Lessons from Korea's pharmaceutical policy reform: the separation of medical institutions and pharmacies for outpatient care.
In Korea, until recently, both physicians and pharmacists were allowed to prescribe and dispense drugs for outpatient care. Along with other deep-rooted structural problems, this worked against the quality and efficiency of the health care system. To rectify this problem, the Korean government launched a drug policy reform in July 2000. However, the drug policy reform was more drastic than initially intended--driven by political factors, the reform ended up bringing about complete separation of medical institutions and pharmacies. Also, unlike in many other countries, Korea did not take a gradual approach, but instead, it implemented the reform all at once and nation-wide. As a result, the reform has faced criticism and protests, therebywithdrew the day the
convention began. We all wish him well.

However, the most important
thing that worked in the favor of Barr/Sheehan was the wonderful act of
solidarity that the Party for Socialism and Liberation made on the behalf of
our ticket. Peta Lindsay is only 28 and she was leading up the PSL ticket with
amazing energy, intelligence and commitment. Being only 28, though, the
California Secretary of State pulled her name off the ballot and she withdrew
her candidacy for PFP today at the convention and urged her committed delegates
and the undecided delegates to vote for Barr/Sheehan.

I spoke on behalf of the
Barr/Sheehan ticket at the candidate forum last night in the president’s slot
and took questions and gave statements and then Roseanne (who is being roasted
by Comedy Central tonight), blew into the convention today


FFA chief executive David Gallop remained tight-lipped on the interview process when questioned on Thursday but confirmed the appointment will be made based on the ability to make the 10 A-League clubs financially sustainable. Improving the financial platform of the league remains the priority of the FFA who are determined to have clubs in a healthy position and no longer requiring assistance from head office.

"We've got a shortlist for that, international people, local people have applied. I said at the start of this we're looking for business acumen, the ability to help clubs grow their businesses and I'm sure that we will make a good appointment on that front in the coming weeks so it's exciting stuff," Gallop said.

After months of off-field uncertainty, Brisbane Roar's owners look toFOX 12 in July. That came after back-to-back head-kick knockouts of Mike Rio and Erik Koch earlier this year.

Njokuani, a former WEC standout who once had three straight “Knockout of the Night” wins in that promotion, has struggled with up-and-down syndrome since coming to the UFC. He hasn’t been able to put together consecutive wins since his three straight in the WEC in 2009, after which came successive losses in 2010. In May, he dropped a decision to Vinc Pichel at UFC 173, so he will be looking to avoid back-to-back losses for the first time in the UFC.

With the addition, the latest UFC Fight Night 54 lineup now includes:

Rory MacDonald vs. Tarec Saffiedine

Raphael Assuncao vs. Bryan Caraway

Jingliang Li vs. Nordine Taleb

Bruno Santos vs. Elias Theodorou

Yosdenis Cedeno vs.


Arts.21

Magazine

The Cultural Magazine

Discover culture. Germany is becoming a crossroads for the creative scene of the 21st century. The world is watching to see what's taking shape in Berlin and beyond.

Arts.21 presents the creative minds, traces the new ideas, explains the great debates and follows the biggest events of the season. Journalism that casts a critical eye on the Zeitgeist - week by week.for the 2012 festival, which runs Jan. 19-29 in Park City, Utah.

While most of the movies were made by unknown filmmakers, a few recognizable names turned up in the select list.

Actress Brie Larson (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) co-directed “The Arm”; Universal Pictures executive Rick Finkelstein is featured prominently in “The Movement: One Man Joins an Uprising”; Don Hertzfeldt, nominated for an Oscar for his 2000 short “Rejected,” made “It’s Such a Beautiful Day”; and Nash Edgerton, a music video director and the brother of actor Joel Edgerton, helmed “Bear.”

Sundance shorts can often yield bigger opportunities down the road. Director Ryan Fleck turned his 2004 Sundance short “Gowanus, Brooklyn” into the Oscar-nominated “Half Nelson,” while screenwriter David Koepp launched his directing career (“Secret Window”) with the 1994 Sundance


World Bank Donates To "Ex-Gays" At PFOX

World Bank, whose stated mission is ending poverty through loans to developing countries, has listed the "ex-gay" group PFOX as a suggested group for charity giving by its employees. World Bank matches employee donations at rates from 50-100% and places PFOX directly above PFLAG on its list of endorsed charities. Chris Geidner reports at Metro Weekly:

PFOX supports so-called ''conversion'' therapy – by which people who identify as gay attempt to become ex-gay – and the National Association for Reparative Therapy (NARTH), specifically. One of the few videos on the PFOX YouTube channel is a video of an interview with former NARTH president Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. Another shows a televised debate between PFOX's Peter Sprigg and Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen,who has been writing about the ex-gay organizations for more than a decade. Besen told Metro Weekly on Wednesday afternoon, "It's as sickening as it is scandalous." Besen said that the former president of PFOX, Richard Cohen – who Besen described as "the guru of the organization to this day" – runs the International Healing Foundation and "sent his protégé to Uganda – and what came from that was the Anti-Homosexuality Bill" that has been the subject of intense worldwide scrutiny and criticism. "Here's this group that is tied to what can only be described as an eliminationist campaign, worldwide, against gay people," Besen said, "and they're receiving money from the World Bank?"

The self-haters at PFOX will now be able to tout their relationship with World Bank as


Kenya teachers end school strike Published duration 17 July 2013

image caption Some pupils were still going to their classrooms despite the strike

Teachers in Kenya have called off a nationwide strike, shortly after the government announced the indefinite closure of primary schools.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers took the decision following talks with Deputy President William Ruto.

Some 240,000 primary and secondary school teachers had been striking for more than three weeks for higher pay.

It was the biggest crisis President Uhuru Kenyatta's government had faced since it won elections in March.

The union seemed to have bowed to government pressure, ending the strike without securing major concessions, reports the BBC's Caroline Karobia from the capital, Nairobi.

'Sacked'

Mr Ruto told union leaders that the government was working on a "very tight budget", andincrease resulting from the balance of births and deaths, and international migration. Low fertility rates in combination with large-scale outmigration drive the population decline in most countries of Eastern and South-eastern Europe. Since 1990, population losses of Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo have surpassed 20 percent. In contrast, continuing population growth in Western, Southern and Northern Europe was mostly due to immigration. This increase was particularly strong in Ireland, Switzerland, Norway and Spain, where the population has grown by more than one-fifth compared to 1990.

‘Migration movements have now become the driving force behind the growth and decline of Europe's population,’ concludes VID demographer Tomáš Sobotka. While fertility rates in Eastern Europe have now reached similar levels as in Western European countries, the migration of people has


divided the continent into two parts—and thus also determines the divide in population trends between these two parts of the continent.

Europe continues to age

Caution is needed when drawing conclusions about long-term population trends and their social and economic consequences for the future. The total population of the European Union in its current boundaries has surpassed the 500 million milestone in 2008 and is expected to expand more in the coming decades. In contrast, future trends in the working population, which is currently around 246 million people, are more uncertain. According to the researchers’ calculations this figure might shrink by up to 32 million in the next few decades. However, such labour force contraction is not inevitable: assuming that labour force participation of women and men across EU countriesMonday, April 30, 2007

The "Supersize Me" era of home building might be coming to an end after a three-decade run.

The size of the average new home swelled by about 50 per cent from 1973 to 2006, but this trend toward expansion will probably be ending in the next decade, according to an elite panel of 135 builders, architects and designers surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders.

In a report released last month, these residential-construction experts said the downsizing tendencies of aging baby boomers, soaring home prices in much of the country and a fundamental change in consumer tastes will dampen future demand for ever-larger homes.

"People kept getting more and more and more space, but felt dissatisfied because the space was not filling a void," said Sarah Susanka,


co-author of Inside the Not So Big House.

"The `moreness' they were looking for had nothing to do with size" but rather with the craving for more intimate spaces they could use in more practical ways, she said.

The average size of a new single-family home in the first three months of 2006 was 2,459 square feet, up from 1,660 in 1973.

The size grew even as the average family size shrank, said Gopal Ahluwalia, staff vice-president for research at the builders' association. "So it's not as if people were buying bigger homes for functional use of space. It was about lifestyle. They were buying for the same reasons people buy expensive cars: because they could afford it.''

But a new single-family home will most likely average 2,300 to 2,500 square feetin 2015, as it has since 2001.

Instead of focusing on space, homeowners will turn their attention to what makes that space special.

"People are not necessarily looking for square footage but for a home with a higher level of finish and detail," said Barry Glantz, an architect in St. Louis. "They want granite countertops, Sub-Zero refrigerators, Viking ranges, ceiling treatments, floor treatments. They want all the bells and whistles.''

Not everyone agrees that there is a trend or, if there is, that it's here to stay.

Among them is Kira McCarron, chief marketing officer for Toll Brothers, one of the nation's largest home builders.

McCarron said that during her 21-year tenure with the company, she's heard similar predictions about shrinking home sizes, particularly when consumers get spooked by rising energy costs. But


these forecasts have not panned out in the past, she said.

"I don't believe the fundamental dream of bigger, better, more is going to end any time soon," McCarron said. "I think people do like nesting spaces, but I think they like them in their 4,000-square-foot houses. They like the idea of reading areas, where they can curl up in the morning and read the newspaper. But they want one for him, for her, for the kids.''The vitality of the United States derives in great measure from the richness of our cultural heritage. The values and ideals brought to these shores by people of many races and religions are woven deeply into the fabric of America.

American Jews have contributed significantly to the spiritual and cultural elevation of our society since the founding of our Nation. Jewish immigrants and their descendants have brought dignity and distinction to every field of American endeavor. Our Jewish citizens have served America by fighting for her freedom, building her industry, striving for her goals, and nurturing her dreams.

Yet, Jewish heritage reaches far and deeply into the dawn of history, when America was but a wilderness. The Jewish people still firmly carry these ancient and revered traditions, which have been


harshly tested over the centuries.

