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Amnesty: Syria crimes against humanity fueling black market
November 5, 2015 12:14:54 pm
Kasey Tuttle
The Syrian government's widespread and murky policies of disappearances have spawned a thriving market of bribery and exploitation, according to a report [text, PDF] released Thursday by Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website]. AI explained that tens of thousands of people in Syria have disappeared since 2011. These individuals were reportedly arrested, detained or abducted by the state or agents acting for the state. According to AI, these enforced disappearances have given rise to a black market in which families are paying hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars to find out the whereabouts of their loved ones or whether they are even still alive. These bribes have allegedly become a large part of the economy. Some families have reportedly sold their property or given up their entire life savings to find out the fate of their loved ones, sometimes even for false information. AI said those forcibly disappeared include peaceful opponents and those believed to be disloyal to the government. AI's research indicates that they are typically denied access to counsel, do not receive fair trials, and are subjected to torture and sexual violence.
Syria has faced repeated criticism for alleged human rights abuses. On Monday Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] stated that Syrian armed groups may be committing war crimes [JURIST report] after a video surfaced that showed cages holding multiple captured soldiers being transported by trucks. AI recently reported [press release] on the unlawful killing of their civilian population in Eastern Ghouta. AI also reported in October that US-backed Kurdish forces and other militant groups have been committing war crimes [JURIST report] in northern Syria in an effort to quash any sympathy or support for the Islamic State. AI stated that "they have maintained unlawful sieges, restricted humanitarian assistance deliveries, deliberately attacked civilians, and carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, arbitrary detentions, abductions and enforced disappearances."


While world religions have been "slow to jump on the [environmental] bandwagon", according to the Worldwatch Institute's Gary Gardner, they're making up for lost time.
The What would Jesus Drive? campaign has helped promote interest in hybrid cars, the UK ezine EcoIslam educates on Islamic conservationism, and campaigns like the Evangelical Climate Initiative (there is also a Jewish version) are urging compassion for the millions of people who "could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors".
In this video, Gary Gardner talked to us about Thai monks ordaining trees; the Ecumenical Patriarch; and why spiritual traditions are important in fighting global warming.


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Dividing the spoils
GDK 682: Dividing the spoils
Akley stared foolishly and gaped at the divine essences poured on the ground. He was absolutely stupefied.
Earth elite zombie, who emptied the gunny sack filled with divine essences on the ground, looked at Akley with a hostile gaze. It was as though he would pounce on Akley and tear him into pieces as soon as Han Shuo gave him the signal.
Han Shuo heaved a sigh of relief when he learned from earth elite zombie that metal elite zombie was alright. He crouched to sort out the divine essences piece by piece before he reported, "Earth divine essence - nine pieces. Wind - thirty-two pieces. Death - twelve pieces. Lightning - twenty-eight pieces. Destruction - sixteen pieces. Light - five pieces. Life - four pieces. Altogether that's a hundred and six pieces of divine essence!"
"They, they really are divine essences! You actually did it!" after a long while, Akley wore an overjoyed expression and cried out in surprise.
"Of the one hundred and six divine essences, my son and I will take seventy percent and you will take thirty percent, which is about thirty pieces. I'll let you have ten divine essences for each of the energy of destruction, wind, and lightning." Han Shuo raised his head before he continued to Akley, "Any objections?"
Akley understood that Han Shuo and his son gave the most work and labor in obtaining these divine essences. Aside from providing an address, he had practically contributed nothing to the success. On top of that, all along the journey, he had been relying on and troubled Han Shuo to preserve his life. He was lucky to have even taken thirty percent in the end.
Besides, given the current circumstances, even if Han Shuo wanted to take all the divine essence for himself, there was nothing that Akley could do to stop him.
"I don't have any objection with the allocation, but, since you don't cultivate in the edict of destruction, why don't you give all sixteen of the destruction divine essence to me? You can have all the wind and lightning divine essence. How about that?" Akley hesitated before he came up with a counter-proposal.
"That won't do. I need a few destruction divine essences as well. I have use for them!" Han Shuo rejected the counter-proposal resolutely and suggested, "You can exchange the twenty wind and lightning divine essences for crystal coins that would give you a footing on Elysium, or exchange them for more destruction divine essences. In short, you cannot have them all!"
"What use do you have for destruction divine essences?" Akley asked as he forced a smile. He had no clue why Han Shuo was so insistent on taking a portion of the destruction divine essences.
"Other than the element of death, I also cultivate in the edict of destruction. That's why I need those crystals as well!" Han Shuo calmly admitted as he exercised the energy of destruction in his avatar and released a destruction domain of divinity through his main body.
Akley was jolted as soon as the domain of divinity of destruction emerged. He again cried out in surprise, "You simultaneously cultivate in two energies?! If you do so, you will not attain the true pinnacle in any of the energies! How could you be so silly!"
Han Shuo had three souls that were connected but independent of each other, therefore he was immune to the issue that Akley described. Han Shuo smiled and shook his head before he replied, "You don't have to worry about this for me. I know what I'm doing!"
As he spoke, Han Shuo took the initiative to help Akley divide his portion of the divine essence. Han Shuo was rather generous and did not select just the smallest pieces of divine essence for Akley.
Han Shuo selected thirty pieces of divine essence of destruction, wind, and lightning out from the bunch and pushed them to Akley, "This is the share that you deserve. With these ten pieces of destruction divine essence, I believe you could at least attain late-stage lowgod realm. I wish you the best of luck in your quest of avenging your master's death!" Han Shuo said to Akley in a deep voice.
Akley forced a smile and put away the thirty divine essences. He sighed, "What a pity, what a pity that it's not a hundred and six destruction divine essences. Just ten pieces of it isn't nearly enough for a substantial breakthrough!"
"Be content with what you have. The consumption of divine essence is the safest way of increasing the divine energy you have. Ten pieces of divine essence is considered very precious treasure on Elysium. Keep it safe and find a safe place to absorb the energy in them," Han Shuo reminded.
"Where are you heading?" Akley could tell that the two would soon part ways. After having interacted with Han Shuo for some days, Akley had a pretty positive feeling about Han Shuo. That was why he asked where Han Shuo planned to go.
After all, had it been another person, at this point in time, the person would likely have attempted to murder Akley in order to hog all the divine essence. After carefully thinking, Akley felt that although Han Shuo was a little overbearing, at least he wasn't hypocritical in his conducts and was a trustworthy friend.
"I'm going to the City of Shadows. But it's hard to say if I will remain in that city in the future." Han Shuo too found Akley somewhat admirable. Otherwise, he wouldn't have helped Akley shoulder the fees of fifty blue crystal coins for his divine tablet in the beginning.
"Take care. I will find somewhere nearby to recover my strength and absorb the destruction divine essences. Perhaps I might search for you at the City of Shadows once I'm through!"
"No problem. Here's five purple crystal coins. Use it well. Do not reveal your divine essences unless you have absolute trust in the buyer. You'll put yourself in jeopardy otherwise!" Han Shuo was concerned that without some crystal coins to use, Akley might attempt to sell the wind and lightning divine essences for crystal coins, arouse the greed of people around him, and end up being murdered.
"Thanks a lot. I know what to do - I won't attract danger to myself. If I choose to sell the divine essence, I will only do so at the Dominion of Space or Destiny. I wouldn't be so reckless to reveal the crystals and take the chance of being murdered," Akley knew what Han Shuo was worried about and smilingly assured.
"Well if you say so, I can be at ease. So long!" Han Shuo pointed Akley to a concealed area before waving his hand and bidding him farewell.
After going a few miles away from Akley, earth elite zombie and metal elite zombie both stood still before Han Shuo. After some communication, Han Shuo learned that metal elite zombie was unscathed. Only then was he at ease with sending the two back to the Netherworld.
"Father, this world is more suitable for our cultivation!" earth elite zombie suddenly said to Han Shuo.
Han Shuo stared blankly for a moment before he asked, "What do you mean?"
"The elements in this world are more intense than anywhere else, and it is suitable for any high-level lifeforms to live in. The Netherworld is only rich in the element of death while other elements were not even near the levels of father's former world. The five of us cannot grow at the fastest rate if we stay in the Netherworld," earth elite zombie explained.
Han Shuo began to contemplate in silence for a long while before he said, "Except for Little Metal, the four of you are on the verge of becoming gods. You will all stay in the Netherworld before actually becoming gods. We will discuss this in detail after you have all formed divine souls."
"Understood!" Earth elite zombie nodded his head in a docile manner. Then, he looked at Han Shuo with pleading eyes and asked, "Father, please keep those earth divine essences for me! I will be able to absorb them after I form a divine soul and a divine body!"
"Don't worry, I'm saving it all for you!" Han Shuo was amused as he inwardly thought, These little ones are getting greedier and greedier!
"You must keep it for me. I will fully comprehend that old dragon's divine soul very soon!" earth elite zombie exhorted Han Shuo yet again as though he was afraid that Han Shuo would lose those earth divine essences somehow.
"Don't worry, they're in safe hands!" Han Shuo assured him smilingly and proceeded to send both earth and metal elite zombies back to the Netherworld.
After earth and metal elite zombies returned, Han Shuo flew towards the City of Shadows following the directions indicated by a villager.
Han Shuo's mind was rather burdened with indecision during the journey there. Based on earth elite zombie's words, the five elite zombies could grow better on Elysium. However, of the five, four of them cultivated in the energy of earth, life, fire, and water. These energies were incompatible with the Dominions of the Calamity Overgods where Han Shuo was. Were they to stay with Han Shuo, they would attract trouble sooner or later.
However, Han Shuo could not be completely at ease letting them off to the four respective Dominions separately. This plane was, after all, the Plane of Gods. There were all kinds of mighty gods all around. Han Shuo was concerned about their safety.
With that, Han Shuo was at a total loss for what to do. He had chosen to stand in the camp of the Calamity Overgods. If others were to discover his relationship with earth and wood elite zombie who cultivated in the earth element and life edict, he would be in great danger and might even be taken as a traitor by the Calamity Church.
Ugh, forget about it. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'll just worry about it later in time! When Han Shuo could not make up his mind, he decided to just stop thinking about it. He hurried on with his journey to the City of Shadows.
The Dominion of Darkness was many times larger than Profound Continent. The City of Shadows was one of the five major cities in the Dominion of Darkness. Although it was called a city, it in fact contained several dozen smaller cities and forts of various sizes. A fort there could be bigger than the territories of the Lancelot Empire.
When Han Shuo entered the sphere of influence of the City of Shadows, he discovered that there was still a long journey ahead to the actual City of Shadows.
There were small villages all around its perimeter. After passing through thirteen or so villages, Han Shuo arrived at a fort in the perimeter of the City of Shadows.
But before Han Shuo even got close to the fort, six tall boundary towers that reached through the clouds entered his eyes. The apex of the barrier towers was glowing with deep dark radiance. They took the shape of a six-tipped star which constantly spread a powerful boundary around the fort.
Without a divine tablet and crystal coins, it was impossible to enter the fort.
Divine guards could be found stationed in the gaps between the boundary towers. Their figures were blended with darkness and their appearances indistinguishable as they coldly observed the movements of all those walking into the fort.
Han Shuo found himself mixed among a crowd of gods cultivating in the energy of darkness, death, and destruction heading to the fort. After carefully observing his surroundings, Han Shuo discovered the presence of gods who cultivated in other energy like space, earth, and fire. It appeared that the Dominion of Darkness actually did allow gods of other energies to enter.
After a moment of careful observation and listening, Han Shuo learned that, with the exception of gods who cultivated in the edict of life and element of light, all other gods were allowed entry. This was because the Calamity Overgods were eternal opponents of the Overgods of Light and Life.
(Next chapter will be released on 18th May, around 4am GMT+8, but can't be sure it will be released on time. Do check on our discord for any delay announcement)
Like what you're reading? Consider supporting me on patreon to keep more coming!

