#HR 2872

[govtshutdown]

With the stroke of a pen, the signal from the White House is clear, six more weeks of funding.

[merangkulmakna]

Tidak demikian, yg benar adalah Tdk seorangpun yg berbuat SYIRIK kpd Allah KECUALI Ia pasti BERIMAN kpd Allah, karena IMAN itu adlh PERCAYA dan tdk RAGU..!

Hanya saja harus dipahami bhw BERIMAN kpd Allah Tampa MENYEKUTUKANNYA maka KEIMANAN itu menyelamatkannya [muslim], sedangkan BERIMAN kpd Allah bersamaan dgn KESYIRIKANNYA maka KEIMANANNYA sedikitpun tdk akan bisa menyelamatkannya [musyrik], meskipun Ia mengaku Islam lagi bersyahadat..

Sebagaimana kaum MUSYRIKIN Qurais, mereka itu asalnya BERTAUHID, yakni Talbiyah mereka menunjukan akan pengakuan mereka akan keesaan Allah dalam Rububiyyah, namun CACAT TAUHID dlm hal ULUHIYAH.

Ibnu Abbas radiyallahu anhu berkata..

كَانَ الْمُشْرِكُونَ يَقُولُونَ لَبَّيْكَ لاَ شَرِيكَ لَكَ – قَالَ – فَيَقُولُ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ -صلى الله عليه وسلم- « وَيْلَكُمْ قَدْ قَدْ ». فَيَقُولُونَ إِلاَّ شَرِيكًا هُوَ لَكَ تَمْلِكُهُ وَمَا مَلَكَ. يَقُولُونَ هَذَا وَهُمْ يَطُوفُونَ بِالْبَيْتِ

Dahulu kaum musyrik berkata..

"Labbaik laa syarika laka’ [Kami memenuhi panggilanmu Ya Allah, tidak ada syarikat bagi-Mu]”, Maka Nabi shallallahu alaihi wa sallam berkata..“Celaka kalian, sudah cukup, cukup [yaitu jangan diteruskan]", Namun kaum musyrik itu melanjutkan.. “Kecuali sekutu yang merupakan milik-Mu, Engkau memilikinya dan dia tidak memiliki apa-apa", Mereka mengucapkan ini tatkala mereka TAWAF di Ka’bah".

[HR Muslim No 2872].

Lihatlah, seandainya org org Musyrikin zaman Nabi tdk BERIMAN kpd Allah, mustahil mereka menunaikan Haji dan tawaf di ka'bah bahkan mereka bersaksi "tidak ada SEKUTU bagiMu" namun disaat bersamaan ditempat yg sama mereka melakukan KESYIRIKAN dgn lisan mereka, sama hal dgn manusia akhir zaman mengaku Islam, bersyahadat Laa ILaha ILLallah namun ditempat yg lain melakukan syiar syiar KESYIRIKAN yg macam bentuknya.

Bedanya KAUM MUSYRIKIN dahulu bertauhid dlm hal RUBUBIYAH namun dlm hal ULUHIYAH 100% cacat total, adapun KAUM MUSYRIKIN akhir zaman kerusakan AQIDAH mereka tdk hanya dlm hal tauhid uluhiyah dan asma wa sifat, tetapi juga tauhid rububiyah rusak parah sebab MENOLAK diatur oleh hukum Allah lebih MEMILIH diatur dgn hukum setan, padahal mereka tahu lagi sadar bhw hanya Allah saja yg berhak MENGATUR manusia dan alam semesta.

Maka kita katakan hakikat mereka itu adlh BERIMAN namun keimanan mereka tdk lantas menjadikan status mereka mukmin/muslim disisi Allah karena IMAN mereka telah dicemari oleh SYIRIK, ketika keimanan seorang hamba telah TERCEMARI oleh kesyirikan maka mereka tdk lagi dapat disebut seorang yg telah berISLAM dsisi Allah azza wa Jalla, karena ISLAM itu adalah MENTAUHIDKAN Allah dlm RUBUBIYAH ya, uluhiyah dan asma wa sifat-Nya, sebagaimana kaum musyrikin Qurais dahulu mereka telah MENGENAL dan meng'IMANI Allah karena dakwah TAUHID nabi Ibrahim As telah sampai kpd mereka, buktinya mereka berhaji, berdoa kpd Allah, mengakui keEsaan Allah, namun ketika mereka benar benar diseru kmbali mengEsakan Allah tdk ada SEKUTU bagi-Nya Nampaklah keengganan dan perlawanan mereka, hanya saja beda BERHALA yg diibadati oleh musyrikin dahulu dan skrg akhir zaman, dahulu mereka menjadikan Latta dan uzza, Manat sbg SEKUTU bagi Allah, klw BERHALA skrg khususnya diindomusyrikin ini yg paling dominan menjerumuskan manusia kpd KESYIRIKAN adlh berhala PANCASILA [anak berhala demokrasi], meskipun peribadatan kpd kuburan kuburan juga tdk kalah hebat, masih ladzim dilakukan oleh kaum menengah kebawah.

Maka kesimpulannya mereka [kaum musyrikin] hakikat mereka itu BERIMAN disamping KESYIRIKANNYA.

LEBIH JELASANYA..

Ibnu Jarir At-Thabari juga meriwayatkan dengan sanadnya dari Abdurrahman bin Zaid bin Aslam rahimahullah, beliau berkata..

