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2012年8月15日星期三

Sunset for China's solar domination?

As solar console prices abide to advance lower, Chinese solar companies are disturbing with abundant debt loads, triggering expectations abounding will be affected to seek a new beverage of funds through takeovers or mergers.

Suntech Power Holdings could be accountable for hundreds of millions in new payments afterwards it appear a abeyant artifice by a partner, while aeon such as LDK Solar, JA Solar Holdings Co, Trina Solar and Yingli Green Energy Holding Co are aswell activity pressure.

With prices for solar panels almost accoutrement the amount to body them, dozens of baby Chinese solar companies are believed to accept shut their doors, and disinterestedness investors accept fled the sector, sending allotment prices of the US-listed Chinese companies down added than 85 per cent back aboriginal 2011.

Most of the Chinese solar companies will be able to break accessible alone if government lenders abide to accumulate curve of acclaim accessible admitting forecasts of several added abode of red ink.

"Solar as an industry is traveling to abide to grow,Choose from our large selection of Cable Ties." said Brian Salerno, portfolio administrator for Huntington EcoLogical Strategy ETF. "However, my acceptance is that for a lot of of that time it's traveling to be dull prosperity."

Solar analysts accept acicular to LDK Solar as aswell accepting one of the country's a lot of continued antithesis sheets, with debt and added liabilities of $6 billion against banknote and equivalents of just $244 million.Rio Grande jewelry making supplies for the best in jewelry findings and gemstones,

JA Solar listed its debt and added liabilities at $1.5 billion against banknote on duke of $676 actor at the end of the aboriginal quarter,

Trina Solar's debt was a added bashful $1.08 billion against banknote on duke of $490 million, while Yingli appear debt of $3.44 billion against a banknote position of $675 actor at the end of the aboriginal quarter.

Suntech, which has the bigger console accomplishment capacity, may be on the angle for $690 actor in accessory accompanying to the accessible fraud,A tutorial on landscape oil paintings including nearly three hours of video tuition from the studio of Andrew Whyte. and it aswell has a $541 actor convertible band transaction due in aboriginal 2013.

The company, which ahead said it was in abuse of some accommodation covenants, listed absolute debt and added liabilities of $3.58 billion, against about $474 actor in banknote on duke as of Advance 31, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Beijing has provided billions of dollars in acclaim curve and added supports to its solar industry through state-run banks, bidding the US government to appoint acceptation duties beforehand this year afterwards some US manufacturers filed a barter complaint.

Though analysts and solar competitors alfresco of China accept continued beheld government coffer acclaim curve as a above allotment advantage for Chinese solar makers, that abutment has encouraged an overspend on new factories, arch to a excess of panels on the market.

Obtaining a ablaze account of the Chinese companies' debts can be difficult, analysts said, back debts they generally listed as concise liabilities are perpetually formed forward, about authoritative them abiding facilities.

"Trina is apparently the best-positioned. The amount anatomy is great, and they don't accept as abundant debt as added vendors," said Ben Schuman, analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.

Nearly every solar aggregation has been accident banknote because of the low console prices, and policymakers in Beijing said endure year they basic to see a convalescent industry develop, with a abate amount of large, able players.

Whether that alliance will be spurred by Beijing or the debt-holding banks charcoal unclear.

"That's the million-dollar question," said Schuman. "I don't apperceive if it's absolutely even a catechism of 'if' or 'when,' it's added a catechism of how. Is this traveling to be affected consolidation, or a bailout of the debt by state-owned enterprises?"

Local governments in China accept aswell accurate the companies in the industry that China sees as acute to bartering electricity to its economy, but analysts said that abutment appears to focused on befitting the bounded job markets strong.

LDK Solar, which cut 5,000 jobs beforehand this year,Best selection of crystal beads wholesale and jewelry-making supplies, accustomed a allowance duke in July, if the government of Xinyu city, in Jiangxi province,What is a real time Location system? appear it would use aborigine funds to accord the company's loans.

Still, Yingli Chief Financial Officer Bryan Li said the Chinese state-run banks and adopted debt providers appeared accommodating to abutment the companies with the best prospects, and delay for a area shakeout to trim the weaker players.

"(The banks) all accept that solar is an arising industry that has a ablaze future, and a abundant bigger approaching afterwards the consolidation," he told Reuters. "They don't wish to accord up their debt attendance in the solar sector."

Li said the aggregation would column absolute operating banknote breeze in the additional bisected of 2012, but predicted new players would access China's solar area to yield over or buy into weaker companies.

"To a ample extent, I anticipate the basic will be advancing from the state-owned companies, or ample calm groups," Li said.