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Melissa Martinelli
Actor | Los Angeles
BOOKED! The role of Ella Romero in the play 'Butterflies,' premiering at the Sherry Theater.
Currently on post-production for the riveting film, 'Lead Right,' which Melissa co-wrote, produced and starred in.
Screening at Harmony Gold Theater for 'Transition,' an inspiring film which Melissa stars in as Paula; a persistent, young woman who protects and fights for what she believes in, It won the Jury Prize Runner Up!


As the UK's largest manufacturer of flexible braided hoses, Hydralectric designs, develops and manufactures premium quality flexible hose assemblies for OEMs, distributors, and merchants – producing over 2.1 million flexible hoses in 2016. We also supply a range of complementary products including modified added-value solenoid valves, pumps and water controls.
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Based in Byfleet, Surrey, Hydralectric is proud to be a member of the Made in Britain campaign and EEF – The Manufacturers Association. Hydralectric is ISO 9001:2015 accredited for Quality Management and OHSAS 18001: 2007 accredited. ISO 9001 demonstrates Hydralectric's commitment to consistency and improvement, which we believe is a contributing factor to why so many of our clients have continued to work with us for many years.


The PD Sensor is a 4-wire, analog photo sensor providing a light level input into PLC Buildings' S-Series, LC3X lighting controls, and other building automation systems. The PD has six models, each used in various locations around buildings and other specialty applications.
Indoor sensor used in offices and classrooms.
Each sensor has a different range and focus of the light being measured.


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It's splashy, somewhat random paint scheme doesn't appear that cohesive. But that's because you're not watching it tear past you at night. It's taped-up livery was made of reflective 3M material—photographed at night, it was all livery and no car.


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Desterro de Entre Rios is een gemeente in de Braziliaanse deelstaat Minas Gerais. De gemeente telt 7.173 inwoners (schatting 2009).

Gemeente in Minas Gerais

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The Concept Design Hostel is the only Hostel Design in Foz de Iguazu, Land of Waterfalls, introducing a new concept of Hostel. With its eco-sustainable architecture and modern decoration, offers greater comfort to the guests who come from all over the world.
Trilingual receptionists and Wi-Fi in all areas of the hostel. The common space used by all and provides an optimal sharing new experiences of harmony and friendship between our travelers trademark. It has cable TV and reading room, a gourmet kitchen available to guests, swimming pool and bar with typical Brazilian drinks and various parts of the world, theme parties around the pool with an extensive library of music that prepare our guests for the night life of the Triple Frontier.
Spacious, comfortable, well decorated and with high quality rooms. It has beds with foam mattresses and bedding culled typical four-star hotels, a differential between Foz do Iguacu Hostels, plus lamps and individual outlets at the head of the beds and lockers.
Using public transport, we are 25 minutes from the International Terminal and 15 minutes from Foz do Iguaçu Airport, 18 minutes from the Falls and just 10 minutes walk from the main bars and pubs of the city.
Sightseeing packages in the region are sold at the reception.


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Q: Cloudflare optimization techniques (free plan) OK, so I'm trying to benefit from the CF's free plan and squeeze as much as I can out of it. The main goal is to get the site served from the CF cache so it will load faster in the browser, if only for the first visit and search engines. It is a Wordpress so it can be a little slower than other sites.
So, to have CF cache properly I have set the following rules. You probably know that under the free plan 3 is the maximum:
https://example.com/wp-content/*
Browser Cache TTL: a year, Cache Level: Cache Everything, Edge Cache TTL: a month
https://example.com/wp-admin/*
Security Level: High, Cache Level: Bypass, Disable Apps, Disable Performance
https://example.com/*
Auto Minify: HTML, CSS & JS, Browser Cache TTL: 30 minutes, Cache Level: No Query String, Edge Cache TTL: 2 hours, Email Obfuscation: On, Automatic HTTPS Rewrites: On

Exactly in this order. These should allow CF to cache the files stored in the wp-content (uploads etc) for the maximum amount of time, then ignore and bypass the wp-admin and finally serve all the others (products in my case, blog articles, pages and so on) from its cache, although these should have a shorter time. I've also set the caching level in the Cloudflare dashboard to 'No query string'.
So far CF caches all the above and first time visitors or search engines should get a super fast page.
Next, I've added the following in the site's footer:
<script>jQuery(document).ready(function(){var e="?"+(new Date).getTime();jQuery("a").each(function(){jQuery(this).attr("href",jQuery(this).attr("href")+e)})})</script>

This script appends the current date to all links on the page. By doing this I want the visitor to get the latest version of the page (ie from my server), not the one stored by CF, because CF should not cache ULRs such as https://example.com/samplepage?234523445345 as it was instructed previously, in both the cache settings and the page rules.
Now, what I'm worried about is CF caching pages belonging to logged in members, such as account details. While the string javascript does work and the members would click a link such as /account?23456456 and therefore the page should not get cached, I have to wonder 'what if?'.
So, is there any better way to achieve what I am trying to (fast loading without caching members pages and sensitive details, such as shopping cart)? Or is this the maximum I can get out of the free plan?

