#they are the blueprint for which American producers are building

[icameoutonthetardis]

thots on greys anatomy being referred to as “white woman’s one piece”?

If we’re going to label every long running piece of media “*blank*’s One Piece” i think we’re forgetting the ogs: soap operas and cop procedurals. Days of Our Lives and Law and Order are out there and we shouldn’t forget them.

[lovejustforaday]

Shoegaze Classics - Xuvetyn

Xuvetyn - Lovesliescrushing (1996)

Main Genres - Ambient, Shoegaze, Ethereal Wave, Experimental

A decent sampling of: Drone, Noise, Dream Pop, Post-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia

I'm not gonna lie - I'm super excited to gush about this record. I've been meaning to get around to reviewing this bountiful, fascinating little gem for years now. Let's hope that I can do this often unsung masterpiece the much needed justice that it deserves.

🙙

I touched on this previously in my Ride review, but for all of the talk of the 'Big 3' of shoegaze, I think that many of the younger shoegaze fans these days would agree that Slowdive and My Bloody Valentines' discographies are a cut above the Ride catalogue. Not to diss on the band, but the Big 3 is really starting to feel more like a Big 2 these days, with Slowdive's relevance to new fans only increasing over time whilst Ride's relevance seems to be stagnating.

This has left a potential vacuum in the consensus online. Don't get me wrong; plenty are still going to champion Ride as one of the giants of shoegaze, and most folks that were around for the original scene that celebrated itself are most likely still diehard for Ride as the scene's closest group to being mega rockstars.

But in terms of the legacy of 90s shoegaze, could there still be a record that is missing from all-time canonization? One that has oft been overlooked when discussing this supposed "Big 3"? Is one of indie rock's most beloved and revisited eras still hiding an elusive diamond in the rough?

In case it wasn't already obvious, that's the case I'm going to be making today. And I don't think I'm entirely alone on this one. Few shoegaze bands from the 90s have had such a considerable late resurgence like this band, though they've always had a cult following.

Today I'll be making the case for Lovesliescrushing, the creative juggernauts behind the 1996 experimental ambient shoegaze masterpiece Xuvetyn.

The Band

Lovesliescrushing are one of the rare American bands of the original 90s wave.

The project began in 1991 as the brainchild of avant-garde guitarist and producer Scott Cortez, who teamed up with the apparitional soprano voice of singer Melissa Arpin-Duimstra, a vocalist who more than any other shoegaze vocalist before or since has dedicated her artistry to using the singing voice as a medium to carry and modulate the properties of sound timbre first and foremost.

Daringly, Lovesliescrushing as a band decided to forego having a rhythm section altogether. Not even a drum machine. The band's radical ethos right from its inception would seem to have been to distill shoegaze rock music down to a purified elemental substance, achieving the platonic ideal by creating an undisturbed solution of dense and glorious blended textures.

Indeed, where reverberated guitar sounds with bizarre effects and blended vocals were what set apart bands like Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, and Curve from being otherwise ordinary indie/alternative rock bands, the qualities I just described encompassed the near-entirety of Lovesliescrushing's early output, taking the concept of the subgenre to its logical extreme.

The band pioneered what is essentially the fusion of ambient music and shoegaze, a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned. This marriage of genre ethos would give way to some of the most unyielding sublime auditory sensations that I have ever been so fortunate to have experienced.

Lovesliescrushing also had one foot steeped firmly in the murky waters of ethereal wave (particularly on the sophomore record), the goth subgenre which served as shoegaze and dream pop's most apparent predecessor and influence. Indeed, some of the band's material can be seen as building upon the prototypical blueprint that can be found in Cocteau Twins' fourth LP Victorialand which similarly removed the rhythm section in order to create pure blissful atmosphere.

Some may see Cortez's work as hero worship, and I've heard a dozen or so folks accuse this band of being "My Bloody Valentine without the melodies and drums", but this is a grossly reductionist take that does a huge disservice to just how brazenly groundbreaking and experimental this band's early work was at the time and still remains to this day.

Lovesliescrushing also regularly made their foray into other schools of experimental music like drone, sound collage, and harsh noise, incorporating these ideas into their creative process. Some of their material even sounds like experimental music with no apparent roots in any particular legacy whatsoever.

This is honestly some very radical music. I can't think of much of anything really quite like early Lovesliescrushing. Perhaps MBV is one of the closest points of reference, but then only because they were a shoegaze band that also sounded quite unlike anything at the time.

Information on the beginnings of this band is scant on the internet compared to many other shoegaze artists, and they were never well-documented by the alternative music press the way that bands like Slowdive or even Catherine Wheel were. And as far as the North American scene goes, Drop Nineteens definitely overshadowed their popularity.

I think it's a fair assessment to say that Lovesliescrushing were truly underground in the band's formative years. I remember only as far back as 2017, when I was just getting into this band through online recommendations, that even many avid fans of Slowdive and MBV had never even heard of this band. But I digress.

Lovesliescrushing released their debut LP Bloweyelashwish twice: first as a casette tape in 1992 on their own indie label with a shorter track listing, and then as a longer full-length album in 1993 on Projekt Records, with newer recordings and mastered versions of the songs.

Bloweyelashwish is a beautiful record in its own right. More generally noisy and droning than its successor, with crunchier guitar sounds, blown out distortion, and a listless melancholic atmosphere. Somewhat closer to very early Sonic Youth, or some of A.R. Kane's weirdest output. What the record does somewhat lack, at least in comparison to its successor, is relative cohesion.

Nevertheless, some very brilliant tracks on the debut LP. "Babysbreath" is music for when you need to smother your tears in a pillow with all of the lights off, "Sugaredglowing" is one of my favourite ambient tracks ever (and a surprisingly potent form of migraine relief), and "youreyesimmaculate" is a stunning and ethereal foreshadowing of what was to come next.

Speaking of which...

The Record

Xuvetyn is... what even is it?

Xuvetyn is a series of documented sound frequencies that would be made by a sentient, shimmering blue light galaxy consisting entirely of trillions upon trillions of frozen ice shard particles. Alternatively, it is the contradictory sound of the bitter coldness of the universe itself caressing the listener in a warm cocoon.

