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How to read our China usage graphs

Recently somebody asked me why our usage numbers in China are so low. More precisely, his question was "How do I read this graph in any way other than 'Tor is effectively blocked in China'?" After writing up an answer for him, I realized I should share it with the rest of the Tor community too.

The correct interpretation of the graph is "obfs3 bridges have not been deployed enough to keep up with the demand in China". So it isn't that Tor is blocked — it's that we haven't done much of a deployment for obfs3 bridges or ScrambleSuit bridges, which are the latest steps in the arms race.

The short explanation is that the old vanilla SSL Tor transport doesn't work in China anymore due to their active probing infrastructure. The obfs2 transport doesn't work anymore either, for the same reason. The obfs3 transport works great for now, and thousands of people are happily using it — and some of those people aren't reflected in the graphs you see (I'll explain that more below).

The medium-length explanation is that we've been leading and coordinating the international research effort at understanding how to design and analyze transports that resist both DPI and active probing, and approximately none of these approaches have been deployed at a large scale yet. So it doesn't make sense to say that Tor is blocked in China, because it mischaracterizes Tor as a static protocol. "Tor" when it comes to censorship circumvention is a toolbox of options — some of them work in China, some don't. The ones that work (i.e. that should resist both DPI and active probing) haven't been rolled out very widely, in large part because we have funders who care about the research side but we have nobody who funds the operations, deployment, or scale-up side.

The long explanation is that it comes down to three issues:

First, there are some technical steps we haven't finished deploying in terms of collecting statistics about users of bridges + pluggable transports. The reason is that the server side of the pluggable transport needs to inform the Tor bridge what country the user was from, so the Tor bridge can include that in its (aggregated, anonymized) stats that it publishes to the metrics portal. We've now built most of the pieces, but most of the deployed bridges aren't running the new code yet. So the older bridges that are reporting their user statistics aren't seeing very many users from China, while the bridges that *aren't* reporting their user statistics, which are the ones that offer the newer pluggable transports, aren't well-represented in the graph. We have some nice volunteers looking into what fraction of deployed obfs3 bridges don't have this new 'extended ORPort' feature. But (and you might notice the trend here) we don't have any funders currently who care about counting bridge users in China.

Second, we need to get more addresses. One approach is to get them from volunteers who sign up their computer as a bridge. That provides great sustainability in terms of community involvement (we did a similar push for obfs2 bridges back when Iran was messing with SSL, and got enough to make a real difference at the time), but one address per volunteer doesn't scale very well. The intuition is that the primary resource that relays volunteer is bandwidth, whereas the primary resource that bridges volunteer is their address — and while bandwidth is an ongoing contribution, once your IP address gets blocked then your contribution has ended, at least for the country that blocked it, or until you get another address via DHCP, etc. The more scalable approaches to getting bridge addresses involve coordinating with ISPs and network operators, and/or designs like Flashproxy to make it really easy for users to sign up their address. I describe these ideas more in "approach four" and "approach five" of the Strategies for getting more bridge addresses blog post. But broad deployment of those approaches is again an operational thing, and we don't have any funded projects currently for doing it.

Third, we need ways of letting people learn about bridges and use them without getting them noticed. We used to think the arms race here was "how do you give out addresses such that the good guys can learn a few while the bad guys can't learn all of them", a la the question. But it's increasingly clear that scanning resistance will be the name of the game in China: your transport has to not only blend in with many other flows (to drive up the number of scans they have to launch), but also when they connect to that endpoint and speak your protocol, your service needs to look unobjectionable there as well. Some combination of ScrambleSuit and FTE are great starts here, but it sure is a good thing that the research world has been working on so many prototype designs lately.

So where does that leave us? It would be neat to think about a broad deployment and operations plan here. I would want to do it in conjunction with some other groups, like Team Cymru on the technical platform side and some on-the-ground partner groups for distributing bridge addresses more effectively among social networks. We've made some good progress on the underlying technologies that would increase the success chances of such a deployment — though we've mostly been doing it using volunteers in our spare time on the side, so it's slower going than it could be. And several other groups (e.g. have recently gotten funding for deploying Tor bridges, so maybe we could combine well with them.

In any case it won't be a quick and simple job, since all these pieces have to come together. It's increasingly clear that just getting addresses should be the easy part of this. It's how you give them out, and what you run on the server side to defeat China's scanning, that still look like the two tough challenges for somebody trying to scale up their circumvention tool design.

March 17, 2014

I'm looking forward for the day where all Tor relays are obfs3 by default. Isn't it a mere software issue,, or am I missing something?

You mean adding a layer of obfs3 over the normal link encryption between and to relays? We could do that, and it wouldn't be that hard (a simple matter of programming, as they say). But the list of relays is public, and it's not easy/simple to keep it secret:

So it's not obvious what exactly this would buy us. Sounds like a great topic for a Tor dev proposal:…

March 17, 2014

Tech dummy but I have set up bridges by default inthe past.
Recently around the time you report someone was able to block them and ask we run another 'thing" the usage on mine dropped to nil.

So my question is does it do much/any good to run the bridges by default?
For the less tech savy?

Yes, it does good.

Our bridge distribution strategy involves breaking up the volunteer bridge addresses into different "buckets", where each bucket is given out in a different way. So some buckets will be given out quickly and easily, and probably blocked after a while. Whereas other buckets will be given out slowly and through hard-to-use mechanisms, so they'll have less load but also be less likely to be blocked.

Part of what we need to do a better job on is communicating to the bridge operator which bucket her bridge has been put in, so she can better understand her contribution.

But you're right, running a bridge on a single address is not as useful a contribution, long-term, as some of the more scalable approaches I describe in the post.

March 17, 2014

I wholeheartedly agree about the importance of the Tor Project getting more funding for projects like this, but couldn't help but notice that if core devs--as opposed to people working primarily on advocacy--weren't talking about how they want to "burn it [the state] to the ground" on Twitter all day ( instead of writing code, there might be more person-hours available to the organization for projects like this at current resource levels. As someone volunteering patches and documentation for tor, sometimes that's hard not to notice.

Do you really think that tweet was time consuming to the point of taking away from Tor development, or were you merely pointing out something potentially controversial?

March 18, 2014

"So it isn't that Tor is blocked — it's that we haven't done much of a deployment for obfs3 bridges or ScrambleSuit bridges, which are the latest steps in the arms race."

In fact, Tor is blocked in China. Tor is not usable for the people who want to circumvent the censorship. Psiphon, Lantern, and other VPNs just work. They do not require extra steps. You download, run it, access the blocked content. You can argue in hundreds of words about technical reasons, we don't care. Tor doesn't work without lots of extra steps and efforts.

Tor requires you download a huge file, run it, find it does not work, waste time looking around for solutions, eventually find bridges, find the bridges don't work, waste more time looking around for solutions, find obfs bridges, hopefully your bridge is online, then maybe you can get tor to work.

Tor in China needs to be: download, run, access the site. I want a tool that works, not an ideology packaged in a multi-step challenge. Xbox and PS4 are more fun at multi-step challenge than tor.

That's a bit stupid for me to say than "Tor in China needs to be: download, run, access the site. I want a tool that works, not an ideology packaged in a multi-step challenge. Xbox and PS4 are more fun at multi-step challenge than tor. ".

Tor isn't an ideology, it's a software. And it's 60% runned by the US, so i think than it's normal for them to try being able to adapt to every situations (US marines in Afghanistan used TOR to reach their online stuff).

为什么tor一直被追杀，原因就在于此。等到被认为不具备匿名作用了，arms race也就停止了。

I wholeheartedly agree. I came here, because I was trying to find a way to set up Tor from within China, but instead of giving a detailed explanation of how to go about that, the Tor guys apparently are more interested in uptalking statistics. Who on earth cares about that???

I just wasted quite some time trying to connect a buddy of mine residing in China to the Tor-network with obfs3, but no cigar. The meek version didn't work either and there's no information of how to do it, only differening hints on other websites of which none actually worked.

To the blog author: Next time you feel you need to justify Tor's usability, please make sure that the system is actually easily and readily usable by the less tech-savvy masses. I don't doubt that there are thousands of Tor users in China that have a high enough pain threshold to actually figure out, how to get a crappy connection through Tor. Yet, that still is nothing compared to the 650 mio online users the country has right now...

The filesize of Tor might seem laughable compared to western standards, but try to download 30 megs with a connection that craps out constantly only to realize that you end up with an outdated version of the Firefox browser of which you already have a newer version installed and a rather tiny Tor loader. Why is there no plugin for FF instead?

Thanks to the comment writer for mentioning all those VPN-services. I have been trying out quite a few and none worked. So far I've been offering my line through Hamachi as a Proxy to my buddy, but I'm not online all day and my bandwidth can't match that of professional VPN services, but at least it works rekiably without problems.

I can't wait to give all these VPN-services a shot.

> Tor in China needs to be: download, run, access the site.

Bingo! I'm stumped that the software doesn't even offer an automatic connection mode where it actually tries to connect and then goes through all possibilities automatically after a certain time out, instead of having the user to switch between protocols manually...

I know you guys hate Ultrasurf, but at least it couldn't be easier to use...

March 19, 2014

"Psiphon, Lantern, and other VPNs just work. They do not require extra steps."

You forgot to mention the most popular one: Goagent. For normal users, it's more difficult to use than Tor.

"You can argue in hundreds of words about technical reasons, we don't care."

It's not 'about technical reasons'. It is about 'we've got a plan and Tor is not and will never be blocked in China, but we have no money' :P

"Tor requires you download a huge file, run it, find it does not work, waste time looking around..., waste more time ...hopefully your bridge is online"

I can feel your frustrated-with-Tor roar and sometimes I have the exact same feelings. But like you said, Tor is just one of the free services available online. If it works, great; if not, I'll still appreciate for the help and try other tools.

建议试下最新测试版 Tor Browser 3.6-beta-1，支持 obfs3，感觉设置方便有改进。（下载链接：）。另外，可以直接邮件问 发一个可用obfs3网桥。

August 04, 2014

Well, I'm another fool who attemped to use Tor in China. Well Tor is not blocked in China, but its not working.... As useful as a car with no wheels. What a joke...