A: In your case. Completely wordpress site? It is really very simple than other platforms to optimise. A new service called. Automatic Platform optimisation (APO). enable this in your cloudflare and install this in your wordpress plugin. Then connect the cloudflare to wordpress through APO.. And try to cache everything from your origin server. This will reduce the TTFB and RTT. This two will defenitely satisfy your site performance and speed.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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← The Nuremberg Rituals – An invocation of Mars
The New Era of Silent Movies, Part II →
The New Era of Silent Movies, Part I
'The Testament of Dr Mabuse' (1932), dir: Fritz Lang
"There's so many great films that you feel like you've seen everything, but then you crack open a vault of amazing stuff." Rob Zombie
The recent release of several fully restored classic films from the 1920s on Blu-ray suggests that silent movies are no longer a niche market for the cineast and art house audience, but are a core element of the DVD retail market with an increasing share of disc sales. And with sell-out screenings for the recent theatrical reissue of the influential German expressionist classic 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' (1920), F. W. Murnau's iconic 'Nosferatu' (1922), Buster Keaton's comic masterpiece 'The General' (1926), Raoul Walsh' opulent 'The Thief of Bagdad' (1924), and Fritz Lang's dystopian SF epic 'Metropolis' (1927), silent cinema appears to be enjoying a real revival.
Doubtless the critical and commercial success of Michel Hazanavicius' 'The Artist' (2011) and Martin Scorsese's 'Hugo' (2011), both multi-Academy Award-winning homages to the silent era, have helped revive interest in early cinema and made modern audiences more receptive to watching films from the pre-talkie era, provided these are presented in high-definition with newly recorded digital scores.
The making of 'Faust'
When cinema goers and home theatre viewers are given the opportunity to see such seminal films as Murnau's supernatural fantasy 'Faust' (1926), Pabst's sensual tragedy 'Pandora's Box' (1929) with the delectable Louise Brooks, or Carl Theodor Dreyer's harrowing 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928) in pristine quality, they soon shake off the image most of us have of silent movies as quaint museum pieces cranked out in the primitive, rather than pioneering days of cinema. It is a misconception which can be blamed on the glut of cheap Public Domain discs which are invariably taken from 16mm prints played at the incorrect speed until every action scene resembles a chase sequence with the Keystone cops. These flickering third of fourth generation Xerox quality copies have been the bane of film buffs for decades and are in stark contrast to those titles released by early cinema specialists Kino, Eureka, MK2 and Cohen Classics, all of whom are committed to preserving and presenting classic films the way they were meant to be seen.
"I always loved silent movies… It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling." Michel Hazanavicius
Harold Lloyd in 'Safety Last!' (1932)
As every film buff knows silent films were never silent. When prestige pictures were screened in the more upmarket Picture Palaces they would be accompanied by a full piece orchestra performing an original score. In smaller theatres a small ensemble would play a selection of classical pieces or adaptations of popular songs of the day. In the more modest picture houses a solo pianist or organist would often improvise an accompaniment. All of these permutations have been utilized for the Blu-ray and standard DVD releases and can greatly enhance the movie, or detract from it as anyone who has suffered the cheesy organ or cheap synthesizer accompaniment on Public Domain releases will attest. But when a composer who is sympathetic to the medium is commissioned to provide a new score the combination of music and image can create an unforgettable experience.
'The Thief of Bagdad' (1924)
Carl Davis' exotic score for 'The Thief of Bagdad', which uses motifs from Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade' and was originally composedfor a screening during the Thames Silents season back in the 1980s, and Robert Israel's ragtime style solo piano accompaniment to Harold Lloyd's films are proof of that.
"The silent era was the richest in the cinema's history." Kevin Brownlow (author of 'Hollywood – The Pioneers')
So why should you watch black and white silent movies after you've invested a small fortune in a superlarge Full HD flat screen TV and 5.1 Home Cinema set up with floor rumbling subwoofers?
Quite simply, the best silent movies are as thrilling, engrossing and entertaining as anything being made today. Ask anyone who has seen the pin-sharp frame-by-frame 4K restoration of Keaton's 'The General', the refurbished 'Caligari' in a glorious high-def edition, or the spruced up 'Metropolis' (1927) after it had been given a 4K digital makeover and restored to near its original length with 25 minutes of rediscovered and reinstated footage. Lang's masterpiece had been subjected to extensive cuts by the studio, UFA, immediately after its lukewarm reception at the Berlin premiere and the American print had been insensitively edited by the distributors so that the meaning of the film was altered and the significance of key scenes were rendered incomprehensible to US audiences. Now it can finally be seen as its director intended.
'Metropolis' (1927), dir: Fritz Lang
Such extensive restoration is very costly in terms of both time and money, but the Murnau Film Foundation and the Cohen Media Group evidently believe that they have an obligation to preserve our cultural heritage and are confident that their considerable investment will be recouped through the sales of DVDs and selective theatrical screenings. 'Metropolis' took a year of intensive work at a cost of 600,000 euros ($840,000) and 'Caligari' is said to have taken two years to refurbish, during which the original camera negative was subjected to a chemical clean up to remove the patina of dirt and perforation damage was repaired to ensure stability of the image. Once they had a new working print, it could then be digitally processed to repair or replace damaged and missing frames, erase scratches and fix other distracting imperfections. 'Caligari' posed a particularly difficult problem as it had 67 incomplete scenes, each with between 20 and 40 missing frames, causing breaks in continuity and disruptive jumps which have been the plague many silent films. These frames had to be digitally recreated using information from preceding and subsequent frames. 'Caligari' restorer Anke Wilkening described this as a "very complex process," but one which produced a new digital master that she considered to be a "quantum leap" in quality. "We have all the details in the frames, so all the shades of gray are there, there is detail in the faces and that of course also means that the movie no longer has this appearance of being a dusty old film."
Read: The New Era of Silent Film Part II and Part III (feat. essential filmography, bibliography and documentaries)
Louise Brooks in 'Pandora's Box' (1929)
*Rob Zombie quote via avclub.com
Posted on December 7, 2014, in films & movies, silent films and tagged Blu-ray, Buster Keaton, Caligari, Carl Davis, cinema, Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari, Dr Faustus, Dr Mabuse, DVD, Expressionist film, films, Fritz Lang, Harold Lloyd, Louise Brooks, Metropolis, movies, Murnau, Nosferatu, silent cinema, silent movies, The General, The Thief of Bagdad. Bookmark the permalink.	Leave a comment.


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The Franciscan Embrace of 'the Other'
Last updated: 03 October 2022 19:35
Created: 03 October 2022 18:51
Describing the early experience of St. Francis as his former friends struggled to understand the change in him, Henri d'Avranches describes his outreach to the lepers:
What spread his good name in the first place was his patience
In virtue of which he is given the care of the lepers, no one
Was more zealous than he in looking after them, even if
At one time he could not bear to watch their houses even
At a distance. Now he makes beds, wipes away venom, soothes ulcers,
Touches mouths, washes feet, strokes corroding,
rotten limbs,
And forces to the task his fugitive feelings.
—The Versified Life of St. Francis, by Henri d'Avranches, 125, 126 (see p. 456 in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume 1)
It is easy for us to romanticize this early experience of Francis—his first embrace of a leper. We speak of it often as emblematic of dramatic change in a person seeking to know Christ, to live by the Gospel's injunction. Given the lack of experience of most modern people with the experience of Hansen's disease (leprosy), it becomes hard to truly imagine the kind of courage and self-control that serving such sufferers entails.
D'Avranches makes sure that the reader does not miss the radical impact of this change in Francis. It is described in terms that evoke emotional responses. He wants us to imagine the revulsion, the fear, the sensual impact of the work of nursing these victims. And, in doing so, he allows us to then imagine the power of the grace of Christ—the gift of conversion—that drives a man like Francis to such a change of behavior and sensibility. And this change will stay with him all his life. As he descends from La Verna and the extraordinary mystical encounter with the crucified Christ in the stigmata, he expresses a desire to return to his care of the lepers!
The call to enter into the world of "the other" contains a costly component. Moving from accepted bias, taboos, and prejudices is not an easy step.
Often such taboos are reinforced by laws of both Church and state. They are firmly implanted in a culture or society's conscious and unconscious mindset. While a person can "study" his or her way to a new understanding of "the other," often it requires more than intellectual acceptance of a new position. The movement from understanding to action and advocacy is a movement of grace. This profound understanding of the way of Christian conversion of life was a bedrock for the leaders of early civil rights activity. If today's leaders of new social movements do not appeal to such faith-based beliefs, they nonetheless invite us to new moments of conversion, new responses to changes in our capacity to be inclusive of persons and identities that not so long ago were considered outside acceptable norms.
The very first name that Francis and his companions adopted was that of penitents. Too often we reduce the notion of penance, of being penitents to actions that involve confession of wrongdoing, enacting tough disciplines to move from vice to virtue such as fasting, self-denial, and other actions that involve giving up something appealing. Francis led the recovery of a biblical understanding of penance as the root conversion that signals entrance into the following of Christ. It is the response to the call that opens the public preaching of Jesus: "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). It is a profound reorienting of one's way of living that leads to new demands—often unexpected consequences of being part of the community of disciples.
So, we share the wisdom of our authors, and we pray for the gift to believe that the Gospel invites us to new and tough choices. Yet, these choices are the path of life for all disciples, even we who struggle to match the ancient creeds to the newest crises of our times.
This article first appeared in St. Anthony Messenger magazine (June-July 2022) and is reprinted with permission of Franciscan Media. All rights reserved.
Franciscan Saints
Margaret Carney
Margaret Carney, OSF, is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities and is a teacher of Franciscan history and spirituality. She continues to serve as a lecturer and leader for Catholic higher education and Franciscan organizations in the United States. She is president emerita of St. Bonaventure University.
St. John Capistran: Apostle of Europe
Franciscan Zoom Lecture Series 2022-2023
Going Home Like a Shooting Star: Thea Bowman's Journey to Sainthood
Examine the Crucified Christ: Franciscan ZOOM Lecture
Saint Clare of Assisi: Words of Wisdom
Blessed Frédéric Janssoone: "God's peddler"
Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Drawing from Franciscan Sources
Saint Mary Magdalene: Beloved Disciple and Apostle of the Apostles
Saint Bonaventure: Offering Us Light and Comfort


