Well, although you may not be looking to sell your property yet getting your property evaluated will help you gain important information about your property. In fact, a property valuation can be a helpful to know the actual worth of your principal asset.
When you want to consider a renovation project for your home such as adding a new pool or backyard area or home interiors, a property valuation becomes imperative. Property renovation process can get pricey and it is essential to keep an eye over the budget so that you don't overcapitalise (for instance, it's not a wise decision to add a modern swimming pool to a house property that is having a low resale value). You can get your property valued from a reliable property valuer and ascertain the accurate value of your property.
If you want to buy a second property just for investment purpose then your equity in your primary residence can act as the collateral for the purchase. Generally, banks will lend over eighty percent of the purchase price of an investment property when you use your primary residence as collateral. A property valuation will let you know how much equity you possess in your primary residence, and accordingly how much loan you will be able to acquire for buying your second property.
If your home property is mortgaged and your original loan term is ending or you're looking to switch products or lenders, a property valuation becomes crucial. Depending on the lender and your own preference, a property valuation can be performed either through a property valuer of your lender's choice or a third party. You may want to switch to a loan product that provides a lower rate of interest that could result in significant savings eventually, change an interest-only product for a principal and interest arrangement. If your property valuation suggests that your LTV (Loan-To-Value) is at least eighty percent, you will be in a better position to discuss the terms.
Over the past decades, real estate market has seen a firm growth, which means, in all likelihood, your home may have accumulated value. In case, your home hasn't accrued value, once you know your home property's value, you're in a better position to make financial decisions moving forward. In addition, a valuation will facilitate you to make a will that hands-out your property as per your wishes.
You can opt to have an informal or formal property valuation depending on the purpose of the valuation. If you just want an estimate to know your property's net worth or find out whether selling would benefit you financially, a real estate agent can normally provide you with decent approximation about your home property's value on the open market. If financial institutions need to perform a mortgage or refinance, they will organise valuations. Finally, you can also hire an independent, qualified property valuer for evaluating your home property.


This article will help whether you want a whole new beauty routine or need help with a beauty problem. These tips are the cream of the crop when it comes to both outer and inner beauty, so you need to read them.
Use different colored eyeshadow, such as copper, yellow and apricots, to draw attention to your eyes. Try eyeliner and mascara that is dark brown and has hints of maroon, brick, or deep purple. These shades will make your eyes pop.
TIP! If you plan on going out on the town immediately after work, you can use a big fluffy brush to add a nice powdery finish over any oily places. Also add some shimmer powder to your cheekbones to brighten your face.
Plain baking soda can give you shinier hair. Add a touch of baking soda and shampoo into your hand just as you are about to use it. Wash your hair as you normally would. Doing this will make your hair more radiant.
Soften the angles of your face with a soft coral or creamy rose blush. Apply cream blush with your fingers, gently fanning the color from the apple of your cheek out toward your temples.
TIP! Curl your lashes with an eyelash curler before you apply mascara. Curling helps your eyelashes appear greater than their actual length, and this also contributes to a younger and livelier look to your eyes themselves.
Try not to bathe in water that's too hot. Hot water will cause skin pores to expand, and you will lose natural oils your skin needs. If you already have large pores, hot water will help you clean them, and it just washes away. Use warm or tepid water, as this is more gentle on your skin, keeping it soft and healthy looking. This beauty tip may also save you money on your utility bills.
Glitter or shimmer eyeshadow is an excellent tool for your makeup box. Adding a little shine to your lids makes your eyes appear bright and large. Choose a shimmery shadow in a shade that comes close to your skin tone to keep flattering and mature. Feel free to try different application techniques or colors.
TIP! Shimmer blush only works on people with perfect complexions. Shimmering blushes tend to make blemishes appear more obvious.
Apply eye shadow while looking into a mirror at a downward angle to achieve the best effect. Pulling on or applying pressure to your eyelids is not a good idea. Make sure you look down, which will help you get the application right the first time. Doing this lets you get the full view of your eyelids without touching them.
TIP! Boar bristle brushes can help calm hair frizzing. Frizzy hair is a common problem.
Epsom salts are inexpensive, plentiful, and great for beauty treatments. You can use Epsom salts for a laxative or to soothe your sore body. Use salt, water, and lavender to help make the paste. You will now be able to apply this to areas that are giving your trouble. Leave this on overnight. You will wake in the morning to improved skin.
This article will help you update your look and your beauty routine. Keeping these tips in mind can help you with some advice for major or minor makeovers.


text:
The KidKraft Ride Around train set and table is a colorful and durable train set that comes with a hundred hand-painted wooden pieces including the train, various buildings, other vehicles and little people to populate the play set. The train tracks are included for both trains and vehicles to ride on.
KidKraft Train Table Set Assessment and Features
This set features a very detailed landscape that's melamine coated. This landscape offers the ideal setting for toddlers and children up to eight years old to play on. There's plenty of fun scenarios your child can play out. The set is big enough to be used by multiple children. The set also comes with a couple of bins that fit neatly under the table, providing much-needed storage for all the set's small parts.
This is a durable, fun train set table that features a wooden construction and detailed play surface. You'll love the well-crafted finished play pieces and the solid feel and look the set offers. The table features a bright background and comes with a decent variety of accessories. The table also takes playtime off the floor. The amount of storage provided is more than enough to store the pieces that come in this set and any other accessories purchased separately. However, the storage is offered in the form of plastic bins instead of wooden drawers.
Toddler Train Set Package Pros and Cons
Pros: Overall, this is a durable, reasonably price train set and table with plenty of quality pieces included.
This set consists of sturdy, composite wood construction, with no plastic pieces included. The play pieces and play surface are finished in attractive, bright colors. The pieces are hand-painted, which gives the set a more quality feel compared to lower priced models that feature plastic pieces.
The landscaping on the table's surface includes a construction site, hospital, fields, lakes, airports, and more.
The play pieces include people, automobiles, trains, and planes.
The tracks can be easily connected with the groove and tongue connections.
There's also a wide variety of track pieces to choose from including curves, sloping and straight pieces.
Many parents reported that Brio and Thomas and Friends sets fit on the track as well, which gives kids and parents more options if they choose to expand the set.
The smooth, rounded edges are hard to chip accidentally, making them safe for small children.
The two large storage bins are perfect for storing parts and play pieces that are not in use and helps to make clean up time fast and easy.
When the table is flipped over, you'll get a regular flat table surface that can be used for regular play and an assortment of activities.
Because the set is so large, you'll need quite a bit of space to assemble it. Following the well-written step by step instructions, putting this set together will take about thirty to sixty minutes. The table measures in at roughly sixteen inches high and thirty-five inches wide, with a length that comes in at forty-nine inches.
The set includes a hundred pieces, hardware, two storage bins, user's manual, Allen wrench, and table parts. The track assembly instructions come with coded pictures that display how the track can be put together. You'll want to mark each of the track pieces so that they correspond to the code in the user's manual. This will make putting the track together and taking it apart much easier and less confusing.
Cons: The composite wood frame looks attractive and feels durable. Some parents were disappointed that the table set didn't feature wooden drawers as opposed to the storage bins. However, the bins are made of a thick plastic and are designed to easily handle rough use.
Some parents recommend gluing the tracks together if the set will be set up permanently. The tracks do not come apart easily, so gluing them isn't really necessary.
Some types of train cars, such as the Thomas Tank Engine, have a little trouble squeezing under the small bridge. But this can be easily remedied by placing thin pieces of wood under the bridge's pillars in order to lift it high enough to give it the necessary headroom.
The train cars will connect to the rest of the train via magnets, which can come loose during play.
If you're searching for a train set table combo that offers more storage space, KidKraft Waterfall Mountain train set and table features three large storage bins and plenty of track configurations and play pieces.
KidKraft Train Set Final Thoughts and Rating
Both the play pieces and play surface are full of fun, bright, detailed colors. Together, the landscape and the pieces form the basis to create a bustling, busy city with a lot of action going on.
The fire trucks, doctors, and ambulances can rush to the scene of an accident, while at the construction site, workers are busy building a new store. At the airport, a big plane is just coming in for a landing. There are also animals, trees, and farmers that dot the landscape. As you can see, the KidKraft Ride Around train set and table has a lot of playtime activities and setups that are sure to keep kids happy and entertained for hours on end. The set's tracks can also be set up to go under or over one another using the bridges and columns.
This is a great regular table and train set in one, with a well-crafted and detailed play surface and play pieces. The landscape offers a bright background for kids and offers plenty of variety. Flipping the table over and using its flat surface makes way for a number of activities for your child to enjoy, which further increases the versatility of this set. Overall, this is a reasonably priced, fun, solid play set and table that comes with a lot of cars, and play pieces. Parents who purchased this set gave it a rating of five out of five stars, which makes this model our top-rated product and one of the best toddler train sets on the market.
Click Here To See The Full Product Listing!
Keep up to date on the latest train toy developments, Subscribe Now!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jim is an artist who loves anything to do with automotive design, illustration, fine art, models, memorabilia, preservation and just hanging out with people with a shared interest. As a kid in high school he dreamed, illustrated and modeled cars so much so that he aspired to be a stylist and practiced designing his own creations getting inspiration from the Big Three auto manufacturers during the 1950s and early 1960s. Lacking the funds to go out of state to design college, the idea was shelved, but not forgotten. After spending a small amount of time majoring in architecture and four years in the Air Force, the new college objective was to be a fine art major, which resulted in a BFA Degree from Baylor University, Waco Texas. Jim worked as an art director for several advertising agencies for eight years in Waco, Texas and as a self-employed illustrator for seventeen years in the Houston, Texas area. While self-employed, the idea, "to show how the automobile has influenced the American way of life," began to develop, and eventually lead to many of the watercolor projects shown on this site. Many of the projects are centered on the early Thunderbird, Jim drives a 1956, as a result of an undying love for the little Fords from an early age prior to college on to present day.
Currently Jim and his wife of 36 years, Joyce, live in Smyrna, Tennessee where both are employed by very large companies. But he still finds time to get a little art accomplished, be a member of the Tennessee Water Color Society and other art groups, several antique automobile clubs and restore his Thunderbird as an ongoing project since 1987 while he and Joyce have a son in college.