In the spring of each year, through special celebrations and observances, American Jewry remembers its past and renews its dedication to the challenges that remain. Beginning with the observance of Passover, recalling the passage from bondage to freedom, through the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Days of Remembrance honoring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, Jews all over the world pay tribute to their past. In the celebration of Israeli Independence Day, Jerusalem Day, and Solidarity Day for Soviet Jews, Jewish people reflect upon their common heritage.

In recognition of the special significance of this time of year to American Jewry, in homage to the significant contributions made by the Jewish community to the United States, and to foster appreciation ofthe cultural diversity of the American people, the Congress of the United States, by joint resolution, has requested the President to proclaim May 3 through May 10, 1981, as Jewish Heritage Week.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning May 3, 1981, as Jewish Heritage Week.

I call upon the people of the United States, Federal and local government officials, and interested organizations to observe that week with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and reflection.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifth.


the other hand, contains 24,000 verses and is so widely regarded not just in India, but also internationally, that over years several retellings of the epic have been published all over South Asia. The essence of the two epics need to be located in their literary brilliance.

The other thing to take away from both these ethics is the detailing they provide regarding human experience in the first millennium CE. Literature is perhaps one of the best sources of ancient history. It is even more so the case with the Ramayana and Mahabharata due to the fine detailing of human emotions they provide, with which the modern man can relate. This is not to say that the two texts are historically accurate. However, they do provide as reference pointsit up to the present. Although the Arboretum was established by the University of Wisconsin in 1932, author Franklin E. Court begins his history in 1910 with John Nolen, the famous landscape architect who was invited to create plans for the city of Madison, the university campus, and Wisconsin state parks. Drawing extensive details from archives and interviews, Court follows decades of collaborative work related to the Arboretum's lands, including the early efforts of Madison philanthropists and businessmen Michael Olbrich, Paul E. Stark, and Joseph W. "Bud" Jackson. With labor from the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s Depression, University of Wisconsin scientists began establishing both a traditional horticultural collection of trees and plants and a completely new, visionary approach to recreate native ecosystems. Hundreds of dedicated scientists


and staff have carried forward the Arboretum's mission in the decades since, among them G. William Longenecker Aldo Leopold, John T. Curtis, Rosemary Fleming, Virginia Kline, and William R. Jordan III. This archival record of the Arboretum's history provides rare insights into how the mission of healing and restoring the land gradually shaped the Arboretum's future and its global reputation; how philosophical conflicts, campus politics, changing priorities, and the encroaching city have affected the Arboretum over the decades; and how early aspirations (some still unrealized) have continued to motivate the work of this extraordinary institution.orders
Category:SAR supergroup orders


stay warm on their travels during harsh winters.

Competitions, Exhibitions, and Snow Sculptures

There is a contest for just about every interest at the carnival. You can see snowshoeing, hockey tournaments, and live graffiti mural exhibitions to name a few. Also, world-class freestyle skiing and snowboarding competitions are a huge draw, bringing in the top competitors from all over the world.

The one that the Quebec Winter Carnival is known for is the International Snow Sculpture Competition. You can watch as larger than life-sized works of art are sculpted before your very eyes. These teams, from as far away as Europe, Asia, and South America, bring the snow to life with shovels, chainsaws, and other improvised tools.

The actual work takes place during the first week of the carnival, but the finishedsculptures are there for you to enjoy until the closing ceremonies. Many visitors consider this the best part of their trip.

Many races also take place during the carnival, using everything from sleighs to snowmobiles. Not all of them are official events, often taking place in other parts of the city. The two most popular sanctioned events are the ice canoe races and the dogsled races.

Ice Canoe Race

Imagine being part of a crew, paddling your way across the half-frozen, dark waters of the mighty Saint Lawrence River – one of the longest, widest rivers in the world. Swiftly moving ice floes are everywhere, and most of these crushing chunks of ice weigh several tons. With little open water in many areas, your crew has to paddle, push, pull, and


about the best-selling book of all time:

1. The English word Bible is derived from the Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία (ta biblia - "the books"). While Christian use of the term can be traced to around A.D. 223, the late biblical scholar F.F. Bruce noted that Chrysostom in his Homilies on Matthew (between A.D. 386 and 388) appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.

2. The word "testament" (Hebrew berîth, Greek diatheke), means "covenant." The term "Old Testament" refers to the covenant which God entered into with Abraham and the people of Israel, and "New Testament" to the covenant God has entered into with believers through Christ.

3. The practice of dividing the Bible into chaptersbegan with Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury in the early 13th century. Robert Estienne, a 16th-century printer and classical scholar in Paris, was the first to print the Bible divided into standard numbered verses.

4. The first complete Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere was not in English or other Europeans languages. The “Eliot Indian Bible,” published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between 1660 and 1663, was a translation in the Natick dialect of the Algonquin tribe of indigenous Americans. There were no English language Bibles printed in America until the late 1700's, mainly because they were more cheaply and easily imported from England up until the embargo of the Revolutionary War.

5. The first red-letter New Testament (i.e., words of Christ printed in red) was published in 1899, and the


YOU CAN LEAVE!” the President tweeted later Sunday, and then further amplified his remarks in comments to the media.

All four congresswomen are American citizens. Only Omar was not born in the U.S.

Trump’s attacks elicited widespread condemnation, mostly from Democrats – but even from some members of his own party – and were labeled racist, unacceptable and unpresidential.

However, to be clear, while the level of infighting within the Democratic Party is the result of the most extreme leftist factions clashing with the moderate party leadership, I believe that President Trump’s love-it-or-leave-it attacks against these representatives are completely unacceptable and overtly racist.

While the conflict between the president and the four junior members of Congress – who have become known as the Squad – is now center stage, just last weekThere was further good news on the jobs front for Tipperary this Wednesday, June 28, with the revelation that a contract has been signed with China to proceed with the proposed hydroelectric project at Silvermines.

The €650m project, which will see the former Magcobar mining site outside the village being used to produce and store electricity, was first announced in the run up to the 2016 general election by Labour TD Alan Kelly.

It will bring an estimated 400 jobs to the area.

A delighted Deputy Kelly this Wednesday welcomed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Bord na Mona, Chinese hydrolelectric power company Power China, and SIGA Hydro, which is run by Tipperary man Darren Quinn.

"This will bring it to the next stage. It is the largest ever investment


Latest News

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According to ESPN Cleveland, Jordan Cameron was "frustrated with the (Browns') instability at quarterback and constant change in offensive direction."

The Browns thought they had Cameron back on a two-year, $15 million deal, but he ended up signing a nearly-identical contract with the Dolphins. In other words, the tie didn't go to the team that drafted Cameron in 2011. His loss has left the Browns comically thin at tight end, and almost entirely bereft of playmakers. Mar 16 - 8:32 AM

Dolphins signed TE Jordan Cameron, formerly of the Browns, to a two-year contract worth $15 million.

This one is official, as it was announced by the Dolphins themselves. Earlier, there were reports that Cameron had put pen to paper and re-signed with the Browns on a similar deal.Cameron has immense upside as a seam-stretching, catch-first tight end, but has seen his career marred by concussions in three-straight seasons. He's a huge injury risk, but infinitely bigger playmaker than transition player Charles Clay, who may now skip town to Buffalo or Cleveland. Mar 12 - 9:08 PM

Initial reports had Cameron signing a two-year, $15 million deal to re-up with the Browns. The deal was reportedly done, but the Dolphins jumped back into the mix at the last minute and appear to be stealing Cameron away from Cleveland. It's a sign the Dolphins are prepared to lose transition player Charles Clay. Mar 12 - 7:57 PM

The Browns decided not to franchise tag Cameron, and they've been rewarded with a reasonable two-year deal. With Josh Gordon suspended indefinitely,


One of the bigger headlines coming from the world of mixed martial arts this week is the decision – on the part of the UFC – to strip their biggest star of one his two championship belts. Conor McGregor, who stopped Eddie Alvarez just 2 weeks ago to make history, was made a non-player in the featherweight division when the UFC forced him to vacate his title in what has been judged by many as a highly controversial move.

McGregor won the featherweight belt just 11 months ago when he knocked out then-champ Jose Aldo in 13 seconds, a feat that remains the shortest ever title-victory in the history of the organisation. In the time since, Conor has fought 3 consecutive fights outside of the 145lb division, choosing notMarc Bartra: The New Face Of Borussia Dortmund

Since joining Borussia Dortmund in 2016, Marc Bartra has embraced and embodied what it means to wear the black and yellow shirt. While many players seem to use Dortmund as a stepping stone and a development in their career, Bartra has embraced everything associated with Dortmund along the way. His grasp of what it means to play for a club steeped in history is second to none. As a result, Bartra is quickly becoming the new face of Borussia Dortmund.

https://twitter.com/MarcBartra/status/885256600071659520

The Journey

From Espanyol, to Barcelona, to Dortmund. Marc Bartra has been on a journey. The Catalan born player started at RCD Espanyol as a child, before moving to join FC Barcelona’s infamous youth system. Being from Catalonia, an area that prides itself


on history and culture, joining Barcelona would fill someone with a sense of pride, especially with Barcelona being at the forefront of Catalonia’s identity.

Progressing through the ranks of the youth system, Bartra reached Barcelona B in 2009 where he featured in a total of 81 games in the space of 3 years. Bartra received his first team debut in 2010 and it wasn’t until 2012 where he became a permanent member of the first team. In the 2012-13 season he only featured in 16 games in all competitions for Barcelona. Progressing further, despite not being the first choice centre back, Bartra made a total of 25 appearances, as well as being part of the treble winning 2014-15 season at Barcelona. Looking for more game time and greater pastures,Bartra made the move to Borussia Dortmund in 2016. He hasn’t looked back.