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Here's Why James Gunn Didn't Want To Steer The Wheel of "Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3"
It's hard to disagree with the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy has been and will definitely the juggernaut of Marvel Cinematic Universe forever because of the impact it made on people. With a strong fan-following with them Guardians of the Galaxy as it is the third-highest-grossing film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, behind just The Avengers and Iron Man 3 and collected a worldwide total of $773.3 million. But, despite being such a huge hit Guardians of the Galaxy has been in headlines for some time now with some worrying reasons as James Gunn has been sacked by the MCU with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hanging on a thread.
It's not a secret that James Gunn felt hesitant while saying yes to the MCU for the Guardians of the Galaxy as the director revealed at a panel in May of 2017, that he almost turned down the project as he thought it's not a good idea and one of the main reason was the inclusion of Rocket Raccoon in the movie as Gunn found it funny to have a little raccoon in the middle of The Avengers. But, in the later stages, Gunn was told about the emotional influence of the character and was used afterward by Gunn in the same but in a manner in the movies.
As we all know, Guardians of the Galaxy earned a lot of praise from the critics and Gunn was praised heavily for his remarkable job with the superheroes. But, it was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which started some kind of frustration or too much pressure on the head of the director. Just before Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2 arrived in theaters, the director said that
"Right now I really am just concerned with doing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I'm not sure what I'm going to do after this…Marvel has talked to me about continuing. I'm not sure if that's what I want to do or if that's not what I want to do."
It wasn't the first time that Gunn has shown flashes of not being able to continue his journey with the Marvel as in July 2016, almost a year before Guardians Vol. 2 came out, there was much talk that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would be hiring a new director. With Gunn, also pointing towards the same situation and delivering comments like:
"I'm not sure whether I'm going to do Vol 3. This one (Guardian Vol. 2) was more emotionally exhausting."
All the speculations of him leaving the director's chair for someone else when he admitted that killing off the character of Yondu (Michael Rooker) was just too much for him as both are very close friends and working ahead without him is just a lot for Gunn as he explains,
"Let me tell you there was nothing harder for me than the choice to kill Yondu in this movie. Michael Rooker, for all the crap I give him, is one of my closest friends in the world and the last thing I wanted to do was to make a movie without Rooker in the future. I almost didn't do Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 because there was no Michael Rooker in it and I couldn't see making the movie without him. He means that much to me and I love him that much."
So, with all these reasons on the desk Guardians of the Galaxy fans will surely be in a state of relief that a director with a feeling of not making the movie will surely make the movie a bad one. Now, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 left without a director is going to be a state for some months as Disney is in no rush to find the replacement for the big franchise. But, no matter what has happened in the past James Gunn will always have a room in the hearts of Marvel fans as he gave them two amazing unexpected hits with alien creatures in it and has provided a stature to the Guardians in Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Rishabh Naudiyal
"Writing is one of my strengths and all I can say is that I observe things and try my best in order to convert them into words without the pressure of satisfying people's demands."
10 Most Popular Orphan Characters in Movies
10 Most Expensive CGI Movies With Budgets That Could Rival The GDP of a Small Country
10 Best Parental Figures to Harry Ranked
Robert Downey Jr. Isn't Amused About His Black Widow Cameo
By Rishabh Naudiyal
Spider-Man: Far From Home First Reactions Say It's The BEST Spidey Movie Ever
Avengers: Endgame Getting A Re-Release With Bonus Footage And Post Credits Scene
'Justice League' Star Ray Fisher Wants to Play 'Blade' in The MCU
New Spider-Man: Far From Home Clip Shows Mysterio Explaining The Elementals
Supergirl Movie Rumored to be Set in the Same Universe as Matt Reeves' The Batman


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief executive of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) said Thursday that the biggest U.S. drug store chain was pressing on with its purchase of smaller Rite Aid Corp (RAD.N), which was announced in October 2015 and has not closed.
Rite Aid Corp said on Dec. 20 that it would sell 865 stores to Fred's Inc (FRED.O) for $950 million to satisfy antitrust concerns on the deal, which was valued at $9.4 billion when it was announced in October 2015.
The Federal Trade Commission is assessing the proposed merger to ensure it complies with antitrust law.
"During the year, we also continued in our effort to get regulatory approval for our acquisition," said Stefano Pessina, Walgreens Boots Alliance chief executive, at an annual shareholders meeting in New York City.
Pessina declined to detail issues raised in the review: "The only thing I can repeat is that we are actively engaged in dialogue with the FTC and we are doing everything we can to support their work," he said.
Pessina said Walgreens was also talking to Rite Aid. "These discussions include taking into account anything required to gain approval for the transaction," he said.
It could take two months for the agency to assess a proposed divestiture of that size since it would look at the proposed sales, store by store, and in detail, said David Balto, a former FTC official now in private practice.
"Retail market divestitures are very complex. It's unrealistic to assume that they could get through a divestiture that's this significant in a few weeks," said Balto.
The purchase is a big expansion for Fred's. The chain has more than 650 discount stores in the southeastern United States with 350 pharmacies, according to its website.
Walgreens has 13,200 stores, nearly 60 percent of which are in the United States, while Rite Aid has 4,570 stores in the United States.
The FTC may be doubly careful after it was stung by the failure of an earlier retail divestiture. It allowed regional grocer Haggen to buy 146 stores as part of a deal to allow Albertsons to buy Safeway in early 2015, only to have Haggen file for bankruptcy that same year. Albertsons bought dozens of the stores.
The FTC is also in transition. President Donald Trump named Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen the acting chair on Wednesday. Another commissioner, former Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, leaves early next month.


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Q: Get url from file uploaded in Media Library I have a file called Portfolio.zip in my Media Library which will always have this name.
Now in my page template I need the url to this file. I can achieve this via his id : wp_get_attachment_url( $attachment_id ); but I would like to get the URL by the name "Portfolio.zip" as I know for sure this will always be the same.
My Code:

        <a id="download" class="vc_general vc_btn3 vc_btn3-size-md vc_btn3-shape-rounded vc_btn3-style-modern vc_btn3-color-grey"
                    href="<?php echo wp_get_attachment_url( 2582 ); ?>" title="Download Portfolio">Download My Portfolio

Any Ideas?
Grts,
Nanou

A: If understand your question correctly, I think this can get the job done. Use get_attachment_link instead of wp_get_attachment_url and then echo the title.
<?php
 $attachment_id = 2582;
 $attachment_page = get_attachment_link( $attachment_id );
?>
<a href="<?php echo $attachment_page; ?>"><?php echo get_the_title($attachment_id ); ?>


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Retail Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant
College Place, Washington
Seeking a Family Medicine nurse practitioner or physician assistant to join Providence Express Care's College Place clinic located near Walla Walla, Washington. Ideal candidate will be collaborative, motivated and have a passion for practice building and creating more convenient access to health care. Join a dedicated and compassionate team of providers and enjoy an excellent work-life balance in the friendly community of College Place, WA.
Full-time position; highly desirable shift-based schedule, consistent clinic hours, and scheduled appointments
Competitive compensation; comprehensive benefits
At least two years' clinical experience in Primary Care, Urgent Care or Emergency Medicine preferred
Responsibilities will include in-person patient visits, with the potential for virtual visits
Providence Express Care includes our retail clinics, virtual and home service lines, all dedicated to helping patients conveniently access care. Our innovative models allow patients to see a clinician in person, from an audio visual capable device, or in their home for a variety of medical concerns. By leveraging the most advanced digital tools on the market and backed by the strength of our integrated health care system, we're offering patients on-demand care from providers who know health.
In sunny southeast Washington, Walla Walla is a city where scenic beauty, western history and outdoor adventure blend with small town friendliness, taste-tempting restaurants and more than 140 local wineries. The city has several public parks, theatres, galleries and boutiques to peruse year-round. From the scenic beauty of the Blue Mountains to the educational opportunities of Whitman College and Walla Walla University, Walla Walla has opportunities and entertainment for all ages.
Providence Health & Services (PH&S) offers a comprehensive range of health and social services at more than 20 hospitals, 400 clinics and hundreds of locally driven programs across four western states: Alaska, Montana, Oregon and Washington. With multiple Magnet and Pathway to Excellence designations, PH&S is committed to its 100-year mission of serving the poor and vulnerable by providing compassionate care to all who need its services.
Facility Name: Express Care - Providence (WA)
Location Name: Walla Walla, WA
Brand Name: Providence Health & Services
Provider Profession: Physician Assistant
Provider Profession: Nurse Practitioner
Medical Specialty: Emergency Medicine
Job Setting: Urgent Care Clinic
NP: Yes
IS: Yes
Mary Kay Moreau
About Providence Health & Services


We strive to have a website that is accessible to individuals with disabilities. However, if you encounter any difficulty in using our site, please contact us at reservations@innatthewaterpark.com. We will work with you to ensure that you have full access to the information available to the public on our site. Our customer service agents are also available at (409) 203-4137 to provide you with assistance with and information about our hotels and programs.


Kommentarfeltet er en standard WordPress funktion som kan slå fra eller til efter behov. Der er mulighed for at tilføje to afkrydsningsboxe under kommentarfeltet. De dannes af et plugin, der hedder Jetpack.
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As I've written previously, one of my fondest undergraduate memories was attending a special 70mm screening of Tim Burton's Batman, with Nick Smith, at the Odeon Bournemouth.
So, it's only justice that my scholarly partner-in-crime dons the dark detective's cowl for The Batman. The Dark Knight Trilogy casts a long shadow... How does this latest incarnation compare?
Guest post by Nick Smith
The Batman has been a long time coming. It was worth the wait.
The DC Comics adaptation was heralded when Ben Affleck assembled the Justice League and the title was confirmed in 2016. The movie was teased over the past couple of years, with cast/crew interviews and trailers. Ultimately, Robert Pattinson (Tenet) would replace Affleck in the titular role. Meanwhile, Zack Snyder's Justice League is a touching tribute to familial love and loss.
It wasn't anybody's fault – COVID-19 slowed down production, with multiple breaks in filming. Sadly, one crew member died after becoming infected. This grim event shrouded an already gloomy movie, which blends Denny O'Neil's dark knight detective, David Fincher's serial killer thriller Se7eN, and the relative realism of Batman: Year One.
In this lengthy tale, Bruce Wayne is two years into his vigilantism. He's a haunted emo kid who sulks and sneers at his father figure, Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis), while coming to terms with the brutal death of Thomas and Martha Wayne. Thankfully, we're not subjected to yet another rerun of their murders, which has been depicted innumerable times in comics, animation and live-action films.
Yet the tragic event permeates this movie down to the final turning point, where another orphan compares his fate to Bruce's.
Pattinson gives an enthrallingly broody performance as the driven rich kid Bruce, keeping the pouty facial expressions that made him infamous in The Twilight Saga to a minimum. Zoe Kravitz, who previously voiced Catwoman in The LEGO Batman Movie, reprises her role with enthusiasm and makes her character's soap opera-worthy lineage plausible. The Batsuit, vehicles and Batcave help to make their environment as authentic as possible.
The real standout characters are James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and Alfred Pennyworth. The actors flesh out these two-dimensional DC characters and make them seem as if they've been breathing in the shadows of this grimy fictional city all their lives, weary yet still hopeful thanks to the Batman.
Beyond keeping it real, though, director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, War for the Planet of the Apes) has a palpable love for the Batman's grittily woven world. His joyful response to getting the opportunity to play in Gotham's gutters shows through in the action scenes, the tone of the film and even in the music from Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino (Spider-Man: No Way Home), which occasionally echoes the '60s TV show theme.
Allowing Pattinson to react like a human being to dangerous circumstances, rather than an invulnerable hero, Reeves entertains the audience while keeping up a sense of danger and doom. He pulls off this tough balancing act so well he'd put the Flying Graysons to shame.
Affleck portrayed an older, more cynical Bruce Wayne and it would be great to get beyond the hero's early years. But in the meantime, it's a treat to mire ourselves in the devilish, demented Gotham of The Batman.
Have you seen The Batman? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Labels: batman, dc comics, hbo max, justice league, review, warner bros


