United States and Iranian proxies is “imminent.”

Iran is fun to kick around but China has also been on the receiving end of late. Last Wednesday the U.N. Security Council meeting was presided over by Donald Trump, who warned that Beijing is “meddling” in U.S. elections against him personally. It is a bizarre claim, particularly as the only country up until now demonstrated as having actually interfered in American politics in any serious way is Israel. The accusation comes on top of Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against the Chinese government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of U.S. sanctioned companies.

The ChineseCartel lookouts give go-ahead from desert hilltops

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Men paid to be lookouts for Mexican drug cartels used sophisticated technology to spot law enforcement and alert smugglers in the Arizona desert, a trafficking tactic under investigation by local and federal authorities for months.

The arrests of the group of men mark what Pinal County authorities say is an ongoing problem in the county 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Sheriff's officials say the county is ripe with cartel activity that travels north from two Arizona counties sitting directly on the border.

The men used cellphones, encrypted radios, binoculars and other technologies and said they spent more than a week at a time in the desert working as lookouts, or so-called scouts. They had guns, lived on hilltops,


mountains and caves, and alerted criminals smuggling people and drugs when authorities were nearby.

The Pinal County sheriff's office began investigating the lookouts in February after pulling over a 22-year-old man in Eloy, between Phoenix and Tucson. Ramon Garcia was driving a van carrying 600 pounds of food and other supplies. He told deputies he was being paid $4,000 to pick up the van in a Phoenix suburb and drop it off in the desert.

Over the next few months, deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents conducted an investigation that led to the arrest of seven suspected scouts. Early on March 7, a Border Patrol Blackhawk helicopter descended on a lookout post near Stanfield, about 33 miles west of Eloy off Interstate 8. Three suspects ran, hiding in a caveissue.

3
Before establishing operations in Montgomery, John Price owned a rubber warehouse and distribution center in Auburn, Georgia.  That facility burned in 1974, causing Price a three million dollar uninsured loss.  The Prices have always believed that Auburn resident David Hawthorne was responsible for the arson.  Nothing came of their suspicions for a time, however, because shortly after the fire, the Prices left Auburn and moved to Montgomery to found Price Rubber.

4
The Prices acquired more perceived enemies when, in 1986, Sy Shafer and Ellis Lucas sold their printing concern, Pioneer Press, to Kenny Price, John Price's nephew.  Kenny was affiliated with the Prices' enterprise, and he ran the printing business "parallel" to the principal rubber operation.  (Gov't Ex. 6 at 17-18.)   Shafer


and Lucas retained Leon Capouano, a Montgomery lawyer, to handle the sale of Pioneer Press.

5
The acquisition proved troublesome for the Prices.  The parties to the deal became involved in litigation, and ultimately Shafer and Lucas obtained a money judgment against Pioneer Press and Kenny Price.  Litigation continued through 1992;  Sy Shafer had filed two suits directly against John Price by the fall of 1991.  Family relations turned so sour that John Price fired nephew Kenny, on the belief that he was stealing from the company.  After his severance from the Price empire, Kenny became a prospective witness for Sy Shafer against his uncle.

6
Further problems arose for Price Rubber in 1991, when Internal Revenue Agent Dwight Huff initiated an examination of the company's tax David also took Bobby out to Elmore County, Alabama, to "case" Kenny's trailer.  David paid Bobby $1500, and Bobby explained that he had two friends (FBI special agents) who would be willing to do these jobs for the Prices.

9
One week later, Bobby had a similar meeting with John Price.  There, John expressed his desire to have Kenny "busted up pretty good," (Gov't Ex. 2 at 59), though he expressed hesitation about killing his nephew outright.  As for David Hawthorne, John stated that "the guy needs to be rubbed out.  No question about that."  (Id. at 62.)4

10
By September 16, Bobby had introduced David Price to the undercover FBI agents, and meetings between the participants continued through the fall of 1992.  During these


meetings, the murders of Kenny Price, David Hawthorne, and Sy Shafer, as well as the bombing of Leon Capouano's law office, were planned and paid for by John and David Price.5  Finally, John Price sent a letter to the agents in January, 1993, requesting the "well damaged carcass" of IRS agent Dwight Huff, in retaliation for the inconvenience caused by the audit of Price Rubber.  (Gov't Ex. 63.)

11
The last meeting between the federal agents and John Price occurred on January 27, 1993, in Montgomery.  There the agents told Price that the first murder, that of Sy Shafer, had been completed, and they showed him pictures of what they said was the body.  John Price paid the agents $20,000 and expressed enthusiasm about the imminentsuccess of the remaining jobs.  Later that day, he and son David were arrested.

12
A grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama indicted the Prices jointly, and the case went to trial in June, 1993.  The Prices were acquitted on two counts of witness tampering, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the other counts.  As a result, a mistrial was declared as to those counts.  Retrial began in July, 1993, and the jury returned guilty verdicts against both defendants on the remaining charges.  The Prices filed a motion for a new trial, which alleged, among other things, that juror misconduct deprived them of a fair trial.  The court questioned the jurors in camera to investigate the alleged improprieties,


and the latter stays in. The biggest political issue in North America is about Trump’s effort to build a Great Wall on the border with Mexico.

In Africa and Asia, there are countless territorial conflicts. The Indo-Tibetan frontier opened up by Curzon remains a contested boundary dispute between India and China. More broadly, the buffers and protectorates constructed by the Raj to limit conflict with Russia are now zones of political contestation between India and a rising China.

The Durand Line drawn between India and Afghanistan in 1893, a few years before Curzon arrived in India, remains disputed between Kabul and Islamabad. Even the Taliban, nurtured by Pakistan as an instrument to gain influence in Afghanistan, does not accept the Durand Line.

The North West Frontier Province (now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa),that Curzon created out of the Pashtun lands in 1901, has seen endless conflict for the last four decades and hopes for a different future remain dim. Many other peripheries of the Raj, from Balochistan in the west to Xinjiang and Kashmir in the north to Tibet and the eastern Himalayan regions between India, upper Burma and China are all in turmoil of varying degrees.

Part of the problem lies in the nature of the frontiers that the Subcontinent inherited from the Raj. The land borders of India were not defined by a single line; but by what Curzon identifies as the three-fold frontier. There was the “administrative frontier” that marked out regions that the Raj governed to the fullest extent. Beyond that was the “frontier of active defence”


like the Durand Line and a third was the “strategic frontier” consisting of the outer boundaries of protectorates over which the Raj exercised a measure of control.

While the British Raj, Czarist Russia and Qing China found ways to live with ambiguities in remote corners of the empire, the new nationalist regimes that succeeded them have had much more difficulty. The Partition of the Subcontinent, based on religious considerations, added an explosive dimension to an already complex inheritance. The successor states to the empires laid formal claims to tracts of territory that had an ambivalent status, but have struggled to realise them.

India’s recent decision to revoke the special status of Kashmir is about the unfinished task of extending effective territorial sovereignty over lands it has claimed. Maoist China wasthe Indian Union.

In confronting Pakistan’s terrorism and reorganising the political status of Kashmir, the Modi government has set a new policy template. The key to its success lies in finding early political reconciliation within Kashmir and persuading the Pakistan army that its interests are better served by stable, peaceful and a legitimate frontier with India. It could be a long haul, but the journey has begun.

This article first appeared in August 13 print edition under the title ‘Raja Mandala: Exorcising Curzon’s ghost’. The writer is director, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express

📣 The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all


That's not necessarily a bad thing for the community. For years, prominent buildings sat vacant in Germantown, Doley said, among them the Germantown YWCA. For years, the empty community center — a place for meeting and learning, and where many learned to swim — was vulnerable to fires, break-ins, and other problems. Last month, the building was transferred from Philadelphia's Redevelopment Authority to Pittsburgh-based developer KBK Enterprises. Within six months, the developer hopes to begin construction on 47 units of workforce and market-rate housing, with rent prices ranging from 80 to 115 percent of the area's median income, though KBK has indicated that some units may be available to residents who make less.house but no one is harmed; a kid's hair is set on fire but put out and he is okay; a few football players are roughed up in the practices and games; an explosion of chemicals lands on the school walls.

Drugs: None

Nudity: None

Other: A couple of school girls interested in science act as if they are better than Andy but they wind up asking him to join their science team.

Post navigation

Sign up for News & Reviews

Advertisements

The Dove Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage and promote the creation, production, distribution and consumption of wholesome family entertainment. We are supported primarily by donations from families such as yours. All Donations are tax deductible.


The penultimate Julio-Claudian emperor, Claudius, is familiar to many of us through the BBC production of Robert Graves' I, Claudius series, starring Derek Jakobi as a stuttering Emperor Claudius. The real Ti. Claudius Nero Germanicus was born on August 1, in the year 10 B.C., in Gaul.

Family

Mark Antony may have lost to Octavian, later, the first emperor, Augustus, in the fight to inherit Julius Caesar's legacy, but Mark Antony's genetic line endured. Not directly descended from Augustus (of the Julian line), Claudius' father was Drusus Claudius Nero, a son of Augustus's wife Livia. Claudius' mother was Mark Antony's and Augustus' sister Octavia Minor's daughter, Antonia. His uncle was emperor Tiberius.

Slow Political Rise

Claudius suffered from various physical infirmities which many thought reflected his mental state, not Cassius Dio, though,who writes:

Book LX

In mental ability he was by no means inferior, as his faculties had been in constant training (in fact, he had actually written some historical treatises); but he was sickly in body, so that his head and hands shook slightly.

As a result, he was secluded, a fact that kept him safe. Having no public duties to perform, Claudius was free to pursue his interests and read and write, including material written in Etruscan. He first held public office at the age of 46 when his nephew Caligula became emperor in 37 A.D. and named him suffect consul.