August 08, 2014

What if there was some way to get an "allowed" list to people running outside bridges? Then it would be a matter of swapping addresses rather than just giving the address of the bridge. Getting onto a list could require some sort of "catchpa" style thing, which could prevent, or slow down the process of automated scanning.


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Free H1Z1 Outland Expansion Releases Today on PS4

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Free H1Z1 Outland Expansion Releases Today on PS4

First new map, 2 new weapons, and 4 new vehicles headline the biggest content drop in H1Z1’s history.

Hi everyone! I’m Jay Garcia, Game Designer for H1Z1, the popular fast-paced, free-to-play Battle Royale shooter exclusive to PS4.

Welcome to Outland!

We’re incredibly grateful (and humbled!) by the more than 16 million players who have jumped into the fraught, chaotic spectacle that is H1Z1, and while we’ve regularly updated the game with new content and updates since launch, we’ve planned for some time to radically refresh the H1Z1 experience for our community. Enter the new Outland map.

Outland doesn’t just look new – it’s a fundamental redesign of H1Z1’s play space. Every inch and every corner of the map has been intricately designed to emphasize and amplify the fast-paced combat and tense decision-making that makes each H1Z1 match epic and memorable. Vast terrain diversity, increased verticality, and improved POI accessibility all complement a design philosophy intended to reward the adventurous and adaptable player willing to learn Outland’s secrets and alter their strategy accordingly.

From eerie locales like Deadman’s Swamps, where rolling fog and waste-high waters limit movement and visibility:

To the Pueblos, which favor fast-paced, close-range combat within and atop staggered huts that each offer unique lines of sight:

Or the epic Canyon bridges, where the confident sharpshooter willing to risk limiting their exit options can take up an aggressive, commanding position across the vista:

Every area, locale, landmark, and POI offers something new and different each match.

A lot of thought, experimentation, iteration, and testing went into crafting Outland; every decision we made was intended to create a new playground for our community that is authentic to the H1Z1 experience and also maintains its competitive balance, so no single playstyle, weapon, or vehicle choice breaks the gameplay.

Vehicular Mayhem & Weapons of Mass Destruction

The new map isn’t the only new content players will get for free when they download Outland: four new vehicles and two new weapons drop with this expansion!

The Commando: This automatic assault rifle offers a common/lootable mid-range alternative to the AR. It can’t match the AR’s precision, but its mobility and high rate of fire will make shottie rushers think twice before exiting cover.

The Heavy Assault: This powerful assault rifle offers a souped-up, fully automatic alternative to the KH and Marauder rifles that can be found in purple airdrops. It packs a big punch at mid-range, but watch the recoil; it’s a beast to handle!

The Untamed: This fast, stylish, and powerful muscle car tears up the terrain with off-road tires and boosted turbo! Complete with seating for up to five players!

The Torque: The quieter, classic sibling to the Untamed, the Torque barrels around enemies with little concern for what waits around the corner.

The Gazelle: This two-seat cousin to the ATV offers a quick, slick, and frighteningly exposed get-up-and-go option for quickly traversing the winding corners of Outland.

The Racer: Never one to be outshined, the five-seat Racer luxury sports car has speed and style in spades. First teased in last season’s Raining Racers Arcade Mode, this stylish sports car makes its full debut in all game modes.

The new map, new vehicles, and new weapons would be enough on their own, but they’re not the only highlights in this update; a new 100-tier Season Rewards (free, premium, and PS Plus lines), weapons balance changes, numerous bug fixes and performance improvements, and 11 new full outfits for players to earn or purchase are just a few of the other features coming with Outland!

We’re incredibly excited to bring this expansion to H1Z1 (free to download today!) and can’t wait to hear your thoughts about the new map and everything else in this update. Squad up and drop in; we’ll be waiting for you in Outland!

Comments are closed.

Please enter your date of birth.

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On the Big Screen: Eight Oscar Winners Filmed in Virginia

by Casey Higgins | Posted: Feb 24, 2014 | Updated: Apr 17, 2018

Comments: 0 Comments

While we eagerly await the Academy Awards this Sunday to see how Virginia-filmed Best Picture nominee Captain Phillips fares, let’s take a look back at other films shot wholly or in part in Virginia that were honored with an Oscar.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars at Abraham Lincoln in LINCOLN.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars at Abraham Lincoln in LINCOLN.

Argo was filmed in McLean and Fairfax County, Virginia in 2011. The film starring and directed by Ben Affleck received the 2013 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Achievement in Film Editing.

During that same 2013 awards presentation LINCOLN won for Production Design, and Daniel Day-Lewis, whom portrayed Abraham Lincoln, took home the Bests Actor award. LINCOLN was filmed in the Richmond region, including Petersburg, Virginia.

The Bourne Ultimatum, the final piece of the Bourne Trilogy, was filmed in Fauquier County, Virginia in 2007 and starred Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. The film won three Oscars in 2008 – Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Sound Editing.

Renee Zellweger won the Oscar in 2004 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in Cold Mountain alongside Jude Law and Nicole Kidman. Cold Mountain was filmed in Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia in 2002.

Filmed in Quantico, Virginia in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs starred Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. The 1992 Academy loved the feature film, awarding five Oscars for the following categories: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Director, and Best Writing.

Mountain Lake Conservancy & Hotel, film location for Dirty Dancing in 1986.

Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, Virginia served as “Kellerman’s” in the 1986 hit “Dirty Dancing.”

A steadfast darling on the list of Virginia filmography is Dirty Dancing starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Filmed in Giles County, Virginia in 1986, the flick received an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song for “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.”

Wise County, Virginia was the setting for the 1980 filming of Coal Miner’s Daughter, a biography of Loretta Lynn, starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones. In 1981 Spacek won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

In 1956 Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean starred in Giant, a western love story that included filming in Charlottesville, Virginia. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, it won one – Best Director – in 1957.

Learn about the latest major film projects in Virginia at www.Virginia.org/FilmedInVirginia/ or peruse the filmography log for a list of feature films, TV series, commercials, and more filmed in Virginia.

>> 2014 SNEAK PEEK! <<

AMC is currently filming their new series TURN, a layered, character driven spy thriller that unravels the untold story of America’s first spy ring. Filming locations include Richmond, Petersburg, Hanover County, and plantations along the James River . Don’t miss the premiere Sunday, April 6, 2014.

Virginia is for Lovers.
Request a free Travel Guide.

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It’s not often that you see a complete set of historic stamps with such monumental importance. And it’s even rarer for those stamps to be alongside a complete set of coins of the same year, in this case 1953.

But the Queen Elizabeth II Complete Coronation Stamp and Coin Collection has both of these highly collectable items, and it has a tiny edition limit of 495!

So, join Adam as he takes a closer look at what is surely the perfect collector’s tribute to Queen Elizabeth II.

If you’re interested…

UK 1953 coronation coin and stamp set box - Unboxing a complete set of 1953 coins and stamps

Click here to be one of JUST 495 collectors to own the The Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Coin and Stamp Collection >>


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Farmer Tip: Good Farmers Are Willing to Learn All Day, Every Day

Posted by Amy Storey on December 9, 2016

smartgreens_circle_no_words.pngEric Bergeron is co-founder of Smart Greens, a Canadian food production company that is expanding into a network of farmers across the country.

Eric has helped several farmers learn to farm through equipment and training, and he has noticed that all good farmers have a similar philosophy about learning: they learn through training, then they learn through doing.

Learning = research + adaptation

Good entrepreneurs are willing to put in the hard work to learn their business. This process has two parts:

1) Learning through preparation, research, training, etc.

For farmers, this means taking farm classes, tours & training, getting farmer tips, conversations with mentors, and research.

2) Learning through experience, adaptation, and the school of life.

For farmers, this means running test systems and responding to the real life struggle of running a farm.

While training and research is necessary for wise management, good farmers know that the roll-up-your-sleeves moment is critical.

When that time comes, farmers need to be willing to adapt!

Eric-Bergeron-Quote (1).jpg

Eric trains farmers individually to get them ready for this moment before they take the reins and start responding to the farm on their own.

When a new grower embarks on their journey, however, they've got an inevitable learning curve to scale. How they prepare for that challenge and how they approach it often marks the difference between a defeat and a comeback.

What do you think is the most important trait for good farmers do have?

Farming can be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding careers, especially in today's world. Consumers are calling for fresher and more local food, and the market is vibrant with opportunities for small farmers.

But farming has never been a "get rich quick" job. It takes grit, a learning attitude, and a dash of innovation. What else does it take? What traits mark successful small farmers?

Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Topics: Farmer Tips

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How To Activate AdSense, On Your Blog

This question comes up, almost daily, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and continues into AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / YouTube
How do I activate AdSense, on my blog?
The activation process does not require a lot of additional work, by the blog owner - but it does require a mature, well written blog - and some patience. And you do need to understand the rules of AdSense accounts.

A new Blogger blog can be setup for AdSense, quite easily - though some quality standards are relevant.

  • A mature blog, 6 months old, is required in many countries.
  • 50 quality posts - informative, interesting, and unique.
  • A blog published to a non dynamic template.
  • A blog published to a BlogSpot URL - unless you are upgrading your account.
  • A solid stream of organic traffic.

That is where you start.

A mature blog, 6 months old, is required in many countries.

No serious advertising company is going to pay to host ads on a new blog, with no readers, search reputation, and organic traffic. AdSense requires 6 months of regular publishing, for blogs in many countries - and even when not required, that threshold still is relevant.

With no organic and steady traffic, a blog won't get any money, anyway. Whether the blog is 3 months, 6 months, or a year old - no traffic == no payments. Work on content, and on getting readers.

50 quality posts - informative, interesting, and unique - in wanted subjects.

Without 50 well written posts, 200 - 500 words each - informative, interesting, and unique - the blog won't get readers or search reputation. No readers + no search reputation == no traffic == no payments.

The stated requirement - 50 quality posts at 200 - 500 words / post - is known to vary - but it's a good guideline. The process which chooses ads, for your blog, requires the text - in volume. No ads == no payments.