لَيْسَ أَحَدٌ يَعْبُدُ مَعَ اللَّهِ غَيْرَهُ إِلَّا وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ بِاللَّهِ، وَيَعْرِفُ أَنَّ اللَّهَ رَبَّهُ، وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ خَالِقُهُ وَرَازِقُهُ، وَهُوَ يُشْرِكُ بِهِ، أَلَا تَرَى كَيْفَ قَالَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ: {أَفَرَأَيْتُمْ مَا كُنْتُمْ تَ��ْبُدُونَ، أَنْتُمْ وَآبَاؤُكُمُ الْأَقْدَمُونَ، فَإِنَّهُمْ عَدُوٌّ لِي إِلَّا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ} قَدْ عَرَفَ أَنَّهُمْ يَعْبُدُونَ رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ مَعَ مَا يَعْبُدُونَ، قَالَ: فَلَيْسَ أَحَدٌ يُشْرِكُ بِهِ إِلَّا وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ بِهِ، أَلَا تَرَى كَيْفَ كَانَتِ الْعَرَبُ تُلَبِّي، تَقُولُ: لَبَّيْكَ اللَّهُمَّ لَبَّيْكَ، لَا شَرِيكَ لَكَ، إِلَّا شَرِيكٌ هُوَ لَكَ، تَمْلِكُهُ وَمَا مَلَكَ؟ الْمُشْرِكُونَ كَانُوا يَقُولُونَ هَذَا

“Tidak seorangpun yang menyembah selain Allah bersama penyembahannya terhadap Allah KECUALI ia BERIMAN kepada ALLAH dan mengetahui bahwasanya Allah adalah Rob-Nya, dan Allah adalah penciptanya dan pemberi rizkinya, dan dia berbuat kesyirikan kepada Allah. Tidakkah engkau lihat bagaimana peraktaan Nabi Ibrahim..

قَالَ أَفَرَأَيْتُمْ مَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْبُدُونَ، أَنْتُمْ وَآبَاؤُكُمُ الأقْدَمُونَ، فَإِنَّهُمْ عَدُوٌّ لِي إِلا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Ibrahim berkata..

“Maka Apakah kamu telah memperhatikan apa yang selalu kamu sembah, kamu dan nenek moyang kamu yang dahulu?, karena Sesungguhnya apa yang kamu sembah itu adalah musuhku, kecuali Tuhan semesta alam". [QS As Syu’aro 75-77]

Nabi Ibrahim telah mengetahui bahwasanya mereka [juga] menyembah Allah bersama dengan penyembahan mereka kepada SELAIN Allah. Tidak seorangpun yang berbuat SYIRIK kepada Allah KECUALI ia BERIMAN kepadaNya. Tidakkah engkau lihat bagaimana orang-orang Arab bertalbiah?, mereka berkata.. “Kami memenuhi panggilanmu Ya Allah, kami memenuhi panggilanmu, tidak ada syarikat bagiMu, kecuali syarikat milikMu yang Engkau menguasainya dan dia tidak memiliki apa apa”. Kaum musyrikin Arab dahulu mengucapkan talbiah ini”.

Lihat [Tafsir At-Tabari 13/376].

Ibnu Jarir At-Thabari juga meriwayatkan dengan sanadnya dengan beberapa jalan dari Mujahid rahimahullah, diantaranya beliau berkata..

إِيمَانُهُمْ قَوْلُهُمُ: اللَّهُ خَالِقُنَا، وَيَرْزُقُنَا، وَيُمِيتُنَا، فَهَذَا إِيمَانٌ مَعَ شِرْكِ عِبَادَتِهِمْ غَيْرَهُ

“KEIMANAN mereka adalah perkataan mereka.. Allah pencipta kami dan Yang memberi rizki kepada kami dan mematikan kami. Inilah keimanan [mereka] bersama KESYIRIKAN mereka dengan beribadah kepada selain Allah”.

[Tafsir At-Tobari 13/374].

Ibnu Jarir At-Thabari juga meriwayatkan dengan sanadnya dari Qotadah rahimahullah, beliau berkata...

فِي إِيمَانِهِمْ هَذَا، إِنَّكَ لَسْتَ تَلْقَى أَحَدًا مِنْهُمْ إِلَّا أَنْبَأَكَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ رَبُّهُ، وَهُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَهُ، وَرَزَقَهُ، وَهُوَ مُشْرِكٌ فِي عِبَادَتِهِ

“KEIMANAN mereka ini, [yaitu] tidaklah engkau bertemu dengan seorangpun dari mereka kecuali ia mengabarkan kepadamu bahwasanya Allah adalah Rob-Nya, dan Dialah yang telah menciptakannya dan memberi rizki kepadanya. Padahal dia berbuat KESYIRIKAN dalam ibadahnya”.

[Tafsir At-Thabari 13/375].

KESIMPULANNYA..!

Mereka itu BERIMAN meskipun lahiriah dhohir mereka tdk dapat disebut MUSLIM melainkan MUSYRIK karena KEIMANAN mereka dihadapan Allah tdk SAH, tdk diterima karena telah dicacati SYIRIK.

Inilah alasan knp Syaikhul Islam Ibnu Taimiyah rahimahullah membagi TIGA TAUHID agar manusia mudah memahami dan menTauhidkan Raab-Nya azza wa Jalla, tdk mudah terjerumus kpd KESYIRIKAN, jadi bukan seperti mengadakan perkara baru seperti sangkaan pembenci beliau, ini hanyalah sama seprti METODE [cara] hamba mengenal pencipta-Nya dgn MENTAUHIDKANNYA sehingga dapat berhati hati agar tdk terjatuh kpd KESYIRIKAN yg berakibat membatalkan KEIMANAN/KEISLAMANNYA.

Inilah alasan knp beliau digelari IMAM yg paling BENAR AQIDAHNYA oleh Ulama yg tdk semahzab dgn beliau, cukup untuk membantah sebagian org yg berkata AQIDAH beliau sesat..!

Imam Ahmad bin Ibrahim, Syaikh Al-Hazzamiyah Al-Washithy Asy-Syafi’i [wafat 711 H], beliau berkata...