How He Became Emperor

Claudius became emperor shortly after his nephew was assassinated by his bodyguard, on January 24, A.D. 41. The tradition is that the Praetorian Guard, located the aging


scholar hiding behind a curtain, dragged him forth and made him emperor, although James Romm, in his 2014 exploration of the real Seneca, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, says that it is likely that Claudius knew the plans in advance. Cassius Dio writes (also Book LX):

1 Claudius became emperor on this wise. After the murder of Gaius the consuls despatched guards to every part of the city and convened the senate on the Capitol, where many and diverse opinions were expressed; for some favoured a democracy, some a monarchy, and some were for choosing one man, and some another. 2 In consequence they spent the rest of the day and the whole night without accomplishing anything. Meanwhile some soldiers who had entered the palacefor the purpose of plundering found Claudius hidden away in a dark corner somewhere. 3 He had been with Gaius when he came out of the theatre, and now, fearing the tumult, was crouching down out of the way. At first the soldiers, supposing that he was some one else or perhaps had something worth taking, dragged him forth; and then, on recognizing him, they hailed him emperor and conducted him to the camp. Afterwards they together with their comrades entrusted to him the supreme power, inasmuch as he was of the imperial family and was regarded as suitable.

3a In vain he drew back and remonstrated; for the more he attempted to avoid the honour and to resist, the more strongly did the soldiers in their turn insist


upon not accepting an emperor appointed by others but upon giving one themselves to the whole world. Hence he yielded, albeit with apparent reluctance.

4 The consuls for a time sent tribunes and others forbidding him to do anything of the sort, but to submit to the authority of the people and of the senate and of the laws; when, however, the soldiers who were with them deserted them, then at last they, too, yielded and voted him all the remaining prerogatives pertaining to the sovereignty.

2 Thus it was that Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, the son of Drusus the son of Livia, obtained the imperial power without having been previously tested at all in any position of authority, except for the fact that he had been consul. He wasin his fiftieth year.

Conquest of Britain

In line with a goal Caesar had failed to meet, Claudius resumed the Roman attempt to conquer Britain. Using a local would-be ruler's request for help as an excuse to invade, with four legions in A.D. 43. [See Timeline.]

"[A] certain Bericus, who had been driven out of the island as a result of an uprising, had persuaded Claudius to send a force thither...."

Dio Cassius 60

Dio Cassius continues with a summary of Claudius' involvement on the scene and the Senate awarded title Brittanicus, which he passed down to his son.

When the message reached him, Claudius entrusted affairs at home, including the command of the troops, to his colleague Lucius Vitellius, whom he had caused to remain in office like himself for a whole half-year;


and he himself then set out for the front. 3 He sailed down the river to Ostia, and from there followed the coast to Massilia; thence, advancing partly by land and partly along the rivers, he came to the ocean and crossed over to Britain, where he joined the legions that were waiting for him near the Thames. 4 Taking over the command of these, he crossed the stream, and engaging the barbarians, who had gathered at his approach, he defeated them and captured Camulodunum,13 the capital of Cynobellinus. Thereupon he won over numerous tribes, in some cases by capitulation, in others by force, and was saluted as imperator several times, contrary to precedent; 5 for no man may receive this title more than once for one andthe same war. He deprived the conquered of their arms and handed them over to Plautius, bidding him also subjugate p423the remaining districts. Claudius himself now hastened back to Rome, sending ahead the news of his victory by his sons-in‑law Magnus and Silanus. 22 1 The Senate on learning of his achievement gave him the title of Britannicus and granted him permission to celebrate a triumph.

Succession

After Claudius adopted his fourth wife's son, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (Nero), in A.D. 50, the emperor made it clear that Nero was preferred for the succession over his own son, Britannicus, about three years Nero's junior. There were several reasons for this. Among others, Romm argues that however much Britannicus might seem the obvious successor, his ties to the still important first emperor,


Augustus, were weaker than those of a direct descendant, like Nero. Furthermore, Britannicus' mother, Messalina, had never made it to the rank of Augusta, as that was a role that had been reserved for women who were not the wives of currently reigning emperors, but Nero's mother was made Augusta, a title that implied power. In addition, Nero was Claudius' great-nephew, because his mother, Claudius' last wife, Agrippina, was also Claudius' niece. To marry her despite the close familial relationship, Claudius had received special senatorial approval. In addition to the other points in Nero's favor, Nero was betrothed to Claudius' daughter, Octavia, a now sibling relationship that had also required special finagling.

From Tacitus Annals 12:

[12.25] In the consulship of Caius Antistius and Marcus Suilius, the adoption of Domitiuswas hastened on by the influence of Pallas. Bound to Agrippina, first as the promoter of her marriage, then as her paramour, he still urged Claudius to think of the interests of the State, and to provide some support for the tender years of Britannicus. "So," he said, "it had been with the Divine Augustus, whose stepsons, though he had grandsons to be his stay, had been promoted; Tiberius too, though he had offspring of his own, had adopted Germanicus. Claudius also would do well to strengthen himself with a young prince who could share his cares with him." Overcome by these arguments, the emperor preferred Domitius to his own son, though he was but two years older, and made a speech in the senate, the same in


substance as the representations of his freedman. It was noted by learned men, that no previous example of adoption into the patrician family of the Claudii was to be found; and that from Attus Clausus there had been one unbroken line.

[12.26] However, the emperor received formal thanks, and still more elaborate flattery was paid to Domitius. A law was passed, adopting him into the Claudian family with the name of Nero. Agrippina too was honoured with the title of Augusta. When this had been done, there was not a person so void of pity as not to feel keen sorrow at the position of Britannicus. Gradually forsaken by the very slaves who waited on him, he turned into ridicule the ill-timed attentions of his stepmother, perceiving their insincerity.For he is said to have had by no means a dull understanding; and this is either a fact, or perhaps his perils won him sympathy, and so he possessed the credit of it, without actual evidence.

Tradition has it that Claudius' wife Agrippina, now secure in her son's future, killed her husband by means of a poison mushroom on October 13, A.D. 54. Tacitus writes:

[12.66] Under this great burden of anxiety, he had an attack of illness, and went to Sinuessa to recruit his strength with its balmy climate and salubrious waters. Thereupon, Agrippina, who had long decided on the crime and eagerly grasped at the opportunity thus offered, and did not lack instruments, deliberated on the nature of the poison to be used. The deed would be


betrayed by one that was sudden and instantaneous, while if she chose a slow and lingering poison, there was a fear that Claudius, when near his end, might, on detecting the treachery, return to his love for his son. She decided on some rare compound which might derange his mind and delay death. A person skilled in such matters was selected, Locusta by name, who had lately been condemned for poisoning, and had long been retained as one of the tools of despotism. By this woman's art the poison was prepared, and it was to be administered by an eunuch, Halotus, who was accustomed to bring in and taste the dishes.

[12.67] All the circumstances were subsequently so well known, that writers of the time have declared that thepoison was infused into some mushrooms, a favourite delicacy, and its effect not at the instant perceived, from the emperor's lethargic, or intoxicated condition. His bowels too were relieved, and this seemed to have saved him. Agrippina was thoroughly dismayed. Fearing the worst, and defying the immediate obloquy of the deed, she availed herself of the complicity of Xenophon, the physician, which she had already secured. Under pretence of helping the emperor's efforts to vomit, this man, it is supposed, introduced into his throat a feather smeared with some rapid poison; for he knew that the greatest crimes are perilous in their inception, but well rewarded after their consummation.


responsibility toward the one who suffers the harm or where the actor's own affirmative act has created or exposed the other to a recognizable high degree of risk of harm through such misconduct, which a reasonable man would take into account." Joyce, ¶ 5, 672 P.2d at 1174. Prince has failed to show that such special circumstances creating a duty to foresee criminal acts existed between Ballard and Appellees.
¶ 21 We also conclude the trial court was correct in granting Appellees' motions for summary judgment on the alternate ground that Ballard's criminal use of the propylhexedrine in the Benzedrex® inhaler as a stimulant was the supervening cause of his death. The law in Oklahoma is clear that before a defendant will be liable for a plaintiff's injuries, theMs. Mensah-Schramm said she reached a turning point in the early 1980s when she visited a concentration camp for the first time. When she came home, she vomited, but also resolved to make the same journey every year to commemorate the dead. She said that a few years later, in 1986, she was shocked to see a sticker at her bus stop that demanded the release of Rudolf Hess, the imprisoned Nazi war criminal. The sticker bothered her all day at work. When she came home that evening, it was still there. “No one had taken it off,” she said.

She used her keychain to scrape it away, and felt better. A few days later, she said she spent an entire night walking the streets of her comfortable Berlin


Over 100,000 people are expected to join the Azusa Now meeting in Los Angeles, CA on Saturday April 9, 2016. Pentecostal leaders like Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson and Daniel Kolenda will speak at the event which is arranged by TheCall.

As a preparation for Azusa Now, Dr. Jennifer Miskov has written the book Ignite Azusa: Positioning for a New Jesus Revolution with contributions from Baker, Johnson and Lou Engle. Dr. Miskov is the founder of Destiny House, a charismatic intentional community in Redding, California, and has authored several books. PCPJ’s Micael Grenholm got a chance to speak with her.

Micael Grenholm (MG): What made you want to write about the Azusa Street revival?

Jennifer Miskov (JM): I actually felt led of Holy Spirit in December of the last year, 2015, toletter is always pronounced with the above rules.

