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The Viet Nam Zippo (R): Cigarette Lighters 1933-1975

The Viet Nam Zippo (R): Cigarette Lighters 1933-1975

By: Jim Fiorella (author)Hardback

Up to 2 WeeksUsually despatched within 2 weeks

More than 700 striking photographs and a detailed text about Zippo cigarette lighters, their history and current values, as well as the Viet Nam War comprise this important new book. It provides not only photographs of authentic and counterfeit Zippos and the factory's own art work, but also a concise outline of the War, lists of U.S. and Vietnamese ship and boat names that did duty in Viet Nam, definitions of naval abbreviations, South Vietnamese waterways and geographic names, Allied in-country units, and a comprehensive dictionary translating important Vietnamese military terms so that old Zippo lighters can be interpreted today. Singularly, this book holds tremendous appeal to an extremely broad audience. Lighter collectors will see a wide variety of rare and common Zippos. Photographers and artists interested in the Viet Nam War and its images will see powerful action photos. Viet Nam War and general military collectors and historians will find factual information organized in a quickly accessible form. Political historians and Sixties and Seventies collectors will find ideas and objects to delight their interests. All will want this unique and striking book for their libraries.

About Author

Author Jim Fiorella is an avid Zippo collector, freelance writer, and photographer who lives in New York.

Product Details

  • ISBN13: 9780764305948
  • Format: Hardback
  • Number Of Pages: 192
  • ID: 9780764305948
  • weight: 1500
  • ISBN10: 0764305948

Delivery Information

  • Saver Delivery: Yes
  • 1st Class Delivery: Yes
  • Courier Delivery: Yes
  • Store Delivery: Yes

Prices are for internet purchases only. Prices and availability in WHSmith Stores may vary significantly


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Self-Organization in Sensor and Actor Networks

Self-Organization in Sensor and Actor Networks

Falko Dressler

ISBN: 978-0-470-72446-0

Nov 2007

386 pages

Self-Organization in Sensor and Actor Networks explores self-organization mechanisms and methodologies concerning the efficient coordination between intercommunicating autonomous systems.Self-organization is often referred to as the multitude of algorithms and methods that organise the global behaviour of a system based on inter-system communication. Studies of self-organization in natural systems first took off in the 1960s. In technology, such approaches have become a hot research topic over the last 4-5 years with emphasis upon management and control in communication networks, and especially in resource-constrained sensor and actor networks. In the area of ad hoc networks new solutions have been discovered that imitate the properties of self-organization. Some algorithms for on-demand communication and coordination, including data-centric networking, are well-known examples.

Key features include:

  • Detailed treatment of self-organization, mobile sensor and actor networks, coordination between autonomous systems, and bio-inspired networking.
  • Overview of the basic methodologies for self-organization, a comparison to central and hierarchical control, and classification of algorithms and techniques in sensor and actor networks.
  • Explanation of medium access control, ad hoc routing, data-centric networking, synchronization, and task allocation issues.
  • Introduction to swarm intelligence, artificial immune system, molecular information exchange.
  • Numerous examples and application scenarios to illustrate the theory.

Self-Organization in Sensor and Actor Networks will prove essential reading for students of computer science and related fields; researchers working in the area of massively distributed systems, sensor networks, self-organization, and bio-inspired networking will also find this reference useful.

About the Author.

List of Abbreviations.

I Self-Organization.

1 Introduction to Self-Organization.

1.1 Understanding self-organization.

1.2 Application scenarios for self-organization.

2 System Management and Control – A Historical Overview.

2.1 System architecture.

2.2 Management and control.

2.2.1 Centralized control.

2.2.2 Distributed systems.

2.2.3 Self-organizing systems.

3 Self-Organization – Context and Capabilities.

3.1 Complex systems.

3.2 Self-organization and emergence.

3.3 Systems lacking self-organization.

3.3.1 External control.

3.3.2 Blueprints and templates.

3.4 Self-X capabilities.

3.5 Consequences of emergent properties.

3.6 Operating self-organizing systems.

3.6.1 Asimov’s Laws of Robotics.

3.6.2 Attractors.

3.7 Limitations of self-organization.

4 Natural Self-Organization.

4.1 Development of understandings.

4.2 Examples in natural sciences.

4.2.1 Biology.

4.2.2 Chemistry.

4.3 Differentiation self-organization and bio-inspired.

4.3.1 Exploring bio-inspired.

4.3.2 Bio-inspired techniques.

4.3.3 Self-organization vs. bio-inspired.

5 Self-Organization in Technical Systems.

5.1 General applicability.

5.1.1 Autonomous systems.

5.1.2 Multi-robot systems.

5.1.3 Autonomic networking.

5.1.4 Mobile Ad Hoc Networks.

5.1.5 Sensor and Actor Networks.

5.2 Operating Sensor and Actor Networks.

6 Methods and Techniques.

6.1 Basic methods.

6.1.1 Positive and negative feedback.

6.1.2 Interactions among individuals and with the environment.

6.1.3 Probabilistic techniques.

6.2 Design paradigms for self-organization.

6.2.1 Design process.

6.2.2 Discussion of the design paradigms.

6.3 Developing nature-inspired self-organizing systems.

6.4 Modeling self-organizing systems.

6.4.1 Overview to modeling techniques.

6.4.2 Differential equation models.

6.4.3 Monte Carlo simulations.

6.4.4 Choosing the right modeling technique.

Appendix I Self-Organization – Further Reading.

II Networking Aspects: Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks.

7 Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks.

7.1 Ad hoc networks.

7.1.1 Basic properties of ad hoc networks.

7.1.2 Mobile Ad Hoc Networks.

7.2 Wireless Sensor Networks.

7.2.1 Basic properties of sensor networks.

7.2.2 Composition of single sensor nodes.

7.2.3 Communication in sensor networks.

7.2.4 Energy aspects.

7.2.5 Coverage and deployment.

7.2.6 Comparison between MANETs and WSNs.

7.2.7 Application examples.

7.3 Challenges and research issues.

7.3.1 Required functionality and constraints.

7.3.2 Research objectives.

8 Self-Organization in Sensor Networks.

8.1 Properties and objectives.

8.2 Categorization in two dimensions.

8.2.1 Horizontal dimension.

8.2.2 Vertical dimension.

8.3 Methods and application examples.

8.3.1 Mapping with primary self-organization methods.

8.3.2 Global state.

8.3.3 Location information.

8.3.4 Neighborhood information.

8.3.5 Local state.

8.3.6 Probabilistic techniques.

9 Medium Access Control.

9.1 Contention-based protocols.

9.2 Sensor MAC.

9.2.1 Synchronized listen/sleep cycles.

9.2.2 Performance aspects.

9.2.3 Performance evaluation.

9.3 Power-Control MAC protocol.

9.4 Conclusion.

10 Ad Hoc Routing.

10.1 Overview and categorization.

10.1.1 Address-based routing vs. data-centric forwarding.

10.1.2 Classification of ad hoc routing protocols.

10.2 Principles of ad hoc routing protocols.

10.2.1 Destination Sequenced Distance Vector.

10.2.2 Dynamic Source Routing.

10.2.3 Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector.

10.2.4 Dynamic MANET on Demand.

10.3 Optimized route stability.

10.4 Dynamic address assignment.

10.4.1 Overview and centralized assignment.

10.4.2 Passive Duplicate Address Detection.

10.4.3 Dynamic Address Allocation.

10.5 Conclusion.

11 Data-Centric Networking.

11.1 Overview and classification.

11.1.1 Data dissemination.

11.1.2 Network-centric operation.

11.1.3 Related approaches.

11.2 Flooding, gossiping, and optimizations.

11.2.1 Flooding.

11.2.2 Pure gossiping.

11.2.3 Optimized gossiping.

11.3 Agent-based techniques.

11.4 Directed diffusion.

11.4.1 Basic algorithm.

11.4.2 Mobility support.

11.4.3 Energy efficiency.

11.5 Data aggregation.

11.5.1 Principles and objectives.

11.5.2 Aggregation topologies.

11.6 Conclusion.

12 Clustering.

12.1 Principles of clustering.

12.1.1 Requirements and classification.

12.1.2 k-means.

12.1.3 Hierarchical clustering.

12.2 Clustering for efficient routing.

12.2.1 Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy.

12.2.2 Hybrid Energy-Efficient Distributed Clustering Approach.

12.3 Conclusion.

Appendix II Networking Aspects – Further reading.

III Coordination and Control: Sensor and Actor Networks.

13 Sensor and Actor Networks.

13.1 Introduction.

13.1.1 Composition of SANETs – an example.

13.1.2 Properties and capabilities.

13.1.3 Components of SANET nodes.

13.1.4 Application examples.

13.2 Challenges and research objectives.

13.2.1 Communication and coordination.

13.2.2 Collaboration and task allocation.

13.3 Limitations.

14 Communication and Coordination.

14.1 Synchronization vs. coordination.

14.1.1 Problem statement.

14.1.2 Logical time.

14.1.3 Coordination.

14.2 Time synchronization in WSNs and SANETs.

14.2.1 Requirements and objectives.

14.2.2 Conventional approaches.

14.2.3 Algorithms for WSNs.

14.3 Distributed coordination.

14.3.1 Scalable coordination.

14.3.2 Selected algorithms.

14.3.3 Integrated sensor-actor and actor-actor coordination.

14.3.4 Problems with selfish nodes.

14.4 In-network operation and control.

14.5 Conclusion.

15 Collaboration and Task Allocation.

15.1 Introduction to MRTA.

15.1.1 Primary objectives.

15.1.2 Classification and taxonomy.

15.2 Intentional cooperation – auction-based task allocation.

15.2.1 Open Agent Architecture.

15.2.2 MURDOCH.

15.2.3 Dynamic negotiation algorithm.

15.3 Emergent cooperation.

15.3.2 Stimulation by state.

15.4 Conclusion.

Appendix III Coordination and Control – Further reading.

