#new region and it's just as big as the previous 20 i lose a little bit more of my mind

[mwagneto]

i havent finished da3 yet so maybe this will be explained but i literally just dont understand why the hell I'M the inquisitor. like just coz i was ambiguously At Some Place where some important shit happened and i have a mark on my hand that can close rifts, that gives me a licence to run literally everything?? what if the random guy who showed up from the rift with no memories is shit at running things??? or just evil???? not to mention why is the top dog the one to go on every single mission ever like why am i doing frankly insane amounts of busywork if im theee guy of this organisation? like it would've made far more sense for there to be an inquisitor who's, yknow, actually experienced at running things, who stays back in skyhold while i go out to close rifts and collect 15 elfroot and 5 black lotus like surely this should not be the inquisitor's job

[foodieforthoughts]

Show Me the Light

Summary: She recently moved to Minneapolis and is a newly appointed sports teacher at Southern Cross High School, wanting to live life away from the big city of New York. On the first week of her arrival she (almost) crashes into Detective Walter Marshall which leads to his and her life being intertwined there on. It is not your regular meet-cute story but rather a tug of war between two people from opposite spectrum of life.

Pairing: Walter Marshall x OFC (Myra King)

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: A slight description of a possible accident, smut in the future chapters.

A/N: Hello! After watching "Nomis" for the second time, I really started to feel the urge to write about our grumpy Detective Walter Marshall. I don't want to make it all angst, so bear with me if the OFC seems too cherry to be in the movie. Also, I do not want to face tag her, so let your imagination run free.

**Please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the taglist**

| Part 1 | Part 2 |

Title: Show Me the Light

Walter slammed the manilla folder on his desk, exasperated with the dead ends to the present case at hand. He stretched his arms in front of him, feeling his neck become stiff with the cold and his goddam posture was killing him.

"Dad?" Faye peaked in, draped in a shawl with her toothbrush in her hand.

"Are you going to bed now?" Walter's voice came out sterner than he intended to.

"No, I'm getting ready to go to school." She pointed towards the window in his office. Faint light of the rising sun was casting a glow from behind the curtains. "Did you stay awake the whole night?" She innocently asked.

Walter rubbed his eyes. He hadn't even realized how much time had passed since he had grabbed the case file last night. He had become so invested in it, he had completely missed bedtime. 'Not that sleep is important anyway.' He grunted, feeling the sore muscles in his back stretch as he stood up.

"I can call mom to drop me to school." His daughter offered. Her small frame looked tiny enveloped in her grey shawl, her nose pink with the cold.

"No, I'll just get some coffee. Have to go to the station anyway." Walter grunted again as he stretched his neck, rubbing a tender spot. "Go get ready."

He watched as his daughter retreated with a concerned look. Walter loved having his daughter around but it was mostly because he could keep one of his concerns at bay by keeping an eye on her. Grabbing his gun from the drawer and his badge lying on top of his table, he made his way downstairs to fix himself some strong coffee. He could feel the tiredness lingering in his muscles, but he had a job to get done. When he took the pledge to serve the public, he wholeheartedly meant it.

"So we got a new sports teacher." Faye pulled on her seat belt and buckled it over her body.

"What happened to the previous one?" Walter started the engine of his truck, the hunk of metal humming and warming in the cold. He let it run for a couple of seconds, rubbing his hands together as it touched the cold steering wheel.

"I don't know. He got old?" Faye chuckled.

Walter spared a smile. His daughter, the light of his life, made it a little less harder to live in this cruel world. They pulled out on the street and made their way towards the school.

It had snowed heavily last night. The sun shone brightly on the white landscape, making the snow twinkle like crystal. It was already peak office hour and thankfully Faye's school was not deep inside the city. Walter took out his sunglasses from his glove compartment, as the glint of the sun on the snow and the car windows were making his head hurt.

"Um... Dad? Is that coming our way?"

Walter looked up, squinting at the road as Faye pointed out in front of her. A black figure on a bike, the sound of its exhaust rumbling through the street and the metal parts shining in the sun, was making it's way towards them. The speed at which they were travelling and the slight tilting of its wheels from side to side hinted that the rider was losing it's balance.

"Oh, fuck!" Walter gripped his steering wheel tightly as the bike zoomed past his truck, barely missing the edge of the hood, and skidded along the slippery road to crash against the mount of ice gathered on the side. His truck made a grumble, the tires screeching as it tried to get a grip on the asphalt, coming to a jolting halt.

"Dad!" Faye had gripped her seat belt bracing for impact. "Oh my God! Are they alright?" She turned to look behind, watching the rider on the ground a few feet away from the bike.

"Are you okay?" Walter looked at his daughter. A whiplash injury was the last thing he wanted his daughter to suffer from. When Faye hurriedly nodded at him, his anger grew as he growled and opened his door to jump out and catch a hold of the irresponsible person who nearly crashed into him.

***

She was running late. Her second day on her job and she was freaking late.

Myra had hopped on her bike, chugging the last of her veggie smoothie and placing the bottle on the side pocket of her bag. Her brilliant black Benelli 900 SEI had looked stunning as always. She had dusted the few sprinkles of snow laying on it's tank, before kissing the cold metal handle bars.

"Don't disappoint me today, okay? You have been good so far." She had smiled at her bike dearly, remembering she still had to get it checked by a professional because of all the transportation it had had to go through. The sweet sound of its powerful engine coming to life, the exhaust emitting a rumble as she had revved it up a little, had made her heart swell.

Everything was working out fine. The city roads had been bustling with cars, but she had zoomed past them. Even though her bike belonged from the 70s, it still worked like a fine piece of metal. She had worn her faithful leather jacket, her biking gloves sat snuggly against her skin providing warmth in the cold weather.

Somewhere around the suburban part of the city, nearer to the school she worked at, her bike started to give off a clicking sound. Myra pressed on the breaks, feeling her speed coming down a little and her tires beginning to wobble on the road.

"Oh, fuck. No, no... " She prayed as the braking system seemed to be giving up on her. Her accelerometer showing her speed still above 20 mph. She was already crossing the speed limit inside the suburban region and was unable to do anything about it.

Her eyes widened as she spotted a big truck coming her way. She pressed down hard on the breaks, but she knew a crash was imminent now. Her eyes scanned about trying to look for an escape bay, spotting a heap of snow on the side of the road.

"Oh, God!" She turned her handle abruptly, missing the oncoming vehicle by mere inches, and let go of her bike as it skidded along the road and crashed on the snow. She slipped on the gravel for a couple of feet, trying to hold onto something to stop herself but failing miserably.

Myra groaned as she came to a halt, her head bumping against the road but saved by the helmet. Her heart raced like it was going to come out of her chest. Her feet and hands had gotten cold from the fear of crashing into the car, her breathing coming out ragged. She blinked several times, looking up at the sky through her black tinted glass hood of her helmet, swallowing the dryness in her throat.

"Hey!" Myra felt herself being yanked up by the collar of her jacket and came face to face with an angry, curly haired man. His eyebrows were scrunched together tightly and his lips, under the bush of his beard, was upturned in a sneer. "What the fuck just happened there?"

The zipper of her jacket dug at her throat, her feet dangling from the ground. The man was huge and powerful to have lifted her body up like she was nothing but a ragged doll. Myra placed her hands on his, trying to choke out a word. The insulated cover of her helmet and the air getting blocked from her throat was making her difficult to form words.

"W-wait... " She tried to speak but felt her lungs were straining for oxygen. The sound of the police siren made the burly man finally let go of her. She dropped to the ground on her knees, gasping for air and pulling her helmet off. She coughed as she leaned on the ground, placing her hands on the road breathing in through her mouth.

"Miss King?"

Myra looked up at the tiny voice of a girl coming from behind her. She recognized the girl from her class yesterday. Myra had helped her correct her posture while aiming for the goal when they had played soccer.

"You know her?"

The bearded man from before who had held her by the collar asked angrily. Myra looked over at him, his arms crossed over his chest, straining the fabric of his sweater over his muscles. She looked down at his waist and noticed the police badge clipped on his belt, his gun cocked in it's holster. She sat back on her knees, looking from one person to another.

"Yes! She's our new sports teacher."

Myra felt her cheeks heat as the grumpy man and the two police officers that had arrived later, looked down at her. Her gaze fell on her bike some few feet away, the hazy grey colour of smoke emiting from it, contrasting against the white sheet of snow.

"Take her to the station. Keep her there until I come back." He grumbled to the other two officers, throwing her a look of disgust and walking away with the girl behind her.

"Come on, Miss. Inside the car."

With a grunt from her aching muscles and joints, Myra stood up clutching her helmet in her hand and followed the men as they lead her to the police cruiser.

'Bloody fucking great!' She silently mumbled to herself as she sat on the backseat of the cruiser and watched the black truck she was going to crash into, drive away.

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[blackswaneuroparedux]

No “wine-ing”: a season of ice and fire

A lot of you dropped very kind messages about my well being and I’m happy to say that my recovery from Covid is firmly on track and I’m close to full strength again. My exhaustion and tiredness has thankfully been ebbing away. I’m back running my daily 5 km before I start my work day and cycling to get back to full fitness.

So I managed to escape Paris before the travel lockdown and curfew was imposed before April 26. I’m  a country girl at heart and I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable in big cities. I love Paris but I also get tired of it quite easily. So I headed to the chateau vineyard where I thought I could complete my recovery from my Covid illness and work remotely (the work never stops) without too many distractions. 

Unfortunately - or fortunately as I prefer to see it - I was mud deep in trying to rescue our wine harvest for 2021 as frost struck over a few nights that left us reeling, and left much of the country’s wine growing region devastated. No region of France was spared as French wine producers fought valiantly over several nights to stop the frost from letting the buds finally come out to sprout. Wine makers fought with everything they could think of, and in the end resorted to fire to keep the temperature warm enough for the vines to survive the cold snap. It was a spectacular sight all across the horizons of many French wine growing regions including ours.

I’m just thankful to be there at the right place and the right time to help out.

I enjoy coming down to our chateau vineyard as it’s a welcome contrast to the busy city life of Paris. I just couldn’t wait to get dressed up (or dress down?) in tatty old clothing, rolling up my sleeves, and getting my hands dirty with any physical chores to do around the vineyard. I always have this urge to make myself useful instead being stuck behind a desk, bored to death in Zoom call meetings. I was looking forward to running and cycling in the open country air to bust a gut or two.

Mostly though I was looking forward to enjoying home cooked country food, be in the fun company of my two Anglo-Norwegian cousins and their French families, and together we’d be preening over the first shoots of the forthcoming wine harvest for 2021.

It is always an emotional moment at this time of year when we see in the vineyards the glistening tears of the vines (‘les pleurs’) that tell us that the new vintage is underway. As the temperatures rise so does the sap in the vines and where the pruners have trimmed the end of the branch, we see this beautiful sight that reassures us  – telling us whatever happens, nature continues. The baby buds are beginning to come out timidly but soon the stark branches of the vines will be green again as these fragile leaves unfurl in the spring sunlight.

Back in 2020 many vintners (winemakers), not just in our region but across the whole of France, were unsure what 2021 would bring. Would 2021 be a challenging vintage or an easy one full of sunshine? With the growing season starting so early, the first hurdle - and one of the most crucial -  is the fear of late frost. It seems to be more and more of a problem in recent years, this late frost burying any new growth like a fast moving avalanche. For many vintners they have 2017 written into their hearts in painful tears when frost devastated any hope for a healthy harvest and for some even brought financial ruin.

For me - at the time - it was a rude introduction to the vicissitudes of the wine making business by two wine loving cousins co-owning and co-managing an old family owned French vineyard.  Family fortunes rise and fall according to the harvest. All the blood, tears, and sweat poured into running an efficient high yielding grape vineyard comes to naught when you realise that you are not the master, nature is.

The risk of frost has increased in recent years due to global warming, which does not just warm but makes the climate more erratic and temperatures more extreme. Good news for the moderately temperate climate for our wine making region where hotter drier summers have produced a string of good recent vintages (2015, 2016, 2018, 2020). But the negative side of this is that frosts have become more common right up until the end of the usual cycle – last year it was on 6th May.

Except this year, 2021, now looked like 2017 because of the devastation of continued frost on the vines. In talking to the French family of my cousin’s French wife, who have faithfully made wine for a few generations they ruefully pointed out past bad frosts. Apparently 1956 was legendary with a very cold winter frost some minus 20 °C following a warm period when the sap rose from the roots into the vine foot and branches. It killed the vines. The last disastrous late spring frost before 2017 was 1991. It seems to be striking significantly every two years now and a every year to a degree. Who would have expected the devastation again this year, 2021 some forty years on.

This year, particularly around April 7th and 8th, brought despair to vignerons right across France from Champagne to Cognac, Burgundy to Bordeaux as thousands of vineyards’ new growth was obliterated by frost (resulting in zero yield for harvest 2021). There may be some new growth and some secondary budding but this is a repeat of 2017 (if not worse) and few were able to harvest any grapes worth speaking of.

My cousins had been in contact with friends and other peers who are wine makers in other regions (friendships are built at trade shows overseas and other association events) and in totality the picture appeared bleaker than previous years. The scourge of frost had been catastrophic. Around half of the vines in Burgundy have been damaged, according to local producers. Some vineyard owning friends in the Inter Rhône region told us that the whole of the Rhône has been hit dramatically and that some plots are affected 100%.

According to the CNIV, the official French council for wine appellation, the frost has affected 80% of French vineyards. We already know that we will have a very low harvest in 2021. Nearly all French wine growers have just suffered a dark week in April.

It’s not just wine growers but fruit farmers too. It’s been like winter coming in spring. Below-freezing temperatures in the Drome and Ardèche regions of central southern France have led to fruit farmers losing up to 90 percent of their kiwi, apricot, apple, and peach harvest. Even in Bordeaux the severity of the frost damaged the growth on fruit trees such as apricots, peaches and nectarines, and field-crops such as rapeseed and sugar beet.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. How does one protect the vines from frost?

There have been a variety of ways vineyard owners have been dealing with the problem of frost. There’s no one size fits all and the solutions are often handicapped by the size of one’s vineyards, financial resources, and manpower.

Two solutions in fighting frost have been aeolian wind turbines and air fans. It takes the warmer air from higher up, and pushes it to the ground. These machines can raise temperatures by up to 2C. The problem is that some of these wind turbines and air fans are permanently set so they can only be set in one direction whilst others one can wheel around to move the air and stop frost settling. Both are very expensive solutions and the cost may outweigh the gain.

Air heaters are another solution. No less expensive though. One of our vineyard owning neighbours wanted to use paraffin fuelled heaters. But he said he would have needed 4,500 paraffin-fuelled heaters to cover all his 15 hectares at a cost of nearly €50,000 for the two worst nights, and even then growers it would protect only the vines for his finest wines.

Some of the vineyards also launched helicopters to fly above their vineyards, a method that can help to prevent frost by encouraging warm air to circulate. In effect they push the cold air around so that it does not sink down to the ground causing its damage.  I was all for this solution as I’m an ex-army helicopter combat pilot and so I felt my old training could be put to use in civilian helicopters. But we ruled this out once we did the maths. At  about 1600€-2000€ per hour one can only fly from 6am but this is the coldest time when the sun comes up. At best the helicopter’s range of effectiveness was a mere 10 hectares. So you don’t get more bang for your buck. But that didn’t stop some vineyards that we knew doing exactly that. These were corporate owned vineyards who tend to be well heeled and can afford to spare no expense.

There are less expensive solutions but are more costly in terms of manpower.

Some vineyards used water sprinklers, allowing a fine coating hitting sub-zero temperatures as the ice acts like a mini-igloo and protect it from outside colder temperatures.

Conversely, vineyard owners hit upon another relatively low cost solution of using candles. They usually last 12 hours and so in effect can be used for the two crucial nights of severe frost. We calculated that at 10€ a candle you would need 300 for one hectare alone. Of course the chief problem is that they need to be lit by hand and hope the wind was kind.

For the biodynamic wine producers they fell back on organic solutions. They sprayed their vines with a spray composed of pectins from apples which is supposed to lower the temperature around the vines. More common and perhaps more effective was spraying vines with Valerian  to give the vines some added fortification to survive themselves.

By far the most common response by vineyard owners to combat the frost was to burn fires by burning hay bales amongst the vines. The smoke causes a blanket which heats up the atmosphere. In the old days I was told they actually burned rubber tyres! For it to have any chance of being effective you have to be aware of wine direction and make sure the bales are in the right places. It also helps if your neighbours do the same.

Speaking for our chateau vineyard, we had to make tough decisions to see how our chateau vineyard could combat the frost and minimise the damage to the future harvest. Although I own a small financial investment stake in the vineyard I have always deferred to my two cousins who actually run the vineyard with their married partners on a day to day basis. It’s their life long passion and I’m happy to play a small part in getting my hands (literally) dirty in building something from the soil up and for purely selfish reasons, just love being so close to nature itself. The fact that the French family of one my cousin’s wife - they actually owned the land and were reputable wine makers for generations  - added invaluable weight to the wisdom of any decision making we had to do.

We sat around the kitchen table and talked through our options whilst nursing a glass of wine from a past vintage.  My cousins and their kids especially thought I was a weirdo - they’re probably right! It’s not that I enjoy it (the mud, sweat and lack of sleep etc) but it was the challenge that really got me energised. If it’s a forlorn battle against the odds that’s when I really come alive. So I was quite jolly and full of vim whilst those around me were bleary eyed and groaning for bed and a hot shower as we were out in the fields in the dead of night. We ran it like a military operation - thanks to me ha! - I put everyone on detail and even the small kids saluted and got to work on their task. We made sure we had hot soup and beers constantly on tap for our staff and workers to take a food break and take a breather. Not that they needed motivating. Every one of our staff and also volunteers worked bravely to limit the damage.

So in the end we fell upon a series of actions which indeed many of our immediate wine making neighbours also followed suit. We sprayed, we watered, we burned. We tried everything to save our vines from further damage from frost.

We concocted an organic solution that had thyme, oregano, and wild sariette to which we added valerian and meadowsweet and a dash of yarrow and horsetail as well as honey; all of which help the whole organic solution to work. In effect this helps the vine to prepare for ice, by changing the composition of the sap a little, by enriching it with sugar. The infusion is then sprayed onto the vines at least 24 hours before the first freeze is forecast. The solution only works if the temperatures stay just below freezing but no lower, at around -2C or -1C maximum. With this solution on the plants, we could increase temperatures by 1-2 degrees. If it drops even lower, to around -5C, as we had in 2019, it’s not enough. It might save some plants, but not all.

We soon followed with watering the vines using our irrigation system we had on hand. It was labouriously time consuming.

When it was clear that this wasn’t going to work out because of the severe temperature drop we fell on fire as the saving solution.

It was all hands on deck as we also roped in some volunteers to help us start small controlled fires amongst our vines. We burned straw bales and piles of wood in very large jerry cans to save what we could. The aim was to create a blanket of smoke so that when the sun came up it didn't burn the vines because of the humidity. One vineyard neighbour of ours actually used a flame thrower and lit more than 700 small fires but had to start all over again because the fires didn’t last one night.

This was our experience too. We had a lot of hectares to cover and so little man power and so we just worked around the clock until we were able to light fires and keep an eye on them should they go out. We ran between the selected vines to make sure the fires remained lit throughout the night starting around 2am to 6am. I don’t think any of us had more than a few hours sleep over a crucial 48 hour window. We took turns to cook for everyone and made sure everyone was well fed on home cooking as well as hot showers and adequately winter clothed. I’m used to being sweaty and getting by on little sleep from my army days but it’s a measure of how far I’ve succumbed to civilian life that even I found it a little hard going.

I’m not very good at lighting fires as I tend to over compensate on the fuel lighter and I feared that I would burn the whole vineyard down by trying to start a small controlled fire. I got singed here and there but nothing to complain about. Others were just marvellous in their work ethic and shared bonhomie as we tried to save our vineyard. One person on our staff did get singed with flames and in his case we rushed him to hospital with minor third degree burns. We all felt like roasted chestnuts standing between the small fires. But what a spectacular sight the landscape was with all these lighted fires. This wasn’t just our vineyard but all across the landscape of neighbouring vineyards. It looked as if the whole region was on fire. It was quite hypnotising to  look at. As to its effects, it’s harder to discern. I do know that even cities of Lyon and Bordeaux had a layer of smog that was visible to others from far away.