Letter CombinationsDiphthong Pronunciationai "ay" as in "side"au "aw" as in "wow"ea "ea" as in "sand"ei "ey" as in "they"ia "ya" as in "yacht"ie "ye" as in "yes"io "yo" as in "your"iu "yu" as in "you"ii "yi" as in "yield"oa "wa" as in "walk"oi "oy" as in "ahoy" or "boy"ou "ow" as in "crow" or "though"ua "wa" as in "walk"ue "we" as in "went"ui "wi" as in "wind" or "uy" as in "booya"uo "wo" as in "woe"

All other vowel combinations are usually pronounced as separate vowels. (Each vowel makes up a syllable)

Thanks for your input on how to improve my thread. As far as the pronunciation of "hacia" goes, it would be the ladder more so than the former. Currently, one of


in April 1966, the outfield was mounted in early summer season for the duration of an extended Astros road journey and initially used following the All-Star Split in July.

Anthony "TC" Williams It is best to be a part of them by around-lapping the adhesive application, just as if creating a "two sided tape".

Regardless of the views with the governing bodies, criticism of artificial surfaces in soccer carries on. Current and former players have lately criticised the surface area, expressing issues that, between other matters, it might exacerbate accidents.

From the nineteen nineties numerous North American soccer clubs also removed their artificial surfaces and re-put in grass, while some moved to new stadiums with state-of-the-artwork grass surfaces which were developed to resist chilly temperatures in which the local climate demandedmake the entire world's strongest and accessible database of Global trade intelligence.

The XFL, in its single period of Procedure in 2001, necessary all of its groups to play in stadiums with normal grass surfaces. The shift, designed partly to More about the author reduce injuries, was also a ploy to give the league a more genuine, "smash-mouth" enchantment.

^ "Microplastics in agricultural soils: A purpose to worry?". Norwegian Institute for H2o Analysis (NIVA). three February 2017. Microplastics are significantly noticed being an environmental challenge of worldwide proportions. Whilst the main focus so far has long been on microplastics from the ocean and their effects on maritime daily life, microplastics in soils have largely been neglected.


[Aspects of the tuberculosis of the child: a series of 153 cases].
Known as White Plague xvii and xviii centuries. It is a present disease with 1.7 billions inhabitants who are touched (OMS). Disease of future with eight to 10 millions of new cases per year (99% of countries underdeveloped are touched). It kills more than other infectious disease: with three millions of death (deaths) among which 3105 children per year. Twenty-four thousand one hundred and three new cases a day and 7103 deaths in the daytime, because of the epidemic of the AIDS and the resistance of the BK. The authors report a series of 153 cases of tuberculosis at old children of some months of life in 15 and a half year follow-up and took care atof appointing senators rather than the prime minister. After all, senators are appointed to represent their provinces and their regions and are there to protect minority rights – not to serve the Prime Minister of Canada! Individuals with expertise in various fields need to be appointed to the Senate and not the party faithful.

Besides reform, the other option is to abolish the Senate. This option would provide Canadian taxpayers with significant savings and may not require endless constitutional battles. A special finance committee could be created to negotiate a buy-out contract for current Senators factoring in their age, years of service and number of years left before attaining the mandatory retirement age of 75. Once concluded, future prime ministers would no longer need to appoint senators. As a


Is domestic violence a "pre-existing condition" for insurance companies?

More on the National Women's Law Center report, "Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women," here.

Pay attention, especially to this:

Insurers in D.C. and the following nine states are allowed to deny coverage to domestic violence survivors: Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.Nolan Arenado and the Colorado Rockies have agreed to an eight-year contract, the team announced Tuesday night.

The contract is worth $260 million, locking up the star third baseman with a deal that could last through the 2026 season, league sources told ESPN.

The deal, which replaces Arenado's previous one-year contract, includes a full no-trade clause, according to sources.

After months of discussions, the agreement came together in recent days after the Rockies guaranteed an eighth season, according to sources. The deal, which will keep Arenado from reaching free agency after the 2019 season, will set a per-year record for position players. It also includes a player opt-out after the 2021 season.

Arenado, 27, is a four-time All-Star who has won a Gold Glove in all six of his major league seasons.


He has led the National League in home runs three times, including 2018, when he hit .297/.374/.561 with 38 home runs and 110 RBIs.

While numerous teams were giddy at the idea of pursuing Arenado in free agency after the 2019 season, according to sources, he opted for the security of more than a quarter-billion dollars guaranteed by the Rockies. One of those teams was the Los Angeles Dodgers, who could step up their pursuit of current free agent Bryce Harper, with whom they met in Las Vegas on Sunday night, according to sources. The Dodgers are seeking a shorter-term deal than the decade-plus-long contract Harper is seeking.

Nolan Arenado: Past 4 Seasons Nolan Arenado has been one of baseball's elite power bats and run producers over the past fewGoldfinger as a critique of Bretton Woods — How a Bond villain exposed two fundamental flaws of the gold standard ButtChocolate Follow Jul 11, 2019 · 6 min read

The James Bond franchise is hardly known for its in-depth critiques of economics and global geopolitics. Bond villains usually have simple to understand but fantastical plots that could be defeated by our favorite vodka martini swilling super-spy, usually by beating the bad guy up. There is one exception however — Goldfinger. From the perspective of an economist, Goldfinger is a simple to understand critique of the gold standard and the Bretton Woods system. The titular character, Auric Goldfinger, exposed two core flaws of the post war economic system.

Note: spoilers ahead

Towards the beginning of the story, Bond is tasked with investigating


the gold smuggling activities of Auric Goldfinger. As the Bank of England official explains to Bond, they suspect Goldfinger of smuggling gold from the UK to India. The price of gold is significantly higher in India then it is in the UK due to its strong jewelry industry. By smuggling gold out of the UK, Goldfinger is destabilizing the British economy.

The book dove into the details of Goldfinger’s scheme in a bit more depth than the movie did. In the novel, it was explained that Goldfinger purchased large quantities of gold in the UK at low prices. The gold then turned up in India, where it was sold at prices up to 70% higher than in the UK. The bank of England cannot figure out how the goldThe difference in demand makes it unrealistic to maintain a single worldwide price of gold. Yet without a worldwide consistent price of gold, the currency pegs will break down, destroying the world economy.

Therefore, governments worldwide instituted export controls limiting the imports and exports of gold. By buying gold in the UK and selling it in India, Goldfinger was driving up gold prices in the UK, while driving down gold prices in India. This, as the Bank of England official explained, puts pressure on the British pound, and unless Goldfinger’s activities are stopped, the UK will experience hyperinflation. In the case of gold, arbitrage literally destroyed the global financial system. The market must be inefficient, as an efficient gold market would create currency fluctuations that destroyed the Bretton Woods


run over by the central banks and doomed to suffer from shortages.

Later in the film, in one of the great villain speeches, Goldfinger revealed to Bond his great plan — Operation Grand Slam. Goldfinger, with the collaboration of the Chinese (presumably the Peoples Republic, not the Republic of China) will irradiate all the gold in Fort Knox.

In the book, Goldfinger intended to steal the gold in Fort Knox, a plot point that was heavily criticized for being absurd. After all, it is impossible to quickly move the tons of gold in Fort Knox and get away with it (a fact that Bond pointed out in the film version). In the film however, Goldfinger wanted to detonate a dirty bomb in Fort Knox instead. By irradiating the world’s biggestgold.

Goldfinger therefore revealed another major weakness in the gold standard — Central banks are forever at the mercy of trends in the gold market. Gold after all, is a commodity with its own demand and supply, and changes in demand or availability of gold forces central banks to react accordingly to defend their peg.

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell recently explained, that the gold standard is detrimental to the capabilities of the Federal Reserve in achieving their two mandates: maximizing employment and stabilizing prices. He claims that “There have been plenty of times in fairly recent history where the price of gold has sent a signal that would be quite negative for either of those goals”. Under the gold standard, monetary policy would have to follow the trends of


decay of a flawed economic system. A few years after the film was released, economic mismanagement in the UK drove the government to devaluate the Pound Sterling in 1971 (effectively what Goldfinger was doing by selling British gold in India for a profit), while the Federal Reserve ended convertibility of gold to the US Dollar in 1971, or what would have probably happened if Operation Grand Slam succeeded.Percentile charts to determine the duration of child abuse by chronic malnutrition.
Longstanding quantitative or qualitative under-supply of nutrition leads to weight loss and, in children, to stagnation of growth and thus to stunted growth. A comparison of the expected growth, according to percentile growth curves, with the actual body size, gives an indication as to the period of time in which malnutrition took place. The moment in which the growth curve bends off and leaves the norm is to be interpreted as the earliest begin, the moment in which the attained growth would have been achieved as the latest begin of the nutritional impairment.


With great excitement Southill Solar was switched on this Friday 11th November, generating the first kilowatts of carbon free renewable energy.

The first metered kW of generated clean green community energy.

The Southill Solar installation, built by Solarcentury, has a capacity of 4.5MW, enough electricity to supply 1,100 homes with electricity for the next 25 years

As well as generating energy, Southill will deliver over £750,000 of community benefits through a system of grants in order to help fund low carbon initiatives

Environmental and biodiversity benefits will be a feature of the SouthillSolar site - further planting starts in December to give new habitats for wildlife and wildflower meadows

It's all down to you!

Everyone who invested time, energy and money as members of Southill Community Energy - this is your achievement, and weFriday, SAG-AFTRA has declared a strike against 11 video game publishers over games that went into production after Feb. 17, 2015. The companies in question include some of the biggest heavyweights of the industry, such as Electronic Arts Productions, or EA, Insomniac Games, Activision and Disney.

The strike comes in light of an unsuccessful 19 months of negotiations after the existing labor contract known as the Interactive Media Agreement expired in late 2014. Overall, the strike is an effort to provide more secondary compensation along with other concerns, such as transparency upon hiring talent and on-set safety precautions.