Any content forbidden by Blogger, and discussed in [FAQ] What Types Of Blog Content Are Considered Abusive, By Blogger Spam Mitigation Policy?, will almost certainly be rejected by AdSense also. Study the "Content guidelines", in "AdSense program policies", carefully; they are very explicit.

Even with an approved blog, ads are not guaranteed. Also consider that ads may not be consistently available, for all blogs.

Ads are based on blog content - and there are more blogs than ads available.

Besides blogs with prohibited subjects, which will never get ads, there are blogs with unwanted subjects, which will seldom to never get ads.

A blog published to a non dynamic template.

The AdSense crawler can't read blogs, published to a dynamic template. The crawler reads HTML, not JavaScript - and dynamic templates are largely constructed with JavaScript. No crawling == no approval == no payments.

A blog published to a BlogSpot URL - unless you are upgrading your account.

When you setup a Blogger blog, and publish to BlogSpot, you use the dashboard wizard on the Earnings page, to setup a Hosted AdSense account.

If you already have an AdSense account, you need to understand the AdSense account rules.

Don't ask what is required by AdSense. What is required only qualifies you to apply to host ads - it does not offer any income.

A solid stream of organic traffic.

A blog which uses GPT (PTC, PTS, PTV) generated activity, to get traffic. won't be accepted - or if already accepted, won't receive payments. Again, no traffic == no payments.

Traffic must not involve paid visitors, reciprocal visitors ("You surf my blog, I'll surf yours!"), or self generated traffic. Clicking on your own ads is absolutely forbidden - and when (not "if") detected, will result in payment confiscation and / or account termination.

The end result.

When all of the requirements are present in the blog, the dashboard Earnings wizard will activate - and the "Sign up for AdSense" button will be clickable. Until that happens, work on getting readers, search reputation, and traffic.

Go to the dashboard Earnings - AdSense page, and look for the button.

When the button is clickable, you can sign up.

Just don't do this, before you verify that the blog meets the quality standards.

However you cut it, an AdSense account is not a get rich quick technique.

Here are some useful references, with much more detail. You should study all of them, before applying.

Note that your account - and ads - won't start, immediately.

You can apply, when the "Sign up for AdSense" button lights up. You will shortly get an email from AdSense, instructing you to add the ads. Once the ads are installed, you'll have to wait for full approval, which could be several weeks.

Only when the ads, and the blog, are fully approved will the ads start to show paying content - and only with the ads showing content, will you earn any money.

Some blog owners may receive misleading congratulations.

Right now, some blog owners are receiving congratulations - and may have blogs completely unsuitable to host AdSense ads.

Custom Domain Publishing has higher standards.

If you decide to upgrade your blog to a custom domain URL, be prepared for an even more selective improvement and review process.

Understand The Rules Of AdSense Accounts.

You can only have one AdSense account, at any time. If you already have an AdSense account, you cannot setup a second account.

If you have an AdSense For Content account, you simply add the URL of your Blogger blog, as another site permitted to display your ads.

If you have an AdSense account setup under AdMob, YouTube, or a similar service, that is a Hosted account. You will have to get that account upgraded, to AdSense For Content, to display ads on a Blogger blog.

If you do not have an account, and you want to host ads on a Blogger blog published to "", you will need a Blogger Hosted account. You can only setup a Blogger Hosted account from the Earnings dashboard page - when the blog is eligible. You cannot setup an AdSense account, from "".

If you want to publish a blog to a custom domain, you will need a full AdSense For Content account - and that will require another evaluation period. If you are upgrading an existing YouTube or other hosted account, you need a properly setup and published custom domain, or a non Google top level domain website, first.

Unknown said…
ok thanks for the inside, i will work more to get visitor cause i have search reputation,
Thanks for your dedicated advice! I think my next blog will be to encourage feedback! It's one thing to see the figures in analytics, but hard to get feedback! I tied my blog to Google+ at one point, but viewer numbers dropped massively. Don't know if there's a connection, but perseverance is certainly the key, I'm sure! Anyway, thanks again !
I have created my blog before many months in other name. After that I have changed my blog to this . Adsense sign up was done during before my blog changing of url. If it afects my adsense? Both on my old and this new after changing url also they have not posted adds on my blog
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Robot,

Thanks for the question.

I am not sure how AdSense handles address changes, for hosted accounts. I think you should post in AdSense - Blogger Help Forum, for best advice on this issue.
Unknown said…
thanks for your advice. My blog is over 6 months now but i still cannot click my adsense sign up button. my blog is or will i still wait for next month which ill make it 7 months, pls help and review and see if am at right track because am worried about that.
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Bob,

Thanks for the question.

I'm looking at the sitemap - which shows close to 100 posts - but started less than a month ago?

You probably should be asking about this, in AdSense Support - where the many helpers can suggest more specific things to look at.
Unknown said…
Very good post
sermons room said…
Thanks much i have adsense that is used in youtube channel, as i have activated it in blogger i havent seen any ads but it its my hope that they will accept me due to the reason that in one week ihave more than 350 Views. how do yuo say about this i need your advice.
Md. Hafiz Ali said…
Thanks a lot.I am a new blogger. I don't know so much about Adsense.But by this post, I have learned and so happy.Once again thanks.

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Andrew Hall 80x108The rise of the power of the Tea Party in the House of Representatives has raised numerous questions about legislative organization and party leadership. Using data from reforms in the 1970s that weakened the seniority system in the House, Andrew B. Hall explores one obstacle to centralizing power towards the party leadership and away from senior committee members. He argues that party members have electoral incentives to centralize power when they share an ideological vision, but that the senior members who lose power under this arrangement are similarly motivated to block these reforms.

Recent controversies over the filibuster, committee assignments, and the ability of the Speaker of the House to control renegade members have brought issues of legislative organization and procedural rules into the public’s mind, if only briefly. In general, the procedural rules and norms that the majority party adopts play an important role in determining what gets done (or does not) get done in the legislature. By adjusting these rules, the majority party can influence legislative outcomes and, in so doing, attempt to bolster its standing among voters.

The Conditional Party Government (CPG) theory of John Aldrich and David Rohde explores how the majority party centralizes the party’s ability to set the policy agenda (its so-called ‘agenda power’) in times when its members agree on policy goals. In so doing, the party is thought to enhance its brand by operating more effectively, sending a stronger signal to voters. While the benefits of this centralization are uniform, since every majority-party member enjoys the strengthened party brand, its costs can create an obstacle to its implementation. When centralization occurs, the costs are borne unevenly by the party’s most senior members because they possess a disproportionate share of agenda power when the House is decentralized, i.e., when the committee system and not party leadership is central. As a result, senior members are unlikely to hand their agenda power over to the party willingly. Any reform intended to centralize agenda power must overcome this opposition from entrenched senior members.

House Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Credit: Talk Radio News Service (Creative Commons BY NC SA)

House Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Credit: Talk Radio News Service (Creative Commons BY NC SA)

To test this theory, we looked at a set of reforms in the 1970s that fundamentally weakened the seniority system in the House and empowered party leadership, as represented by the Speaker and Majority Leader. Carl Albert, speaker of the House from 1971-1977, referring to the passage of these reforms, declared that “the seniority system…died that day.” These reforms roughly partitioned the House of Representatives into a “Weak Party Era” from 1945-1976, characterized by decentralized agenda power and a committee system organized by seniority, and a “Strong Party Era” from 1977-present, characterized by centralized agenda power, strong party leadership, and weak committees.

Our theory has two core predictions. First, the centralization of agenda power should lead to a mean increase in majority-party incumbent vote shares, representing the enhanced and improved party label. Second, centralization should produce a variance contraction in majority-party incumbent vote shares, i.e. the vote shares become more alike. This contraction occurs because incumbents previously distinguished from each other through their seniority and committee service are now more interchangeable party members, closer to being “foot-soldiers” of the party leadership. Figure 1 below plots the distribution of majority-party incumbent vote share across the two eras. As it shows, the strong-party era distribution is shifted to the right, relative to the weak party, and is also more concentrated. Majority-party incumbents receive a higher average vote share after agenda power is centralized, but are also more similar to each other.

Figure 1 – Distribution of Majority-Party Incumbent Vote Share by Era

Hall Fig 1

By the same logic, we should also observe the value of seniority weakening in the strong-party era. Because members no longer accrue agenda power by ascending committee ranks in a centralized legislature, they are not necessarily able to bring the same value home to voters (who need not be aware of their incumbent’s seniority to enjoy the benefits it brings them). Figures 2 and 3 show how this “return to seniority” falls in the strong-party era. Figure 2 summarizes the association between seniority and vote share for majority-party incumbents in the weak-party era. There is a strong upward slope across levels of seniority. In Figure 3, on the other hand, we see that the relationship is relatively flat.

Figure 2 – Seniority and Vote share – Weak Party Era (1945-1976)

Hall Fig 2

Figure 3 – Seniority and Vote share – Strong Party Era (1977- present)

Hall Fig 3

We also conducted a variety of econometric specifications that produce the same conclusions. Using these estimates, we examined the implications of centralization for members of various levels of seniority. At low levels of seniority, the mean increase in majority-party incumbent vote share more than cancels out the estimated loss in vote share from the reduced value of seniority. More junior members thus have incentives to support the reform. But for senior members, the story is different. For members with 10 or more terms in a senior position, the loss of agenda power is more damaging than the resulting party “bump” is beneficial. These members are likely to oppose centralization.

We also looked for alternative explanations and marshalled evidence that other factors are unlikely to explain the effects we find. For one, minority-party incumbents see no such decrease in the return to seniority, nor do they receive a similar mean-increase in the strong-party era. We have also applied the analysis to state legislatures and the U.S. Senate as “placebo tests,” since these chambers did not undergo the same reform. Again, we did not find the same set of results. Finally, we tested and have shown the robustness of the finding to differing definitions for the exact year cutoff separating the strong and weak party eras.

Although the bulk of our work has centered on this empirical exercise, we believe the main contribution of the research is theoretical. Party members have incentives to centralize power when they share an ideological vision, but giving agenda power to the party leadership means taking it away from somewhere else. In the case of the House, this “somewhere else” is senior members. They are unlikely to go along with this change willingly.