“Demi Allah, kemudian demi Allah, kemudian demi Allah, tidak pernah terlihat dibawah langit ini yang seperti guru kalian IBNU TAIMIYYAH dari sisi ilmu, amal, kondisi, akhlak, itiibaa’, kedermawanan, kebijaksanaan, dan penegakan terhadap hak Allah ta’aala tatkala dilanggar keharaman. Beliau adalah ORANG YANG PALING BENAR AQIDAHNYA, dan yang paling BENAR ILMU dan tekadnya, dan yang paling semangat dan paling cepat dalam membela kebenaran dan menegakkannya, dan orang yang tangannya paling pemurah, dan yang PALING SEMPURNA ITTIBANYA [keteladanannya] kepada Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Kami TIDAK PERNAH MELIHAT di zaman seseorang yang nampak kenabian muhammadiah serta sunnah sunnahnya dari perkataan dan perbuatannya kecuali orang ini [Syaikhul Islam Ibnu Taimiyyah rahimahullah], dan hati yang bersih mempersaksikan bahwasanya ini [dia] adalah ITTIBA yang sesungguhnya”.

Lihat [Syadzaroot Adz-Dzahab 8/144].

Wallahu Ta'ala a'lam..

[seereclipse]

title: make pretend people triggers: mentions of drug use and abuse. slight body image issues word count: 2872 summary: alina goes on vacation and runs into an old friend

I think now if I felt less I would be a better person. (…)

Alina’s hotel room was lovely, large windows that let her see what felt like all of Amsterdam spread out around her. When she came stumbling into the hotel in the early hours of the morning, silver luggage trailing behind her like a comet-tail, the front desk immediately made sure her room was ready for her. 

 When Alina first realized that she was now officially famous, she promised that would not get lost in it. She was Alina, the daydreaming student before she was whoever the public thought she was.

 Though that didn’t mean that the special treatment didn’t at excite her a little bit.

 Once again, her hotel was lovely, the smooth feeling of wheels going over marble gave her the childish impulse to push her luggage to see how far it could go. Ignoring said bag’s crash with the wall, Alina excitedly went to the window, to see if she could discern anything from down there. 

 She couldn’t, she squinted, but all the people were all just dots to her, moving from place to place. She couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see her. Nothing she did would affect them as long as she stayed up here. It was nice to feel that way, like nobody’s actions, had consequences on her nor did hers on anyone else.

 Now it was time for her to look around, being here was like living in a cloud. It was all white and soft, rugs, towels, everything, and the solitude was freeing. Something she never thought she would feel. She was just a pastel blue bird floating around the white expanse. 

 She looked in the bathroom, marveling at the tub, and flipped through the TV channels available in the Netherlands.

 After expecting the snacks in the fridge, there was nothing else to look at. Alina was sure she’s seen every inch of her temporary home, the only thing to do was...her eyes went to the bed, king-sized and as plush and light as everything else here.

 With a fall as graceful as a fall could be, her back hit the king-sized comforter with a muffled thump her arms and legs a starfish.

 She stretched her fingers, even her mechanical ones, and extended her legs as far as they could go, though she couldn’t even touch the edge of the mattress. Alina’s been dancing since she could walk, but her limbs felt stiff, not in that they couldn’t move freely, but as if they didn’t like the woman controlling them. What she could only describe as a squawk was her body’s response as if it too could tell that she forgot she had a body that needed to be maintained.

 The newfound awareness made her look to floor-length mirror on the wall to remind herself what that body looked like. She was alone, and nobody could see her, but she was curious about how she looked, so she examined her reflection.

 In her nineteen years, she never once felt it, but she could tell she was still pretty. 

 She was caught in the snow while in a crop top and attacked by fire, but her face didn’t look it. 

Her hair was still long and soft, the eyes staring back at her were still large and violet. Alina smiled at the reflection, dimples popped into her cheeks, she still had her dimples. Those were her features everyone liked about her.

 After passing her self-imposed test, she looked away, she was not going to gaze at her reflection while she was waiting for.

 Bzz. 

 A harsh nasal exhalation, of course, he would text her now, and of course, her purse was just out of reach. With a groan she rolled, landing on her stomach and blindly searched around for her phone, coins candy and lip gloss going onto the bed.

 💙💙😍😍: hey alina, did you land safely? (2 hr ago)

 👩🏾‍🏫💜: alina, are you sure you’re okay? (1 hr ago)

 💙💙😍😍: i love you so much  (30 min ago)

 She couldn’t think about those texts, not now. If she does, she’ll never stop thinking about them.

 pym: i’ll be there in five. (now)

 Then text me in five when you’ll be here, asshole. Though Alina did get up to smooth the babydoll dress she brought on the way here. Pym had always grossed her out, and she’d rather blow a cactus than hold his hand but he was still a person, and her appearance was something she knew people judged her on.

 Next, she went to the bathroom. Gods, why was she so tired? She hasn’t even gone through the most of the people who fought the mess of flesh, water, and hell, she left clean and pretty, but she was tired and useless because she was all those things.

 Alina splashed some cold water on her face. Now she was tired and cold, but five minutes were up.

 I the elevator, a family stared at her. They didn’ whisper, they weren’t animals, but they either didn’t see she noticed or didn’t care. Alina hoped it was just because they were surprised ethnics stayed in this hotel too and not because they recognized her.

   Pym was waiting in front of the elevator, eyes lighting up in recognition when he saw her. For a second, Alina caught real excitement like he was waiting to see her and not her money. The years didn’t take away the elf-like nature from his features.

 A downwards glance showed her what he was wearing, cute. A t-shirt with Alina’s face on it, she remembered the photoshoot, it was uncomfortable, but at least the end result of Alina sitting in a cloud looked nice.

 “Is that the Alina?” A mock-whisper, Pym wasn’t dumb enough to draw attention. A pop star talking to a drug dealer wasn’t going to surprise anyone, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he had other friends in this hotel he didn’t want to see, “Can you give me an autograph?”

 He thought he was funny and unique, Alina let him believe she thought so too.

 Alina pried her mouth open in a smile and giggled, “Oh you know, only for you,” She chirped, internally cringing before holding the door open with her metal arm, “Come on, I’m up top, you’re gonna love it!”