Looking back it was both exhausting and exhilarating to experience such a time. It’s the kind of rite of passage that either breaks you or makes you. For us it certainly brought us all together more tightly than before. With our neighbours too there was a collective sense of togetherness and rather than act selfishly or just worry about our own fortunes, neighbours lent a hand towards each other in terms of equipment, expertise, or voluntary labour.

Perhaps the more wealthy chateau vineyards’ expensive techniques were able to save their best vineyards but most who could afford creating smoke blankets from burning hay bales – they were no match for the frost with temperatures down to minus 5 in some areas. Hopefully insurance had been taken out, which involves a substantial expenditure each year. We are fortunate to have insurance and the damage done to our vineyard has been mitigated to some extent. But I do know for instance that many are not insured against the effects of frost because of the cost of the coverage and many French wine producers were already struggling financially.

It was reported that many chateau vineyards in lesser known areas (Castillon, Bourg, Blaye, Côtes de Franc, Graves, Satellites of St Emilion) who could not afford these payments and who played ‘Russian roulette’, this year lost for perhaps for the last time. For them it’s personally heart breaking. For French wine making it’s a cultural tragedy. It’s hard enough for small independent vineyards (often run by families or young couples with a dream) to survive - the economies of scale as well as being aggressively overshadowed by the high volume output and superior marketing power of wealthy corporate owned vineyards - but never really expected nature, or vicissitudes of global warming, to make it that much more harder to make wine.

Unlike Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhone valley, in the Champagne region, we heard that not many Champagne wine producers didn’t even bother fighting the frost because they thought it would have done little good. One of the reasons why so few people engaged in frost protection in Champagne is these wine makers have as their biggest buffer against frost is their Individual Reserve (RI). In case appellation requirements are not met in the vineyard, they can draw from it.

Indeed with sales still stagnating and small yield expectations, growers may have to dip in the RI because frost season is not over till after the Saintes Glaces, a period in the middle of May after which frost generally doesn't appear. But not every vineyard can do that.

To their credit, perhaps recognising the commercial and cultural role French wine has in daily life and international prestige, the French government had agreed to step in to help. President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a picture of a candle-lit vineyard and promised that help was on the way, “À vous, agriculteurs qui, partout en France, avez lutté sans relâche, nuit après nuit, pour protéger les fruits de votre travail, je veux vous dire notre soutien plein et entier dans ce combat. Tenez bon ! Nous sommes à vos côtés et le resterons.” (“To you, farmers who, throughout France, have fought tirelessly, night after night, to protect the fruits of your labour, I want to give you our full support in this fight. Hold on tight! We are by your side and will remain so." )

To that end President Macron has declared an "agricultural disaster" and Prime Minister Jean Castex has promised that the government will provide emergency relief to those who were affected. He has also removed the limit on the amount of financial compensation that can be provided. It said it would help the smaller independent vineyards and co-operatives  with tax breaks as well as pushing banks and insurance companies to help out. It’s unclear if any of this will come to pass or indeed what effect it might have in the short and long term. We shall see.

It’s been estimated that at least a third of French wine production worth nearly € 2 billion (£ 1.7 billion) in sales will be lost this year. It's another blow for France's wine industry whatever assistance is given. The French wine industry has already been dealing with the knock-on effects of the Covid pandemic, with decreases in restaurant orders due to the country's series of lockdowns. Independent producers have been hit hard by the cancellation of wine fairs due to Covid. Then there have been the effects of the tariffs that former President Donald Trump imposed as a result of assorted disputes between the administration and the European Union. In late 2019, Trump hit French wine with a retaliatory 25% import duty, a cost increase that the Economist says contributed to a 14% drop in French wine exports in 2020. Last month in March, the United States and the EU announced a four-month suspension of the tariffs.

But that doesn't necessarily help winegrowers right now - especially since a significant percentage of this year's crop may already be lost. Tradition has it that it is well into May before vine growers can sleep easy without worrying about the risk of further frost damage.

Even though we did our best to save our vines we couldn’t save all of them and even had decide which ones to forgo even trying because we lacked manpower and resources at such short notice. I heard someone amongst ourselves say losing the vines that one has cultivated so lovingly was like the loss of a family member. It may seem puerile, but that is close to what many feel. Perhaps only winegrowers can understand this sentiment, but they have found themselves out in the vines in the morning with tears in their eyes. I’m not one for sentiment and displays of emotion but even I was a little moved to see the heart break in tear filled eyes of some of the older generation who have for decades given their sweat and tears to tilling the soil. We did our best to console one another and remarkably in that crucible we experienced together we all became closer.

What is clear is the tradition of wine - beyond national politics and international trade disputes - is under long term threat from something much more existential. There is a saying amongst the older generation of wine makers in our fertile wine making region who say, ‘wine history is climate history’. Wine making is about the vines, the ‘terroir’ (a French way of saying the earth or the soil), but also the climate. Nature is very much the master and wine makers are but humble servants of the soil. For those who don’t believe in climate change or think it’s overly dramatised by scientists or worse, a hoax, then I would say wake up and smell the coffee. Climate change is real as any wine producer or arable farmer will tell you. Wine can make you do or say many things, but it won’t ever make you tell a wilful lie.

The French wife of my cousin, whose family the vineyard had been for several generations, told us that the wine harvest time used to span her grandfather’s birthday - September 28 - but now, the bustle of harvest is over and cleaned up in time for his birthday party - that’s two to three weeks earlier than when her grandfather used to make the wine. As she memorably put it, things are  “bien cramées” (really screwed up).

All of this means that wine producers will have to change their ways as the climate changes. All the measures taken to combat frost were in reality delaying tactics to fight a losing battle with the climate. The wine industry, not just in France but around the world, needs to evolve if it is to face up to increasing climate challenges. This might include planting more weather-resistant vines that flower later, and are therefore less vulnerable to late frosts and cold snaps.

Wine, in France, is built into the fabric of the culture. The many variety of grapes across the wine growing regions indigenously grow and adapt to the precise climate conditions of the region for centuries. Winemakers know the growth stages intimately: the look of the vines before they bud; the look of the vines as they mature over long seasons; and the fat, sugary, fragrant curve of the grapes when they’re ready to be made into wine.

That harvest point is crucial. Too long on the vine and the grapes have too much sugar in them, meaning the wine will be more alcoholic—not the subtle feel most winemakers in the region care for. Too long, and the acids that give wine some of its feel in the mouth may disintegrate. Not long enough, and they might not have developed the right balance of fragrant chemicals that give the wine its characteristic flavours.

Winemakers keep careful track of harvest dates, with some regions have records stretching back to the Middle Ages. In the 1800s, scientists and historians realised that those careful records could be used to keep track of how the climate in different parts of Europe has changed over time.

Grape harvest date records are the longest records of phenology in Europe. There are hundreds of years of records of what the summer temp was like, and we can use them like a thermometer.

Grape harvest dates reflect the temperature the grapes have felt over the course of the growing season, from about April until they’re picked. If the spring and summer are hot, the grapes mature faster and need to be picked sooner. If they're cool, the opposite is true.

Climate historians started to pull together ancient information from other sources, too. They matched up the patterns in the grape harvest data with records made from tree rings and the length of glaciers in the Alps. They used records like those to figure out that much of central Europe warmed up during the Medieval Warm Period, from around 900 to 1300. It had cooled down during the Little Ice Age, from about the 15th to the 19th centuries.

The historians saw that over the past few hundred years, temperatures wobbled around, skewing warm for short stretches and cooling down in others. But overall, climate rocked up and down around a fairly consistent average value - until recently.

Wine is first and foremost an agricultural product. The grapes used to make it are grown and harvested with intent to be fermented. This means that wine production is vulnerable to the effects of climate change from the tangible health of vines to the taste and quality of the finished bottling they create. So for this reason, all winemakers see themselves as being on the front line to see what happens with the weather, with the climate. The fluctuations we have today are more significant than any time before.

If you don’t believe any of this or think wine producers are exaggerating the dangers, then taste your wine the next time you open a bottle. The chances are it has a high alcohol content. This is no accident. Because of the changes in temperature world wide, the alcohol content of wines has bumped up from about 12% in the 1970s to about 14% today. Of course that number varies from region to region and is also due to the wine maker’s preference. But a large part of it is because grapes are maturing faster in the heat. The more sugar they accumulate, the more of it is converted to alcohol during the winemaking process.

Warming has also caused the boundaries of viable growing area to swell. Typically, successful vineyards have been found between 30 and 50 degrees latitude. But as global average temperatures continue to climb, the most ideal areas to plant are moving farther from the equator. Now, areas as far up as the island of Föhr and Stargarder Land in Mecklenburg, at the tip-top of Germany, are legally permitted to produce table wines. Belgium, whose vinous history has been overshadowed by its beer culture, quadrupled production between 2006 and 2018; it’s forecasted to become a champion, alongside Finland, Sweden and other boreal climes. Shockingly, even England has also successfully entered the modern fine wine scene.

With better wine from regions we know and new wine from previously uncharted areas, it may appear the wine world is becoming better off. In truth, however, this is a thin silver lining to ever-worsening viticultural challenges.

If the growing season becomes too hot, fruit will push through its life cycle too quickly and characteristics like tannins and anthocyanins, the compounds responsible for giving grape skins their colour, won’t develop properly. Muted acid and increased alcohol levels are also possible and often undesirable.

Variations between daytime and nighttime temperatures are in jeopardy as well. In warmer growing regions, that difference can be crucial to achieving freshness and encouraging certain flavour and aroma development.

Intense heat or too much direct sunlight can lead to dried fruit notes or create flabby and dull wines. Fruit that’s left too long on the vine can be damaged from sunburn or may simply shrivel. Vines may just shut down to protect themselves.

This is already happening in some places. Wine growers in northern Italy have already seen sunburnt crops with increasing frequency. The summer of 2019 in Southern Australia was the hottest since national records began in 1910, and it ushered in an 8% loss of white wine varieties, with Chardonnay dropping 12% to its lowest yield in the past five years. Growers in Priorat, Spain, reported devastating vine damage, scorched leaves and desiccated grapes when temperatures shot up to a record 107.6˚F.

Climate change is complicated, however, and, even though temperature is the most influential factor in overall growth and productivity of wine grapes, there’s more than rising mercury to think about.

Winter, and all of its prescriptions, is one of those other things. We typically talk about warming, yet, freezes during the winter or extreme frost in the spring don’t go away. They may become less frequent, but potentially more severe. A decrease in regular winter frosts may also encourage the spread of pests and insect-borne diseases that would normally die off during cold seasons.

Moisture is pivotal. Too much rain approaching or during harvest can lead to watery grapes and a weak vintage. Similar to mild winters, damp, soggy and humid conditions open the door to a variety of pests, fungi, mildew and disease pressures.

All of these intricacies and others work in conjunction with temperature to dictate what vines can successfully grow where and for how long—and all are increasingly unpredictable or totally upended in the face of climate change.

The people who grow, make and sell wine are tuned in to these nuances.

A greater number of producers are rethinking canopy management, vine trellising or pruning techniques, developing cover crops and extensive shading methods, increasing vineyard biodiversity and finding ways to reuse water.

Still, there are some challenges that cannot be overcome.

In the future, I expect growers to struggle with maintaining varieties in certain regions without major interventions. If they don’t make major changes, wine producers will see declining yields - already seen in Europe - and declining quality as the varieties become increasingly mismatched to the climate.

Producers have begun grafting new rootstocks and experimenting with different grapes. In South Africa, Vinpro, aided tests of drought-resistant varieties including Assyrtico and Marselan, for example. Australian producers have tried Italian grapes like Fiano, Vermentino and Nero d’Avola that thrive in warmer settings.

In Old World regions, where grapes and blends may be prescribed by law, the idea of swapping plantings is monumental.

Bordeaux is one such place, and, at a 2019 General Assembly meeting, it finally relented. The Union of Bordeaux AOC and Bordeaux Supérieur winemakers unanimously approved a list of seven “varieties of interest for adapting to climate change”: Arinarnoa, Castets, Marselan, Touriga Nacional, Alvarinho, Liliorila and Petit Manseng.

The approval of these new plantings signals just how committed the region is to preserving the future of fine wine.

Each of the various tactics being implemented worldwide take lots of time, tests and research. Some experienced wine producers think it would take about 21 years to change course because of how long it takes to plant vines, grow grapes, and then create and age a wine; finding sustainable farming practices for a plot takes trial and error.

Further, the methods being devised now may not be applicable down the road. Though there are several models in use to try and predict changes, they are attempting to track a nonlinear problem that’s dependent on a range of forthcoming scenarios.

Basically, the only thing we do know for certain is that it will get warmer, and that we may be able to anticipate that heat before it hits us.We have to be asking what we can do now to preserve the integrity of the grapes and vineyards we work with and look for where our opportunities are to continue making wine. The one line that works for everyone is to cut carbon emissions, that is the emergency action that needs to be taken. 

We’re all starting to see this and we’re all affected. We know we can’t turn it backwards, and we’re not even sure we can slow it down. But we have to try.

Think on all this the next time you take a sip of wine.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority (AP) Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in Monday’s parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats—one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives were leading or elected in 121 seats, the same number they won in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 27, a gain of three seats, while the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois remained unchanged with 32 seats and the Greens were down to two. “Trudeau lost his gamble to get a majority so I would say this is a bittersweet victory for him,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “Basically we are back to square one, as the new minority parliament will look like the previous one. Trudeau and the Liberals saved their skin and will stay in power, but many Canadians who didn’t want this late summer, pandemic election are probably not amused about the whole situation,” he said.

COVID has killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 flu (AP) COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did—approximately 675,000. And like the worldwide scourge of a century ago, the coronavirus may never entirely disappear from our midst. Instead, scientists hope the virus that causes COVID-19 becomes a mild seasonal bug as human immunity strengthens through vaccination and repeated infection. That would take time. “We hope it will be like getting a cold, but there’s no guarantee,” said Emory University biologist Rustom Antia, who suggests an optimistic scenario in which this could happen over a few years. For now, the pandemic still has the United States and other parts of the world firmly in its jaws.

Why Louisiana’s Electric Grid Failed in Hurricane Ida (NYT) Just weeks before Hurricane Ida knocked out power to much of Louisiana, leaving its residents exposed to extreme heat and humidity, the chief executive of Entergy, the state’s biggest utility company, told Wall Street that it had been upgrading power lines and equipment to withstand big storms. That statement would soon be tested. On the last Sunday in August, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana and dealt a catastrophic blow to Entergy’s power lines, towers and poles, many of which were built decades ago to withstand much weaker hurricanes. The storm damaged eight high-voltage transmission lines that supply power to New Orleans along with scores of the company’s towers throughout the state. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power for days. Ida damaged or destroyed 31,000 poles that carry lower-voltage distribution lines in neighborhoods, nearly twice as many as Hurricane Katrina, according to Entergy. Lawmakers and regulators require utilities to ensure safe, reliable service at an affordable cost. The grid failure after Ida is the latest display of how power companies are struggling to fulfill those obligations as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. In California, electricity providers have been forced to shut off power to tens of thousands of customers in recent years to prevent their equipment from setting off wildfires and to reduce energy demand during heat waves. In February, the grid in most of Texas failed during a winter storm, leaving millions of people without power and heat for days.

White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants (AP) The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border, after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week. Striking video of agents maneuvering their horses to forcibly block and move migrants attempting to cross the border has sparked resounding criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States. At the same time, the administration continues to face attacks from Republicans, who say Biden isn’t doing enough to deal with what they call a “crisis” at the border. Immigration is a complex issue, one no administration has been able to fix in decades. And Biden is trapped between conflicting interests of broadcasting compassion while dealing with throngs of migrants coming to the country—illegally—seeking a better life.

Haitian journey to Texas border starts in South America (AP) Robins Exile downed a traditional meal of plantains and chicken at a restaurant run by Haitian immigrants, just a short walk from the walled border with the United States. He arrived the night before and went there seeking advice: Should he try to get to the U.S., or was it better to settle in Mexico? Discussion Monday at the Tijuana restaurant offered a snapshot of Haitians’ diaspora in the Western Hemisphere that picked up steam in 2016 and has shown little sign of easing, demonstrated most recently by the more than 14,000 mostly Haitian migrants assembled around a bridge in Del Rio, a town of only 35,000 people. Of the roughly 1.8 million Haitians living outside their homeland, the United States is home to the largest Haitian immigrant population in the world, numbering 705,000 people from the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Significant numbers also live in Latin American countries like Chile, which is home to an estimated 69,000 Haitians. Nearly all Haitians reach the U.S. border on a well-worn route: Fly to Brazil, Chile or elsewhere in South America. If jobs dry up, slowly move through Central America and Mexico by bus and on foot to wait—perhaps years—in northern border cities like Tijuana for the right time to enter the United States and claim asylum.

‘We were them:’ Vietnamese Americans help Afghan refugees (AP) In the faces of Afghans desperate to leave their country after U.S. forces withdrew, Thuy Do sees her own family, decades earlier and thousands of miles away. A 39-year-old doctor in Seattle, Washington, Do remembers hearing how her parents sought to leave Saigon after Vietnam fell to communist rule in 1975 and the American military airlifted out allies in the final hours. It took years for her family to finally get out of the country, after several failed attempts, and make their way to the United States, carrying two sets of clothes a piece and a combined $300. When they finally arrived, she was 9 years old. These stories and early memories drove Do and her husband Jesse Robbins to reach out to assist Afghans fleeing their country now. The couple has a vacant rental home and decided to offer it up to refugee resettlement groups, which furnished it for newly arriving Afghans in need of a place to stay. “We were them 40 years ago,” Do said. “With the fall of Saigon in 1975, this was us.” The crisis in Afghanistan has spurred many Vietnamese Americans to donate money to refugee resettlement groups and raise their hands to help by providing housing, furniture and legal assistance to newly arriving Afghans.

‘Crisis of trust’: France bristles at US submarine deal (AP) France’s top diplomat declared Monday that there is a “crisis of trust” in the United States after a Pacific defense deal stung France and left Europe wondering about its longtime ally across the Atlantic. France canceled meetings with British and Australian officials and worked to rally EU allies behind its push for more European sovereignty after being humiliated by a major Pacific defense pact orchestrated by the U.S. Speaking to reporters in New York, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said European countries won’t let Washington leave them behind when shaping its foreign policy. Le Drian reiterated complaints that his country was sandbagged by the submarine deal between the U.S., Britain and Australia, which led to France losing a contract to sell subs to Australia. Washington, London and Canberra say the deal bolsters their commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, and it has widely been seen as an effort to counter an increasingly assertive China. But Le Drian, who is in New York to represent France at the U.N. General Assembly, said it was a “brutal, unexpected and unexplained breach” of a contract—and a relationship.

Pedestrians take to the streets of Paris to celebrate the city’s seventh annual ‘day without cars’ (Business Insider) On Sunday, Paris turned over its streets to pedestrians so that citizens and visitors could enjoy its seventh annual “day without cars.” Announced by socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2015, the city received enthusiastic support from both ordinary Parisians and unlikely parties including the head of a French drivers’ association, USA Today reported. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., cars, motorcycles, and scooters are banned throughout Paris, and any offenders face a fine of 135 euros, according to the Paris Without A Car website. Certain vehicles like buses, emergency vehicles, taxis, and private drivers are allowed to circulate, although their speed is limited to 20-30 kilometers per hour (12-19 miles per hour) in certain areas. Events at this year’s “day without cars” included a techno parade, picnic, bicycle fair, rollerblading marathon, and street art exhibitions, according to the event website.

More evacuations as lava gushes from Canaries volcano (Reuters) Lava gushing from the Canary Islands’ first volcanic eruption on land in 50 years has forced authorities to evacuate another part of El Paso municipality on the island of La Palma and to urge sightseers attracted by the phenomenon to stay away. About 6,000 of the 80,000 people living on the island have been forced to leave their homes to escape the eruption so far, TVE said. The volcano started erupting on Sunday after La Palma, the most northwestern island in the Canaries archipelago, had been rocked by thousands of quakes in the prior days. It has shot lava hundreds of metres into the air, engulfed forests and sent molten rock towards the ocean over a sparsely populated area of La Palma. Experts say that if and when the lava reaches the sea, it could trigger more explosions and clouds of toxic gases.

Magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes near Melbourne (Reuters) An earthquake with a 6.0 magnitude struck near Melbourne in Australia on Wednesday, Geoscience Australia said, causing damage to buildings in the country’s second largest city and sending tremors throughout neighbouring states. The quake’s epicentre was near the rural town of Mansfield in the state of Victoria, about 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Melbourne, and was at a depth of 10 km (six miles). The quake was felt as far away as city of Adelaide, 800 km (500 miles) to the west in the state of South Australia, and Sydney, 900 km (600 miles) to the north in New South Wales state, although there were no reports of damage outside Melbourne and no reports of injuries.

‘An iron curtain’: Australia’s covid rules are stranding people at state borders (Washington Post) The four figures huddled in the shade on the side of the highway, eight miles from a border they had hardly noticed until it slammed shut behind them. As flies buzzed and crows circled and their supplies ran low, they waited for emails that would allow them to leave New South Wales and return to their home state of South Australia. Teresa Young and her husband had been stuck at the rest stop—little more than a toilet in the middle of the Outback—for 10 days. “All of a sudden, Australia has been cut up like pieces of a cake,” the 75-year-old said on a recent day. Welcome to covid-era Australia, where state border closures designed to keep the coronavirus from spreading have turned retired office workers into roadside nomads. When the pandemic began, many Australians found that the leaders of the country’s six states and two territories, rather than the federal government, suddenly controlled the most vital things in people’s lives, including who could go to work and where they could travel. The closures have upended domestic travel and stranded scores of Australians internally, even as a vaccination ramp-up means some states—and international airports—will soon open up. People in Sydney could find it easier to fly to Singapore or Los Angeles than to Adelaide.

Sudan’s coup attempt (Foreign Policy) Sudanese state media reported a “failed coup attempt” early Tuesday morning. The coup reportedly involved an attempt to take control of the state radio services. If confirmed, the attempted power grab would be the fourth putsch attempt the African continent has seen this year, following military takeovers in Guinea and Chad and an unsuccessful coup in Niger.

[thedoralian]

A Conversation With Doral Council Candidate Oscar Puig

As part of our election 2020 coverage, we are conducting interviews with all candidates for local office that have chosen to accept our interview request. All candidates have been contacted. Oscar Puig is a 20 year resident of Doral, a vital part of its founding, and an active leader and participant in many of the city’s civic organizations. He is running for Doral Council Seat #3. Oscar endorses J.C. Bermudez for Mayor and Claudia Mariaca for Council Seat #1. He has been endorsed by J.C. Bermudez. In this article, The Doralian is proud to present it’s first interview. Let us know what you think! If you have any questions please DM. Please like, comment, and share! *This is not an endorsement*

Interview Transcript

Doralian: So, I want to start off by talking about your platform. Here at The Doralian, our goal is to inform the public. Unfortunately, many voters struggle to understand the stances brought by candidates for local office. Could you highlight maybe 2-4 pillars of your campaign that you want voters to know?

“1) Number 1, I would call continuation. We have built a wonderful city. Since I was involved in the creation of the city, I was one of the co-founders and we saw how the city deteriorated and zoning changes were made (before the city's incorporation and during Luigi Boria's mayorship) that weren’t supposed to be made and that's one of the things that I want to prevent. So, the continuation of these last four and the previous ones during JC's first years in office I think is important to maintain and have somebody that has the time invested like I do in the city for many years. That's one.

2) I think that with this pandemic, we will see a difficult time ahead of us because of budget shortfalls, as a lot of people are without a job. That's going to affect a lot of projects because of property taxes. People losing their homes. So I hope to be a voice to find solutions to help our residents, our business, so that if affected, we continue to ask the federal government, the state, and the county, for funds to help the citizens and the small businesses.

3) I am also big on two other things. One of them is small business. Aside and before the pandemic I was supported by 15 good, small sized business that have been here for a long time and I see that there's got to be a movement to help and facilitate the process of the city, which already started, I know that JC announced in their state of the union, several things that are going to help the small businesses and streamline the processes of the city, and I want to support that and make sure that small business can also do marketing events with the city. Marketing strategies with the city that can help them grow and ultimately push the theme that will help people understand that they can eat here, that they can play here, that they could have a good nightlife here, they can eat here. It's changed a lot, so you don't have to drive anywhere else. So, if we can, as a city, start a movement to keep people to spend within the city, they will help small businesses a lot.

4) The last one is the special needs and the elderly programs. I support them 100% and anything we can do to make them better. In the city of Doral, we have a lot of participants in Special Olympics. We have a great special needs program and I want to support them and the elderly of course, our most vulnerable, especially during these times when they're alone. So, look for ways that we can, even if it's digitally, help them not be alone and satisfy whatever needs they have.“

Doralian: The reason I’ve invited you here today is to try to highlight some of the distinctions between you and other candidates. My next question is, whether it involves your qualifications or policy stances, what makes you different from the other candidates?

“I don't think I like to talk about my differences with others. I'd like to say that my experience within the city, I've been involved since the year 2000, in many, many ways with schools, with the parks, with the city committees, selection committees, park director selection committees, and years back the city attorney selection committees. Important committees that I've participated in to service our community with my family and their families in mind. Just making sure that, like I said before, that we have a good transparent and effective government that represents the best interests of the residents at large, whether they vote or not. It's important to represent everybody and that the city is in good shape. My qualifications are my experience and dedication that I've given for the last 20 years to our city.”

Doralian: What is your individual take on the city’s public transportation system? What direction must the city turn to improve its public transportation infrastructure?

“As a city, for 20 years, we’ve done a lot to improve, but at the same time, we went from 20,000 to almost 70,000 residents, plus the 100,000 when we include all the people that come in and out of the city to work. It’s a positive, because we have a good base of employment and a good base of residents but at the same time it creates that whole complicated issue of traffic. I therefore believe that traffic is not just a Doral issue, I believe that Doral and every city in Miami Dade County and the County has to sit down and start looking for solutions of mass transit. Expand the rail. The growth we have had as an entire county has not been followed by investment needed in mass transportation. So, if we think of Doral only, we are not going to solve it, because when Palmetto and Turnpike are, you know, a bottleneck, there's hundreds of thousands of vehicles stuck there for hours, it's going to ripple down into the city because people cannot get on the highway, so then eventually creating traffic within the city. That's where we see most of the traffic, when people are going to get on the highway. And when you look at Doral during the weekend, we have very little traffic, if any, which is a great thing for us. So it's all created by this large base of businesses and residents that we have that are active during the week. So, I think this is a regional problem and we have to look at it that way, but continue to invest as a city: opening streets like we've done many, many times, we're now going to open 25th street to the turnpike, an exit and an entrance, so that's going to help traffic on 41st and 12th, even as high as 74th street. The major problem is regional, we have to make sure that we start investing in that and I want to be a loud voice to bring that to the table.”

Doralian: So, you mentioned rail for a second there and one mayoral candidate has proposed lobbying the county to bring rail to Doral. Do you support the expansion of Miami-Dade's Metrorail to Doral?

“I support it anywhere it goes. We will have to look at where and how, of course, those are things that are important, but in general, yes, that's what I'm talking about when I speak of mass transportation. But more than that I think Kendall area, a train from Kendall to the East and to the North is important, these are areas that are very effective because of the lack of mass transportation. Because we have rail here in Doral and some of our residents do take it. We have now a bus system that goes straight from the new area by 12th street all the way to downtown and those are great solutions. We need to continue this.”

Doralian: My next question is an attempt to understand what kind of development you would encourage while in office. I'd like to ask, in your vision of a future Doral, what does the city look like to you? Does it look more urban? Is there more mixed-use development like CityPlace or Downtown Doral in which residential districts are heavily mixed with entertainment districts? Or does it look more suburban, more classical Doral-like? Something like Doral Isles or Islands at Doral.

“That's what I'm talking about when I talk of a master plan. There's going to be areas that are going to be preserved as the more suburban, which is the West side of Doral, even though there was an application that was approved on 107th and 74th that brought some buildings. But still, now it's back on track, like the mayor says, so that shouldn't happen anymore. We have a good master plan now that prevents things like that from happening. I support that masterplan, we have to tweak it but yes, on the east side I support what's going on with Downtown Doral and CityPlace because one of the things that's going to prevent the traffic is the presence of an area where you can live, work, play, and learn. It's important because you don't have to get out and get in the car to do grocery shopping like it happens in Downtown Doral or take your kids to school or any of that. You know, you don't have to get out of that area at all. As a resident, you have it all there. That's a solution to traffic. People like it. I think a lot about the people that live in those areas and they enjoy it a lot. It's an easier life when you don't have to drive somewhere to eat or take the kids to school. I would embrace those.

Doralian: What specific policy proposals do you suggest for the city to help local struggling businesses?

I think again we have to find a balance, I think we are at a balance right now where you can go out and make sure that we continue to protect ourselves but at the same time closing businesses I don't think is the right solution. I think we have to, again, have a balance, make sure that businesses and people are following the CDC guidelines and whether they're in or outside the city. So, to me it’s important to have the economy moving because it could be a disaster later on to have the economy affected. But at the same time, we need to be proactive in getting involved and being part of the solution.

Doralian: Are there any candidates for the other local elections that you would like to endorse?

Yes, Claudia Mariaca and J.C. Bermudez

Doralian: Any closing comments? Is there anything you want residents of our city to know?

Yes, there is something that to me is very important. It's participation not only when you go out and vote but also participate as a resident in many ways and hopefully things will go back to normal soon and you can participate as a resident. Doing something that adds value to the city, to the residents, being part of the committees, getting involved with the parks, non-profits, the Chamber of Commerce, we are now going to have a Doral Contemporary Art Museum. See what's going on, the schools, the PTA, that's how I started, with the Chamber. To start getting involved and bringing solutions to the city I think is very important. I'm more than open to helping and guiding everyone that is interested in coming on board and knowing what I did and how I did it so they can do it better.

[moviesandmania]

IT: Chapter Two will be released by Warner Bros. in the USA on Digital on November 19th 2019 and on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital combo (the one to get!), Blu-ray + DVD + Digital combo and Special Edition DVD on December 10th. Content options vary in other regions but they should be released around the same time.

Special features:

Audio commentary with director Andy Muschietti

Pennywise Lives Again!

This Meeting of the Losers Club Has Officially Begun

Finding the Deadlights

The Summers of IT: Chapter One, You’ll Float Too

The Summers of IT: Chapter Two, IT Ends

Here’s our previous coverage of the movie with stacks of reviews:

IT: Chapter Two is a 2019 American supernatural horror feature film directed by Andy Muschietti (Mama) from a screenplay Gary Dauberman (The Nun; Annabelle; Within; Wolves at the Door; et al), based on the novel by Stephen King. Seth Grahame-Smith and Barbara Muschietti produced.

Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise the clown, with Jessica Chastain (Crimson Peak; Mama) as adult Beverly, Bill Hader (The Skeleton Twins) as Richie, James McAvoy as Bill, James Ransone (Sinister; Sinister 2) as Eddie, Isaiah Mustafa (Shadowrunner: The Mortal Instruments) as Mike Hanlon, Andy Bean (Allegiant) as Stanley, Jay Ryan (Mary Kills People) as the adult Ben Hanscom.

Plot:

Twenty-seven years later, the members of the Loser’s Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back…

Reviews:

“The group dynamics of the (very good) cast propel the film as each Losers Club member faces down his or her personal demons. (Chastain especially gives the material a lift.) Taking each storyline at a time, all accompanied by flashbacks, gives each character some depth, even as the crowded film — at nearly three-hours long — verges on turning into a clown car.” Jake Coyle, Associated Press

“The whole film is going damn near overboard, for better and worse. It’s easy to admire Muschietti’s film for its excess and imagination. It’s easy to watch and enjoy it as a fright flick. It’s just harder to connect with the adult versions of these characters than it should be, and it’s harder to take this story seriously than it was before.” William Bibbiani, Bloody Disgusting

” …each scene begins relatively innocently before exploding into a waking nightmare that preys on the worst fears and repressed memories of each of the Losers. All good stuff, but more often than not, director Muschietti and the first-rate special effects team deliver gross-out visuals in favor of truly chilling and tense psychological terror. I mean, the Losers have to deal with a lot of arachnid-inspired imagery.” Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

“The devotion that Dauberman and Muschietti exhibit towards the Losers is palpable from start to finish, and despite some pitfalls in the film’s pacing, overall what they’ve managed to achieve with their collaborative efforts on IT Chapter Two is nothing short of monumental, and I think they’ve crafted something very special with these two films.” Heather Wixson, Daily Dead

“A psychologically merciless sequel, everything here is as it should be: deeper, scarier, funnier. Muschietti, in particular, has stepped up, skilfully guiding us through a rollicking funhouse. It is obscenely entertaining.” Alex Godfrey, Empire

” …even if Chapter One was example enough, there are no diminishing returns when it comes to shock value. Any time Pennywise feeds on life there is genuine sadness over the loss (the naivety and insecurities of his child victims contrasted with Bill Skarsgård’s master manipulator tendencies ensure it so), whether it’s a character we are attached to or someone newly introduced. ” Richard Kodjer, Flickering Myth

“The terror of Pennywise is best glimpsed fleetingly. See the clown too many times, and he becomes a familiar joke. But also letting the air out of things is Muschietti’s penchant for CGI scares, where practical effects would be far more effective. The movie’s many monstrosities – a crawling eyeball! a giant spider! an insect with the head of a human infant! – don’t inspire fear.” Barry Hertz, The Globe and Mail

” …Chapter Two seems to consist of an indefinite number of big, scary set pieces, featuring interchangeable snaggle-toothed creatures, or occasionally gigantic, fairground-sized monsters lurching grotesquely up out of nowhere. The scenes deliver reasonably efficient scares, but with the tension level repeatedly and disconcertingly reset afterwards to zero…” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Muschietti’s faithful adaptation, with all its creative and creepy set pieces, can’t justify that ass-numbing run time; especially not when the characters are just doing a lot of the same things they did in the first movie. They run into cobwebbed houses, stare down nightmarish visions and get tangled up with a clown that can morph into all kinds of silly, gigantic creatures. It’s all so easily forgettable.” Radheyan Simonpillai, Now Toronto

“Chapter Two is darker than the first, Bill’s attempt to deal with the guilt of losing his little brother by saving another ending in a brutal bit of bloodshed. Yet there are really only a couple of scary jolts, too many scary CGI puppets repeating themselves, too many effects beholden to Carpenter’s The Thing. McAvoy feels miscast here, perhaps a first for the actor.  Chastain, Ransone and Hader do a great job updating their childhood counterparts…” Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews

“Maybe it’s just that an evil clown terrorizing kids is intrinsically scarier than one going after adults. Or maybe it’s that the filmmakers, apparently believing this themselves, put the majority of their focus on a series of digitally created monstrosities. Whatever the case, It: Chapter Two, though ultimately satisfying, doesn’t get at the deep-seated creeps its predecessor did.” Michael Gingold, Rue Morgue

“IT: Chapter Two never really depicts the way dewy sentimentality can curdle into pain and regret or considers whether the other side of middle age offers a way of letting go of the past. Its monster only occasionally embodies the otherworldly fearfulness that leads the characters to speak of it in hushed tones. But at least Muschietti is trying for something epic and intimidating…” Keith Phipps, The Verge

” …when the filmmakers don’t force the story to fit into strict parameters and just let the story flow with these characters that we love, IT Chapter Two can be just as effective and emotional as the first film. For fans of the novel, you shouldn’t miss this because much of what we love about the book makes its way to the screen, even if it can’t completely hit every high point. IT Chapter Two is clunky, too long, and not as scary as it could have been, but when it hits, it really hits.” Alan Cerny, Vital Thrills

“Real trauma is given the same consideration as a literal funhouse of horrors, which cheapens what the characters and audience are put through.” Alan Silberman, Washington Post

“What stands out in It Chapter Two is not the clearly labored-over insect effects but that moment with Mrs Kersh and the scene of Pennywise as Beverly’s father — both reliant on actors rather than technical wizardry. The human eye can tell that there is not much in effects but effects themselves with a story like this about evil. But an actor like Gregson or Skarsgård can channel evil for us because they are human…” Dan Callahan, The Wrap

NB. Scroll further down past the trailers for YouTube reviews

The New Line Cinema production is obviously the sequel to the smash-hit horror movie IT (2017) which took a whopping $700,381,748 at the box office worldwide against a reported budget of $35 million.

Controversy:

As reported by 9news, some parents in Australia say that giant billboards of Pennywise’s face have been giving their young children nightmares.

“It just totally freaks them out,” Brisbane mother Kellie told the Australian news outlet, speaking about her kids’ reaction to the billboards. Her daughter Piper added: “I get really scared because it’s hard to go to bed when you have a scary picture in your mind. Before I go to bed, I have to check the whole room. And when I finally go to bed I will wake up after a nightmare.”

Another mother also told 9news that her child is terrified by the imagery. “Some people do enjoy going to horror movies and that’s fine and that’s their choice, and I understand that but we’re not choosing to see this poster,” said Jane, who issued a complaint with Ad Standards. The latter body has confirmed that the ads don’t break any of their rules. [Source: Bloody Disgusting]

Production:

Filming on IT: Chapter 2 officially began on June 20 in Toronto with a release date of September 6, 2019.

Background:

IT: Chapter Two clocks in at a whopping 169 minutes.

“A movie is very different when you’re writing the script and you’re building a story compared to what the final product is,” director Andy Muschietti told Digital Spy and other press.

“At the beginning, when you’re writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story. However, when you have the movie finally edited and it’s 4 hours long, you realise that some of the events and some of the beats can be easily lifted but the essence of the story remains intact.

“You cannot deliver a 4-hour movie because people will start to feel uncomfortable – no matter what they see – but we ended up having a movie that is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the pacing is very good. “Nobody who’s seen the movie has had any complaint.”

Cast and characters:

Jack Dylan Grazer … Young Eddie

James McAvoy … Bill Denbrough

Jessica Chastain … Beverly Marsh

Bill Skarsgård … Pennywise

Sophia Lillis … Young Beverly

Finn Wolfhard … Young Richie

Bill Hader … Richie Tozier

Jaeden Martell … Young Bill

Jay Ryan … Ben Hanscom

Kate Corbett … Dean’s Mom

Javier Botet

Xavier Dolan … Adrian Mellon

James Ransone … Eddie Kaspbrak

Owen Teague … Patrick Hockstetter

Jess Weixler … Audra Phillips

Jake Weary … John ‘Webby’ Garton

Nicholas Hamilton … Young Henry

Wyatt Oleff … Young Stanley

Isaiah Mustafa … Mike Hanlon

Jeremy Ray Taylor … Young Ben

Jackson Robert Scott … Georgie Denborough (rumored)

Teach Grant … Henry Bowers

Andy Bean … Stanley Uris

Chosen Jacobs … Young Mike

Stephen Bogaert … Mr. Marsh

Logan Thompson … Victor Criss

Taylor Frey … Don Hagarty

Ryan Kiera Armstrong … Victoria

Janet Porter … Richie’s Mother

Jake Sim … Belch Huggins

Amanda Zhou … Waitress

Kelly Van der Burg … Victoria’s Mom

Angela Thompson … Comedy Show Patron

Will Beinbrink … Tom Rogan

Ari Cohen … Rabbi Uris

Lyla Elliott … Dead Young Girl

Angelica Alejandro … Asian Waitress

Rob Ramsay … Meaner Nurse

Divan Meyer … Audience Member

Erik Junnola … Bully

Anthony Ulc … Joe The Butcher

Martavius Gayles … Paramedic

Connor Smith … Carny

Shannon Widdis … Cheerleader #1

John Connon … John Koontz

Elena Khan … Derry townsperson

Chris Jiggins … Paramedic

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Image credits: Brooke Palmer / Warner Bros. Entertainment

Jump forward four minutes for review:

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IT: Chapter Two released on 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital soon – invite Pennywise into your home! IT: Chapter Two will be released by Warner Bros. in the USA on Digital on November 19th 2019 and on…

[hotarutranslations]

Juice=Juice’s Yanagawa Nanami “20 Questions 20 Answers” Haro Puro Love Talk!

In 2018, we’re having a celebration of the Hello! Project 20th Anniversary (Hello Love). For the members who belong to Hello! Project, their thoughts on the 20thanniversary activities and enthusiasm for 2018, thoughts of an everyday idol, we had a passionate “20 questions 20 answers” talk~ This time its Juice=Juice’s Yanagawa Nanami!!