It's that time again! Back to school! We have stocked so many great things, from fun little sticky note packs, journals, colored branch pencils, purses, teacher gifts, of course jewelry… Scarves, notepads, coin purses… Be different. Don't just shop at the big box stores!


Off to Yorkshire for this week's pub of the week.
A gem of a pub in Leeds.
A fantastic pub in Wetherby. Perfect to savour a pint of Okell's.
We pick the best pubs to savour a pint of Okell's. First up, the Narrow Boat in Skipton.


text:
Q: Stop a post request function from executing based on a promise value? When I process a POST request in express, I need to fetch some data on a mongoDB cluster, and based on the response I have to respond with the request.
app.post('/api/persons', (request, response) => {
  const body = request.body;

  if (!body.name || !body.number) {
    return response.status(400).json({
      error: 'Name or Number missing',
    });
  }

  const newName = body.name;
  // if (phoneBook.some((person) => person.name === newName)) {
  //   return response.status(409).send({ error: 'Name should be unique' });
  // }
  Person.find({ name: newName }).then((num) => {
    if (num.length !== 0) {
      return response.status(409).json({
        error: 'Name must be unique',
      });
    }
  });

  const record = new Person({
    name: body.name,
    number: body.number,
  });

  record.save().then((savedRecord) => {
    response.json(savedRecord);
  });
});

Person is a mongoDB model
The Person.find checks the value and responds with a bool value. I'm currently facing two problems

*

*After fetching value from the .find call, the function should end as I respond with return value but it still goes on and saves the value with record.save() below.

*Even if the value does not exist, it still shows a Name must be unique error.
// Fixed it by replacing .exist() to .find()
Is there a way to fix this without adding the record.save() inside the find promise? I want the .find call to exist in it's own function, how would I go about doing this ?
Thanks

A: Create a separate findFunction that will call Person.find and take newName, foundCallback and notFoundCallback as arguments. Please check the following code.
const findFunction = (newName, foundCallback, notFoundCallback) => {
    Person.find({ name: newName }).then((num) => {
        if (num.length !== 0) {
            foundCallback();
        } else {
            notFoundCallback();
        }
    });
}

app.post('/api/persons', (request, response) => {
    const body = request.body;

    if (!body.name || !body.number) {
        return response.status(400).json({
            error: 'Name or Number missing',
        });
    }

    const newName = body.name;

    findFunction(
        newName,
        () => response.status(409).json({ error: 'Name must be unique' }),
        () => {
            const record = new Person({
                name: body.name,
                number: body.number,
            });

            record.save().then((savedRecord) => {
                response.json(savedRecord);
            });
        }
    );
});

If you prefer a promise based solution then:
const ensurePersonIsUnique = (newName) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        Person.find({ name: newName }).then((num) => {
            if (num.length !== 0) {
                reject();
            } else {
                resolve();
            }
        });
    });
}

app.post('/api/persons', (request, response) => {
    const body = request.body;

    if (!body.name || !body.number) {
        return response.status(400).json({
            error: 'Name or Number missing',
        });
    }

    const newName = body.name;

    ensurePersonIsUnique(newName).then(() => {
        const record = new Person({
            name: body.name,
            number: body.number,
        });

        record.save().then((savedRecord) => {
            response.json(savedRecord);
        });
    }).catch(() => {
        response.status(409).json({ error: 'Name must be unique' })
    });
});

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to read Fireworks PNG multilayer files without Fireworks I recieved a couple of Fireworks PNG files. Fireworks has a special format for saving several source images in layers in the png file.
How can I read these without having Fireworks installed?
(im working on a mac but with vmware so any suggestions whatever platform is appreciated)
EDIT: I'd prefer to get a set of copies out of of the layered png. And I prefer if the export be lossless

A: You can save from any Adobe Fireworks you have at your disposal, and save with a GIMP .psd and so can at least detect the layers of your archive.
You can move objects and text layers, but with text layers you cannot modify the text and keep the same format, only by deleting and doing it using the GIMP text tool .
I am using Adobe Fireworks CS5 and Gimp 2.4.0 for testing.

A: Well, if you just need to read these files you can use Batch PNG to JPG to flatten them. It includes a Preview which allows you to actually look at the PNGs if that's just what you want. But if it is animated it will only export the first frame.
So,
XnView viewer, fully supports APNG
Firefox browser, too
ImageJ image processor, too
Meanwhile I noticed you came from Stackoverflow.com. If you need to programmatically access this format, you will need a patch for libpng that gives you support for APNG. It's an excellent (albeit, slightly non-standard) addition to libpng if you need it. It's after all what all the above applications use. ;)

A: The only programs I've seen apart from Fireworks that preserved those PNG layers were Freehand and Flash (both are ex-Macromedia).  The last time I did that was a few years ago so I'm not even sure if the current versions retain that capability.

A: PNG files do not have layers, so Fireworks layers are stored in the private chunks of the PNG files in a proprietary format which is not PNG. I don't know of any program that can read them. You'll need to ask the owner of these photos to convert them to flattened png (mono-layer) or into another multi-layered format such as psd.
If that's not an option, my only advice is to download a trial version of Adobe Fireworks (registration required) to convert these photos.

A: Looks like you can still get the creative cloud to download fireworks cs6 here https://creative.adobe.com/products/download/fireworks.

A: How download Fireworks - old version
Open the Creative Cloud desktop app. (Click the  icon in your Windows taskbar or the macOS menu bar.)
Click the gear icon  in the upper-right corner of the app.

Click Apps. Under Settings, toggle on Show Older Apps, and then click Done.

Under the Apps section in the upper-left corner of the app, click All Apps.


text:
Cash for Cars California / Whittier
Cash For Cars Whittier
Contact Cash For Cars California for Cash For Cars in Whittier, Cash For Used Cars in Whittier, Cash For My Car in Whittier, Cash For Your Car in Whittier, Sell Car For Cash in Whittier, Sell My Car in Whittier, Sell My Car Fast in Whittier, Sell My Car For Cash in Whittier, Sell Used Car in Whittier, Sell Your Car in Whittier, We Buy Cars in Whittier, and in surrounding areas.
Below is some general information about Whittier:
Whittier (/ˈwɪtiər/) is a city in Southern California located within Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 85,331, reflecting an increase of 1,631 from the 83,680 counted in the 2000 Census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles (38.0 km2). Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities. Whittier was incorporated in February 1898 and became a charter city in 1955. The city is named for the poet John Greenleaf Whittier and is home to Whittier College.
Source: Whittier on Wikipedia
Get Cash for Cars Whittier!
If you are in Whittier or surrounding areas, then we can buy your car for cash today!


text:
David Dayen/
Trump's Regulators Want to Kill a Key Financial Rule That Even Republicans Support
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Conservatives who are working to undo Obama-era Wall Street reforms do have one regulation they'd like to keep in place: high capital requirements for financial institutions, so that big banks can pay for their own losses if they run into trouble instead of needing a government bailout. The House Republicans' Financial CHOICE Act follows this model, gutting scores of rules created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law in favor of a simple capital buffer.
That legislation, which passed the House along party lines but is not expected to pass the Senate, would be a disaster: Its buffer is too low, and there's no mechanism to enforce it. But conservatives have been interested for years in regulating capital. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown carried bipartisan legislation through two Congresses calling for higher capital requirements. Conservative economists, central bankers and academics all share this view.
But Randal Quarles, the most important regulatory official at the Federal Reserve, announced last week that reducing capital requirements is a top priority—and Fed Chair nominee Jerome Powell supports the idea. So Donald Trump's two biggest appointments to the central bank not only agree on dismantling the relatively more stringent regulatory apparatus in place since the Great Recession, but are taking the one policy conservatives have long supported in financial regulation and targeting it for degradation.
Capital refers to how much money a bank can borrow to fund its operations. The simplest measure of capital, known as leverage, looks only at how much equity banks carry compared to total assets like loans. According to a September 2016 FDIC report, the average big bank had a leverage ratio of 5.6 percent, meaning it had $5.60 in capital for every $100 it lent out. Another measure of capital known as the Tier 1 ratio is risk-weighted, meaning that the assets are counted differently according to the risk they hold. This can prove disastrous if the "low-risk" assets are actually dangerous—as mortgage-backed securities were considered to be during the housing bubble.
Banks don't want high capital levels because financing operations through borrowing, rather than with their own money, creates more profit. For example, if a bank makes a $100 investment and borrows $80, and the investment goes up 10 percent, they've made $10 while risking $20 of their own money, a 50 percent gain. But if they borrowed $95 for that investment, they make $10 while risking only $5, a 200 percent gain. Scale that up and you can see how borrowing is much more lucrative.
Bank capital standards are set internationally, per a global agreement known as Basel III. But under Daniel Tarullo, who ran bank regulatory policy at the Fed during the Obama administration, the United States set limits higher for leverage and Tier 1 capital, particularly for the largest financial institutions. Holding more capital makes the biggest financial institutions less profitable but also more stable.
Quarles, Trump's choice to direct bank regulation at the Fed, took over in October, and on Friday he gave one of his first speeches outlining his plans. "I am not advocating an enervation of the regulatory capital regime," Quarles insisted, but went on to recommend precisely that. The two key areas marked for change include a "simplification" of capital rules for smaller banks, and a "recalibration" of the leverage ratio for all firms. Bloomberg reports that Fed staffers are already rewriting the leverage rule, "a move that could free up billions of dollars for some Wall Street giants." Quarles promised a formal proposal on leverage "relatively soon."
This shift would mean abandoning America's post–financial crisis strategy of going beyond the Basel III framework in its regulation of leverage and capital. European banks have significantly lower requirements, and Powell, who is awaiting confirmation as Fed chairman, said in June that lowering leverage "could help to reduce the cost that the largest banks face."
Reducing leverage increases risk almost by definition. Thin capital ratios turned a drop in profitability in 2008 into a massive credit crisis. But it's the severe break with high-level conservative thinking on the topic, in favor of a big gift to the banking sector, that's startling here. As recently as a couple of months ago, committed conservatives would trade practically the entire regulatory regime for higher capital requirements. Now the conservatives in power, already busily neglecting regulatory enforcement, want to send those capital levels lower.
One problem for Quarles is that the Fed needs partners at other banking regulators to change capital rules, and some old-school conservatives lurk there. That's particularly true at the FDIC. Thomas Hoenig, the Republican vice-chair, is the most committed conservative regulator on capital requirements. Last March, he proposed a 10 percent leverage ratio, which is far higher than current law. And in a letter in August, he argued against degrading capital requirements. He noted that if JPMorgan Chase held onto its earnings rather than paying them out to shareholders through dividends, it could issue hundreds of billions of dollars in additional loans, which benefits the broader economy.
Hoenig may eventually get outvoted on the FDIC, but he's experienced in intra-regulator fights. A Republican split on bank rules could highlight how letting banks enrich shareholders and executives puts us all at greater risk of another crash. If conservatives abandon strict capital requirements, there's really no major regulation left to impose on the banks. The result could be combustible.
David Dayen @ddayen
David Dayen is the author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud.
Finance, Economics, Wall Street, Dodd-Frank, Donald Trump, US Federal Reserve