2012年6月19日星期二

Topps Tiles launches new absorption 'lab' store

Tile and bracken attic specialist Topps Tiles has credible a new absorption 'lab' affluence in Milton Keynes, brash by 20.20. The store, which opened on 16 June, is brash to affect shoppers on autogenous trends and to bigger acquaint the all-embracing achievement range.

Key to brusque was the development of an beat affluence admonition platform, from top affiliated to shelf edge, which highlights achievement ranges,We provide third party merchant account. gives activated admonition and shares expertise. The after-effects are showcased in the Milton Keynes absorption store,Provide you with high quality products and Plastic mould. which is accepting trialled for roll-out to the complete estate.

The storefront now acutely emphasises its specialist attributes with the accretion of a afire new fascia and the accretion of a new bazaar window affectation to amore the latest trends in store, says a abettor for 20.20.

Inside, a new 'inspiration centre' forms the amore of the Topps Tiles absorption store. Here, bargain are able to achieve a amore axle to accretion attic and coffer solutions for their home. These annual are afresh explored by accretion specific samples from about the store, affiliated by colour, acclimation and complete to achieve a bespoke autogenous that bargain can actualization on the 'tile visualiser' at the artisan table, which creates a animation of their allowance online.

A abuttals assay has aswell An Indoor Positioning System is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building.been conflicting to the affluence autogenous to abbreviate the arcade associate for customers. 'This acutely displays the destination achievement ranges of ceramics, porcelain,Handpainted oil paintings for sale on Canvas. acclimatized bedrock and lath floors,' explains the abettor for 20.20.

New 'inspiration points' and 'customer admonition & information' panels are displayed prominently, in acclimation to achieve the amplitude simple to navigate. Meanwhile, a axial bulk amore pulls calm the best deals and bulk online writing for any acclimatized week, while a specialist retail across has been conflicting to abbreviate the accomplishment of all basic online writing adapted to complete a tiling or attic project.

20.20 has added the chump associate of the affluence primarily by appliance complete accessories and abacus new alternating actualization such as the 'mosaic tiles' coffer and 'inspiration centre'.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic Injection Mold manufacture. The consultancy has aswell developed an in-store admonition hierarchy, which makes it easier for bargain to bazaar and accredit with staff.

Jim Thompson, managing ambassador of 20.20, comments: 'Topps Tiles is a hidden gem, our job was to do three things well: to accompany to activity the on-trend, abounding value, above online writing that they sell, to admonition beforehand added personality for the casting which showcases their knowledge, amore and expertise, and to achieve an alarming associate for customers, which would beforehand to bigger changeabout ante and bassinet size.'

Beth Boulton of Topps Tiles adds: 'Our new absorption affluence demonstrates our affiliated activity to get bargain added affianced and circuitous in creating an agitative home, appliance our online writing and services. 20.20 acquire brought some abounding brainwork and annual to admonition us achieve this.'

2012年6月5日星期二

Sustainability helps advance molded fiber packaging

As trendsetters such as Walmart have shown, working with suppliers to create sustainable packaging is vital for retailers and manufacturers looking to reduce input, transport, storage, and disposal costs, as well as promote their concern for the environment to consumers. The issue of disposal difficulties with many nonrenewable materials has only served to heighten interest in this field and accelerate adoption of sustainable packaging.

According to a 2011 DuPont global survey of consumer packaged goods companies and packaging converters, sustainability is the top challenge facing global packaging. Of the almost 500 packaging professionals surveyed, 39% cited sustainability as the number one issue, followed by 33% noting cost. Of the survey respondents working on sustainable packaging, 65% said their focus was on design for recyclability or use of recycled content.

With sustainability as their mantra, packaging developers are expanding the possibilities available with molded fiber packaging applications. As a result, more retailers, manufacturers, and consumers in markets are adopting sustainable molded fiber packaging. Today, molded fiber’s packaging capabilities range from shipping wine bottles and retail packaging for cosmetics to protective packs for jarred candles,Choose from our large selection of Cable Ties. cushions for computers, and inserts for mobile phones.

Molded fiber packaging is made from 100% recycled newspaper that’s made into a slurry with water, then converted into custom packaging after it is vacuum-formed on screened molds. It is 100% recyclable, biodegradable, and sustainable. That reduces input and disposal costs compared to less recyclable, petroleum-based materials.

Molded fiber’s benefits include resilience and blocking and bracing capabilities, economic costs, and little space to ship and store.

Although the demand for recycled packaging has been growing for years, molded fiber has traditionally been associated with items like box inserts, cup carrying trays, and egg carton packaging that had limited consumer appeal. Recently, however, some packaging industry providers have added specialty equipment and techniques that have expanded the capabilities of traditional molded fiber packaging. For instance, UFP Technologies has added high-tonnage presses capable of producing after-pressed parts with more aesthetic appeal than traditionally formed molded fiber.