We suspect that the disproportionate amount of power these senior members wielded in the weak-party era helps explain the long delay in implementing party-centric reform in the House, which did not occur until the 1970s even though many called for it as early as the 1950s. This obstacle to reform means that the “condition” of Conditional Party Government (that members share similar policy goals) is not a sufficient condition for centralization. In order for members to centralize power successfully, they must overcome the opposition of senior members. Perhaps this is why we see such reforms occurring after “wave” elections in which large cohorts of junior members are swept into office, like in the post-Watergate elections in 1974 and the Republican take-over of the House in 1994.

Many—perhaps most—studies of legislative politics focus either on the internal dynamics of the legislature or on the electoral environment outside the legislature. But the “electoral connection” that David Mayhew described implies that the decisions over the internal organization of the legislature are made with an eye towards their electoral consequences. Likewise, election results are in part a function of these organizational decisions. As such, there is a place for more research that explicitly links conditions inside the legislature to those in the electorate.

This article is based on the paper, “The Changing Value of Seniority in the U.S. House: Conditional Party Government Revised,” by Andrew B. Hall and Ken B. Shepsle, which was published online in The Journal of Politics in October.

Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Note:  This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of USApp– American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.

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About the author

Andrew Hall 80x108Andrew B. HallHarvard University
Andrew B. Hall is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University and an affiliate of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. His applied research studies the links between the design of American political institutions and the behavior of elected officials.  For more information, please see  You can follow Andrew on Twitter @andrewbhall.

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This week I did something I’ve been meaning to do for ages. It wasn’t difficult and it wasn’t costly but it was one of those things that isn’t essential to living. Not working, not tidying, not grocery shopping. You know, on the would be nice list.

Except that’s where I realise now I was wrong. It was essential. Essential for my happiness. It has made me immeasurably happy.

photo wall

I read an article the other day about things that make you happy at home and it really struck a chord and launched me into action.

Looking at photos makes me happy. It’s like the article points out, it’s not just about looking at a pretty image, it’s about looking and remembering a feeling and experiencing that happiness, joy, excitement, whatever, all over again.

So I’ve learnt a lesson this week to always prioritise happiness over groceries. Cheaper cheese for one week in exchange for a wall of happy every time!

The Photo Gallery theme this week is happy. Go get yourself a dose of happy by checking out the other posts.

12 responses to “Happy

  1. The Cutture of Hurry makes people forget to delight in the moment. Children know how to do that; with our weird, adult misconceptions, we forget. I’m delighted you prioritised happiness (I often forget myself).

  2. You’ve inspired me to dig out my photos and get working! We’ve lived in our house for a little over a year now and I’ve been meaning to do a wall of photos but I feel so guilty when I’m not doing something “essential” to living, as you so perfectly put it. Thank you for giving me the okay. 🙂

  3. Hmmm. I’ve never really thought of photos that way – but I can see that. I guess I do when I share them with a friend or family.

    But I love how your photos are organized in the picture above.. 🙂

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August 6 Minor League Report

Conner Greene
Conner Greene

Pitching was the name of the game for the Blue Jays’ minor league affiliates, getting outstanding performances at the top three levels of the organization.

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Buffalo Bisons 9, Charlotte Knights 2

Randy Wolf
Randy Wolf

Randy Wolf continues his stellar comeback season after surgeries and he scattered 10 hits and one walk to allow just two runs over 6 2/3 innings for his eighth win of the season, adding eight strikeouts and lowering his ERA to 2.49. Chad Jenkins and Joba Chamberlain provided 2 1/3 innings of relief, finishing the game.

The Bisons’ offense was excellent getting nine runs on 15 hits with only newcomer George Kottaras failing to get a hit. Dalton Pompey led the way with three singles while Matt Hague was 2/4 with a home run, a walk, three runs and two RBI. Luke Scott also homered and drove in two, going 2/5 and adding a double. Alex Hassan (2/3, 3B, BB, R, RBI, SF), Ty Kelly (2/5, 2B, RBI, R and Andy Burns (2/4, 2B, RBI) also had two hits each.

Player of the Game: Randy Wolf, Matt Hague and Luke Scott

New Hampshire Fisher Cats 2, Richmond Flying Squirrels 0

Casey Lawrence
Casey Lawrence

Casey Lawrence was in fine form, picking up his 11th win of the season and his 20th as a New Hampshire Fisher Cat, giving him the lead for most wins in a career. Lawrence went seven innings, allowing just four hits and no walks with four strikeouts. Chad Girodo went the last two, striking out a pair and surrendering just one hit while picking up his second save with the Fisher Cats.

The batters only had five hits including two RBI from K.C. Hobson (1/3, BB) while Emilio Guerrero and Ryan Schimpf each hit a double.

Player of the Game: Casey Lawrence

Dunedin Blue Jays 3, Daytona Tortugas 1

Conner Greene continued the great pitching run for the Blue Jays’ minor leaguers, going seven strong innings for the Dunedin Blue Jays and giving up just one unearned run on two hits and no walks, striking out ten. Matt Dermody and Wil Browning finished the game with an inning each.

The D-Jays also had five hits on the day but also picked up six walks with Anthony Alford leading the way with a single, two walks, a stolen base, an RBI and a run. Matt Dean was 1/3 with a double, a walk and an RBI and Derrick Loveless also contributed a walk and a double. Jorge Saez threw out a runner stealing and picked another one off first while driving in a run with a triple.

Player of the Game: Matt Dean

Lansing Lugnuts 3, Wisconsin Timber Rattlers 6

Alexis Maldonado
Alexis Maldonado

Conor Fisk took the ball for the Lugnuts and allowed five runs on eight hits and a walk over 5 1/3 innings. Fisk did strike out four in his outing. Mark Biggs gave up an unearned run on two hits over 2 2/3 innings with three strikeouts and Tim Mayza finished the game with a perfect ninth.

Despite their 11 hits, the Lugnuts only scored three times, thanks to two RBI from Alex Maldonado (2/3, 2B, SF, SB) and one from Boomer Collins (2/4, R, RBI). D.J. Davis (2/5, 2B) and David Harris (2/4) also had two hits each. Juan Kelly hit a double.

Player of the Game: Alex Maldonado

Vancouver Canadians 1, Spokane Indians 4

Lane Thomas
Lane Thomas

The Vancouver Canadians returned to action after their All-Star Break on Thursday, with the offense looking like they hadn’t returned yet. The Canadians had only four hits including two from Lane Thomas who had a single, a double and an RBI. Jon Wandling went 6 1/3 innings, allowing four runs (three earned) on seven hits and one walk with five strikeouts. Turner Lee went 1 2/3 perfect innings and Bob Wheatley struck out the side in order in the ninth.

Player of the Game: Lane Thomas

Bluefield Blue Jays, Greeneville Astros

Postponed due to rain

GCL Blue Jays 2, GCL Astros 3

Jake Thomas led the weak offense, going 2/4 with his second home run and two RBI but that was all the club got (aside from a single by Kalik May). Yennsy Diaz allowed two runs on six hits and a walk over four innings with three strikeouts and Jose Espada continued his mastery of the GCL with four innings of three-hit, one walk ball, allowing a run with four strikeouts.

Player of the Game: Jake Thomas

DSL Blue Jays 10, DSL Padres 4

The DSL Blue Jays scored 10 runs for their second consecutive game, despite getting only seven hits. Ten walks helped as Norberto Obeso (1/3, 2B, 2 BB, R, SB) and Jesus Navarro (0/2, R, RBI, 2 BB, SB) took two free passes each. Antony Fuentes was 2/4 with a walk, an RBI, two runs scored and two stolen bases. Cristian Peguero also hit a double, going 1/3 with a walk, a run, an RBI and a stolen base, and Kevin Vicuna was 1/4 with a walk and two runs.

Wilfri Aleton had a very strong game, giving up three unearned runs on six hits and no walks with four strikeouts over five innings. While he walked three batters, Alvaro Galindo earned the save with four innings of one-hit ball, giving up just one run and striking out five.

Player of the Game: Antony Fuentes and Wilfri Aleton

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Get your 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook now! All the up-to-date information on the Blue Jays minor league system with 250 player profiles, team information and more! You can find it at the BJfA Shop or at our distribution partner,!

The All-New Blue Jays from Away Premium Content section is here! Combined with the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook, it will be your best resource to the Toronto Blue Jays minor league system for just $1.99 per month or $15 for a full year (and get the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook free with a yearly subscription)!

All photos are copyright Blue Jays from Away (2013-2015) and may not be used without permission.

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Essential Guide To Belfast Giants Vs Edinburgh Capitals

This Saturday the Stena Line Belfast Giants return to the SSE Arena to take on the Edinburgh Capitals in Challenge Cup action. The pervious meeting between the teams this season seen the Giants leave the Scottish Capital with 2 points following 6-5 victory in Murrayfield.

The Giants will be without Dustin Johner, Jim Vandermeer and Stephen Murphy due to injuries and Cole Jarrett will miss the game through suspension. 3 Jeff Mason returns to the Giants lineup for the first time in Belfast this season with the veteran blue liner  needing only 4 points to become the Giants all time leader in points scored by a defenceman.

The Giants will be wearing their red Challenge Cup jerseys and once again a massive crowd is expected at the SSE Arena for the 7pm face off (Doors 6pm) so fans are encouraged to get to the arena early. Tickets are available NOW from the SSE Arena Box Office (028 9073 9074) or via the Ticketmaster website.

Game Night Raffles & Prizes

You could win some GIANT prizes this weekend with our 50/50, Shirt Off The Back AND Chuck-A-Puck competitions!

50/50: WIN a GIANT cash prize this Saturday! Tickets for 50/50 are on sale from doors open for £1 each, 5 for £3, 10 for £5, 30 for £10 with 50% of the total prize fund award to one lucky winner at the end of the game. Remember – the more you buy, the bigger the prize!