text:
Doyen of Rongotea
Jean Duran, generally regarded as the doyen of the Rongotea Saleyards, will step down from her office role after the last NZ Farmers Livestock sale of 2020.
Doyen of Rongotea Saleyards Steps Down
Jean Duran, generally regarded as the doyen of the Rongotea Saleyards, will step down from her office role after the last NZ Farmers Livestock sale of 2020. Hers has been the familiar face – and voice – in the office at the saleyards since 1991.
"I grew up in England and emigrated to New Zealand with my husband and daughter in 1974," Jean said. "I'd always done data entry but never envisaged that I would one day be familiar with all the terms and practices of the livestock industry," Jean said.
Jean's foray to New Zealand agriculture was with FCDC (Farmers Cooperative Distribution Co) where she was based in the Feilding office doing data entry and, eventually, accounts.
"In those days FCDC was one of the largest companies in Feilding providing a wide range of services to the farming community. Farmers were able to charge-up such things as staff wages, groceries, insurance and whiteware to their wool cheques or stock proceeds.
"The building where I was based is now a video store and icecream parlour with apartments upstairs but in those days it was a focal point for farmers albeit mainly by telephone and mail."
Jean continued to work with FCDC as it transitioned through several mergers before her role was made redundant in 1990.
"I had a break from work of around six months and in September 1991 was offered the role of data entry at the NZ Farmers Livestock owned Rongotea Saleyards.
"This was a real change of culture – moving from the office where contact with farmers was remote, to getting to know people in person - putting faces to names."
Jean Duran says no two days at the saleyards are the same.
"I love the variety. I've always got agents and farmers calling in. It's like a big family. We're all here doing the same thing really – working together to keep the business of farming humming."
Looking back, Jean says paperwork is the biggest thing which has changed over the years.
"We'd never heard of identity fraud in the old days – clients could simply buy stock without an account and we'd just send an invoice. But that all changed over the years, and clients are now required to verify their identity.
"Animal health regulations, like NAIT, have also introduced a level of compliance which has added to the 'paperwork' which accompanies every animal that is purchased or sold at the yards."
Her time in the industry means she is currently working with an agent who is the son of an agent she worked with many years ago – "and our youngest agent wasn't born when I started here."
Jean's last day at the Rongotea Saleyards will be at the final sale of the year on 23 December.
"I will miss it – the people and the environment – but I'm looking forward to retirement; reading, gardening, grandchildren – and I can always pop back to catchup with old mates."


And his girlfriend live-streamed the aftermath on Facebook.
Lavisha Reynolds can be heard screaming in a Facebook video that went viral Wednesday night after she, her boyfriend, Philando Castile, and her 4-year-old daughter were pulled over while driving in Falcon Heights, Minn.
Castile, the driver of the vehicle, was shot and killed by a police officer, officials said, after allegedly reaching for his driver's license after the officer asked him for it. Reynolds also said Castile possessed a concealed carry license and told the officer about the gun when he asked.
Jon Mangseth, the interim police chief in the community of St. Anthony where the shooting occurred, said the incident began when an officer pulled over a vehicle around 9 p.m. Wednesday in Falcon Heights. Mangseth said he did not have details about the reason for the traffic stop, but that at some point, shots were fired. The man was struck but no one else was injured, he said.
Castile later died in the hospital, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Associated Press reported that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the incident.
This is the second shooting of a black man by a police officer in less than 24 hours. Alton Sterling was killed by a police officer in Baton Rouge, La., Tuesday night. When will enough be enough?
Castile is at least the 506th person shot and killed by police so far in the US in 2016, according to a Washington Post database that tracks these shootings.
It is argued that some of these people have criminal records, others are carrying weapons or refusing arrest. While this may be true in some cases, does this justify their murder? Absolutely not.
No one is above the law, not even those who are supposed to enforce it.
The Black Lives Matter movement, family, friends and protesters are standing up for and in solidarity with Philando and the others who have fallen victim to these tragedies.
RIP #PhilandoCastile C'mon... Daughter in the back. Why would ANY man do something crazy with his daughter there. The cop KNEW he messed up.
As Global Citizens, we recognize that black lives matter, just as all lives matter.