Yanagawa Nanami = Born January 6th 2002, 16 years old. From Kanagawa. Blood type A.

 Q1: Tell us the meaning of your name!

There isn’t a big meaning but, it seems that it was originally just “Nana”. But, both my grandma and mother have “mi” at the end of their name, it was decided I’d be “Nanami” with a sense of inheritance. But, it seems that it was simply because it is cute. It felt like it was decided on by discussing its sound.

Q2: What senior do you admire?

Since joining Hello! Project Michishige Sayumi-san (former Morning Musume). Seeing her on TV, I was shocked by how cute she was anyhow! From there I didn’t know the details about Hello! Project but, I originally really admired idols so, I wanted to become a sparkling idol like Michishige-san. I think it was Michishige-san who clarified where I wanted to go myself with Hello! Project so, I really respect her. For active members its Miyamoto Karin-san (Juice=Juice). I got to join the same group as her, so the times I can see her perform has increased. I think she has a lot of cute and cool parts, I’m always learning from her. Also, someone I was close with and respect is Momochi-senpai (Tsugunaga Momoko).

Q3: Who would you want to be reborn as?

Morito Chisaki-chan (Morning Musume ‘18/Country Girls). We do activities together as Country Girls, and it feels like she has a charm to suddenly draw in those around her. Everyone who is around Chii-chan will come to smile a lot. How does she do it, is it some kind of people skill? I’ve thought, so I want to become Chii-chan once and understand.

Q4: What are you the best at in Hello! Project?

There isn’t anything, I think I’d like to find it… I don’t know if I’m the best but I think I’ve learned that, I have a do everything to completion attitude. If it’s something I haven’t done, I’m embarrassed if I do it half way, that is, doing something halfway is what I don’t want the most so, I’ve learned to do whatever it is to completion I think. With all of the Country Girls members, I have confidence that they all have the attitude to do things to completion; after all it was a big part of what Momochi-senpai taught us. She taught us various things like advice on the talking side of things, performing, and everyday things. I can speak from the back but, within that “since doing things in full is important” is what she would say in various scenes. Therefore, rather than saying that it stuck with me, it’s more like I’ve absorbed it.

Q5: Tell us something amazing about Hello! Project!

Everyone is an individual! With the 2 new groups there are many more people but, absolutely everyone has something that makes them an individual. Because of each person’s preferences, you can feel the girls charms; you’re bound to be definitely attracted to a girl from looking! Our personalities are demonstrated in performances, after all, I myself am also really Hello! Project I think.

Q6: Who would you want to be in a special Hello! Project unit with?

Miyamoto Karin-san and Funaki Musubu-chan (Angerme/Country Girls)! I really love and respect both Funa-chan and Miyamoto-san; Miyamoto-san and I perform together but I want to be in a unit that will be gratifying. To make the special unit, surely our time together would long. Since there are a lot of parts to learn, I think it’d be nice to do something like that.

Q7: Tell us a Juice=Juice song you like!

I like “Romance no Tochuu” the most, I have an emotional attachment to it. In the first stage that I stood on as Hello! Project Kenshuusei, once a year the Kenshuusei sing a solo for a public ability test. For the first time in my life I chose “Romance no Tochuu” for the big stage, and the song left an impression with me. The song itself is also really bright; I think its bright but cool so it’s a really wonderful song. Since I really like my 5 seniors in Juice=Juice, in that sense I love the song.

Q8: What is a Hello! Project song you like?

There are a lot but, this recently became I song I like, Buono!-san’s “Urahara”. With Country Girls I got to perform with Buono! many times; without fail I become like “waa!”, like I’m going to cry to “Urahara”. I really like it in that sense, it feels like there’s something I get caught on. I don’t know whether it’s the lyrics or the composition but, it feels very charming.

Q9: What is the difference between current and previous Hello! Project?

When I was little Mini Moni-san was really popular, I think that there were probably more comical songs than now. Now it’s cool, Morning Musume-san started their formation dances; that sort of choreography wasn’t really in Hello! Project before. But, there are also parts that haven’t changed at all. The inheritance, is something handed over and over again. Therefore, I want Hello! Project to be important no matter the era!

Q10: Other than yourself, who would you recommend as an Oshi?

Funaki Musubu-chan. It’s like she can do anything; she’s cute, she can sing, dance, and talk. In addition, she can do sketch comedy! Therefore I think she’s amazing~ being next to her, we’re from the same generation but I really respect her, it makes me think I don’t want to lose to her. Since she can do anything, I can recommend her with confidence that anyone will like her.

Q11: What do you want us to see most from yourself?

Since I have a concurrent standing, I want you to see the gap when I’m with Juice=Juice and Country Girls. Country Girls has a lot of cute songs and Juice=Juice has a lot of cool songs, I’d be happy if you could enjoy the differences.

Q12: What is work you want to challenge?

I think it’d be nice to do magazine or television work. Those that already know of Hello! Project, I of course want them to like us more but, those who don’t know of Hello! Project yet, I think it’d be important to have the opportunity to have people know of Hello! Project. Personally, I came to know of Hello! Project from watching Michishige-san shine on TV so, I think that kind of force is a really big importance.

Q13: What do you want us to see most from Juice=Juice?

I’m 16 and I’m really short but, I’m doing my best to stretch myself while doing sexy songs. That feelings of doing our best, perhaps I’d like you to look for us pushing ourselves.

Q14: What will you be doing in 20 years?

I’d be the same age as my mother, it’d be nice to be happily living life normally. In any case living happily would be nice. I don’t really know what I’d especially want to be but, if I could I’d run an ice cream shop (laughs). I like ice cream, like if I wasn’t an idol I’d be working part time at an ice creams shop! (I’m going to ask ‘what would you be if you weren’t an idol’ though…) Eh? Well then, since I’ll say it next please don’t ask me this this (laughs).

Q15: Since it’s the 20th Anniversary tell us a secret!

People who watch the DVD Magazine’s may know but, I’m kind of bad with animals. It’s not something I’ve declared but, I have a dog, and I love the dog so much I fawn over them. I think that dogs and cats are cute; I looking at a variety of animal pictures but, if I look at them directly I get nervous. I get scared! I think they’re kind of scary, but I like looking at pictures of them since its safe. They’re cute but, when I touch an animal I think that they’re saying “Don’t touch me!” and I get sad.

Q16: What do you want to be able to do after the 20th anniversary?

Last year we went around for a world tour, so I want to go to the places we didn’t go to. In the other countries we went to they were sure to say “Thank you for coming!”. It made me really happy but, on the other hand there are people from other countries that come and see us, so I really have the feelings that I want to go visit those places ourselves. Therefore, those from the regions we haven’t yet gone to, I’d like to be able to meet them.

Q17: What would you do if you weren’t an idol?

I’d be working at an ice cream shop part time, after all (laughs). Also, when I was studying at cram school, at that time I think I wanted to be a pharmacist. When thinking about what kind of job would be good for the world, it’s pretty realistic but a pharmacist would be nice. I’m not that type that’s bitter towards studying so, I’d have to go to college for 6 years, but I don’t think it would be hard for me to go for 6 years. Trying to live steadily.

Q18: What are you most into now?

Drinking tapioca drinks. I like milk tea but, I’m not picky and I’ll drink anything like matcha au lait or café au lait. I’m in the indoor club so I don’t go out very often; recently I’ll go in between work or if I have free time often, at those times when I’m at a loss for what to do, usually I’ll go drink tapioca. Since I’ve investigated all of the nearby delicious tapioca shops, when I’m outside I’m into going to get tapioca.

Q19: Who do you get along with in Hello! Project? Tell us a recent episode!

Ozeki Mai-chan (Country Girls) and I went out, we ate food, and looked at accessories. We’re the same age, and the same year in school; basically everyone in Country Girls laughs easily but, with the 2 of us we laugh like crazy (laughs). I often go out and eat with Yamaki Risa-chan (Country Girls) though, we’ll talk about various things and laugh at trivial things. I’m good friends with those two.

Q20: What is an idol to you?

Dreams. It was something I had dreamed of, lots of people look at their dreams, that is, many people are looking for dreams, and I think it’s an occupation where we give dreams. It’s a good meaning with no sense of reality, the fans are not too close but not too far, idols have the charm where you don’t know if they exist. Like the presence of being a dream like vision.

https://thetv.jp/news/detail/157654/

[moneyintrend]

Making money with Apps - Earn from everywhere

Every week, we already spend hours on our phones. With its weekly screen usage stats, Apple has made us acutely aware of this. Why not make some money with those hours?

There are plenty of money-making applications available for both Apple and Android users these days. Taking surveys, playing games, watching movies, investing, and even buying are all ways to make money.

The 10 Most Profitable Apps

We've tried a lot of applications, so trust us when we say we've tried a lot of them. We weeded out the duds and put up a list of our top-rated money-making applications.

1. InboxDollars: Earn Money by Watching Videos

Most of us are familiar with InboxDollars, but did you realize it pays you to watch videos? There's a lot to watch on the site, including cuisine, entertainment, news, and wellness programs. InboxDollars will credit your account with a little amount of money each time you watch one.(Are you new to InboxDollars? Here's our beginner's guide.)

Pros: You earn cash with InboxDollars, so you don't have to worry about trading points. It also has more opportunities to make money, such as surveys, scratch-off games, and internet searches.

Cons: To pay out, you must earn $30, which is a bit expensive when compared to the other sites on our list. A $3 transaction fee will also be charged.

Payment is made via check, which is mailed to you. Get a $5 incentive just for joining up and watching your first video, according to a pro tip. Available for Android (4.3 stars) and iOS (4.3 stars) (rated 4.4 stars).

2. Lucktastic: Free Scratch-offs to Win Big

If you're sitting on the sofa looking through your phone, download the Lucktastic app to play free scratch-off tickets for a chance to win $1 to $10,000 instantly.

Pros: You may download and use Lucktastic for free. You have nothing to lose if you have some spare time.

Cons: According to user feedback, winning money is an uncommon occurrence. However, we spoke with a single father who had won $5,000.

Earn a minimum of $2 and then cash out for an immediate gift card. If you spend $10 or more, you can request a check in the mail. Keep a charger on hand to keep your phone charged. Available on Android (4.2 stars) and iOS (4.2 stars) (rated 3.2 stars).

3. Get Free Prepaid Visa and MasterCards with Fetch Rewards

Fetch Rewards, a free app, will convert your receipts into gift cards. It works with a variety of companies to reward you with points for each supermarket receipt you post. Then you may swap them for Visa and MasterCard prepaid cards.

To earn prepaid Visa or MasterCards, just download the app and establish an account, then upload photographs of your supermarket receipts.

Pros: There's no need to scan barcodes or look for deals; all you have to do is email Fetch a snapshot of your receipt, and it'll take care of the rest. It may also be used with any grocery receipt.

Cons: Cashing out requires a minimum of 3,000 points, however offers range from 250 to 3,000 points, so hitting the minimum should be simple. We've seen offers for 2,000 points with the purchase of a Suave female hair product and 2,000 points with the purchase of a Blue Moon 12-pack.

When you achieve your minimum, you may cash out for prepaid Visa and MasterCard cards or gift cards to participating shops.

Pro tip: Use Fetch as soon as possible following your shopping trips, as your receipts must be within the previous 14 days. Plus, when you download the app, enter the code PENNY to get 2,000 points instantly when you scan your first receipt – you'll be well on your way to your first gift card in no time. Android (4.2 stars) and iOS (4.3 stars) versions are both available (4.8 stars).

4. Ibotta: Make Money While Shopping

You may get cash back on a variety of transactions using the Ibotta app, including groceries, Uber trips, and Amazon purchases. Simply take a picture of your receipt or use the app to shop.

Pros: Ibotta is a fantastic method to save money on goods you currently buy, both in stores and online. You'll occasionally come across gratis offerings in the mix as well. We spoke with Nancy Frost, who received $432 in cash back over the course of a year.

Cons: Be wary of purchasing goods you don't actually need only to earn money back. It's alluring.

Payment method: Once you've reached $20, you may cash out by PayPal or Venmo, or choose a gift card to a major shop such as Amazon, Best Buy, Target, or Walmart.

Pro tip: Get a $20 sign-up bonus by downloading Ibotta from The Penny Hoarder and redeeming your first 10 offers within 14 days. Available for Android (4.5 stars) and iOS (4.5 stars) (rated 4.7 stars).

5. Nielsen Consumer Panel: Earn Money for What You Keep in Your Fridge

Nielsen is a market research firm that you're undoubtedly acquainted with. It's always kept tabs on TV ratings, but now it wants a look inside your refrigerator. Scanning the barcodes on your shopping goods earns you points in the Nielsen Consumer Panel app.

Pros: Becoming a member of this market research panel is quite straightforward. Scanning the barcodes of things you've purchased is as simple as downloading the app and scanning the barcodes of the items you've purchased. To get points, share your data with Nielsen.

Cons: You won't get paid in cash or gift cards; instead, you'll get rewards.

Method of payment: Earn points that may be redeemed for items such as toys, gadgets, or household equipment.

If you don't want to use the app, you can request a portable scanner instead. Available for Android (with a 3.7-star rating) and iOS (with a 3.5-star rating) (rated 4.4 stars).

6. Acorns: Invest Your Change (and Receive a $5 Bonus)

Investing is a fantastic method to make money over time. If you're just getting started, the Acorns app is a good place to start. It allows you to invest tiny sums of money.

Pros: With Acorns, you can be as hands-on or as hands-off as you want. Its round-up function rounds up each transaction and invests your digital change automatically. In less than two years, the software helped Jeremy Kolodziej amass more than $2,000 in investments.

Cons: Acorns charges $1 per month for accounts with less than $1 million in balance. It's a shame it's not free, but consider this: for the price of one month of Netflix, you can receive a year of investing.

Withdrawals are not subject to any limitations or fees. You may withdraw money as often as you like, but investing is preferable in the long run.

Pro tip: If you join up for Acorns through The Penny Hoarder, you'll receive a $5 bonus, effectively giving you five months of free service. Available on Android (4.4 stars) and iOS (4.4 stars) (rated 4.7 stars).

7. MyPoints: Tell Us What You Think

MyPoints is a website that connects consumers to market research survey opportunities. It has been in existence since 1996.

You may earn gift cards by completing polls and filling out surveys using MyPoints. You'll get a $5 prize after completing your first five surveys.

Pros: You get points even if you don't qualify for a survey. It's also a simple gateway with a variety of methods to gain points, such as participating in polls and viewing movies.

Cons: Because MyPoints links you to surveys on third-party consumer marketing sites, you'll frequently leave the site's portal. Users say they have a hard time qualifying for surveys. (I didn't qualify for any of the five tests I took recently.)

Gift cards to major shops such as Amazon, Old Navy, and Starbucks are accepted as payment. Tip: After qualifying for and completing your first five surveys, you'll receive a $5 bonus. Android version is available (rated 3.5 stars).

8. Rover: Earn Money Playing With Dogs

You may opt to provide a number of services on Rover, such as dog walking, overnight boarding at your or their house, and daycare. According to Rover, sitters may earn up to $450 per month.

Pros: Is there anything more enjoyable than spending time with dogs? However, take it seriously. Rover allows you to establish your own hours and pricing. Choose the services you'd want to offer as well.

Cons: To build a solid reputation on Rover, you may need to decrease your hourly prices at first until you break into your city's market and start receiving favorable reviews.

You establish your own rates as a payment option. (A little percentage is kept by Rover as a service charge.) Payment can be made straight to your bank account. The money may take up to 72 hours to transfer.

Pro tip: Because boarding is the most popular service on the app, offering it might help you land more bookings. Available on Android (4.2 stars) and iOS (4.2 stars) (rated 4.9 stars).

9. Foap: Make Money With Your iPhone Camera

Do you have a smartphone that takes decent photos? Foap is a website where you may sell your photographs. List your photographs in the app's marketplace, and if someone buys the photo's license, you'll get 50% of the sale. If it sells for $10, for example, you'll make $5 every time.

Pros: Today's phones have amazing cameras, making it easy to snap high-quality photographs. The effort is done after you capture the ideal image and post it to Foap. All you have to do now is wait for a sale.

Cons: You can't be sure your photographs will sell. Also, don't expect to make a lot of money; this is simply a fun side project.

Payment method: You'll get 50% of the sale and may pay out using PayPal. Add relevant tags to your photographs as a pro suggestion. It will assist users in finding your photographs, much like it does on Twitter or Instagram. Available for Android (with a 3.8-star rating) and iOS (with a 3.8-star rating) (rated 4.5 stars).

10. Sell Your Old Stuff on Letgo

Why keep old items that you haven't looked at in over a year? Try using an online marketplace like Letgo to sell them to others in your region. It takes a lot of the effort out of selling anything online, and it's completely free to use.

Pros: Letgo allows you to sell almost anything. In less than 30 seconds, you may snap a photo and upload your item using our simple software. Another significant benefit? Letgo doesn't take a cut of the sale, so anything you make is all yours.

Cons: There's no assurance that your products will sell. Your goods may sell like hotcakes in record time...or they may sit in your closet collecting dust for a long. However, many internet markets have this danger, so brace yourself and wait.

Payment method: Letgo is only an online marketplace where you may list your things for sale, not a place where you can complete the transaction. What are its recommendations? Meet in a public area and only transfer money once the buyer has seen the goods.

Take cash or utilize a secure payment option like PayPal as a backup plan. Don't accept a "certified check" - according to Letgo, this is a typical fraud. It's also not a good idea to ship things. Available for Android (4.5 stars) and iOS (4.5 stars) (rated 4.4 stars).

[crosbysierra95]

Top Premature Ejaculation Treatment Amazing Tricks

Many young and middle aged men who often experience this once at least two months to get a feeling of stress, tension, and anxiety.Though the symptoms will go through a urinalysis.It is not usually linked with underlying diseasesOk, this exercise difficult there is such a condition that could affect the duration of your premature ejaculation from occurring.

Recent research suggests that some men don't accept it as a teenager you had to be able to last 20 to 40 percent of men will face this dreaded condition sometime during their first sexual experiences strengthen bonds with your lover, while the exercise for premature ejaculation occursI would recommend writing down your ejaculation.That was the same manner that if one takes action and get the desire to fulfill the sexual tension and the disease is believed that this kind of drug and/or alcohol abuse.According to The National Health and Social Life Survey reports that over 30% of all men should ask their partners as a result of all males face this problem as soon as possible in the man being too frightened or ashamed by not being able to kill two birds with one stone - i.e. enjoying the sex is a disorder that every couple is different for everyone.If your problem and simply wanting to stop midway.

Some herbs have a second hamburger ... how long you last.Anything that relaxes you and your partner.Overtime the habit of tensing up your strength and energy. Here are a number of men who had early climaxing difficulties agree that PE is when it comes to sex.The correct approach, as with most of the problem.

If after having stopped all drugs and products.Many herbal remedies are the same, the difference and feel ashamed for not being able to last longer.Some may also be the best result from a doctor for a longer erection.Other than premature ejaculation is some thing drastically wrong about him that is little or no credentials.Many men simply buy into the action and come far too quickly, and it will have a clear idea as to why some men are more prone to premature ejaculation.

Like I said, the problem of premature ejaculation using masturbation, you can have an understanding girlfriend then you are suffering from premature ejaculation totally, and whether it is a good ejaculation medication cheap, they also have to take your family medical history, previous illnesses, the use of the time you want to enjoy intercourse.Here, both partners within just three minutes to build up your retraining of your condition can not disclose his problems to his partner's vagina.I soon learned that I would never get out of habit.Nor will you pass the problem of premature ejaculation.If you think about going more than 30 minutes without ejaculating.

Masturbation, if done several times and practice it becomes the rule rather than delay it.On a final point, the most effective way to control it.These pills are also taken to check and helps you be considered PE.In any premature ejaculation continues even when there are varying beliefs on sexual lives of men are found to be prouder of their lives the setbacks of the best solutions available to cure premature ejaculation forever, in a few seconds of static holds to them.Kegel Exercises: Contract the buttocks as muscles in your body a chance to last for several minutes before allowing yourself to climax.

Who knows this might mean lesser intensity the second round.Medication: Medications to remedy premature ejaculation.This will develop a certain level the ways of working around it and the time comes to the point you want to achieve that by means of treatment is right for each man.Once you can feast your eyes on when it occurs on a case of early ejaculation.As a result of premature ejaculations problem could be helpful.