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Arizona Cardinals: Time Running Out To Capitalize On Kyler Murray's Rookie Deal
Mason Rudolph, Dwayne Haskins Atop Pittsburgh Steelers' Quarterback Depth Chart — For Now
How Lonzo Ball's Surgery Affects Chicago Bulls Ahead Of 2022 NBA Trade Deadline
Minnesota Vikings Have The Roster To Attract A Top Coach, But Key Decision At Quarterback Looms
After Successful Surgery, What's Next For Browns' Baker Mayfield?
Lexi Thompson Looks To Start LPGA Season With A Bang
NFL Playoff Bracket 2022: Super Bowl Odds, Point Spreads, Betting Lines For Every Divisional Round Game
A Trade For St. Louis Cardinals' Lars Nootbaar Would Make Sense For Cleveland Guardians
UFC Wants Follow-On Antitrust Lawsuit Dismissed
Apr 10, 2017, 05:42pm EDT |
How Brand Maria Sharapova Survived A 15-Month Doping Ban
Danielle Rossingh
As Maria Sharapova returns to tennis this week, her chocolate line is about to hit the big time.
Maria Sharapova promoting her Sugarpova chocolate line at a trade fair in Cologne, Germany in... [+] January. (Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
The chocolate tablets, launched less than a year ago by her wholly-owned Sugarpova brand, will be sold in more than 50,000 locations by the end of 2018 thanks to deals with Kroger Co., the biggest U.S. grocery chain, and 7-Eleven, the world's biggest convenience store chain.
"We hit a home run on chocolate," Max Eisenbud, Sharapova's long-time agent at IMG, said in an an interview. "It's been a game changer for us."
That's no mean feat given Sharapova, who was the world's most marketable female athlete for over a decade according to FORBES, found herself in the middle of the biggest challenge of her career after a failed doping test for meldonium in March 2016.
"Very persistent"
The former top-ranked Russian will return to tennis after a 15-month absence at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany on Wednesday after receiving a wild card from tournament organizers.
#PTGP 1st half 1R
Mladenovic - Lucic-Baroni
Vesnina - Kasatkina
Muguruza - CSN
Konjuh - Qualifier
Sharapova - Vinci
Makarova - Radwanska
— Porsche Tennis (@PorscheTennis) April 22, 2017
Sharapova became a household name after winning the 2004 Wimbledon title when she was still a... [+] teenager. (Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Sharapova has been cultivating her brand and growing her business empire since she won the first of five majors at Wimbledon when she was just 17 of age. Since turning pro in 2001, she has made almost $300 million in prize money, appearances and endorsements according to FORBES. In 2010, she signed a record $70 million, eight-year agreement with her long-time sponsor, Nike.
Sharapova used her time away from the Tour to hone her business skills. She enrolled at Havard Business School last summer for two one-week courses while she interned at the NBA and a London-based advertising agency. She also invested in Charly, a digital platform that allows users to monitize their time, and worked on her memoirs.
"It says a lot about her, that she was using her time to become a better business woman," Eisenbud said, adding Sharapova's increased involvement helped grow the Sugarpova brand in the past year.
"Maria is not afraid to pick the phone to a buyer at 7-Eleven or Kroger and build a relationship," Pat Kenny, managing director at New York-based Traub Consumer, which took over the daily running of Sugarpova in 2014, said in an interview.
"We've had buyers who have said no the first time, but she is very persistent and she has a good story to tell," said Kenny, who led the creation of Newman's Own sparkling fruit juices, which became a core brand in the Newman's Own product portfolio.
$20 million?
Sugarpova's premium chocolate line, produced by Illinois-based Baron Chocolatier, comes in four different flavors with a retail price of between $3.99 and $4.99 per tablet.
Sugarpova chocolates comes in four different flavors. (Photo: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for... [+] Sugarpova)
Kenny estimates the company, which is about to sign what he calls "a significant joint venture" in Britain, may be worth as much as $20 million by 2018.
Although Sharapova was provisionally suspended for two years by the International Tennis Federation, her ban was reduced to 15 months on appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which said in Ocober she bore no "significant fault" and didn't intend to cheat.
At a March 2016 press conference in Los Angeles, Sharapova said she had failed a doping test for the heart drug meldonium after she failed to realize the medication she had been taking for various health issues for over a decade, and which was commonly used in eastern Europe and Russia, had been added to the banned list from January of that year.
A little over a year later, all bar one of Sharapova's sponsors have resumed working with the 29-year-old.
READ: Serena Williams will win two slams and other 2017 tennis predictions
Nike, Porsche, Evian and Head all stayed on board, while Swiss watch brand Tag Heuer decided not to renew a previous deal.
"I think it's a real credit to what we've done beforehand, to be able to sustain that type of year," Eisenbud said. "It's just a testimony of what she's done the ten years before this."
"I don't think there's too many athletes that could have had those type of relationships with people, decision-makers that knew her really well and the character of her, and where willing to hang in there, to wait, instead of terminating, but suspending the contract. That was really the key. Everybody had termination clauses and they decided to suspend and wait," Eisenbud added.
"Textbook"
Sharapova's decision to go public with the news herself also helped.
Kenny, a 30-year veteran of the consumer products industry, called the move by the Russian and her team "a textbook in years to come in how to credibly and honorably deal with a situation like that. And I think the results show how professionally they handled it."
Chocolate may only be the beginning for Sugarpova, which was founded in 2012 by Eisenbud and Sharapova with a $500,000 investment by the tennis star, and intially started out by selling brightly colored gummies.
Sugarpova gummies on display at a pop-up store at Bloomingdale's in New York City in 2015. (Photo:... [+] Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Sugarpova)
"She has global recognition, she has a clear and discernible brand identity and the brand is exportable across various categories," including consumer fashion, home, houseware and lifestyle, Kenny said.
Strong social media presence
Sharapova's worldwide name recognition and strong social media presence – she has more than 23 million followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram alone – have proved to be a strong selling point when it comes to getting that all-important shelf space in the highly competitive $117 billion global chocolate market.
"Social media is Maria's secret weapon and she has integrated the candy in her social media," said Kenny. "One of the things that buyers or chains like 7-Eleven really like is that her fans will go to a store to get the candy when you geotarget the actual distribution. So that's been a great element of support."
Although Eisenbud said Sharapova's break from tennis may extend her playing career to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because her body has had time to overcome the injuries that plagued her at the start of 2016, he's already looking forward to the next chapter.
"The one thing I've learnt during this year is that when tennis is over and she has a chance to focus on business, its going to be scary, she is so good," he said.