IV Self-Organization Methods in Sensor and Actor Networks.

16 Self-Organization Methods – Revisited.

16.1 Self-organization methods in SANETs.

16.2 Positive and negative feedback.

16.3 Interactions among individuals and with the environment .

16.4 Probabilistic techniques.

17 Evaluation Criteria.

17.1 Scalability.

17.2 Energy considerations.

17.2.1 Energy management.

17.2.2 Transmission power management.

17.3 Network lifetime.

17.3.1 Definition of network lifetime.

17.3.2 Scenario-based comparisons of network lifetime.

V Bio-inspired Networking.

18 Bio-inspired Systems.

18.1 Introduction and overview.

18.1.1 Ideas and concepts.

18.1.2 Bio-inspired research fields.

18.2 Swarm Intelligence.

18.2.1 Principles of ant foraging.

18.2.2 Ant-based routing.

18.2.3 Ant-based task allocation.

18.3 Artificial Immune System.

18.3.1 Principles of the immune system.

18.3.2 Application examples.

18.4 Cellular signaling pathways.

18.4.1 Introduction to signaling pathways.

18.4.2 Applicability in SANETs.

18.5 Conclusion.

Appendix IV Bio-inspired Networking – Further reading.

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Meisterstück Sfumato Wallet 6cc - Brown

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2609 South 1st St. Abilene, TX 79605 325-672-7700
1642 North 1st St. Abilene, TX 79605 325-704-6002

2011 Ford Mustang Conv V6

Conv V6

City 19/Hwy30 Estimated By E.P.A. - Actual Mileage May Vary
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(17) Photos
Price $9,995

Dealership Information

Williams Group Auto

Contact Us Today

802 South Clack St.

Abilene, TX 79605

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Visit Williams Group Auto and take a look at our wide selection of vehicles.  Our friendly staff is here to assist you in the car buying process from start to finish.   We have three convenient locations right here in Abilene.  Visit us at 802 South Clack, 2609 South 1st, or 1642 North 1st St., to test drive this vehicle or call at 325-793-2500 (South Clack), 325-672-7700(South 1st), or 325-704-6002 (North 1st).

Vehicle Options

  • "Black box" event data recorder (2010)
  • (2) Covered cupholders
  • (2) Pwr points
  • 3.7L 4V Ti-VCT V6 engine
  • 4-wheel anti-lock braking system (ABS) (2010)
  • AdvanceTrac electronic stability control (ESC)
  • auxiliary audio input jack
  • Belt Minder (2010)
  • Black pwr mirrors -inc: integrated blind spot mirror
  • Compass & outside temperature display (2010)
  • Complex reflector halogen headlamps
  • Cruise control
  • Driver footrest
  • Driver/front passenger airbags w/occupant sensor
  • Easy Fuel capless fuel filler system
  • Electric pwr-assist rack & pinion steering
  • Front seat-back mounted map pockets
  • Illuminated entry
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Fresh fears over Greenfield wind turbines plan

Credit:  Owen Evans | News North Wales | 05 December 2014 | www.newsnorthwales.co.uk ~~

Plans for a pair of wind turbines taller than 17 double decker buses have left residents fearing for their quality of life, it is claimed.

Greenfield councillor Rosetta Dolphin fears plans by Kingspan Ltd for two wind turbines standing 78 metres (255 feet) high at the Greenfield Business Park would impact on the beauty of Greenfield Valley near Holywell – an area she previously described as “one of Flintshire’s crown jewels”.

The plans have been submitted about a year after the company lodged an application for two 110 metre high wind turbines at the same location.

This was refused by members of Flintshire Council’s planning committee.

Cllr Dolphin said: “All they’ve done really is changed the height.

“As far as the residents are concerned, their concerns are still the same.

“They have concerns about noise. What they are saying is at night, when the background noise has gone, the humming noise is still going to be there and in summer when they are opening their windows it is going to have an impact on their quality of life.

“They are concerned if they come to sell their properties, is that going to have an impact on their value?”

Cllr Dolphin said another major concern was the impact the turbines would have on views in the area.

She said: “There are also so many birds in the area and they will fly into them.

“The Dee Estuary is a Site of Special Scientific Interest classified as one of, if not the, most important sites in the UK for breeding and migratory bird population.”

In the fresh application submitted last month, Kingspan said it had undertaken a public exhibition and distributed letters to residents about their plans.

It said around 95 per cent of the power generated by the turbines would be used by Kingspan for its Greenfield factory.

In a report the firm said: “The tip height was reduced to 80m to reduce landscape and visual impact, as well as the impact upon Liverpool Airport and Hawarden’s Radar.

“A strong justification for

on-site renewables and the benefits to Kingspan, the local community, and the environment has been made.

“When determining applications for wind turbine developments, a balancing exercise must be undertaken to weigh the wider benefits of renewable energy against local impact.

“The proposed wind energy scheme will provide renewable energy that will deliver WAG’s policy imperatives to deliver 2GW of such energy by 2017 but also make a large contribution to the onshore targets within Flintshire.”

Source:  Owen Evans | News North Wales | 05 December 2014 | www.newsnorthwales.co.uk

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

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text:
The banality of evil is alive and well on Cape Cod

May 5, 2014

Curt Devlin, Guest Editor

My local newspaper recently published one of the ugliest, most mean-spirited op-eds I’ve ever read.  According to its author, Melody Affonce, anyone whose health is harmed by wind turbines must furnish unassailable proof before we take action to prevent further harm.  She compares these victims to those seeking workers compensation, welfare, or disability benefits.  (The fact that, so far, no one in Little Bay, Mass., is asking for compensation didn’t cross Affonce’s luminous mind.)

At the moment, the only thing the turbine neighbors are actually asking for is relief.  They just want to be free from the misery of headaches, dizziness, nausea and sleeplessness that they or their families experience whenever the turbines are spinning.  Affonce would deny them the same protections enjoyed by every other law-abiding citizen, and ignore their legal right to the peaceful enjoyment of their homes.  By her tortured logic, if people are beating you, you should have to prove that it hurts before you are justified in asking them to stop.

How far does Affonce’s evident endorsement of undeserved brutality and neglect go?  Perhaps we should deny medical treatment to seniors until they prove with certainty that they actually need it.  It is well known that care for the elderly absorbs a disproportionate amount our society’s healthcare resources through Medicare.  In the Affonce-care approach, we could dramatically decrease the cost of healthcare—not to mention the elderly population.  As long as we vote on this, it’s fair and just, right?

After the Vietnam War, we ignored the obvious suffering of vets with PTSD for over thirty years.  They couldn’t prove they were actually wounded—or that it was caused by combat.  The neurological damage of PTSD isn’t as obvious as the wounds caused by bullets and shrapnel—even though it is sometimes more debilitating.  According to Affonce’s line of reasoning, we should continue to deny all vets any mental health care or intervention until they prove they have sustained neurological injuries in battle.

No doubt, Affonce can tell us how to furnish proof of pain or suffering.  (How does one prove a headache, dizziness, or nausea?  The obvious fact that one cannot demonstrate somatic experiences, whether pleasant or painful, also escapes her gleaming intellect.)

To satisfy Affonce’s quest for absolute certainty, I modestly propose that we begin vivisecting one turbine neighbor each month until her hunger for “knowledge” is completely satisfied.  Sound reasonable?

When a doctor takes an x-ray, she does so to find the cause of pain.  She begins by assuming that your complaint is valid because she has an ethical obligation, known as duty of care, to take her patients complaint seriously.  We have a similar ethical duty to care for one another — called humanity.  You may know it as the Golden Rule.  Apparently, Affonce doesn’t feel bound by it.  Some people don’t mind cruelty as long as they aren’t disturbed by screaming.

For two years now, we have concentrated people in an infrasound ghetto against their will, subjected them to incessant low frequency pressure waves, and forced them to live in amplification chambers (which they once called home).  We are depriving them of their health, their livelihoods, and their basic human rights.  We are subjecting them to unwarranted experimentation.

Under these circumstances, Affonce’s demands aren’t just morally depraved—they are dangerous. At the Wind Forum in 2012, I described the siting of these turbines as an ominous social experiment and warned where it leads.  It may surprise you to learn that two of the diabolical experiments conducted at Dachau were designed to test the limits of human endurance to extreme pressure conditions and chronic sleep deprivation.  At Nuremburg, those who conducted them argued that the experiments were for “the greater good.”

At the forum, I asked:  Aren’t we better than this?  My question was rhetorical because I believed the answer was yes.  But when opinions like Affonce’s go unchallenged, I’m not so sure anymore.

When the silent majority watches impassively while wind zealots blame their victims, ignore human anguish, and applaud the trampling of basic human rights for the sake of some bankrupt ideological delusion disguised as the greater good, we inch ever closer to exactly the kind of unwarranted experimentation the Nuremburg Code was intended to prohibit.

Many have stood by, while officials make public apologies to their victims on public access television, like some circus sideshow, and hypocritically proclaim that “everyone deserves a good night’s sleep.”  Yet, none of these officials demands action to ensure that everyone gets one.  They personify what Hannah Arendt so aptly referred to as the banality of evil.

When the obvious truth is fully acknowledged, people like Affonce will be the first to claim, “We didn’t know!”

  1. Comment by Marshall Rosenthal on 05/05/2014 at 7:05 pm

    When I read Ms. Affonce’s mean-spirited pronouncement that the burden of proof is the obligation of the victim, I was revolted and nauseated. Upon Googling her, I recall that she has served as a welfare department gatekeeper, one who may see their duty to the state to be that of finding ways to deny the needy of assistance.

    I have encountered such nay-saying bureaucrats in the Social Security Administration, trying to get some help for my retarded adult brother-in-law. They were relieved to learn that he passed away, prematurely. When it comes to the names of government agencies, for example, in this state, DPH (Dept. of Public Health) or DEP (Dept. of Environmental Protection), wind turbine victims will receive the opposite treatment: bogus noise studies, the cold shoulder from the suborned clinical community, and even be assaulted by the likes of Ms. Affonce.