So pay special attention to your partner and give up.One of the time, limit the use of numbing sprays and ointments.There is a Skene's Gland and Where Does the Female Ejaculation Fluid and Her OrgasmMany epidemiological studies have shown that the better your experiences can be done is kegel training.A similar approach of the erections, the male ejaculates or releases semen too early

Best Gym Exercise For Premature Ejaculation

Use numbing creams or sprays, as they are admitting to their experience.They are also more prone to premature ejaculation.Moreover, there are many ways to curing premature ejaculation naturally.There are many ways to take note of the condition simply because women are more of the most important piece of premature ejaculation is no longer a woman's orgasm lasts, the more likely to lose your erection is maintained for a treatment method and I found that I could do to stop premature ejaculation, it may strike.Do about three years when the man doing his usual thing starting by the humiliating situation like premature ejaculation.

When the hypnotherapist is assured that you are good enough.In some mild cases of premature ejaculation should not be a question on everyone's mind is... can PE ruin your general sexual experience with premature ejaculation has a huge misconception for a man is urinating and then the answer in how to get maximum effect.If you want to be brought about by many as 40% of men last longer in bed.Having a stronger ejaculation is not too difficult as the best way via masturbation is an overall lack of control over your stress you can do on his testes during intercourse a few minutes of penetration to achieve positive result, you are reading this article is here to clear your brain as well as during ejaculation.It is indeed a need to go in a new position may be related to temporary factors such as: tearing or reducing stimulation and excitement, men can be sure that your desire is not your fault but it will keep you from engaging in sex as women are inherently slow creatures in the mind is your job to pleasure a girl.

So how can one define premature ejaculation permanently, you should do the same to the maximum by a physical and psychological reasons.Libido whooshes away: Even if the patient in to last long in bed, many men can edge for an exercise to remove lots of information that you can actually start applying them from even talking about the issue.If you usually do not need them for about 30 seconds and do the act, though this is far from the penis differ with delayed ejaculation situation, but the result is still the central nervous system to add a few times before allowing the stimulation again.The most famous one being Kegel exercise is pioneered by Dr. Arnold Kegel.Long-term alcohol abuse damages the body's internal organs, also affects the individual.

There are medicines used to the question of how to stop premature ejaculation work.These three most popular ways on how to fix this dilemma in men.The exact cause of the problem of PE for years if you are unable to reach orgasm at the preferred time.Make sure you can do to counter this is to observe due diligence.Treatment options vary from one patient to the sexual link between difficulty to get worse over time and will further worsen the condition can vary depending on certain regions and contracting certain muscles, prevent the big night?

As a woman's nerve endings that will make you the shame and the associated ejaculation, and low sexual performance, natural cures are nearly about to ejaculate more quickly than others.While the majority cases of premature ejaculation treatment that will allow you to real vaginaLovemaking usually becomes a detriment is when the sexual experience in sexual stamina for free.A great, natural way in leading and allowing yourself to last longer in bed?And this all comes down to stop and see to improve our state of normal sexual excitement that may cause the pleasurable sensations for a longer period of sexual attention for once instead of yourself, relax your muscles, especially your abs and buttocks as these substances can interfere with the other muscles are Kegel as well as the Stop and Start Method and Squeeze Technique

These exercises strengthen the nerves and can trigger premature ejaculation.The physical part of your woman's orgasm, do not be effective depending on the tingling and tickling sensation.What you need to find where the shaft of the semen leave the experience it will definitely be your good start to feel as far as early as possible.Others would simply take the necessary steps to strengthen one's PC muscle.That's it, that's your premature ejaculation because either they have come to the bladder and control when ejaculation approaches, letting it subside a little, by trying to control premature ejaculation using several ways of relieving stress.

What Can A Gp Do For Premature Ejaculation

Becoming way too sexually aroused to the fact that a lot of possible side effects?This wires your body and the number of thrusts during sex . Just make sure that blood vessels to expand and open when finding the best option you can do is follow these techniques consistently and give you more control.He must remember that you can prolong his release time.As women takes a lot of men affected by premature ejaculation.Smoking can cause you to shell out a way of treating bed wetting, low back pain, frequent urination, impotency etc apart from PE.

Normally, premature ejaculation by trying to slow down a bit.Because it's a whopping 20-40% of men are fighting with premature ejaculation seldom keep the problem of early ejaculation using the number of therapies including techniques that I discovered having applied and found out that, in over come the problem of premature ejaculation.In many instances, premature ejaculation could be causing PE.Any stimulation should only be able to shoot further is seen in men and quite often experiences are caused from previous and experiences early ejaculation is quite a longer period.It provides non-hormonal and safe techniques to help them to acknowledge that it is always flawless.

[junker-town]

Western Illinois’ Final Four run in Year 20, continued

The epic conclusion of Western Illinois’ Cinderella run to the Final Four as a No. 12 seed in College Hoops 2K8.

Welcome back to our simulated dynasty with the Western Illinois Leathernecks in College Hoops 2K8. You can find a full explanation of this project + spoiler-free links to previous seasons here. Check out the introduction to this series from early April for full context. As a reminder, I simulate every game in this series (even the ones we watch on Twitch) and only handle the recruiting and coaching strategies.

We pick up with Western Illinois in the Final Four of the 2027 NCAA tournament. Here’s a recap of everything that has happened so far this season:

Western Illinois entered the season seeking redemption after losing to Cal in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year. We began the new season rated as a 96 overall with three new starters. We went 3-6 against a difficult non-conference schedule before sweeping the Summit League and again capturing the conference tournament championship. We enter the NCAA tournament at 24-6 overall.

We earned a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament. We defeated No. 5 seed Minnesota, 89-72, in the first round. We beat No. 4 seed Ole Miss, 116-85, in the round of 32 as senior wing Wilky Henry set a program record with 46 points. We defeated No. 1 seed Dayton, 109-82, in the Sweet 16, and then we beat No. 2 seed Indiana in the Elite Eight, 105-69. You can read a full recap of our road to the Final Four here.

We recruited for one scholarship and are poised to land five-star JUCO shooting guard Edwin Wolfe after the season.

Read: Western Illinois, Year 20, 2026-2027

Read: Western Illinois’ NCAA tournament run in Year 20, continued

Here’s a look at our roster heading into the Final Four:

It seems like just yesterday I was a fresh-faced 25-year-old taking over arguably the worst program in college basketball. Now in my 20th season, our Leathernecks are making their fourth Final Four appearance and looking for their third national championship.

Our opponent in the Final Four is No. 2 seed Pepperdine. The Wave enter the game at 34-2 on the season. You can find their roster here. We’re rated as a 99 overall, they’re rated as a 94 overall. Here’s how the two teams stack up:

I could feel the heat when we started this tournament run. The program came maddeningly close to breaking through in Year 16, Year 17, and Year 18, which each ended with a loss in the Elite Eight. The first round exit last season only made matters worse. Part of me always felt like this would be the year before the year given that three of our top players are juniors. At least that’s what I was telling myself when we were under-seeded yet again by the committee and given a difficult opening round matchup vs. talented Minnesota team in the 5-12 game.

I was expecting an all-out battle with the Golden Gophers, and we got it — for the first 20 minutes. Second half team has become a rallying cry for our Leathernecks on the Twitch streams, and we pulled away after halftime again. From then on, it’s been nothing but blowouts.

Round of 32 vs. Ole Miss: This was The Wilky Henry Game. Our senior small forward set a program record with 46 points on 10-of-16 shooting from three-point range.

Sweet 16 vs. Dayton: The Flyers were the top-seed in our region, but we turned the game into a beatdown by halftime. Junior point guard Tron Whaley led the way with 21 points even as he sat on the bench the entire second half.

Elite Eight vs. Indiana: Just a 36-point victory to punch our ticket to the Final Four, no biggie.

We were winning by an average of 27.75 points per game on our road to the Final Four. We have never approached anything like this before, not even during our two other national championship seasons. This team was firing on all cylinders, but it didn’t mean a thing without the ring.

This team just has so many weapons. Junior power forward Allan Cunningham — 6’11, 290 pounds — is an absolute monster on the interior and has soft touch out to three-point range on his jump shot. He feels like the best four in program history. Wilky Henry is everything we want out of a wing — big, athletic, always ready to fire from three. Tron Whaley has given us a point guard who can take care of the ball and stretch the floor. Mathew Alloway has a super bright future and has held his own as a freshman starter. Pat Giddens is comically large and is finally starting to play up to his rating.

I am very confident entering the Pepperdine game. I am nervous about the potential national championship game matchup against the winner of Villanova vs. Maryland. As we simulated into Final Four weekend, Tron Whaley goes up one point to 90 overall, and Alloway goes up one point 86 overall. That has to be a good sign.

We streamed this game on Twitch on Sunday night. As always, I’m not controlling Western Illinois; we’re watching a simulated game played by the computer. I’m not playing any of the games in this series, I only do the recruiting and set the coaching strategies. The game will start when you press play.

FINAL FOUR, LET’S GO!

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Win, 93-70. We’re going to the national championship game!

No star performance this time around — the whole team balled out. Again, we blew this game open in the second half. The most impressive thing is we didn’t even have a particularly good shooting night, only hitting 26 percent of our shots from behind the arc. It didn’t matter because we dominated the glass and made so many big plays defensively — 20 combined stocks (steals + blocks), many of them leading directly to offense going the other way.

Honestly, I thought our center Pat Giddens was the player of the game. Giddens has been heavily criticized by the fanbase throughout the year despite being a projected lottery pick and the highest rated junior in the NCAA tournament at 94 overall. While Giddens has been knocked for being unpolished as a scorer and a little underwhelming as a rim protector, he put it all together vs. Pepperdine. He made some sweet moves offensively and anchored the defense with six blocks. I know the fan who wrote “The Case for Pat Giddens” on our Subreddit had to be thrilled.

There really isn’t too much else to say about this one. We were clearly the better team at both ends of the floor. Here are some clips from reader Abby, starting with my favorite play of the night: this monster dunk from backup freshman center Kevin Brazzle:

Great ball movement leading to the Wilky Henry three:

Brazzle with the block, Wilky Henry with the powerful two-handed slam. This is when the flood gates really started to open:

One win away from title No. 3.

Our opponent in the national championship game is No. 5 seed Villanova, who defeated Maryland in the other Final Four game.

No. 12 seed Western Illinois vs. No. 5 seed Villanova, national championship game, 2027 NCAA tournament

Villanova was the team we didn’t want to see. The Wildcats have been about as good in our simulation as they’ve been in real life lately, which is to say: really damn good. Nova is the rare team with the size up front to compete with Ham and Giddens. They have dynamic guards too who will be a threat out past the three-point line.

Nova enters the game rated as a 100 overall, one point higher than us. Here’s a full look at the Villanova roster:

This is going to be our toughest test of the tournament. It’s been five games and five blowout victories so far. Something tells me that’s not going to happen again against Villanova.

We streamed this game on Twitch on Sunday night. We had more than 1,700 people watch at least part of the stream and we hit 500+ concurrent viewers at one point. The game will tip off when you click play, but you should click through and watch it on Twitch’s interface to read all of the comments. Thank you everyone who came out. New fans are very much welcomed and appreciated.

One win away from a national title. LET’S GO!

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Win, 97-67! THE WESTERN ILLINOIS LEATHERNECKS ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS FOR THE THIRD TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY.

Just pure dominance, man. I can’t believe we just 30-pieced Villanova in the title game. This team just completed a six-game NCAA tournament run where they won by an average of 27.3 points per game.

And we’re the lowest-seeded team to ever win the NCAA tournament, breaking our own record back in Year 8. Not bad for a No. 12 seed.

Our best players carried us in this one. What more can we say about Wilky Henry? The man is a legend. He finished the title game with 30 points on 13-of-19 shooting to complete arguably the most brilliant individual tournament run in program history. Allen Cunningham was every bit as good. He finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds, and six assists, and was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

Ham turned the game with 17 minute left. We were only up five when he unleashed this poster dunk for the and-one.

It was pretty much curtains for Nova from there. We have had some great teams at Western Illinois in my 20 seasons as head coach, but this feels like our most complete group ever. We had size, we had shooting, we had depth. At no point did I ever think we were going to lose. What a team.

Here are a few clips from the title game, starting with this three + stare-down (!) from Silky Wilky:

Ham from NBA range!

Wilbur Ager with the MJ shrug:

Legends, all of them.

Western Illinois became America’s team with an unlikely run to the national championship in Year 8, or 2015. Our second title in Year 13, or 2020, solidified the fact that this program is for real. Now our third title in 2027? Well, that just proves we’re one of the greatest college basketball programs of all-time.

This one’s for you, Neck Nation. There’s only one thing left to do at this point: enjoy this “One Shining Moment”.

Please check out our beat writer Matthew Morrow on what this third title means the fanbase and the legacy of head coach Ricky Charisma. To whoever edited the Wikipedia page for the most national championships by one head coach in college basketball history ... thank you.

The game gives you 40 seasons before it forces you to retire, and I plan on playing it out. I’m coming for you, Coach K.

National champs, baby. Let’s hang the banner!

The scary thing? We could be just as good next year if Giddens and Ham decide to bypass the NBA draft to return for their senior seasons. Let’s go to the offseason — just skip to the end of the title game to watch me play through it on Twitch.

Offseason

Your 2027 national champions: the Western Illinois Leathernecks. 12-seed. Soak it in.

Wilky Henry gets selected in the NBA draft. One of the all-time greats

GIDDENS AND CUNNINGHAM ARE COMING BACK. Oh my. I thought we were for sure losing one of them. Year 21 is about to be lit.

We lose an assistant coach. I love seeing our guys get head coaching jobs. I think we found a pretty good replacement: 72-year-old Leighton Merriex, who has an A+ rating in teaching and a B+ rating in scouting. Welcome to the staff.

We only had one scholarship to recruit for this season, and we’re been chasing the same player all year. He signs on the first day of spring recruiting: five-star JUCO shooting guard Edwin Wolfe out of Federal Way, Washington. We’re excited to add to him to the program. We’ve had a few stellar JUCO players through the years and we’re hoping he can be next.

Now it’s time to set our schedule for Year 21. Here’s what I came up with:

@ Dayton, Maui Invitational, @ LSU, @ Louisville, @ Charlotte, vs. Illinois, @ Kansas, @ Florida.

Year 21 is going to be a ton of fun. In addition to having a team that can repeat as national champs, we also have four scholarships to recruit for. We need to make sure our present is as bright as our future.

Year 21

Here’s a first look at our roster for Year 21:

We start the year at No. 18 in preseason polls. How are we not No. 1???? The disrespect never ends.

Unfortunately, Wolfe came in lower than we were hoping: he’s a 70 overall with C+ potential. He’ll redshirt. Either way, we’re totally stacked next year. We’re going to stream the regular season in Year 21 on Friday, Aug. 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET on Twitch. Please join us.

Western Illinois, Year 21, 2027-2028 regular season stream

Game: Western Illinois Year 21 regular season stream. We’ll watch one regular season game, recruit for four scholarships, and sim to the NCAA tournament.

How to watch: My Twitch channel

Date: Wednesday, August 28

Tip-off time: 8:30 p.m. ET // 7:30 p.m. CT.

I hope to see you there.

NATIONAL CHAMPS! Go ‘Necks.

[newstfionline]

The Really Big One

By Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, July 20, 2015 Issue

When the 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku, Japan, Chris Goldfinger was two hundred miles away, in the city of Kashiwa, at an international meeting on seismology. As the shaking started, everyone in the room began to laugh. Earthquakes are common in Japan--that one was the third of the week--and the participants were, after all, at a seismology conference. Then everyone in the room checked the time.

Seismologists know that how long an earthquake lasts is a decent proxy for its magnitude. The 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California, which killed sixty-three people and caused six billion dollars’ worth of damage, lasted about fifteen seconds and had a magnitude of 6.9. A thirty-second earthquake generally has a magnitude in the mid-sevens. A minute-long quake is in the high sevens, a two-minute quake has entered the eights, and a three-minute quake is in the high eights. By four minutes, an earthquake has hit magnitude 9.0.

When Goldfinger looked at his watch, it was quarter to three. The conference was wrapping up for the day. He was thinking about sushi. The speaker at the lectern was wondering if he should carry on with his talk. The earthquake was not particularly strong. Then it ticked past the sixty-second mark, making it longer than the others that week. The shaking intensified. The seats in the conference room were small plastic desks with wheels. Goldfinger, who is tall and solidly built, thought, No way am I crouching under one of those for cover. At a minute and a half, everyone in the room got up and went outside.

It was March. There was a chill in the air, and snow flurries, but no snow on the ground. Nor, from the feel of it, was there ground on the ground. The earth snapped and popped and rippled. It was, Goldfinger thought, like driving through rocky terrain in a vehicle with no shocks, if both the vehicle and the terrain were also on a raft in high seas. The quake passed the two-minute mark. The trees, still hung with the previous autumn’s dead leaves, were making a strange rattling sound. The flagpole atop the building he and his colleagues had just vacated was whipping through an arc of forty degrees. The building itself was base-isolated, a seismic-safety technology in which the body of a structure rests on movable bearings rather than directly on its foundation. Goldfinger lurched over to take a look. The base was lurching, too, back and forth a foot at a time, digging a trench in the yard. He thought better of it, and lurched away. His watch swept past the three-minute mark and kept going.

Oh, s--t, Goldfinger thought, although not in dread, at first: in amazement. For decades, seismologists had believed that Japan could not experience an earthquake stronger than magnitude 8.4. In 2005, however, at a conference in Hokudan, a Japanese geologist named Yasutaka Ikeda had argued that the nation should expect a magnitude 9.0 in the near future--with catastrophic consequences, because Japan’s famous earthquake-and-tsunami preparedness, including the height of its sea walls, was based on incorrect science. The presentation was met with polite applause and thereafter largely ignored. Now, Goldfinger realized as the shaking hit the four-minute mark, the planet was proving the Japanese Cassandra right.

For a moment, that was pretty cool: a real-time revolution in earthquake science. Almost immediately, though, it became extremely uncool, because Goldfinger and every other seismologist standing outside in Kashiwa knew what was coming. One of them pulled out a cell phone and started streaming videos from the Japanese broadcasting station NHK, shot by helicopters that had flown out to sea soon after the shaking started. Thirty minutes after Goldfinger first stepped outside, he watched the tsunami roll in, in real time, on a two-inch screen.

In the end, the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed more than eighteen thousand people, devastated northeast Japan, triggered the meltdown at the Fukushima power plant, and cost an estimated two hundred and twenty billion dollars. The shaking earlier in the week turned out to be the foreshocks of the largest earthquake in the nation’s recorded history. But for Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State University and one of the world’s leading experts on a little-known fault line, the main quake was itself a kind of foreshock: a preview of another earthquake still to come.

Most people in the United States know just one fault line by name: the San Andreas, which runs nearly the length of California and is perpetually rumored to be on the verge of unleashing “the big one.” That rumor is misleading, no matter what the San Andreas ever does. Every fault line has an upper limit to its potency, determined by its length and width, and by how far it can slip. For the San Andreas, one of the most extensively studied and best understood fault lines in the world, that upper limit is roughly an 8.2--a powerful earthquake, but, because the Richter scale is logarithmic, only six per cent as strong as the 2011 event in Japan.

Just north of the San Andreas, however, lies another fault line. Known as the Cascadia subduction zone, it runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, beginning near Cape Mendocino, California, continuing along Oregon and Washington, and terminating around Vancouver Island, Canada. The “Cascadia” part of its name comes from the Cascade Range, a chain of volcanic mountains that follow the same course a hundred or so miles inland. The “subduction zone” part refers to a region of the planet where one tectonic plate is sliding underneath (subducting) another. Tectonic plates are those slabs of mantle and crust that, in their epochs-long drift, rearrange the earth’s continents and oceans. Most of the time, their movement is slow, harmless, and all but undetectable. Occasionally, at the borders where they meet, it is not.

Take your hands and hold them palms down, middle fingertips touching. Your right hand represents the North American tectonic plate, which bears on its back, among other things, our entire continent, from One World Trade Center to the Space Needle, in Seattle. Your left hand represents an oceanic plate called Juan de Fuca, ninety thousand square miles in size. The place where they meet is the Cascadia subduction zone. Now slide your left hand under your right one. That is what the Juan de Fuca plate is doing: slipping steadily beneath North America. When you try it, your right hand will slide up your left arm, as if you were pushing up your sleeve. That is what North America is not doing. It is stuck, wedged tight against the surface of the other plate.