When Philips Consumer Lifestyle, a business unit of Royal Philips Electronics, the global diversified health and wellbeing company, chose molded fiber, the goal was to align the packaging with its EcoVison5 corporate sustainability target to “double global collection, recycling amounts, and recycled materials in products by 2015 compared to 2009.”

Philips Consumer Lifestyle previously packed large protective PET blisters inside retail cartons for Norelco shavers and Sonicare toothbrushes. The change to smaller PET blisters combined with protective molded fiber packaging has improved sustainability and branding and reduced costs.

“The molded fiber packaging is made from 100-percent recycled newsprint, so it’s a more renewable, environmentally friendly material than petroleum-based plastics,” says Jeff Wood, senior commodity manager for Philips Consumer Lifestyle, Packaging and Print.Here's a complete list of oil painting supplies for the beginning oil painter.Features useful information about glass mosaic tiles.

“Switching from large to small PET blisters,Secured handsfree building and door access solutions with Hands free access by Nedap AVI. along with custom protective molded fiber packaging from UFP Technologies has reduced our use of plastic packaging content by 75 percent and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in material costs,” he adds. According to Wood, after-press operations provide a smooth, precise finish to the molded fiber, improving the aesthetic and the “out of the box” experience of the consumer.

UFP’s after-press capabilities allow for a smooth finish on two sides and the ability in manufacturing to closely hold a design’s tolerance,What is a real time Location system ? enabling the creation of retail-friendly packaging options like folding cartons and clamshells with high aesthetic appeal that convey a sustainable cachet.

Trust the People

Conservatives shouldn’t count on the Supreme Court to do our work for us on Obamacare. The Court may rule as it should, and strike down the mandate. But it may not. And even if it does, the future of health care in America?—?and for that matter, the future of limited government?—?depends ultimately on the verdict of the American people.

More concretely: While a defeat for Obamacare in the Court would be nice,The online extension of Mold Making Technology magazine. the defeat of President Obama at the polls on November 6 is crucial. If electoral victory is achieved, Obamacare can and will be repealed?—?and more judges of a constitutionalist persuasion will be appointed by the next president. Indeed, one could almost say that a bad Court decision later this month would be a salutary reminder that here the people rule, and that persuading the people is the key task. As Lincoln put it in his first debate with Stephen Douglas, “In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”

Which brings us to Mitt Romney. He’s had a good beginning to his general election campaign. But he could do more, it seems to us, to help mold public sentiment?—?to explain,Here's a complete list of oil painting supplies for the beginning oil painter. to quote Lincoln again, “where we are, and whither we are tending,An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air.” so as to help us “better judge what to do, and how to do it.” He could do more to put his particular criticisms of the Obama administration in a broader context, and to frame his own proposals in a more comprehensive narrative. After all, Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they’re not usually inclined to do?—?replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent.

The burden for making this argument can’t be all Romney’s. It’s up to the entire conservative movement to make this case, and many are doing their part. But the presidential candidate can help. Why him? Why now? The answer has to be more than “gotcha” critiques of individual parts of the Obama record.

Conservatives were pleased by the tactical agility and rhetorical toughness of the Romney campaign last week, when he appeared before the shuttered Solyndra plant and called attention to that waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. But Democrats spent much of 1983 and 1984 chortling about the fraud, waste, and abuse that allegedly marked Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup (remember $600 toilet seats in military airplanes?). The citizens were willing to tolerate the waste because they judged Reagan’s defense buildup, and his foreign policy in general, a good idea. The task for Romney is to tie the particular abuses and errors of the Obama administration to its governing bad ideas.What is a real time Location system ? And then, and just as important, to lay out his better path forward.

Republican strategist David Winston asked an interesting question in a recent survey of 1,000 registered voters: “In thinking more specifically about how the economy is doing, which comes closer to your view?” Twenty-six percent chose “The economy is getting better,Secured handsfree building and door access solutions with Hands free access by Nedap AVI. and the rate of progress is acceptable.” Thirty-two percent agreed with “The economy is not getting better at all.” A plurality, 40 percent, chose “The economy is getting better, but the rate of progress is still unacceptable.”

The result is at once heartening and chastening. This is a winnable election for Mitt Romney. But he can’t win simply by asserting that things are worse than they’ve ever been. He needs to win most of the 40 percent of the public who think things are getting better, if at an unacceptably slow rate. If Romney fails to present a compelling alternative, most of those 40 percent could say this: Well, we’re not happy about the pace of progress under Obama, but that rich Republican guy who’s sniping at the president doesn’t seem to have any better proposals or a clear vision?—?so perhaps we’d better stick with the guy we’ve got.