 When Pym was in the elevator, he looked her over. Alina’s long been used to that, but looking at him Alina could tell that he thought that she couldn’t tell. Alina would prefer if he just looked shamelessly,  “You look good,” He complimented her, a wry smile on his face, “How long has it been?”

 “Two years,”  Her response was quick, too quick for Alina’s role as a cool, relaxed chick.

 Pym’s hazel eyes momentarily sputtered, he broke his role too though he soon remembered it. Leaning against the wall, looking down at her the smile came back, “It’s been too long, though,” He paused, laughing lightly looking at the ceiling, “I guess it’s good if you don’t feel the need to see people like me.”

 Alina didn’t know how to respond, he had something she wanted, and she didn’t want to offend him, so she subtly out her lower lip, “I missed you.” Her voice was soft despite the lie.

 “Did you?” He was trying to figure out if she was lying, she could tell.  In a rare feeling of superiority, she wanted to ask why someone like her would lie about missing a guy like him even though that was exactly what was happening.

 The elevator doors opened, and Alina immediately left the awkward moment to go open her room, she was only here for a few minutes so, besides some squashed pillows, her room was still mint-condition.

 A low whistle, Alina looked behind her to see Pym taking it in, he was impressed but was deciding to not show it, or perhaps she wanted him to be impressed, everyone from that era of her life all viewed her the same way it was nice to see them realize that she’s changed.

 “I guess being a pop-star has its perks,” Pym said casually, “My little sister likes your music,” He teased.

 It was a dig, but Alina inflated, “She does?” She asked, genuinely curious, it was helpful hearing reminders that what she did was meaningful to others, if he wanted her to sign anything she would do so.

 “Yeah,” He let the point end, not elaborating, strolling to the window like she did. Alina wondered what went through his mind when he saw how far he was above the world did he wish his actions had no consequences or was that unique to her?

 The longer he was quiet, the more pins were being stuck into her bones, she preferred his talking to his silence.

 Pym looked at her once again, not sexually like he did originally, but like she was a puzzle. Alina always liked that, when people were curious about her despite knowing that it never lasts.

 If he had a question, he didn’t ask it yet. Instead, going to sit on the l-shaped sofa in the middle of her room. Alina wordlessly followed him, sitting near him, but not close to him, now she was the curious one. What was he going to say to her? He was probably going to say some dirty joke to make her uncomfortable, she could feel it.

 “Why did you call me Alina?”

 All her anxiety turned to frustration pounding in her ears. Did he want her to say it? Fine, whatever, she wasn’t too proud to call him, she wouldn’t be too proud to say why. Deep breath, “I wanted you to give me-”

 “No I know you want me to give you drugs Alina,” He was impatient, far too impatient for someone who had decided to play twenty questions, “But why? At least with Ma-”

 “Can we please not talk about him?” Another character break.

 The name shattered her heart, it’s been a long time since she felt it. Jun and Nneka did everything they could to make her forget the feeling, but Alinia could feel the familiar ache. She never stopped thinking about him, but she had stopped only thinking about him. Why would he just carelessly say that? Like his name was nothing just hearing it made her cold again.

 But Pym wouldn’t understand, and Alina didn’t need him too, she needed to just keep it together, so she got up using the fact that her curtains were open as her excuse before going to close them. Her white cloud now felt more like a cell, gloomy, and colorless.

 She could hear Pym sigh, women he was probably thinking “With your ex-boyfriend, I understood, but Alina, people would kill to do what you could do.” His eyes were boring through her skull, and Alina felt her head might crack open because of it.  Her powers would probably kill them first.

 Why do you care? You’ll get paid no matter what. She wanted to ask, but she had to play the role for a little more, so she made an angry face at her window before she looked at him with the calm innocence of a Disney princess.

 “If they promise not to kill anyone, I’d give my abilities to them if I could.” She replied softly, going to sit down close to him this time, and she could have sworn she saw some color go to his pale face.

She placed a hand on his knee, now it was on his cheeks, “Look,” She began still gentle like a breeze,  “I’m just...I need this right now, I know it sounds insane, but I think this is what’s healthy for now.”

Pym looked down at her hand, she hasn’t seen him this serious in a while. 

“Give me a kiss,” A sudden grin that made her internally retreat. Nevermind.

Alina instantly recoiled. It was on her for getting close to him. Her face was hot like the blood would just burst all over him. Not a cute blush, but a tomato mask.  All her attempts at seeming different failed, miserably and she wanted to look anywhere but at him.

“No,” She shook her head as firmly as she could ever say anything, “Wait why would you,” She shook her head again, “Nope no, no no no,” She was stumbling over her sentences, but she didn’t care. “Pym, I have a boyfriend.” Before it dawned on her:

This happened two years ago too.

Mathias and his boys would be in a separate room, and Pym would take the opportunity to talk and flirt with her. A particularly bad joke, made Alina tell Mathias of her discomfort and that night. He never cared about her pain when he was the cause of it but Pym being the instigator made him angry. Alinia saw the man who had long consumed her life, turn Pym into a bloody mess, telling him to think about this next time he tried to make his girlfriend uncomfortable. 

Alina felt awful, but she had also thought it was so romantic. In Alina’s eyes, all red flags were roses.

Pym laughed, and it rasped against her wall,, yet didn’t meet his eyes. He tugged on her arm, “ I was just trying to see if you would.” Though Alina could see his jaw working, he was thinking about that night too.

He was rude and made her uncomfortable, but he never deserved that, and Alina felt compelled to tell him so.

“I’m so sorry,” She just wanted to say that, but the words were rushing out of her, she already showed him she hadn’t changed much, what was the point of trying, “I didn’t know M-, he would hit you, I told him before that he shouldn’t, that it was a joke.” Tears were falling, why was she always the one crying?

She liked to think she felt things so deeply so that they didn’t have to, but babies cried to be taken care of, and Alina did too. Though she knew Pym was never going to do that for her.

