Lee is a single mother and an exceedingly hard working professional who prides herself on being financially independent. That said, she lives "week-to-week" as many other professionals in this area do. She is not alone – please help Lee ease the burden of the expenses she’s incurring to fight the disease she is destined to beat.
"A Friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and gently allows you to grow". William Shakespeare .
. .. well said William, a perfect description of our Lee.
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When I first heard of the Greek rule that opinion polls could not be published in the last 2 weeks prior to an election, I thought that this was a rather good idea. As the election approaches, I am no longer so sure. Opinion polls can and obviously do influence the outcome of elections but is that all bad? When you see opinion polls until the very last day, it’s like having a second chance and being able to review one’s decision before casting the final vote irrevocably. You may rightfully want to give ND/PASOK a real lesson by voting for extremists but do you really want extremists in power?
What would be a desireable outcome? A recent tweet suggested that ND/PASOK should get a combined majority, form a coalition government and, sort of as a first act, disavow themselves from all their campaign rhetoric and continue on the road on which they had embarked with Lukas Papademos last November. Would appear quite reasonable but is that what the Greek people want?
As of now, I would consider the following as the most desirable result for Greece: one of the extreme sides (or both sides together if they decide to cooperate) should get exactly “50% minus 1” of the vote. That would get the point across to ND/PASOK that the Greek people have really had it but before they decide to tip the scale completely against the country’s future, they are willing to give the political establishment one last, one very last – really, one really very, very last chance.
If the political establishment did not get this point, then things would undoubtedly start taking care of themselves in Greece going forward (however one wishes to interpret that…).