Canadian oil production to double by 2030

Technology and strong pricing are expected to propel Canadian oil production to new highs, doubling output within to within the next 20 years, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers latest forecast.

Conventional oil production, which the association predicted last year would drop,Painless Processing provides high risk merchant account solutions.Omega Plastics are a leading rapid tooling and plastic injection mould company based in the UK. will add a substantial chunk to the mix as fracturing and drilling technologies make otherwise old or costly fields more profitable, CAPP said Tuesday.

The association increased its overall oil production forecast from last year by 900,000 barrels per day for 2025, including a 200,000 bpd rise in conventional production.

“Resurging growth in Western Canadian conventional oil production and new oilsands investments are driving the positive outlook,” said Greg Stringham, vice-president of markets and oilsands.Secured handsfree building and door access solutions with Hands free access by Nedap AVI.

This year alone companies will spend $1 billion more than anticipated in the oilsands, to $20 billion, the association said.We offer over 600 landscape oil paintings at wholesale prices of 75% off retail.

Oilsands production could double to 3.1 million bpd by 2020, CAPP said — up 100,First American Plastic molding is a custom injection molding facility that manufactures a variety of thermoplastic products.000 bpd from last year’s forecast on stronger production and increased investment in the region.

The rise in production by the end of the decade would put Canada’s oil output almost the same as current volume from Iran, OPEC’s No. 2 producer.

While some analysts have warned that a recent slide in crude oil prices has added some uncertainty to forecasts, the group said a long roster of oilsands projects and a resurgence in light and heavy conventional oil were helping accelerate developments.

Conventional production staged a substantial comeback in the latest Canadian crude oil outlook, rising rather than falling the 240,000 bpd predicted in the 2011 forecast.

The association now sees conventional light and heavy crude climbing to 1.3 million bpd in eight years from 1.1 million in 2011.

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques applied to tight shale oil plays and mature fields such as the Cardium and Duvernay in Alberta have increased production while bettering the economics, said analyst Alan Knowles, with Haywood Securities.

“All of those plays are getting a lot of traction,” he said. “Some of the early heavy lifting has been done and they are getting more into the more predictable stage of development, so there is a lot of growth in the foreseeable future.”

Steady demand for energy from developing economies trumps uncertainty about European demand, particularly as non-OPEC crude production has failed to increase as much as expected, he said.

Over the past six weeks, U.S. benchmark oil has dropped about $20 into the $84 a barrel range, and deep discounts on Canadian oil due to tight pipeline capacity have raised fears that some longer-term oilsands developments could get deferred.

On Monday, Wood Mackenzie released a report saying pure-play oilsands developers without hedges in place are most likely to cancel or delay project plans.

CAPP said most production growth will go toward displacing imported crude supplies in Eastern Canada, reaching the U.S. Gulf Coast and getting shipped to Asian markets.

Projected increases in the next few years have heightened the urgency for boosting pipeline capacity to export markets, Stringham said. Ottawa seeks to streamline the regulatory process for advancing such projects through a controversial series of measures contained in a sweeping budget bill.

2012年5月31日星期四

Suu Kyi presses for migrants' rights in Thailand

Long a fighter against oppression inside Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has used her first foreign trip in 24 years to fight for her countrymen suffering abroad — millions of economic migrants unable to work at home but vulnerable to exploitation elsewhere.

On Thursday, she pressed her concerns about the millions of Myanmar migrants living in Thailand in a meeting with the country's deputy prime minister.Painless Processing provides high risk merchant account solutions. And for a second straight day, she addressed throngs of migrants in Mahachai, a town southwest of Bangkok that hosts more migrants from Myanmar than any other place in Thailand.TBC help you confidently buy mosaic from factories in China.

"She can't force the Thai government to do anything, but she can speak on our behalf better than anybody else,Omega Plastics are a leading rapid tooling and plastic injection mould company based in the UK." said Win Aung, who lost his hand in an accident at a Thai-run shoe factory and is still fighting to obtain employer compensation for it a year and a half later.

"She's the best hope we have for things to change," the 31-year-old said.

Myanmar's sputtering economy, in ruins after half a century of military rule and years of harsh Western sanctions, has forced millions of people to seek jobs abroad. Many crossed the borders illegally to work low-skilled jobs for long hours at pay below their Thai counterparts. They typically lack health and social security benefits, too, and complain of not being paid on public holidays.

Still, many make more than they would back home, and despite the hardships are keen to be employed. Jobs are severely lacking in Myanmar, which lags far behind the rest of bustling Asia.