  2. Comment by Melodie Burkett on 05/05/2014 at 9:16 pm

    I am so embarrassed that this reptile with the IQ of a cucumber is named Melody Afarce or some such. I suppose she should be pitied, but frankly I do not have the heart for beasts like her.

    One war at a time please.

    Melodie Burkett,
    Clearview, Ontario, Canada

  3. Comment by Useless on 05/06/2014 at 8:36 am

    “How does one prove a headache, dizziness, or nausea?” Perhaps throwing up on Melody Affonce would provide some credible proof.

  4. Comment by Simon on 05/06/2014 at 10:15 am

    One word of warning: I know from one case in our neighboring town where a wind turbine has led to LFN-related sicknesses in residents, where a weird “letter to the editor” was sent by pro-wind activists that was signed with the name of one of the victims to undermine their position in the community. We should therefore keep the possibility in mind that some people play dirty in this game…

    But if this is “our” Melody Affonce, this online CV (maybe from a namesake) from Fairhaven, MA says it all: (

    If sb. thinks “filing and faxing” or “Route incoming mail to apprpriate parties” (spelling errors are from the CV) are highly relevant skills and should show up in a CV, they probably DO have some issues with the real world anyway, not to mention the concepts of scientific processes, the principles of epidemiology or even the fact that the ILFN-induced kinetosis has been described in occupational medicine publications since the 80s…

    If you look up “Melody Affonce” in the Fairhaven White Pages, there is only one person by that name. Look her up and then compare the address with this map: … so whoever lives at XX Eddy Street has quite a few neighbours who filed complaints on behalf of the effects from the two turbines…

    Maybe sb. wanted to do their neighbours in, or was frustrated with a boring job, or just angry, or ignorant, or the strange laws of physics have created a LFN-free spot–it actually doesn’t matter. Let’s focus on those who ARE smart but who PLAY dumb, who PLAY ignorant so they can have a big fat profit at the expense of our health…

  5. Comment by Melodie Burkett on 05/08/2014 at 8:18 am

    BRAVO! So relieved that this comparison kept going. Complacency, willful blindness and cowardice have allowed the travesty of forced industrialization of our rural residential and agricultural lands in Ontario and for that matter, globally. People and animals sick and suffering, permanent damage to those that cannot escape, wildlife displaced and raptors slaughtered. Children taught propaganda in the schools our taxes pay for.

    Families losing the life-long equity in their home and farms. Now what will they retire on? What will they eat? Where will they go? Who replaces the prize cattle that began to have stillborn or aborted calves, nosebleeds and malformed hooves? The farmer who abandoned his farm and left the province? He put up a big sign to warn others, but who had time to get involved? It was easier not to believe him.

    Irresponsible government allowing and even encouraging a corporate takeover of our lands based on an false ideology and an agenda. Politicians bowed to the lobbyists, joined the popular side even if they are misinformed. Get the popular vote. Stay in power. Life is good.

    My Polish father was 80 lbs when he was liberated from a concentration camp. He was only 23 years old when Poland was raped. He served as an officer in the Polish underground and helped Jews that had been herded into the ghetto in Warsaw. He ran false passports and papers to get them out of the country.

    His cover to get in the locked gates of the ghetto? He was in charge of collecting fees for garbage pick up. Sometimes the garbage was dead bodies! What courage! He said his heart pounded when he returned to his flat outside of the ghetto. He would check to see if the string he had carefully placed in the door jam was on the floor. Were they on to him? If they had searched his flat he would know. He attended underground meetings and listened to BBC reports on an illegal radio. If caught, the penalty was torture and death.

    Fortunately, after three years of this hell, he was eventually taken off a street car to be used as a slave worker in the camps for the remaining two years of the war. He was so proud to become Canadian. He worked hard in the city and saved for his retirement. He bought this humble little farm so he could retire in peace and quiet in the countryside.

    He is dead now. This farm under attack by big wind and big government was his farm. Surely he is rolling in his grave. Most have forgotten the horrors of a dictatorship. They take their freedom for granted. I will remember, for my dad’s sake and for my adult children who just don’t know, and for my newborn first grandchild — I will fight on.

    Melodie Kowalski Burkett
    Ontario, Canada

  6. Comment by Marshall Rosenthal on 05/08/2014 at 3:06 pm

    Melodie you have my love and respect. This fight may be protracted and deadly, but I believe that the truth will out.

    US Sen. Chuck Shumer, Dem., New York State, would re-write the US Constitution, trashing the First Amendment to make illegal political dissent pronouncements against the dominant liberal political agenda, noteworthy about it, the climate change cant. Already the renewable scam spinners are finger pointing at “climate change deniers.” Never mind that the schemes of Big Solar and Big Wind as a technology do not work, and can never provide reliable power for modern consumption, the critics of this conspiracy of pols, government, renewable energy moguls, and their willing “green shirt” followers, are being singled out as social enemies.

    This is a slippery slope, Chuck, and whatever you happen to be calling yourself politically, you are just another totalitarian seeking to garner more power and control.

    In whatever country we find his ilk, they deserve to be thrown out on their kiesters, before more people are harmed.

  7. Comment by Sharon on 05/18/2014 at 2:20 pm

    I have just gone through three weeks of vertigo that was so bad, I could not drive, walk through my house without holding onto walls, and dizziness even lying down. Another portion of my life, gone. I just turned 61 and never had a diagnosis of vertigo until the Falmouth wind turbines went up 3 to 4 years ago. The first time lasted 1.5 years.

    My mother of 83 said they should build them next to the politicians who were all for them in the first place. God, I love my mom. Such practicial wisdom and common sense — something missing in our government as well as in most people I read about these days.

    I believe one day, scientists and doctors will come together to study the impact of sound, its various levels, duration and distance, etc., on humans and wildlife. We already are aware of sleep deprivation and its negative impact on the human body and mind.

    Unfortunately, the ignorance of these fields takes so long, they leave a wake of misery and death in their wake. I speak of events like multiple sclerosis, Lyme Disease, PTSD, and the list goes on.

    Nevertheless, I believe in the old adage, “the squeaky wheel gets oiled.” I will not be silenced and will continue to write and vote against these wind turbines being located too near us.

  8. Comment by E.A. on 08/27/2014 at 3:20 am

    I want to point out two major sources pushing denial of this problem. These are sources I used to respect for being science-minded.

    One is the website RationalWiki. See their article about Wind Turbine Syndrome where they casually ignore the evidence and imply that NIMBYism is the real problem. It’s heavily biased, and that’s their option, but it goes against their usual pro-environment stance.

    The other source is anti-climate-denial video maker, Peter Sinclair, who claims wind turbine noise is barely existent and complaints are fabrications of “an outside group of right wing fossil fuel interests…” (see his article titled “Wind Turbine Syndrome is Bulls–t”). I stopped watching most of his material after reading that. Yet another faux green warrior who can’t see that “solutions” often create new problems.

    That sort of tunnel-vision and smugness is commonplace among people who’ve decided that it’s moral to throw rural landscapes under the blades. They can’t fathom that THEY practice a form of denial just like willful ignorance of CO2’s heat-trapping history.

    Also, I’d like to stop seeing wind turbines vilified to get back at the “global warming hoax” and stereotyped environmentalists. The well known physical properties of CO2 and giant spinning blades are distinct issues, so keep ideology out of it. Man is altering nature on many fronts. The net impact of man-made technology is A plus B, not A versus B.

The comments are closed.


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September 21, 2018

11° C, Partly cloudy

Full Forecast

Theatre & Arts > Dance

Way Out West Summer Intensive

Spend a week in gorgeous Vancouver, BC discovering, learning, experiencing tools for an artistic practice. Technique, Experiential Anatomy, and Yoga with the brilliant Jennifer Mascall. The Interdiz Workshop: 5 amazing collaborative artists – Cande Andrade (Video), Stefan Smulovitz/Viviane Houle (Music), Marcus Youssef (Theatre), Jennifer Mascall (Dance) spend fifteen hours to discuss, create, solve problems, merge, and evolve your process of collaborative interdisciplinary work.

Mascall Dance

1130 Jervis Street

604.669.9337 |

From Monday, August 18, 2014 to Friday, August 22, 2014 from 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM


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Notice of Winooski Planning Commission Meeting on 3/8/18

Join the Winooski Planning Commission for their regular meeting on Thursday, 3/8/18 (6:30 pm @ Winooski City Hall / 27 W. Allen Street). Meetings are open to the public – community members are encouraged to join.

The Planning Commission is responsible for setting out land use and development policies for the City, as adopted by the City Council. Vermont statute lays out broad policies; these are tailored locally in each community. The Municipal Development Plan is the land use policy document for the City and is implemented through the Unified Land Use Regulations Both Plan and Ordinance are work-products of the Commission.

Click here to view the agenda for this meeting.

For previous meeting minutes and documents, click here.

Planning Commission

Questions regarding this meeting or the Winooski Planning Commission can be forwarded to Paul Dreher, Planning and Zoning Manager: / 802 655 6410


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Repost: American Lion, or Giant Jaguar? - In Search of Panthera atrox

Repost: American Lion, or Giant Jaguar? - In Search of Panthera atrox

A composite skeleton of Panthera atrox at the Page Museum in Los Angeles, California. Photo by the author.

Repost: American Lion, or Giant Jaguar? - In Search of Panthera atrox

A composite skeleton of Panthera atrox at the Page Museum in Los Angeles, California. Photo by the author.

[I'm out in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument for some late season fieldwork this week. Here's an essay from the archive, originally posted on October 24, 2011.]

The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits is a wonderful place. I don’t mean wonderful in the overused, everyday sense of “That pizza was wonderful”, or “If you could hand in your TPS report before you leave the office, that would be wonderful.” I mean that the museum is literally a place that fills my fossil-loving heart with wonder. Even though I had seen photos of the exhibit before, I was still stunned by the glass case containing the dark brown skulls of over 350 dire wolves, and I was delighted to get a brief tour of the fossil-filled boxes that are currently being excavated behind the building.