The fact that most of all of this is accomplished with guitar, pedal, vocals, and some studio effects here and there is still unfathomable to me. That is an incredible feat in itself.

Judging solely by the ability to create awe-inspiring atmosphere, I don't believe that there is any other shoegaze band that has managed to accomplish the level of mastery that Lovesliescrushing consistently demonstrates on this record. Yes, If Loveless was the zenith of shoegaze texture, then Xuvetyn is the zenith of shoegaze atmosphere. Completely surreal and captivating.

As I've described the band's sound itself, Xuvetyn really is the concept of shoegaze distilled into its essence, then manipulated ever so slightly with a delicate songcraft and expertise, in order to give these tracks a semblance of form and structure. But make no mistake - there is no solid seabed foundation to this ocean of resonant sounds like there would be on any other shoegaze record. No, this is just infinite, icy sonic fluid that flows all the way down into a multi-dimensional abyss. And holy fuck is it ever beautiful.

Which is not to say that there is no songwriting here - just that it is incredibly subtle. But also incredibly effective.

People who generally don't care for or listen to ambient music often stereotype the genre as being uninteresting, low-effort, or too non-descript, when in fact all of the truly greatest ambient musicians know that making a masterpiece is about learning how to do miraculous things with precious little. It requires immense patience (as does the listener sometimes), a keen ear for detail, and meticulous perfectionism. Unsurprisingly, Scott Cortez strikes me as being just that kind of guy.

The album is a double LP in length, with an hour and sixteen minutes runtime and a listing of 18 tracks. Most songs generally run over the five minute mark, with the A, B, and C sides of the record all padded out every one or two tracks with these really curious little intermissions that are generally less than a full minute each.

These intermissions are often the most experimental recordings on the album, like the abrasive hailstorm noise collage of "Aquan 1" and the gloomy factory white noise of "Hum VIbralux". I could see how someone might want to omit these, but personally I think it adds to the record's pacing by giving it room to breathe, and they made the right decision to let up for the last set of tracks. Plus, the little intermissions are all so deliciously weird that it kinda reminds me of the way that your brain will just plant these bizarre, inexplicable little blips in the middle of your dreams sometimes.

Also hey, can I just nerd out about something really silly for a second? Has anyone ever noticed how a bunch of the track names on this record end in an "-ed"? "Threaded", "Handed", "Blue-Eyed", "Honeyed", "Blooded". Just another cute little detail, adding to the esoteric nature of this record, and I appreciate the alliteration.

OKAY, let's just get to the track by track analysis already.

Admittedly this is one of those records that hits you with the very best it has to offer right out of the gate. Listening to "Valerian (Her Voice Honeyed)" is among the most sublime feelings I have ever experienced in my life, literally ever. Not just in music but like, anything.

Think of any familiar place, or perhaps a virtual space in a piece of media, that held a sort of transcendental significance to you during your childhood, as though it carried a life of its own, a place that you may have revisited in your warmest dreams - for me, it's the lost woods in Ocarina of Time. Think of the sensation that those transcendent spaces would give you.

This track is that same sensation, only on steroids. As soon as that heavy ambient wall fades into the foreground and the sense of infinity takes hold, this gently flowing waterfall of dark sound matter creates a sort of window of reflection into wherever it is in your soul that you have ever felt the most at home. I get that music is a subjective experience at the end of the day, but I feel like what I just described would be inevitable for almost any listener, unless they simply weren't listening to this track the right way. One of the greatest songs ever? I'd wager a hard fucking yes.

The good news is that from here, you have only just begun your journey into a world of many more sublime and mysterious figures.

"Xarella Almandyne" is like the sound of a choir of angels in a massive hall the size of an entire city - the unknowable, lovecraftian, biblically-accurate seraphim kind of angel. Somehow soothing, yet oddly paralyzing at the same time. Based on this track alone, I must say that I'm not entirely convinced that Scott and Melissa are regular mere mortals of this world.

"Blooded And Blossom-Blown" is an eerie, gleaming, and loudly piercing void. I find the majority of the songs on this record to be overall comforting, sometimes somber and darkly mystifying if anything, but this might be the one odd track that genuinely unsettles me; in a way that I cannot get enough of, mind you. Compared to what we often call white noise, this piece represents sound that I visualize in the distinctly unnatural shades of negative blues and turquoises.

"Virgin Blue-Eyed" is a very rare departure in the band's early discography from their guitar ambience, focusing on the incantations of Melissa's euphonious elven voice, with clanging little bells in the background (which, funnily enough, technically makes this the most percussive track on either of the band's first two records).

My favourite of the intermissions is "Seesaw". Transitory shoegaze in a continuously elevating loop, like music for the loading screen that would take you to the shoegaze version of heaven, or perhaps the mythological world of Mag Mell.

"Golden-Handed" is soft, swirling, hypnagogic, and lamenting. This ambient ethereal wave track manifests as the faintest, loneliest light flickering in the gloomy hush of an otherwise dead midnight. Completely arresting atmosphere.

"Bones of Angels" is a two parter - first there's "Bronze Lit Feathers", a labyrinthine chorus of resplendent, inharmonious, and rippling guitar impressions, drifting almost aimlessly and forming only vague constellations with the help of Melissa's frail melody, and a foundation of ambient bass notes cutting through the discordance with great magnitude. This is contrasted by the second part "Her Tongue Pulled Out", wherein the sky parts and the drifting guitar sounds align into a shrill cry, forming a radiant column of sonic light, as if something gorgeous is beginning to descend upon the world. Music for high priestesses summoning divine power.

Xuvetyn reaches its second greatest peak with the penultimate track "Ghosts That Swirl", a piece which opens with this really foreboding orchestra of dreary, gargantuan ambient chimes, sounding as though the world around the listener was compressing in on itself and then stretching in and out of itself, like alternating waves in the membrane of the universe. This overture leads into an ominous, secluded, and crystalline dreamland soundscape, further removed from reality than any other track on the record, and unlike any other song that I have ever experienced. This is music that could only be dreamt up from the confines of a comatose slumber, wherein Melissa's whispers in your ear are the only traces connecting you to the corporeal world, though only audible as faint echoes far off in the distance of a seemingly endless cerulean.