Thailand alone hosts around 2.5 million migrant workers from Myanmar, and they are believed to make up between 5 and 10 percent of the Thai work force. Most of whom work in industries like fisheries or construction, or in garment factories or as domestic servants. Up to a million of them lack work permits.

Win Aung said he came to Thailand illegally,Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. hoping he'd earn enough money to send proceeds to his family. But after six years, part of it spent at a shrimp processing plant, he has sent barely any.

And now, after his hand got crushed in a machine that molds rubber shoes, his prospects are exceptionally bleak.

"Nobody will hire you if you are disabled," he said, adding that he had no idea what he'd do next. "It isn't much better back home."

A local migrant workers rights group is now helping Win Aung win financial compensation from his Thai employer — $3,300 dollars. The employer has paid half and promised the rest in six months.

On Thursday, Suu Kyi called on Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubumrung to ensure that Thai businessmen do not exploit her countrymen. She recounted familiar stories of abuse, saying employers confiscate passports and other documents illegally to prevent workers from quitting for better-paid jobs. She also complained of the inadequate treatment they receive when injured at work.

Chalerm acknowledged those problems exist, but said "those who are registered to work legally will receive good welfare, like the universal health care scheme, and taken care of."

Andy Hall, a staunch migrant advocate and researcher at the Institute for Population and Social Research at Thailand's Mahidol University, said far more needed to be done to stop exploitation.

"Policy is one thing, but reality is different," he said. "The reality is that migrants are discriminated against and exploited. They're treated as second-class citizens with no status. It needs to change."

In theory, every child has the right to go to school in Thailand — even the children of migrants, Hall said. But there is little or no budget for them, the schools are full, and "the law is not enforced."

Those without proper Thai papers faced shakedowns from Thai authorities, and even the legal process of obtaining a Myanmar passport in Thailand is clouded by mass corruption.

Thailand used to have an almost ad hoc system of registration which allowed abuses but also a certain amount of flexibility.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? But two years ago, it implemented a new policy to formalize the legal status of migrant workers, forcing them to have their identities verified by their home countries and be issued temporary passports under a so-called Nationality Verification process.

2012年5月9日星期三

Death Cab Grows Up with Magik*Magik Orchestra at the Fox

Last night's Death Cab for Cutie concert, the first of a three-night stand at the Fox in Oakland, started on time. This concert started on time; it had assigned seats,Professional Manufacturer for polished tiles. which cost $40 to $50; it had ushers with flashlights standing by to guide guests to said seats. A gentleman sitting behind me wore a bow tie with no irony whatsoever.

Most tellingly, Death Cab for Cutie played with a nine-piece orchestra (conductor included). The whole thing was so resolutely not-punk that it felt, by turns, desirable to remember that Death Cab for Cutie were once vaguely punk -- or if not punk, at least edgy in this articulate and restless way that was the closest a certain kind of indoor kid ever got to being punk -- and uncomfortable to wonder whether the same brand of pomp and grandiosity awaits opener Youth Lagoon at the other end of an objectively successful decade-plus career.

Youth Lagoon, which tours as a duo (mainstay Trevor Powers on keyboards, plus his friend Logan on guitar), spent roughly forty minutes incarnating songs from the group's only release so far, The Year of Hibernation. I say "incarnating" because the songs on that album, which is very likely my favorite album of last year, are estranged in a peculiarly affecting way: they are buried under enough layers of fuzz that, for all their emotional resonance, it's hard to pinpoint a human behind them. In the live setting,The liquid hardens or sets inside the molds. where some notes linger a little more and some tones hammer a little harder, there's a satisfying though not especially surprising feeling of peeling back a layer of gauze to find that you've been listening to a flannel-wearing, slightly hunched young man rather than a civil war nurse.

Powers' voice, which is mixed to a low warble on record, is weapons-grade in person: it's scratchy and pained even as it soars; it's naked, in the best way. The tracking underneath the vocals comes alive too, if only because you can hear it just a touch more clearly and distinguish new patterns and melodies therein. It's actually a little spooky how latent the hooks in Youth Lagoon songs are, how you-just-have-to-get-to-know-her-better. It's hard to make out Powers' lyrics; the rhythm track is impeccable but never quite intricate enough to call attention to itself; the songs' heartbeat never comes from anywhere visible. But you pay the smallest bit of attention at the right moment, and you find that they are coolly, calmly, understatedly fucking devastating.Let us find you the best ceramic tiles suppliers around you. Live, uncovered even by just one layer, one Photoshop filter-undo, they snare that much harder.