Similar to the soft budget constraints (or SBC) under former socialist countries, the budget rule under EU treaty is also "soft" in a sense that violating the rule won't be really punished. Punishments, such as kicking the "rogue" member country out of the union, run contradictory to the political ambition of the European Union and would risk breaking the union altogether.
The other option is to rein in the government spending of the member countries. But that would require a centralized authority with direct control of the member countries, especially on their fiscal policies, i.e., how governments spend their money. At current stage, Europe is not ready for such radical change, which requires a big surrender of their own sovereignty. So what Europe will likely end up is a fake fiscal union with soft budget rules. The moral hazard problem is unsolved. Rest assured to see more budget rule violations in the future.
The following map from WSJ gives a very nice summary of how the union's budget rule had been violated in the past.
Now it looks like no matter what Europeans are trying to do, and how many summits politicians rush to put together, things just keep getting worse.
If PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) were to 'fly ', and debt contagion were to spread, and Europe's Lehman moment finally to arrive, you probably want to at least have a slightest hint of where the next domino is likely to fall. That's the purpose of this short post.
The following four charts are from researchers at BIS, including my former Brandeis teacher Steve Cecchetti. I suggest that everybody take a minimum of five minutes going through these tables. For nerds like me, I stick them on the wall in my office.
Chris Wood shares his insights on what's likely the endgame of European sovereign debt crisis.
He predicts it will be either a move from monetary union to fiscal union, or a complete breakdown of the Euro. He thinks the first scenario is more likely and Germany will eventually budge.
According to WSJ, less than two weeks after European leaders unveiled an agreement that was designed to bolster confidence in the region, the yield on Italy's 10-year debt drew close to the 7% mark, a line in the sand of both practical and psychological importance to the market.
Psychologically, 7% has become a beacon due to the fact that Greece, Portugal and Ireland each sought bailouts soon after their debt reached these levels. While analysts said it is too simplistic to say that Italy will be forced to ask for support if its 10-year debt yields 7%, they said the recent selloff is taking the country to the tipping point.
A sharp slide in bond prices pushed yields to their highest levels since the inception of the euro. The two-year yield rose a staggering 0.60 percentage points to 6.04% while the five-year yield climbed 0.37 percentage points to 6.56%.The 10-year yield was up 0.27 percentage points to 6.60%, having hit a new high of 6.62% earlier Monday.
It seemed that Europe is gradually approaching its own Lehman moment. What's different, compared to previously trouble of other smaller PIIGS, is that the latest escalation fed fears that the euro-zone debt crisis is starting down its most perilous path: going from a storm raging among small countries at Europe's fringe to one that strikes a major economic power.
Also, Italy's debt load of €1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) is the second largest in Europe, behind Germany's, and the fourth largest in the world. Next year, more than €300 billion of debt comes due, and Italy must continually tap markets to refinance it.
The following graph was taken out from a recent report on Europe's debt trajectory by GMO's Rich Mattione. It pretty much summarizes the current dire situation in Europe.
Greece is not the only country in trouble. Italy is the real threat to the stability of Europe. If Italy falls, Europe falls.
Germany and France, the two largest economies in Europe, are relatively better positioned, but their government-debt-to-GDP ratios, 83% and 82%, respectively, will seriously constrain their ability to bail out the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain). In contrast, Scandinavian countries enjoy the strongest position in all developed countries, with the debt-to-GDP ratio well below 50%.
Will Greek default end the Euro?
The real question is: Would a messy (and massive) default under which the country refuses to repay in full signify the end of the euro?
A messy default would certainly end the ideal of the euro area as a club whose members are all equal and work toward a common goal, namely the stability of the common currency. Membership in such a club protects against financial problems, because members are supposed to behave well and help each other in case of unjustified speculative attacks. Although the EU Treaty says that members are not liable for each other's public debt, there is an implicit political commitment, as we see right now, to provide emergency help.
The quid pro quo for this solidarity is of course the expectation that all members abide by certain standards, for example those embodied in the Stability and Growth Pact, that aim to limit budget deficits and debts. The continuing misreporting of fiscal data by Greece has already severely damaged this ideal. But the "club" could still be saved if Greece undertook a determined national effort to service its debt and avoid a messy default.
However, even a messy default by Greece alone would not necessarily mean the end of the euro area. The day after a formal default, Greek banks would no longer have access to the regular monetary policy operations of the European Central Bank. The ECB could no longer accept their collateral, Greek debt, which would immediately have less than junk status. The country would thus effectively cease to be part of the euro area. Its status would resemble that of Montenegro, which adopted the euro as legal tender without officially being a member of the single currency zone.
In Greece, following a messy default, euro notes and coins would still circulate in the economy, but one euro on a Greek bank account would no longer be automatically equivalent to one euro on a bank account elsewhere in the euro area, as Greek banks might immediately become insolvent and thus be shut out of the payment systems. Until Greek solvency has been re-established, the euro zone would thus de facto have lost one of its members—although the Greek Central Bank head would still sit on the Governing Council of the ECB, and the Greek finance minister would still be a member of the Euro Group, with his country's normal voting powers intact.
The Greek economy would collapse, but the impact on the rest of the single currency zone should be minor, given that the country represents only about 2% of the euro area's GDP and is not home to any systemically relevant financial institution.
In many ways, a Greek default would leave the euro zone in better shape. Its institutions would probably be strengthened, because it would have become clear that the framework is strong enough to withstand the failure of one of its members. Tolerance toward deficit violations and inaccurate reporting would be much reduced. The club would have been transformed into a federation whose peripheral components can be told to "get lost," so to speak. As a result, majority voting would tend to replace consensus as the normal way of decision-making.
Will contagion prove fatal? The fundamentals of Spain and Italy, especially their self-financing capacities, are much stronger than in Greece and Portugal. Moreover, neither Spain nor Italy would gain much from a default, since most of their public debt is held by their own citizens. A default would thus not lower the foreign debt of the country. For Greece, by contrast, 90% of all public debt is held by foreigners, who could be expropriated by a default.
However, markets can at times be irrational. The real test of the euro area is thus not Greece, but whether it can protect members that do not have an insolvency problem from speculative attacks.
The signals are so far mixed. After an initial bout of generalized nervousness in February, when it first became clear that the second leg of the financial crisis could imply sovereign default, financial markets have increasingly differentiated among the weaker members of the euro area. Risk premia have tended to move together in the same direction, but with completely different orders of magnitude. The spreads on Spanish bonds have increased, but they remain less than one third of those of Greece, with Italy even lower.
The fate of euro is not being decided in Athens, but in Madrid and Rome.
Marty Feldstein thinks Greek default is inevitable. I think default is one possible outcome, and the alternative is for Greece to ask EU to be "kicked out" of European Union, so it can depeg itself from Euro zone and use monetary policy to stimulate its own economy.
Sovereign debt quality as measured by debt-to-GDP ratio.


text:
An Evening with Lynsey Addario & John Moore
8 Apr 2019 TALKS THU MAY 2
Featuring: Lynsey Addario and John Moore
Thursday, May 2nd | 7PM
Meet at The Studio.
This is a free event and has limited seating. We will be admitting patrons on a first come, first served basis.
No RSVP is required but we are always interested in who intends on coming, so you can express your interest here.
Join us as two celebrated photojournalists sit down for a powerful conversation about their work crossing the globe to report on humanitarian crises attributable to the ongoing war in Syria, and the effects of the immigration policies put in place at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump administration.
Over the past two decades, Lynsey Addario has photographed stories on war and social justice issues, such as the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and the civil uprising in Libya. Lynsey's second book, Of Love and War, takes a broad look at issues including the long war in Afghanistan as well as the Syrian refugee crisis, which has displaced roughly half of the population of Syria.
John Moore has spent the last decade photographing issues of undocumented immigration to the United States from Central America and Mexico. Traveling the entire length of the U.S.–Mexico border, John has formed connections with members of the U.S. Border Patrol, asylum seekers fleeing violence, and migrants searching for economic opportunity, as he visually documents the current U.S. administration's aggressive response to pursue, detain, and deport migrants. These stories and more are featured in John's book, Undocumented (2018).
Moore's June, 2018 image of a young asylum seeker crying as her mother was being apprehended by border patrol was recently named the 2019 World Press Photo of the Year.
We are thrilled to present this very special live event, an on-stage conversation between Lynsey and John about experiences from their careers in photojournalism and everything that's behind the stunning visual images you see on the front-pages of world news. Also, be sure to check out their individual exhibitions, Of Love and War and Undocumented, showcased here at Photoville LA!
Make sure to also check out Lynsey Addario's Of Love and War and John Moore's Undocumented Exhibitions at Photoville LA.
Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist who regularly works for The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine. Since September 11, 2001, Addario has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She photographs feature stories on humanitarian and human rights issues across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa with a specific focus on women's issues.
In 2015, American Photo Magazine named Lynsey as one of Five Most Influential Photographers of the Past 25 years, saying she changed the way we saw the world's conflicts.
In 2009, Addario was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship for her "…dedication to demystifying foreign cultures and exposing the tragic consequences of human conflict…and providing a valuable historical record for future generations."
She was part of The New York Times team to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her photographs in 'Talibanistan,' published in The New York Times Magazine, and in 2015, she was nominated for an Emmy award for "The Displaced" a photographic series and virtual reality film documenting the lives of three children displaced by war and conflict in Syria, South Sudan, and Ukraine.
In 2016, the University of Wisconsin-Madison awarded her an honorary Doctoral degree in the Humanities for her professional accomplishments.
She recently released a New York Times best selling memoir, "It's What I Do," which chronicles her personal and professional life as a photojournalist coming of age in the post-9/11 world. It is her first book.
John Moore is a senior staff photographer and special correspondent for Getty Images. He has photographed in 65 countries on six continents and was posted internationally for 17 years, first to Nicaragua, then India, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt and Pakistan. He returned to the U.S. in 2008 and has since focused on immigration and border issues. Moore has won top awards throughout his career, including the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, World Press Photo honors, the John Faber Award and the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club, Photographer of the Year from Pictures of the Year International, the NPPA and Sony World Photography Organization. Moore is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied Radio-Television-Film. He lives with his family in Stamford, Connecticut.
[ OTHER TALKS ]
Location: The Studio


equipment in use in mining industry type or Mining Suppliers in the World SupplyMineFind Mining Suppliers in the World. Search over 16,000 suppliers covering the entire range of products and services used by the mining industry.
Graco is an industry leader in water treatment and processing equipment for wastewater, freshwater, contaminated surface water and more.
Application can be used in mining, metallurgical industry, construction, road and Gold Ore Mining Marble Stone Pulverizer Combine Cone Crusher In Singapore. Get Price Granulating Machine, Granulating Machine Suppliers and . singapore ball mill equipment used in mining industry offers 219038 granulating machine products.
Equipment must be used in the mining and/or mineral processing industry. Equipment can be located anywhere, worldwide. Equipment stays at your location the whole time.
Chalcopyrite Mining Equipment for Sale, Crusher Machine inMining Plant The chalcopyrite ore deposit can be extracted by open pit quarrying or underground mining methods. Chalcopyrite mining equipment for sale includes quarry machine, crushing machine, grinding plant, screening machine, conveying system etc.
uses of pulley lagging machines in mining Grinding uses of pulley lagging machines in. The Gulin product line, consisting of more thanmachines, sets the standard for our industry.
safe operating procedures for crushers vaishno devi2018 1 5 183; safe operating procedures a crusher. Manufacturer heavy industry is specialized in the design, manufacture and supply of crushing equipment used in mining industry.safe job procedures for crusher operationshome safe operating procedures mets crusher.
Below is a list of current Quarrying / Oil / Mining tenders, requests for quotation, requests for proposal and expressions of interest. To narrow down the results, please select your sub category and region.