I could go on all day but I've decided to end the track-by-track analysis here. The entire record is vividly evocative beyond what should be reasonably possible (and what I can convey words). You might get something entirely different from my descriptions of these tracks, but I guarantee that you will experience something unearthly.

What Came After That?

Lovesliescrushing followed up their first two records with a series of two records in 2002 that were more just straight up ambient music, rather than comprising an ambient shoegaze fusion.

The first of these is Glissceule, a similarly icy record to Xuvetyn with less dark edge and more of a reserved calm, plus more electronic elements. Second was the more ambiguous Voirshn which I enjoy significantly less than previous projects unfortunately.

The band has sporadically released more ambient records over the course of the last couple of decades, which I have yet to really deep dive into. Scott has worked on a few separate projects, most notably his other band Astrobrite which releases much harsher noise shoegaze records. Nothing from this band has really grabbed me like Lovesliescrushing's work, so I am not very familiar with it.

Like I mentioned previously, Lovesliescrushing's relevance in online shoegaze circles has seen a steady increase over time for a little while now. But Scott and Melissa have always been favs amongst the more hardcore followers of the scene, achieving an almost mythical status as figureheads of the experimental shoegaze micro-scene. And they're pretty much always one of the first bands I see people recommending nowadays when someone online says that they're looking for more "weird shoegaze".

And believe me, I'm one of those nerds recommending this band with every relevant opportunity that I can seize. This should be among the first dozen records we play when the aliens come down to Earth, in order to plead our case for the culture of humankind. This is a very special piece of art.

I won't pretend that this is going to be music for everyone, but if you really wanna transcend your corporeal existence in way that doesn't involve experimenting with potentially harmful substances, I can't really think of any better method. Xuvetyn is from beyond our plane of existence - some people native to our world (allegedly) just happened to manifest it one day.

Join me next time where, in case this review wasn't goddamn long enough, I will be doing a series of reviews on every major Slowdive release from the self-titled EP all the way up to their latest record 🙃.

10/10

Highlights: "Valerian (Her Voice Honeyed)", "Ghosts That Swirl", "Bones of Angels", "Xarella Almandyne", "Golden-Handed", "See Saw", "Blooded and Blossom-Blown", "Virgin Blue Eyed", "Flowered Smother", "Mother of Pearl", "Mandragora Louvareen", "Milkysoft", "Hum Vibralux", "Staticburst"

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 15, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 15, 2023

Yesterday, the Republican Study Committee, a 175-member group of far-right House members, released their 2024 “Blueprint to Save America” budget plan. It calls for slashing the federal budget by raising the age at which retirees can start claiming Social Security benefits from 67 to 69, privatizing Medicare, and enacting dramatic tax cuts that will starve the federal government.  

I’m actually not going to rehash the 122-page plan. Let’s take a look at the larger picture.

This budget dismisses the plans of “President Joe Biden and the left” as a “march toward socialism.” It says that “[t]he left’s calls to increase taxes to close the deficit would be…catastrophic for our nation.” Asserting that “the path to prosperity does not come from the Democrats’ approach of expanding government,” it claims that “[o]ver the past year and a half, the American people have seen that experiment fail firsthand.”

Instead, it says, “the key to growth, innovation, and flourishing communities” is “[i]ndividuals, free from the burdens of a burdensome government.” 

It is?

Our history actually tells us how these two contrasting visions of the government play out.

Grover Norquist, one of the key architects of the Republican argument that the solution to societal ills is tax cuts, in 2010 described to Rebecca Elliott of the Harvard Crimson how he sees the role of government. “Government should enforce [the] rule of law,” he said. “It should enforce contracts, it should protect people bodily from being attacked by criminals. And when the government does those things, it is facilitating liberty. When it goes beyond those things, it becomes destructive to both human happiness and human liberty.”

Norquist vehemently opposed taxation, saying that “it’s not any of the government’s business who earns what, as long as they earn it legitimately,” and proposed cutting government spending down to 8% of gross national product, or GDP, the value of the final goods and services produced in the United States. 

The last time the level of government spending was at that 8% of GDP was 1933, before the New Deal. In that year, after years of extraordinary corporate profits, the banking system had collapsed, the unemployment rate was nearly 25%, prices and productivity were plummeting, wages were cratering, factories had shut down, farmers were losing their land to foreclosure. Children worked in the fields and factories, elderly and disabled people ate from garbage cans, unregulated banks gambled away people’s money, business owners treated their workers as they wished. Within a year the Great Plains would be blowing away as extensive deep plowing had damaged the land, making it vulnerable to drought. Republican leaders insisted the primary solution to the crisis was individual enterprise and private charity. 

When he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in July 1932, New York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt vowed to steer between the radical extremes of fascism and communism to deliver a “New Deal” to the American people. 

The so-called alphabet soup of the New Deal gave us the regulation of banks and businesses, protections for workers, an end to child labor in factories, repair of the damage to the Great Plains, new municipal buildings and roads and airports, rural electrification, investment in painters and writers, and Social Security for workers who were injured or unemployed. Government outlays as a percentage of GDP began to rise. World War II shot them off the charts, to more than 40% of GDP, as the United States helped the world fight fascism. 

That number dropped again after the war, and in 1975, federal expenditures settled in at about 20% of GDP. Except for short-term spikes after financial crises (spending shot up to 24% after the 2008 crash, for example, and to 31% during the 2020 pandemic, a high from which it is still coming down), the spending-to-GDP ratio has remained at about that set point.

So why is there a growing debt?

Because tax revenues have plummeted. Tax cuts under the George W. Bush and Trump administrations are responsible for 57% of the increase in the ratio of the debt to the economy, 90% if you exclude the emergency expenditures of the pandemic. The United States is nowhere close to the average tax burden of the 38 other nations in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), all of which are market-oriented democracies. And those cuts have gone primarily to the wealthy and corporations. 

Republicans who backed those tax cuts now insist that the only way to deal with the growing debt is to get rid of the government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and eventually promoted civil rights, all elements that stabilized the nation after the older system gave us the Depression. Indeed, the Republican Study Committee calls for making the Trump tax cuts, scheduled to expire in 2025, permanent. 