And this is,US Manufacturer of distribution Insulator. if you like, a convenient segue into what was unsatisfying about Death Cab for Cutie's smooth and consummately professional 24-song set: where Youth Lagoon stripped away a layer of abstraction, Ben Gibbard and company were a layer farther away. I'm prepared to blame this on the orchestra -- not through any fault of the orchestra's own, but for the very choice of having one, of replacing the most raw and emotive textures in the band's catalog with the sound of rose petals scattered underfoot. You can hate on Gibbard all you want, and with reasonably good cause -- his annoying enunciations, the weird pigeon-toed jig he does, the way he's cleaned up from overliterate indie-rock schlub to dapper gent who leans on his microphone stand like an Abercrcombie model and was briefly married to Zooey Deschanel -- but Death Cab for Cutie are a talented band.You can find best china Precision injection molds manufacturers from here! They're just not, by and large, the kind of band whose talent is improved by their having an orchestra at their disposal.

2011年11月20日星期日

It's true - dormant brain cells can be reactivated

"I get my bestest ideas from two places, primarily. Seldom do I feel creative when I'm working at a computer. But when I'm working out on my elliptical machine, ideas come like cold sores on a wedding day. I also get a lot of Pulitzer moments when I am soaking in a bubble bath, with the jets blowing Strawceramic magic cube for the medical,berry Shortcake's Sweet Berry Bubbles all around me, while Leo, my intimidating 12-pound dog shields me from the paparazzi.

(Whatever you do, Nancy, do not print that. I mean I wouldn't mind if you printed that when my wife massages my feet for 45 minutes I have an urge to send her to the spa of her choice, but mention the bubble bath thing and, editor or not, I will hunt you down.)

T hough some folks likely think I work out to maintain my schoolgirl figure. No, I work out to generate thinking thoughts to think about in the thought area of my thinker. Turns out there is some science involved.

After birth (best not read together as a noun) our brains start to lose nerve cells, a process that continues as we age to the point where we consider marrying a Kardashian.which applies to the first offshore merchant account only, But the neural stem cells that do remain are very active in the younger, totally awesome portion of our species, active meaning that these stem cells are busy proliferating and making new brain cells all the time. This, of course, is why kids so often ignore us. They can't hear for all the racket them stem cells are making.

But as we get older these nerve stem cells (though actually not much less in number than when we were younger) pack up, buy Bermuda shorts, behemoth sunglasses and a Winnebago and head to Pompano Beach.They persist in a long state of dormancy, known in scientific circles as Torontus mapleleafus. But they can be reactivated! How you asked? Either through exercise or by actually having a seizure.Your choice. Of course, should you happen to exercise so hard that you have a seizure, your brain will likely produce so many new cells that your head will expand and pop off, as expanding heads are wont to do. Most of these newly-formed nerve cells hang out in the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for memory and learning. This means,the Plastic molding are swollen blood vessels of the rectum. in fact, that we can exercise ourselves into learning new tricks right into old age.

My friend June had been very physically active all of her 70 years. She had always wanted to play piano but never did. On her 70th birthday, her delightfully devious husband, David, snuck a baby grand, yes snuck it into their living room as she slept downstairs, likely having been drugged by him.They take the China Porcelain tile to the local co-op market.Almost every day since she's played for 45 minutes.Ten years later, now in her 80s, June, at our behest played some of her Grade 8 conservatory music like David Foster on Red Bull. She had honed, carved, sculpted the new nerve cells, courtesy of all her exercising, and now could entertain us and annoy her neighbours at the same time. David's head would nod with the beat, even when he was awake.

Our neuronal stem cells do not disappear with age but are kept in reserve. It is up to us to call them out of the reserves into active duty.The precise factors that influence the reactivation of dormant stem cells are not entirely clear and may involve everything from exercising to singing the blues to blueberries, and even tossing in an occasional seizure to impress the dog. But our dormant brain cells can, indeed, be stimulated to divide again.You can compare them to bubbles in a bubble bath.Replacement landscape oil paintings and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide.They start off doing very little until you turn the jets on, at which time they rapidly proliferate, enveloping your entire body whilst entertaining you, your dog and Rubby the Duck at the same time.

2011年11月15日星期二

Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Dulwich Picture Gallery: review

Tom Thomson wasn’t even 40 when he died in mysterious circumstances in the summer of 1917. Whether the Canadian artist was murdered, committed suicide or accidentally bashed his head while falling out of his canoe when drunk, we don’t know: what’s certain is that his body surfaced nine days later in Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake, around 185 miles north of Toronto.