"Let me hear the sound you'd make if you were slashed in half by a sword?" Hale asked NPR's Scott Simon. "How about you're struck in the heart by a bullet? How


of the nature of the production and the way these companies are organized."

But Hale tells NPR's Scott Simon, the matters are personal for voice actors — and she's not concerned about non-union workers taking advantage of the strike.

"I have personally hosted three meetings in my home, with the non-union community and there's a lot of solidarity there," Hale says. "Because they recognize, that what's at stake is their own ability to buy a home in the future, put their kids through school. This is a war on the middle class."

Voice actors are planning to picket the Electronic Arts studios in Los Angeles on Monday.Knowles plans to fight Red Dog decision

ANCHORAGE (AP) -- The state will fight a federal appeals ruling that requires the Red Dog mine to use more expensive anti-pollution technology for its power, Gov. Tony Knowles said Tuesday.

State attorneys will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court while Knowles himself asks the head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency to drop the case, he said.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the EPA in a dispute with state environmental regulators and the mine operator over its diesel generators.

Tech Cominco Inc., which operates the zinc and lead mine owned by the NANA Corp., had planned to begin operating a seventh diesel generator for additional power.

The company had permission from the state Department of Environmental Conservation to refit


Jack W. Germond & Jules Witcover

September 18, 1991|By Jack W. Germond & Jules Witcover

DES MOINES — EVER SINCE Jimmy Carter put the Iowa precinct caucuses on the political map in 1976 by using them to launch his long shot presidential candidacy, out-of-staters in both major parties have groused about the inordinate influence they have had in the presidential selection process.

By establishing the caucuses as the kickoff to selection of national convention delegates each presidential election year, Iowa has become a lure for national network television and major newspaper coverage that is the envy of politicians elsewhere. That's why, every four years, there are complaints and efforts to deny Iowa its role as host to the presidential campaign curtain-raiser. It's also argued that Iowa is not a representative stategather to express their presidential preference next Feb. 10.

The party's first declared candidate, former Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, spoke early of making a major effort here, but has since backed off. Another likely candidate, Sen. Bob Kerrey of neighboring Nebraska, has been making phone calls to important Democratic leaders in Iowa, saying he intends to compete here, but most Iowans active in the Democratic caucuses in the past are either signing up with Harkin or lying low. One such party veteran counseled Kerrey to start flying in and out of Des Moines on trips home and holding airport press conferences, but not spending a dime trying to buck Harkin.

When Harkin first indicated interest in seeking the presidency next year, there was grumbling about how such a move


Suspected poisoning of cattle by scarlet pimpernel (Lysimachia arvensis L.).
The ingestion of scarlet pimpernel (Lysimachia arvensis L.), also known as red chickweed, has been reported as a cause of death of cattle in Uruguay, and as the suspected cause of deaths of sheep in Australia. It has not previously been reported in association with deaths of cattle in Australia. We report the clinical and pathological findings from four cattle in western Victoria that died with a nephrosis suspected to be secondary to intoxication with scarlet pimpernel.issues in our sleep, thanks to Venus retrograde and now Saturn retrograde.

Chemtrail flu continues to cause issues with asthma, breathing difficulties, allergies, colds, coughing, bronchitis, flu (the homeopathic Oscillococcinum will help eliminate symptoms) and pneumonia. They are now calling it Chemtrail Cough, and it is becoming epidemic. Strep throat is also beginning to make its rounds.

Children and Animals are quiet and needy.

Reports of injuries, hospitalizations and deaths continue to increase. Reports of Children and Animals being hurt, kidnapped and lost continue to occur.

I am adding more articles under the category ‘Down The Rabbit Hole‘ about Voice of God Technology and other types of mind control. We must wake up to and accept the reality that most channelers are being given information from the Voice of God Technology instead


are different. The 30 NHL arenas have their own personalities even if they aren't all The Forum, Maple Leaf Gardens, Boston Garden or Pittsburgh's Igloo. The menu of players is obviously unique.

The NHL last expanded into the sameness of America in 2000, when Minnesota and Columbus began play and were teams No. 29 and 30.

The arrival together of Ryan Suter, left, and Zach Parise signaled the start of good things in Minnesota. Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI/Getty Images

St. Paul, Minnesota, was an obvious choice after the North Stars moved to Dallas for the 1993-94 season. It took seven years before the NHL finally returned the land of 10,000 skates for the 2000-01 season, and the soul of hockey in the United States resides in Minnesota. When you sell out an NHLarena for a high school hockey state tournament every year, you win. Game, set, match.

Columbus, Ohio, was not a natural choice. Yes, the economy has been relatively strong and diverse. The population continues to swell, and sports are an important value to the residents. Football is king in Ohio, though. Could the city, and towns within a two-hour radius, make a hockey team part of the fabric of their lives?

Ticket sales are OK, and local television ratings haven't been all that good, but the Blue Jackets have lasted longer than the Atlanta Flames did in Georgia. The Flames were epically terrible. Not only did they not win a playoff series in their eight Georgia seasons, but their playoff record was 2-15.

The Blue Jackets just finished up their 13th


NHL season. In the playoffs, they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round in 2009 and won two games in the first round against the Pittsburgh Penguins this season.

Minnesota hasn't had much more success. Yes, the Wild did reach the conference finals in just their third NHL season, but that was the only postseason in which the Wild had won a series before this year's seven-game first-round triumph over Colorado. They seemed better than Columbus, though.

Together, these two teams were second-class NHL citizens, part of the mediocre sameness with all the personality of your local CVS. Switch their uniforms and you couldn't tell them apart. Especially when Ken Hitchcock in Columbus and Jacques Lemaire in Minnesota coached against each other for two seasons.

The treadmillwas headed toward a slow arena exit and on a perpetual incline. The Wild had Marian Gaborik and the Blue Jackets had Rick Nash, but both would be gone at age 27 after their teams realized they weren't players to build around but rather ornaments for a bigger tree.

Things have changed, though. The Blue Jackets and Wild have at long last arrived and should be here to stay.

Columbus has built a culture around the extroverted Americans who play in a city that is decidedly middle America. Five of the team's top nine scorers this season -- Jack Johnson, Brandon Dubinsky, R.J. Umberger, Cam Atkinson, Nick Foligno -- were born in the U.S.

You could tell early this season that Columbus had a strong unit with a strong energy. It


was like a high school or college football team whose players put their goals on paper and immersed themselves in the community. I'm surprised they didn't have a Boone Jenner Car Wash in the parking lot at a BP gas station in Westerville. It's exactly the kind of team Columbus needed to finally hatch into the thriving NHL market that some of us always thought it was.

The hiring of John Davidson as president of the Blue Jackets in 2012 cannot be overestimated. Davidson brings competence, organization and energy to a hockey operation. He has a good eye for talent and hires good people around him.

Ryan Johansen is leading the charge toward respectability for the Blue Jackets and the overall hockey culture in Columbus. Kirk Irwin/Getty Images

The star ofthe show on the ice is Canadian Ryan Johansen, the fourth overall pick in 2010 behind Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin and Erik Gudbranson. Johansen, 21, exploded for 33 goals this season and has thrived in the strong, supportive culture in Columbus.

The Blue Jackets will not be a one-hit wonder this time around. This is the beginning of a trend.

The same is true in Minnesota, which seemed to have it all when the Wild began play in 2000: fantastic arena, sold-out games, early success.

However, that deep playoff run in 2002-03 was an outlier. The Wild would be an 80-plus-point team for six of the next eight seasons. Average, not terrible, but you need to be terrible to get generational players like Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin,


exactly, is this Dr. Harper?Dr. Diane HarperDr. Harper is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She studied additional courses at Stanford and received her medical degree from the University of Kansas. She was a key researcher in both Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines, and she's one of the most experienced researchers in the world on HPV-related diseases. She's done work for both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.

Dr. Harper's warnings about cervical cancer vaccines are especially relevant considering her expertise in the cost/benefit analysis of vaccines. Her conclusion is that cervical cancer vaccines aren't worth the risks, nor are they worth all the effort being put into hyping them to the public. "This may not be the best use of our resources at this time," she said in a Washingtonand was crying and crying, wanted to quit. My dad got me some nachos and threw me back out there for the next match.”

And the rest is history.

Klepps also ventured into soccer, and he leaves Senior as a two-time all-state forward.

Midland Roundtable unveils its male and female athlete of the year winners Wednesday night at a banquet inside the Billings Hotel and Convention Center. Former Montana Lady Griz head basketball coach Robin Selvig is the featured speaker.


like a punk Disney princess.

Her attention is birdlike, lighting on one thing after another. At one point, she reaches into her purse and takes out a pressed powder compact. She checks her reflection, dabbing at a shiny spot on her nose. “I’m just a perfectionist,” she sighs. Krys oozes ambition, and it doesn’t seem to faze her that there’s no blueprint for what she’s setting out to do: Use her Penn education to advance her career as an escort and, once she’s made a name for herself, become a powerful advocate for sex worker rights and trans equality.

Krys first entered the sex trade as an orphaned 18-year-old in Las Vegas with few practical options for making ends meet. She was living on her own as a senior inthe bees…" (Surat an-Nahl: 68)

These are absolute truths communicated to us by God in the Qur'an. An approach to science based on these facts will inevitably lead to remarkable progress and serve humanity in the most beneficial manner. We find numerous examples of this in history. It was only possible with the placement of science on proper a foothold that Muslim scientists, who were then helping to forge the greatest civilizations in the world, contributed to major achievements in the 9th and 10th centuries. In the West, the pioneers in all fields of science, from physics to chemistry, astronomy to biology and paleontology, were great men of science who believed in God, and who conducted research for the sake of exploring what He created.