He was looking at her in a mix of awe and pity, she was always stoic the way a doll was when they talked to each other, now he saw that was a lie. If he liked that person he was, he wanted a lie.

“When they,” He learned not to say his name, “...When they were in the other room I felt like I could tell you anything.”

Alina was still crying, not even trying to wipe her tears away, she was crying for the both of them. Of course, he felt that way, everyone who talked to her felt that way. Alina wanted people to feel that way about her, the more people liked you, the safer you were. Alina also hoped that applied to people loving you as well, so she would hope everyone who talked to her loved her.

Pym didn’t love her, he let Mathias buy drugs intended to control her, that wasn’t love. However, he loved how she acted around him, letting him control the conversation and Alina disliked him, but she could never bear him hating her. Every longing look he gave her years ago was like a reminder: you are a likable person ergo you have worth.

Looking at him now, a skinny kid not much older than her, she was surprised that despite her aversion not fading, she emphasized with him. She had loved make pretend people, too, and it was awful.

So here she was, crying and wordlessly looking at her old drug dealer, all-round, tear-stained cheeks and a sniffling pink nose. 

He was stoic, she wondered if he was living through her, she had enough emotions for everyone. 

And without saying a word, Pym got up and went straight to her bathroom, each thump his shoes made, made her ache grow worse and worse. Alina couldn’t find the words to say to him or even the courage to ask him what he was doing. 

She felt useless.

 All she could do was just put her feet on her sofa and curled up, attempting to pull herself together. The sound of Pym’s heavy breathing helped her compose herself somewhat.

Pym finally came out, the way the fluorescent lights hit him made him look like some type of fallen angel,  under-eyes red but no visible tears. In pale, shaking hands were three clear bottles with a clear liquid in them, he placed them in front of her, not looking at her face. That was what he was here for, and Alina put five twenty euro bills on the table.

 He wordlessly took it, eyes not even looking at her before he left, not even saying goodbye. Alina wasn’t his problem any illusion he had of her was long gone.

 When the door closed, she no longer needed to regulate her emotions. If nobody would try to understand her feelings, she would have to forgive herself. She put her face in one of the pillows, a wordless scream coming out of her. Her throat was collapsing, but it felt like a relief. She hasn’t had a good cry in a long time, and it just meant tomorrow she’d be as pretty and fresh-faced as people expected her to be.

[roadtripdad]

NEW Federal Legislation: Environment

US HR 3970 - STRANDED Act of 2017

Referred to the Subcommittee on the Environment

US S 203 - RPM Act of 2017

Upcoming hearing: Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety

US HR 2874 - 21st Century Flood Reform Act

Rules Committee Resolution H Res 616 reported to House. The resolution provides for one hour of general debate and close rule for HR 2874. Also, the resolution provides for consideration the conference report to accompany HR 2810.

US S 839 - Blocking Regulatory Interference from Closing Kilns Act of 2017

Read Twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

US S 1934 - Alaska Remote Generator Reliability and Protection Act

Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Saftey Hearings Held

US HR 2583 - BUILD Resilience Act of 2017

Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services

US HR 3043 - Hydropower Policy Modernization Act of 2017

Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

US S 2000 - National Opportunity for Lead Exposure and Accountability and Deterrence Act of 2017

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

US HR 4126 - Transparency in Energy Production Act of 2017

Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources

US HR 4087 - Protecting Airport Communities from Particle Emissions Act

Referred to the Subcommittee on Aviation

US HR 2872 - Promoting Hydropower Development at Existing Nonpowered Dams Act

Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee by Voice Vote

US HR 3916 - FISH Act

Subcommittee Hearings Held

US S 1991 - Wildland Fires Act of 2017

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

US S 1981 - Small Scale LNG Access Act of 2017

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

US S 1403 - 21st Century Conservation Service Corps Act of 2017

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on National Parks. Hearings Held.

US HR 3981 - Pollution Transparency Act

Referred to the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law​

US S 1770 - Hualapai Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2017

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs

US S 664 - Navajo Utah Water Rights Resettlement Act

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs​

​Bother your reps!

[help me keep bothering]​

[mikemortgage]

ExaGrid Nominated in Six Categories for the 2019 Network Computing Awards

Company Celebrates Diverse Category Nominations

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. — ExaGrid®, a leading provider of intelligent hyperconverged storage for backup, today announced that it has been nominated in six categories for the 2019 Network Computing Awards. ExaGrid has become a finalist for Data Centre Product of the Year, The Return on Investment Award, Hardware Product of the Year, Product of the Year, The Customer Service Award, and Company of the Year. Voting to determine the winner in each category is underway now and closes on April 23. The results will be revealed at an evening award ceremony in London on May 2.

ExaGrid’s model EX63000E backup storage appliance with data deduplication is a nominee in four categories. The model provides the largest scale-out system and offers up to a 2PB full backup with an ingest rate of 432TB/hr, which is three times faster than any other backup storage on the market.

“We are thrilled to be nominated by IT staff, and recognized by Network Computing, in six prestigious categories this year,” said Bill Andrews, CEO and President of ExaGrid. “We remain steadfast in helping IT organizations solve two of the most pressing issues they face today: how to protect an ever‐increasing amount of backup data and how to do so at less cost. ExaGrid provides significant lifetime value and investment protection that no other architecture can match.”

The diverse category nominations reflect attention to ExaGrid’s unique architectural approach, differentiated product, and unrivalled customer support. ExaGrid provides a unique disk Landing Zone in each appliance where backups are written directly to disk so that the compute-intensive data deduplication process doesn’t impact ingest speed. The most recent backups are protected and immediately available in its full undeduplicated form for fast restores, VM Instant Recoveries, and tape copies while the offsite data is ready for disaster recovery. Backups to traditional deduplication appliances and straight disk are stored in a deduplicated form which requires lengthy rehydration when data needs to be restored. Every ExaGrid appliance provides landing zone storage, deduplicated repository storage, processor and memory, so as data grows, all resources required to maintain a fixed-length backup window are added, which eliminates expensive forklift upgrades. ExaGrid’s scale-out architecture allows for mixing appliances of different sizes and models in the same scale-out system, eliminating product obsolescence and protecting IT investments up front and over time.