“There are two ways of viewing the government's duty in matters affecting economic and social life,” FDR said in his acceptance speech. “The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small businessman.” The other “is based upon the simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it.”

When the Republican Study Committee calls Biden’s policies—which have led to record employment, a booming economy, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor— “leftist,” they have lost the thread of our history. The system that restored the nation after 1933 and held the nation stable until 1981 is not socialism or radicalism; it is one of the strongest parts of our American tradition.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[pashterlengkap]

JD Vance contradicts Trump, praising “admirable” anti-abortion & IVF laws

Sen. J.D Vance (R-OH) has expressed support for conservative proposals to further restrict abortions and fertility treatments. His support contradicts recent statements made by his Republican presidential running mate, former President Donald Trump, opposing further restrictions on both. Trump’s first presidency rolled back national legal protections for both. Vance voiced support for these restrictions in his foreword to the 2017 Index of Culture and Opportunity, a collection of essays that largely focused on the role of women in modern families. The collection’s 29 essays were written by conservative authors for The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that later authored Project 2025, a blueprint to help Trump roll back the federal government and civil rights protections. Related JD Vance begs gay billionaire Peter Thiel to fund his & Donald Trump’s campaign The Trump campaign is far behind Harris’ when it comes to fundraising. Could the gay tech mogul bail them out? The collection said the increasing number of single-parent households was on the “wrong track,” Forbes reported. One of the essayists wrote that they’d like abortions to one day become “unthinkable.” Another essay, written by Jennifer Lahl, founder of the anti-abortion Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, said that IVF was harmful to women and criticized women who have children later in life for “spending a large portion of their most fertile years building their careers.” Other essays criticized food stamps and disability benefits programs for incentivizing people not to seek work. Another said that hunger is “a great motivator for people who are able to work to find work.” Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024 Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Vance’s foreword to the collection praised the essays as “admirable” for their “willingness to house culture and opportunity under the same intellectual roof.” He also said that “the prevalence of single-parent families” and “declining participation in civic institutions like churches” are destroying “social capital” and upward mobility for America’s middle class. Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder told The New York Times that Vance “does not agree with every opinion” in the essay collection. The Heritage Foundation also wrote that Vance “had no role in producing or approving the contents” of the 2017 essay collection. Nevertheless, the 2017 essay collection somewhat echoes Vance’s past statements on parents and childbirth. Vance has previously said that “childless cat ladies” — including stepmother Kamala Harris and adoptive father Pete Buttigieg — are determined the country “miserable.” He has said that people without children have “no physical commitment to the future of this country,” and that “postmenopausal females” (that is, women above the age of 50) exist mostly to help raise other people’s children. Vance also wrote the foreword to Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, a book by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation. In his book, Roberts wrote that contraceptives, IVF and childless individuals have all ruined America. Vance’s foreword compared Democrats and left-leaning liberals togardeners who have poisoned American soil and “wolves” who must be shot dead. Vance also wrote a blurb endorsing Unhumans, a book by anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec which said that liberals aren’t human. The book suggested overthrowing the U.S. government and praised historic dictators who murdered thousands of their own citizens. Trump has recently said he supports abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy and has said he wants to provide free access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) — a conception method used by many LGBTQ+ families — even though anti-abortion advocates believe that IVF’s discarding of any unused fertilized embryos is “murder.” Trump has only… http://dlvr.it/TCmzrv

[dankusner]

PROJECT 2025

Texas think tank extends influence

GOP blueprint draws national attention

In April 2022, a group of conservative thinkers, former lawmakers and policy advisers convened in an inconspicuous building in Washington.

The purpose was to come up with a body of policy and personnel recommendations to be used if Americans elected a Republican to the White House in 2024.

Two years later, and with a 1,000or-so-page book to show for themselves, that effort – known as Project 2025 – has become a media phenomenon.

When the Heritage Foundation, arguably one of the most prominent conservative think tanks in the country, announced Project 2025’s original advisory board in June 2022, there was one outlier:

a single state-based think tank in Austin called the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Over the past 35 years, the foundation has gained legitimacy, influence and recognition in Texas by being precisely the kind of organization that avoids advertising its work on the controversial, socially conservative policies with which the Heritage Foundation has become associated.

So how did it end up in the room?

The answer goes back to 2018, when the Heritage Foundation’s current CEO, Kevin D. Roberts, became the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s executive director.

The think tank was founded by Texas businessman and doctor James R. Leininger.

A prolific donor to socially conservative causes, Leininger is perhaps most closely associated with campaigns to ban abortion and same-sex marriage and to establish school vouchers.

The latter issue was the think tank’s founding cause.

While its founder has accrued a reputation in public life inextricable from the GOP’s evangelical wing, since its inception the public policy foundation has distanced itself from that association.

The think tank presented its initial effort to pass school vouchers in the Legislature as a means of reducing budgetary inefficiencies.

The first research proposal published on its website in 1990 is a 50-page document titled “Efficiency and inefficiency in the Texas public schools.”

Around the same time, Leininger’s efforts to address school “inefficiency” could not have looked more different.

A 1999 Austin Chronicle article details Leininger’s contributions to candidates for the Texas State Board of Education, a group tasked with overseeing funding and policy for all Texas public school students, throughout the 1990s.

Two years after Leininger began contributing, an incumbent on the board, Democrat Mary Knott Perkins, lost her seat to Donna Ballard, the wife of a Pentecostal minister from the suburbs of Houston.

The victory can be attributed to another arm of the Leininger-funded political operation in Texas: Focus Direct, a company that does direct-mail work for politicians and firms.

Perkins “was aghast when Focus Direct produced and mass-mailed a leaflet with a picture of a Black man and a white man kissing and accused Perkins of wanting to teach Texas children about oral and anal sex,” the article recounts.

“Perkins lost the election to Ballard. The other two Christian conservatives also won, using similarly sleazy tactics, and their victories gave the elected state school board its first-ever Republican majority.”

Decades later, the same disparity between the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s public messaging and the on-theground action of those with financial and personal ties to the institution not only has persisted but widened.