A single-color lithographed map of Galicia designed as a reference for contemporary news accounts of WWI from the perspective of the Russian Empire in 1915. At the time this map was printed, Galicia had figured prominently in the first year of the war; ongoing hostilities would make this map relevant for years. The map depicts many Galician cities and towns, highlighting transportation networks plus key rivers and bridges. Natural defensive lines such as the Carpathian mountains are also indicated, as well as man-made defenses such as the Przemyśl fortress (which traded hands twice in 1915); see the legend. Published as a free supplement for subscribers of the Russian-language newspaper "Siberian Life". Original copy of this map preserved by the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg; digital copy sourced by Tony Kahane.


text:
Redefining the Italian Sound
Gaia Gozzi's music mixes Italian, Brazilian and Portuguese and draws from a vast foundation of influences. Often driven by simple acoustic melodies and stripped back beats, it's a sunset, enjoyed barefoot on warm sand, captured to reel. Listed in Forbes as one of the 100 Italians under the age of 30 who will leave their mark, she's already recorded two full length albums all which bring a diverse set of influences from Diana Ross to Stevie Wonder and Caetano Veloso.
Her CREATOR STUDIO merch has an easy bohemian edge and, as show, feels great worn oversized.
Go take a look
A powerhouse of a creative, Sami rights and real social issues are just a few of the themes that Maxida Märak champions in her work.
Meet Maxida