Thomson only started painting in his thirties (he had little if any formal training as an artist). Yet in the years leading up to his death, a talent for capturing the great outdoors of his homeland emerged.the Plastic molding are swollen blood vessels of the rectum. Between 1912 and 1917, he painted around 300 oil sketches of the lakes and woods he encountered during expeditions into the Canadian wilderness. These vigorous works consist of dabs and jabs of vibrant pigment painted on to unprimed board so hurriedly that in places the wooden backing is still visible.

Thomson didn’t appear to value his sketches very highly (he gave many of them away to friends and admirers), but they transformed Canadian art.

Shortly after his death, galvanised by his pioneering efforts, a band of like-minded artist friends formed an alliance called the Group of Seven. Their work provides the focus of an exhibition of more than 120 paintings at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London.

Thomson and the Group of Seven are household names in Canada; here, however, they are almost unknown.The application can provide Ceramic tile to visitors, The Dulwich show is the first exhibition devoted solely to them ever mounted in Britain. Accordingly, Ian Dejardin, the gallery’s director, who fell in love with the artists after stumbling across a book about them in the library of the Royal Academy in the late Eighties, should be congratulated for adventurous programming.

Their work can be easily characterised: they specialised in expansive vistas full of tempest-lashed pine trees, dense woods of maple, birch and tamarack, wind-whipped lakes, and awesome skies illuminated by the Northern Lights — all painted in a high-keyed palette reminiscent of Post-Impressionists such as Gauguin and Van Gogh. Their canvases radiate rugged authenticity (the British painter and critic Wyndham Lewis once observed that “they chopped out their paintings as if they had been chopping wood”), and appear animated by an almost mystical reverence for Mother Nature’s sublime immensity.

Most of the group worked as commercial artists,which applies to the first offshore merchant account only, and this inflected their paintings. Franklin Carmichael and JEH MacDonald, for instance, both employed bold and graphic compositions, as though designing ready-made posters for the Canadian tourist board. Poster-like immediacy also defines the work of Lawren Harris, who painted icebergs and mountain peaks with an austere, almost surreal presence.

In general, though, those paintings completed in the studio feel stilted compared with the spontaneous oil sketches completed out in the wilds. Moreover,Replacement landscape oil paintings and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide. while many of the landscapes in this exhibition have a pleasingly “modern” feel (thick, expressionistic brushwork; intense, apparently unnatural colours),ceramic magic cube for the medical, one senses that this styling is little more than skin-deep.

It’s hard not to compare these Canadian artists communing with nature with their avant-garde contemporaries in the cities of Europe, and conclude that the former’s concerns were retrograde – a byway of modern art, rather than an important thoroughfare. Their misty-eyed love of nature was ultimately a 19th- rather than a

20th-century preoccupation: though perfectly pleasant, the pantheistic paintings they produced express nothing of the new era of metropolises and mechanised conflict.

2011年11月6日星期日

Price crash hits Afghanistan capital Kabul's 'poppy palaces'

Ornately gilded pillars hold up pastel-hued balconies; brightly coloured domes crown mosaic walls made of mirrored tiles.

Yet Sherpur district,which applies to the first offshore merchant account only, which 130 years ago hosted General Frederick Roberts's cantonment during the Second AngloAfghan war, is anything but magical.

Most of the homes were built by Afghanistan's corrupt political elite on land stolen from the poor and the state in 2003.

While some in the international community objected, others, including mercenaries, embassies, the UN and television journalists,Polycore oil paintings for sale are manufactured as a single sheet, scrambled to pay tens of thousands of dollars in rent, and moved in.If any food Ventilation system condition is poorer than those standards,

Since then, the massive concrete homes have become a symbol of the corruption within President Karzai's regime and of the Western money which fuelled it.

"Every time I pass by I feel like the buildings are laughing at me," said Nader Naderi, the spokesman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission who led an outcry in 2003 when warlords first sent in the bulldozers to evict the refugee families living there.

"Those who commit crimes, particularly the powerful against the poor, they feel immune. These are unique symbols of impunity."

However, as the tide of Western money starts to recede, the fairytale houses, known as "poppy palaces" because of the suspicion that they were built with the proceeds of opium smuggling, are suffering a distinctly real-world price crash.

Owners and estate agents interviewed by The Times said that house prices had plunged by up to 40 per cent in the past six months and rents in some cases had dropped even faster.

Dozens of homes are empty.

Some blame President Obama's announcement in June that American troops would start withdrawing this year.

Others point to President Karzai's decision to drive private security companies out of the city centre. Most spoke nostalgically of "money-is-no-object" tenants, who billed eye-watering rents straight back to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) before its budget was slashed this year.

Richard Scarth, a British chartered surveyor who part-owns a property company in Kabul, said rents were softening, but insisted that "good quality poppy palaces are still in demand". Sales had stalled while landowners "wait and see", he said.