Last weekend we gave away a years supply of chocolate as our 50:50 bonus prize and this weekend we have a phenomenal prize for one lucky winner. Thanks to our friends at the SSE Arena we are giving away a VIP Essence package including a luxury suite and food for the sold out Liam Gallagher concert on Monday 30th October.

Shirt Off The Back: WIN your very own Belfast Giants game worn jersey! You could be the fist person to get your hands on an authentic game worn Belfast Giants regular season jersey. This weekend you have 4 chances to win with 1 Jackson Whistle, 6 Spiro Goulakos, 21 John Kurtz and 26 Brandon Benedict‘s jersey up for grabs.

Tickets are £2 for 1, £5 for 5, £10 for 15 and £20 for 40.

Got some spare change from your Food & Beverage order? ALL Food & Beverage Concession Units now sell 5050 and Shirt Off The Back tickets. Why not get involved and you could be leaving with an awesome prize.

Chuck-A-Puck: Chuck your (foam!) pucks onto the ice during the intermission right after the 2nd period and the closest 3 pucks to centre-ice will win, with a 1st prize of a trip for 2 to Scotland thanks to Stena Line! Chuck-A-Pucks will be on sale all night for £1 each.

For both new and returning Giants fans make sure to check out the Fanzone, located on ‘The Bridge’ at the east end of the Arena. Our food and beverage concession will have all your usual favourites and Chocallure will be there with their warm belgian chocolate chocolate cups for £5.

Hannon Coach Travel Club, Belfast Giants Official Supporters Club, and Eat Naked NI will all be exhibiting their wares in the Fanzone and of course you can test your hockey skills at the NEW Virtual Hockey Simulator!

Food & Beverage

Dale Farm have added their famous (& tasty!) milkshakes, only £3 each, to the lineup this season – available at selected stands around the Arena.

The ‘2nd Period Blitz’ is back! Stay tuned during each game to find out which selected food & bev  product will be reduced to only £2 during the intermission following the 2nd period.

Download The SSE Arena app and you will be able to enter ticket competitions, use exclusive selfie frames and take advantage of special offers on food and drinks!

Join some of your Giants as well as other fans for a bit of post game analysing of the match in McCools this weekend. There is a designated family area in the lounge connected to McCools – so even if you have kids with you, you can still be part of the post game fun!

The immensely talented Lucy Bell will be playing live after the game so why not stick around, enjoy a drink and take in some fantastic local talent at the post game home of the Belfast Giants.

Jackson Whistle, Spiro Goulakos, John Kurtz and Brandon Benedict will be on hand post game for autographs.

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garris – Blue Wolf Reviews Book, Film and Music Reviews Sun, 23 Feb 2020 03:21:58 +0000 en-AU hourly 1 Mystics Nine Mon, 10 Apr 2017 05:54:07 +0000 Dyan Garris is many things to many people, but when she is totally involved with her music, she is only one thing: that of the medium to bring forth love and joy through the wonderful gift of music. In this album she has opened the book of Akashic Records. By doing so has been allowed to interpret only one chapter into what is an inspired choice of music styles, representing the ebb and flow of life, the good, the bad, the happiness and the grief.

To be able to listen to life in the various modalities transcribed is something very special as each of the pieces, aptly titled, gives the listener an insight in what is to come.

The introduction, Mystic’s 9 is a little spacey, up tempo and very modern in interpretation but when followed by Mystic Sea, a peaceful and mellow piece, you are immediately into the vibe of the entire album.

A lovely vocal rendition of Muse’s Gift from Amber Norgaard, adds an unexpected element as you are invited to ‘Come, leave your troubles by the Spring, and Listen, listen, listen, to the gift the muses bring’.  Jeff Oster joins in on flugelhorn and trumpet in the evocative Mystical adding an elemental change of pace and richness. Will Clipman adds his almost ethereal percussion to the mix on Mystic Kiss.

Heaven’s Gate once again brings Dyan Garris back to the keyboard for this joyful composition as she trips delicately over the keys, with some amazingly interesting synth mixed in, to give yet again that sense of traveling through time, endless space, and timeless peace.

Cloud 9 and East on 9th sees Joe Bauer adding a little dash or panache on drums to these nicely up tempo pieces which create a change of place and time.

With the final composition Water for the Soul you are encouraged to gently return to this world, refreshed, renewed and relaxed.

As a child commencing her journey in the world of music Garris’s teacher said to her, ‘Music is not about seeing. It is about feeling”. With this collection of evocative pieces ‘music to feel, not to see’ has been perfectly presented.


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Tag Archives: Una

Hi Everyone! So I’m feeling a bit in the mood for some fun RP looks. It must be that wonderful holiday that I love soooo much. HALLOWEEN!!! Thankfully I blog for WLRP and they have pretty much whatever you’re in the mood for this month. A touch of this…a sprinkle of that. You can pretty much end up with a complete look no matter your budget.

Oh yes, I went shopping too, they don’t give you access to everything 😛

What Blu is Wearing:

Larger Picture on my Flickr ———————————————————————->>>>>

Head: Catwa – Catya

Body: Maitreya

Skin: Bold & Beauty – Hammi – Wearing Shell

Hair: Exile – Drive Fast – Wearing their natural fusion pack

Cape: [ae] – Morgana Cloak – Rigged for Maitreya & Slink – I purchased the Fatpack and this is what I’d call the purple color – 8 color options- Was available @ the last Enchantment Round, but I got them on the – For the record this cape does go through the skirt (its a big skirt)…but it looked good in the front. Forewarning! – Marketplace

Dress: *NEW* SK – Camille – Rigged for Maitreya – Wearing Black/Lilac – comes in two pieces – Corset and skirt – Available @ This round of W<3 RP

Gloves: *NEW*UNA – Thiara Gloves – Wearing Black – Rigged but I think you could use these for More than just one body. Try a demo and see – Available @ <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="This round of WThis round of W<3 RP

Tattoo (face & body) – *NEW*Ghost’ink – VALKYRIE – Blue – applier ready for Genus, Lelutka, Belleza, Catwa, Omega (body/face) Signature, Maitreya – and standard avatar tattoo – Available @ This round of W<3 RP

Spellbook (hip) – *NEW*[CON] – Zaifaris’ Spellbook – Comes w/option to wear on hip (like shown) or rez – Available @ This round of W<3 RP

Spellbook (hand) – MBD – Open Book – pretty simple but that’s all it says – Marketplace

GraveYard Items – *NEW*irrISIStible – Halloween 4 Graveyard – Using Grey – Come in four colors – Brown, Grey, Natural, Orange in packs or individuals items so you can decorate as singles or groups – 2 – 4 Land Impact each – Marketplace

Pose:  All poses are created by me unless noted here

Ok well I think that is everything. IF I forgot something (I don’t think I did) drop me a line and I’ll fix it.

In the meantime ya’ll have a great day and thank-you for looking.

Hi Everyone!  Ahhh I really, re—-ally like doing pretty pictures with sweet moments.  This outfit inspired me to do something light, sweet and with a friend.  Well…was supposed to be with a friend, but it didn’t work out (soon enough though).  So, I did it with just me, but with the thoughts of my friend being in the photo.

I hope you like this sweet moment in time.  Those are the beautiful moments to me.

What Blu is Wearing:luasworkingsmaller.jpg

Head: Genus Strong

Body: Maitreya

Skin: IT Girls – Kara – Wearing Pale – Genus Applier ONLY – Marketplace

Hair on Right: monso – Reina – Wearing m/Red – Marketplace

Hair On Left: monso – Seulgi – Wearing S/Red – Marketplace

Dress/Shoes/Headpiece – Luas & Una (collab) – Avery – Rigged for Maitreya ONLY – Comes with Belt, Crown of Roses, Harness, Sandals, Short and Long Skirt, Top, Vest – Fatpack to Mix/Match items – 12 colors for clothing items, Belt, Harness, Vest, Sandals, Chains 3 metal colors – Roses/Crown – 12 colors too!  Available @ FeverFete Festival Event (OPENS 17 JULY 2019)

Pose:  All poses are created by me unless noted here

So sweet.  Love friendship poses, close poses and of course my fighting poses lol

Thank-YOU for reading.

Hi Everyone!  I hope you didn’t miss me too much.  I was super busy while I was away visiting Family, but OMGosh I always feel good to come home and sleep in my own bed.  I love seeing my family.  It’s never long enough.  While I was gone some of my creators when in super fast mode to get their items out.  Now I feel like I’m super behind, but in a good way.  So, I hope you are in the mood for some varied looks because I’ll be bringing you a little of everything this week for sure.  From sweet and not so innocent to a great RP outfit I’ve got it pretty much this week.  So, grab some delicious Coffee (or your beverage of choice…it’s 5pm somewhere) and sit back and relax.  Today I’ve got you covered.  I’m bringing to you today a little ND/MD & NYNE…not on purpose to confuse you 😛

What Blu is Wearing:

Get a closer look go to my Flickr

Head: Spencer *NEW* to me

Body: Maitreya

Skin: *NEW*NDMD – Muerta *POISON* Sugar Skull Face Applier only – Face Applier for Catwa, Genus, Lelutka, & Vista+LAQ specific – 100% of the sales from this Applier go towards the Michael J. Fox Parkinson Foundation – Available @ Creations Park – The Seasons Festival

Hair: *NEW*[NYNE] – Lamour Hair – Rigged and for Larger Breasts as well – Comes in colors Color Picker, Ombre, Single Tone *Worn* & Unicorn – Available @ ON9 starting on the 9th

Earrings: *NEW* Dahlia – Abeille – I bought the fatpack because they were so well done – Comes with a 9 colors & 6 Metal changes  – Available @ Salem

Dress: *NEW*UNA – Elly Dress Green – For Maitreya only – I bought the Green, but I remember there were a few other colors – Comes w/the Skeleton Arm L/R – Available @ Salem

Rose: Mesh Plants – Single Mesh Red Rose – Comes in a Fatpack and many colors Pink, Red, White, Yellow – Marketplace

Pose:  All poses are created by me unless noted here

Well it’s finally October and I must say it’s my favorite season and Holiday (Halloween of course)  I hope you guys love it too.  So, go out and enjoy the seaons change and I’ll be back soon with other goodies!