Einstein also maintained that scientists


always proved them wrong. Discoveries confirmed the proclamations of the Qur'an – that the universe was created from nothing, that it is tailored to suit human life, and that it is impossible for life to have come into being and evolved by chance.

Now let us consider these facts one by one.

The Losses the Materialists' Obsession With an "Infinite Universe" Have Caused Science

Until the early 20th century, the conventional opinion of the scientific community, which was then under the influence of the materialists, was that the universe has infinite dimensions, that it existed in infinite time, and will exist infinitely. According to this view, called the "static universe model", the universe had neither a beginning nor an end, and was simply a limitless conglomeration of matter. Denying that theuniverse was created, this view laid the groundwork for the materialist philosophy.

Many scientists who espoused materialism, or were partial to such a philosophy, set the "infinite universe" model as the basis for their scientific research. Consequently, all research into astronomy and physics depended on the hypothesis that matter existed in infinite time. For some time, many scientists labored and toiled to no avail, as science was soon to shatter that misconception.

The Belgian scientist, Georges Lemaître, was the first to recognize the inaccuracy of the "infinite universe" model, and postulated a scientific alternative to it. Based on certain computations by the Russian scientist, Alexandre Friedmann, Lemaître declared that the universe actually had a beginning, and that it was expanding since that initial moment. He also asserted that it must


the universe could not be static. However, he put the theory to rest, simply because his calculations did not concur with the widely recognized static universe model of his time. Even a scientist considered the greatest genius of the century was intimidated by the dogmatism of the materialist view, having chosen not to reveal the important discovery. Later on, Einstein was to refer to that choice as 'the greatest mistake of his career'.

There was another important truth that the expansion of the universe pointed to: if the universe was getting larger as time went on, then, following it backward in time meant that it would become smaller; and if one went back far enough, everything would shrink and converge to a single point. Calculations showed that this singlesuggested, there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over from that explosion, and that this radiation must be uniform throughout the universe.

Scientific confirmation of Gamov's postulate was forthcoming. In 1965, two researchers by the name of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the remnants of that radiation. Called "cosmic background radiation", it was not localized but distributed equally everywhere in the universe. It was soon realized that this radiation was the echo of the Big Bang, still reverberating since the first moments of that great explosion. Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel prize for their discovery.

In 1989, NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, launched the COBE satellite into space, for the purpose of research into cosmic background radiation. Within minutes, the satellite's sensitive


of the origin of the universe must therefore be a personal Creator, who a finite time ago brought the universe into existence by his free agency.13

Another important conclusion to be drawn from the Big Bang theory is that, as we have mentioned earlier, a scientific approach based on divine knowledge will be highly successful in unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Scientists who proceeded from a materialist philosophy and put forth the "infinite universe" model, were unable to substantiate it, despite their best efforts. However, the Big Bang theory, which Georges Lemaître developed, and which was based on divine sources, contributed to scientific progress and helped to uncover the true origin of the universe.

When we look at the history of 20th century science, we see that similar occurrencesthe elements of the universe, has been precisely tailored so that human beings may exist. Scientists refer to this extraordinary design as the "Anthropic Principle". This is the principle by which every detail in the universe has been carefully arranged to make human life possible.

With these discoveries, the dictum formerly imposed on the scientific community by the materialist philosophy, touting that "the universe is a heap of matter with no meaning and purpose working according to chance", was exposed to be an unscientific fallacy. Noted molecular biologist Michael Denton makes the following comment in his book, Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe:

The new picture that has emerged in twentieth-century astronomy presents a dramatic challenge to the presumption which has been prevalent within


by leading to World War II, so did the materialist ideology drag the world of science into darkness needlessly.

Just as the racist ideology brought disaster for humanity by leading to World War II, so did the materialist ideology drag the world of science into darkness needlessly.

If, however, the scientific community had based its efforts, not on the misconception of materialism, but on the reality that the universe was created by God, scientific research would have taken a more proper course.

The Loss The Hopeless Efforts to Prove the Theory of Evolution Have Caused Science

The most instructive example of an improper orientation for science, was the adoption of Darwin's evolutionary theory. Having been introduced to the agenda of scientific study a 140 years ago, this theory is actually the greatestfallacy perpetrated in the history of science.

The theory of evolution contends that life came about by the configuration of lifeless matter through chance. The same theory further claims that organisms which have been formed by chance evolved into other creatures again by chance. At center stage for the last one and a half centuries, has been the concerted effort to find scientific justification for this scenario, whose results though, ironically, proved only the contrary. Scientific evidence has demonstrated that evolution never took place, that the possibility of the gradual transformation from one species to another is out of the question, and that all living species were created distinctly and in their present forms.

Nevertheless, despite all firm evidence, evolutionists perform countless studies and experiments, write volumes of books crammed


to issue from the dead, and He is the One to cause the dead to issue from the living. That is God: then how are you deluded away from the truth? (Surat al-An'am: 95)

To Him belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth: It is He Who gives Life and Death; and He has Power over all things. (Surat al-Hadid: 2)

In the Middle Ages, when people had a very limited knowledge of nature, the view of "abiogenesis" prevailed because of certain erroneous observations. Those who saw that maggots developed on uncovered meat thought that it happened "spontaneously". They also supposed that mice appeared spontaneously in wheat grains kept in storage. This belief, also called "spontaneous generation", was widely accepted until the 17th century.

Experiments conducted by two importantwithout ancestors? that's the question to be resolved…. There is no known circumstance today in which one can assert that microscopic beings have originated without germs.18

Louis Pasteur

Redi and Pasteur had one thing in common: both scientists believed in the existence of God, and that life was created by Him. Their belief played a critical role in their recognition of the absurdity of the idea of abiogenesis. Effectively, while a number of scientists under the influence of materialism (evolutionists such as Darwin, Haeckel, etc.) had subscribed to the view of abiogenesis, others, who approached science with proper insight, realized the fact of "biogenesis".

Evolutionist scientists, however, went on resisting this evident reality. Their blind devotion to the materialist philosophy drew them into a futile struggle that would last a century.


Two materialist scientists, Alexander Oparin and J. B. Haldane, introduced the notion of "chemical evolution". According to Oparin and Haldane, abiogenesis did not take place in a short time, but happened over a long period. In conflict with certain scientific laws, foremost among them, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, this claim led the science-world into a stalemate, contributing to a detrimental amount of lost of time.

Over the course of the century, a number of scientists conducted experiments in favor of the chemical evolution hypothesis, or exerted great pains to support the claim with new theories. Huge laboratories, major institutions, and university divisions were set into action. All these efforts, however, ended in failure. Well-known evolutionist Prof. Klaus Dose, the Director of the Institute of Biochemistry, at Johannes-Gutenberg University,Creation of God: now show Me what is there that others besides Him have created: no, but the transgressors are in manifest error. (Surah Luqman: 10-11)

Surely in the heavens and the earth, are signs for those who believe. And in the creation of yourselves and the fact that animals are scattered (through the earth), are signs for those of assured faith. (Surat al-Jathiyyah: 3-4)

This truth has been revealed to us through Islam. In the Qur'an, we are informed how living things came into being: All living species were created distinctively by God. God, with His unique creative power and infinite knowledge, equipped creatures with diverse features, and thus communicated His infinite power, wisdom and knowledge to humanity. Some of the verses that refer to the creation of living


things read:

Carl Linnaeus

Having recognized the reality of creation, scientists established various disciplines, such as biology, anatomy, and paleontology. Noted scientists, like Carl Linnaeus, who categorized the living world under definite classes, and who is known as "the founder of taxonomy"; Georges Cuvier, the founder of fossil science and comparative anatomy; Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics who discovered the laws of inheritance; or Louis Agassiz, who is considered the greatest American biologist of the 19th century, all practiced science with an awareness that all living species were created by God.

Then, with the introduction of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the world of science became immersed in an effort to prove that "species evolved from one another". This endeavor caused scientists to engage themselves in a number of fruitlesscommodious shoe box would be more than sufficient to accommodate the hominid fossil finds of between fifteen and six million years ago!26

All these were a waste of time, knowledge, labor, money and resources, mistakenly undertaken under the guise of "science". All around the world, thousands of universities, scientific institutions and organizations, millions of scientists, instructors and students, laboratories, technicians, technical equipment and numberless resources, have been consecrated to the service of a false allegation. The end result is literally nothing, and, moreover, new discoveries continue to expose the fallacy of the evolutionary hypothesis. Evolutionist scientist, S.J. Jones, explains, in an article published in Nature magazine, the predicament of paleoanthropology, the study of fossil research into the origin of man:

Palaeoanthropologists seem to make up for a lack of fossils


A scientist who is aware of the existence of a design in nature embarks on his studies with the aim of investigating this design and its purpose. An evolutionist, however, would not have that objective, as he considers nature to be a purposeless collection of matter.

American physicist and philosopher, William Dembski, is another scientist who maintains that there is a "design" in nature. Dembski states that the evolutionary viewpoint, by denying the existence of a purpose in nature, holds back scientific progress. He quotes the evolutionists' term "junk DNA" as an example. (According to a hypothesis of evolutionist scientists, "junk DNA" are components of DNA that do not include any genetic information and therefore have no apparent genetic function). Dembski remarks:

…Design is not a science stopper. Indeed, designdifferences in the wing-beat frequencies of honeybees. As the temperature of the environment was changed, the bee's body temperature, the rate of its wing-beats, and its metabolic rate was measured. As the temperature rose from 20 to 40 degrees C, the wing-beat frequency decreased. Research revealed that honeybees beat their wings less frequently in hot weather, whereas they beat them more frequently in cold weather. Yet, there was no change in their flight speeds. They were keeping their body and hive warm with the energy output they generated by beating their wings more frequently in cold weather. Ultimately, it was revealed that wings of honeybees had a dual function: flying and generating heat.