Black and Yellow

The Black and Yellow of Borussia Dortmund has been at the forefront of German football for quite some time. Steeped in history, culture, and tradition, joining a club like Dortmund must be an incredible feeling. A team with the largest stadium in Germany that draws impressive attendances makes it even better as a player. Bartra embraced it.

Bartra soon became an important component of the team, on and off the pitch. During his first season at Borussia Dortmund, Bartra featured in 19 Bundesliga games, playing 1560 minutes. He put his strengths of passing, tackling, blocking, intercepting on display. 82% passing completion, 36 tackles won, 52.22% aerial duels won, 60 interceptions, 12 blocks, 60 clearances, with


only 1 defensive error. A solid first season for the Spaniard. Despite these performances, his first season at Dortmund was overshadowed by the events that occurred on 11 April 2017.

The Unthinkable

The events of 11 April will forever be remembered by Bartra and his teammates. In the build-up to a Champions League quarter-final game against Monaco, an explosion rang out. The Dortmund team bus was attacked by roadside bombs. As a result of the blast, Bartra was injured and had to be taken to hospital. Everyone was praying for his wellbeing. It was the unthinkable, the beautiful game was attacked.

But like many tragedies, beauty shines through. The unity of Dortmund and Monaco supporters was on full display. Dortmund came together and was offering Monaco fans food and places toPurdy: Jed York grows up as 49ers owner

Jim Harbaugh and owner Jed York shake hands as General Manager Trent Baalke holds a helmet after a 49ers pressconference at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California on Friday, January 7, 2011. The San Francisco 49ers announced Jim Harbaugh as their new head coach. (Jim Gensheimer/Mercury News)

This makes it official. As of now, Jed York is no longer a kid. He's still 29 years old, but I can't call him Kid York any more.

Not after what happened Friday. Not after the 49ers' owner/operator grew up as an NFL executive right before our eyes. Not after he ended a week of speculation and wild Internet piranha feeding by pulling off the one thing that many people were wondering if York could


accomplish:

He hired Jim Harbaugh, the hottest coaching commodity in football, away from Stanford to lead the 49ers out of the NFL mediocrity wilderness.

"It was obviously a stressful week," York said afterward.

From the outside, it didn't just look stressful. It looked completely and totally freakazoid nuts.

York and new 49ers general manager Trent Baalke first interviewed Harbaugh on Wednesday afternoon for six to seven hours at a private home that belonged to one of York's friends on the peninsula. The meeting broke up with Harbaugh promising to seriously consider the 49ers' offer of about $5 million per year for five years.

But then, over the next 48 hours, reports surfaced that the Miami Dolphins were going to offer Harbaugh up to $8 million per year ... and that the Denver Broncosor may not turn out to be the man who shakes the 49ers from their non-playoff torpor. However, he has a better shot at doing so than anyone currently on the open market. Stanford's impressive 40-12 victory in the Orange Bowl made Harbaugh even more of a catch. But the 49ers had him on their radar through the autumn. And their sales pitch to him clearly worked.

Even so, York definitely grasps why some 49ers fans were skeptical about whether he and Baalke could navigate the treacherous NFL coaching-search waters to land Harbaugh.

"I understand that," York said. "I'm 29 years old, Trent's a first-time general manager. People are going to have questions. And we haven't done anything yet. It's time to get to work."

Friday, after York was introduced to


musical fanfare at the start of a news conference, he made the conscious decision to stay out of the spotlight. York did not even sit on the stage with Harbaugh and Baalke as they spoke and took questions.

Afterward, when cornered by reporters, York also deferred credit.

"Trent is the guy I hired," York said, "and Trent was the guy who hired Jim."

Nevertheless, York played an important role in the lengthy meeting with Harbaugh two days earlier. Baalke did 90 percent of the 49ers' talking during the interview. However, York sat in on the whole discussion -- and spoke up only when talking about the big picture.

"Jed talked about his vision," Harbaugh said. "It was productive. ... That sealed the deal."

York's favorite part of the meeting probably occurred when Baalkepulled out some special custom clothing he had ordered. They were khaki work shirts. The 49ers' logo and the names "Trent" and "Jim" stitched on the left upper chest of the shirts. The message was that Baalke wanted the two of them to roll up their sleeves together and get going on the 49ers rebuild.

Said York: "It was good for me to watch and see as the discussion with Trent and Jim went from 'This is an interview' to 'This is how we can build a team together.'"

York admitted, also, that he leaned on his uncle, former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., for guidance during the process. And when the deal was done, with everyone riding together to San Francisco for the Friday news conference, York called DeBartolo


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This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sure, I was just 13, but I read the New York Post, the New York Times, the Daily News, the Herald Tribune and Sports Illustrated and I watched TV and I listened to the radio and all the experts said Cassius Clay would be crazy even to appear in the same building with Sonny Liston, let alone the same ring. Hell, he’d be crazy to set foot in the same ZIP code, a newfangled thing that had been invented the previous year.

Sonny was a monster. He was big and way too strong and he had a couple of sledgehammers hanging from his shoulders that could kill a skinny, 22-year-old pretty boy. He"plus one" to my holy trinity of YA authors.

The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous.But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out,


Rosa and Eigla, properly protected by the kaiju's ribcage, brave the rain outside. The activity in Molly's fort and the loading area seems to have come to a standstill, though several cargo walkers still operate under the massive bulk of the Rig itself. The sun has disappeared completely under the ocean, and the incandescent lights around the area tint everything in a dull red glow.

Taking the main lift up, they reach the Rig's main hall. Swarming like ants, engineer zombies fill up tankers and crates with the facility's exports, coordinated by the night shift Dolls.

_______________________

Klimt's mind goes dark for a second, then he finds himself rewinding through his memories at a high speed, like an old VHS tape. The laboratory, the arena fight, the ride through the mudflats. Peggy's death at his hands, and the insects within the derelict ship. The pillar man, the long snowy road, the village of fanatics, the overgrown manor. The horrors of the factory, and the mind-numbing trek through the wastes. Curie. The army base. Fleeing through the woods. The meatblob. The fragile peace of Mary's house. Peggy. Going mad from the rain. The stadium. The sealed room, on the underground, where Eigla lost her arm.

The memories seem to flicker and jump, getting patchier. He remembers his death, and the defilement of his corpse. The guns and blades installed in place of his arms and legs, the discarded limbs thrown in a freezer with hundreds of other body parts. The long war, and fleeing his hometown. Mourning his mother, yet


felt as if he was falling, but he didn't wake up. The abyss went on forever.

_______________________

Malia opens her maw, and in a somewhat froglike manner, shoots out a thick bundle of threads, pulling the radio off its mount and into her body. The motorbike looks, displeased.

Hm! Seems like the thing was adapted to run off the user's bloodstream, much like a Coffin. Connecting it to a few blood vessels near her spine, the smooth song starts playing again, echoing inside her skull as if she were using earbuds. There's a few other stations available, too. Though- Who'd bother transmitting a song in this dead world?

Malia decides to see what other stations she can pick up. By moving her waist from side to side, she scans the area withthe radio's directional antenna, managing to roughly determine where each signal is coming from.

First of all, there's several channels being relayed somewhere directly above her, perhaps from the Rig's radio mast. Mostly routine messages coordinating the refinery's operation, but there's also a series of regular beeps and chirps, almost like a beacon.

The accordion song seems to have been replaced by a classical piece played on a flute. It's coming from... Somewhere East of her position, though the distortion in the signal suggests it's a long distance away.

At short intervals, bursts of sound come from several directions - Two from the North, another far Northwest, a single one South and a trio from the East. Each time, the Rig's transmitter sends a short reply. Perhaps some sort of, point-to-point


connection system, sending period pings to each transmitter?

Finally, a single station comes from the West, out in the ocean. It's hard to detect - At first, she thinks it's only static - But there's definitely a pattern to it, though she can't quite find any sort of meaning to it. After a few moments, it disappears.

_______________________

Rosa's map proves more than adequate, and soon the two girls find themselves in front of Molly's lab. Malia is standing there, by the resting bike, doing a little dance while listening intently for nothing in particular. The hall is very much silent.

_______________________

Focusing, Klimt tries to force his consciousness out of limbo. He reaches through the void, tearing his form against its noneuclidean walls, and is ejected into an errant thought. Textbook passageson military tactics echo through his being, as he bounces across the syntax of long-disused programming languages, then the taxonomic details of a thousand species of dust mites.

Finally, he falls into something cohesive - A memory, or at least part of one. Walking through a corridor made of millions of Curie's eyeless back-faces, he walks into an hospital room.

A cardiac monitor sits against the wall, useless on the current patient. Indistinct ghosts in hazmat suits bumble about, taking measurements and samples. In the middle of it all, sits Judith. Or, Curie? It's hard to say, but she's not finished yet.

Partially submerged in a tub of saline and tendrils, the girl is little more than a head and a pair of arms, connected to life support machines by a


Cashing In On Top 5 Latin American Markets

Advisors looking to diversify client portfolios into international and emerging markets investments should take a close look at Latin America, says Heiner Skaliks, portfolio manager of the Strategic Latin America Fund (SLATX).

The fund is offered, registered and administered in the U.S., with an investment team based in Bolivia. “In general, countries across the region have tools from a monetary and fiscal policy perspective to combat an economic slowdown and encourage foreign direct investment,” he notes.

The debt of several countries in the region has seen credit rating upgrades, he says, and an expanding middle class is creating growth opportunities.

Here is an interactive slide show that details the fund’s top five Latin American countries by percentage of the portfolio allocated to each.MMIC, the Midwest's largest medical professional liability company, has entered into an agreement to acquire Utah Medical Insurance Association (UMIA), the leading provider of medical professional liability insurance for physicians in Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

After the acquisition, UMIA will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Minneapolis-based MMIC, but will retain its brand and board of directors. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The combined companies will have nearly 20,000 policyholders in 14 states. The organizations will serve the entire health care spectrum: physicians, large hospitals and health systems, clinics, and outpatient and long-term care facilities.