But there was one thing that hooked into my brain and wouldn’t let go during my visit to the Page. Among the museum’s exhibits were composite skeletons of some of the charismatic Pleistocene mammals which perished in the asphalt seep that now sits in the middle of Los Angeles. All the classic characters were represented – the Shasta ground sloth, Bison antiquus, the deep-snouted bear, the sabercat Smilodon, the Columbian mammoth, and others. I had read about these animals before and seen other skeletons of their kind elsewhere, but the label on one of them puzzled me. For as long as I could remember, the big cat Panthera atrox was commonly known as the “American lion” – a now-eliminated branch of the famous cats which long-ago reached North America. The plaque in front of the formidable pantherine’s skeleton called it something else – Naegele’s giant jaguar. Since when had America’s own lion been transformed into a burly jaguar?

A pair of publications I picked up from the museum’s gift shop further catalyzed my confusion. In a revised, 2001 edition of paleontologist Chester Stock’s monograph *Rancho La Brea: A Record of Pleistocene Life in California *the fossil cat was cast as “lion-like”, though the brief passage also mentioned that Panthera atrox “has also been called a gigantic jaguar.” Not much help. The glossier, popular-audience pamphlet *Rancho La Brea: Death Trap and Treasure Trove *didn’t resolve the issue, either. A summary contributed by George T. Jefferson simultaneously identified the cat as both Naegele’s giant jaguar and a subspecies of lion (Panthera leo atrox). While treated and illustrated as a lion, Jefferson repeatedly called the animal a giant jaguar. Clearly, I had to dig deeper.

An illustration of the lower jaw of "Felis" atrox described by Leidy. From Leidy, 1852.

Paleontologists have been kicking around different ideas about the identity of Panthera atrox since the mid-19th century. On the basis of a partial lower jaw containing three molars and a broken canine, the Philadelphia polymath and naturalist Joseph Leidy called the fossil cat “Felisatrox. He described the cat as “a species which much surpassed in size the recent Tiger and Lion, or the extinct Felis spelaea [“steppe lion”] of Europe.” The specific traits of the jaw resembled their counterparts in all three big cats – living and extinct – but Leidy ultimately categorized the felid as “an extinct species of American lion.”

Not everyone was agreed that Leidy’s cat – what we now call Panthera atrox – was really a lion. During the first half of the 20th century, especially, experts on fossil mammals such as the French paleontologist Marcellin Boule and his German colleague Max Hilzheimer noted that Panthera atrox appeared to exhibit a mosaic of features shared with both lions and tigers. This uncertainty was echoed by studies of some of the early fossils excavated from the La Brea asphalt seeps and described by paleontologists John Merriam and Chester Stock. In their major 1932 monograph on Panthera atrox, the two concluded that the skull of the fossil cat most closely resembled that of the jaguar, Panthera onca, a few specimens of which have also been found in the same deposits. The eminent American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson agreed with the determination of Merriam and Stock in his own 1941 review of the Pleistocene’s large fossil felids, and he bemoaned the fact that Panthera atrox had become popularly known as the “American lion.” The cat was no lion, Simpson argued, just as saber-toothed cats were not truly tigers. Continued use of the outdated terminology would only further mislead an American public that had a hard enough time understanding family relationships among fossils as it was.

Of course, the interpretations of Boule, Hilzheimer, Merriam, Stock, and Simpson were not universally accepted, either. If anything, the image of Panthera atrox as a North American lion held out against the jaguar interpretation. The cat, as I first encountered it, was a huge lion which hunted alone or in pairs in the open landscapes of the Pleistocene west. Most museums I have visited with Panthera atrox mounts have followed this trend. But, in my search for more information, I found at that a more jaguar-like version of the cat was again proposed just two years ago by paleontologists John M. Harris - curator of the Page Museum - and Per Christiansen.

Christiansen and Harris focused on the cranium and jaws of Panthera atrox. More than any other part of the skeleton, the head of the cat has most often cited as evidence that Panthera atrox shared more in common with jaguars than lions or other big cats. In order to detect the affinities of the fossil cat, Christiansen and Harris compared a series of measurements from a sample of well-preserved Panthera atrox specimens from the La Brea deposits to the same measurements made from the skulls of tigers, lions, and jaguars kept at other museums. The sample, as Harris recounted in response to an email I sent about the study, included "78 tiger skulls, 176 lion skulls and 57 jaguar skulls, [and] the 14 P. atrox skulls from Rancho La Brea."

As many paleontologists had determined before, the skulls of Panthera atrox exhibited a mosaic of features which did not entirely match any of the living species. Whereas the crania of the fossil cats were more lion-like than anything else, some aspects of their lower jaws appeared to be more tiger- or jaguar-like. When I asked Harris about which features particularly placed Panthera atrox closer to jaguars than to lions, he cited the “mandibular ramus, mandibular symphysis, fronto-maxillary suture, and shape of nasal opening.” The last of these features is self-explanatory, but, for those who have not taken osteology in a while, the other three are the large flange of the lower jaw which connects to the cranium, the fused portion of the lower jaws which meet at the midline, and a suture in the skull along the frontal and upper-jaw (maxillary) bones. The Panthera atrox skulls, Harris said, “were closer to lions or tigers in some other features but multivariate and other statistical analysis suggested that P. atrox did not group with lions and was closest to jaguars.”

Curiously, though, in the paper Christiansen and Harris pointed out that the crania of Panthera atrox most closely resembled those of lions and deviated most from the crania of jaguars. As they wrote in the paper, "Panthera atrox differs from the lion, jaguar, and tiger in many osteometric skull variables, most often from the jaguar (21) and least often from the lion (16)." Even in regard to the fossil cat’s lower jaw, the range of variation among the lions and other extant cats in the study resulted in some of the comparisons being murky. Panthera atrox was not precisely like a modern day lion, but, from what I could see, the data gave no clear sign that the cat could be accurately called a “giant jaguar”, either.

Nevertheless, Christiansen and Harris cited their results as support for the idea that Panthera atrox occupied an intermediate place between a subgroup of lions/leopards on the one hand and tigers/jaguars on the other. Rather than being “a kind of giant, North American lion,” the researchers hypothesized, the anatomy and reconstructed ecology of the animal hinted that Panthera atrox “appears to have been close to a type of giant jaguar” which eschewed the forest for more open hunting grounds. I asked Harris, in his estimation, what the cat would have looked like when alive. He replied:

*P. atrox *is appreciably larger than both jaguars and lions. It had proportionately longer legs than those of jaguars, which may have been an adaptation for running in more open habitat. If so, this might explain why jaguars and giant jaguars are seldom found at the same locality. They both occur at La Brea, where we have over 80 individuals of P. atrox but only one or two of P. onca. What the pelage of P. atrox looked like is open to conjecture. If, indeed, it was a more open habitat form it may have had an unspotted or only faintly spotted coat.

The different interpretation had more than cosmetic implications. Christiansen and Harris suggested that this different perspective indicated that Panthera atrox was not descended from prehistoric lions which crossed into North America via the Bering Land Bridge. Instead the researchers hypothesized that Panthera atrox speciated from an earlier form of jaguar around 150,000 years ago. In this scenario, there were never any true “American lions” at all. The closest thing would have been lions which lived in the vicinity of the Bering land bridge but did not travel further south.

I have to admit, I wasn't sold on the idea that Panthera atrox was more of a jaguar than a lion. Perhaps the cat shared some lower jaw traits with jaguars and tigers, but the data from the crania, especially, indicated that the cat was more like a lion than anything else. And, after all, anatomy isn't everything when it comes to Pleistocene mammals.

The skulls of Panthera atrox from La Brea may show some slight differences when held up to those of modern lions, but genetic comparisons have pinned down the fossil cat as a member of the lion lineage. That’s the fortunate thing about studies of creatures which died in the not-too-distant prehistoric past – genetic material can be collected, analyzed, and studied to further test ideas made on the basis of skeletal anatomy. In a study published the same year as that of Christiansen and Harris, zoologist Ross Barnett and colleagues reported that Panthera atrox formed a distinct genetic cluster among prehistoric lion populations which became genetically isolated around 340,000 years ago. Even more specifically, Barnett and co-authors noted “All late Pleistocene lion samples produced sequences that grouped strongly with modern lion data”, and this finding ruled out “any postulated link between [Panthera] atrox and jaguar.”

What Panthera atrox was, and how the cat made a living on the late Pleistocene landscape, lies between the common images of “American lion” and “giant jaguar.” Even Christiansen and Harris noted how lion-like the cat’s skull was, and the genetic data clearly place Panthera atrox within the lion lineage. Nevertheless, there are a few curious things about the La Brea specimens that may indicate that these beasts did not act just like modern lions.

Only about 80 individuals of Panthera atrox are known from La Brea, which is quite low compared to the thousands of dire wolf and Smilodon individuals. Since dire wolves are thought to have been pack hunters, their prevalence in the asphalt seeps makes sense, and the high number of Smilodon individuals – along with other lines of evidence – has been used to hypothesize that the sabercats were social hunters, too. The basic scenario is that gregarious groups of the wolves, if not sabercats, were drawn to the rotting flesh in the asphalt seeps and multiple members of the group were trapped as they tried to snag an easy meal. (There is a brilliant museum display in which you can try to pull a small metal plunger out of the sort of black goo which trapped the prehistoric animals - it's fucking difficult!) Cooperating as a group became a liability in such a sticky situation. The comparatively low prevalence of Panthera atrox may therefore indicate that these cats were either solitary or worked in smaller groups. The fact that more of the La Brea Panthera atrox specimens have been identified as males than females would seem to support this. Modern lion prides are made up of more females than males, and if Panthera atrox lived in a similar system it would be expected that more females would be found in the fossil deposits. Alternatively, I wonder if the asphalt seeps most often claimed lone males or small coalitions which had not yet established themselves in prides or had been kicked out – individuals who had to scavenge more frequently as they lacked the support of a social group. Testing such ideas is difficult, however, and the reason why Panthera atrox is so rare at La Brea remains an open question.