Another sophistry put forward by evolutionist scientists, who do not believe that God created living things


distinctly and perfectly in their present forms, is the fallacy of "vestigial organs". Evolutionists, who argue that all living things evolved from a predecessor by chance, believe that there existed a number of "non-functional organs" in the human body, inherited from progenitors which had become vestigial over time by not being used. Scientists who do not believe in the creative attribute of God, caused a great deal of harmful confusion in the scientific study of these organs, which they assumed to be nonfunctional. As science progressed, it was understood that these supposedly nonfunctional organs are actually vital for the human body. The gradual decrease in evolutionists' long list of vestigial organs was the best indication of how flawed was this premise, that had impeded the progress of science."vestigial organ", was actually a lymphoid organ that fought against infections in the body. It was also discovered that the tonsils, which were included in the same list of vestigial organs, had a significant role in protecting the throat against infections, particularly until adolescence. It was found that the coccyx, at the lower end of the vertebral column, supports the bones around the pelvis, and is the converging point of certain small muscles. In the years to follow, it came to be understood that the thymus instigated the immune system in the human body by activating the T cells, that the pineal gland was in charge of the secretion of some important hormones, and the functions of many other supposedly non-functional organs were discovered. The semi-lunar fold in


the eye, that was referred to as a vestigial organ by Darwin, is in fact in charge of cleansing and lubricating the eyebrow.

All of these examples point to one fact: in order for scientific research to be effective and expeditious, it must be founded on a correct premise. God created everything for a certain purpose, with a flawless and inimitable design. Therefore, the ultimate goal of a scientist investigating nature should be to discover the details of this perfection in all things, and explore the hidden purposes of every phenomenon he encounters.

The Negative Effects on Evolutionist and Atheist Scientists From Knowing that Their Efforts are in Vain

In fact, conducting extensive research and study of fallacious and inconclusive hypotheses, is also emotionally draining for evolutionist scientists. When they cometo understand that a majority of the research to which they have devoted their lives is futile and useless, they feel great despair. Conducting scientific research requires great discipline and self-sacrifice. Carrying out long drawn-out experiments and observations in the laboratory, for a premise which they know will come to nothing, and only to discover that the direct opposite of the hypothesis they want to prove is correct, is certainly quite upsetting for such scientists.

In his book, Darwin's Black Box, where he discusses the scientific invalidity of Darwinism, noted American biochemist, Michael Behe, describes the psychology of the evolutionist scientists confronted by the reality of "design" apparent in the living cell:

Over the past four decades modern biochemistry has uncovered the secrets of the cell. The progress has been


of the book titled Evolution, made the following famous comments in an address he made at the opening of the Museum of Natural History in New York:

Question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence… Then I woke up and realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way. 32

Somewhere else in the same speech, Patterson also noted:

One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, or let's call it a non- evolutionary view, was last year I had a sudden realization for over twenty years Iseveral years they exhibited the skull in the most famous museum of the world, as a "human ancestor". F. Clark Howell, an evolutionist himself, describes the detriment this fraud has caused for science as such:

Piltdown was discovered in 1953 to have been nothing more than an Ape's jaw placed with a human skull. It was a hoax placed on purpose. They recognized neither the jaw to be an ape's or the skull to be a human's. Instead, they declared each part as an in between of ape and human. They dated it to be 500,000 years old, gave it a name (Eoanthropus Dawsoni or 'Dawn Man'), and wrote some 500 books on it. The 'discovery' fooled paleontologists for forty five years.37

The words of this scientist are truly remarkable.


A false piece of "so-called evidence" "fooled" the scientific community for 40 years. The fact that 500 books were written about a fraudulent skull is a glaring indication of effort expended for naught.

The false skull used in the Piltdown man hoax.

The perpetrator of another evolutionary fraud, Ernst Haeckel, not only confessed to his forgery, but also referred to the distortions committed by his colleagues in order to perpetuate their various ideologies:

After this compromising confession of "forgery" I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoners' dock hundreds of fellow culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in theare created flawlessly by God, the Lord of the heavens and the earth.

The eye structure of the trilobite is as complex as that of the dragonfly living in our day.

Conclusion

Our immediate surroundings, and the universe we live in, teem with numerous signs of the fact of creation. Implicit in the fascinating system of a mosquito, the glorious artistry in the wings of a peacock, a complex and perfectly functioning organ like the eye, and millions of other forms of life, are signs of the existence of God, and His supreme knowledge and wisdom, for people who believe. A scientist who maintains that creation is a fact views nature from this perspective, and derives great pleasure in every observation he makes, and every experiment he conducts, gaining inspiration for


Iowa State University, Kansas State University, Michigan State University, North Carolina Veterinary Diagnostic Center, Ohio Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Oklahoma State University, Pennsylvania State University, South Dakota State University, Texas A&M University, University of Saskatchewan, UC Davis, University of Guelph, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, and Washington State University. The authors also thank Professor J. Dustin Loy and the University of Nebraska for donated strains.

The use of product and company names is necessary to accurately report the methods and results; however, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the products, and the use of names by the USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. The USDAAston Villa capture Kozak

02 September 2013 08:46

Aston Villa have made a deadline-day move for Czech Republic international striker Libor Kozak.

The 24-year-old, who stole the show in last season's Europa League with a top-scoring 10 goals, has signed a four-year contract.

With his age and background, Kozak fits the profile of player Villa manager Paul Lambert likes to buy, with the Scot admitting to having tracked him for some time.

"We've been on this one for the last few months, trying to bring him to the club, so I'm delighted to get it across the line," Lambert told Villa's official website.

"Libor has an unbelievable scoring record in the Europa League, incredible really.

"He wasn't given much opportunity for Lazio in Serie A but he showed proper potential in leading the line there


importance in the preservation of peace, the ending of people hating each other to the extent of wanting to kill others, the elements that create war. That was enlightenment for him.

Going by the Founder's definition of enlightenment is a realization of social and personal reform. The Founder grew up under the last glimmering light of the glory of the Samurai. Times were killing and war was the only way of life, it was glorified and romanticized. Peace and preservation of life wasn't highly valued, spilling of blood, death and war was, in the times of the Samurai. The Founder's enlightenment wasn't spiritual as it was social reform. An enlightenment is more along the lines of an Age of Enlightenment Japanese style. A personal transition of the way tolive and see the world leading to social reform.

The definition of enlightenment is less obscure than what it is made out to be. It is a realization that peace is more important than war. Love (not the best choice of word imo, better is compassion) over violence. A similar message Christ and others taught. A message that has gone unheeded in many parts of the world who insist war; senseless slaughter of people is the way. The realization of peace over war/violence especially and initially for Japan. The Founder clearly defined enlightenment for Aikido.

In Peace.

Footnote: If I am not mistaken the word "dojo" as well as the physical place has its contextual root in Jodo Shinshu. The dojo is a spiritual place but is is defined and observed


by that of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Yet, many dojos traditionally incorporate Shinto elements such as the kamidana/god shelf the mantle of the dojo. The dojo has a dual spiritual elements and meaning in practice. Aikido Kamadanas are not generally the typical Shinto Kamadanas you see in budo dojo's, but the Judo Shinsu context remains. The dojo is a spiritual place.

The definition of enlightenment is less obscure than what it is made out to be. It is a realization that peace is more important than war. Love (not the best choice of word imo, better is compassion) over violence.

Enlightenment is one of those words as Greg Steckel points out that is open to a broad interpretation. If I may offer a few cents. The definition of enlightenment in termsmovement then a conventional religion. In comparison, there is more similarities with the Judo Shinshu Budhism than any of the mono-theistic religions. Spiritual beliefs and laws that much of the world has been influenced by and practices. Much of what the Founder propagated wasn't salvation, but social reform. The Founder's enlightenment was the importance in the preservation of peace, the ending of people hating each other to the extent of wanting to kill others, the elements that create war. That was enlightenment for him.

Going by the Founder's definition of enlightenment is a realization of social and personal reform. The Founder grew up under the last glimmering light of the glory of the Samurai. Times were killing and war was the only way of life, it was glorified and


romanticized. Peace and preservation of life wasn't highly valued, spilling of blood, death and war was, in the times of the Samurai. The Founder's enlightenment wasn't spiritual as it was social reform. An enlightenment is more along the lines of an Age of Enlightenment Japanese style. A personal transition of the way to live and see the world leading to social reform.

The definition of enlightenment is less obscure than what it is made out to be. It is a realization that peace is more important than war. Love (not the best choice of word imo, better is compassion) over violence. A similar message Christ and others taught. A message that has gone unheeded in many parts of the world who insist war; senseless slaughter of people is theway. The realization of peace over war/violence especially and initially for Japan. The Founder clearly defined enlightenment for Aikido.

In Peace.

Footnote: If I am not mistaken the word "dojo" as well as the physical place has its contextual root in Jodo Shinshu. The dojo is a spiritual place but is is defined and observed by that of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Yet, many dojos traditionally incorporate Shinto elements such as the kamidana/god shelf the mantle of the dojo. The dojo has a dual spiritual elements and meaning in practice. Aikido Kamadanas are not generally the typical Shinto Kamadanas you see in budo dojo's, but the Judo Shinsu context remains. The dojo is a spiritual place.