As the organization’s YouTube channel contains videos rife with phrases widely recognized as dog whistles in the battle for school vouchers, such as “parental rights,” the shadow of the organization can be found in messier, less ostensibly nonpartisan battles over school board elections.

While Roberts leads the organization, Leininger retains the title of chairman emeritus on the foundation’s board.

What has changed since 1989, however, is a view toward political stakes larger than Texas.

Since 2008, the organization has been working on national policy issues, and since 2011, that effort has been spearheaded by former California state Rep. Chuck DeVore.

Devore, the chief national initiatives officer at the foundation and a Republican who served six years in the California Assembly ending in 2010, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025.

He confirmed to the American-Statesman that he helped write the chapter of the Project 2025 book relating to the Department of Defense.

“What we do is we take policies that have been proven in Texas or in other states, but generally in Texas,” DeVore said, “and we figure out to what extent some of those policies might be applicable to other states.”

DeVore draws on the case study of Right on Crime, a criminal justice reform initiative that the foundation introduced to reduce recidivism rates in Texas and nationally.

While DeVore spoke about the initiative as a way of increasing employability for ex-convicts, many of the policy proposals published on the group’s website have to do with the benefits of private prisons and their relative cost-effectiveness to the taxpayer.

A leaked tax form from 2010 posted by the Texas Observer showed the think tank receiving $159,834 from Koch Industries and a $15,000 donation from the GEO Group, a Florida-based corporation that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities around the world.

The donation from Koch Industries, which has made its CEO, Charles Koch, a fortune from investments in the oil and gas sector, might account for another principal focus of the foundation: in Devore’s words, “increasing America’s energy IQ.”

When asked why the foundation has chosen to avoid discussing issues that lie at the heart of Texas’ conservative political landscape, such as abortion and gender-affirming care for minors, DeVore responded that the group “doesn’t take stands on things until we’ve done research.”

He said the organization asks a series of questions before adopting an issue: first, whether the topic under consideration “comported with the think tank’s values,” and second, whether there was another group already doing the work effectively.

“Our weighing in on something like the pro-life issue, in an area where there’s been an enormous amount of philosophical and medical development from a biology standpoint, it’s like ‘what would we add to that equation?’ ” De-Vore asked.

“Probably not very much. And so we leave that to other groups who do that right now.”

When DeVore joined the think tank in 2011, it employed about 30 people full time.

Today, DeVore estimates the number rests above 100.

During that time, DeVore has grown the staff dedicated to national programming from three to 25.

The organization also opened a public interest law firm called the Center for the American Future in 2015.

Change in focus

As the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s operations have scaled up, its messaging has drifted away from an exclusive focus on privatization, property rights and tax cuts.

The think tank’s online video archive shows an increase in hot-button issues such as school choice.

The first entries in the archive consist of analytical videos about the state’s budget and tax reform.

However, the most popular videos on the website today all have to do with parents’ rights and the battle between concerned parents and school boards.

By the time this transition became noticeable, however, the foundation had successfully established a reputation as one whose neutrality on social issues had allowed it to work with more progressive groups.

Marisa Bono, CEO of progressive Austin-based think tank Every Texan, confirmed the two groups had collaborated as recently as 2020.

Others, however, are less convinced.

In January 2023, former Amarillo Mayor Ken Seliger ended a nearly twodecade-long career in the state Senate after his voting record against school vouchers brought friction with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a longtime friend of the foundation.

Empower Texans – a think tank that has been unabashed about its support for socially conservative legislation – also targeted Seliger as a “RINO,” or “Republican in name only.”

Seliger ultimately decided not to seek reelection.

His seat was taken by Kevin Sparks, a former foundation board member.

“Texas Public Policy Foundation, in and of itself, is just simply the instrument,” Seliger told the Statesman. “The thing that has made it grow and be so influential is the money.”

A link between foundations

Unlike the Texas foundation, the Heritage Foundation has made little discernable effort to conceal its work on controversial social issues from opposition to gay marriage and transgender care to attempted bans on teaching critical race theory in the classroom.

The gap in the two organizations’ messaging makes the decision to tap Roberts as the Heritage Foundation’s CEO in October 2021 particularly conspicuous.

DeVore, for one, said the decision made perfect sense.

“Roberts went from being a successful leader of the nation’s largest statebased think tank to the leader of the highest-profile, most important conservative national think tank,” DeVore said.

“It was at a time when the Heritage Foundation had kind of lost its water. It had a few years in the wilderness. My feeling was that the board knew that the same old thing wasn’t going to work, that they couldn’t just take someone from Washington, D.C., and expect a different result.”

Since 2021, Roberts has had little trouble shaking off any adherence to the Texas foundation’s style of limiting overtly partisan statements.

In a January interview with The New York Times, he described his role at the Heritage Foundation as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

In the same interview, Roberts said he believed that “at least a few” Washington bureaucrats were Chinese Communists who had infiltrated the government, and praised the openly Christian nationalist prime minister of Hungary, Victor Orbán, for his “focus on family policy broadly.”

Roberts remains on the board of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, alongside oil tycoon and prominent conservative donor Tim Dunn.

DeVore told the Statesman that he considers Roberts a friend.

Making Project 2025

If Roberts’ messaging inches to the right of the Texas foundation, the text of Project 2025’s “mandate for leadership” turns those inches into miles.

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare,” says the fifth page of the book’s foreword.

“Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. … The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.”

The document makes itself unapologetically clear: it is not a doctrine interested in staying out of social issues.

The foreword also urges readers to dismiss the idea of government as a mediating institution for public life and to embrace the “building blocks of any health society” instead: marriage, family, work, church, school, volunteering.

When asked if Roberts’ involvement with outwardly socially conservative projects seemed like a departure from his background at the Texas foundation, DeVore said he believed it was just something that came with the added mandate.

“Kevin was just like other CEOs who I’ve worked with,” DeVore said.

“All of them are collaborative; they’ve all worked in a collaborative manner with our deliberative process. Do they influence things? Of course they do, just like any person at the foundation does through their ability to make a good argument and to marshal the facts.”