Thank-YOU for reading,

Hi Everyone~  So I did some linden dumping at We Love Roleplay.  I love this event, I don’t blog many items because I’m not always in RP mode, but I do have to say that this round was fantastic and hence why I dropped my lindens.  I hope ya’ll run on over there and take a peak.  No I don’t blog for them, but sometimes when you are looking for the right look you go where the sales/events are at.  I finally made my way over there and am super happy I did.

Birth is doing an entirely different feel for their new store Elemental and I am happy to show you all his new *FREE* skin/gift for their store.  It’s beautiful and it’s Blue!  Enough said period, the bow is available at We Love Roleplay too!

So I’ll keep this short and sweet as you are here more for my pic/items then listening to be babel on about Blue items *swoons*.

What Blu is Wearing:elemental.pngBlu

Head: Kimberly

Body: Maitreya

Skin: *NEW*Elemental – Fantasy Skin *FREE* – Comes only w/no mod shape and eyebrow shape – Makeup vs. and no makeup *worn* – For Catwa only and Maitreya applier only at the moment – *NEW store folks so they are still setting up Marketplace*

Hair: *NEW*Tableau Vivant – Falling hair – Shortfall – Browns *GATCHA* and I love all their moving/shaped hair.  Of course I added this to my collection *smiles* Available @ The Arcade

Bow:  *NEW*Elemental – Elven Bow – Comes rigged for Left hand *shown* or w/out the arrow – Quiver comes available for back*shown*/hip placement as well – color Hud – Available @ We Love Roleplay

Headpiece: *NEW*Boutique 187 – Ethnik Headpiece – Comes w/Hud for Metals, Gems, Stones & Crystals – Available @ We Love Roleplay

Outfit: *NEW*UNA – Lara – Rigged for Freya, Hourglass, Isis – Comes w/color Hud for Belt, Top & Skirt in the Fatpack –  Available @ We Love Roleplay

Belt: *NEW*The Forge – Ashley Chain Belt – Fatpack includes the colors Black, Gold & Steel – Wide or standard vs. in box as well – Available @ We Love Roleplay

Necklace: Spell – Necklace & Ring *not shown* – Llargi Necklace – Marketplace

Pose:  All poses are created by me unless noted here

Well that’s it for me today.  I am playing catchup (story of my life) and I will be posting again soon.  Thank-you for reading and have a Great Day!

*blows a kiss*

Hi Everyone~  Today I am bringing to you a beautiful look.  It sometimes just happens, but I love the end result.  I hope you like all things magical and moongoddessy because that’s what I think she ended up looking like.  My beginning plans were to bring in a crow and dark clouds, but then I wanted to learn how to do water in Photo shop (PS).  Well my attempt of PS water was not very successful, and YES I know there are “plugins” that you can buy, but hello!  That’s for lazy people.  I want to learn not buy shit.  So, I tried, and my first attempt was NOT a success but the picture still came out pretty in my opinion sooooo anyways it’s not a throw away at least.  I’m bringing to you my creations from Bite&Claw, Birth and a new to me creator (the dress which is not seen very well but it’s super gorgeous) by Una.

What Blu is Wearing:birth&bcfinal.pngHead: Simone

Body:  Hourglass

Skin*Birth* – Dani Skin Applier – For Lelutka only – Wearing Tone 2 – Comes in 8 Tones – see below for more details on this awesome skin OR Birth Marketplace – *A full skin review was done HERE*

Hair: +elua+ – Kira_Lightblonde pack – this is an older hair, I was just looking for an updo hair and well sometimes you just find what ya find and it’s gorgeous!  I don’t throw everything away 😀  Go get yours @ +elua

Necklace: *NEW* –  *Birth Skins* – Prisoned Orb Necklace AQUA – FREE Gift Hunt – For the MOH & WOH Hunt from 4 – 18 August 2018 – comes w/resize script – Available at Birth Mainstore

Crown: *NEW*Bite&Claw Aradia Crown – *Gatcha Rare* – comes w/resize script and color Hud for daisy – rose & metals – 21 colors in total – Available @ the Fantasy Gacha Carnival on 7th August – 6th September 2018

Dress: Una – Xarise in white – Comes in many colors but this is the color I opted for – Comes in two types, white or transparent (oh la la) – comes Rigged for Slink All, Maitreya, Isis, Freya and you can wear the items seperately (which you cant even see in my pic…sorry) Just go and check it out at Una Marketplace

Well that’s it for me today.  I have to go be Mom now and do Mom things.  I hope you have a GREAT day and get to do what you love!  I hope to see you here again soon. I have wonderful things in store for you, Enhanted things that is *swoons*

*blows you all kisses*


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The Motley Fool Discussion Boards

Previous Page

Investing/Strategies / Retirement Investing

Subject:  Re: Attitude Question - SS Date:  3/15/2016  12:38 PM
Author:  Hawkwin Number:  79335 of 97361

Ah crapping non-edit and formating mess...

I am not co certain why so fully expect to profit?

To quote myself:

As long as we both live to our average life expectancy, we will do just fine.

If either of us die early, then clearly that is not the case.

You may have run all the numbers,

I have; hence the qualifier in my previous comment.

But let's say I don't. Let's say that I end up being wrong - then my original point, that SS creates winners a losers is even more enforced - especially if more and more people end up with a negative rate of return from SS.

I don't even mind if no one profited at all from SS but to have a "security" system that creates a negative wealth effect often due to the early death of a spouse or a parent is a bad system. No one would voluntarily buy an insurance policy that worked that way.
Copyright 1996-2020 trademark and the "Fool" logo is a trademark of The Motley Fool, Inc. Contact Us


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You are currently browsing the daily archive for January 19, 2019.

January 20, 2019

Article by Scott Klusendorf

ABSTRACT: The pro-life movement in America seemed in dire straits in 2016, with losses on almost every front. Donald Trump’s surprising win appears to have stalled the abortion juggernaut. An escape, however, is not a triumph. Dunkirk was not Normandy. Abortion is here to stay as long as millions of young Christians are uninformed, unequipped, and unconcerned.

The pro-life movement faced a gathering storm in 2016.

In California, pro-life pregnancy centers were forced to advertise abortion services or pay crippling fines. In New York, Catholic nuns were told to fund abortion in their health-care plans or dissolve. Nationally, pro-life doctors were pressured to refer patients for abortion or risk their medical credentials. Politically, the outlook was grim. Abortion activists were one appointment away from commanding the Supreme Court. A conservative justice was dead. The Republican presidential candidate had lamentable character, and his pro-life commitment was unproven. And the candidate sworn to uphold abortion at any stage of pregnancy appeared to be running away with the election.

Then, in God’s strange providence, Donald Trump’s win stalled the abortion juggernaut. Given a choice between a flawed presidential candidate who might limit abortion and one who affirmed it wholesale, a majority of pro-life advocates voted to limit the evil and promote the good insofar as possible.1Political ambition did not drive them to the polls. Survival instinct did. They feared a Clinton presidency would irrevocably crush their efforts to save children.

Pro-lifers received some immediate relief from the new president. He cut off overseas funding for abortion. He created a special office to protect the conscience rights of health-care professionals. Most importantly, he began overhauling the federal courts. Last summer, the Supreme Court tossed the California law that forced pregnancy centers to promote abortion. The decision was 5-to-4. Without Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, that ruling goes the other way.

All this is good news for the pro-life movement, but an escape is not a triumph. Abortion is here to stay as long as millions of Christians are uninformed and unequipped, as long as those predisposed to accept our view and contend for it never actually experience pro-life teaching. Whatever gains have been made in Washington, we are failing in our churches and Christian schools. And the political cost of that failure is steep. Sustained political victory happens when large coalitions of pro-life voters command the electoral landscape to the extent that we can protect candidates who support us and penalize ones who don’t. Christian students are especially vital to building that coalition, but they’re not hearing from us. The problem is not messaging. It’s access. For many Christian leaders, the thought of pro-life teaching is dead on arrival.

Only Two Percent

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez presides over a political party dedicated to the proposition that an entire class of human beings can be set aside to be killed. For Perez, the right to abortion is absolute. “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health. . . . That is not negotiable.”2 Perez blames churches for hamstringing his party’s messaging on abortion. The Sunday morning pulpit elevates abortion above everything else “and people buy it. Because that’s their only source,” the DNC chairman laments.3

Anyone who thinks Perez is right should visit Summit Ministries. Each summer, Summit runs regional worldview conferences in Colorado, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. The purpose is simple: prepare Christian students for the intellectual challenges they will face once they leave the safety of their local churches and step on to the university campus.

I teach the abortion sessions at Summit. For the last five summers, I’ve conducted an informal survey of attendees. I ask for a show of hands on a specific question: “How many of you, prior to coming to Summit, heard a pro-life apologetics presentation in your church aimed at equipping you to defend the pro-life view?” The numbers are remarkably consistent. Out of 1,800 students present each summer, an average of 45 have prior exposure to a pro-life apologetics presentation in their local churches. Let that sink in: 45 out of 1,800! That’s only 2.5%.

What Makes Pro-Life Teaching Hard?

Churches aren’t the only challenge. Life Training Institute (LTI), where I serve as President, trains Christians to make a persuasive case for life in the public square. The primary way we fulfill our mission is by making pro-life apologetics presentations in Catholic and Protestant high schools. Last year, our speaking team reached 72,000 students with pro-life apologetics talks. Unlike other pro-life presentations that focus on chastity or sexual purity (programs we fully support), LTI presentations focus exclusively on why the pro-life view is true and reasonable to believe. To my knowledge, we are the only pro-life group that systematically targets Catholic and Protestant high schools with pro-life talks of this sort.

It takes a Herculean effort and a lion’s share of our budget to get in front of 72,000 Christian students. Many schools ignore us. Why is that?