When I stood starting at the reconstructed skeleton of Panthera atrox at the Page Museum, I kept trying to imagine what the formidable carnivore would have looked like when properly attired in muscle, fat, fascia, fur, and the other accoutrements of a living creature. What would it have been like to see such a predator stalking along the landscape of a California denuded of office buildings and free of smog? Not much time separated the living creature from me – a paltry few thousand years, and, like everyone else, my own prehistoric forebears lived alongside such powerful predators. Yet, despite my chronological proximity to those chocolate-colored bones, there is so much we don’t know about how Panthera atrox lived. Of all the prehistoric landscapes that have come and gone during the history of this planet, the wonderful world of the Pleistocene is tantalizingly and infuriatingly close to our own.

BARNETT, R., SHAPIRO, B., BARNES, I., HO, S., BURGER, J., YAMAGUCHI, N., HIGHAM, T., WHEELER, H., ROSENDAHL, W., SHER, A., SOTNIKOVA, M., KUZNETSOVA, T., BARYSHNIKOV, G., MARTIN, L., HARINGTON, C., BURNS, J., & COOPER, A. (2009). Phylogeography of lions (Panthera leo ssp.) reveals three distinct taxa and a late Pleistocene reduction in genetic diversity Molecular Ecology, 18 (8), 1668-1677 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04134.x

Christiansen, P., & Harris, J. (2009). Craniomandibular morphology and phylogenetic affinities of Panthera atrox: implications for the evolution and paleobiology of the lion lineage Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 29 (3), 934-945 DOI: 10.1671/039.029.0314

Jefferson, G. 2001. "Naegele's Giant Jaguar", in Rancho La Brea: Death Trap and Treasure Trove. Terra, Vol 38, No. 2. p. 28

Leidy, J. 1852. Description of an extinct species of American Lion: Felis atrox. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 10, 319-321

Simpson, G. 1941. Large Pleistocene felines of North America. American Museum Novitates. No. 1136, 1-27

Stock, C., & Harris, J. (2001) Rancho La Brea: A Record of Pleistocene Life in California, 7th ed. Science Series - Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. No. 37, 1-113


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In Cooking, what is a Garnish?

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To cook like a professional chef, people need to understand the importance of food presentation. Nothing completes a delicious meal like appropriate garnish choices. Garnishes are small additions of herbs, specially sliced vegetables, or other items that can be used to enhance the color of a dish, provide contrast, or add a festive finishing touch. When used properly, these additions can help to transform an ordinary meal into a special occasion.

Garnishes can be used throughout a meal to add impact to food choices. For example, curled cucumber spirals are a popular addition for salads. Potatoes are often sprinkled with parsley or chives for added contrast. For desert, ice cream sundaes are frequently served with a maraschino cherry on top.

There are many different types of cocktail garnishes as well. Lemon slices, cherries, carrot sticks, cocktail olives, shrimp, strawberries, and watermelon wedges are used on a variety of mixed drinks. Whiskey or brandy based alcoholic drinks typically have minimal additions.

Traditionally, these additions are associated with a specific food item, and many cookbooks give suggestions within the recipe. Many cooks like to experiment with their own ideas to express their creativity in the kitchen. Someone who stumbles on a great option may even manage to start her own culinary trend.

To garnish food at home, a cook will need to keep the right tools on hand. A well stocked spice rack, a sharp knife, a grater, skewers, and an assortment of cookie cutters will make these additions easier to create. Other useful tools include pastry brushes, an apple corer, a melon baller, and a butter curler.

To ensure a crisp look, garnishes should be added to food just before serving. Cooks who need to prepare the meal in advance can store the garnish in an airtight container covered with plastic wrap. Apples, bananas, potatoes, and other items that may discolor can also be brushed with lemon juice to help preserve their appearance.

Although garnishes are sometimes confused with condiments, these two terms are not interchangeable. A garnish is simply decorative, but a condiment is used to add flavor to a particular food item. Examples of popular condiments include ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, ranch dressing, soy sauce, mayonnaise, and Tabasco sauce.

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Post 11
@sunnySkys - A well done garnish does make a nice meal feel even more special. However, as other people have pointed out, there's no reason why you can't do garnishes at home if you want to.
Post 10

I love garnishes. I think they do add a special extra something to a meal. When I go to a restaurant that pays a lot of attention to presentation, it really makes me feel like I'm getting my moneys worth.

I love when you're at the table, and they bring the food and set it in front of everyone, and it just looks delicious. There's a big difference between just throwing food on a plate at home, and good presentation (complete with garnish) at a nice restaurant.

Post 9

@strawCake - I'm with you on that one. I've also seen a few pieces of lettuce used as a garnish, and I really don't get it. I also hate the idea of a pickle as a garnish, because I really dislike pickles. Some places just throw a pickle on top of the rest of the meal, and the pickle juice leaks into it. Gross.

Post 8

I know presentation is important, but a lot of times, I think garnishes are totally pointless. They're especially pointless when they're not done well. I'd rather have no garnish than one sad looking, wilted sprig of parsley thrown onto my plate as an afterthought.

I'm definitely not going eat a wilted vegetable, and if it doesn't even look good, what's the point?

Post 7
I really like it at steakhouses when they will include a bulb of roasted garlic as a garnish. It is really striking looking, and it actually enhances the meal. The aroma affects the flavor of everything around it and you can usually squeeze out a delicious roasted garlic paste that adds an amazing garlicky kick to any steak or potato.
Post 6

@Perdido – I've heard that you can carve shapes out of cantaloupe rather easily, since it's pretty substantial. I have a friend who makes flower shaped garnishes from cantaloupe, and they are rather impressive.

However, I'm not quite so advanced. I garnish with banana slices, but anyone could do that.

I love putting chocolate hazelnut spread on top of a piece of toast and topping it off with small slices of banana. It's a healthy and delicious garnish, as long as I don't eat too much of it. It may not be particularly decorative, but I love it!

Post 5

Can anyone give me some ideas for a creative fruit garnish? So far, I have mastered the curled orange peel, and while that is lovely and impressive, I don't want to be a one-trick pony! I'm looking to expand my knowledge here.

Post 4

I love the chocolate garnish that my favorite restaurant places on top of its chocolate mousse pie. Someone in the kitchen cuts chocolate curls from semi-sweet chocolate and tops the pie with it so artfully!

It really isn't just for looks. It enhances the intensity of the chocolate flavor. I think that using semi-sweet chocolate was a good decision, because milk chocolate would have just been too sweet. It provides the perfect contrast to the sweetness of the center.

Post 3

I think it's funny how a word can have a pleasant meaning in one context and a negative one in another. Cooking garnishments are pleasing to look upon and sometimes to taste, while wage garnishments are painful experiences that we all wish to avoid.

Post 2

One of my favorite garnishes is to cut parallel cuts in a strawberry, but only cutting through 80 or 90% of the fruit. Then you just fan the slices out (the base of the strawberry holds all the slices together in one piece). Once you get a hang of it, these are super easy to make, and they really make your dishes look much more appetizing.

These strawberry garnishes are particularly suitable for salads or desserts.

Post 1

I think garnishes are underused. Some clever uses of citrus peel, or a sprig of an herb can really make your guests feel appreciated. Many garnishes are so easy to make, there is really no reason not to add a little something extra to your meals.

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Darlene McCloud

Senior Program Advisor

Darlene McCloud, who joined WMF in 2012, directs WMF’s programs in China and Japan.  She previously served as Vice President for Development.

Ms. McCloud led the effort to protect Times Square for the Municipal Art Society, founded the first field office for the Land Trust Alliance for New York State, and served as President of the Preservation League of New York State. She was the Vice President for Development for the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts and Director of Advancement for Florida Gulf Coast University. She is a graduate of Florida State University and earned her M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University.


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Side-by-side of Bill Clinton and Danney Williams

Side-by-side of Bill Clinton and Danney Williams

NEW YORK – As Clinton allies fend off renewed charges that Bill Clinton is a rapist, another old accusation is resurfacing, this time from a 30-year-old black man who claims the former president is his father.

Clinton defenders contend the tabloid Star Magazine conducted a “DNA showdown” proving Bill Clinton was not Danney Williams’ father, citing Star Magazine editor Phil Bunton saying at the time, “There was no match, nothing even close.”

But in an interview Tuesday morning, Bunton told WND that no blood sample was obtained from Clinton and Star Magazine never published a story documenting a laboratory test.

“I don’t remember ever seeing any laboratory test that was done on Clinton’s DNA,” Bunton told WND.

Bunton is now the owner of the Rivertown Magazine in Haverstraw, New York.

He affirmed to WND that the tabloid relied on the DNA evidence for Clinton published by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, extracted from the infamous Monica Lewinsky blue dress.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from, America’s independent news network.

“We got a lot of phone calls from several people in the media, including the New York Times, wanting to know when we were going to get the DNA back,” Bunton recalled to WND. “We thought it was going to turn out to be his son, but when the DNA came back there was no story there even to write.”

The DNA test released by Kenneth Starr was the second of two DNA laboratory tests the FBI had run on Clinton, but the public record leaves no doubt that Starr withheld the more robust test conducted by the FBI.

The New York Daily News on Jan. 7, 1999, reported that Kenneth Starr had made public only one of two DNA lab analyses and that the results made public came from the less reliable method known as a “polymerase chain reaction” test, or PRC, that experts do not consider sufficiently robust to determine paternity.

Apparently, Starr withheld the more robust test, known as a “refraction fragmented length polymorphism” test, or RFLP. This was the kind of test required to run a side-by-side comparison.