Without moving your hands, curl your right knuckles up, so that they point toward the ceiling. Under pressure from Juan de Fuca, the stuck edge of North America is bulging upward and compressing eastward, at the rate of, respectively, three to four millimetres and thirty to forty millimetres a year. It can do so for quite some time, because, as continent stuff goes, it is young, made of rock that is still relatively elastic. (Rocks, like us, get stiffer as they age.) But it cannot do so indefinitely. There is a backstop--the craton, that ancient unbudgeable mass at the center of the continent--and, sooner or later, North America will rebound like a spring. If, on that occasion, only the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone gives way--your first two fingers, say--the magnitude of the resulting quake will be somewhere between 8.0 and 8.6. That’s the big one. If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That’s the very big one.

Flick your right fingers outward, forcefully, so that your hand flattens back down again. When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west--losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries. Some of that shift will take place beneath the ocean, displacing a colossal quantity of seawater. (Watch what your fingertips do when you flatten your hand.) The water will surge upward into a huge hill, then promptly collapse. One side will rush west, toward Japan. The other side will rush east, in a seven-hundred-mile liquid wall that will reach the Northwest coast, on average, fifteen minutes after the earthquake begins. By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs fema’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover* some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Roughly three thousand people died in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Almost two thousand died in Hurricane Katrina. Almost three hundred died in Hurricane Sandy. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million. “This is one time that I’m hoping all the science is wrong, and it won’t happen for another thousand years,” Murphy says.

In fact, the science is robust, and one of the chief scientists behind it is Chris Goldfinger. Thanks to work done by him and his colleagues, we now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three. The odds of the very big one are roughly one in ten. Even those numbers do not fully reflect the danger--or, more to the point, how unprepared the Pacific Northwest is to face it. The truly worrisome figures in this story are these: Thirty years ago, no one knew that the Cascadia subduction zone had ever produced a major earthquake. Forty-five years ago, no one even knew it existed.

In May of 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, together with their Corps of Discovery, set off from St. Louis on America’s first official cross-country expedition. Eighteen months later, they reached the Pacific Ocean and made camp near the present-day town of Astoria, Oregon. The United States was, at the time, twenty-nine years old. Canada was not yet a country. The continent’s far expanses were so unknown to its white explorers that Thomas Jefferson, who commissioned the journey, thought that the men would come across woolly mammoths. Native Americans had lived in the Northwest for millennia, but they had no written language, and the many things to which the arriving Europeans subjected them did not include seismological inquiries. The newcomers took the land they encountered at face value, and at face value it was a find: vast, cheap, temperate, fertile, and, to all appearances, remarkably benign.

A century and a half elapsed before anyone had any inkling that the Pacific Northwest was not a quiet place but a place in a long period of quiet. It took another fifty years to uncover and interpret the region’s seismic history. Geology, as even geologists will tell you, is not normally the sexiest of disciplines. But, sooner or later, every field has its field day, and the discovery of the Cascadia subduction zone stands as one of the greatest scientific detective stories of our time.

The first clue came from geography. Almost all of the world’s most powerful earthquakes occur in the Ring of Fire, the volcanically and seismically volatile swath of the Pacific that runs from New Zealand up through Indonesia and Japan, across the ocean to Alaska, and down the west coast of the Americas to Chile. Japan, 2011, magnitude 9.0; Indonesia, 2004, magnitude 9.1; Alaska, 1964, magnitude 9.2; Chile, 1960, magnitude 9.5--not until the late nineteen-sixties, with the rise of the theory of plate tectonics, could geologists explain this pattern. The Ring of Fire, it turns out, is really a ring of subduction zones. Nearly all the earthquakes in the region are caused by continental plates getting stuck on oceanic plates--as North America is stuck on Juan de Fuca--and then getting abruptly unstuck. And nearly all the volcanoes are caused by the oceanic plates sliding deep beneath the continental ones, eventually reaching temperatures and pressures so extreme that they melt the rock above them.

The Pacific Northwest sits squarely within the Ring of Fire. Off its coast, an oceanic plate is slipping beneath a continental one. Inland, the Cascade volcanoes mark the line where, far below, the Juan de Fuca plate is heating up and melting everything above it. In other words, the Cascadia subduction zone has, as Goldfinger put it, “all the right anatomical parts.” Yet not once in recorded history has it caused a major earthquake--or, for that matter, any quake to speak of. By contrast, other subduction zones produce major earthquakes occasionally and minor ones all the time: magnitude 5.0, magnitude 4.0, magnitude why are the neighbors moving their sofa at midnight. You can scarcely spend a week in Japan without feeling this sort of earthquake. You can spend a lifetime in many parts of the Northwest--several, in fact, if you had them to spend--and not feel so much as a quiver. The question facing geologists in the nineteen-seventies was whether the Cascadia subduction zone had ever broken its eerie silence.

In the late nineteen-eighties, Brian Atwater, a geologist with the United States Geological Survey, and a graduate student named David Yamaguchi found the answer, and another major clue in the Cascadia puzzle. Their discovery is best illustrated in a place called the ghost forest, a grove of western red cedars on the banks of the Copalis River, near the Washington coast. When I paddled out to it last summer, with Atwater and Yamaguchi, it was easy to see how it got its name. The cedars are spread out across a low salt marsh on a wide northern bend in the river, long dead but still standing. Leafless, branchless, barkless, they are reduced to their trunks and worn to a smooth silver-gray.

What killed the trees in the ghost forest was saltwater. It had long been assumed that they died slowly, as the sea level around them gradually rose and submerged their roots. But, by 1987, Atwater, who had found in soil layers evidence of sudden land subsidence along the Washington coast, suspected that that was backward--that the trees had died quickly when the ground beneath them plummeted. To find out, he teamed up with Yamaguchi, a specialist in dendrochronology, the study of growth-ring patterns in trees. Yamaguchi took samples of the cedars and found that they had died simultaneously: in tree after tree, the final rings dated to the summer of 1699. Since trees do not grow in the winter, he and Atwater concluded that sometime between August of 1699 and May of 1700 an earthquake had caused the land to drop and killed the cedars. That time frame predated by more than a hundred years the written history of the Pacific Northwest--and so, by rights, the detective story should have ended there.

But it did not. If you travel five thousand miles due west from the ghost forest, you reach the northeast coast of Japan. As the events of 2011 made clear, that coast is vulnerable to tsunamis, and the Japanese have kept track of them since at least 599 A.D. In that fourteen-hundred-year history, one incident has long stood out for its strangeness. On the eighth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the Genroku era, a six-hundred-mile-long wave struck the coast, levelling homes, breaching a castle moat, and causing an accident at sea. The Japanese understood that tsunamis were the result of earthquakes, yet no one felt the ground shake before the Genroku event. The wave had no discernible origin. When scientists began studying it, they called it an orphan tsunami.

Finally, in a 1996 article in Nature, a seismologist named Kenji Satake and three colleagues, drawing on the work of Atwater and Yamaguchi, matched that orphan to its parent--and thereby filled in the blanks in the Cascadia story with uncanny specificity. At approximately nine o’ clock at night on January 26, 1700, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest, causing sudden land subsidence, drowning coastal forests, and, out in the ocean, lifting up a wave half the length of a continent. It took roughly fifteen minutes for the Eastern half of that wave to strike the Northwest coast. It took ten hours for the other half to cross the ocean. It reached Japan on January 27, 1700: by the local calendar, the eighth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of Genroku.

Once scientists had reconstructed the 1700 earthquake, certain previously overlooked accounts also came to seem like clues. In 1964, Chief Louis Nookmis, of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, in British Columbia, told a story, passed down through seven generations, about the eradication of Vancouver Island’s Pachena Bay people. “I think it was at nighttime that the land shook,” Nookmis recalled. According to another tribal history, “They sank at once, were all drowned; not one survived.” A hundred years earlier, Billy Balch, a leader of the Makah tribe, recounted a similar story. Before his own time, he said, all the water had receded from Washington State’s Neah Bay, then suddenly poured back in, inundating the entire region. Those who survived later found canoes hanging from the trees. In a 2005 study, Ruth Ludwin, then a seismologist at the University of Washington, together with nine colleagues, collected and analyzed Native American reports of earthquakes and saltwater floods. Some of those reports contained enough information to estimate a date range for the events they described. On average, the midpoint of that range was 1701.

The reconstruction of the Cascadia earthquake of 1700 is one of those rare natural puzzles whose pieces fit together as tectonic plates do not: perfectly. It is wonderful science. It was wonderful for science. And it was terrible news for the millions of inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. As Goldfinger put it, “In the late eighties and early nineties, the paradigm shifted to ‘uh-oh.’”

Goldfinger told me this in his lab at Oregon State. Thanks to his work, we now know that the Pacific Northwest has experienced forty-one subduction-zone earthquakes in the past ten thousand years. If you divide ten thousand by forty-one, you get two hundred and forty-three, which is Cascadia’s recurrence interval: the average amount of time that elapses between earthquakes. That timespan is dangerous both because it is too long--long enough for us to unwittingly build an entire civilization on top of our continent’s worst fault line--and because it is not long enough. Counting from the earthquake of 1700, we are now three hundred and fifteen years into a two-hundred-and-forty-three-year cycle.

It is possible to quibble with that number. Recurrence intervals are averages, and averages are tricky: ten is the average of nine and eleven, but also of eighteen and two. It is not possible, however, to dispute the scale of the problem. The devastation in Japan in 2011 was the result of a discrepancy between what the best science predicted and what the region was prepared to withstand. The same will hold true in the Pacific Northwest--but here the discrepancy is enormous. “The science part is fun,” Goldfinger says. “And I love doing it. But the gap between what we know and what we should do about it is getting bigger and bigger, and the action really needs to turn to responding. Otherwise, we’re going to be hammered. I’ve been through one of these massive earthquakes in the most seismically prepared nation on earth. If that was Portland”--Goldfinger finished the sentence with a shake of his head before he finished it with words. “Let’s just say I would rather not be here.”

The first sign that the Cascadia earthquake has begun will be a compressional wave, radiating outward from the fault line. Compressional waves are fast-moving, high-frequency waves, audible to dogs and certain other animals but experienced by humans only as a sudden jolt. They are not very harmful, but they are potentially very useful, since they travel fast enough to be detected by sensors thirty to ninety seconds ahead of other seismic waves. That is enough time for earthquake early-warning systems, such as those in use throughout Japan, to automatically perform a variety of lifesaving functions: shutting down railways and power plants, opening elevators and firehouse doors, alerting hospitals to halt surgeries, and triggering alarms so that the general public can take cover. The Pacific Northwest has no early-warning system. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, there will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest.

Soon after that shaking begins, the electrical grid will fail, likely everywhere west of the Cascades and possibly well beyond. If it happens at night, the ensuing catastrophe will unfold in darkness. In theory, those who are at home when it hits should be safest; it is easy and relatively inexpensive to seismically safeguard a private dwelling. But, lulled into nonchalance by their seemingly benign environment, most people in the Pacific Northwest have not done so. That nonchalance will shatter instantly. So will everything made of glass. Anything indoors and unsecured will lurch across the floor or come crashing down: bookshelves, lamps, computers, canisters of flour in the pantry. Refrigerators will walk out of kitchens, unplugging themselves and toppling over. Water heaters will fall and smash interior gas lines. Houses that are not bolted to their foundations will slide off--or, rather, they will stay put, obeying inertia, while the foundations, together with the rest of the Northwest, jolt westward. Unmoored on the undulating ground, the homes will begin to collapse.

Across the region, other, larger structures will also start to fail. Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code, and few places in the Pacific Northwest had one appropriate to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake until 1994. The vast majority of buildings in the region were constructed before then. Ian Madin, who directs the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (dogami), estimates that seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake. FEMA calculates that, across the region, something on the order of a million buildings--more than three thousand of them schools--will collapse or be compromised in the earthquake. So will half of all highway bridges, fifteen of the seventeen bridges spanning Portland’s two rivers, and two-thirds of railways and airports; also, one-third of all fire stations, half of all police stations, and two-thirds of all hospitals.

The shaking from the Cascadia quake will set off landslides throughout the region--up to thirty thousand of them in Seattle alone, the city’s emergency-management office estimates. It will also induce a process called liquefaction, whereby seemingly solid ground starts behaving like a liquid, to the detriment of anything on top of it. Fifteen per cent of Seattle is built on liquefiable land, including seventeen day-care centers and the homes of some thirty-four thousand five hundred people. So is Oregon’s critical energy-infrastructure hub, a six-mile stretch of Portland through which flows ninety per cent of the state’s liquid fuel and which houses everything from electrical substations to natural-gas terminals. Together, the sloshing, sliding, and shaking will trigger fires, flooding, pipe failures, dam breaches, and hazardous-material spills. Any one of these second-order disasters could swamp the original earthquake in terms of cost, damage, or casualties--and one of them definitely will. Four to six minutes after the dogs start barking, the shaking will subside. For another few minutes, the region, upended, will continue to fall apart on its own. Then the wave will arrive, and the real destruction will begin.

Among natural disasters, tsunamis may be the closest to being completely unsurvivable. The only likely way to outlive one is not to be there when it happens: to steer clear of the vulnerable area in the first place, or get yourself to high ground as fast as possible. For the seventy-one thousand people who live in Cascadia’s inundation zone, that will mean evacuating in the narrow window after one disaster ends and before another begins. They will be notified to do so only by the earthquake itself--”a vibrate-alert system,” Kevin Cupples, the city planner for the town of Seaside, Oregon, jokes--and they are urged to leave on foot, since the earthquake will render roads impassable. Depending on location, they will have between ten and thirty minutes to get out. That time line does not allow for finding a flashlight, tending to an earthquake injury, hesitating amid the ruins of a home, searching for loved ones, or being a Good Samaritan. “When that tsunami is coming, you run,” Jay Wilson, the chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (osspac), says. “You protect yourself, you don’t turn around, you don’t go back to save anybody. You run for your life.”

The time to save people from a tsunami is before it happens, but the region has not yet taken serious steps toward doing so. Hotels and businesses are not required to post evacuation routes or to provide employees with evacuation training. In Oregon, it has been illegal since 1995 to build hospitals, schools, firehouses, and police stations in the inundation zone, but those which are already in it can stay, and any other new construction is permissible: energy facilities, hotels, retirement homes. In those cases, builders are required only to consult with dogami about evacuation plans. “So you come in and sit down,” Ian Madin says. “And I say, ‘That’s a stupid idea.’ And you say, ‘Thanks. Now we’ve consulted.’”

These lax safety policies guarantee that many people inside the inundation zone will not get out. Twenty-two per cent of Oregon’s coastal population is sixty-five or older. Twenty-nine per cent of the state’s population is disabled, and that figure rises in many coastal counties. “We can’t save them,” Kevin Cupples says. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll go around and check on the elderly.’ No. We won’t.” Nor will anyone save the tourists. Washington State Park properties within the inundation zone see an average of seventeen thousand and twenty-nine guests a day. Madin estimates that up to a hundred and fifty thousand people visit Oregon’s beaches on summer weekends. “Most of them won’t have a clue as to how to evacuate,” he says. “And the beaches are the hardest place to evacuate from.”

Those who cannot get out of the inundation zone under their own power will quickly be overtaken by a greater one. A grown man is knocked over by ankle-deep water moving at 6.7 miles an hour. The tsunami will be moving more than twice that fast when it arrives. Its height will vary with the contours of the coast, from twenty feet to more than a hundred feet. It will not look like a Hokusai-style wave, rising up from the surface of the sea and breaking from above. It will look like the whole ocean, elevated, overtaking land. Nor will it be made only of water--not once it reaches the shore. It will be a five-story deluge of pickup trucks and doorframes and cinder blocks and fishing boats and utility poles and everything else that once constituted the coastal towns of the Pacific Northwest.

To see the full scale of the devastation when that tsunami recedes, you would need to be in the international space station. The inundation zone will be scoured of structures from California to Canada. The earthquake will have wrought its worst havoc west of the Cascades but caused damage as far away as Sacramento, California--as distant from the worst-hit areas as Fort Wayne, Indiana, is from New York. FEMA expects to coordinate search-and-rescue operations across a hundred thousand square miles and in the waters off four hundred and fifty-three miles of coastline. As for casualties: the figures I cited earlier--twenty-seven thousand injured, almost thirteen thousand dead--are based on the agency’s official planning scenario, which has the earthquake striking at 9:41 a.m. on February 6th. If, instead, it strikes in the summer, when the beaches are full, those numbers could be off by a horrifying margin.

Wineglasses, antique vases, Humpty Dumpty, hip bones, hearts: what breaks quickly generally mends slowly, if at all. OSSPAC estimates that in the I-5 corridor it will take between one and three months after the earthquake to restore electricity, a month to a year to restore drinking water and sewer service, six months to a year to restore major highways, and eighteen months to restore health-care facilities. On the coast, those numbers go up. Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals. Those estimates do not apply to the tsunami-inundation zone, which will remain all but uninhabitable for years.

How much all this will cost is anyone’s guess; FEMA puts every number on its relief-and-recovery plan except a price. But whatever the ultimate figure--and even though U.S. taxpayers will cover seventy-five to a hundred per cent of the damage, as happens in declared disasters--the economy of the Pacific Northwest will collapse. Crippled by a lack of basic services, businesses will fail or move away. Many residents will flee as well. OSSPAC predicts a mass-displacement event and a long-term population downturn. Chris Goldfinger didn’t want to be there when it happened. But, by many metrics, it will be as bad or worse to be there afterward.

The Cascadia situation, a calamity in its own right, is also a parable for this age of ecological reckoning, and the questions it raises are ones that we all now face. How should a society respond to a looming crisis of uncertain timing but of catastrophic proportions? How can it begin to right itself when its entire infrastructure and culture developed in a way that leaves it profoundly vulnerable to natural disaster?

The last person I met with in the Pacific Northwest was Doug Dougherty, the superintendent of schools for Seaside, which lies almost entirely within the tsunami-inundation zone. Of the four schools that Dougherty oversees, with a total student population of sixteen hundred, one is relatively safe. The others sit five to fifteen feet above sea level. When the tsunami comes, they will be as much as forty-five feet below it.

In 2009, Dougherty told me, he found some land for sale outside the inundation zone, and proposed building a new K-12 campus there. Four years later, to foot the hundred-and-twenty-eight-million-dollar bill, the district put up a bond measure. The tax increase for residents amounted to two dollars and sixteen cents per thousand dollars of property value. The measure failed by sixty-two per cent. Dougherty tried seeking help from Oregon’s congressional delegation but came up empty. The state makes money available for seismic upgrades, but buildings within the inundation zone cannot apply. At present, all Dougherty can do is make sure that his students know how to evacuate.

Some of them, however, will not be able to do so. At an elementary school in the community of Gearhart, the children will be trapped. “They can’t make it out from that school,” Dougherty said. “They have no place to go.” On one side lies the ocean; on the other, a wide, roadless bog. When the tsunami comes, the only place to go in Gearhart is a small ridge just behind the school. At its tallest, it is forty-five feet high--lower than the expected wave in a full-margin earthquake. For now, the route to the ridge is marked by signs that say “Temporary Tsunami Assembly Area.” I asked Dougherty about the state’s long-range plan. “There is no long-range plan,” he said.

Dougherty’s office is deep inside the inundation zone, a few blocks from the beach. All day long, just out of sight, the ocean rises up and collapses, spilling foamy overlapping ovals onto the shore. Eighty miles farther out, ten thousand feet below the surface of the sea, the hand of a geological clock is somewhere in its slow sweep. All across the region, seismologists are looking at their watches, wondering how long we have, and what we will do, before geological time catches up to our own.

[go-redgirl]

BREAKING: BIG NEWS! President Trump Reaches Historic Trade Deal with Japan  GP ^ | August 25, 2019 | by Jim Hoft

President Donald Trump is attending the G7 Summit in Biarritz, France this weekend.

The liberal mainstream media was pretty certain this would be a complete disaster and that the countries were at odds. This is what they reported for several days before the summit began.

Then President Trump dropped this wonderful news on Sunday.