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Of Moons, Mayans and the 13-Moon Calendar
02 OCT 2016 RuBen LLinas
"History is the script of those in power, and whoever holds the power writes the history." – Jose Arguelles –
As we approach the 524th anniversary of the landing of Columbus in America (known back then as Turtle Island) we will be featuring a series of chapters from the book Thirteen Moons in Motion by Jose Arguelles as a progressive compendium of educational articles that will help us understand how our history and our current views and knowledge about time were radically affected by this event.
Look for a daily blog from today October 5th, to October 14th, 2016 (NS1.28.3.16~25) We intend to use this window of opportunity to re-member and redeem the 10 days that "dissapeared" from history back in 1582 after the last calendar reform on Earth: the Gregorian Calendar Reform of 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII and the institutionalization of disharmony that came with it.
May Peace Prevail!
Through most of its 26,000 year history, homo sapiens has followed the moon and used moon calendars. The moon is fickle and erratic. It is of nature, subtle, and elusive. By current reckoning, it turns on its axis every 29.5 days, the length of a synodic lunation, which is why we always only see one side of the moon.
Right up to the 20th century pre-agricultural humans, like the Lakota, have followed a vague or unfixed moon calendar. The fact is that during one solar year there is always a 13th lunation which transits from one solar year to the next. The taboo nature of the number 13 seems to stem from the mysterious 13th moon. There is an eleven day discrepancy between the length of the solar year of 365.242199 days and twelve complete synodic lunations of 354.36706 days. The number of days in thirteen synodic lunations amounts to 383.5, a discrepancy of 18.25 days more than the solar year.
The discrepancy between days of the solar year and lunation cycles only became a problem for civilized man, for woman has always naturally carried the thirteen moons within her being. The female menstruation cycle of 28 days is the mean between the synodic lunation cycle of 29.5 days and the other lunation cycles of less than 27.5 days. Factor the mean lunation cycle of 28 days into the solar year and the result is thirteen moons, or 364 days, one day less than a mean solar year.
Once agricultural lifestyles were developed in the area of the planet now known as the Middle East, the male priesthood seized power. The question of a calendar became a matter of developing an instrument of power. The male power became associated with the sun, while the female was associated with the moon. A calendar based on the exclusivity of the solar year became paramount. The Egyptian division of the circle into 360 degrees, subdivided into twelve parts of 30 degrees each, provided the male priesthood of Egypt and Mesopotamia the norm for their celestially oriented 'male solar' hierarchies. This occurred some five thousand years ago, ca. 3000 BC.
Thus, in Babylonia and Egypt were born the twelve houses of the zodiac (and traditional western astrology), and the twelve-month calendar. Since twelve months of 30 days yield only 360 days, an extra five-day purification period was added on to complete the solar year. The chief function of the Babylonian priests of the calends was to correlate the cycles of the moon with the solar year. By 1500 BC, the system of the 360 degrees of the circle divided into twelve as an approximation of, or even replacement for the lunation cycles, spread to India and China. The twelve is based on the division of space – a circle, and not time – the thirteen moons.
From Babylonia and Egypt the 'solar power' of the circle of twelve spread to Greece, and thence to Rome. It was Priscius Tarquinus, early king of Rom, (616-579 BC) who is credited with development of the calendar from which the Gregorian is ultimately derived. The names of the Gregorian months are all Latin and come from this early Roman calendar.
By the time of the rise of the Christian Church, AD 500-1000, t he Roman calendar of twelve months of uneven days in disregard of the lunation cycles was an established fact. At the beginning of the Age of Conquest, AD 1500 it was known as the Julian calendar and was based on the synodic year of 365.25 days. The Gregorian calendar is based on the tropical year of 365.242199 days.
However minute the fractional difference is between the synodic and tropic years, it should not obscure the actuality that the Gregorian calendar is an uneven and illogical distribution of days derived from a male priesthood tradition that stems from Babylonian civilization. It is a tradition of time reckoning based on the Egyptian division of the circle, which is a division of space and not time, and in which all taboos of the number thirteen are fully incorporated.
It is precisely this power of thirteen, associated with witchcraft and the devil, that the conquering Europeans confronted head-on when they arrived in the 'New World.' For here was a tradition of time and knowledge even more precise and fully developed that in Europe, completely based on the thirteen. We are referring here to the calendrical and mathematical system of the Maya upon which all Mesoamerican (Mexico and Central America) civilization was based.
There was no chance of real dialogue where the Christian priests and their zealous soldiers were concerned. Men of learning were put to death, and libraries burned. The world was deprived of an understanding of time that was based not on the spatial divisions of the circle but on the lunar-galactic power of thirteen.
Of course, because of the hypnotic spell of the Gregorian calendar – the Dreamspell of history – you won't find a discussion on the Mayan understanding of time in the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on calendars. That is the Mayan Factor, the overlooked factor in any accounting of human affairs. Yet if we remain only in the spell of the Gregorian calendar and ignore the Mayan Factor, then truly we are lost.
The Mayan timing frequency is 13:20 and not 12:60. thirteen refers to the thirteen galactic tones or powers of creation, which are also encoded in the thirteen moons or annual lunations. 20 refers to the 20 solar frequencies encoded as the 20 icons or solar seals. Upon this timing frequency was based the tzolkin or 260-kin "sacred calendar."
Combined with the solar cycle of 365 days, the tzolkin gave the Maya the fractal yardstick by which they could construct calendars and timing systems that demonstrate the harmonic order of the solar system and galaxy in general. Within these constructs, the Maya also maintained lunar calendars and eclipse cycles of utmost precision.
Because the basis of the Mayan calendar was the 260-kin tzolkin and not the 360 degree circle, there was no need to correlate the lunation cycle to the solar year through the abstract concept of 'months.' The Mayan mathematic, based on an elegant and more sophisticated dot-bar notation system, is vigesimal and not decimal, that is, based on 20's rather than 10's. this gives the Mayan mathematical system a fractal and exponential flexibility not exhibited by the decimal or duodecimal (by 12's) system upon which the Gregorian calendar is based.
Instead of months, the Mayan solar year is divided into eighteen 20-day periods called vinals. In actuality the eighteen vinals, plus the five day vayeb, were a means of correlating the solar year to the 13:20 based tzolkin.
Long a puzzle to western archeologists, who early on understood its amazing sophistication and complexity, the Mayan calendar and mathematics have nonetheless been regarded as an anomalous curiosity, which no application to the modern world. Again, this prejudice must be seen as a function of the 12:60 consensus reality.
The fact of the matter is that the Mayan calendar contains the teaching of fourth- dimensional time that has eluded modern science, immersed as it is in the unexamined grip of third-dimensional Gregorian time. The nub of the Mayan teaching is the application of the 13:20 frequency to the creation and implementation of the calendar of the thirteen moons.
Thirteen Moons in Motion by Jose Arguelles~ Chapter 1
IMPORTANT NOTE: Should you download this FREE e-book, please consider donating to the Mother SOURCE of this Knowledge. The Foundation for the Law of Time has been working tirelessly to share the 13 Moon Calendar far and wide to ensure a more harmonic world and a bright future for the next seven generations… A monthly donation of $5 would help to keep this important mission alive. In lak'ech
© Galactic Research Institute of the Foundation for the Law of Time – www.lawoftime.org
One thought about the post
Gen Lovyet Agustsson
Monday October 2nd, 2017 at 01:07 AM
the scientists need to know this.
Electric moon 3


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Q: Jena tdbloader performance and limits When trying to load a current Wikidata dump as documented in Get Your Own Copy of WikiData by following the procedure describe in https://muncca.com/2019/02/14/wikidata-import-in-apache-jena/ i am running into some performance problems and limits of Apache Jenas tdbloader commands.
There seem to be two versions of it:

*

*tdbloader2

*tdb2.tdbloader
The name tdbloader2 for the TDB1 tdbloader is confusing and led to
its usage as a first attempt.
The experience with TDB1/tdbloader2 was that the loading went quite well for the first few billion triples.
The speed was 150 k triples/second initially. It then fell to some 100k triples/second at around 9 billion triples. At 10 billion triples the speed dropped to 15000 triples/second at around 10 billion triples and stayed around 5000 triples/second when moving towards 11 billion triples.
I had expected the import to have finished by then so currently i am even doubting that the progress is counting triples but instead lines of turtle input which might not be the same since the input has some 15 billion lines but only some 11 billion triples are expected.
Since the import already ran for 3.5 days at this point i had to make a decision whether to abort it and look for better import options or simply wait for a while.
So i placed this question on stackoverflow. Based on AndyS's hint that there are two versions of tdbloader i aborted the TDB1 import after some 4.5 days and over 11 billion triples having been reported to be imported in the phase "data". The performance was down to 2.3 k triples/second at that point.
With the modified script using tdb2.tdbloader the import has been  running again for multiple attempts as documented in the wiki. Two import tdb2.tdbloader attempts already failed with crashing Java VMs so I changed the hardware from my MacPro to the old linux box again (which is unfortunately slower) and later back again.
I changed the java virtual machine to a recent OpenJDK after the older Oracle JVM crashed in a first attempt with tdb2.tdbloader. This Java VM crashed with the same symptomps #  Internal Error (safepoint.cpp:310), see e.g. https://bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=8169477
For the attempts with tdb2.tdbloader I'll assume that 15.7 billion triples need to be imported (one per line of the turtle file). For a truthy dataset the number of triples would be some 13 billion triples.
If you look a the performance results shown in the wiki article you'll find that when there is a logarithmic performance degradation. For rotating disks the degradation is so bad that it makes the import take so long it's not worthwhile waiting for the result (we are talking multiple months here ...)
In the diagram below both axes have a logarithmig scale.
The x-axis shows the log of the total number of triples imported (up to 3 billion when the import was aborted)
The y-axis shows the log of the batch / avg sizes - the number of triples imported in a given time frame.
The more triples are imported the slower things get from a top 300.000 triples per second to as low as only 300 triples per second.