Credentials aren’t the problem. Anyone who spends five minutes on Google can see that LTI speakers engage students with persuasive content and earn favorable reviews everywhere they go. Nationally syndicated programs like Focus on the Family and Issues, Etc. feature our presentations. We’ve published books with Crossway and Hendrickson. The Gospel Coalition publishes our articles. We’re contributing authors to the Christian Research Journal. In addition to Summit, we lecture at Biola University’s worldview conferences and teach pro-life apologetics to aspiring lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom’s Blackstone Academy. We were asked to advise a presidential candidate on abortion. Christian leaders like John Piper, J.D. Greear, Al Mohler, and John Stonestreet reference our training materials. We have secular credentials as well. I’ve debated my friend Nadine Strossen — former president of the ACLU — on several university campuses.

Messaging isn’t the problem. Students routinely thank us for making persuasive arguments instead of emotional appeals. A common response is, “That was amazing. You’re the first person to actually give us reasons.”

Speaking fees aren’t the problem. We understand that most Christian schools are broke. Thus, with few exceptions, we send our speakers for free. We pick up the airfare, hotel, car rental, and speaker stipend. We absorb the cost of hiring a full-time staffer to secure the event in the first place. The school pays nothing.

It’s still tough getting in.

What They Don’t Want to See

Put simply, our problem is subject matter. We’re offering an abortion presentation many Christian schools and churches don’t want. Our challenge is to make them want it, to convince them it’s vital to the formation of a Christian worldview, and to persuade them that students will thank them for hosting it.

Once a Christian high school agrees to have us, we face another challenge: negotiating an effective presentation. The best talks include persuasive arguments, gospel, and the careful use of abortion imagery. Gregg Cunningham puts it well: “Pro-lifers should stop protesting abortion and start exposing it. When you show pictures of abortion, abortion protests itself.”4Our pro-abortion adversaries know this and candidly admit their rhetoric is no match for the visuals. “When someone holds up a model of a six-month-old fetus and a pair of surgical scissors, we say, ‘choice,’ and we lose,” writes feminist Naomi Wolf.5

Nevertheless, opposition to the images is stiff, even among pro-lifers. Last year, I spoke in chapel at a large Christian university. The event host refused to let me show a 55-second clip depicting abortion as part of my presentation despite acknowledging my documented history of using visuals responsibly. He knew that I never spring disturbing pictures on unsuspecting audiences, that I fully disclose the contents of the film before showing it, and that I invite people to look away if they wish not to watch. He knew that I situated the pictures within the context of the gospel, stressing God’s grace to wounded people rather than condemnation. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t fight for the clip when his staff objected to its use. He admitted the images save lives and resonate powerfully with audiences but said students at his university were too fragile to handle them.

Event hosts say this all the time. They want other people to see the images, just not their people. They hope FOX News will do the heavy lifting for them. Ironically, that same chapel host said he was on a personal mission to recruit more students for the campus pro-life club, whose numbers were abysmally low. How? By hiding the truth from them? As Cunningham points out, “When pro-life leaders care more about the feelings of the born than they do the lives of the unborn, the pro-life movement is in real trouble.”

If you think accessing Christian schools is tough, try popular Christian conferences. Students ages 18 to 24 are most at risk for abortion, yet you would never know it by surveying the speaking lineups. You’ll find sessions on global sex trafficking, world hunger, economic justice, climate change, refugees, and racism, but there’s no passion to engage the culture on the legally sanctioned killing of 61 million innocent human beings in our own nation since 1973. At times, pro-lifers encounter outright hostility. In 2015, Urbana — once the premier evangelical student conference — featured a Black Lives Matter speaker who used her keynote slot to bash pro-lifers for “only doing activism that is comfortable” and for “withholding mercy from the living so that we might display a big spectacle of how much we want mercy to be shown to the unborn.”

Does any of this sound like an evangelical community woke to elevating abortion above everything else?

Functionally Pro-Choice?

It gets worse. The 2017 Evangelicals for Life conference, where I presented a session on pro-life apologetics, featured a keynote address from Eugene Cho, the former lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle. Cho told pro-lifers to rewrite their job descriptions to include a comprehensive, whole-life ethic. “We can’t just be anti-abortion. We should be for the sanctity of life from the womb to tomb. . . . Not just American lives, but Syrian lives. Not just Christian liberty religious lives, but Muslim refugee lives.” We can’t cherry pick. “All life is sacred and every single human being bears the image of God.”6

Except when that image-bearer isn’t sacred enough to legally protect. What conference attendees may not have known is that Cho is functionally pro-choice. He personally opposes abortion and wants to reduce it but thinks it should remain legal in a pluralistic society due to the high cost of outlawing it. He writes, “Like most Christians I know, I am against abortion. However, I just do not believe we can legislate it. . . . Can we maintain choice but do all that we can to preserve and ensure the life of an unborn?”7

Has it ever occurred to Cho that a society which dramatically reduced the lynching of blacks, but left it legal to lynch them, would be a deeply immoral society? Imagine telling blacks, “We will do all we can to protect you so long as it’s not too expensive and meets with popular approval in our pluralistic society. After all, we want to maintain choice.” This is beyond mind-boggling. When a pro-choice pastor, who thinks it should be legal to intentionally dismember innocent human beings because it costs too much to protect them, uses his platform at an evangelical pro-life conference to tell abortion opponents they aren’t really pro-life, “pro-life” has lost all meaning.

Cho isn’t providing students or anyone else biblical leadership on abortion. He’s conveying what the secular culture already believes. As journalist Christopher Caldwell points out, Americans love to condemn abortion with words but keep the option legally available. “Even where Americans claim to disapprove most strongly of abortion, they booby-trap their disapproval so that it never results in the actual curtailment of abortion rights. A pro-life regime is not really something Americans want — it’s just something they feel they ought to want.”8

Moreover, why is the “whole-life” argument never used against other groups who target specific forms of injustice, only pro-lifers? If an inner-city daycare ministry only receives grade-school kids from 3:00 to 5:00pm on weekdays, do we cast aspersions on them for not operating 24/7? Do we insist they spread their already scarce resources even thinner fighting poverty and gang violence? True, abortion isn’t the only issue — any more than slavery was the only issue in 1860 or killing Jews the only issue in 1940. But both were the dominant issues of their day. Pro-lifers are right to give greater weight to the greater moral issue.

My colleague Marc Newman writes, “Individuals and organizations that make it their exclusive mission to save innocent human beings from a culture hell-bent on butchering them have nothing to apologize for. They don’t need additional causes; they need additional support.”9

Meanwhile, we shouldn’t assume that Christian students will get pro-life teaching from evangelical thought-leaders when some of the most influential ones consider pastoral silence a theological virtue. In 1994, Billy Graham said that addressing abortion in the pulpit could impede his “main message” of salvation. “I don’t get into these things like abortion,” Graham told talk show host Larry King.10

More recently, WORLD magazine reports on an evangelical pastor in New York who says that abortion is a double-justice issue and people should be stopped from doing it, but he doesn’t focus on it from the pulpit because “pushing moral behaviors before we lift up Christ is religion” — something Jesus warns about. The biblical approach to controversial sins, he says, is to preach the gospel and let congregants arrive at the right conclusion. He cites the example of an Ivy League graduate who thanked him for not focusing on abortion from the pulpit. She added, “If I had seen any literature or reference to the ‘pro-life’ movement, I would not have stayed through the first service.” She was a lawyer, a resident of Manhattan, and an active ACLU member. Her history included three abortions. Eventually, the woman converted to Christianity under the pastor’s influence. Later she approached him to ask, “Do you think abortion is wrong?” He said yes. She replied, “I am coming to see that maybe there is something wrong with it.”11

I’m glad she eventually figured it out, but what are we to conclude — that clerical silence in the face of child sacrifice is an acceptable means of evangelism? That’s cold comfort to dead children who, this pastor candidly admits, “are not being treated as they deserve.”

Prudence in the pulpit is essential, but the pastor presents a false choice. Pastors don’t have to choose between “pushing moral behaviors” or “lifting up Christ.” They can preach truthfully on abortion but do so within the context of the gospel.

For the rest of the post…

January 2019
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Cucumber Cooler

Hybrid. Enjoy the fresh, crisp taste of cucumbers—even without a big garden! With shorter vines and a more compact habit than typical varieties, Cucumber Cooler grows beautifully when planted in a container on a sunny patio or deck, or in a raised bed. You’ll love the early fruit-set, enjoying the sweet, firm, light green cucumbers all summer long. Great for pickling when harvested young, or allow the fruit to mature on the bush-type vines a little longer, and you’ll have delicious, fresh additions to salads. Try infusing your water with a few slices for a refreshing summer drink! Resistant to cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and scab (S).

Part of our Foodie Fresh line, available only at Lowe’s!

Light                           Full sun

Fruit size                    3 to 6 inches

Matures                     40 to 45 days

Spacing                     8 to 10 inches apart

Plant size                  10 to 12 inches tall, 24-26 inches wide

Some Bonnie Plants varieties may not be available in your local area, due to different variables in certain regions. Also, if any variety is a limited, regional variety it will be noted on the pertinent variety page.

At a glance
Nutrition Information

Light requirements: Full sun.

Planting: Space 36 to 60 inches apart, depending on type. (Read the stick tag that comes with the plant for specific spacing recommendations.) If you’re trellising vines, space plants 12 inches apart.

Soil requirements: Cucumbers need moist but well-drained, nutrient-rich soil. Amend soil with compost or other organic matter prior to planting. Soil pH should be 6.0 to 6.8.

Water requirements: Keep soil consistently moist by applying roughly 1 inch of water per week. Use a soaker hose or drip irrigation to keep leaves dry and slow disease development. Mulch soil to reduce water evaporation, but wait until soil has warmed before covering it.

Frost-fighting plan: Cucumber is damaged by light frost (28º F to 32º F). If a surprise late spring frost is in the forecast, protect seedlings with a frost blanket.

Common issues: Inadequate or inconsistent moisture causes oddly shaped or poor-tasting fruit. If plants suddenly wilt and don’t recover, the vine has been infected with bacterial wilt, spread by cucumber beetles. Also keep an eye out for squash bugs, slugs, aphids, and powdery mildew. Squash bugs attack seedlings. Slugs like ripening fruit. Aphids colonize leaves and buds.