text:
The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done - How personal productivity transformed work—and failed to.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-rise-and-fall-of-getting-things-done
Not long afterward, Mann posted a self-reflective essay on 43 Folders, in which he revealed a growing dissatisfaction with the world of personal productivity. Productivity pr0n, he suggested, was becoming a bewildering, complexifying end in itself—list-making as a "cargo cult," system-tweaking as an addiction. "On more than a few days, I wondered what, precisely, I was trying to accomplish," he wrote. Part of the problem was the recursive quality of his work. Refining his productivity system so that he could blog more efficiently about productivity made him feel as if he were being "tossed around by a menacing Rube Goldberg device" of his own design; at times, he said, "I thought I might be losing my mind." He also wondered whether, on a substantive level, the approach that he'd been following was really capable of addressing his frustrations. It seemed to him that it was possible to implement many G.T.D.-inflected life hacks without feeling "more competent, stable, and alive." He cleaned house, deleting posts. A new "About" page explained that 43 Folders was no longer a productivity blog but a "website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work."
The Plague Year - The mistakes and the struggles behind America's coronavirus tragedy
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year
Tens of millions of Americans emulated the President's bravado, and the unchecked virus prolonged unemployment, upended efforts to reopen the economy, and caused many more fatalities. "I'm not buying a fucking mask," Richard Rose, a thirty-seven-year-old Army veteran from Ohio, posted on Facebook. "I've made it this far by not buying into that damn hype." He tested positive on July 1st and died three days later. There are many similar stories.
It's dispiriting to think that, had such a simple precaution been broadly implemented from the start, America could have avoided so much suffering, death, impoverishment, and grief. The starkest example occurred in Kansas, when the governor issued an executive order to wear masks in public but allowed counties to opt out. It was as if Kansas were performing a clinical trial on itself. Within two months, infections in mask-wearing counties had fallen by six per cent; elsewhere, infections rose a hundred per cent.
Surprisingly, the marches did not appear to be significant drivers of transmission. "We tested thousands of people," Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, at the University of Minnesota, said. "We saw no appreciable impact." One study found lower rates of infection among marchers than in their surrounding communities. Epidemiologists concluded that mask wearing and being outdoors protected the protesters. Moreover, demonstrators were on the move. Osterholm said that people in stationary crowds are more likely to become infected. In other words, joining a protest march is inherently less dangerous than attending a political rally.
Midnight In Chernobyl: Excerpt
https://www.npr.org/books/titles/737993197/midnight-in-chernobyl-the-untold-story-of-the-worlds-greatest-nuclear-disaster#excerpt
Advancement in many political, economic, and scientific careers was granted only to those who repressed their personal opinions, avoided conflict, and displayed unquestioning obedience to those above them. By the midseventies, this blind conformism had smothered individual decision-making at all levels of the state and Party machine, infecting not just the bureaucracy but technical and economic disciplines, too. Lies and deception were endemic to the system, trafficked in both directions along the chain of management: those lower down passed up reports to their superiors packed with falsified statistics and inflated estimates, of unmet goals triumphantly reached, unfulfilled quotas heroically exceeded. To protect his own position, at every stage, each manager relayed the lies upward or compounded them.
Seated at the top of a teetering pyramid of falsehood, poring over reams of figures that had little basis in reality, were the economic mandarins of the State General Planning Committee—Gosplan—in Moscow. The brain of the "command economy," Gosplan managed the centralized distribution of resources throughout the USSR, from toothbrushes to tractors, reinforced concrete to platform boots. Yet the economists in Moscow had no reliable index of what was going on in the vast empire they notionally maintained; the false accounting was so endemic that at one point the KGB resorted to turning the cameras of its spy satellites onto Soviet Uzbekistan in an attempt to gather accurate information about the state's own cotton harvest.
Shortages and apparently inexplicable gluts of goods and materials were part of the grim routine of daily life, and shopping became a game of chance played with a string avoska, or "what-if" bag, carried in the hope of stumbling upon a store recently stocked with anything useful—whether sugar, toilet paper, or canned ratatouille from Czechoslovakia. Eventually the supply problems of the centrally planned economy became so chronic that crops rotted in the fields, and Soviet fishermen watched catches putrefy in their nets, yet the shelves of the Union's grocery stores remained bare.
Confessions of a Xinjiang Camp Teacher
https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/confessions-of-a-xinjiang-camp-teacher/
"It was a huge camp," she recalled. "There were about 10,000 women with shaved heads, of whom only about 60 were over 60. Most of them were young, pretty, well brought up."
It was a camp for those who had studied abroad in Korea, Australia, Turkey, Egypt, Europe, or the United States. All highly educated and speaking several languages, they were detained on arrival in Xinjiang after returning to visit their families. Qelbinur suddenly feared for her own daughter, who was studying overseas. "I had decided to kill myself if China forced her to return," she said.
Sanitary conditions at this camp were vile, Qelbinur recalled. The air reeked from a single toilet bucket in each cell that was emptied once a day. One minute was allowed for face washing in the morning and showers rationed to once a month."The atmosphere was pestilential," she said. "Many were getting sick from the lack of hygiene."
The Church Needs Prophets, But It Wants Lawyers
https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-church-needs-prophets-but-wants
Take, for example, the response to the racial reckoning in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. You might be spending more time listening to lawyers than prophets if you're more familiar—seven months later—with the flaws of Critical Race Theory than with the details of wealth gaps, achievement gaps, or with the systematic violations of civil rights that are all too common in marginalized communities.
It's not easy to find (or listen to) the prophetic voice. I've had to learn from painful experience to listen to voices from outside the comfortable confines of my own spiritual cocoon. It's a source of personal shame, for example, that I couldn't clearly perceive the realities of contemporary American racism until it was directed at my own daughter, and I was shocked out of my spiritual complacency.
American Christian culture is rife with congregants looking for lawyers, not prophets and not pastors. The church-shopping phenomenon puts us in churches that make us feel quite comfortable, and the sheer number of available congregations (especially in the South and parts of the Midwest) makes us quite mobile. From all too many members of the congregation comes the cry, "Tell us what we want to hear!"
What's something Americans are privileged of, but they take it as granted?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/kkw3cx/whats_something_americans_are_privileged_of_but/
The United States has, by far, the best ocean access of any other nation. There are thousands of miles of coastline on both the Atlantic and the Pacific. This gives the USA unmatched ability to trade in every direction at a much lower cost than pretty much every other country.
Former DHS Official: Trump Pouring 'Fuel On The Fire' Of Domestic Extremism
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/02/908347989/former-dhs-official-white-house-failed-to-take-far-right-extremism-seriously
"They borrowed from ISIS's playbook and they learned how to radicalize people online," she says. In the post-Sept. 11 United States, domestic extremists also adopted an emphasis on smaller attacks that could be carried out quickly with limited planning. What Neumann saw was "the pivot to bring your own weapon to the fight, use whatever you have: a knife, a gun, a vehicle, vehicle ramming," she says. "We've seen a number of vehicle rammings this summer, in fact."
But unlike the urgent interagency response to ISIS, Neumann says there was no clear effort to combat violent extremists on the right.
"If you had a very clear voice at the top, from the president, from other senior leaders in the Republican Party, denouncing this and warning conservatives — warning Republicans — that these groups are trying to recruit you based on things that might sound like a typical conservative belief, but behind it is this insidious, ugly, evil thing, if we had more clear voices talking about it — it would somewhat inoculate people from that recruitment and that radicalization," she says. "But instead, we have the opposite effect. We have the president not only pretty much refusing to condemn, but throwing fuel on the fire, creating opportunities for more recruitment through his rhetoric."
Right-Wing Embrace Of Conspiracy Is 'Mass Radicalization,' Experts Warn
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/946381523/right-wing-embrace-of-conspiracy-is-mass-radicalization-experts-warn
"There are no easy answers, even if they're carrying guns and wearing body armor," Dempsey said. "We've got to get past that and be wary of the idea of militarism that doesn't lead to a common conception of service, but leads to the kind of tribalism where we have to protect ourselves and our families by force against those we disagree with."
On the conference call, the analysts agreed that the leftist fringe also is hardening and promoting its own conspiracies. But they said there's simply no equivalency with the right in terms of the volume of disinformation and conspiracy, or in its connections to violent acts.
"There is a monetization of outrage on both sides," Neumann said, "but in particular the conservative infotainment sector makes money off of that outrage."
Leaked Documents Show How China's Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus
https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus
"China has a politically weaponized system of censorship; it is refined, organized, coordinated and supported by the state's resources," said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of China Digital Times. "It's not just for deleting something. They also have a powerful apparatus to construct a narrative and aim it at any target with huge scale."
"This is a huge thing," he added. "No other country has that."
Whatever happened to Hotel Detectives?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6sfj2v/whatever_happened_to_the_house_dick/dldl01g/
Experience was the most important attribute of a hotel detective, since, for the most part, such men had three main functions to perform. The first was to protect the hotel's reputation and prevent it from unwittingly breaking any laws, which, especially in earlier periods, often involved preventing an establishment from acquiring a reputation as the sort of place that allowed unmarried couples to have sex on the premises - very often an offence at the time under laws relating to "unlawful cohabitation". A 1979 article in Texas Monthly notes that in earlier times a house officer would, as part of his routine, challenge male guests with the line "Is there a woman in your room?" Dev Collans, in I Was A House Detective (1954) describes enlisting bellboys to report on "couples who wouldn't open their suitcases while the bellboy was still in the room; married couples didn't hesitate to. A man in sleek clothes with a woman whose shoes were run down at the heels is another giveaway."
Priceless lessons from my sixth-grade English teacher
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/priceless-lessons-from-my-sixth-grade-english-teacher/2020/12/24/ab8842b2-4545-11eb-975c-d17b8815a66d_story.html
3. If a reader doesn't understand what you are trying to say, that is your fault — not the reader's.
Sometimes I complain about cranky emails I receive from people who misread something I wrote. Then I remember Mr. Greco's dictum that the burden of clarity is always on the writer.
Dense, incomprehensible prose is not an indicator of intellect. It signals that a writer doesn't sufficiently understand the subject matter or was too lazy to write something clearer.
It's because of Emersyn: Jaccob and Kylie Slavin's love for their child shifted their reality
https://theathletic.com/1958173/
Even casual interactions with friends often include moments where Emersyn's otherness is apparent. Like that day in a coffee shop when one of Kylie's acquaintances noted how cute Emersyn was and added: "I want one." All Kylie could think was, no, adopting a Black child is not some trend, her daughter is not an accessory there to be dehumanized.
They are quick to fire back questions that challenge the faulty premises they once didn't recognize. Why would you assume that? Why did you feel the need to ask that question? What did you mean by that? They can't let the microaggressions go unchecked.
They don't go around calling people racist, either. That's not the point. They just want to make people aware of their implicit biases, their unintentionally offensive commentary and even bigoted perspectives. They want to have the conversations because people need to think about these things.
The Most American Religion
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/the-most-american-religion/617263/
The hard parts of Mormonism—huffing up hills in a white shirt and tie, forgoing coffee, paying tithes—might complicate the sales pitch. But they can also inspire acts of courage. After Romney voted to remove Trump from office—standing alone among Republican senators—he told me his life in the Church had steeled him for this lonely political moment, in which neither the right nor the left is ever happy with him for long. "One of the advantages of growing up in my faith outside of Utah is that you are different in ways that are important to you," he said. In high school, he was the only Mormon on campus; during his stint at Stanford, he would go to bars with his friends and drink soda. Small moments like those pile up over a lifetime, he told me, so that when a true test of conscience arrives, "you're not in a position where you don't know how to stand for something that's hard."
In Mormon circles, Romney's impeachment vote was fodder for another round of "white horse" jokes. But the reality, of course, is that America will never be "saved" by a single person, or even a single group. What holds the country together is its conviction in certain ideals—community, democracy, mutual sacrifice—that it once possessed, and now urgently needs to reclaim. If Mormonism has anything to offer that effort, it will have to come from a confident Church, one that is unafraid of owning up to its mistakes and embracing what makes it distinct.
Inside the Whale: An Interview with an Anonymous Amazonian
https://logicmag.io/commons/inside-the-whale-an-interview-with-an-anonymous-amazonian/
A cybercriminal can also get paid by a competitor to expose data, or to change the configuration so the data is exposed publicly to make that company look bad. The Capital One breach in 2019 involved a former Amazon employee, actually. Capital One suffered a huge embarrassment in the press. But unfortunately, as with the Experian data breach in 2015, the Capital One incident showed that the markets are very forgiving of data breaches, because the people who are most victimized by them are poor people who have no idea how to control their data anyway, and didn't even know what it means to have their data breached.
Companies don't like to have their whole ass be shown that way. It's a lot of egg to get on your face. But in the end, the market is learning that massive data exposures are not that bad of a problem unless Congress comes calling.
Where Georgia's Hand Recount Differed From the Initial Tally, by County
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/19/us/elections/georgia-recount.html
On Thursday, Georgia's 159 counties finalized a hand recount, technically an audit, of the five million ballots cast in the election, reaffirming Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory but reducing his lead by more than 1,200 votes.
Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, had ordered the manual audit as part of a new state law to ensure the accuracy of voting machines by comparing paper ballot counts with machine tallies. This was not an official recount, though the Trump campaign can choose to request one after the state's results are certified this week, as the vote margin between Mr. Biden and President Trump is below 0.5 percentage points.
In many counties, officials conducting the audit found zero or single-digit differences in their counts, and they will not change their original results for the state certification process. Yet at least four counties — Douglas, Fayette, Floyd and Walton — discovered missed ballots and will add these to their original counts.
She Stalked Her Daughter's Killers Across Mexico, One by One
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/13/world/americas/miriam-rodriguez-san-fernando.html
SAN FERNANDO, Mexico — Miriam Rodríguez clutched a pistol in her purse as she ran past the morning crowds on the bridge to Texas. She stopped every few minutes to catch her breath and study the photo of her next target: the florist.
She had been hunting him for a year, stalking him online, interrogating the criminals he worked with, even befriending unwitting relatives for tips on his whereabouts. Now she finally had one — a widow called to tell her that he was peddling flowers on the border.