In connection with UMIA's previously plans to sell itself to California-based The Doctors Co., UMIA had a short period in which it could consider other bids. MMIC emerged with a superior bid


here, where people actually standing in front of the emperor are lined up similarly with higher ranking people to the right.)
The answer goes on to say things about how in Europe and generally across cultures, there is a bias against left handedness, which I would agree with. In English, the word "sinister" comes from Latin roots associated with the word for left. In Chinese the word for left is associated with "out of accord", at least, according to Wikipedia.
Other, less plausible (in my opinion) answers offered on that page are:

In images of the goddess Izanami, who gave birth to Japan, the sun, the moon, and storms, the order of which gods are oriented around her, and associations with those gods gave rise to preferences and associations with leftthe Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring airing Friday, April 4, at 8 p.m.; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers airing Saturday, April 5, at 8 p.m.; and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King airing Sunday, April 6, at 8 p.m.
KING KONG tells the story of Carl Denham, a maverick filmmaker determined to capture on film images that have never been seen by civilization. He and his stalwart crew hire a boat and head to the remote Skull Island, where they encounter natives worshipping a mysterious god. After the natives capture Ann Darrow, Denham’s leading lady, and offer her as a sacrifice, the reality of their god becomes apparent: it is a giant gorilla they call Kong.

Kong, who is struck by Ann’s


beauty, takes her back to his lair, fighting off numerous prehistoric beasts who would like to make a meal of her. Denham and his crew, meanwhile, set out to get her back alive and capture Kong to take him back to New York. Once in the Big Apple, Kong breaks free, finds Ann and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building, where he faces the bullets of fighter planes buzzing overhead. Bleeding and alone in a world he doesn’t understand, Kong looks to Ann for comfort. But even her beauty and affection cannot save him. He tumbles off the building to his tragic death on the streets below. As a crowd gathers, Denham provides newspaper reporters with their perfect headline: “‘Twas beauty killed the beast.”

KING KONGbegan as the brainchild of director Merian C. Cooper, who came up with the idea while he was shooting wild-animal footage for the movie The Four Feathers. His original plan for KING KONG was to use a real gorilla made larger through the use of trick photography. When he saw some model animation that Willis O’Brien had put together for an abandoned dinosaur project, he realized the special-effects wizard was the perfect person to bring his giant gorilla to life. O’Brien’s work on the film took special effects to an entirely new level, paving the road for a number of subsequent classic films, including several created by Ray Harryhausen, who learned his craft working under O’Brien.

RKO released KING KONG in New York in 1933. At the time, it


was the only film that had ever played by Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy simultaneously. Audiences and critics were amazed, and KING KONG went on to make more than $1.7 million at the height of the Depression, single-handedly saving RKO from bankruptcy. Unfortunately, the studio mangled the prints in later releases, removing several sequences that were deemed too graphic or too suggestive for audiences. It was not until the 1960s that many of these scenes were restored.

In 1976, producer Dino De Laurentiis created a new version of KING KONG that featured make-up artist Rick Baker in a gorilla suit, along with a few sequences with a massively expensive mechanical Kong made by Carlo Rambaldi. The film was dismissed by critics, but managed to become aLetter: Gay men and women deserve the support and respect of the community

Gays deserve support, respect

- -DOUG WOJCIK/Stevens Point Journal. Mike Fink sets the flag in place at the entrance to Club Night Out in the town of Carson as Barry Callahan, center, and Dan Wrycha observe. They are planning a Central Pride Day Out at the tavern on Aug. 7.

EDITOR: It saddens me greatly to hear an elected official use a derogatory term like "deviant" to describe the gay men and women who call this community home, as Wausau City Council member David Nutting did at a recent council meeting.

It's hard to fathom that in this day and age some people still believe being gay is a choice or that it is wrong. Gay men and women


Andrew Ettingshausen will never forget the celebrated image of him embracing Paul Gallen, the younger, slightly less handsome club favourite who will draw level with his Cronulla record of 328 games this weekend.

Ettingshausen and Gallen shed ''tears of joy'' in the middle of ANZ Stadium after the historic 2016 premiership triumph over Melbourne.

'We did it': Paul Gallen and Andrew Ettingshausen embrace after the Sharks' maiden grand final win in 2016. Credit:AAP

"It was something not planned, I was on the ground after that match, he spotted me, he came flying over, and we had a great understanding of the amount of effort that had gone in,'' Ettingshausen told the Herald.

"He had played about 15 years at that stage and not won a premiership. When he saw me and knewLaurent Robert scored two contenders for goal of the season and made two other goals for Alan Shearer as Newcastle hammered Spurs.

Robert thundered home a left-foot volley and later carried the ball from his own half before lashing a shot into the top corner.

He also took the two corners from which captain Shearer scored his goals.

It meant Spurs' dismal away record continued - with just one win outside of White Hart Lane this season.

In an otherwise quiet first half devoid of outstanding chances, Robert's first goal was the only real moment of excitement.

KEY MOMENTS

35 mins: Robert scores a stunning goal

55 mins: Robert scores an even better one

59 mins: Shearer slots home a third

66 mins: Shearer is on target again

With the Tottenham backline under pressure, Dean Richards managed to


clear the ball but only as far as Robert, 35 yards out, and the Newcastle winger returned a volley which gave goalkeeper Kasey Keller no chance.

The visitors had earlier threatened through Robbie Keane, who tested Shay Given with a dipping volley, and later Frederic Kanoute missed his kick when presented with a chance.

But after the opening goal it was all Newcastle with Shola Ameobi, teed up by Robert, forcing Keller to parry.

Then 10 minutes after the break Robert picked up the ball in his own half, took it on and blasted a shot into the top corner.

The match was put beyond doubt in the 59th minute when Tottenham left Shearer in space and the former England captain prodded home his 100th goal at St James' Park.

Kanoute (left) waswell marked by Bramble

Sir Bobby Robson's side knew then they would be extending their lead to five games - but Shearer was not finished.

In the 66th minute Spurs proved they had not learned their lesson as Shearer was again left with sufficient space to score from a Robert corner.

It was 33-year-old Shearer's 16th goal of the season and it capped a miserable afternoon for David Pleat and Chris Hughton in the first game after they were confirmed as Tottenham's new management team until the end of the season.

The London club hope to appoint a new man at that point and whoever it is will have much work to do.

By contrast Sir Bobby Robson, whose team have now moved back up to fifth, continues to enchant the Tyneside public.


//001: Starting Out Sideways

88:88 a.m., by the clock on the end table. At least until he fumbled to turn off its shrill alarm; then it snapped properly back to nine in the morning.

Waking up on a mattress which had, during the two years since initial purchase, been gradually assuming a U shape. Difficult to stay horizontal when the universe wants you to sink into it, hammock-style.

Dave Smith was not one for literary metaphors, so the irony of it was completely lost on him. Which was a shame, given how accurately it described his day-to-day living as of late.

He'd interviewed for permanent positions on a regular basis since graduating, but had yet to land one. The problem was and wasn't his commercial art portfolio; very solid work, they wouldmorning.

Work on the design a bit. It was taking shape... what shape that was, he had no idea. But it FELT like it was taking shape. Hopefully Lucid Technologies would finally be satisfied this time, and send him the stupid paycheck for a job well done...

Bounce a tennis ball off the wall, ponder design.

Work on the logo.

Sit down to play a dungeon crawler on his video game console. He'd been stuck in the same labyrinth and fighting the same chaos elementals for a hell of a long time, with no end in sight. This killed a few more hours as he pondered the design.

Work on the logo.

Maybe read a bit, or watch a movie.

Bedtime. Sink back into the U, close your eyes, and wait for the next day.


Just how things are.

Sleep.

Dave Smith could, by many metrics, be considered the least interesting person alive. He had no "life" in the 1990s definition of it, i.e. "Get a life, you loser." He had little personality to speak of, unless blandness was coming back into fashion, 1950s-style. The universe would have casually overlooked his life and death without really missing out on much.

In fact, the universe did exactly that. Fortunately for Dave Smith, "the" universe was not the only universe paying attention to him.

This would prove to be tremendously important when the very next day, he'd meet someone who'd change his path forever, his apartment would be destroyed, he'd lose everyone he ever knew or loved, and he would nearly be killed in the most horrific manner imaginable.

Allextremely rapid home invasion, he wasn't shocked. That was just how Dave Smith rolled.

Instead, his concern came from the fact that the lights in the long hallway outside his apartment were starting to flicker... and go out, one by one, in the distance. pop. pop. pop. The superintendent was going to hear about that, certainly. Not safe to walk down the halls without light—

The door to his apartment opened just long enough for an arm three times stronger than his own to grab Dave by the back of his university t-shirt and drag him back into his own apartment.

Dave staggered into the apartment, roughly yanked in and released by the man. No sooner than he was clear then his DIY Swedish bookshelves were being shoved in front of


the door, to barricade it.

"All you've got is a lousy knob lock," the man grumbled, while bracing the shelves diagonally, testing them to see how much give they had. "No deadbolts, no chains. Are you looking to get killed? And here I am, out of door spikes... Penny! Exit check!"

A young girl bounced by, just under his immediate field of view.

She threw open the door to his closet, with bare plastic clothes hangers rattling around from the force of it. Dissatisfied with his wardrobe, next she checked the bathroom—where the ratty shower curtain and old toothbrush were there to greet her. And... that was the end of her door-seeking quest, as Dave's apartment barely qualified as a closet, what with the living room and bedroom and kitchen sharingelbow room with each other.

"No connecting exits," she replied, quickly. "There's the window, I guess, but..."

For lack of a better option, Dave stood around looking confused. And studying the two uninvited guests.

The one who tossed him casually aside was pretty impressive for a guy approaching middle age. Graying around the sides, true, but otherwise he'd pass for one of those action heroes you see sneaking up behind terrorists armed only with a combat knife and an endless supply of vengeance. Not a beefcake 80s action hero toting an M-60, but one of those lean-yet-athletic nothing-to-lose action heroes who favored a quick neck snap twist.