The Heritage Foundation declined to respond to specific questions about Project 2025 and the role of its advisory board, but a spokesperson for the project shared this statement: “Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign.

We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president. But it is ultimately up to that president to decide which recommendations to implement.”

Controversy over Project 2025

The full list of accusations hurled at Project 2025 in Democrats’ recent campaigning efforts is too long to include.

At the center of the controversy is the theory of governance around which the document orbits: Unitary Executive Theory.

Under this framework, government agencies, such as the Department of Justice, should not be treated as independent from the president’s executive office.

In recent weeks, former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and the Heritage Foundation have made efforts to assuage backlash to the presidential transition project.

On July 11, Trump posted to his social media network Truth Social: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”

This line becomes less convincing, however, when one counts the lineup of Project 2025 contributors who have had roles in Trump’s administration.

“The interesting thing is that most of the books are written by veterans of the Trump administration,” DeVore told the Statesman.

“Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re coming back. You know, obviously, there’s no guarantees in life.”

After Trump’s statement, Project 2025’s director, Paul Dans, stepped down from the initiative and from the Heritage Foundation.

The Trump campaign responded to the news, saying that “reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as a notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign.”

While Dans’ retreat signals an effort to respond to sweeping media backlash, Roberts has remained adamant that Project 2025 was a success, writing in statements that the coalition had accomplished exactly what it set out to do in April 2022.

As for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, DeVore said he had been back at the Heritage Foundation as recently as July to lead in a series of “war games” for a “transition integrity project” simulating what might happen in the month after the November presidential election.

Despite this continued collaboration, the foundation has done nothing to advertise its involvement with Project 2025 outside of a Jan. 18 news release that said: “The Texas Public Policy Foundation has joined Project 2025, a national effort to unite the conservative movement around a set of principles and policy proposals that will drive the next presidential administration.”

Its lone communication on the matter, the statement stands as a digital relic of a time eight months ago when Project 2025 didn’t yet claim household name recognition

[esglatestmarketnews]

The Role of Technology in Promoting ESG Practices in Smart Agriculture Industry

Stakeholders are establishing ethos to bolster environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the smart agriculture industry. Forward-looking players are enriching the lives of producers and consumers through sustainable innovation to minimize environmental footprint. State-of-the-art technologies, including precision farming, automation, sensors and cloud computing, have become the next big thing in the agriculture industry. ESG investors are expected to drive capital flows to help farmers overcome livelihood and other barriers to adopting environmentally friendly smart technologies.

Governing bodies and watchdogs have vouched for building resilience for people, agriculture food system and sustainability to augment agricultural productivity and incomes. An unprecedented spike in the global population and shifting diets have spurred the demand for smart agriculture to manage cropland, forests and livestock.

A feature story on the World Bank website claimed that acute food insecurity in 2023 could overtake the food crisis witnessed in 2007-2008. With agriculture being prone to climate change, weather variability, soaring temperature and invasive crops have elicited challenges and opportunities for investors and other stakeholders. The World Bank infers that agriculture produces around 19–29% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Learn more about the practices & strategies being implemented by industry participants from the Smart Agriculture Industry ESG Thematic Report, 2023, published by Astra ESG Solutions

Environmental Perspective

The agriculture sector is witnessing a seismic shift with an increased focus on minimizing emissions, preventing deforestation and bolstering productivity. Climate-smart agriculture has become paramount to avoid or reduce GHG emissions, reflecting expectations from stakeholders that businesses should deliver not only profits & revenue but also ESG performance. Extreme weather events showed the repercussions of climate change on agriculture.

Farms are expected to count on bespoke solutions to foster their sustainability strategies. For instance, Argus Controls uses a proprietary control algorithm to automate the growing process and forecast specific needs, including watering, lighting and feeding cycles. With sustainable production gaining a stronghold, the North American cannabis cultivation and manufacturing experts unveiled Sustainable Cannabis Coalition (SCC) in January 2021 to propel sustainability practices in the cannabis industry.

Social Perspective

Farmers and investors are responding to the need for sustainable agricultural practices to underpin economic and nutrition livelihoods, employee safety & well-being and reinforce diversity, equity and inclusion. AGCO Corporation initiated the FOCUS 2.0 program with a 40-step blueprint to create a robust safety culture. It reduced its total case incident rate (TCIR) by 14% in 2022 vis-à-vis the preceding year, the company mentioned in the 2022 Sustainability Report.

The American agricultural machinery manufacturer underscored employee engagement through programs, including Voices. Predominantly in 2022, almost 20,000 employees shared their voices in the annual Voices Survey. The company noted that its engagement score stood at 69% and is on course to take the tally to the 75% target by 2025. The U.S.-based company collaborated with the Faça Um Bem Incrível” (Make a Great Good) social project in Brazil that redirects fresh produce which would otherwise go to waste. The initiative fostered over 150 rural workers and 20 local food producers.

Is your business one of participants to the Smart Agriculture Industry? Contact us for focused consultation around ESG Investing, and help you build sustainable business practices

Governance Perspective

The need for the Board to provide sustainability strategy, goals and policies has fueled the significance of sound governance, transparency, ethics & compliance, diversity and good corporate behavior. For instance, Cargill formed an ESG Committee to underscore governance and accountability. It has teamed up with the World Economic Forum, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) to undergird operation and stakeholders’ engagement.

The company has strengthened its ethics & compliance portfolio to set a foundation for sustainable growth. Cargill completed over 80,000 hours of mandatory online compliance training in 2022 on bribery and corruption, monitoring government donations & gifts and entertainment expenses. In January 2022, the company celebrated Ethics Week to foster employee ethics.

ESG investors expect farmers to overcome hurdles to adopt smart farming strategies. Accordingly, organic and inorganic strategies will be pronounced in the near terms. For instance, farmers in Sri Lanka augmented land under irrigation by 15% during the dry season, largely due to their training in the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) techniques. These dynamics validate Grand View Research’s valuation of the global smart agriculture market at USD 14.44 billion in 2021 which could witness a double-digit CAGR of 10.8% between 2022 and 2030.

About Astra – ESG Solutions by Grand View Research

Astra is the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) arm of Grand View Research Inc. – a global market research publishing & management consulting firm.