By the time the Ueshiba was born the Samurai era had already been over for 20


front of him are all in the Hall of Fame. Raines’ role was always to be a table-setter, and it shows in his fairly low career slugging percentage. It really concerns me that he dropped off so precipitously after the 1993 season. After 1993, he never played more than 133 games or stole more than 21 bases, and only had one season with at least 500 at bats. That encompasses a period of almost 10 seasons, nearly half of his career.

So what do the season-to-season numbers tell us? From 1981-1987 he was an extremely dominant player. During that time he:

stole 70 bases or more each season

led the league in steals 4 times

hit .300 or better 5 times

scored 100 runs 4 times (led the league twice)

had an OPS+ ofThe geo-strategic area around Suwalki, Poland has a rich and complex history (graphic: Google)

The Pentagon’s decision to quadruple its 2017 budget for European defence due to the perceived threat of Russian aggression and the recent RAND report noting the difficulties NATO would have defending the Baltic States, are once again bringing to the forefront the risks on Europe’s frontier states. The top brass of US military forces, like U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, have also already noted that a narrow piece of land connecting two NATO member states Poland and Lithuania – the Suwalki Gap ‒ could potentially be a target of Russian military aggression. Capture by hostile forces of Suwalki or bordering Lithuanian territory would cut off the three Baltic States from other NATO


countries. Analysts have likened Suwalki to the Cold War era’s Fulda Gap in Germany where NATO planned and prepared for hypothetical Soviet attacks. In addition to the region’s problematic geography and militarized environment due to neighbouring Kaliningrad and Belarus, the Suwalki Gap is different and potentially an even more vulnerable target because the Kremlin could exploit the region’s historic ethnic tensions.

The territory dubbed the Suwalki Gap (“przesmyk Suwalski” in Polish) is a north-eastern Polish territory bordering Lithuania in the north-east, Kaliningrad in the north-west, and Belarus in the south-east. The nearly 64 miles wide land strip in the Sejny district is also so called “Suwalki corridor” or by the Lithuanians referred to as the “Suwalki triangle” (based on the three towns of Punsk, Sejny, and Suwalki).

Kaliningrad and Belarus:military build-up

The neighbouring and militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad houses part of the 56 warship-strong Russian Baltic Fleet at the port of Baltiysk, as well as submarines, land troops, a naval brigade and two military airbases. In case of a conflict, Russian missiles deployed in Kaliningrad could block the eastern part of Poland and a large part of the Baltic States from any naval or land support from NATO allies. Moreover, since 2003 the Russian military has access (albeit highly regulated) to transit through Lithuania to supply its troops in Kaliningrad. Meanwhile, neighbouring Belarus, which remains among Russia’s closest and most loyal political and military allies, has been in discussions to house a large Russian air base.

Historic Polish-Lithuanian disputes in Suwalki

Considering that Russia’s foreign policy and military operations


were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which after the final partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 belonged to Prussia, Duchy of Warsaw and finally Tsarist Russia. In the end of 1910s, when the two nation states of Poland and Lithuania were forming and declared their independence, the Suwalki triangle became a battlefield of the two countries. Besides historical reasons, for Lithuania this area was important culturally – at the turn of 20th century many intellectuals were educated here and played a prominent role in the rebirth of Lithuanian state. Meanwhile, Warsaw sought to regain this territory due to the sizable numbers of Polish speakers. Thus, Lithuanian and Polish troops clashed in the Sejny Uprising of 1919 and the Battle of the Niemen River of 1920 afterwhich the two countries signed the Treaty of Suwalki recognizing Punsk, Sejny, and Suwalki as part of independent Poland. Vilnius – the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – was also agreed to be part of Lithuania, but in two days it was captured by Polish troops and remained occupied until 1939. This military intervention, along with perception that Warsaw pursued polonization policies in the Suwalki triangle, resulted in tensions between the two countries that continued to reverberate until present day.

Contemporary Polish-Lithuanian Tensions

At the end of the Cold War and following the independence of both countries from Soviet domination, tensions between Poland and Lithuania persisted. Today they are driven mainly by the question of the Polish national minority in Lithuania, specifically issues related to their state-funded


Polish-language education, Polish name and street spelling, and the repatriation of pre-Soviet land ownership rights. Similarly, the Lithuanian minority in Polish Sejny district complain regarding their education and language issues, humiliating monuments in Berznyk near Sejny, or attacks against local Lithuanian language inscriptions.

Poland’s historic occupation of Vilnius and the desire of the Polish minority for territorial autonomy in Lithuania in the 1990-1991 period have resulted in many Lithuanians having antagonistic views towards Poland. For instance, after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Poland was named as the second most hostile country to Lithuania after Russia in public polling. In October 2015 the bilateral tensions were again stirred up by the decision of newly elected Polish president Andrzej Duda to veto the law allowing the use of national minoritylanguages (including Lithuanian) in Polish districts as a supporting language.

Russian Influence in Suwalki

In addition to the local Polish-Lithuanian tensions, there is also a potential dimension of Russian influence in Suwalki. While Russia has long sought to engage Russian speakers and even other ethnic minorities in the former Soviet republics through various youth military camps and militarized tournaments, Moscow has also seen some success in attracting the participation of Polish citizens. For instance, the International Strikeball Tournament “Put’ k Pobede” (Road to Victory) has been taking place in Russia since 2010 and drawn participants from Poland in 2014, 2013, and 2011. The event enacting real-life scenarios of potential Russian military conflicts is organized by the Spetsnaz Rus ‒ a Russian organization active since 2005 and composed of Veterans of


and Ukrainian military brigade in 2017 will be a positive step in mitigating the regional risks and encouraging Warsaw and Vilnius to build mutual understanding to finally transcend the question of minorities and historical mistrust, but much could be done with the support of the United States and NATO.

Agnia Grigas is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council. She is the author of Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire and The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia. Follow her @AgniaGrigas.is connected between the primary of the PA0 2. Since the parallel branch is connected between the primary of the transformer and the series resonant branch, the power transfer capability of the converter decreases at increasing operating frequencies due to the leakage inductance of the transformer. This results in lower power density of the converter. PA0 3. Since the capacitor of the parallel branch is connected between the series inductor and primary winding of the transformer, the three magnetic components (series inductor, parallel inductor and transformer) cannot be integrated into a single magnetic structure.
In order to achieve high power densities, there is a trend to operate power supplies at higher switching (operating) frequencies. As the switching frequencies increase, the switching losses associated with the turn-on and turn-off of


On The Edge

Role MODEL

Robert Gonzalez is living an extraordinary life

He’s gone from South America, to a successful modeling career, to becoming one of the most accomplished and well-known florists in the international floral industry today.

As a celebrity floral designer, Roberto Gonzalez has gotten to know and work for the likes of Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston, he’s decorated movie sets for Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah, and his work regularly brings beautiful homes and high-profile corporate events to life.

“I never would have thought in a million years I’d be doing this, coming from the slums of Venezuela,” he says.

In 1995, when he was only 18, Roberto came to the United States all alone in search of a better life. Through hard word and determination, that’s exactly what heIn honor of #BiWeek and Bisexual Visibility Day, renowned advocate and media professional Fiona Dawson has contributed this guest post exclusively to GLAAD. Fiona Dawson is a national Emmy®-nominated multi-media director, producer and writer. She directed "Transgender, at War and in Love" commissioned by The New York Times and created the media project "TransMilitary," which intimately shares the lives of American transgender troops risking discharge as they work to end the ban upon their service. In 2015 Fiona was honored by The White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change.You can find her on Twitter and Instagram as @fionajdawson.

Last year to celebrate three months of dating, my boyfriend, Emil Pagliarulo, and I went out to a favorite Italian spot of mine in Dupont Circle, a Washington D.C.


bisexual, and paid no mind to her restaurant choice being in the hub of D.C.'s LGBTQ night scene.

After dinner Emil and I decided to go to the bar above the restaurant for a nightcap. It was still early enough to grab a table from which we could people watch with our drinks. As the venue filled up we shared our spot with a few others, including a gentleman in his 50s, who started hitting on Emil. We laughed it off initially, although his wandering hands -- particularly on Emil's chest -- became rather invasive. Emil uncomfortably pushed his hands away and instead we engaged with him in conversation.

"What are you two doing in here?" he asked. One of us replied, "We've just had dinner and we're enjoying acoming out as transgender in my short opinion documentary (Op Doc), "Transgender, at War and in Love" significantly changed the narrative for trans people and was a catalyst for changing policies within the U.S. armed forces. The same day the film was released, June 4, 2015, the U.S. Air Force elevated discharges for transgender airmen to the Pentagon level, Logan and Laila met with President Obama, and the Op Doc has become one of The New York Times' most viewed online short films. Last night, we attended the 37th Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards as nominees for "Outstanding Short Film."

Despite the recognition, it's how the story changes hearts and minds that matters the most. Earlier this year I was at the United States Air Force Academy chatting


with a cadet, who asked me about my work. When I told her about the Op Doc she jumped to introduce me to a senior leader nearby. "This is the woman who made that film I showed you," she said to him. This self-professed heterosexual cisgender Air Force parachute instructor told me that seeing Logan and Laila completely changed his attitude towards who transgender people are. He told me that before watching the film he was absolutely against the idea that they could serve in the military, then "Transgender, at War and in Love" showed him that he was already among transgender troops and his fears were unfounded.