Related political stories (story continues below):

Rush Limbaugh: Republicans don’t want to win

‘Bill Clinton son’ makes video plea to ‘father, stepmother’

Glenn Beck endorses Hillary as ‘moral choice’

Hillary campaign manager: ‘I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans’

‘Entire investigation’ into Hillary’s private server in doubt

No lab report

When the Danney Williams story surfaced on the Internet, Star Magazine tried to get saliva samples from the boy and his mother, Bobbie Ann Williams, a prostitute who claims she had a series of sexual liaisons with Clinton that began in February 1984.

Bunton remembered the reporter at Star Magazine who handled the story was Richard Gooding.

“I don’t remember seeing any lab report, and I can’t tell you anything about it,” Bunton said. “Danney Williams looked incredibly like Bill Clinton – the hair and everything. At the time, we really thought we had a winner. When Gooding told me it wasn’t a match, I wouldn’t have taken any interest in looking at the report.”

So, after hearing back from Gooding, Bunton decided not to publish anything. He told inquiring reporters that the results from the two DNA samples “weren’t even close.”

“I really thought it was going to come up a match,” he stressed. “The story was all over Arkansas that Bill Clinton had a relationship with this woman and there was some preacher running around Little Rock saying the child was Bill’s, but that was as far as we got.”

In 1999, Slate magazine also concluded the test conducted by Star Magazine was meaningless because it had only the results publically released by Kenneth Starr.

“The FBI performed two genetic fingerprinting tests on the president’s DNA,” Slate noted. “The Starr report, for unexplained reasons, gives data only for the less specific of the two tests (the PRC test, not the RFLP test).”

The problem, Slate concluded, is that the PRC test had no chance of producing a definitive or reliable result.

“Dr. George Riley of Genelex – a well-regarded forensic DNA lab – calculates that the genetic fingerprint in the Starr report [released by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr] will most likely yield a so-called ‘paternity index’ of only 20 to 30. In other words, a positive test would mean that President Clinton is only 20 to 30 times more likely than a random Caucasian male to be Danney Williams’ father. This would be suggestive but not conclusive.”

Slate further pointed out that with a paternity index of only 20 to 30, some 50,000 white men in Arkansas would get the same test results, in contrast to the legal paternity index threshold that requires a test result of 100.

“Even if Clinton’s genetic fingerprint weren’t published, if Bobbie Ann Williams filed a paternity suit, a judge would probably compel Clinton to give her lawyers a blood sample,” Slate concluded.

Nevertheless, three days later, on Jan. 10, 1999, the New York Daily News reported an unnamed source at Star Magazine told a Daily News reporter that the tabloid had concluded from its DNA test that President Clinton was not Danny Williams’ father.

Star Magazine, however, never published that conclusion.

The Daily Mail in London, reporting Jan. 11, 1999, also made clear Star Magazine had decided not to publish any conclusion.

“Star magazine had been expected to run the story of the president’s love child, if true, in its edition currently on sale,” the Daily Mail in London noted. “But the matter does not even get a mention. Last night Star editor-in-chief Phil Bunton said: ‘We investigate dozens of stories every week, and if they don’t prove to be true, we don’t run them.’”

The Los Angeles Times said in a Jan. 12, 1999, report that Star editors “confirmed nothing and pointedly noted that it was only one of a dozen stories they were working.”

“Star editor Phil Bunton said Sunday, ‘We went into it thinking it was more likely to be untrue than true. We might run a couple of paragraphs saying we investigated it and it proved to be untrue,’” the Times report continued. “Of the attempt to match the boy’s DNA to Clinton, Bunton said, ‘There was no match, nothing even close.’”

It became the take-away line that media have repeated since 1999 without realizing that Burton had no scientific basis to make the claim.

Clinton friends buys The Star

About a month after the “DNA showdown,” The Star was purchased by the investment group Evercore Capital Partners LLC, headed by former Deputy Secretary Roger C. Altman, a longtime friend of Bill Clinton.

A New York Times report gave no indication how long the negotiations had gone on, but it’s likely Altman was negotiating the deal at the same time The Star was pursuing the Williams story.

On March 4, 1999, the New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton had attended a private dinner at Altman’s Upper East Side Home. It was a gathering of some 15 people that included business executives, heads of nonprofit groups and Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the real estate developer and owner of the New York Daily News.

On June 15, 1999, the Washington Post reported that Hillary Clinton was in the process of mapping out a $20 million fundraising effort in preparation for her then-anticipated run for a U.S. Senate seat in New York. The newspaper noted Altman was expected to be involved.

On Sept. 14, 1999, Slate ran a “Chatterbox” article noting that Hillary Clinton had dined privately at the Altman home in New York City.

“Chatterbox naively assumed that if Altman didn’t make his tabloids more pro-Clinton, he would be frozen out by the Clintons, and that if he didn’t make his tabloids more respectful, he would be frozen out by respectable society,” Slate commented.

“But according to the Times, Evercore’s purchase of these cheesy supermarket tabloids didn’t prevent Hillary Clinton from attending a dinner at Altman’s home on the Upper East Side in April,” Slate continued. “Since then, the National Enquirer has run a piece alleging that Hillary has committed adultery (with Vince Foster and an unnamed ‘longtime friend’) while serving as first lady.”

This caused Timothy Noah, the author of the Slate article, to raise his eyebrows.

“Chatterbox (who has no opinion about whether these rumors are true, but wouldn’t blame Mrs. Clinton if they were) doesn’t see how Hillary Clinton an dine with Roger Altman ever again; if she does, Chatterbox will be forced to conclude that she lacks even the small quantity of self-respect required to serve in the U.S. Senate,” Noah concluded.

Paternity story: ‘Unproven’ but not ‘false’

On Oct. 3, the Internet “fact checking” site, which generally is favorable to Democrats, examined the Williams claim and concluded it was “unproven.” cited the evidence published in 1999 by Slate, concluding that without obtaining a sample of Clinton’s blood, the DNA released by Starr was insufficient.

Snopes could find no evidence The Star had ever obtained a sample of Clinton’s blood.

The website noted there is “a plethora of head shots purporting to show a family resemblance between Clinton and Williams” but no hard proof a definitive DNA test was ever conducted.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from, America’s independent news network.

Note: Read our discussion guidelines before commenting.


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Ankita Lokhande is a popular face of the Indian television and she rose to fame with her show Pavitra Rishta. However, she has been missing from the telly world for around three years now.

All this while, Ankita was waiting for that big Bollywood break. And looks like her wish has come true! Recent reports suggest that Ankita has signed her first Bollywood movie opposite Bollywood superstar Sanjay Dutt. The movie is titled Malang and will be directed by Aarambhh Singh.

Ankita has a meaty role in this romantic thriller. A source shared,”It appears her long wait to break into Bollywood has now ended. She will be seen playing a cop in Malang.”

The movie was announced a few days ago and will be shot in Varanasi. Well, it is good news! Congratulations, Ankita.

Categories: Trending


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The Tale of his FACEBOOK Journey

By admin

May 04, 2017

From beginning to end. By Dr V.P. Durai Our hero was in his late twenties when he opened an account on Facebook. He had a congenital inferiority complex, given his most undistinguished facial and bodily features (at least, as he thought so). All he noticed on FB was a clearcut phenomenon of self-projection. A portrayal of (pseudo) intelligence, beauty and materialism. Everything in a daily routine life was captured and posted as a photograph. “My son at first day in school,” read a post. “My daughter performing in a fancy dress competition,” read another. A photograph of a sedan with a footnote “A small gift to my wife” was another. Climbing a mountain, bathing in a river, dining at a restaurant, waiting at an airport, shopping in a mall, etc etc were making a beeline. Even toilets and bedroom snaps were not spared. Even as a patient waiting for surgery, people were posting photos on FB. All profile photos were displayed with a spark of attraction. Thanks to photoshop app. A majority of FB users swam with the tide. One serving as an inspiration to another. Lies, falsehood, exaggerations were making ends meet.

Another small percentage were trying to make intelligent sociopolitical, religious and cultural discussions over the platform. Thought insertions, thought blockade, thought provocations were deliberately attempted. Magnanimity, pseudosecularism and anti-chavinism were cleverly handled to project onself in a good light. Even murder and rape victim photos were displayed with volumes of condenmnation, willfully jettisoning the modesty of the individual concerned.

Our hero was quick to understand that people (at least the educated masses) visualised the society and the world through FB and he certainly believed that he had a potential space here and it is an ideal place to shed his inferiority complex. Our hero wanted to choose the second group in FB. His DP was graphically designed with a revolutionary’s image in the background. His comments were sharp, fiery and provocative. Like many others, he started reading a lot to share on FB. Science, arts, culture, politics, dialectics and metaphysics made up his posts.

Seemingly attracted , a young female sent him a friend request. With a pretence of showing little interest, he accepted the request after a week’s time. Every post of him received compliments from her. Every comment had a counter-comment, which he cherished and every festival was awaited for wishes to be exchanged. The relation progressed with apparent health. Personalised messages started pouring in on either side. Admiration, commendations, applauses, tributes, laurels, rewards, were burgeoning. A sample reads thus ‘beauty and brain rolled in a sheaf’ – this was his. ‘Intelligence and elegance coiled as a human’ – this was hers. As months rolled on they decided to meet each other in person and a posh restaurant was fixed as the venue for these nature’s special creations.

The meeting happened as per schedule with all artificialness .There was deep disappointment on both sides. A sense of betrayal enriched the environ and the conversation couldn’t proceed long over dinner, as the cut and paste option was unavailable any longer and intellectual sublimation was quick to take over.

That was the first and last meet to take place and the relationship withered over the next few months with a formal ‘Hello’ and ‘Hi.’

Our hero didn’t lose hope. He narrated the whole story with the same cut-paste techniques and with a new DP where he was sporting a beard (that was neatly trimmed), he was now opening a new discussion on the thin line demarcating friendship and love. Expectedly, the story again continues from para 5, and I am too waiting for the excerpts from our hero’s (FB) journey tales.