Ever since 2014, she had been tracking the people responsible for the kidnapping and murder of her 20-year-old daughter, Karen. Half of them were already in prison, not because the authorities had cracked the case, but because she had pursued them on her own, with a meticulous abandon.
She cut her hair, dyed it and disguised herself as a pollster, a health worker and an election official to get their names and addresses. She invented excuses to meet their families, unsuspecting grandmothers and cousins who gave her details, however small. She wrote everything down and stuffed it into her black computer bag, building her investigation and tracking them down, one by one.
BLEEDING ALBINA: A HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DISINVESTMENT, 1940–2000
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8vrhzdjE2SWMzU4M2QyZWItNzBkNC00OTBmLTliN2MtZDZkNmU0MzZiMDFk/edit?pli=1
This was really part of much, much larger forces that are at work, and they may or may not be consciously malicious . . . This is the result of city policy, of other kinds of large-scale things that systematically cripple or dismember a community. Some neighborhoods are "fed." Others are bled.
Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/facebook-doomsday-machine/617384/
The social web is doing exactly what it was built for. Facebook does not exist to seek truth and report it, or to improve civic health, or to hold the powerful to account, or to represent the interests of its users, though these phenomena may be occasional by-products of its existence. The company's early mission was to "give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." Instead, it took the concept of "community" and sapped it of all moral meaning. The rise of QAnon, for example, is one of the social web's logical conclusions. That's because Facebook—along with Google and YouTube—is perfect for amplifying and spreading disinformation at lightning speed to global audiences. Facebook is an agent of government propaganda, targeted harassment, terrorist recruitment, emotional manipulation, and genocide—a world-historic weapon that lives not underground, but in a Disneyland-inspired campus in Menlo Park, California.
I Was the Homeland Security Adviser to Trump. We're Being Hacked.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/opinion/fireeye-solarwinds-russia-hack.html
The remediation effort alone will be staggering. It will require the segregated replacement of entire enclaves of computers, network hardware and servers across vast federal and corporate networks. Somehow, the nation's sensitive networks have to remain operational despite unknown levels of Russian access and control. A "do over" is mandatory and entire new networks need to be built — and isolated from compromised networks.
Cyber threat hunters that are stealthier than the Russians must be unleashed on these networks to look for the hidden, persistent access controls. These information security professionals actively search for, isolate and remove advanced, malicious code that evades automated safeguards. This will be difficult work as the Russians will be watching every move on the inside.
The National Defense Authorization Act, which each year provides the Defense Department and other agencies the authority to perform its work, is caught up in partisan wrangling. Among other important provisions, the act would authorize the Department of Homeland Security to perform network hunting in federal networks. If it wasn't already, it is now a must-sign piece of legislation, and it will not be the last congressional action needed before this is resolved.
Network operators also must take immediate steps to more carefully inspect their internet traffic to detect and neutralize unexplained anomalies and obvious remote commands from hackers before the traffic enters or leaves their network.
'He ruined us': 10 years on, Tunisians curse man who sparked Arab spring
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/16/he-ruined-us-10-years-on-tunisians-curse-man-who-sparked-arab-spring
Myths about Tunisia – cradle of the protest movements, the lone success story, flag-bearer for Arab democracy – crumble the further one drives from the country's Mediterranean coastline into the neglected hinterlands whose rage fuelled the ousting from power of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the long-serving authoritarian president, in January 2011.
Ten years later, Tunisian is a democracy. It has withstood assassinations, terrorist attacks and the ideological gulfs of its leaders, at crucial moments pulling back from the precipice of returning to authoritarian rule, as happened in Egypt, and of civil war, as in Syria, Yemen and Libya.
Tunisians are freer to criticise their leaders than before, and their elections are honest. Yet people are miserable and disillusioned, joining jihadi groups in among the largest numbers per capita of any country in the world, and making up the majority of boat-borne migrants to Italy this year.
Democratic regression in comparative perspective: scope, methods, and causes
Between 1974 and 2005, a majority of states became democratic for the first time in history. However, a global democratic recession began in 2006 and has persisted – and deepened – over the past 14 years. Not only have average levels of freedom (or democratic quality) been declining globally and in most parts of the world, but the pace of democratic breakdown accelerated and the number of democratic transitions declined, particularly in the past five years. Democratic regression is particularly visible among the G-20 countries and other most populous and geopolitically weighty countries, 19 of which have declined in freedom during the democratic recession, with only two improving. The principal method of democratic regression has been incremental strangulation of democracy by elected (typically populist) executives who gradually eviscerate institutional checks, political opposition, independent media, and other forces of scrutiny and resistance in civil society. Weak and declining rule of law has predisposed regimes to democratic regression, enabling ambitious rulers to hollow out political competition. But international factors have also been crucial, generating common economic and social stresses while lifting the constraints and lowering the risks autocrats face as they inaugurate or accelerate the slide into authoritarianism.
The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/world-has-gone-mad-system-broken-ray-dalio/
At the same time as money is essentially free for those who have money and creditworthiness, it is essentially unavailable to those who don't have money and creditworthiness, which contributes to the rising wealth, opportunity, and political gaps. Also contributing to these gaps are the technological advances that investors and the entrepreneurs that I previously mentioned are excited by in the ways I described, and that also replace workers with machines. Because the "trickle-down" process of having money at the top trickle down to workers and others by improving their earnings and creditworthiness is not working, the system of making capitalism work well for most people is broken.
My Brexit hell
https://thecritic.co.uk/my-brexit-hell/
What was Brexit like? America's declaration of independence? A man leaving a golf club but demanding to still be allowed into the bar? Over the years, I went through a few analogies, but the one that persisted was of a married man who has for years enjoyed casually flirting with a work colleague. One evening he makes his traditional half-hearted pass, and instead of rolling her eyes, she replies: "Go on, then". A month later, he's living out of his car and negotiating through lawyers to see his children one weekend a month, and he can't really tell you how it happened.
On the inside, covering every tiny move in the story, it was mainly exhausting. I escaped Long Covid in 2020, but I may have Long Brexit. Just thinking about the endless days and nights covering this vote or those talks makes me feel ill, overwhelmed by a mix of exhaustion and anxiety.
Mainly, it was stupid. I don't so much mean the vote to leave as everything that followed. Unutterably, unfathomably, unbelievably stupid.
10 Tips for Loving Someone in an Overrun ICU in the time of Covid
https://eriemeyer.medium.com/10-tips-for-loving-someone-in-an-overrun-icu-in-the-time-of-covid-1eeb0960e9f3
This advice is written with love for people facing a nightmare. This is not a condemnation of the doctors and nurses and aides who are doing their best in an impossible situation — this entire situation is a condemnation of policymakers who know exactly how to stop the spread and are not.
If you came here for this advice, it means you're likely in the midst of a horrific experience, and I am so, so sorry. I've been there, and I'm rooting for you. A member of my immediate family contracted covid through community spread early this spring while hospitalized. There were a number of times where the hospital was overrun, they were intubated, and we were told to say goodbye.* This is what I wish I had known then.
Jeffrey Robert and Linda Kay Conn
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/toledoblade/obituary.aspx?n=jeffrey-robert-and-linda-kay-conn&pid=197207362&fhid=22350
In lieu of flowers the family requests that you simply wear a mask when you are out in public and practice social distancing. It is not a difficult thing to do. It is not an infringement on your freedom or civil liberties. It is literally the least, smallest thing you can do to help reduce the risk that vulnerable members of our community will die unnecessarily and leave their loved ones heartbroken and devastated.
This is not normal
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/outlook/siskind-list-trump-norms/
Experts in authoritarianism advise keeping a list of things changing, subtly, around you, so you'll remember. Days after the 2016 presidential election, I started a list. Each week, I chronicle the ways Donald Trump has changed our country. This selection, adapted from more than 34,000 entries — or about 1 percent of the total — focuses on the norms he and his administration have broken. The List offers us a road map back to normalcy and democracy.
Former Alabama state senator dies of Covid at 78, warns in last words, 'We messed up' "We let our guards down. Please tell everybody to be careful. This is real, and if you get diagnosed, get help immediately," former Sen. Larry Dixon said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-alabama-senator-dies-covid-age-78-his-last-words-n1250236
A former Alabama state senator died of Covid-19 last week at age 78, officials said.
The former senator, Larry Dixon, a Republican who was also a former executive director of the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, died Friday, the board said in a statement.
Dr. David Thrasher, a pulmonologist in Montgomery who was a close friend of Dixon's, said Dixon's wife, Gaynell Dixon, told him that her husband's last words to her were a prescient warning to the people of Alabama.
"We messed up. We let our guard down," Dixon said, according to Thrasher. "Please tell everybody to be careful. This is real, and if you get diagnosed, get help immediately."
Thrasher said Dixon was exposed to the virus at a social gathering "with a couple of guys" that was hosted outside about two weeks ago.
Thrasher said he was unsure how many people attended, but he said he knew of two other men who attended and had tested positive.
In conversations with more than two dozen Michigan insiders—elected officials, party elders, consultants, activists—it became apparent how the state's conditions were ripe for this sort of slow-motion disaster. Michigan is home to Detroit, an overwhelmingly majority Black city, that has always been a favorite punching bag of white Republicans. The state had viral episodes of conflict and human error that were easily manipulated and deliberately misconstrued. It drew special attention from the highest levels of the party, and for the president, it had the potential to settle an important score with his adversary, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Perhaps most important, Trump's allies in Michigan proved to be more career-obsessed, and therefore more servile to his whims, than GOP officials in any other state he has cultivated during his presidency, willing to indulge his conspiratorial fantasies in ways other Republicans weren't.
This, Republicans and Democrats here agreed, was the essential difference between Michigan and other states. However sloppy Trump's team was in contesting the results in places like Georgia and Wisconsin, where the margins were fractional, there was at least some plausible justification of a legal challenge. The same could never be said for Michigan. Strangely liberated by his deficit of 154,000 votes, the president's efforts here were aimed not at overturning the results, but rather at testing voters' faith in the ballot box and Republicans' loyalty to him.
The Party That Failed
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-12-04/chinese-communist-party-failed
So I should not have been surprised when it turned out that Xi was no reformer. Over the course of his tenure, the regime has degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness. It has grown even more repressive and dictatorial. A personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the party's grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society. People who haven't lived in mainland China for the past eight years can hardly understand how brutal the regime has become, how many quiet tragedies it has authored. After speaking out against the system, I learned it was no longer safe for me to live in China.
On Susan Collins and Maine
https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/k6716e/maybe_dont_support_the_asshole_next_time/gek61dh/
Mainer here. Yes, we have lots of idiots here but I wouldn't credit them for Collins' victory. Maine is a weird and wonderful place - if you want a gun you can just go to the store and buy a gun, and if you want weed you can buy weed just as easily as you can buy a gun. I hope that kind of primes you for thinking a little outside the box about the state and understanding the people a little better
A significant portion of the electorate in Maine is really proud to be fluid in their affiliations, to the point where party loyalty hasn't really existed in recent memory, so it was always going to be an uphill battle to vote her out by telling voters to go blue no matter who, for starters. Another significant portion of the electorate are conservative minded folks who are genuinely ignorant to the world outside of their little bubble.
Next up you have her record. "She votes with Trump X% of the time" is one of the things the Democrat campaign tried to run against her with, but that's a disingenuous argument because she voted with Obama a significant percentage as well. Above both of those points, a representative is supposed to vote in favor of her constituents interests regardless of who is president and their party affiliation - while she may have shifted to the dark side in the past four years, her career record tracks for the most part in line with the interests of Maine. Overall, she's been good for Maine during her career.
Lastly, and I say this as someone who wanted so so so badly for Collins to lose, the Democrats here ran a really poor campaign against her. First, the corporate Dems squashed the actual exciting progressive candidate, Kidman, in favor of center-left Gideon (Sweet was another progressive candidate with some great ideals but she has some...let's say highly questionable beliefs as well). Pitting a centrist candidate against another basically comes down to who is more well-liked in the state because at the end of the day they are more or less the same candidate, and that is what handed Collins the election. On top of that, the campaign they ran didn't focus much on Gideon's policy, it was all negative attacks on Collins - because her policy wasn't really too far off from Collins. Also, as hicky as it sounds, the Dems not having a native Mainer as their candidate didn't help much either.
I'm disappointed that Collins won as much as anyone else, and this election was the Dems' to lose and they blew it just as they blow so many other elections by trying to force corporate non-progressives down our throats.
I hope this provided a little insight into what happened here. I'll admit that I'm very disappointed in my fellow Mainers and the polarization I've seen take over so many of my coworkers and neighbors over the past four years. I really hope there is some kind of mass deprogramming effort to bring these people back to reality because the people of this state have become very scarily divided and uncharacteristically un-neighborly as of late.
In video, Trump recycles unsubstantiated voter fraud claims
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-media-social-media-elections-71d5469ac0bbccbfe601528a2517b239
WASHINGTON (AP) — Increasingly detached from reality, President Donald Trump stood before a White House lectern and delivered a 46-minute diatribe against the election results that produced a win for Democrat Joe Biden, unspooling one misstatement after another to back his baseless claim that he really won.
Trump called his address, released Wednesday only on social media and delivered in front of no audience, perhaps "the most important speech" of his presidency. But it was largely a recycling of the same litany of misinformation and unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud that he has been making for the past month.
The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done - How per...
The Plague Year - The mistakes and the struggles b...
What's something Americans are privileged of, but ...
Former DHS Official: Trump Pouring 'Fuel On The Fi...
Right-Wing Embrace Of Conspiracy Is 'Mass Radicali...
Leaked Documents Show How China's Army of Paid Int...
It's because of Emersyn: Jaccob and Kylie Slavin's...
Inside the Whale: An Interview with an Anonymous A...
Where Georgia's Hand Recount Differed From the Ini...
She Stalked Her Daughter's Killers Across Mexico, ...
BLEEDING ALBINA: A HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DISINVESTM...
I Was the Homeland Security Adviser to Trump. We'r...
'He ruined us': 10 years on, Tunisians curse man w...
Democratic regression in comparative perspective: ...
10 Tips for Loving Someone in an Overrun ICU in th...
Former Alabama state senator dies of Covid at 78, ...
In video, Trump recycles unsubstantiated voter fra...