Harvesting: Pick cucumbers whenever they’re big enough to use. Check vines daily as the fruit appear because they enlarge quickly. The more you harvest, the more fruit the vines will produce. Oversized fruit is bitter. Cucumbers with a yellow end are overripe. Harvest using a knife or clippers, cutting the stem above the fruit.

Storage: If you’ll use cucumbers within 1 or 2 days, store at room temperature. Exposing cucumbers to temperatures below 50º F can hasten decay. If you must refrigerate cucumbers, wrap them in a dry paper towel and slip into a loosely closed plastic bag. Store them in a warmer part of the fridge and for best flavor and quality, use within 1 to 3 days.

For more information, visit the Cucumbers page in our How to Grow section.

Nutrition Facts

1 cup sliced peeled cucumber:
  • Carbohydrates: 9g
  • Dietary fiber: 2g
  • Sugars: 3g
  • Protein: 1g
  • Thiamin: 5% DV
  • Vitamin B6: 4%
  • Vitamin K: 4%
  • Manganese: 6%

Nutritional Information

Cucumbers have a very high water content, very few calories, lots of fiber, and a whole range of vitamins and minerals. Their hydrating quality is important for healthy skin, and two compounds in them, ascorbic acid and caffeic acid, prevent water retention and explain why sliced cucumbers are often used topically for swollen eyes, burns, and other skin problems. Munching on a cucumber ever day is an easy, cooling way to add both fiber and water to the diet. Studies have also shown that adding foods high in potassium, magnesium and fiber, such as cucumbers, helps keep blood pressure at healthy levels.


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Orange Swiss Chard

Plant a bright addition in your garden! Orange Swiss Chard tastes as good as it looks. Golden-orange stems contrast beautifully with dark-green leaves, with the stem color intensifying as the plant matures. Use young leaves in salads or harvest mature leaves for cooking. Not only is it pretty and delicious, Orange Swiss Chard provides ongoing harvests—as you snip leaves, new stems and leaves grow to continue the bounty. Add this beautiful edible to containers or beds where you can enjoy the show!

Part of our Harvest Select line, available only at The Home Depot!

Light                           Full sun to partial shade

Matures                     45+ days

Spacing                     18 to 30 inches apart

Plant size                  12 to 18 inches tall

Leaf size                    8-10 inches long

Some Bonnie Plants varieties may not be available in your local area, due to different variables in certain regions. Also, if any variety is a limited, regional variety it will be noted on the pertinent variety page.

At a glance
Nutrition Information

Light requirements: Full sun to part shade. Protect plants from strong afternoon sun in warmest regions.

Planting: Space 12 to 18 inches apart.

Soil requirements: These greens need moist, nutrient-rich soil. Amend soil with 4 to 6 inches of compost or other organic matter prior to planting. Soil pH should be 6.0 to 6.8.

Water requirements: Keep soil consistently moist throughout the growing season. Aim for 1 to 1.5 inches of water per week through rainfall or irrigation. Mulch to reduce water evaporation and keep leaves clean from splashing soil.

Frost-fighting plan: Established plants tolerate light frosts (28 to 32º F). It’s a good idea to protect newly planted seedlings from late spring or early fall frosts by covering plants with a frost blanket.

Common issues: Cercospora leaf spot and downy mildew may attack leaves. Watch out for aphids, mites, and caterpillars.

Harvesting: Harvest leaves whenever they’re large enough to eat. Younger leaves are more flavorful and tender. Older leaves tend to be tougher; cook these for best results. Pick outer leaves first, and the plant will continue to produce new inner leaves.

Storage: Refrigerate unwashed leaves in a lightly damp paper towel slipped into a very loosely closed plastic bag. Leaves store up to 14 days.

For more information, visit the Swiss Chard page in our How to Grow section.

Nutrition Facts

1 cup cooked chopped Swiss chard:
  • Calories: 35
  • Carbohydrates: 7g
  • Dietary fiber: 4g
  • Sugars: 2g
  • Protein: 3g
  • Vitamin A: 214% DV
  • Vitamin C: 53%
  • Vitamin K: 716%
  • Vitamin E: 17%
  • Riboflavin: 9%
  • Vitamin B6: 7%
  • Magnesium: 38%
  • Manganese: 29%
  • Potassium: 27%
  • Iron: 22%
  • Copper: 14%

Nutritional Information

Like other leafy green vegetables such as turnip and collard greens, Swiss chard is off the charts in the amount of vitamins A, C, and K it contains. Both the leaves and stems have been studied for their effectiveness in preventing digestive tract cancers. The huge load of traditional vitamins, minerals, and numerous phytonutrients adds up to high marks for the vegetable’s contribution to bone, lung, and vision health. Vitamin E, which works as an anti-inflammatory in the body and contributes to mental health, is also high in Swiss chard. And don’t be afraid to add a little healthy fat such as olive oil to your leafy greens; the fat evidently helps the body absorb all that vitamin E.


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Laura Adams sells homes in Marco Island
(239) 404-4766
Contact Me Print Marco Island Office

1000 N. Collier Blvd, Suite 1
Marco Island, Florida 34145

Driving Directions

Laura has been a REALTOR since 1998 on Marco Island. She was a developer Sales Manager for The Esplanade and Madeira on Marco Island.

Laura has two teenage children, Kyle and Sommer, and has partnered with her husband, Chris, after relocating to the area from Chicago.

She specializes in all aspects of real estate on Marco Island and the surrounding areas.


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Let them choose their next reads, on you.

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They'll get five new options, each and every month.

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Check out our Gifts FAQ for even more info.


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The White Mountains (The Tripods, Book 1), by John Christopher

Posted: March 31, 2009 in Science Fiction / SF
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The White MountainsWhen I was in elementary school, I can remember coming home from school in anticipation of watching a BBC series called “The Tripods.” If I remember correctly, each episode ran for thirty minutes, and they always left me hanging at the end. The music was superb, the effects outstanding (for the day), and the story was spectacular. I just had to see the next episode to find out what was going to happen next; only to be rudely disappointed when the show suddenly stopped airing.

When I was in the sixth grade, my teacher–who was also a fan of the series–was nice enough to show them to the class. We got through two seasons, and like before, I was left hanging at the end. It wasn’t until many years later–after I created the first Yahoo Group Tripods Fanclub–that I learned the show was canceled before they produced the final season–the third book in the series.

Not only that, but when the first season was put into VHS format, they never released the second season other than what was shown on TV. This made things difficult for a fan who wanted to watch it again. To make a long story short, just this very month there was a release of both seasons on DVD with music from Ken Freeman that would have been used in the final 3rd season. It’s in Region 2, PAL format, which won’t work on US DVD players or televisions, however it will work on your Computer and they hookup nicely to TVs now-a-days.

Story overview:

Thirteen-year-old Will and his cousin, Henry (one month younger than Will) live in a small English village. Will’s other cousin and best friend, Jack Leeper, is “of age” to receive what’s called a “cap”–the boy is raised up into a three-legged alien ship (thus, Tripod) and has a metal cap placed on his head, which is used to control his thoughts. The villagers understand this celebration as a coming of age ceremony. It’s considered a great honor.

Once Jack received his cap, Will became horrified to discover that his friend was no longer what he once was. Being only a year behind “of age” himself, Will happens across a mysterious vagrant who goes by the name of “Ozymandias” (vagrants are supposedly people who had a capping go wrong). He convinces Will to escape to a place where there are “Free Men” living in seclusion at the “White Mountains” (actually the Swiss Alps, literally translated from the French Mont Blanc).

Henry learns of this, but rather than turn Will in, he demands to go along. Even though the two boys never really got along in the past, they go together with a common goal. Sailing to France they meet up with a boy named Beanpole, who becomes the third member of their party. Rummaging through the remains of Paris, hiding from Tripods, getting side tracked at a manor owned by a wealthy French count; they follow through many adventures on their way to the “White Mountains.”

My thoughts:

I had acquired a fondness for these stories ever since I was a kid. The TV show was never completed, but thankfully the books were. The idea of our world in the future, gone downward rather than forward due to aliens enslaving mankind by controlling their thoughts, is one of both intrigue and wonder. The discovery, adventure, and fight for freedom are ones that can spark the imagination of any boy.

Things to consider:

I don’t remember anything questionable in the story, but there are elements that may be a little disturbing to young children. I would say this is a great book for pre-teens (tweens) +, and is mostly targeted toward boys.

Opportunities for discussion:

The main theme in this story is freedom. Let your kids know that there are many people and groups out there that will try and force their opinions on them, sometimes by manipulation and sometimes by force. Tell them to keep their minds sharp and not let anyone else control them. Tell them to never stop questioning, testing, and examining the things in their lives. Share how true freedom is obtained in Christ, and that even though people can live content lives without, deep inside they have become prisoners to the things and ideals of this world. The story also speaks of the struggle to maintain ones own creative faculties.

  1. Anne Franklin says:

    On the radio, afew years ago, I heard of a study that was being conducted on a group of children. As preschoolers, 80% of the children tested as highly creative. The same children were tested at the end of first grade. Only 20% still tested as highly creative. Between school and our culture, 60% of those kids had been “capped”. The ”Tripod” books eloquently discribe the struggle so many creative and inventive people have to keep their indpendance in a culture that demands uniformity.

  2. And the increase in technology with it’s easy come and easy go, has made it even more difficult for children to use their imagination. Toys now-a-days do everything for them, rather than having them do everything for the toy. Just shows how important it is for parents to help their children enter into the world of books.

  3. […] The White Mountains (The Tripods, Book 1), by John Christopher March 2009 2 comments […]

  4. Orlyca says:

    I once drew a picture of horses for my grandma. Just yesterday she brought it up and showed me it for the first time in years. Then she said something that made me think. She said “Do you want to know why I really like this picture? It’s because when you drew this, you were drawing it freely. You weren’t doing it to impress other people, or for a fad. You did it because you wanted to.” This reminds me of being capped.

  5. Good comparison. Creativity for the sake of creative expression alone often gets lost with age. I believe refinement is important, as is progression of one’s talents, but if the heart is lost then so enters the cap.

  6. Anonymous says:

    this story is very adventorous

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