So undeniably storytelling helps shape the world we live in and influences the way we see people for generations to come.Pages

▼

Thursday, September 19, 2013

7 Weeks to ING New York City Marathon: Last Week's Training

Another big volume week is under my belt at 151 miles, and the NYC Marathon is getting ever closer. The mile repeat workout shown below on Thursday was scheduled for Wednesday, but I was feeling very fatigued in the morning and decided to put it off by a day. I felt much better on Thursday, and put together a nice cutdown, although it was on the track this time rather than the hilly route I've used for previous repeats this buildup. This workout was the last shorter and faster workout of the training block. Most training the rest of the way in will be between half-marathon pace and marathon pace. I was particularly pleased with


Sergio Garcia Surges to Early Lead at British Open

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – The British Open wasn't at "Car-Nasty" this time around — especially for Sergio Garcia. Still trying to remove that unwanted title of best player never to win a major, Garcia took advantage of charitable conditions at Carnoustie to shoot a 6-under-par 65 Thursday in the opening round.

Tiger Woods was right in the thick of things again, sinking an improbable 90-foot putt on his way to a 69 that put him solidly in contention for his third straight Open title. And 18-year-old Rory McIlroy provided a glimpse of the sport's future with a bogey-free 68.

"I'll take a 68," the teenager from Northern Ireland said, "and I'll take three more to finish."

This links along the North Sea, considered oneof the toughest tests in major championship golf, was toned down after it haunted the world's best in 1999. That Open left the enduring image of players trying to hack out of waist-high rough and Jean Van de Velde standing barefooted in the Barry Burn, throwing away a three-shot lead at the 72nd hole.

After the early starters went out in bone-chilling rain with the thermometer struggling to reach 50 degrees, it turned out to be a rather lovely day by British Open standards. The sun poked through the thick, gray clouds in the afternoon, and many players finished up in short sleeves.

With the greens softened up by plenty of rain over the past few days and only light breezes rolling in off the sea, the players could attack.


It helped, too, that Open officials widened the fairways and shaved back the rough.

In '99, the lowest score through 72 holes was 6 over; Friday's cut will likely be lower than that.

McIlroy was the only player to get through the round without a bogey. Garcia came close, his only slip-up was when he failed to pull off an up-and-down from a bunker at the par-3 16th. By then, the Spaniard already had surged to the top of the leaderboard with a stretch of four birdies in five holes.

Garcia has been in contention at the majors plenty of times, including last year's Open at Royal Liverpool. He played with Woods in the final group on Sunday, only to wilt.

A final-round 73 dropped him into a tie for fifth —further proof that Garcia has all the shots to contend with Woods but still hasn't learned to finish. Maybe this will be the one where Garcia finally breaks through.

"I got off to a good, solid start," he said. "I hit a lot of good shots and a lot of solid putts."

Woods provided another improbable shot for his majors collection, something to go with his chip-in at the 2005 Masters, and the 4-iron he holed out from the fairway at Hoylake a year ago.

At the difficult 16th, Woods' tee shot barely made the front of the green. He was only worried about avoiding a bogey when he sent the ball rolling toward the cup. It kept going and going and going, finally dropping in.

Woods threw both arms in the


air, then shrugged his shoulders as he looked toward caddie Steve Williams.

"I was just trying to get it up there close," said Woods, seeking a fourth Open title overall and 13th major championship in his incessant pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' career record. "I wanted to get it up where I would have an easy second putt. Lo and behold, it falls in."

As if Woods doesn't have enough talent, the Royal & Ancient was there to help him along.

When he tugged his tee shot into deep rough left of the 10th fairway, the ball settled on a strand of television cables. Rules official Alan Holmes gave Woods relief within one club length, claiming the cables couldn't be moved. But Mark Roe, a former European tour player now working forthe BBC, moved them 3 feet.

The ruling enabled Woods to drop in trampled grass. He hit a long iron to just short of the green, followed with a nifty pitch and saved par with an 8-foot putt.

"That was a weird drop," Woods said. "I didn't ask for it. The guy just said I could."

Garcia was two shots clear of Ireland's Paul McGinley, a Ryder Cup stalwart who has never done much individually but shot 67. McIlroy was among the group another shot back, joined by U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera and the guy who won that event two years ago, Michael Campbell.

Then there's John Daly, whose 1995 British Open victory is one of the highlights of his troubled career. He briefly surged to the top of the leaderboard


at 5 under by holing out a short wedge for eagle at No. 11.

That was followed by a stretch that epitomized his up-and-down life: double-bogey, par, triple-bogey, bogey, bogey, par, bogey. In the space of seven holes, he went from the top spot to nowhere to be found on the leaderboard, settling for a 74.

Campbell sank three long birdie putts, then hit a wonderful approach to 3 feet at the tough 17th hole for his final birdie. He's eager to show that his 2005 win at Pinehurst — when he held off Woods on the final day — wasn't a fluke.

"Setting the goal of winning a major was probably a mistake," said Campbell, who made a bold fashion statement in a hot pink shirt. "I should have saidmajors."

Going out in the morning, Woods looked as though he was on his way to pop a casserole in the oven. Like several of his competitors, he wore oversized gloves to keep his hands warm between shots in damp, dreary conditions.

Of course, after the searing heat of Royal St. George's in 2003 and the sun-baked fairways of Royal Liverpool last year, this seemed more like a British Open, a Scottish summer in all its glory.


Shaun Edwards has described Eddie Jones as "great for rugby" ahead of Wales' Six Nations showdown with England in Cardiff.

On Saturday Wales can stop reigning Six Nations champions England claiming their 16th successive win against all opponents.

But England boss Jones claimed earlier this week that he does not understand why England have appeared "petrified" of playing Wales away from home.

He also said that Welsh fans can throw daffodils at his players on Saturday, and Wales defence specialist Edwards has welcomed Jones' approach to what is traditionally a full-blown contest.

Asked about the "petrified" claim, Edwards said: "I think that is just another way of Eddie throwing down a challenge to his players.

"It's smart coaching. He is a clever bloke is Eddie. It's great for the game. You want charactersin the delivery of ample relief aid. Relief aid is dangled in front of non-party members who are presented with the option of joining the ranks of the ruling party if they want to receive aid. Opposition party members are forced to make the choice of going hungry or involuntarily joining the ruling party by abandoning their own. The intense pressure to join the ruling party is reinforced through family, community and peer pressure. Those who speak up against such practices or openly protest are targeted for persecution, intimidation and harassment.

The people forced to make the impossible choice between life and liberty choose life and do the best they can under the circumstances. Western donors are fully aware of the misuse and abuse of the unfortunate situation their


they testified.

On January 4, 2010 Jason McClure, the American journalist for Bloomberg, went to Tigray to investigate the allegations of politicization of relief aid. Shortly after he arrived he was taken into custody and detained for in a prison in Mekele before being whisked back to Addis where he was served with a notice of expulsion, which was latter retracted, from the country in 48 hours. The story of Mr. McClure, a highly respected journalist, and his harrowing experiences in trying to investigate this matter are yet to be told in public.

Over the past two weeks, I have travelled to Tigray and visited Kola Tembien election district. I spoke with Teklezgi W/Gabriel and Zenawi Asmelash, two of the eight eyewitnesses who had agreed to speak to Mr. McClureabout the danger of relief aid driven vote buying as early as August 2009. The issue was included as an agenda item in the inter-party dialogue that was initiated through the good offices of the UK Ambassador, Norman Ling, here in Addis Ababa in September but was rejected by the ruling party.

I was a member the leadership of the core of the ruling party coalition in Ethiopia, the TPLF, for about twenty five years. I served as an elected member of the Parliament for two terms until I was illegally denied my seat in Parliament in 2001, following a split within the leadership of the ruling party. In this context, it is instructive to look at the way the Meles-led clique used food grain to stage manage my


“recall” from my parliamentary seat and that of eight other colleagues.

In 2001 the farmers of Kola Tembien, my electoral district in Tigray, were ordered to collect their wages in food grain for work done in soil and water conservation activities. This was the usual method of dispensing food aid to the able-bodied citizens experiencing food shortage. When the farmers showed up at the designated sites to receive their grain allotments, they were asked to put their names and signatures on sheets of paper as evidence of receipt. Incredibly, the list of names and signatures was later presented to the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) as a petition of my electorate to effect my recall from Parliament. The so-called recall petition was sustained and we were forced outof our elected offices. We sued the NEBE but to no avail since Kemal Bedri, the Chair of the NEBE, was also President of the Supreme Court of the country. Victimized by such dirty tricks, we were illegally barred from entering the premises of the Parliament and effectively dismissed from our elected positions.

The use of food grain as a weapon for sidelining dissidents has been perfected by the ruling party ever since. It is their preferred weapon of choice to squeeze the farmers and rural residents into following their one-party system lockstep. My recent visit to Tembien was to assess the political situation in the context of the coming election. I visited many villages in the district, but limited my contacts to friends, relatives and acquaintances. Although I


have visited Tembien many times, the way the local officials treated me this time around was quite different. I visited Tambien as a member of the Unity for Justice and Democracy Party (UDJ), another opposition party active in Tigray and member of Forum coalition. I would not be surprised if my visit was viewed as sort of a political debut by the local administration. Unlike other times there was an intense interest and activity in the security apparatuses in the villages I visted. Security forces were fully mobilized to put all my activities under security surveillance, including open harassment of my visitors and relatives. It was deeply saddening to be treated a fugitive and security threat in my own hometown, amidst my relatives and friends.

As soon as Iarrived at Abiy Adi town, the capital of Kola Tembien district, my father-in-law’s house was surrounded with plain clothes policemen and informants who tried to dissuade people not to enter the premise and speak to me. Those who ignored the warnings, and many did, were later harassed by the police and given strong warnings not to speak to others favourably about me. In Adiha, my birth place, where I stayed for two days, a Lieutenant and three other policemen were dispatched from Abiy Adi town to augment the resident policeman. They sort of created a makeshift police station to monitor my activities. The residents were so disgusted by the level of intrusion that the local administrators told the Lieutenant: “As much as Meles Zenawi is entitled to visit