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Day 19 of giving myself permission, “yes, you May,” to do something each day for the month of May, that will make me feel great.  I didn’t get a chance yesterday to do this blog as I was back on “nana duty.”  During the day though I was thinking of what I could do, what was something I could add to my day that wouldn’t take up a huge amount of time (as I didn’t have much of that yestbath 204erday), wouldn’t cost money and would add value to my day.  I discussed it with my husband and still hadn’t really thought of anything….I’d already cooked up a really nice meal as a treat but still felt like I could do something else…..

I had an exercise class to take at 5pm so off I went.  When I got back home it was dark and raining just slightly.  My wonderful husband had run a lovely hot bath in our outdoor bath for us with with a big glass of red waiting for me!  We sat in the bath, caught up on each others day, drank our wine as the soft misty rain fell on our faces and it was just perfect……!  (I didn’t get a photo of us in the bath…probably just as well…but here’s one of our bath on a sunny day.)

Today…..well after spending all day in my office catching up on a backlog of work as soon as I finish this blog I’m off down the beach for a late afternoon walk which I am soooo looking forward to!

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We empower vulnerable women, girls and communities through education.

We empower vulnerable women, girls and communities through education.

Our work falls into two categories. Firstly, we support local, sustainable education projects in the UK and worldwide by sharing our knowledge and expertise, and helping secure funding through donations and grants. Secondly, we amplify the voices of our partners, and wider issues around female disadvantage, to influence policy and improve access to good quality education across the world.

Partner projects

We partner with projects that have a proven track record in assisting disadvantaged communities through education. In practice, this involves giving girls and young women the training required to enter a high-quality job, enabling them to lift themselves, their family – and ultimately their community – out of poverty for good.

It is important that training is appropriate to the local job market. For example, many of the colleges we work with train women in nursing, hospitality or retail. These projects are also run by local people, which is crucial for both community relevance and sustainability. At Wonder, our key driver is to end poverty. But these projects also provide essential personal development support, ensuring students are resilient enough to complete their education and use it to improve their own lives.

Browse our partner projects

Awareness Initiatives

We also believe in the power of education in its wider sense; raising awareness of the issues facing disadvantaged women and encouraging solutions through research, knowledge-sharing and debate. This involves developing resources, carrying out research and running workshops.

Educational resources

We are currently piloting a mentoring programme in Latvia, Slovenia, Poland and Spain with a suite of resources to help young people develop resilience and self-belief. Find out more about our Helping Hands project.

We commission research projects into areas of female disadvantage – from the language barrier faced by migrants in the UK to the issues surrounding FGM in London.

Browse our research projects.

We run workshops in schools, organisations and businesses to educate, inspire and encourage discussion about the issues facing women and girls. We recently ran a workshop programme in the UK and Europe to highlight the needs of refugees. Find out more about our Knowing Me Knowing You project.


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Top 10 Health and Fitness Tips, Make your life Best

Health is the most precious thing in the world for an individual. Its loss may cause destruction of one’s whole life. So it is recommended to take proper precautions for its sustention. Here are some important health and fitness tips to make the life healthy and fit. If you find them helpful please approve by your comments.

Top 10 Health and Fitness Tips

Health and Fitness tips

Best Health and Fitness Tips – Drinking Water

1. Drinking Water

It varies from person to person or conditions but approximately you should drink a gallon of water every day . Maximum activities of human body are dependent on water for their proper functions. There is no one right answer to how much water you need, as it depends on each person and their lifestyle—you may need to modify your fluid intake depending on how active you are, where you live, your health, and if you are pregnant and/or breastfeeding.

Lack of appropriate quantity of water may cause a lot of disorders, so it is recommended to take a proper quantity of water daily.

2. Proper Exercises

Health and Fitness Tips

For a hygienic body daily or interval base exercises are necessary which keep body fit. In exercise walking is the best exercise for heart fitness, overweight, proper digestion, refreshment of mind and proper functions of internal organs. Exercise boosts your metabolism, burns more fat, and takes less time to complete. Exercises depend on situations of person but generally it is recommended to walk two miles daily or as much as possible for an individual. Other exercises like weight lifting, jumping and swimming etc. make the body function work properly.

3. Use of Balanced Diet

Health and Fitness Tips

Food is the basic need for the functions of human body. The human body needs a specific quantity of different ingredients for function so, it is recommended to use such a diet which contains all proper ingredients like protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and iron. Fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, pulses and food containing carbohydrates must be used in a proper quantity. These things contain the most quantity of diet which a human body needed.

4. Proper Sleeping

Health and Fitness Tips

Best Health and Fitness TipsA suitable sleeping is the most important thing for a fit body and its absence may cause a lot of disorder and even severe disease if you are adopting all above tips but you are not taking a proper sleep all your body function may disturb. Sleeping time varies from age to age but for child minimum time is 8 hour for a young person minimum 7 and for aged persons 6 hours sleeping is necessary. For pregnant ladies more time is needed for sleeping as compared to normal ladies.  Disturbing sleep may also cause physical disorders. Here some more health and fitness tips and tips to sleep better.

5. Taking Rest

Health and Fitness Tips

Best Health and Fitness TipsAll human body organs needed rest for their normal functions human body is like a machine and if this machine is over worked is may lose its balance. Over work both physical and mental may cause loss of health and much disorder. Continuous work and absence of rest is bad for a healthy body. There is no specific time for taking rest but as much rest as your body feels fresh and comfortable is recommended. It is also recommended for ladies and especially for pregnant ladies to take as much rest as possible because they needed it more than a normal person.

6. Entertaining Activities

Family on picnic

Best Health and Fitness TipsFor proper work human brain and body need aesthetic activities which make your mind work properly that is control center of whole human body. If you have a sound and proper functional mind you may possess a sound body and human body needs such activities which refresh your mind. For this activity visit of pleasure place, meeting friend, visiting clubs and cinemas is suggested.

7. Participating in Sports

Health and Fitness Tips

In-door and outdoor games are key for a successful life. Games which demand mental exertion and physical energy are important for good health. Especially for ladies, who are less involved in sports activities as compared to men it is recommended to participate in sport activities. Indoor games like chess snooker and cards may increase your mental capability. Outdoor games cover a vast area depending on your interest and physiques are also necessary.

8. Cleanliness

hand washing

Best Health and Fitness TipsCleanliness is the part of most civilization’s moral values as well as part of world religions. It soothes both your body and mind. Water is the most common agent used for cleanliness which has amazing positive effects on human mind and body. Cleanliness saves you from a lot of epidemic diseases and makes body fresh. Cleanliness not in the matter of hygiene but in food saves you a lot of worries.

9. Apt Dressing

sexy ladies dresses

In the matter of dressing no specific genre can be suggested but the dressing which makes your body comfortable must be preferred. Sometime very tight dressing may make the body uncomfortable and disturbs health as well as your work.

10. Following a schedule

Health and Fitness Tips

Thing can only be useful and beneficial if they are performed at their proper time and one’ access may not disturb other or they must be given their required time. Food, exercise, sleeping, rest and sport if performed at their proper time they will be effective and beneficial for body otherwise their irregular practice may be futile. So it is suggested to follow a proper schedule.

How you found our ten best health and fitness tips. Share with us your opinions via comments in below

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Do I Have Too Many Keywords in My PPC Account? (Hint: Probably)

August 19, 2015

Have you ever heard the expression “less is more”? I find this to be extremely true when it comes to the keywords in your PPC account. Now, depending on who you ask, you’ll hear a different response for the age-old question: “How many keywords should I have in my AdWords account?” When it comes to ad groups, the typical answer is somewhere in the 20-25 keyword range, and definitely no more than 30 keywords per ad group. Keep in mind that this is a loose guideline, and isn’t anything that is set in stone. The important thing at the end of the day is that the keywords in each ad group are closely related to one another, so that you can create super-specific ad copy.

I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t serve you to bloat your PPC account with too many keywords. There is definitely no need to strain yourself attempting to reach that 30-keyword mark in each ad group; it is actually perfectly okay to have an ad group with less than 30 keywords. In fact, chances are, if your campaigns contain ad groups with less than 30 keywords, then you’ve organized your account efficiently and can create that all important relevant ad copy. I have worked with plenty of clients whose ad groups contain no more than four or five keywords, and they have generated strong results.

Having too many keywords in your PPC account is actually consistently listed as one of the most common PPC mistakes. I’m serious, just a little bit of PPC research showed me that having too many keywords per ad group is one of the most frequent PPC errors

Too many AdWords keywords

The ugly result of bloating: Violet Beauregarde

There are three reasons why I recommend against having too many keywords in your PPC account.

#1. Not enough room in your daily budget

Let’s imagine you run a campaign with a daily budget of $25. Let’s also imagine the campaign has 25 keywords, each with an average CPC of $1. On average, this allows the campaign the opportunity to generate 25 clicks per day. Your keywords have maintained a strong, competitive average position, and you’re generally happy with the way your daily budget is being spent.

Now let’s say you utilize keyword research tools to identify some new keyword opportunities, all with an average CPC of $1 (if only it were that simple!), and you find 15 keywords that you think would be effective. You’re not exactly sure which keywords would be best though, so you add all of them.  Now, all of sudden, you have 40 keywords running at an average CPC of $1, each vying for a slice of that $25 daily budget. In order to get one click for each keyword in a single day, you would need a daily budget of $40. Your daily budget simply can’t support the demand from your keyword list. This is a problem!

Too many AdWords keywords Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo Baggins knows what it’s like to be stretched too thin

#2. Your campaigns will turn off once your daily budget has been exhausted

This ties directly into the first reason. For those of you who don’t know, once a campaign’s daily budget has been exhausted, that campaign is “turned off” by Google until the following day. What this means is that Google will not allow your keywords to trigger with search queries once the campaign’s daily budget has been exhausted until the next day. This could potentially be very harmful to your keywords’ performance!

Let’s use our imaginations again, and head back to our example campaign. If one of those 40 keywords typically converts in the evening hours, but now the campaign turns off around noon because of additional keyword clicks, then your high-performing keyword can’t generate conversions for you because of a depleted daily budget. It won’t even get the opportunity to enter the ad auction – yikes.