Dave's reason behind immediately jumping to movie imagery was because the man dressed the part, as well. He had on cargo pants no doubt brimming


with MREs and extra ammo clips, and an authentic-looking bulletproof vest. The genuine firearm and—yes, that was in fact a combat knife!—sealed the deal.

An armed intruder would be worrying to many. Dave instead was curious about the contradiction offered by the girl plus the man, working as a team.

Because she was not a tough-as-nails hitter chick action heroine to go with her action hero dad. She was probably about thirteen years old, skinny rather than buff and brawly, and dressed like a mountain climber... backpack brimming with useful gear, rough climbing boots, kneepads and elbowpads. No body armor here, just an ordinary t-shirt and khaki shorts. She also lacked the gent's neck-snapping musculature, and his grey hair; what he could see peeking underneath an old-timey explorer's pith helmetwas ordinary red hair pulled back in two short pigtails, to stay out of her way. A shining example of youth and boundless energy, as she desperately searched Dave's little four-walled world for some way out...

Of course, eyeing the girl was probably not going to make the guy very happy. Maybe that was the reason why Dave now had a knife to his throat.

"Erm, excuse me," Dave felt the need to say in his defense.

He didn't dare turn his head, but did catch frantic movement out of the corner of his eye—the girl waving her hands, trying to interrupt this before the walls got painted red.

"Dad! Dad, whoa!" she exclaimed. "What're you—"

"Back off, Penny," the man warned—not angrily, just sternly. "Right. Who're you? How'd you get here? You


with that thing that's hunting us down? I warn you, go cubist on me and I'll—"

"My name's Dave Smith, I moved here two years ago, I'm not sure what thing you're talking about or why it's hunting you down and what's an avant-garde art movement have to do with any of this?" Dave asked, smoothly providing the answers the man sought. "And if this is a robbery, my wallet's over there, although I've only got twenty-three bucks since I haven't hit the ATM recently..."

The girl (apparently named Penny) dared to put a hand on the arm holding Dave at knife point.

"Dad, calm down," she spoke... sternly but gently, similar to her father's prior command. "He's not one of them. He must be an import! This is his home."

"Horsecrap.essentials. Smartphone, check. Wallet with twenty-three dollars and his ID, check. Keys, check. (He had four keys on the ring—a key to his father's house, a key to his apartment, and a key to his old dorm room. Might be a good idea to check in on Dad, after today's madness was done.)

His bare feet hit the cold metal of the fire escape just as his front door split into fifteen smaller doors and fell apart. He was tempted to look behind him to see what exactly was breaking into his home, but suspected if he did that he'd finally understand what it was he was supposed to be worried about. And then, he might go completely crazy.

When Dave was very young, his mother and father took him


to see a themed attraction park owned by a major motion picture corporation. He got to experience a simulated earthquake, he got to watch a simulated tornado, and was nearly eaten by a simulated shark. Back then he was easily startled, so an endless series of brushes with simulated certain death had nearly driven his eight-year-old brain into a dark corner to hide and suck its thumb.

He rarely gave any thought these days to those incidents. The one takeaway from his vacation experience was instead a curious simulation which was not promising horribly painful death, but instead a puzzle of sorts.

They were buying a hot dog from a street vendor, on a simulated city street. In the distance, Dave saw the rolling hills and buildings of San Francisco...stretching impossibly far, all the way to the horizon. Which didn't make sense, because he knew the theme park wasn't that big. He tugged and tugged at daddy's coat sleeve, begging to go get a closer look. Eventually, his parents gave in, and the race was on to see how far the road went.

It dead-ended in front of an elaborate multi-layered optical illusion—a series of painted wooden panes, flat as the boards they were made from, which only looked like a distant city when you yourself were at a distance.

And now, someone had plunked down one of those elaborate paintings outside his apartment window.

Dave wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed it before now, now that he was desperately scaling a fire escape in his bare feet, trying to


escape an unknown horror that was intent on very un-simulated murder. Despite that threat, it was the illusion before him that grabbed his attention and wouldn't let go.

The side streets and buildings past his tiny little window were nothing more than flat paintings. In fact, the entire side of his building appeared to be in fact a large room, with the walls designed to look like they were not walls. It was like another theme park ride, where you sat in a tiny car and were shuttled through dark fake-cities, usually teeming with robotic pirates.

He felt the need to bring this point up, to the two who were doing a much better job escaping than he was.

"Excuse me," he spoke up, "But what happened to th—"

"There's nothing outknown laws of optics.

Soon, his mind told him he was looking at a blurry thing which was completely in focus, so long as you had seventeen different focuses at the same time, all of them several feet away from the actual space of his head. If you could see the entity from all those perspectives at once, MAYBE you could put it together, like a jigsaw puzzle. Instead, you were looking at whatever it was through a multitude of shattered windows.

Whatever it was... it was warping the fire escape, as it scaled up after them. Not bending the metal or rusting it—the fire escape simply got... STRANGE, as it went. Branches started forming which went nowhere, or doubled back on themselves. Perfectly ordinary looking metal structures which were


escape something bad. That was enough motivation, really.

Until they ran out of fire escape.

By this point, the façade on the wall opposite to them had wrapped around to the wall they were on. The side of the building Dave was climbing had stopped being a building and started being a poor imitation of one—crudely painted lines to represent brick and mortar, splotches of blue paint for windows. A smooth surface... and a fire escape that terminated a good ten feet below the actual rooftop itself.

Without a word, Penelope pulled a grappling hook and thick rope from her backpack, passing it to her father. Gregory took two spins with it and hooked the edge of the roof neatly.

"Hope you did a lot of fake rock climbing at the StudentUnion, boy," he called out, without looking down. He gave Penelope a leg up to start climbing the rope, then was up and over in the blink of an eye after her.

The reason why Dave wasn't afraid of heights was because he indeed did a lot of fake rock climbing at the Student Union. It was an easy way to get exercise in without having your bike constantly stolen. Trying to resist the urge to look down and confirm that the thing was still after him, he grasped the rope, and hoped like hell that he remembered that lesson from his school days more than he remembered Econ 101.

They were lucky the roof even existed. The fake room beyond Dave's window capped off with a ceiling designed to


thank // you //

Slowly... the break-point in the fabric of reality faded. It grew smaller and smaller, becoming translucent against the painted backdrop of an artificial night sky, until the girl was simply gone.

A piece of paper fluttered to the rooftop, left behind in her wake.

On it was a completely random mishmash of letters and numbers, in wildly varying fonts. Only one word was even slightly legible: RECEIPT.

Getting back down from the roof took far longer than scrambling up it.

The chaos left in the wake of the distorted little girl had rendered the fire escape into something not entirely unlike a vague recollection of a fire escape from someone who had seen one years before. Gregory took lead; he tested each section of the winding iron structure, makingsure it was stable enough before he'd let his daughter climb down. (His first suggestion was to send Dave as a canary in a coal mine, but Penelope vetoed the idea.)

There was only one way out of the "Sideways," as the pair had called them—the way they came in. Since they'd been chased down a dead end by the Picasso'd girl, it meant reversing course. Including visiting Dave's apartment again. Or rather, what was once an apartment.

Gregory had overturned some furniture in his efforts to make a barricade. The cookie-seller had overturned the idea of an "apartment" in order to break down that barricade. What was once his front door was now a multitude of smaller doors with many doorknobs, scattered across his entranceway. His bed had been


turned into two beds, each triangular in shape. His kitchen was now a bathroom comprised entirely of toilets which was in the shape of a kitchen; any thoughts of being a bit thirsty went away when he saw what had become of his coffee maker. His closet of clothes had been fused together into one giant polyblend lump of sleeves and trouser legs and shoes, which meant he'd be stuck in his pajamas for the duration.

And, much to Dave's disappointment, his computer had been turned into a computer made entirely out of cheese.

All that work on Lucid's corporate logo, gone. He still had a good picture of it in his mind, but it would've been nice to have the files to show for it. Proof that he hadwhich had plastic chairs turned up on plastic tables... a cavernous room, which halfway through started having piles of wooden crates instead of dining tables, until it was simply a storage warehouse for a home improvement megastore. Two rooms, sharing the same space, stronger at opposite ends. A few warehouse offices connected, but with no workers in sight. Which was probably for the best.

After that, it was a long, long haul through a series of bedrooms. All of them were completely mismatched; a children's bedroom would connect to an extremely fancy hotel room which connected to what looked like a makeshift meth lab with a ratty old cot in the corner. Bedrooms rarely had two doors, which meant that they had to progress by going through a door,


annoyed, but there was never anything close to hate there for the only thing left in his world he truly loved. Of course, his flavor of love could be a bit tougher than others, but the situation called for it. Especially the current one.

It was nighttime in the Sideways, and they were camping down in two adjoining bedrooms. Gregory was very insistent on the arrangement. Penelope would get the queen sized bed in the comfortable room, where he'd sleep on the barcalounger next to it. As always, she'd packed her pajamas and even a teddy bear which she was probably a few years too old for—but when you slept in the Sideways it wasn't a bad idea to embrace what comforts you could, Gregory felt.

Dave, meanwhile, would belong since learned how not to make the slightest noise when she wanted to sneak out of bed.

No more home. No more job.

His father, left behind. Everyone and everything he knew left behind.

Stuck in a place which was completely alien and weird. No matter how much she claimed the "rest of the city" was less weird than this particular spot of it.

A weird place where people could wake up insane and distorted and wander endlessly in cubist agony for the rest of their lives, and accidentally bring that ruin onto others.

And Dave felt... nothing.

You're coping remarkably well! the bubbly Penelope had said. She did 90% of the talking, really, while Dave said nothing. And felt nothing.

He didn't feel tired, for starters. Despite hiking all day, climbing in and


out of windows, scaling piles of furniture whenever they hit a particularly unorganized abandoned space. No, right now he felt like lying there and staring at the bottom of some other kid's upper-tier bunk bed.