Been having quite the year. Essentially, I've lost like three months due to travel and being ill, and, well, the word count hasn't been what I'd hoped. Still good, though.
Anyhow, just a note that I'm still alive, still writing, etc.


We are Erin and Erica Margan. We met in 2004 and instantly labelled the other 'my amazing best friend'. By 2006 friendship revealed itself to in fact be love and we were married in 2009. On our 9th Anniversary last year we were so thrilled to make our marriage legal. Today we live an hour south of Sydney near Wollongong with our two gorgeous boys, Sage and Arlo.
Margan Photography is one of our greatest adventures. We love to create images that celebrate the things that matter.
As LGBT photographers we not only believe in marriage equality, we have and always will continue to be strong advocates for our community. Love is love and we believe that representation is so important.


text:
Home > Rufi Thorpe
Rufi Thorpe
Rufi Thorpe received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. A native of Corona del Mar, California, she currently lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and son. The Girls from Corona del Mar is her first novel.
The Girls from Corona Del Mar (2014)
Dear Fang, With Love (2016)
The Knockout Queen (2020)
Rufi Thorpe recommends
Perennials (2017)
Mandy Berman
"Lucid, psychologically nuanced, and great fun to read."
Everything Here Is Beautiful (2018)
Mira T Lee
"Charismatic and electrifying. Lee makes vivid the messiness of life and the way we tie ourselves in knots just trying to do the simplest things: love and be loved in return. A knockout."
The Gunners (2018)
Rebecca Kauffman
"Kauffman's prose is restrained in a way that causes it to actually vibrate in places, and her details are so richly observed they feel like gems, impossible things mined from deep under the earth. Funny, raw, and deeply elegant, The Gunners is ultimately a meditation on friendship, that least examined, most mysterious form of love, perhaps more sacred for its incompleteness, for the ways we can never fool ourselves completely into believing we truly know one another.'"
Indecent (2018)
"A page turner with characters so fresh and real it's scary, Indecent will take your breath away. Sullivan explores subject matter that could be merely titillating, sex, power, desire, but is so ruthlessly honest about them that in the end she challenges everything we thought we knew."
Reginald Hill
Elizabeth Chandler
Marisa de los Santos


text:
Gutenberg Reprieve or Quixotic Extravagance?
2009.04.25 Books, General, NewsBooks, publishingChristopher Green
Blackwell publishing launched a machine today that can print and bind within five minutes a single copy any of over 500,000 titles on demand. They hope to increase the number of titles to one million by the end of the year. The machine, called "Espresso," is the brainchild of American publisher Jason Epstein. Blackwell chief executive Andrew Hutchings says "I like to think of it as the revitalisation of the local bookshop industry."
According to the report at Guardian.co.uk, the machine can be seen:
printing over 100 pages a minute, clamping them into place, then binding, guillotining and spitting out the (warm as toast) finished article. The quality of the paperback was beyond dispute: the text clear, unsmudged and justified, the paper thick, the jacket smart….
[Espresso] cost Blackwell some $175,000, but the bookseller believes it will make this back in a year. "I do think this is going to change the book business," said Phill Jamieson, Blackwell head of marketing. "It has the potential to be the biggest change since Gutenberg….
It would be fascinating to see the machine at work. And, if one were actually required to go to a bookshop, it might be as revolutionary as claimed. From my perspective, however, this attempt to salvage the Gutenberg Galaxy seems a lot like building the best horse carriage ever just after Henry Ford had started building cars by the thousands on an assembly line. My bet is that within five years' time, half of the "book" business will be handled electronically online, declining another 50% every five years thereafter.
← CIA Didn't Know History of SERE Obama sets R&D goal: 3% of U.S. GDP →
1 thought on "Gutenberg Reprieve or Quixotic Extravagance?"
Romeo Vitelli says:
2009.04.25 at 10:24 pm
Not everyone is going to be computer savvy enough to do away with books entirely. There will always be technophobes who prefer their books the old fashioned way.


Every Brazilian, including current and former members of the armed forces, will have to compromise under the next administration's pension reform plan, a former general set to become government minister said in an interview.
Retired General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz told Reuters in Brasilia last week that it was "inadmissible" in today's world for some Brazilians employed in the public sector to retire in their 40s or 50s.
On December 4, right-wing President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said he planned to tackle the overhaul of Brazil's fiscally burdensome pension system with piecemeal reforms that can pass Congress, starting with an increase in the minimum age of retirement.
Many economists say cuts to Brazil's social security system are essential to controlling a huge federal deficit and regaining Brazil's investment-grade rating.
One of a group of former army generals who have become close advisers to Bolsonaro, Santos Cruz will be Bolsonaro's main liaison with Congress, state and local governments, when he takes office on January 1.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain and staunch defender of Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, had pledged to protect military pensions and retirement rights, but the realization that they are responsible for nearly half of the pensions deficit led his economic advisers to push him to rethink that stance. In recent comments, Bolsonaro has said he is willing to countenance a minimum age for military retirement.


Hi, I'm Jennifer from Workroom Social, and today I'm going to help you troubleshoot your bobbin problems. So let's go ahead and look into our bobbin area. I'm just going to remove this case and get into our bobbin area. I open this up and I see here is my bobbin casing.
Sometimes when you're sewing you might have problems, and the stitches aren't coming out right, or things are getting stuck, and you don't know what's going on. I always recommend taking out the bobbin and the bobbin casing. The first thing you should always do is just re-thread it and start over.
You'll take everything out, make sure your thread is not knotted or crazy on your bobbin. You can even pull some of it and cut it so that everything is nice and smooth. Then just go ahead and put it back in. Make sure everything is looking good. You can pull this and make sure everything is smooth. You can put your bobbin back in and start anew. If you do this, and you're still having problems, it may be for a couple of reasons.
One, your bobbin casing, if you notice right now, it's locked in place. It's not falling out. Our notch here is in this groove where it holds it all together. If your bobbin casing isn't all the way in, that could be a problem that you're experiencing. Another problem is you might be threading the bobbin in the casing incorrectly. I always like to just think of everything logically. What makes sense? Our groove and our bobbin case is going to the left, and our thread is coming out to the left, everything is going to the left. So, when we put our bobbin in our case, our thread should also be going to the left. If you put your bobbin in going to the right so that the thread is going the other way, like this, then things are not able to move as easily. That could be something that could be something that's causing your bobbin problems. So, we'll just clip that.
After you do these things and you get everything set back up, if you're still having problems, one last thing that you can try is to get out a brush. You should've gotten a little lint brush that came with your sewing machine, or you can buy a little photography brush and just kind of get in the bobbin casing and dust out all the lint. You can even see I have some lint in here. But never use the spray can air because that will just push all the lint further in. Getting that lint out that may be stuck in the back will also help with any of your bobbin problems. So that's just a quick way to shoot your bobbin issues.


Catdaddy guests that want to stay at the Selkirk Inn and Conference Center in Selkirk Manitoba will receive 20% off their room rate. The Selkirk Inn is conveniently located in Selkirk Manitoba and is Less than 5 minutes from the Selkirk Park boat launch where we will meet.
When booking your room, be sure to tell them Catdaddy sent you.


Vintage Cocktail Shaker, Ribbed Chrome Cobbler Style – Audrey Would!
A barware essential, this 3-piece chrome cobbler shaker features Mid-Century style with its ribbed profile. Whether shaking a cocktail or displaying when not in use, this piece is a definite asset to home bar collection and a perfect basic for starting out!


Here at Beauty Religion, we provide Radiesse treatment for our clients residing in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles area. Radiesse is an FDA-approved, next-generation dermal filler used for correction of facial lines and wrinkles such as nasolabial folds. Made of calcium-based microspheres suspended in a water-based gel, Radiesse is injected into the skin giving you immediate, visible improvement of folds (nasolabial and others) and wrinkles, and adding volume to sagging skin.
In many patients, the effects of Radiesse may last a year or more. Radiesse is a convenient treatment that stimulates the body to produce new collagen. Increased production of collagen has a plumping effect on the skin that provides youthful, smooth, relaxed and energetic results.
Compared with other dermal fillers, Radiesse is a firmer substance which provides longer lasting results. When treated again after 1 year, patients needed less products to achieve their results (i.e. with deep nasolabial folds). The correct skin care after the treatment has an invigorating effect on the results. Beauty Religion's team of dermatologist experts will consult you with all the necessary details and questions. If you are interested, give us a call or book your appointment online!


Do you already have a Digital Certificate?
Is your DUNS Number and Contract number available?
Are you an Authorized Negotiator on the Contract?
1. Do you already have a Digital Certificate?
You must have your Digital Certificate to access the eMod application. If you do not have a digital certificate, follow the steps below. If you have a digital certificate you may access the application.
Go to a US Embassy and have the documents notarized.
If they are in the US, they can go to any notary or they can to go the ORC office and have the documents reviewed.
If they have questions and need to speak to someone at ORC, they can use the number below or email them.
They need to tell the person they are speaking with that they need a ACES Business Representative Certificate and that they are a foreign company.
2. Is your DUNS Number and Contract number available?
You must have your DUNS Number and know your Contract number when you access the system.
3. Are you an Authorized Negotiator on the Contract?
You must be listed in the Contract as an Authorized Negotiator.
If you are not listed, you may contact your Contracting officer or someone from your company that already has access to eMod and have them add you to the negotiators list.
In eMod, you will find required attachments for each modification. However, these are GSA generic requirements and each schedule may have additional required attachments for each mod type. Please check the latest GSA modification guidance package for the specific schedule you are doing modification against to ensure you have all the required attachments for the modification you are completing.