Astra offers comprehensive ESG thematic assessment & scores across diverse impact & socially responsible investment topics, including both public and private companies along with intuitive dashboards. Our ESG solutions are powered by robust fundamental & alternative information. Astra specializes in consulting services that equip corporates and the investment community with the in-depth ESG research and actionable insight they need to support their bottom lines and their values. We have supported our clients across diverse ESG consulting projects & advisory services, including climate strategies & assessment, ESG benchmarking, stakeholder engagement programs, active ownership, developing ESG investment strategies, ESG data services, build corporate sustainability reports. Astra team includes a pool of industry experts and ESG enthusiasts who possess extensive end-end ESG research and consulting experience at a global level.

For more ESG Thematic reports, please visit Astra ESG Solutions, powered by Grand View Research

[fleshwheel]

about me

my name is liam (they/them) and i’m a 21-year old college student / bicycle mechanic who makes experimental sound art/noise music under the name fleshwheel. i have a background in traditional irish concertina music and a capella performance, though much of my music-making tends to depart from conventional western music theory and practice. some of my biggest personal influences on my music making practice are sophie, arca, aphex twin, and yeule. so far under the fleshwheel name i have released several albums of textural, esoteric, and primarily downtempo noise music produced and performed by me.

in my art, i use old/salvaged/diy electronics to create my desired sonic texture. although my initial choice to use a lot of mismatched music gear and a particularly noisy 4-track cassette recorder was a byproduct of what i had available, the unique sonic signatures of the different technologies throughout different eras combined to create something with a sonic texture very distinct from modern mixed and mastered electronic music made in a daw. in my creative process i enjoy using 4-track recorders or old cheap keyboards with fun presets because they lend themselves to spontaneous creative expression, and in turn they lend a lo-fi quality which reflects the intended scale of my art – very personal and everyday, shrouded by the noise of the circuitry and static. i also incorporate various electronics, whether in the form of using an oscilliscope to visualize signals in 2 dimensions or making diy resistor-capacitor networks as a sound effects module. throughout my process, i have taken more of a “circuit-bending” approach to building circuits, using trial and error and qualitative metrics of sound quality instead of existing blueprints.

i find a particular sense of importance in experimental electronic music because as a tradition it has always used technology to express, amplify, and communicate strong emotion. electronic music has its roots in the queer, african-american clubs which created house music. early electronic music pioneers included the afrofuturist movement, who in groups such as sun ra’s arkestra, redefined technology as something through which expert musicians could upset structural racism and oppression. personally, i feel a strong connection to electronic through my own transfeminine identity. in a world where digital existence is as meaningful as physical existence, technology is no longer simply an innocent means of personal computing but also can enforce cruel monetary systems and violent military regimes, i believe that the cyberpunk movement is important to reclaim the ways in which technology may be used for the uniquely magical and human.

[cals0larinc]

Solar Energy Contractors in California: Be Sure to Consider Specialist Services

Solar energy is becoming increasingly popular in California due to its environmental and economic benefits. Solar energy contractors are in high demand in the state, as they are responsible for the installation and maintenance of solar energy systems. This essay will discuss the importance of solar energy contractors in California, the qualifications they must possess, and the advantages of hiring them. 

Solar energy contractors in California must possess a variety of qualifications in order to be successful. They must have a valid contractor’s license, as well as a certification from the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). They must also have a thorough understanding of the local building codes and regulations, as well as knowledge of solar energy systems and their components. Additionally, they must be able to read and interpret blueprints and schematics and have experience with electrical wiring and installation. 

Hiring a qualified solar energy contractor in California has many advantages. First, they can provide expert advice on the best type of solar energy system for a particular location. They can also ensure that the system is installed correctly and safely, which is essential for optimal performance. Additionally, they can provide maintenance and repair services, as well as troubleshooting assistance if any issues arise. Furthermore, they can provide valuable insight into the various government incentives available for solar energy systems, which can help reduce the overall cost of installation. 

Solar energy contractors are essential for the successful installation and maintenance of solar energy systems in California. They must possess a variety of qualifications, including a valid contractor’s license, certification from the NABCEP, and knowledge of local building codes and regulations. Additionally, hiring a qualified contractor has many advantages, such as expert advice on the best type of system for a particular location, maintenance and repair services, and insight into government incentives. Solar energy contractors are an invaluable resource for anyone looking to install a solar energy system in California.

The state of California has recently passed a mandate requiring all new construction to include solar panels. A mandate like this will reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and thus contribute to fighting climate change. This section of the blog will discuss the two main points of this mandate: the environmental benefits and the economic implications.

The most obvious benefit of the California new construction solar mandate is the environmental impact. Solar energy is a clean, renewable source of energy that does not produce any carbon emissions. By requiring all new construction to include solar panels, California is taking a major step towards reducing its carbon footprint. Additionally, solar energy can be used to power homes and businesses, reducing the need for other forms of energy such as coal and natural gas. This will further reduce the number of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere.

The California new construction solar mandate also has economic implications. Solar energy is becoming increasingly affordable, and the cost of installing solar panels is decreasing. This means that homeowners and businesses will be able to save money on their energy bills by using solar energy instead of traditional sources of energy. Additionally, the installation of solar panels can increase the value of a home or business, making it more attractive to potential buyers.

The California New Construction Solar Mandate is a major step forward in the fight against climate change. By requiring all new construction to include solar energy systems, California is taking a proactive approach to reducing its carbon footprint. This mandate will reduce the amount of energy consumed from traditional sources, such as coal and natural gas, and it will also reduce the amount of air pollution caused by these sources. Additionally, this mandate will create jobs in the solar industry, as more people will be needed to install and maintain solar systems. This will help to stimulate the economy and create more opportunities for people in the state.

Another benefit of this mandate is that it will help to make solar energy more accessible and affordable. By requiring all new construction to include solar energy systems, more people will be exposed to solar energy and will be able to take advantage of its benefits. This will help to make solar energy more mainstream, which will lead to more people investing in solar energy systems for their homes and businesses.