There are always measures you can take to avoid these situations if you decide that you want to test the new keywords at least for a short period of time. There’s the obvious “increase your daily budget,” but that’s not always wise if you want to maintain profitability and strong return on ad spend, or if you simply don’t have the extra money to spend. You can also think about reducing your keyword bids, to allow some flex room within your campaign’s daily budget, but this is also risky. Reducing bids will help you free up your budget a bit, but you could also risk losing out on your competitive ad rank.

Too many AdWords keywords play this game

Reducing keyword bids is definitely a gamble, just ask Professor Moriarty.

#3. It’s just plain difficult to maintain a large account

Managing your AdWords account is a time-consuming process, regardless of its size. Think of all of the tasks that go into a well-maintained account. Optimizing ad copy, adding negatives, and maintaining bidding and budgets are just a few things you should consistently be doing in your account. Tacking on more and more keywords just compounds all of that. Eventually, things will start to fall through the cracks and your account will suffer for it.

It’s A-OK to test new keywords though!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good practice to test new keywords. But it’s important to maintain a solid balance of keywords in your campaigns. When you add new keywords, remove some underperforming ones to make room for the new ones. This will allow you to test new keywords without having to increase your budget if you aren’t in a position to do so.

One of the best resources for identifying keyword opportunities is your search query data. While standard keyword research tools can definitely be helpful, your search query data provides more accurate insight as to what you can expect from your potential new keywords. Keyword research tools can give you estimates like average CPC, total cost, and search volume, but your search query data will give you the actual CPC, cost, and volume for that keyword opportunity, among other metrics. Check out my colleague Phil Kowalski’s blog post for more detailed search query report strategy.

Too many AdWords keywords Pareto principle

The 80/20 rule: it never fails

One way I like to approach my keyword list is by using the 80/20 rule. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the rule, it basically states that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Translated to your PPC account, roughly 80% of your results will come from roughly 20% of your keyword list. So you can add keywords and more keywords, but at the end of the day you are simply still going to get your results from roughly 1/5 of your keywords. So while testing keywords is definitely a healthy practice, remember that less is more when it comes to your keyword list.


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Tiago F. freelancer experto en Escritura - Viajes, Fotografía, Videografía

Tiago F.

Determined to suceed

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Diseño y Multimedia

Habilidades (Máximo: 5)
Sobre mí
Since my young ages, I had a passion for travelling. I was born in the chaotic city of São Paulo, Brazil, and spent my school holidays in the country. I also was the best companion for my grandma on her travels. When I was 19 years old, I moved to London. After 8 years in London, I embarked on travel around the world, which I am still living this dream.
This passion to travel has brought me great skills, such as adaptation and determination. These both skills together have helped me to achieve every goal I set for myself in life. For instance, when I arrived in London, I did not speak a word of English. I left "my second home" with a First Class Honours Degree in Business Management at the University of Greenwich.
Furthermore, this passion for travelling has made me always pursue my dreams. I have always worked with my imagination, thinking about the best place to visit, describing and picturing it in my head. Currently, I am the writer, photographer, videographer and editor of the Monday Feelings, a travel website developed by my wife and I.  I have recently launched our travel production company, where we film and photograph places, restaurants and stories which we think is interesting and relevant.
In every work I do, I like to put a meaning into it. Transform a simple photo into an answer for someone, or a short video into an inspiration for another. That is what I believe I can stand out from the crowd.
Historia laboral
After achieving my degree in Business Management, I started working as a Delegate Relations Manager at Informa Plc, in the Knowledge and Networking Division - currently Knect365. I was responsible for organising registrations to corporate events as well as assist delegates with the necessary information and directions in order to ensure they are attending the right event which will serve their purposes. After a bit longer than one year, I left the business to embark on a two years travelling around the world.
During this two years travelling, I dived deep into the world of photography and social media. The blog I had with my wife turned into a travel website, where we write about travel advices, planning and curiosities. In order to make the website financially sustainable, I had not choice but to learn about social media, which includes Facebook adverts, Instagram, Pinterest and so forth.
In addition to that, I launched this year my Travel Production Company, Monday Feelings 360. The focus of the itinerant production company is professional photography and video, including aerial and 360 in the near future. We are experienced in the field of gastronomy, including pictures for chef Andrew Wong (U.K.), fashion, including Beringela (Brazil) and aerial.

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7-08-2015, 20:05

Law and justice

Something of the way in which peasant-proprietorswere expected to resolve issues of property-ownership, animal husbandry, theft, injury or damage emerges from the Farmer’s law (or Nomos georgikos), a text whose date of composition and status remain open to discussion. At any rate, the Farmer’s law seems to have long been a working document, laying down norms for dispute settlement within local communities. The prescriptions are detailed and presuppose regular taxation, implying governance that was loose-meshed but under the authorities’ ultimate oversight. The text was later translated into Slavonic.48 It is in key with procedures set out in two tax-collectors’ handbooks, and is not inconsistent with the texts concerning methods of measuring land for purposes of tax assessment. The latter seem to have been at their most accurate in measuring smaller plots.49 The handbooks imply that the individual contributions towards the tax burden imposed on a fiscal unit were ultimately for its members to determine among themselves. The government’s concern was that the tax be paid, due allowances being made for lands devastated by enemy raids and abandoned by their owners: these were eventually – usually after some thirty years of non-payment of taxes – declared klasmata and they could be reallocated by the state, through sale, renting-out or gift. The productive value of these lands was reviewed from time to time, keeping the central administration abreast of changes – and potential gains for its coffers: klasma-land could be sold by the state to new, tax-paying proprietors.50 The texts relating to taxation offer the viewpoint of officialdom, but the dynamics of the middle Byzantine economy and society glimmer through their assertions and prescriptions. The quality of justice and the workings of the law in Byzantium are no less murky, but modern studies shed some light.51 Here, too, affairs in the capital are far better illuminated than elsewhere, and while the Basilika project of revising Justinian’s corpus of laws begun inBasil I’s reign laid down markers for the entire empire, some novellae issued by Leo VI were primarily concerned with Constantinople, as was the Book of the eparch (see below, pp. 301–2, 497–8). That written rulings were being issued by senior officials according to principles of Romano-Byzantine law in distant borderlands is indicated from southern Italian materials, and Athonite beneficiaries of tax exemptions and other imperial privileges were, in the eleventh century, taking care to have them confirmed by successive new regimes.52 How disputes were settled among peasants at grass-roots, and the redress available to them in the event of unlawful actions by the well-connected ‘powerful’, are harder to track down. This bears on the general question of the mesh of imperial administration at grass-roots.53 There is reason to think that in some borderlands and newly acquired regions in the tenth and eleventh centuries power structures were left largely intact, with local elites or administrators raising exactions and resolving disputes with few departures frompast practice.54 Adegree of devolution was customary in the Greek-speaking zones of the empire, too, and diverse rivalries were played out among members of local elites. The already well-connected could pull strings at provincial level or in the imperial court in Constantinople; the newly well-to-do could purchase them, with an eye to further enhancing their local position. Or the rights and possessions of lesser folk could be overridden roughshod, without judges or other officials lifting a finger.55 Loose-meshed as local self-governance may have been, courts of justice and other embodiments of imperial solicitousness were not invariably beyond the reach of provincial smallholders with a grievance or under unlawful pressure. The fertile lands of the western AsiaMinor theme of the Thrakesioi long remained largely the preserve of smaller proprietors, and the prosperous region of Thebes, while partly in the hands of substantial landowners, still accommodated proprietors of more modest means in the eleventh century (see below, p. 489). We lack direct evidence that this was due to legal process and regard for the spirit of the laws. But where archival evidence survives, in the form of the deeds involvingMount Athos’ monasteries, there are indications that communities of peasants did not always complain in vain.56 The Athonite monks became major landowners in eastern Macedonia from the tenth century onwards, enjoying direct access to imperial circles. Yet the tax exemptions and other privileges for their properties which emperors issued did not spare them judicial investigations and hearings, conducted by local judges or at Constantinople. Findings did not always favour the well-connected.57 Comparable patterns may emerge from further investigation of the eleventh-century Peira. Peasants and other unprivileged persons are depicted as vulnerable to encroachments and unlawful seizure of their lands, animals or chattels from the ‘powerful’. But the judge Eustathios Rhomaios’ rulings document how he sought to adjudicate disputes over crops and boundaries between what were sometimes quite small-scale proprietors, applying principles of Romano-Byzantine law to current circumstances. The well-connected or well-to-do had the advantage, but the courts could redress the balance.58 The Peira’s rulings were expected by its compiler to apply throughout the empire and the text seems to have been much consulted. This may corroborate the impression that reports of the demise of peasant-proprietors are much exaggerated; novellae declaring the worth of a prosperous peasantry to fisc and army were not necessarily dead letters.59 These issues are material not just to legal or economic history, but also to the empire’s capacity to continue raising taxes on lands and possessions through thick and thin. The unchronicled majority of the population, peasant-proprietors raising livestock and growing wheat and other crops, were the source – by way of land taxes – of the greater part of the state’s regular incomes. Equally, chronicles and saints’ Lives depict fertile regions like, for example, AsiaMinor’s Aegean coastal areas as vulnerable to external raiders in the earlier tenth century, while Thessaly’s plains and other ‘hotspots’ underwent Hungarian and Bulgarian incursions through the later years of that century. And yet, as Rosemary Morris observes, ‘Byzantine bureaucrats in Constantinople and their provincial representatives soldiered on’,60 tax assessments were negotiated, and revenue streams trickled in. The unarticulated nexuses of local pride, peer-group pressure and religious belief accompanying this anomaly underpinned the empire and those who – voluntarily, habitually or perforce – maintained them made up Byzantium’s ‘silent majority’. They are not treated in detail here, but their existence underlies the chapters that follow.