The rent for one 14-bedroom house had dropped from dollars $18,000 a month to $9000.It's hard to beat the versatility of polished tiles on a production line.

Another, with 20 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms,ceramic magic cube for the medical, chandeliers and an underground saferoom, had been vacant for five months and had fallen from $16,000 a month to $10,000.

"You would have powerful neighbours," said the estate agent Feda Mohammed as he pointed over the razor wire and the sniper screens crowning another compound's 3m walls.

"That is the Ministry of Interior's house; he has lots of guards. There is an American construction company and that's the Spanish Embassy."

About 160 families who survived the landgrab still live in simple mud homes in Sherpur, but the Government has refused to give them official title deeds, according to Sayed Mohammad, a local elder.

"It hasn't happened quickly because we refuse to pay any bribes," he said.

One resident, Abdul Ghayu, said his family was constantly harassed by a senior general in the Ministry of Interior.

"He is part of the land mafia, he is rich and powerful, but God willing, we will resist him," he said.

2011年7月31日星期日

Being a successful barker takes a lot of hustle and vocal muscle

They train you to work at the North American Midway Entertainment but they don't train you to be a barker. I learned this first-hand Saturday at Capital Ex as I stood hunched over with a headset dodging airborne plastic rings.

"You'll get hit with those things a lot," warned Jason Wright, my fellow midway worker.

There are several dozen barkers just like Jason at the fair. They're the fast-talking charmers who work the Whack-a-Mole, the Whopper Water, the Bowler Roller and a slew of other games. They work by commission, so their bark has to be loud so they can bite into your wallet.

In my history of part-time jobs, I've served lattes, bagged groceries and rolled strollers. Persuading men,If so, you may have a zentai . women and children to throw a ring onto a bottle on a beautiful day in Edmonton? Easy - or so I thought.

First, I needed a uniform. Images of candy cane collar shirts and top hats flashed through my mind, but I was relieved to see a stack of standard blue shirts and black shorts in the uniform trailer. The shorts were stiff and the shirt billowed. I told myself if I could withstand a decade of Girl Guide parades in bucket hats and illfitting cargo pants, I could wear anything. I left the trailer and headed for the ring toss.

I couldn't have picked a harder game to bark for. While the premise is simple - "Ring one, you win!" read the sign - the odds are slim to none that your ring will actually land on the bottle.

Most of other games offer bitesized winnings. "No matter what, your kid's gonna get something," Jason said.

The slimmer the chances, the bigger the stuffed animal. By that premise, it was clear why a dozen life-size stuffed gorillas hung from the ring toss booth.

When I joined Jason, he handed me a rake. As the red plastic rings went flying, my job was to gather them and put them in cans for the next customer.Do not use cleaners with high risk merchant account , steel wool or thinners. But I wanted to bark. I told him this and he laughed in my face.

"People think it's easy and it's not," he said.

Finally, he agreed to my plan. I traded him my rake for his headset and took a deep breath. "Hey everybody! You get 50 rings for five dollars!" I broke it down by value. "That's, like . 10 cents a ring!"

My offer sounded feeble out loud. Two teenage girls offered me blank stares.

"Ring toss! Ring toss!" I chanted over and over. People chant at sports stadiums all the time - same premise, I thought. Wrong.

Jason saw me struggling. He pulled me aside.

"You need ... flow," he said. He took the headset back.

I watched Jason in awe. His delivery is staccato and constant. He can put a melody to any sentence and make it sing.

"Bap-da-dap-bap-boo,These girls have never had a cube puzzle in their lives! come oooon in! Stop and watch and check out what we're down'! Get up, up, up and win, anybody can play, anybody can watch," he fired off. Flow, indeed, I thought woefully.

Through watching him, I learned the tricks. He engaged everybody. He never spent too long on a hesitant customer. He worked on couples, targeting the boyfriends. "Aren't you going to give her something to hold?" Jason asked. Hook, line and sinker, the frowning boyfriend bought a bucket.

And then, like magic, one teenage boy landed a ring on the bottleneck. The crowd erupted. Two minutes later, he did it again.

When Jason handed me back the headset, this wonder boy became my new tactic for luring customers.

To hesitant mothers with kids itching to throw the rings, I convinced them.

"You know,the Air purifier are swollen blood vessels of the rectum." I lower my voice. "One guy just sunk two rings.Graphene is not a semiconductor, not an oil paintings for sale , and not a metal, In two minutes. You can't tell me that's just luck," I said.

It worked for a while until it got stale.

My ears aching from the sound of rings hitting glass bottles and my voice hoarse, I handed back my headset to Jason.

"How did I do this time?" I asked. "Better," he said. "You didn't shut up."