ExaGrid also uses Adaptive Deduplication to deduplicate and replicate data to the disaster recovery (DR) site during the backup window, in parallel with backups, instead of the traditional inline approach, between the backup application and the disk. This unique combination of a landing zone with adaptive deduplication provides for the fastest backup performance, resulting in the shortest backup window as well as a strong disaster recovery point (RPO). Finally, ExaGrid provides an assigned level 2 support technician knowledgeable in specific backup applications and an evergreen model of supporting all appliances at standard maintenance and support rates.

About ExaGrid ExaGrid provides intelligent hyperconverged storage for backup with data deduplication, a unique landing zone, and scale-out architecture. ExaGrid’s landing zone provides for the fastest backups, restores, and instant VM recoveries. Its scale-out architecture includes full appliances in a scale-out system and ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows, eliminating expensive forklift upgrades. Visit us at exagrid.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. See what our customers have to say about their own ExaGrid experiences and why they now spend significantly less time on backup in our customer success stories.

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190320005175/en/

Contacts

Stacey Foster ExaGrid sfoster@exagrid.com 508-898-2872 x0248

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[govtshutdown]

Amazingly, the House acted in a timely manner. Wow!

Just three hours after the Senate voted, the House suspended the rules and passed it 314-108

[govtshutdown]

The final roll call vote on H.R. 2872, the Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, passing the Senate just before 2 pm on Thursday 77-18

[govtshutdown]

Senate Roll Call vote from Tuesday invoking cloture on H.R. 2872, The Further Additional Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act FACAOEA. Catching up after a busy day on Thursday.

[govtshutdown]

Well that's good news.

[govtshutdown]

Here is the vehicle for the CR. All appropriations bills must start in the House, so if the Senate wants to start one, they take an innocuous bill that has already passed the House and pass an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Hence we get an amendment to the Permanent Electronic Duck Stamp Act is the bill that will keep the lights on.

[mikemortgage]

ExaGrid Voted “Hyper-convergence Company of the Year” in 2018 SVC Awards

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — ExaGrid®, a leading provider of Intelligent Hyperconverged Storage for Backup (IHCSB) with data deduplication, today announced that the company has been honoured by SVC with its 2018 Hyper-convergence Company of the Year award, a category newly introduced this year. Winners were announced at the SVC Awards Gala Ceremony at The Millennium Gloucester Hotel London on November 22, 2018.

ExaGrid Voted “Hyper-convergence Company of the Year” in 2018 SVC Awards. First winner in newly-introduced award category.

The SVC Awards honour the products, projects, and services – as well as companies and teams – operating in the cloud, storage, and digitalization sectors, recognizing the achievements of end users, channel partners, and vendors. According to SVC, there were a record number of nominations across all categories in 2018, so finalists did particularly well to make the shortlist this year and for companies like ExaGrid to win. Voting took place amongst the readership of the Digitalisation World stable of publications with the number of votes again breaking previous records.

Peter Davies, Sales Manager of the Digitalisation World portfolio at Angel Business Communications (organisers of the SVC Awards), said: “I’m delighted that we have this annual opportunity to recognise the innovation and success of a significant part of the IT community. The number of entries – and the quality of the projects, products, and people they represent – demonstrate that the SVC Awards continue to go from strength to strength and fulfil an important role in highlighting and recognising much of the great work that goes on in the industry. This year’s finalists represent the very best in the industry, and ExaGrid was voted as outstanding by our readership to win the Hyper-convergence Company of the Year category.”

Central to its very architecture, ExaGrid solves the myriad of performance challenges inherent to deduplication for backups, restores, and VM boots. By converging compute with capacity in each appliance, and in concert with virtually any backup application, ExaGrid’s scale-out backup storage with unique landing zone perform at a rate that is 3X faster for ingest and over 20X faster for restores and VM boots than its closest competitor. In addition, ExaGrid is the only solution that ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows. Using ExaGrid, IT can benefit from the fastest backups, restores, and VM boots; a fixed-length backup window; and the ability to easily scale their systems, buying what they need as they need it and eliminating forklift upgrades and product obsolescence – all at the lowest cost up front and over time.

“We are honoured to have been voted SVC’s 2018 Hyper-convergence Company of the Year,” said Andy Walsky, ExaGrid’s Vice President of Sales, EMEA/APAC. “We believe it reflects ExaGrid’s popularity as the industry’s premier hyper-converged backup storage solution for customers looking to replace outdated backup technology in their IT environments with a more current, all-in-one approach.”

In 2018, ExaGrid began shipping its largest, most powerful appliance to date – the EX63000E – which has 58% more capacity than its predecessor, allowing for a 63TB full backup (configurable to an 80TB full backup). Due to ExaGrid’s scale-out technology, up to thirty-two EX63000E appliances can be combined in a single scale-out system (an increase from the previous twenty-five combined appliances), allowing for a 2PB full backup, which is a 100% increase over the previous 1PB. The 2PB full backup in a single system is twice the size of ExaGrid’s closest competitor – the Dell EMC Data Domain 9800. The EX63000E has a maximum ingest rate of 13.5TB/hr. per appliance, so when thirty-two EX63000Es are combined in a single system, the maximum ingest rate is 432TB/hr.

ExaGrid’s published customer success stories and enterprise stories number over 360, more than all other vendors in the space combined. These include a two-page narrative and customer quote, demonstrating how satisfied customers are with ExaGrid’s unique architectural approach, differentiated product, and unrivalled customer support. Customers consistently state that not only is the product best-in-class, but ‘it just works.’