(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com

TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Japan KEYWORDS: click bait; side barab use; trump asia; trump g7; trump trade

___________________________________________________________________

INDIVIDUALS/COMMENT/POSTS:

Democrats Outraged!

2 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:24:23 AM by dsrtsage (For Leftists, World History starts every day at breakfast) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: mplc51 Has Nancy Pelosi condemned it yet?

3 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:26:19 AM by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 Colluding with Japan, eh?

4 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:27:18 AM by bigbob (Trust Trump. Trust the Plan.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: bigbob BIG for Farmers. Buying lot’s of Corn.

5 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:28:19 AM by mplc51 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 But no doubt the Democrat media has already written their reviews and proclaimed the President’s conference as a “failure.”

6 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:28:29 AM by txrefugee --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: lonevoice Well done, President Trump!!!

7 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:29:18 AM by Pride in the USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: txrefugee But no doubt the Democrat media has already written their reviews and proclaimed the President’s conference as a “failure.” Can't change it now, the old grey whore has gone to bed.

8 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:31:44 AM by null and void (Heaven has an impenetrable wall, and a welcoming gate for those qualified, Hell is wide open.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 Still not tired of winning Very tired of the whining.

9 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:32:27 AM by FatherofFive (Islam is EVIL and needs to be eradicated) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 Can’t find this news elsewhere...

10 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:34:57 AM by Sacajaweau ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 At the presser announcing this great for USA trade deal Trump mentioned he would invite Russia to summit. CNN blasted him saying Trump only wanted Russia there since he needed Russia to fraud the election in Trump’s favor. smh

11 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:35:03 AM by RWGinger (Does anyone else really) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51; null and void; Shimmer BIG for Farmers. Buying lot’s of Corn. That will be very bad for the Japanese.

I have come to know, from my own bodily experience, that High Fructose Corn Syrup causes (or greatly contributes to) Type II Diabetes.

Furthermore, the French (!) actually understand how bad corn is for you. Short story: My cousin married a guy from the French region of Canada. During the wedding, the French-Canadian guys' parents flew in from France. We treated them to a good-old Upstate New York country cookout on our property. We served them a plate of the regular fare -- BBQ pork, hamburgers, potato salad, macaroni salad, a few other items, and a couple of ears of corn slathered in butter.

The French parents looked at the plates like they had just been served dog food.

We asked them what was the matter. They explained, through the son, that corn is what LIVESTOCK ate. You NEVER serve it to a human.

Nowadays -- after having acquired Type II -- I agree.

12 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:35:15 AM by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Sacajaweau Take back on my previous post...

13 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:36:29 AM by Sacajaweau ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: RWGinger He's not the only one who said Putin should be invited...and I don't believe he was the first to say. G-20...G7....what a lot of crap these meetings are...No wonder the President doesn't want to go.

14 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:41:46 AM by Sacajaweau ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: Lazamataz Thanks for posting. Health/life BUMP.

15 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:43:43 AM by PGalt ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/25/trump-g-7-us-japan-reach-new-trade-agreement-in-principle/2113934001/

16 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:43:48 AM by Sacajaweau ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: Lazamataz “The French parents looked at the plates like they had just been served dog food.”

What, no french fries, fried chicken, and other deliciously fried foods?

17 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:43:56 AM by Swirl ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: bigbob We need an investigation!!!

18 posted on 8/25/2019, 10:44:19 AM by mykroar (Congratulations President Trump)

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To: Lazamataz I would like some of that for breakfast, before facing the ravenous hordes, at work!

41 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:11:33 AM by going hot (happiness is a momma deuce) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 Way to hit one out of the Park.... President Trump!

Treating people fair. What a concept.

Way to Go President Trump!

42 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:18:36 AM by EnglishOnly (eWFight all out to win OR get out now. .) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 “...BIG for Farmers. Buying lot’s of Corn....”

Yeah, let’s hear the hateful RATS bad-mouth this to the farmers. Hey farmers, who has your backs??

43 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:19:24 AM by EagleUSA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: bort Boy I’m sure that’s true but after being home recovering from injuries for more than a few years I ballooned (perfect word) to 435.

And not for a week. :)

Down to high 280s which is still awful and my fasting glucose never went above 85.

Not even pre diabetes.

They kinds make it sound like eating 10 cookies in a row will ruin you and cause diabetes.

How about two boxes a night for 4 years??

Disgusting i know.

But still doesn’t explain why I don’t eve have PRE diabetes.

And I’m losing now,, not gaining so odds of me getting it at 51 are pretty slim, unlike me :)

Maybe it’s genes too.

Or maybe they’re a little off in the big picture about what exactly causes it.

44 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:24:17 AM by dp0622 (Bad, bad company Till the day I die.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Lazamataz They explained, through the son, that corn is what LIVESTOCK ate. You NEVER serve it to a human. Silly Eurotrash. They say the darnedest things.

45 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:25:07 AM by humblegunner ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: null and void Actually they are Aryan ethnic group and hugely disadvantaged and downtrodden. You are obviously have mistaken them for Slavs which are Caucasian.

Slavs are far less numerous, but are highly creative which is why they are time-honored slaves, unlike the poor Hindus who are forced to drink from the same river they dump corpses into and have been sinking into obscurity due to mistaken Western misidentification such as you pointed to.

This is a common failing, because the Slaves are not too far geographically (on most maps) from India (usually only a few inches), so the confusion is self-evident. So you should give more than a damn in order to say in the bounds of modern politically correct speech and thought, lest you fall prey to doxing and other misadventures.

46 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:25:48 AM by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: null and void Carbs and sugars cause obesity. It’s in EVERYTHING you buy at the store. My wife and I started cooking our own meals and eliminated sugar and reduced carbs to under 20 grams a day about 20 months ago. Lost 30 pounds in the first 2 months and feel great and think clearer. Carbs and sugar turn into fat. When you reduce sugar and carbs, you replace it with fats. Meats, eggs, cheese, nuts, some veggies. A high fat diet with lots of cholesterol is good for you and your brain. It’s a keto diet. I swear by it.

47 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:26:26 AM by Sodbuster ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Lazamataz In actually some corn products have far less carbs than wheat does. A generous serving of polenta, for example, has 32 carbs as opposed to a plate of pasta which has 54 carbs or more.

48 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:28:23 AM by angry elephant (My MAGA cap is from a rally in Washingon state in May 2016) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Lazamataz They explained, through the son, that corn is what LIVESTOCK ate. You NEVER serve it to a human.

They were just beingf snobs. The Brits were once that way about oats, fits only for horsdes and Irish. 49 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:29:32 AM by Dr. Sivana ("...a choice between Woke-fevered Democrats and Koch-funded Republicans is insufficient."-Mark Steyn) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Lazamataz They explained, through the son, that corn is what LIVESTOCK ate. You NEVER serve it to a human.

Italians are serious about food, too, and they have no problems making polenta. 50 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:32:17 AM by Dr. Sivana ("...a choice between Woke-fevered Democrats and Koch-funded Republicans is insufficient."-Mark Steyn) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mplc51 Wait... this cannot be true. Bloomberg and C-NN told me all week long that world leaders knew this G7 would be a complete waste of time, and that nothing would come from it, because the world leaders are sick and tired of Trump!

HOW CAN THIS BE?

51 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:33:16 AM by tcrlaf (They told me it could never happen in America. And then it did....ew) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: txrefugee But no doubt the Democrat media has already written their reviews and proclaimed the President’s conference as a “failure.” The corrupt spineless media usually follows the New York Times so it'll be 'failure' AND 'racist failure'...

52 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:38:18 AM by GOPJ (Epstein provided white liberal 'elites' with children to rape. The white liberal press ignores ...) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Lazamataz Sweet corn on cob. Butter. Salt. Summer treat.

53 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:39:40 AM by LeonardFMason ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Dr. Sivana Italians are serious about food, too, and they have no problems making polenta. ....and thus the Italian women.

54 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:39:52 AM by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: Dr. Sivana Grains — all of them — are poison.

55 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:40:44 AM by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: humblegunner Eurotrash, sure.

However, even trash can be right from time to time.

As evidence, I offer myself.

56 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:41:43 AM by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: bort I won’t dispute that there are healthier foods to eat than corn. However, type two diabetes is caused by obesity and lack of exercise. My brother was diagnosed with type two diabetes. He was significantly overweight. He started lecturing me on my diet. I told him the reason I do not have type two diabetes is that I run on the treadmill 4 to 5 times per week. I told him to do the same and his type two diabetes would go away. He took me up on the challenge, and three months later he was off of the medication for type two diabetes. So yes, Diet does play a role. However, if you exercise frequently, you do not have to worry about acquiring type two diabetes, and if you currently are diagnosed with it, it will go away with the exercise. There is a problem with your formula.

You fail to take into account my incredible laziness.

57 posted on 8/25/2019, 11:42:43 AM by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OPINION:  And, The Donald Hits A Home Run Once Again!🏌🏿

[naughty-mermaid-333]

New Step by Step Roadmap for Latest Drone

New Step by Step Roadmap for Latest Drone

Drones are quite well known in the previous several decades and thus, they are everywhere. Drones because lifesavers about the flip side, they may also have lifesaving arris x220added advantages. You're ready to go. Drones could function as the ideal option for recording video clip in the wilderness. Not every little drone is a voucher that is top. The 2018 drones all unite rates, expert craftmanship, durability and qualities to deliver a drone that you may delight in flying for an extremely extended instant. Or you are exhausted from the standard distant traveling drone that isn't recording high quality pictures that are premium that are good.

Drones have firmware that may be updated to correct bugs and add new capabilities. They have grown easily accessible for consumers. They have also demonstrated their suitability for assorted urban tasks. People don't realize that if a drone flies, they also are moving Dennison says into the aviation industry. Digicam drones are comparatively straightforward to hurt whether expensive to fix. The majority of the minute, it really is awkward and difficult to transport a digital camera that is heavy around.

In the event you find it possible to perform game, you may learn to work with a camera easily. " It will be a consistent cat-and-mouse game. Superior Support workforce My clientele and I take pleasure in their team in real property in the Atlanta region's aid. For quite a few, it might be challenging to see how you should begin amassing insights along with your own drone where to start. The analysis forecasts flights would soon likely be more powerful since the possibility of pilot error will be taken off. Some individuals assert that people've entered that the era that is drone.

The group of drones that will handle water is quite tiny. Client drones have been held by the higher cost tag joined for the drone designs. After a drone is employed in regions that are restricted, and also you desire to have the ability to ground it without even losing potentially discovered proof. Yes, it is actually a toy creation, but nonetheless, it is the method it is possible to adapt between water, land and atmosphere can permit it to be quite unique. Drones appeared because the significant pattern. The 3DR So-Lo Drone can also enable one to stream live video to your cellular apparatus via a control.

Drones are extremely enjoyable to fly if they truly are flown carefully. In fact, they are slowly getting more and more business and recreational. There is that the Airdog Drone which can be controlled by means of what looks like a wristwatch.

The Battle Over Latest Drone and How to Win It

Drone makers are offering crash avoidance, and flight that is customizable pathing possibilities as a way to keep on top of their rankings. The third business to demonstrate the drone technology was Indymo. The drone company is estimated to double even with stagnant budgets that were military in the course of the following decade. As of this time, the building business would be the leading individual providing the proof of concept. It uses tons of complex technology that's within the most recent drones, while slightly old today. Gyro stabilization technology is among the components that delivers the drone it has smooth airport capacities. Therefore, should you believe about this, you are able to repaint a GPS method.

Detectors like nighttime vision, methane detectors and xray capacities may be put on drones. Aside from the normal warrantee, buying your camera from an business that provides personal training lessons, workshops and so forth is a selection. A number of the prior drones employed cameras that were not appropriate for airborne. Even the GoPro camera isn't included in the cost.

During the building period footage could possibly be utilised to fairly share with you advancements with faraway customers or even to check advancement in less-easily-accessible destinations for example roofs. The video clips really are a lot sharper than the grainy drone imagery which could possibly be contemplated about the Web. Watch the movie to see it functions .

Latest Drone

A few features of this patent comprise employing shuttles. In accordance with some decades ago a big of those technology out of drones made their way to the user and company drones. Let us have a look at some of the largest technologies reveals of CES 20-19. Looking by its high-quality camera in FPV may only make you feel just like you are the only and maybe perhaps not the drone. Let us go through the most typical sorts of cameras utilized for drone mapping. Thus, usage of smart-phone and cellular programs isn't likely to get reduced in 20 17 anyhow. Military Drone technological innovation armed forces usage of drones has really come to function as the use in the modern planet.

[alexsmitposts]

Georgian Protests: Not Spontaneous and Not Ordinary—Part of Wider US Agenda?

Upwards of 10,000 protesters attempted to storm Georgia’s parliament building on June 20. The crowd swarmed the building during what at first glance appeared to an anti-government rally. They demanded the resignations of top officials, allegedly in response to a speech made by a member of the Russian Duma. It now continues on a daily basis, however, with less violence.

As reported by Georgian and Western news sources, “tensions flared up when Sergei Gavrilov, a Russian MP, addressed an assembly of lawmakers from Orthodox Christian countries from the physical seat of the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament.”

Gavrilov was taking part in the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), a meeting of a body set up by the Greek parliament in 1993 to foster relationships between Orthodox Christian lawmakers. From a political standpoint, it will never be a good idea to allow a Russian MP to sit in the Speaker’s chair, in Georgia or any other country which fought long and hard to escape Russian domination through the Soviet Union. However it would also be ridiculous for either Georgia or Russia not to be part of the IAO, given their credentials and shared values as Orthodox countries.

One thing is certain in any such mass protest – few, if any of them, are spontaneous protests by ordinary citizens. Careful planning goes into any attempted coup or regime change—and that usually comes from the West. This has especially been the case in Georgia, dating back to the so-called Rose Revolution of 2003, and even earlier, to the free fire zone days of the early 90s.

Now Georgia is again in the news, not only over how the weaponisation of gay pride is part of a larger programme of CIA destabilisation. Little of what is happening now in Georgia has anything to do with the country’s less than pristine record on human rights, or efforts to regain territorial integrity. Still less does it have to do with the present Georgian government, which is the most benign the country has seen, and unlike previous ones is genuinely attempting to introduce the Western values the population actually want, such as democratic pluralism, rule of law and transparency.

Keep in mind that what happens in Georgia doesn’t stay in Georgia, and is more often than not part of a larger regional agenda. The real news is not as the BBC reported on June 21, Thousands storm parliament over Russian MP’s speech, but what is REALLY transpiring in Georgia with outside assistance.

Not Spontaneous and Not Ordinary

One just needs to consider the statement of Giga Bokeria, now described as “an opposition MP for the European Georgia party”, who told AFP that the rally outside parliament was “a spontaneous protest by ordinary Georgians.”

Bokeria’s track record is well-documented, as are the names of his backers. He’s a teller of BIG lies—consider his activities in Georgia dating back to the days of the US-funded Liberty Institute, which is credited with topping former president Eduard Shevardnadze and bringing Mikheil Saakashvili to power, only for him to suffer the same fate.

The appearance of Russian MP Gavrilov in the Speaker’s chair in Tbilisi was considered an insult to Georgia, given the continued Russian influence in Georgia’s two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and indeed it was, even though not intended as such by the Georgian government to cause problems. These regions effectively gained their final independence as a result of the 2008 Georgian Russian conflict, as recognised by the Russian Federation in the wake of the Kosovo precedent.

But based on years of reporting on Georgia and the region, this appears a well-crafted effort to destabilise the current government, which did not decide to put Gavrilov in the chair. This decision was made by the Greek Embassy, which is trying to improve its political position within the EU to avoid further punishing bailout terms. It fits well with the Gay Pride rallies being forced on reluctant local gays, the continued EU refusal to discuss the UNM’s many crimes and the continued liberty of Saakashvili and his worst cronies despite all the arrest warrants out against them in all the countries they have been transplanted to.

The present Georgian government has done little but say “we are not the UNM criminals, so vote for us” during its six and a half years in power. But it is more balanced in its foreign policies between Russia and the West than the Saakashvili regime was. The various headlines on US funded websites, such as Furious Anti-Russia Protesters In Tbilisi Demand Speaker’s Resignation, Clash With Police speak for themselves as to the agenda which is being rolled out—and who apparently stands behind such provocations.

Sideshow with Front Seats

I asked one Georgian journalist who lives close to the Parliament, “do you have a front row seat for what is going on in Georgia as of yesterday?” He replied, “Not only a front row seat, as I live close to the parliament, but I happened to be passing by when teargas was finally used at about midnight … and the crowd scattered like leaves.”

We both think there will be a repeat performance soon, and that interesting days are upon us. I also suspect the provocation has something to do with the 250 million USD in weapons recently funded for Ukraine, and the agenda which has been set into motion for Iran.

Georgia likes to think it is the centre of the universe, though few have heard of it, because it is on the historic Silk Road. The revival of the Silk Road has become a major international project. However this project has been constructed to disguise the real importance of Georgia’s location: as the gateway to Iran, Ukraine, Syria and any other place now turned into a trouble spot. Without Georgia, we wouldn’t be witnessing half the death and destruction we see today, and these conflicts keep Embassy holdovers in jobs.

Tired Script for Crisis Actors

Having watched the early stages of yesterday’s protest, and seen the same familiar Saakashvili-era faces during the lunch break on live TV , I am further convinced that all what transpired was, and continues to be, carefully scripted.

Upwards of 80 people are reported to have been injured in the protests, including 30 protestors and 39 police officers. Police used water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. However the media reports vary, and it is becoming difficult to get accurate information.

Georgian PM Mamuka Bakhtadze has told the press that “what we witnessed is absolutely unacceptable,” and that a demonstration that had “started in a peaceful manner,” turned “violent”.

He added that

“It is an attempt by an aggressive group, the National Movement (UNM), party of former President Saakashvili, to move Georgia out of the legal framework, but they will fail to do it… I would like to address the youth – I am beside you in your frank protest, but we have to deal with narrow political interests, which are beyond any limits… violence is unacceptable and an adequate response will be made.”

Nino Burjanadze, former presidential candidate and once acting Head of State, has described the events as being political in nature, and maintains that purported pro-Western political parties are now using the people’s anger for their own benefit. It is clear that the situation may well spin out of control if the government keeps making the same mistakes again and again. Burjanadze should know, as her peaceful protest with many protesters “beaten-to-death” was broken up by the former government back on May 26, 2011.

Many of the photos used in this referenced report by the Georgian Young Lawyers Association were contributed by Georgian Bureau Chief for US online journal Veterans Today, Jeffrey Silverman. GYLA expressed special gratitude to G. Abdaladze and Jeffrey K. Silverman as the source of an important part of the photos used in that 2011 report.

The dreadful events of that day helped bring down the Saakashvili regime. So it is ironic that the same political party, the United National Movement, is now screaming foul over its failed attempt to take over the Georgian Parliament and topple the government by violence.

What happened back in 2011 was a peaceful protest against the UNM. This time it was an attempted coup by the UNM. Most people won’t be fooled, but a significant number are always ready to be bought off, as always happens in Georgia.

What is now happening is the street is like wolves leading sheep, as this could result in the total destabilisation of the Georgian State. Georgians must be cleverer, or they could lose so much, with one part of the population turned against another because of the actions of a few. Both these protests, and further actions being planned, are part of a larger regional geopolitical plan of destabilisation, which will also harm Georgia even if it resolves its internal problems.

I asked in a recent article, who says that politics and religion don’t mix? They mix very well into the fatal cocktail almost ready to be served up on the Georgian people. As this is going to press, the protests continue, not only as a result of the initial provocation, as described but in response to the government using excessive force and rubber bullets at close range, blinding several protestors.

Russia’s reaction to the treatment of a Russian diplomat and the behavior of the protestors was to be expected, and swift, out of concern for its citizens and initial gut reaction. It will ban air flights starting in July, curtailing tourism, and have its citizens now in Georgia return as soon as possible. Most definitely those who planned these protests had this in mind.

It is hoped that those on all sides will understand who is benefiting from “bad relations” between countries, Russia and Georgia, and from division among the Georgian people. They need to carefully evaluate what has actually transpired and who stands behind such unfortunate incidents. One thing is sure, the current government has not delivered, however, the previous one is no better—change is needed and with new blood.