No home, no job, no family, nothing.

No thoughts. Nothing to say on the subject.

Until she popped up out of nowhere and nearly sent him rocketing into the wooden flats holding up the bunk above him.

"Hiii," she whispered. "Shhh. Dad's dozing away. Stay quiet."

Dave regained his wits quickly... and instinctively backed away from her, scooting against the wall the bed was pressed against. Because if Gregory stopped snoring and caught him with her, he'd probably have a new mouth in his neck in seconds.

"What're you—?"

"Dad wants you to go to the Department of Orientation whenit'll all sort itself out," he said. "It'll all make sense and things will be okay."

Suddenly, he was being hugged. In a very little-sistery sort of way.

"It'll be okay, Dave," she whispered. "I promise. For you, and for everyone."

Which is exactly the scenario that Gregory arrived to, when he swung the doorway open.

Quietly, Dave prayed that his execution would be swift and painless. Instead, he heard a stern but patient voice which did not sound like sharpening knives.

"Penny, get back to bed. It's late," Gregory spoke.

Sheepishly, the girl extracted herself, and tried to play this off as a casual and completely unimportant situation. Sneaking away quietly, past her father and back to her room.

"Um," Dave offered.

Gregory closed the door behind himself. And locked it.

With a heavy sigh... Dave


sank back into the Star Wars sheets he was lying on previously. A crazy-protective father and a far too personable teenager. Just another thing on top of a pile of things which were, at best, problematic and unsettling...

No home no job no family weird place dangers everywhere.

Still, he found himself sleeping soundly in minutes. Probably just a complete collapse from exhaustion. Probably.

Dave's grand introduction to the city itself came in the form of a basement laundromat in an apartment building. It looked... well, like the dingy little laundry room in his own apartment building, just with the machinery in a slightly different configuration. With no windows and nothing to scream aloud "YOU ARE IN A STRANGE PLACE!", it was almost comfortingly normal.

The abnormal part was that they walkedunusable.

Someone had been here, regardless. Having a seat, having a smoke. From the angle of the chair... waiting for someone to come out of the Sideways.

Either they got bored and left, or had to visit the potty and were on their way back right now. Neither option appealed.

"Lobster sounds good," Gregory decided, wheels turning in his mind. "In fact, lobster sounds very good."

The City of Angles.

That wasn't the official name, of course. There was no official name. But the joke had been passed around so long and so often that it had stuck in everybody's head. A city, where everything was at a slightly askew angle to everything else? City of Angles. Sticky, very sticky.

These were the sidewalks that the trio were walking down, now. Finally out in


the open—the real open air, not a painted simulation of an open air environment. Dave didn't think he was claustrophobic, but he had to admit a certain sense of relief at taking in a breath of car exhaust and garbage and sweat and humidity. All very familiar smells to a graphic designer who had been living in a city for the last two years...

The best part, hands down, was the sunshine. It was high above his head—hopefully not just painted on a false ceiling—and even at street level there was enough sunlight trickling down to warm his face.

But the differences between the city he left and the city he now had to call home were striking.

The angles, those were obvious. This was what Penelope called "The Zag," acentral roadway that zig-zagged along with a series of sharp lefts and rights and lefts and rights. Yet it was certainly all one street, judging from the painted lines on the road, and meant to be taken as such rather than a diagonal slice of city blocks. The sidewalks confirmed it, snaking along and hugging the edges of the asphalt perfectly just as sidewalks should.

The buildings GENERALLY followed the back-and-forth nature of the roadway; sometimes the sidewalk would be too narrow or too thick, as the looming brick-and-mortar structures squatted in positions that would make any civil engineer weep in agony. No Leaning Tower of Pisa effect... but they were rotated a bit, like teeth in a mouth that hadn't seen a dentist in fifty years.

As for the


would be perfect. Wouldn't mind seeing your Uncle Archie, either."

"Oh, right! Archie's the guy who owns the place," Penelope explained to Dave, distracted by the chance to explain more about everything to the new guy. "Keep up! We'll be there soon!"

A glance in a passing shop front window reflection confirmed Dave's confusion at this change of pace.

And that the two men in suits were still following them, Gregory sourly noted.

"That Fish Place" was not a particularly inspired name for a restaurant, until you considered that it was just about the only fish place that existed in the City of Angles. Sure, you could get beef or chicken or even venison—thanks to the most distant layers beyond the city and beyond the suburbs, where random grasslands and ranches andhe didn't breathe easily; relief could come when he knew what the hell was going on. And until then, well... no sense worrying Penny, or Dave, for that matter.

After days of being alone in the Sideways with nobody but her dad and her new buddy, Penelope was glad to be back in the city. Even gladder to be at That Fish Place, which always had a festive and jovial atmosphere.

It felt right, to her. This was a place where families, entire families could come and sit down and peacefully enjoy something they rarely got to experience. The staff, despite looking like extras in a documentary about the Hell's Angels, were friendly and kind and always had a good joke or two to share with the owner's niece. That


Fish Place represented the promise of what the city could be, instead of what it was, and Penelope felt that was the perfect way to introduce Dave to the core of the city.

Except Dave wasn't cheerfully smiling. He seemed about as nonplussed and nonchalant as he did in the Sideways.

Dave's probably so deep into shock that he's not even responsive, her dad had guessed.

I never bother with coping. I just don't know how to react, so I don't react, Dave had said himself.

It was probably too much to hope that getting him out of the scary part of the city would be enough to get the guy to both relax AND enjoy himself. She had been holding a glimmer of hope that he'd be able to do it,of equal muscle and fat, Archibald Tully carefully had a seat behind his official managerial desk in his tiny little wooden chair. He nearly dwarfed his desk, and certainly seemed far too large for the two tiny shot glasses of whiskey that were ready and waiting.

He promptly downed both glasses, while Gregory had a seat opposite.

"Still booze-free and swear-free, huh, Greg?" he asked. "Fine here! More of both for me..."

Gregory set his backpack aside, settling in. "I wish I could say this was just a social call, Archie, but..."

"But it's business, and it's bad business. I know how it is with you, Greg," Archie said, leaning back in the creakily protesting chair, steepling his fingers. "Word passed up the chain from my boys at the door you had


What the curfew rules were, why they didn't want new imports wandering off until they had completed the seminar, when meals would be served and so on. He soaked it all in for later consideration without really considering any of it.

Hours later (even if it felt like minutes) and Dave was sitting on a bed in a semi-lousy motel room which would be his home, until they kicked him out into the wider world of the city to sink or swim.

Not really his home. His home was gone. His apartment, his city, his world, his job, his family, everything that was his. He had a phone, an empty wallet, and a ring of keys to his name. Somewhere along the way he'd even lost the kiddie menu he'dscribbled a crayon drawing on.

Alone in a horrifying new place where insanity was infectious, he could accidentally step through the wrong doorway and be lost forever, and nothing he'd taken for granted would ever be true again.

Briefly, very briefly, the pang of panic surfaced.

He thought he had problems before, back in that world. Mother, gone. All his art ambitions collapsing around him because he just didn't have the talent. Struggling to keep grades up. Living from contractor paycheck to contractor paycheck, alone in a city where he knew nobody, where he was surrounded at all times but lonely as hell...

All of that, he'd trade all of this for all of that in a heartbeat. Those were first world problems compared to being stuck in the City of Angles.


And unflappable Dave Smith was becoming flapped very rapidly, sitting alone in the motel room, listening to the air conditioning, waiting for taskmasters to pour dire warnings on his head for several days about all the ways he could die.

Anxiety attacks were a thing of the past. He just didn't bother with them anymore. Until now.

But just as he felt that rising swell, that initial sense of complete unease... something green caught the corner of his eye. Something which wasn't there a second ago.

Two cardboard boxes, decorated with smiles and good cheer. Green, and full of tiny brown cookies with a chocolatey, minty taste. Girl Scout Thin Mints.

A note had been left on top of the boxes.

thank you, i feel better now.

The instructors who were there to helpof the city. The abstract art hanging on the wall behind Seth Dougal's desk was a bit sketchy, given the natural aversion most in the city had to anything resembling a cubism, but surely someone that high up on the food chain could be afforded a few eccentricities.

As for Dougal himself...

A serene-looking fellow. Dark skinned with a contrastingly white suit that cost more than Cartwright's weekly paycheck. Nice manicure. Green power tie. Every inch a sensible and well-grounded fellow.

"I understand you're the one who brought in the quarantine violator today," Officer Dougal opened with, while sorting through the papers on his desk.

"Yes, sir. And I assure you, I'm not done with this Gregory Yates character," Cartwright insisted. "He's a menace to public safety, and always has been. Since


report. The photos of the objects," Seth said... reaching into his coat for the second piece of evidence he'd stolen.

A photograph of four keys on a ring. Or maybe three. Or maybe four...

Cartwright was an experienced officer in the Department of Safety. After years of sealing off dangerous parts of the city, you got a sense of impending cubism, of approaching Picassos. The hairs standing up on the back of your neck, bits of your brain starting to race. He was seeing an impossible thing, a static photograph which was in flux between two images, and that likely meant...

"I'll... I'll contact a quarantine team immediately and send them to his Orientation Center!" Cartwright declared. "We'll seal it off and destroy the object immediately and determine if the boydesk, past the man.

Through the abstract art on the wall and into the Sideways.

Where he was not alone.

She smiled at him with six million mouths, each with six million teeth. And in the face of Bedlam, Cartwright no longer remembered how to scream.

//end

Copyright 2014 by Stefan Gagne


out of Guantánamo, a measure stripped out in talks with the Democratic-controlled Senate. Republicans now have 12 more House seats than they did last year and have gained a majority in the Senate.

New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has long opposed bringing Guantánamo prisoners to the U.S. and played a key role in mustering congressional opposition to Obama’s first-year plans to shutter it.