About ExaGrid ExaGrid provides hyper-converged secondary storage for backup with data deduplication, a unique landing zone, and scale-out architecture. ExaGrid’s landing zone provides for the fastest backups, restores, and instant VM recoveries. Its scale-out architecture includes full appliances in a scale-out system and ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows, eliminating expensive forklift upgrades. Visit us at www.exagrid.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. See what our customers have to say about their own ExaGrid experiences and why they now spend significantly less time on backup.

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Contacts

Christine Murphy ExaGrid cmurphy@exagrid.com 508-898-2872 x248

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[mikemortgage]

ExaGrid Voted “Hyper-convergence Company of the Year” in 2018 SVC Awards

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — ExaGrid®, a leading provider of Intelligent Hyperconverged Storage for Backup (IHCSB) with data deduplication, today announced that the company has been honoured by SVC with its 2018 Hyper-convergence Company of the Year award, a category newly introduced this year. Winners were announced at the SVC Awards Gala Ceremony at The Millennium Gloucester Hotel London on November 22, 2018.

ExaGrid Voted “Hyper-convergence Company of the Year” in 2018 SVC Awards. First winner in newly-introduced award category.

The SVC Awards honour the products, projects, and services – as well as companies and teams – operating in the cloud, storage, and digitalization sectors, recognizing the achievements of end users, channel partners, and vendors. According to SVC, there were a record number of nominations across all categories in 2018, so finalists did particularly well to make the shortlist this year and for companies like ExaGrid to win. Voting took place amongst the readership of the Digitalisation World stable of publications with the number of votes again breaking previous records.

Peter Davies, Sales Manager of the Digitalisation World portfolio at Angel Business Communications (organisers of the SVC Awards), said: “I’m delighted that we have this annual opportunity to recognise the innovation and success of a significant part of the IT community. The number of entries – and the quality of the projects, products, and people they represent – demonstrate that the SVC Awards continue to go from strength to strength and fulfil an important role in highlighting and recognising much of the great work that goes on in the industry. This year’s finalists represent the very best in the industry, and ExaGrid was voted as outstanding by our readership to win the Hyper-convergence Company of the Year category.”

Central to its very architecture, ExaGrid solves the myriad of performance challenges inherent to deduplication for backups, restores, and VM boots. By converging compute with capacity in each appliance, and in concert with virtually any backup application, ExaGrid’s scale-out backup storage with unique landing zone perform at a rate that is 3X faster for ingest and over 20X faster for restores and VM boots than its closest competitor. In addition, ExaGrid is the only solution that ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows. Using ExaGrid, IT can benefit from the fastest backups, restores, and VM boots; a fixed-length backup window; and the ability to easily scale their systems, buying what they need as they need it and eliminating forklift upgrades and product obsolescence – all at the lowest cost up front and over time.

“We are honoured to have been voted SVC’s 2018 Hyper-convergence Company of the Year,” said Andy Walsky, ExaGrid’s Vice President of Sales, EMEA/APAC. “We believe it reflects ExaGrid’s popularity as the industry’s premier hyper-converged backup storage solution for customers looking to replace outdated backup technology in their IT environments with a more current, all-in-one approach.”

In 2018, ExaGrid began shipping its largest, most powerful appliance to date – the EX63000E – which has 58% more capacity than its predecessor, allowing for a 63TB full backup (configurable to an 80TB full backup). Due to ExaGrid’s scale-out technology, up to thirty-two EX63000E appliances can be combined in a single scale-out system (an increase from the previous twenty-five combined appliances), allowing for a 2PB full backup, which is a 100% increase over the previous 1PB. The 2PB full backup in a single system is twice the size of ExaGrid’s closest competitor – the Dell EMC Data Domain 9800. The EX63000E has a maximum ingest rate of 13.5TB/hr. per appliance, so when thirty-two EX63000Es are combined in a single system, the maximum ingest rate is 432TB/hr.

ExaGrid’s published customer success stories and enterprise stories number over 360, more than all other vendors in the space combined. These include a two-page narrative and customer quote, demonstrating how satisfied customers are with ExaGrid’s unique architectural approach, differentiated product, and unrivalled customer support. Customers consistently state that not only is the product best-in-class, but ‘it just works.’

About ExaGrid ExaGrid provides hyper-converged secondary storage for backup with data deduplication, a unique landing zone, and scale-out architecture. ExaGrid’s landing zone provides for the fastest backups, restores, and instant VM recoveries. Its scale-out architecture includes full appliances in a scale-out system and ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows, eliminating expensive forklift upgrades. Visit us at www.exagrid.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. See what our customers have to say about their own ExaGrid experiences and why they now spend significantly less time on backup.

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Contacts

Christine Murphy ExaGrid cmurphy@exagrid.com 508-898-2872 x248

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[mikemortgage]

ExaGrid Reports Record Bookings and Revenue for Q3-2018

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — ExaGrid®, a leading provider of hyper-converged secondary storage for backup, today announced record Q3 bookings and revenue for Q3 2018. ExaGrid grew at a rate of 30% over the same quarter of the prior year, continuing its trend of progressive growth at a faster rate than that of the overall market and resulting in progressive market share gain. The company also continued its up-market trajectory, attracting increasing numbers of enterprise customers with hundreds of terabytes to petabytes of data to be backed up.

ExaGrid achieves unprecedented 30% growth rate with record bookings and revenue for Q3-18; replaces increasing volume of competitive solutions.

“This was our best bookings and revenue quarter in the history of the company,” said Bill Andrews, CEO and President of ExaGrid. “We are continuing to replace old and expensive systems – including Dell EMC Data Domain, HPE StoreOnce, and many other deduplication solutions – that are slow for backups due to inline deduplication and are slow for restores as they only store deduplicated data.”

In addition to record Q3 bookings and revenue, ExaGrid achieved the following:

A Net Promoter Survey of ExaGrid’s customers yielded a Net Promoter Score of +73, considered to be “excellent” by Net Promoter standards. This customer loyalty metric measures how likely existing customers are to recommend a vendor’s product or service to a colleague.