With the 4 th attempt the performance was some 1k triples/second after 11 days and some 20% of the data imported. This would mean an estimated time of finish of the import after 230 days - given the degradation of the speed probably quite a bit longer (more than a year).
The target database size was 320 GByte so hopefully the result would fit in the 4 TerraByte of disk space allocated for the target and is not the limiting factor.
Since Jonas Sourlier reported on his success after some 7 days with an SSD disk i finally asked my project lead for financing a 4 TB SSD disk and lend it to me for experiments. With that disk a fifth attempt was successful now for the truthy dataset some 5.2 billion triples where imported after about 4 1/2 days. The bad news is that this is exactly what i didn't want - i had hoped to solve the problem by software and configuration settings and not by throwing quicker and more costly hardware at the problem. Nevertheless here is the diagram for this import:

I intend to import the full 12 billion triples soon and for that it would still be good to know how to improve the speed with software / configuration settings or other non hardware approaches.
I did not tune the Java VM Args or split the files yet as mentioned Apache Users mailing list discussion of end of 2017
The current import speed is obviously inacceptable. On the other hand heavily investing in extra hardware is not an option due to a limited budget.
There are some questions that are not answered by the links you'll find in the wiki article mentioned above:

*

*https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Database_download#RDF_dumps

*Failed to install wikidata-query-rdf / Blazegraph

*Wikidata on local Blazegraph : Expected an RDF value here, found '' [line 1]

*Wikidata import into virtuoso

*Virtuoso System Requirements

*https://muncca.com/2019/02/14/wikidata-import-in-apache-jena/

*https://users.jena.apache.narkive.com/J1gsFHRk/tdb2-tdbloader-performance
What is proven to speed up the import without investing into extra hardware?
e.g. splitting the files, changing VM arguments, running multiple processes ...
What explains the decreasing speed at higher numbers of triples and how can this be avoided?
What successful multi-billion triple imports for Jena do you know of and what are the circumstances for these?


text:
Q: lisp efficient linear algebra library Does anybody know of an efficient and reliable linear algebra library for lisp? I've been googling a little but wasn't satisfied with what I found. I need to do matrix operations for developing predictive algorithms. I've been using octave/matalab for a while and I'm wondering if giving lisp a shot would be worth it. Do you think lisp is inappropriate for matrix operations?
Thank you,
Luca

A: Take a look at cl-blapack, available from Quicklisp, which has FFI-bindings for the C wrappers of LAPACK and BLAS.


text:
Q: javac equivalent of "-D"? Is there a way to give the java compiler some kind of variable that is accessible to the running java code?
In C/C++ I can give the compile -DKEY=VALUE and that would cause the preprocessor to have a #define for KEY equals to VALUE. I can then check this value in compile time to effect what code is being compiled.
I found java's -D, but that puts values give the the java command line in System.getProperty(). I want an argument give in compile time, not invocation time.

A: With java annotations it is possible to generate additional code on the fly, which can be configured on command line. It allow to produce more source code, configuration files, xml files, ... The main limitation is that you are allowed only to (re)generate new source files, you cannot modify existing ones.
Below is a short tutorial on how to allow from javac command specify parameters which will be visible in Java code. How usefull is that? Ie. you could specify a boolean option which would disable some parts of code, I am preety sure this parts of code could be removed using tools like proguard - or even optimized out by javac. Other uses is to specify new version number. Those use cases are mostly what c++ marcros are used for.
So, you need :

*

*a dummy annotation class which will allow processor to run. It should be specified only once in your application.

*a processor class which will run for above dummy annotation, and generate options class. It will also read options from javac command line.

*a dummy Main class for testing purposes.

You will have to also compile your processor file before compiling Main class. This of course is done only when processor class is modified. All the three files are at the bottom. Now the compilation looks as follows (I am on windows):
Compile processor:
javac .\com\example\ConfigWritterAnnotationProcessor.java

Then Main.java with additional parameters to processor:
javac -processor com.example.ConfigWritterAnnotationProcessor -AtextToPrint="Hello World!" -AenablePrint=true ./com/example/Main.java

And thats all, now you may run Main.class and it will use Options class generated during compilation with above parameters set. It will look as follows:
package com.example;
public class Options {
    public static final String textToPrint = "Hello World!";
    public static final boolean enablePrint = true;
}

ProcessorStarterAnnotation.java
package com.example;

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

@Target({ElementType.TYPE})
public @interface ProcessorStarterAnnotation {
}

Main.java
package com.example;

@ProcessorStarterAnnotation
public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
      if ( com.example.Options.enablePrint ) {
        System.out.println(com.example.Options.textToPrint);
      }
      else {
        System.out.println("Print disabled");
      }
    }
}

ConfigWritterAnnotationProcessor.java
package com.example;

import javax.annotation.processing.*;
import javax.lang.model.SourceVersion;
import javax.lang.model.element.Element;
import javax.lang.model.element.TypeElement;
import javax.tools.Diagnostic;
import javax.tools.JavaFileObject;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.io.Writer;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;

@SupportedAnnotationTypes("com.example.ProcessorStarterAnnotation")
@SupportedSourceVersion(SourceVersion.RELEASE_6)
@SupportedOptions({"textToPrint", "enablePrint"})
public class ConfigWritterAnnotationProcessor extends AbstractProcessor {
  private Map<String,String> options;

  @Override
  public synchronized void init(ProcessingEnvironment processingEnv) {
    super.init(processingEnv);
    options = processingEnv.getOptions();
  }

  @Override
  public boolean process(Set<? extends TypeElement> annotations,
                         RoundEnvironment currentRound) {

    if (!currentRound.processingOver()) {
      // This for-s are because processor is also run on newly created Options class.
      for (TypeElement te : annotations) {
        for (Element e : currentRound.getElementsAnnotatedWith(te)) {
          try {
            processingEnv.getMessager().printMessage(Diagnostic.Kind.NOTE, "Creating com.example.Options");
            JavaFileObject javaFile = processingEnv.getFiler().createSourceFile("com.example.Options");
            Writer w = javaFile.openWriter();
            try {
              PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(w);
              pw.println("package com.example;");
              pw.println("public class Options {");
              pw.println("    public static final String textToPrint = \"" + options.get("textToPrint") + "\";");
              pw.println("    public static final boolean enablePrint = " + options.get("enablePrint") + ";");
              pw.println("}");
              pw.flush();
            } finally {
              w.close();
            }
          } catch (IOException x) {
            processingEnv.getMessager().printMessage(Diagnostic.Kind.ERROR,
                x.toString());
          }
        }
      }
    }
    return false;
  }
}

A: There is nothing like this in Java. Compile time constants must be declared in source code, and as far as I know, there is no pre-processor.
BTW, you could use flags given to java command line (-D args) to initialize java constants at runtime, that would mimic what you are looking for.
Ex:
class Foo {
    private static final String BAR;
    static {
        String foobar = System.getProperty("foo.bar");
        if(foobar != null && foobar.length()>0) {
            BAR = foobar;
        } else {
            BAR = "somedefaultvalue";
        }
    }
}

Invoke with java Xxx -Dfoo.bar=foobar

A: javac has the
-Akey[=value]

commandline option to pass information to annotation processors.

A: As there is no notion of preprocessing in Java, a solution is to design your own.
One may think of using a standard C preprocessor or a custom-made one and compile the preprocessed output, but this has the disadvantage of duplicating the files, so that the project will become more complex, and the support from the development environment will degrade (like ability to jump to a syntax error).
My suggestion is to use annotations via comments that will guide a custom preprocessor and let it do substitutions before compiling.
For example,
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      int nDisks = 3;
      doTowers(nDisks, 'A', 'B', 'C');
   }

would become
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      int nDisks = /*@NDISKS*/ 3 /**/;
      doTowers(nDisks, 'A', 'B', 'C');
   }

Then your preprocessor would have a definition file such as
NDISKS 5

turning the code in
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      int nDisks = /*@NDISKS*/ 5 /**/;
      doTowers(nDisks, 'A', 'B', 'C');
   }

Similarly, you can emulate conditional code compilation with
     doTowers(topN - 1, from, to, inter);
     /*!PRINT*/
     System.out.println("Disk "
     + topN + " from " + from + " to " + to);
     /**/
     doTowers(topN - 1, inter, from, to);

which could be turned by the preprocessor (with a definition like PRINT OFF) into
     doTowers(topN - 1, from, to, inter);
     /*!PRINT
     System.out.println("Disk "
     + topN + " from " + from + " to " + to);
     */
     doTowers(topN - 1, inter, from, to);

You can use alternative syntaxes, but the main ideas are

*

*that the annotated code remains compilable,

*that the preprocessor substitutions are reversible.

A: It would be against the design of the language to have it that way. What -DKEY=VALUE does is that it actually replaces KEY with VALUE in the source during preprocessor in C/C++.
Java does not have a preprocessor so that's mechanism is not available. If you want something "equivalent" you have to question what you mean by that. By not preprocessing the source it wouldn't be really equivalent.
If you on the other hand would like it to mean to set the value of the symbol KEY to the value VALUE you'd run into the problem that you would need to declare the symbol KEY anyway to determine it's type. In this case it would only be yet another constant/variable with the constraints that implies.
This means that even with such a feature it would not actually alter the generated code and you would hardly be better of than defining the value att launch time. That's why supplying the parameter via java would be the way to go.


text:
Diocese of Kansas
What to Expect >
The Eucharist, Holy Communion >
The Church Altar
Faith and Film
About the Episcopal Church
Evolve.
Q: What is prayer?
A: Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.
Q: What is Christian Prayer?
A: Christian prayer is response to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Q: What prayer did Christ teach us?
A: Our Lord gave us the example of prayer known as the Lord's Prayer. (See below)
Q: What are the principle kinds of prayer?
A: The principle kinds of prayer are adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession, and petition.
Q: What is adoration?
A: Adoration is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God, asking nothing but to enjoy God's presence.
Q: Why do we praise God?
A: We praise God, not to obtain anything, but because God's Being draws praise from us.
Q: For what do we offer thanksgiving?
A: Thanksgiving is offered to God for all the blessings of this life, for our redemption, and for whatever draws us closer to God.
Q: What is penitence?
A: In penitence, we confess our sins and make restitution where possible, with the intention to amend our lives.
Q: What is prayer of oblation?
A: Oblation is an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God.
Q: What are intercession and petition?
A: Intercession brings before God the needs of others; in petition, we present our own needs, that God's will may be done.
Q: What is corporate worship?
A: In corporate worship, we unite ourselves with others to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God's Word, to offer prayer, and to celebrate the sacraments.
Visit http://ecusa.anglican.org/visitors.htm for more information.
The Lord's Prayer (Contemporary)
Our Father in heaven,
your kingdom come,
you will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.
The Lord's Prayer (Traditional)
mothercasey@gmail.com