“Mitch McConnell, back in 2009, was the one who got the whole thing rolling,” said Chris Anders, a legislative liaison for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The challenges Obama faces in closing Guantánamo aren’t limited to conservatives or even to Democrats fearful of Republican attacks on the issue. Many of the most strident backers of closing the prison approve of transferring prisoners to other countries but stronglydifferent times.
When played as a game, a second player will be positioned adjacent the first end of the strand--e.g. on a balcony to which the first end is tied. The second player will then slide the shuttle down the strand toward the position of the first player, trying to move the shuttle past the first player.
In order to be sure that the user does not "cheat" by following the path of movement of the shuttle rather than waiting for it to come into view, preferably a kit containing the strand and shuttle has a blinder means utilizable to fit on the user's face so as to restrict the user's peripheral vision out of at least one eye (that is the eye closest to the first end of the


Chocolate body painting, ancient spiritual rituals and water volleyball in the nude ...

a Mayan escape in Mexico is the ultimate break from reality

Karisma sister resorts are different but work in harmony

El Dorado Seaside Suites host 1,000 guests and have terrific eateries

Hidden Beach has just 42 rooms and one pool, and is clothing optional

El Dorado Seaside Suites guests can pop over to Hidden Beach Resort

Visit the Mayan ruin Chichen Itza, one of the seven Wonders of the World

Little comes close to the bliss of glowing tanned and healthily on an almost-clear fine sand beach, palm trees cocooning you in 32-degree heat, a light breeze, a blended iced coffee by your side and a tropical sea inches from your sun lounger.

It's the ultimate image of holiday - that precious twopeople to discover chocolate, drinking cacao beverages as far back as 1900 BC. It felt fun and crazy but kind of authentic to the location.

After that initiation, I was eager for the full alternative holiday experience so made sure to book in for a Temazcal ritual with the on-site spa's very own shaman.

The shaman told us to choose a musical instrument at the start of the ritual - before getting in the temazcal

The experience involves chants, sweat, invocation, and the steam from herbs said to purify and relax you

The holistic sauna ritual known as a 'house of steam' is set in a cave-like structure and is certainly the hottest sauna I've ever been in.

The ancient Aztec ritual is said to feel like returning to the mother's womb; the


a full day excursion to great Mayan ruin Chichen Itza - the archeological site that's home to one of the seven Wonders of the World, El Castillo.

Before our elaborate guided tour we went for a swim in a natural water pool in a stalactite-filled cave known as a cenote.

Afterwards we stopped to visit Spanish colonial city Valladolid, Yucatan, for a stroll around the main square.

The El Castillo Mayan pyramid is famous for sculptures of plumed serpents running down its sides.

During the spring and autumn equinoxes, the late afternoon sun casts a series of triangular shadows against the northwest balustrade, creating the illusion of a snake crawling down.

After witnessing this wonder and hearing of its ancient greatness, indulging in decadent freedom at naked chocolate body painting and going throughwriter and political activist.
Marco Dezzi Bardeschi, 84, Italian architect.
Aleksandr Galkin, 70, Russian football player (Avangard Kursk) and manager.
Jack Gargan, 88, American politician.
Bernie Glassman, 79, American Zen Buddhist monk, complications from a stroke.
Roman Grinev, 41, Russian jazz bassist, fall.
Kateryna Handziuk, 33, Ukrainian politician, thrombosis.
Katherine Herring, 85, American baseball player (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League).
Sir Jeremy Heywood, 56, British civil servant, Cabinet Secretary (2012–2018), cancer.
Harris Hines, 75, American judge, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia (2017–2018), traffic collision.
Hung Wen-tung, 80, Taiwanese orthopedist and politician, MLY (1984–1990).
Tariqul Islam, 73, Bangladeshi politician, Minister of Food (2001–2002) and Information (2002–2004), complications from diabetes.
Robin Jeffrey, 79, Scottish engineer and businessman.
Khalid Ibrahim Khan, 69, Pakistani politician, brain haemorrhage.
Richard Le Hir, 71, Canadian politician.
Mustapha Madih, 62, Moroccan football manager.
Vince Manuwai, 38, American football


silver medalist (1996), heart attack.
Walt Dziedzic, 85, American politician.
Harold Farberman, 89, American conductor.
Saida Gunba, 59, Georgian javelin thrower, Olympic silver medalist (1980).
Ray Hill, 78, American LGBT activist, heart failure.
I Want Revenge, 12, American Thoroughbred racehorse, virus.
Rune Jansson, 86, Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler, Olympic bronze medalist (1956).
Ricky Jay, 72, American stage magician and actor (Tomorrow Never Dies, Magnolia, Deadwood).
Sy Kattelson, 95, American photographer.
Gene Leedy, 90, American architect.
Robert C. Morlino, 71, American Roman Catholic prelate, Bishop of Madison (since 2003), heart attack.
Ikeogu Oke, 51, Nigerian poet and journalist.
Fred Quayle, 82, American politician, member of the Virginia Senate (1992–2012).
Věra Růžičková, 90, Czech gymnast, Olympic champion (1948).
Shi Jiaonai, 97, Chinese plant physiologist, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Amanda Swimmer, 97, American Cherokee potter.

25
Jacques Baudin, 79, Senegalese politician, Foreign Minister (1998–2000).
Randolph L. Braham,Feb where it will review the recent steps taken by Pakistani authorities. The 37 members of FATF meeting in Paris will decide on the resolution.

On the recommendation of international community, Pakistan recently has taken numerous step including banning of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation.

Sources close to the Ministry of Defence (UK) said that if a strong resolution is adopted in the FATF meeting, Pakistan may face another strong action in another meeting of Asia Pacific Group (APG) going to be held in July this year in Kathmandu. It’s understood that strict action will be put off as Pakistan has taken strong steps against the proscribed organsiations and Pakistan has been lobbying with the member countries informing them of the steps taken.

The FATF members China, Russian and Turkey


are understood to be satisfied with the steps taken by Pakistan to combat terrorism in the country.

Officials also fear it would be harder and more expensive for Pakistan to borrow money from international debt markets if it was put on the FATF monitoring list. Pakistan believes that the United States has been taking a lot of steps and making statement on behalf of India in relation to Hafiz Saeed and others. Pakistan and the United Kingdom have enjoyed good relations and continued to have close ties. Both countries work closely on security cooperation but the UK government is increasingly supporting American government on the issue of extremist groups.

Meanwhile, Pakistan blamed some of 37 countries of the FATF for political maneuvering and said their real aim was to hamperits economic progress and put it on the Grey List when they meet in Paris on February 20.

Also, the government officially admitted for the first time that the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany had nominated Pakistan to be placed on the Grey List of FATF, while also expressing serious concerns over the introduction of this new procedure, which is unprecedented and in clear violation of established rules/practices of FATF.

The government says all these steps are being taken to raise an alarm over the overall integrity of Pakistan’s Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework.

There has been criticism in Pakistan itself from some quarters that it is only for avoiding the Grey List that the government on Monday endorsed the United Nations' list of


News

Looks like the long wait for a Honeycomb update on the HTC Flyer is finally over, with the French version starting to get Android 3.0. Hopefully the rest of the world won't be too far behind. And hopefully this isn't the last update we'll see the Flyer -- which launched with Gingerbread -- receive. We'd love to see Ice Cream Sandwich on this kid.
Source: HTCInside.de (translated)

The TV series "Scrubs" was killed off in 2010, but it's apparently being resurrected as an Android game. The usual cast of characters and forced jokes are there, and the developer's describing it thusly:
"Scrubs" is a hidden object game inspired by the TV series of the same name. As a young intern the player appears in the well-known "Sacred Heart" and meets allexceeded since December 2009.

However, recently announced price rises by most of the UK's large energy firms have yet to take effect and will have an inflationary impact in the coming months.

The Bank will publish its latest inflation forecast on Wednesday.

"The Bank of England's forward guidance states that a hike in interest will not be considered until unemployment drops below 7%," said economist Chris Williamson at Markit.

He said the Bank's forecast was likely to "bring forward when the Bank expects this to happen from late 2016 to perhaps late 2015, given the recent flow of stronger than expected economic data".


The controversial historian, David Starkey, has managed to unite Scotland’s political parties in outrage after he compared SNP leader and Scottish first minister Alex Salmond to Hitler.

According to the Huffington Post, Starkey provoked gasps at an event hosted by the Bow Group in a House of Commons committee room on Wednesday when he declared:

“If you think about it, Alex Salmond is a democratic Caledonian Hitler, although some would say Hitler was more democratically elected.

“[For him] the English, like the Jews, are everywhere.”

Confirming the comparison was made, Nic Conner, a member of the Bow Group Council who was at the event, said:

“Dr Starkey began by questioning the myth that Alex Salmond is one of the greatest political leaders of our time when what he has done is a trick,disturbing to find myself in agreement with Willie rennie, let alone Jackson Carlaw.
There is nothing wrong with Starkey being an English Nationalist, though I do remember the days long ago when he was a historian as well. Actually, he was never really all that great, he was just well-known from being on the telly a lot.


Laboratory experiments on infection rates of Amblyospora dyxenoides (Microsporida: Amblyosporidae) in the mosquito Culex annulirostris.
Laboratory observations were made of the microsporidian parasite Amblyospora dyxenoides in its natural mosquito host, Culex annulirostris. There were no differences in the numbers of eggs laid and in the proportions which hatched between infected and uninfected females, indicating that the parasite did not affect fecundity. Unlike other species of Amblyospora which have been studied the development of binucleate spores in adult mosquitoes increase with age of the host in both sexes and in females it proceeds independently of egg development and blood feeding. The same trend is apparent for adult mosquitoes which acquired the infection in the larval stage by horizontal transmission from the intermediate copepod host as well as for mosquitoes whichincident in their sermons".

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) raided Sharurah, a small Saudi frontier town, from its base in Yemen early this month, killing four border guards and another Saudi citizen before all the attackers were killed or injured.