ExaGrid is relocating its corporate offices at the end of 2018 in order to better accommodate the company’s growing engineering, IT, customer support, inside sales, marketing, finance, and executive staff.

A sampling of the company’s many key global customer wins in Q3 includes:

Fast response to Hurricane Florence – A large US-based provider of medical practice management services and technology has a North Carolina-based client – a practice located in the path of Hurricane Florence, a monster storm that hit the Carolina coast in early September. ExaGrid’s customer contacted ExaGrid, urgently requesting 400TB of capacity plus landing zone for its client practice. Shipped that day and installed the next in North Carolina, the system was used to back up the practice’s data, was de-installed, and was shipped to its out-of-state data center that evening for disaster recovery.

A global manufacturer of metal components for mining and construction, previously using Dell EMC Data Domain and NetWorker, was facing a rip-and-replace of their existing system. Over the incumbents – as well as Cohesity – customer opted for a combined ExaGrid and Veeam dual-site solution for both onsite backups as well as offsite disaster recovery protection.

Located in France, an association of private hospitals chose ExaGrid over HPE StoreOnce due to ExaGrid’s integration with Veeam and its lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

A Mexican telecommunications company was faced with a data center move and decided that ExaGrid – due to its unique landing zone – would provide them with the speed and flexibility they needed for this project as well as future backup and disaster recovery requirements.

A Swiss social insurance company replaced HPE StoreOnce after an impressive head-to-head proof of concept (POC).

A Middle Eastern insurer located in Oman was faced with more stringent backup retention requirements to maintain its compliance under the Islamic Shari’a framework. Customer chose ExaGrid over HPE StoreOnce for ExaGrid’s seamless scalability to ensure continued retention compliance as data volumes increase.

A Canadian managed services provider replaced HPE Data Protector and Avamar with Veeam, and replaced HPE StoreOnce and Dell EMC Data Domain with ExaGrid. These selections were made over the incumbent solutions (as well as Commvault and Veritas) due to Veeam-ExaGrid’s unmatched scalability and superior performance.

The German subsidiary of an eminent global defense company is replacing HPE Data Protector with Veeam, and its tape library with ExaGrid due to ExaGrid’s aggressive deduplication and its unsurpassed integration with Veeam.

A European salt mine that produces five million tons of salt annually chose ExaGrid to replace its HPE disk. Among the many features and benefits, ExaGrid’s unique landing zone was ultimately the deciding factor.

Longer-term retention requirements prompted a South African high-grade manganese mining company to compare the cost of using ExaGrid for backup storage to standard primary disk storage. ExaGrid’s data deduplication approach was a fraction of the cost of standard disk.

The 2nd largest coal producer in the eastern U.S. replaced HPE StoreOnce and Quantum with ExaGrid. Customer’s POC showed superior performance with ExaGrid and Veeam against the incumbent vendors as well as Rubrik.

The company continues its global expansion with the addition of field sales teams in EMEA, APAC, and Latin America.

“Customers have used the first generation of deduplication appliances for years and have hit the wall because inline deduplication is slow and does not scale” said Andrews. “ExaGrid now offers the largest system in the industry – one that can take in up to a 2PB full backup at up to 432TB/hr., which is 3X faster than its closest competitor.”

Unlike first generation deduplication solutions that were either built into a backup application media server or into a scale-up storage appliance, ExaGrid delivers the backup industry’s only true scale-out architecture with data deduplication. It is typically half the cost of the large brand solutions and also improves backup and restore performance by combining zone-level deduplication, adaptive deduplication, global deduplication, and a unique landing zone.

As the market matures, customers are understanding the performance degradation that data deduplication can have on backup unless a solution is intentionally architected to prevent any such impact. All deduplication solutions reduce storage and WAN bandwidth to a degree, but only ExaGrid solves the three inherent compute problems to achieve faster backups, restores, and VM boots by leveraging its unique landing zone, adaptive deduplication, and scale-out architecture.

“First generation deduplication solutions can be cost prohibitive for backup storage and are also slow for backups, restores, and VM boots, which is why over 80% of ExaGrid’s newly-acquired customers are replacing Dell EMC Data Domain, HP StoreOnce, Commvault Deduplication, and the Veritas 5200/5300 series of appliances with ExaGrid,” Andrews said.

All backup storage vendors reduce storage and bandwidth to varying degrees but provide slow ingest rates because they perform data deduplication ‘inline.’ In addition, because they only store deduplicated data, restore speeds and VM boots are also very slow. Because ExaGrid has eliminated the three compute challenges inherent to backup storage with data deduplication, ExaGrid’s ingest rate is 6X faster – and restores/VM boots are up to 20X faster – than its closest competitor. Unlike the first generation vendors that only add capacity as data grows, ExaGrid appliances add compute with capacity, ensuring that the backup window remains fixed in length. Only ExaGrid uses a scale-out architecture with a unique loading zone, which holistically addresses all of the scalability and performance challenges of backup storage.

ExaGrid’s published customer success stories and enterprise stories number over 350, more than all other vendors in the space combined. These include a two-page narrative and customer quote, demonstrating how satisfied customers are with ExaGrid’s unique architectural approach, differentiated product, and unrivalled customer support. Customers consistently state that not only is the product best-in-class, but ‘it just works.’

About ExaGrid ExaGrid provides hyper-converged secondary storage for backup with data deduplication, a unique landing zone, and scale-out architecture. ExaGrid’s landing zone provides for the fastest backups, restores, and instant VM recoveries. Its scale-out architecture includes full appliances in a scale-out system and ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows, eliminating expensive forklift upgrades. Visit us at www.exagrid.com or on LinkedIn. See what ExaGrid customers have to say about their own ExaGrid experiences and why they now spend significantly less time on backup.

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Contacts

ExaGrid Christine Murphy, 508-898-2872 x248 cmurphy@exagrid.com

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