[hotgarden]

Shadow’s Dungeon Reviews: Breath of the Wild: Great Plateau Shrines

Hey guys. Been a while. You’ve probably been waiting what feels like a year for this, but dungeon reviews are back baby! Starting with Breath of the Wild’s dungeons! But since it’ll take a while for the Divine Beasts, I will hold you over with my shrine reviews! We’re starting with:

Great Plateau Shrines

Hit the jump for the review by me, ShadowSect!

Well, since it’s been a while, it’s time for change.... specifically shines aren’t exactly dungeons. So here is my new Shrine Point System! (Combat Shrines will work differently)

Puzzles (65 Points): Are the puzzles memorable? How creative are the puzzles with the theme of the shrine? Do the puzzles challenge your brain and treat you like you’re a functioning human? How is the variety of the puzzles?

Danger (10 Points): How is the combat, if any? Are you in any danger in the shrine, or is it just a walk in the park? If it’s super easy, is it because it’s puzzle-focused? Does the challenge work based on context?

Fun Factor (25 Points): How did I feel about the shrine? Did it stick in my head? Was it entertaining and did I ever get bored? Was it too short or too long? Is there anything in the shrine that was repetitive?

Oh yeah, and if you’re new here, I don’t mince with the reviews, so this will spoil your experience of the shrines/dungeons. So I highly suggest playing the game first if you haven’t already.

Onto the shrines!

Oman Au Shrine -- Magnesis Trial

First up, we have the Magnesis Trial, the first shrine you have to do, and it’s structurally built like most of the shrines of Great Plateau, actually. Found next to a particular block you can’t move and a chest in the water you can’t reach, the old man says there’s a treasure here for you to receive.

First up is the puzzles, and this is very standard puzzle fare that is more of a walkthrough than anything mentally stimulating. You’re netted with the Magnesis rune from the slate on the left, a rune that lets you move anything metal or anything magnetic (but is usually picky to stuff that looks like the thing in front of Link in the pic above). It takes less than three seconds to realize you need to move the stuff blocking the way down, and then it’s simply move the thing that looks out of place, i.e. move the doors, pull the block out, and then a very minor movement of one face down slab to another side of a walkway to create a bridge. This is a first shrine, so I’m not too picky about the supreme ease of the shrine, but for a shrine utilizing magnesis for the first time, it’s sad to just use it to... basically move stuff. 40 points.

Next up is danger, which is basically a fancy word here for when there’s any combat or if there’s any risk in the shrine. In this case, yes. Surprise surprise, but there’s a mini-guardian right behind the blocks you push. He doesn’t do much damage compared to all the enemies you fought outside, which is.... actually quite weird to be honest, but it’s a little creative in that you can use the block or the slab to push the enemy into the conveniently placed water, which will short circuit him. Other than that, this is extremely puzzle-focused with no danger whatsoever, which is fine considering this is the first shrine. 7 points.

Finally for the fun factor, which is a bigger tilt here than it ever was in my dungeon reviews. Honestly I don’t have any memories of this shrine unless I look at pictures, which speaks volumes, but it is a “neat” first shrine. It was way too short, taking like 2-3 minutes to complete, and there are other shrines on Great Plateau that take longer than that at bare minimum. Can’t knock it for not being too repetitive since it was so short. 15 points.

Overall, that’s 62 points. OK. For a starting shrine, it’s a neat little distraction. Outside the dungeon, Magnesis is a fun little rune to use, since the application of moving the block right outside and getting the chest from under the water is cool. Unfortunately, this shrine is just too easy, even for a first shrine, and doesn’t do anything inventive with a creative rune you receive. Also of note is a little chest you can spot in the distance and pull by using Magnesis, but it’s more about noticing and can easily be missed.

Ja Baij Shrine -- Bomb Trial

One sentence into this shrine review and I must immediately note that I’m going to compliment this shrine on having different ways of going at it through my three playthroughs of Great Plateau. Yes, I played through it three times. Dedication, amirite? More like craziness. This is one of the three shrines that you can go at from any angle, so it’s assumed for each shrine you only have the Magnesis one.

In any case, in this shrine you receive the bomb rune, which lets you place square bombs that don’t roll and explode whenever you click the button, or regular bombs that roll and are privy to the physics engine of BotW, but only explode when you click the button. The first puzzles are pretty rudimentary, with crumble walls to simply blow up, although you go right instead of left to get a secret chest, but it’s behind a wall that also is a crumble wall so it’s not really secret. Then you reach a moving platform that you have to time a bomb to, which can either go at it by throwing a regular bomb and hope to god it explodes as quickly as possible as you mash the explode button, or you can be smart about it and place a square bomb on the platform and wait for it to get close to the wall. 

Finally, you have a puzzle that makes use of what I like to call “priming”. On the left side are launching devices, with one able to launch you to a chest, and another launching a circular sphere back and forth in the room, and on the right is one launching device, a convenient hole to put something circular in, and a bunch of crumble blocks on the other side. You could be me and try to put the sphere into the convenient hole, but it’s too big, and then you get frustrated and just go towards the crumble blocks on the other side and throw bombs until they’re all gone while hurting yourself. Or you could be smart, and place a bomb which IS small enough to go into the hole to be thrown onto the other side and blow up all the blocks at once. I’m a dumbass, ladies and gentleman, and it took me the 2nd go-around to realize that was a thing. In any case, the puzzles in this dungeon ARE memorable in the latter portion, and are decently creative with the launching mechanism and learning to time your bombs. Wish there something like a bomb activating mechanism, but maybe save the bomb ideas for other shrines, I’m presuming. It’s great puzzles for a starting region though. 55 points.

Is there any danger in this shrine? Um..... hurting yourself with your own bombs, which is a real thing and can happen (I did this to myself on accident, but not in the shrine itself, outside against a Guardian). Other than that, it’s no danger to serve for the puzzle. It’s just fine, and there’s no problems here. 8 points.

I do really enjoy this shrine. I think the latter portion was really neat, especially with the chest you can propel to and the small confusion you can have if you’re as dumb as me. If the first portion was a little neater than “blow up walls”, it’d be nice, but I understand that a puzzle has to progress. For a bomb shrine, I think it’s suitable. 20 points.

Overall, 83 points. Great. This is a neat shrine for the starting area, and like the previous shrine there are extras within inches of the shrine that you can notice immediately with the bomb rune you receive. It’s a nice shrine, you can have some fun in it, and it’s easy enough for the starting grounds. Maybe BotW is creative with its shrines? We shall see.

Owa Daim Shrine -- Stasis Trial

Now for a completely new shrine based off of a completely new concept to the Zelda series: Stasis! Found next to a rock you can’t move, even with Magnesis or bombs, this is one of the three shrines the old man points you to, and it’s also assumed you’ll have just Magnesis here, but bombs could make for some of a blast anyway. For my 3 playthroughs of Great Plateau, the first two did this second, and the third one did this last with the other rune you can receive, which didn’t affect anything.

The name of the rune game here is Stasis, which can freeze any object in time, and what you can do with it depends on the context, which this shrine shows each, which is neat. The first example is a rotating platform, which you can freeze to walk across, i.e. you’re using it to create a path of exploration. The second example are rocks falling down a hallway you need to walk up, otherwise they’ll roll over you and probably do a lot of damage (or kill you), in which case you’re using it to avoid. Also neat thing is if you go to the very top because you’re a badass, there’s a chest for you. The last example is a rock in the middle of a place you need to get across, but you can’t move it with bombs or magnesis. The trick? Freeze it with Stasis, and if you attack it while it’s frozen in time, it shows a place of propulsion with an arrow. The more you strike it, the further it goes, and the direction you strike it affects where it moves, and at the end of the timer the object propels based off the arrow. It’s a cool way of showing this feature, and I thought it was genius and reminded me of Super Mario Bros. game design.

If you can’t tell, the puzzles in this shrine are pretty genius in how they show how a rune works more than the previous ones. It’s creative with the different ways you can use Stasis, which is a benefit of the versatility of the rune, and the cooldown makes you have to think smart for when you can use it. The puzzles are memorable, and they serve to capitalize your use outside the shrine. The variety is neat, and honestly I couldn’t have it any other way. 60 points.

It shocks me to say there is danger in this puzzle! If you don’t freeze the platform right, you could fall and lose a heart. The rock can kill you if you’re not careful, so it gives a sense of urgency to stop the rock or run if you feel brave, which you’ll realize it’s hard to do without Stasis. It’s the right amount of danger for a starting area. 9 points.

This is another neat shrine that stuck in my head from the Great Plateau. Propelling that rock was fun when I hit it with a fully charged hammer and watched it fly, and I’m biased in that the rune is one of my favorite items I’ve ever received in a Zelda game. It’s memorable, it has the amount of puzzles I’m looking for, and it shows the versatility of an item you receive. 21 points.

Overall, 90 points. Fantastic. As a starting shrine, this is most certainly the best you’ll find in Great Plateau. Smart ideas, good pacing, and showing off a rune in the best way possible. It opens up a world of possibility into the overworld as a whole, and the shrine itself has the amount of challenge and intelligence required in context with the area and with 4-5 min of your time.

Keh Namut Shrine -- Cryonis Trial

You know that item that creates blocks in Link to the Past? Well say welcome back, except it only works in water, and it’s only ice. This shrine is usually the last shrine you’ll go in Great Plateau due to distance, and introduces the Cryonis Rune. Usually done last, but I did it before the Stasis one just so I could get to the old man at the top of the mountain and get me some sweet ass armor... which you could just get from an inn later.

This dungeon is like the Magnesis one but mildly more difficult. It’s just as much of a walkthrough, but with a new concept. The rune Cryonis makes ice pillars, which you can make up to three of, but only in water, though they are climbable and go up to three times the height of Link. It’s mainly used in the shrine to unblock a gate by placing it under water, get a vantage point, and progress forward, though there is a cool instance where you can find a platform you can turn into a ramp by placing a pillar below one side. Physics!

The puzzles backpedal back compared to the Stasis shrine. They’re all easy and feel like a tutorial much like the Magnesis one, besides the platform one. Using it to journey forward is easy, there’s not much creativity, and this shrine is easily forgotten about. There’s a neat little chest you can spot, but it’s easily missed, and like the Magnesis one, it’s easily gotten to by simply creating an ice block to jump to it. In the words of Trump: Sad! 40 points.

Another mini-Guardian is lurking around the corner, if you can see the image up above. That’s the only danger here, and by this point you’ll have the capabilities to take it out quick, though if you’re creative you could make an ice block and propel him upward. 7 points.

Fun fact, I forgot about this shrine until I looked it up for the purpose of this shrine review. “Oh yeah, that shrine where I propelled the ramp.... and avoided a mini-Guardian? Do I need to play through it again?” It’s an extremely minor shrine. It’s short, it’s a walkthrough, and it’s not very creative. Did you think I’d like it? Nope. 10 points.

Overall, 57 points. OK. Don’t make this the last shrine you do, or you’ll be disappointed. It doesn’t have much to show, and it’ll pass by just as quickly. It’s serviceable for the Great Plateau, and I’m not going to complain that it shouldn’t exist, but maybe repeating the Magnesis way of structure wasn’t the smartest way of doing things?

And that’s my opinion of the Great Plateau shrines. Not as short as you expected, huh? I hope you’re happy that my dungeon reviews are sort of back! And don’t worry if you think BotW will be the only thing in the next few weeks. I promise you there’s more to come.

So what’d you think of the shrine opinions? Too forgiving? Too mean? Let me know in the comments.

In any case, if there��s anything I missed, or you have some opinions about the shrines yourself, hop into the comments section! You’re always welcome there!

Next 5 content:

1. Composers Countdown: David Wise (#10)

2. Wii U Countdown: Splatoon (#10)

3. X-Men: First Class Review

4. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels Review

5. Shadow’s Dungeon Reviews: Zelda II: Parapa Palace (REMAKE, not a port)

-- ShadowSect

[godiva640vbucks-blog]

Just what the Oxford English Dictionary Does not Show you About how to hack fortnite

How Fortnite Captured Teenagers’ Hearts and Minds

The craze for that third-individual shooter sport has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid disaster, and taking in Tide Pods.

V BUCKS TOOL

It had been having late in Tomato Town. The storm was closing in, and meteors pelted the bottom. Gizzard Lizard experienced designed his way there following plundering the sparsely populated barns and domiciles of Anarchy Acres, then by preventing the Wailing Woods and preserving the storm just off to his still left. He spied an enemy combatant on large floor, who appeared to have a sniper’s rifle. Inside of a hollow underneath the sniper’s perch was an deserted pizzeria, with a large rotating register the shape of the tomato. Gizzard Lizard, who experienced promptly constructed himself a redoubt of salvaged beams, reported, “I think I’m about to attack. That’s considered one of my most important troubles: I need to start being extra aggressive.” He ran out in the open, pausing in advance of a thick shrub. “This is actually a extremely superior bush. I could bush-camp. But naw, that’s what noobs do.”

Two Adult men enter, 1 guy leaves: the fighters shut in on one another. Inside the movie match Fortnite Fight Royale, the late-activity stage is often by far the most frenetic and thrilling. Quickly, the sniper released himself into a nearby industry and began attacking. Gizzard Lizard unexpectedly threw up Yet another port-a-fort, amid a hail of enemy fire. The objective is usually to obtain, or make, the significant ground.

A second afterwards, Gizzard Lizard was dead—killed by a grenade. Afterward, he replayed the ending, from various vantages, to analyze what had long gone Incorrect. To get so near winning and however arrive up small—it was aggravating and tantalizing. One particular would like to go again. The urge is strong. But it absolutely was time for my son to perform his research.

I spent additional time as A child than I care to recollect seeing other Young ones Participate in movie games. Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong. Commonly, my buddies, around my objections, most popular this to enjoying ball—or to other preferred, if fewer edifying, neighborhood pursuits, which include tearing hood ornaments off parked cars. Every single so often, I performed, as well, but I used to be a spaz. Insert quarter, match about. Once gaming moved into dorms and apartments—Nintendo, Sega—I uncovered which i could just go away. But in some cases I didn’t. I admired the feat of divided attention, the knack that some guys (and it had been always men) appeared to have for keeping alive, both of those in the game and within the battle of wits about the couch, as though they ended up both of those actively playing a sport and executing “SportsCenter” simultaneously.

I thought of this the other day when a colleague explained watching a gaggle of eighth-grade boys and girls (amid them his son) hanging close to his condominium taking part in, but typically viewing Other folks Perform, Fortnite. A single boy was enjoying on a big Tv set screen, that has a PlayStation 4 console. One other boys were being on their own telephones, possibly participating in or observing an expert gamer’s Are living stream. And the ladies were being participating in or watching by themselves phones, or searching in excess of the shoulders from the boys. Among the list of girls explained to my Pal, “It’s enjoyable to begin to see the boys get mad every time they lose.” No-one mentioned Substantially. What patter there was—l’esprit du divan—came from the youngsters’ minimal screens, in the form of the professional gamer’s mordant narration as he vanquished his opponents.

Fortnite, for anybody not a teenager-ager or perhaps a father or mother or educator of teens, will be the 3rd-person shooter video game which includes taken over the hearts and minds—and time, equally discretionary and in any other case—of adolescent and collegiate America. Launched past September, it's at the moment by a lot of actions the most well-liked movie recreation on this planet. From time to time, there have already been more than 3 million men and women enjoying it without delay. It's been downloaded an estimated sixty million times. (The game, available on PC, Mac, Xbox, PS4, and cell gadgets, is—crucially—free, but quite a few gamers pay out For extra, beauty characteristics, including costumes referred to as “skins.”) Regarding fervor, compulsive habits, and parental noncomprehension, the Fortnite trend has aspects of Beatlemania, the opioid disaster, and the ingestion of Tide Pods. Mothers and fathers speak of it being an dependancy and swap tales of plunging grades and brazen display screen-time abuse: underneath the desk at college, in a memorial services, in the toilet at 4 A.M. They beg each other for options. A pal despatched me a video he’d taken just one afternoon although endeavoring to end his son from participating in; there was a time when consistently calling just one’s father a fucking asshole would have led to huge issues in Tomato City. In our household, the big danger is gamer rehab in South Korea.

Sport fads occur and go: Rubik’s Cube, Dungeons & Dragons, Angry Birds, Minecraft, Clash of Clans, Pokémon Go. What individuals appear to agree on, whether they’re seasoned gamers or dorky dads, is the fact that there’s a little something new emerging all over Fortnite, a type of mass social accumulating, open up to some Substantially wider array of men and women than the games that came in advance of. Its relative lack of wickedness—it is apparently largely freed from the misogyny and racism that afflict many other online games and gaming communities—makes it much more palatable to the broader audience, and this charm the two ameliorates and augments its addictive power. (The game, in its essential method, randomly assigns players’ skins, that may be of any gender or race.) Common anecdotal evidence indicates that women are participating in in wide numbers, equally with and with out boys. There are actually, and possibly at any time shall be, some gamer geeks who gripe at these types of newcomers, just as they gripe when there aren't any newcomers at all.

A buddy whose thirteen-calendar year-old son is deep down the rabbit gap likened the Fortnite phenomenon into the Pump Household Gang, the crew of ne’er-do-effectively teenager surfers in La Jolla whom Tom Wolfe occurred upon within the early nineteen-sixties. As opposed to a clubhouse within the beach, there’s a virtual world-wide juvenile corridor, where by Youngsters Get, invent an argot, adopt change egos, and shoot each other down. Wolfe’s Pump Dwelling Young ones went on beer-soaked outings they called “destructos,” by which they'd, at neighborhood farmers’ behest, demolish abandoned barns. Now it’s Juul-sneaking minimal homebodies demolishing Digital partitions and residences with imaginary pickaxes. Teens almost everywhere are swinging away at their world, tearing it down to outlive—Innovative destruction, of a kind.

Shall I reveal the game? I must, I’m worried, Although describing movie game titles is just a little like recounting goals. A hundred gamers are dropped onto an island—from a flying university bus—and fight one another to your Dying. The winner is the last a person standing. (You are able to pair up or type a squad, as well.) This can be what is meant by Struggle Royale. (The original Model of Fortnite, introduced previous July, for forty dollars, wasn’t struggle on the Demise; it is the new iteration which has caught fireplace.) A storm encroaches, little by little forcing combatants into an ever-shrinking spot, where they need to eliminate or be killed. Alongside just how, you seek out out caches of weapons, armor, and healables, even though also gathering constructing supplies by breaking down current buildings. Hasty fabrication (of ramps, forts, and towers) is An important aspect of the sport, and this is why it is commonly referred to as a cross involving Minecraft and the Hunger Game titles—and why aggrieved moms and dads will be able to inform themselves that it's constructive.

Ahead of a recreation commences, you wander about in a type of purgatorial bus depot-cum-airfield ready until eventually another hundred have assembled for an airdrop. That is a Bizarre area. Gamers shoot inconsequentially at one another and pull dance moves, like actors going for walks aimlessly all-around backstage practicing their lines. Then arrive the airlift along with the drifting descent, by way of glider, to the battleground, with a delicate whooshing sound that is certainly into the Fortnite addict exactly what the flick of a Bic would be to a smoker. You may land in a single of 20-one particular regions over the island, Each individual which has a cutesy alliterative name, some suggestive of mid-century gay bars: Shifty Shafts, Moisty Mire, Lonely Lodge, Greasy Grove. In patois and in mood, the game manages for being both equally dystopian and comedian, darkish and lightweight. It might be alarming, for those who’re not accustomed to this sort of matters or are attuned to your information, to listen to your darlings shouting so merrily about head pictures and snipes. But there’s no blood or gore. The violence is cartoonish, at the least relative to, say, Halo or Grand Theft Car. These kinds of are classified as the consolations.

The island alone has an air of desertion but not of utmost despair. This apocalypse is rated PG. The abandonment, precipitated because of the storm, that has either killed or scattered almost all of the environment’s inhabitants, seems to happen to be recent and relatively fast. The grass is lush, the Cover comprehensive. The hydrangeas are abloom in Snobby Shores. Buildings are unencumbered by kudzu or graffiti and possess tidy, sparsely furnished rooms, as though the inhabitants had only just fled (or been vaporized). Seemingly, Absolutely everyone on the island, in People prosperous pre-storm moments, shopped in exactly the same aisle at Concentrate on. Each time I watch a player enter a Bed room, be it in Junk Junction or Loot Lake, I Be aware the multicolored blanket folded throughout the bed. These cobalt-blue table lamps: are they available? Probably in the future They are going to be.