The attack was the militant group's first inside the kingdom since 2009 when it attempted to assassinate Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was then the kingdom's security chief but is now interior minister.

On Friday, the Interior Ministry said its infrastructure facilities were secure after local media reports that an Iraq-based militant had warned his family to leave their homes because of a planned attack on the kingdom.

The ministry's spokesman was quoted in Arab News as saying those reports were incorrect, but that security had been strengthened around all


PARIS — If Petra Kvitova had been just a worthy adversary who lost a competitive match on Sunday, she still would have walked off center court at Roland Garros a winner for her bravery and determination.

In December, while fending off a knife-wielding home invader at her apartment in Prostejov, Czech Republic, Kvitova grabbed the blade as it was poised at her neck, and during the ensuing struggle, she sustained severe injuries to her left hand, the one she uses to serve and to hit penetrating groundstrokes.

She needed nearly four hours of intricate surgery to repair the hand and save her career. On Sunday, Kvitova returned to the game more than a month earlier than expected, and in just 1 hour 14 minutes, she showed the tennis world thatname has been forgotten today, it is for the reason that his ambition was restricted to a domain that leaves no trace in history:" "to the fleeting realm of scent." "In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women." "Naturally, the stench was foulest in Paris, for Paris was the largest city in Europe." "And nowhere in Paris was that stench more profoundly repugnant than in the city's fish market." "Here we are." "I'll get another box." "It was here, then, on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom, that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on the 17th of July, 1738." "It was his mother's fifth birth." "She'd delivered them all here under her fishstand,


to provide them on condition that Grenouille left him not less than one hundred formulas for new perfumes." "Grenouille did not mind." "He could have given him a thousand." "The morning of Grenouille's departure, Baldini was pleased." "At last, he felt rewarded for his many years of hard work." "He could not remember a happier day." "Deeply satisfied, he went back to sleep and awoke no more in this life." "With every step he took from the city, the happier he felt." "The air above him grew clearer, purer, cleaner, and at last he was able to breathe freely." "There were two ways to reach Grasse." "The first followed the winding roads through the villages while the second lead across the mountains, down into Provence." "The choice wasquite easy." "Thus his nose led him ever higher, ever further from mankind," "more towards the magnetic pole of the greatest possible solitude." "Grenouille needed a moment to believe that he had actually found a spot on earth where scent was almost absent." "Spread all around lay nothing but the tranquil scent of dead stone." "There was something sacred about this place." "No longer distracted by anything external, he was finally able to bask in his own existence" "and found it splendid." "After a while, he almost forgot his plans and obsessions and, indeed, might have done so altogether." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hello?" "There were a thousand smells in his clothes." "The smell of sand, stone, moss." "Even the smell of the sausage he'd eaten weeks ago." "Only one


smell was not there." "His own." "For the first time, Grenouille realized he had no smell." "He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone." "What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion." "It was as though he did not exist." "By the first light of next morning, Grenouille had a new plan." "He must continue his journey to Grasse." "There he would teach the world not only that he existed, that he was someone, but that he was exceptional." "And with this decision it seemed that the gods had at last begun to smile on him." "Go in." "Laura?" "Laura?" "Coming, Papa." "Haven't seen you here before." "It's my first season." "Picking together is always more fun." "They say youcity, and by his wanton acts has brought our trade, our livelihood, our very existence, to the brink of eternal darkness." "We therefore declare that this vile viper, this ignominious carbuncle, this execrable evil in our midst, shall henceforth be solemnly banned from our holy presence," "rejected from the communion of Holy Mother Church as a disciple of Satan," "slayer of souls." "Stand clear!" "An infected limb, an outsider of the faith a necromancer, a diabolist, a sorcerer" "and a damned heretic." "Oh, God, in Thy most merciful spirit, bring down thunderbolts upon his head" "and may the Devil make soup of his bones." "Amen." "My Lord!" "It's a miracle!" "He's been caught!" "He's been caught!" "My Lord, the fiend has been caught." "In the city of Grenoble."


Grasse awoke to a terrible hangover." "For many of them, the experience was so ghastly, so completely inexplicable and incompatible with their morals" "that they literally erased it from their memories." "The town council was in session by the afternoon and an order was passed to the police lieutenant to immediately begin fresh investigations into the murders." "The following day, Dominique Druot was arrested." "It was in his back yard that they found the hair of the victims." "After fourteen hours of torture, Druot confessed to everything." "With that, the case was closed." "By then, Grenouille was already half way back to Paris." "He had enough perfume left to enslave the world if he so chose." "He could walk to Versailles and have the King kiss his feet.""He could write the Pope a letter, reveal himself as the new Messiah." "He could do all this and more if he wanted to." "He possessed a power stronger than the power of money, or terror, or death." "The invincible power to command the love of mankind." "There was only one thing the perfume could not do:" "it could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else." "So, to hell with it, he thought." "To hell with the world, with the perfume, with himself." "On the 25th of June, 1766, around 11 o'clock at night," "Grenouille entered the city through the Port d'Orleans and like a sleep-walker, his olfactory memories drew him back to where he was born." "An angel!" "I


30 March 2012

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, along with other members of the Royal Family, attended a Service of Thanksgiving in memory of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, which was held in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, followed by a Reception at Windsor Castle.

29 March 2012

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh undertook several engagements, including visits to Valentines Park and Mansion, Waltham Forest, and Harrow.

Sometimes people ask me if the Queen ever takes her coat off (yes, sometimes) and if so, what happens to the brooch - well, here you go: it usually gets transferred to the dress underneath. (Unless you've stumbled across a time when she's actually got two brooches on, that is.)

27 March 2012

The Queen, accompanied by thethe name I'm using for the piece is pulled from.

As I suppose is appropriate for a gift given by an organization of jewelry craftsmen, this is an intricate brooch with plenty of fine detailing. It obviously appealed to the bride, as she still wears it regularly more than 60 years later.

20 March 2012

The Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, received Addresses from both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall in commemoration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Her Majesty was pleased to reply.

The Collar and Badge of the Order of the British Empire, worn over the Mantle

The Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry founded in 1917 by King George V. The gold collar has plaques of the Royal Arms alternating with plaques of the


Royal and Imperial Cypher of George V. Between these elements are gold cords with lions and crowns depicted. Suspended from the collar is the badge, a blue cross with a center showing King George and Queen Mary surrounded by the Order's motto, "For God and the Empire", in red. Click here to see the Queen's collar at the Royal Collection.

The Mantle

Both the collar and the badge are worn by The Queen at the service of the Order, held every four years at St. Paul's Cathedral. For this service, The Queen also wears the mantle, a robe of rose red satin lined with pearl gray silk taffeta with the Star of the Order on the left breast. There are gray cords with pink and gray tassels to close mantle,MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has widened his lead in the race to win the July 1 presidential election, opening up a gap of 22 percentage points, a poll by newspaper Reforma showed on Wednesday.

Leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) greets supporters during his campaign rally in Cuautitlan Izcalli, Mexico, April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Romero

The April 12-15 voter poll showed Lopez Obrador winning 48 percent, a jump of six points from a February survey by Reforma. His nearest rival, Ricardo Anaya, who heads a right-left coalition, dropped by six points to 26 percent.

Running third was Jose Antonio Meade, candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose backing remained steady at 18 percent, the poll showed.

The figures


Donald Trump “in his place” if he wins.

Trump’s barbs against Mexican immigrants and complaints that Mexico has taken advantage of the United States over trade have made him very unpopular south of the border, and a Lopez Obrador presidency could usher in a testier bilateral relationship.

Support for Anaya, a former leader of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), has slipped since he came under attack from rivals over allegations of financial impropriety in a property deal in his home state of Queretaro.

Anaya, 39, has denied any wrongdoing.

Runner-up in the last two presidential contests, Lopez Obrador has promised an “austere” budget, to be achieved by battling corruption and cutting government waste.

He has threatened to undo the centerpiece of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s economic agenda, the opening of the oilthe largest in Congress, four years after it was formally registered, the Reforma poll showed.

No party has held an outright majority since 1997 and it was not clear MORENA would do so either under the mix of direct election and proportional representation Mexico uses.

MORENA was projected to win 37 percent of support in voting for the lower house of Congress, the PAN 21 percent and the PRI 17 percent, the Reforma survey showed.

The leftist Labor Party (PT), which is allied to MORENA, had 5 percent of support. Another MORENA ally, the socially conservative Social Encounter Party, polled 1 percent, below the 3 percent threshold needed to enter Congress.


Thunder agree to deal to add Carmelo Anthony

The New York Knicks have agreed to trade 10-time All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony to the Oklahoma City Thunder, league sources told ESPN on Saturday.

The Thunder will send center Enes Kanter, forward Doug McDermott and a 2018 second-round pick (via the Chicago Bulls) to New York, league sources said.

Anthony, 33, will waive his no-trade clause and his $8.1 million trade kicker to accommodate the deal, league sources told ESPN.

A trade call is scheduled for Monday to finalize the deal with the league office, sources said. Anthony is planning to arrive on Monday afternoon in Oklahoma City to take a physical and be available to practice Tuesday at the opening of the Thunder's training camp, according to league sources.

Anthony would only waive hisand Knicks GM Scott Perry had been talking on and off about a possible deal for weeks. Talks intensified in the 24 hours before Saturday's agreement, league sources said. As training camp loomed next week, Perry increasingly wanted no part of the circus that awaited his franchise with media day and Anthony's arrival both on Monday. Around the organization and Anthony, there was a belief that the unresolved saga would become a suffocating daily issue.

Perry started to feel the urgency of making a deal on Friday, and engaged Oklahoma City in more serious dialogue, league sources said.

The Thunder's assistant GM, Troy Weaver, who recruited Anthony to Syracuse, replaced Perry as the Thunder's assistant GM a decade ago. There are strong relationships between Presti, Weaver and Perry.

Once Anthony expanded