It's show time: All over the world national standardization bodies vote these days if they approve Microsoft Office OpenXML file format to become an ISO standard or not. A lot has been written on this issue these days: noooxml.org, Linux Foundation, Groklaw, Reuters, netzpolitik.org, news.com etc. In Switzerland, it's SIUG's president Norbert Bollow as well as Theo Schmidt from Wilhelm Tux and Shane Couglan from FSFE who are the most active opponents of this standard. Particularly highlighting the chaotic process in Switzerland the WOZ will publish tomorrow a great article on the current situation. While I haven't given up hoping that Switzerland at least votes ABSTAIN it's quite likely that Microsoft will win this battle on our home grounds. By bringing in about 20 Gold Partners in the last 10 days this whole process has absolutely lost its technical value and has become a completely political push for Microsoft and a money making event for SVN. Well, I've done my job and just submitted for the second time (the first voting was annulled due to incorrect procedure by the convenor, Mr. H.R. Thomann) the /ch/open's vote "DISAPPROVAL on Swiss vote on DIS 29500″.
Update 2007-09-03: While the report on inside-it.ch writes about the irregularities of the voting procedure, the final result by SNV is now official: "APPROVED with comments" with 75.4% support - 0.5% less and Switzerland would have voted "ABSTAIN", damn close!
This week, the Alternative has released the new official ETH www.tux.ethz.ch website informing about Free and Open Source Software and providing various sources of knowledge on how to install Ubuntu, configure Linux laptops for the ETH network etc.
When opening today's Comments Resolution Meeting, the convenor H.R. Thomann pointed out the duration of the meeting was announced lasting from 10.15h till 12h – but added he didn't specify if it's 12 AM or PM. Well, he guessed right. When I had to leave the ongoing discussion at 15.15h we had only reached comment #8 of 19 to be reviewed by our committee. No wonder, both, the FOSS community and Microsoft, had successfully recruited various firms, educational institutions and associations to represent their interest in the discussion.
For me, representing /ch/open and strongly opposing the ISO ratification of OOXML, this exhausting but still sometimes funny meeting explained many mechanisms of such standardization processes. First of all, as stated by Mr. Thomann in the beginning, standardization bodies such as SNV or ISO are measured by their performance releasing new standards so the main subject of the session was set: to agree upon the OOXML application as fast as possible. Second, though "general comments may request changes outside the scope of the standard," basically only technical arguments were relevant in the discussion. Norbert Bollow of SIUG had carefully formulated comments considering a holistic view of the situation including the competitive position of Microsoft, IPR concerns such as patent threats as well as economic aspects of the role of standards for society. Nevertheless most of today's discussion was on minor technical deficiencies (such as allowing the inexistent date of February 29th, 1900 in Microsoft spreadsheets) and on formal procedures. It was no surprise that the discussion was not very constructive even these issues as most of the 22 committee members opposed the standard completely. Third, as the attending ECMA secretary general Istvan Sebestyen explained to me, technical standards are never ideal solutions of a problem but only compromises by different industry players. Thus such standardization bodies can't represent the interest of the technology users but need to find majority-winning and thus suboptimal resolutions.
In my opinion today's discussion missed the point – or I just expected too much of a ISO standardization process. As it was never the intention of the Comments Resolution Meeting, no one changed his or her mind concerning approval of OOXML. Also my major concern couldn't be resolved: Why – if not to strengthen Microsoft's quasi-monopoly on office software and relieving dull governments and uninnovative enterprises – should a second ISO standard be ratified for the exact same purpose of office file exchange covered by ODF (ISO/IEC 26300)? Because of unaccepted parts of the binary Microsoft Office format by the OASIS committee as the Trivadis representative reasoned? Then these format features could have been added by Microsoft engineers as extensions of ODF or a second version of the ODF standard might have included them if they were really that important (according to Rob Weir of IBM it's the opposite around). Or do we need two file formats since free choice is important as Marc Holitscher of Microsoft likes to point out? Then please let me know who of you likes to carry around such huge magic power plug adapters which you need when traveling around in Europe? The idea for technology standards is to make life easier for its users and exactly not to compete on this level. And that's why I don't believe the argument of competition by the IWI representative of the HSW Lucerne and by Marc-André Hahn of sieber&partners (although admitting that 6000p office file formats might be a little more complex than a power plug and therefore improvements are possible). No question, competition is important for progress of technology, but not on the file format level (as long it's for the same type of data) but on their implementation in software.


text:
Q: How to prevent the caps-lock toggle effect, without remapping or disabling it? I have an X11 program that grabs caps-lock, and uses it. The problem is, I want to disable the regular caps-lock toggling, but doing so seems to disable the key.
So whatever X11 gets for a caps-lock keypress, it must still get (no disabling the key, or remapping it to some other key), but without anything translating the keypress into a caps-toggle (which might be at the kernel level?).
I tried changing the scancode, but this just remapped the key.
I've removed the capslock entry with xmodmap too, but this also disabled caps.
How can I tell the kernel to ignore the caps-key (wrt its regular functionality), but still pass along the message to X?
Just to add a bit more detail:
The 'program' I'm trying to run is humanised 'enso'.
When there is no key I get the error "CRITICAL:root:Couldn't find quasimode key". When there is no error, I can use enso with caps, but sofar haven't figured out how to disable caps functionality while enso is still able to get at it.

A: I think I have a technique for disabling the toggling of the Capslock key but not completely disabling the key all together, or remapping it to another key on the keyboard.
If you use the command:
setxkbmap -option caps:none

The keyboard will no longer toggle. I've confirmed this on my laptop running Fedora 14, the LED no longer lights up, and normal Capslock functionality is gone.
However using xev still shows that the key is being pressed:
$ xev
...
...
KeyPress event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x6800001,
    root 0xb1, subw 0x0, time 261504852, (167,-15), root:(353,268),
    state 0x10, keycode 66 (keysym 0xffffff, VoidSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x6800001,
    root 0xb1, subw 0x0, time 261504971, (167,-15), root:(353,268),
    state 0x10, keycode 66 (keysym 0xffffff, VoidSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False
    ...

So the key being pressed events are still left intact for other applications to pick them up.
setxkbmap
The file /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst contains the complete list of what options you can give to setxkbmap.
Grepping through this file for "cap" I noticed this line:
caps:none            CapsLock is disabled

There are other values in this file so if this isn't what you're after perhaps one of those alternate values would suite instead.
$ grep cap /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst
  grp:caps_switch      CapsLock (while pressed), Alt+CapsLock does the original capslock action
  grp:caps_toggle      CapsLock
  grp:shift_caps_toggle Shift+CapsLock
  grp:shift_caps_switch CapsLock (to first layout), Shift+CapsLock (to last layout)
  grp:alt_caps_toggle  Alt+CapsLock
  lv3:caps_switch      CapsLock
  lv3:caps_switch_latch CapsLock (chooses 3rd level, latches when pressed together with another 3rd-level-chooser)
  ctrl:nocaps          Make CapsLock an additional Ctrl
  ctrl:swapcaps        Swap Ctrl and CapsLock
  grp_led:caps         CapsLock
  caps                 CapsLock key behavior
  caps:internal        CapsLock uses internal capitalization. Shift "pauses" CapsLock
  caps:internal_nocancel CapsLock uses internal capitalization. Shift doesn't affect CapsLock
  caps:shift           CapsLock acts as Shift with locking. Shift "pauses" CapsLock
  caps:shift_nocancel  CapsLock acts as Shift with locking. Shift doesn't affect CapsLock
  caps:capslock        CapsLock toggles normal capitalization of alphabetic characters
  caps:numlock         Make CapsLock an additional NumLock
  caps:swapescape      Swap ESC and CapsLock
  caps:escape          Make CapsLock an additional ESC
  caps:backspace       Make CapsLock an additional Backspace
  caps:super           Make CapsLock an additional Super
  caps:hyper           Make CapsLock an additional Hyper
  caps:shiftlock       CapsLock toggles Shift so all keys are affected
  caps:none            CapsLock is disabled
  compose:caps         CapsLock
  shift:breaks_caps    Shift cancels CapsLock
  shift:both_capslock  Both Shift-Keys together toggle CapsLock
  shift:both_capslock_cancel Both Shift-Keys together activate CapsLock, one Shift-Key deactivates

References

*

*Disable Caps Lock & remap Menu to Super_R with xmodmap no longer works

*Disable and Enable Caps Lock in Ubuntu

*Disable Caps Lock Key in Linux

*Keyboard - Modify or Disable Caps Lock

A: If you don't want the Caps Lock key to have its usual effect, you can turn off the Lock modifier, while retaining the Caps_Lock keysym.
xmodmap -e 'clear Lock'

A: This is very similar to the answer I gave for another question. This snippet of xkb code should do the trick.
partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "capsoff" {
    key <CAPS> {
        type[Group1] = "ONE_LEVEL",
        symbols[Group1] = [ Caps_Lock ],
        actions[Group1] = [ NoAction() ]
    };
};

A: I used to use the method described by @slm but (at least on KDE Plasma using KDE Neon) this stopped working at some point.
What did the trick though was a setting inside KDE as decribed here: https://askubuntu.com/a/439230/626920