The California new construction solar mandate is an important step in the fight against climate change. It will reduce carbon emissions and provide economic benefits to homeowners and businesses. By requiring all new construction to include solar panels, California is taking a major step towards a cleaner, more sustainable future.

[mfs-research-institute]

Let’s talk about witch genetics (2.0) and the benefits of Outcrossing

Okay. Last season we began our debate about how witch traits were passed down the matrilines (witch genetics 1.0). In Season 2, we learn a bit more about the matrilines and the customs the American military relies on for “replenishing the troops”. We now have a significant amount of information (new and old) that allows us to ponder how witch traits are passed from mother to offspring via the matriline and outline why the Imperative is a prejudiced movement. Let’s recap before we get into the details.

This theory was co-written and developed by: @smallfrost, @queerscifinerd, @jaedyxe, @theycallmestephlee, and @here4rizzles

This one is a long one, folks. Strap in and more below the cut.

First. What makes a witch a witch? As of now, we know that witches are witches because they have a unique vocal apparatus and a different ear structure. While there may also be other physiological differences that have not yet been revealed, this nonetheless strongly implies that genetics contribute to who possesses the ability to produce work (magic); because these body structures need a different blueprint compared to civilians or non-witches.

Izadora and co. completing the autopsy on the Bellweathers after the Camarilla attack

Second. We know that these traits are inherited from the mother, not the father, making this a matriline. Remember, Alder specifically states that male witches are incapable of passing witch traits to their offspring in episode 1 of season 2.

Alder educates VP Silver, and the nerds of the MFS fandom

Third. The Imperative and the Imperatrix are tasked with strengthening the bloodline, ensuring the stability of witch families, and the availability of sufficient numbers of witches to fill out the military’s ranks (at least in the USA ).

Mhmmmm ain't this some heteronormative bullshit

--

Now the science!! Biology 101: the central dogma of life. DNA (our blueprint coded as ‘genes’) is required to make RNA (a blueprint copy), which is needed to generate proteins (the functional structures of the cell). Proteins are made up of amino acids, whose unique combination creates different machines which work together. Think of amino acids as lego blocks and proteins being the different combinations you can make. Our cells and bodies are therefore nothing more than a unique combination of proteins (lego structures) built together to produce a functioning unit. If you have different blueprints, you’ll get different legos which when combined, create machines that function differently.

Genetics 101: Humans are diploid organisms, meaning, we have two copies (termed pairs) of our blueprint packed into structures called chromosomes. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes, coding over 20,000 genes (lego structures), with one pair being the “sex” chromosomes. We are formed by two haploid cells (gametes: egg from the mother, sperm from the father). Importantly, all of the cellular components (organelles) and nutrients come from the egg while sperm only contain genetic information. For more background as to why, here is a great explanation on the process of meiosis. Disclaimer: For the remainder of this post we are using “female” and “male” in reference to biological sex only, and in no way are we implying that gender contributes to this process.

Blueprint → Copy → Legos!!!

So where does the blueprint for “witch” reside in order for it to be matrilineal (passed only on the mother’s side)?

There are two options to consider.

Option 1: The witch blueprint is located on the X chromosome (a.k.a. the ‘female’ chromosome), and is a recessive trait (requires both copies of the gene from each of the chromosomes in the particular pair to be expressed). This would be termed “X-linked” and would mean that female witches (XX) would need to mate with male witches (XY) to get witch daughters, because they would need BOTH X chromosomes to come from witches. This obviously isn’t the case because Raelle’s father, Edwin, is a civilian, yet Raelle is a witch (and a powerful one at that). This also would mean that male witches, while they wouldn’t be able to produce a witch if they bred with a civilian, could produce what are called carriers. Their daughters would not be witches but would still “carry” the blueprints for “witch” and therefore could reproduce with a male witch and have witch children. This also doesn’t seem to be the case as Alder states that male witches cannot further the bloodline. It should be noted that recessive traits on the X-chromosome express in male offspring if they have the gene(s) in question, since they only have one copy of the X chromosome, and no other dominant allele from the Y chromosome would interfere with the expression of the recessive trait on the X chromosome.

Tables showing the potential offspring of some different witch/civilian combinations if we assume Option 1 (the witch genes are recessive genes on the X-Chromosome). Capital X signifies the X-chromosomes of civilians, lower case x signifies the X-chromosomes of witches. For offspring to be a witch they must have either the xx or xy genotype. A carrier would be Xx or xX.

Overall, X-linkage is unlikely because Edwin is a civilian but Raelle is obviously a witch.

Consequently, based on the contextual information from the show, we are leaning more towards Option 2.

Option 2: The Witch blueprint is located on mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are cellular organelles that are responsible for converting energy, providing our bodies with energy in a usable form. Simply put, these little guys turn our food into fuel to power our bodies. They originated from symbiotic bacteria and have their own blueprints (mitochondrial genome). In short: humans co-evolved to rely on these tiny workaholics. The mitochondrial blueprint is different from the rest of our blueprint which resides in the nucleus (nuclear genome). Most importantly, all of our mitochondria originate from our mothers since all the cellular components come from the ‘female’ gamete after meiosis. For more background as to why, here are some great explanations on the process (video 1 & video 2). Thus, since males do not pass mitochondria to their children, if the blueprint for “witch” is mitochondrial, that would indicate that only the mother can pass these traits on. Voila: matriline! To quote smallfrost from witch genetics 1.0, “This would be pretty cool, considering that the mitochondria represent the “powerhouse” of the cell - so nifty source for witches’ “power” in a literal way.”

Therefore, it is likely that the blueprint for “witch” is mitochondrial, providing a clear path towards maternal inheritance.

But, it isn’t that simple! There can’t just be one gene and POOF you’re a witch. There needs to be a lot of interconnected things happening to influence the physical structure and function of a witch’s body to the extent seen on the show. No one gene can change the vocal apparatus AND the ear structure. Genes don’t work like that. Further – the mitochondrial blueprint is SMALL. It contains only a handful of genes that are for mitochondrial function (metabolism) and that help decode the “legos” from RNA (tell the cell what amino acids to use to build proteins). How can these influence the overall biological structure of a witch? This is where it gets super fascinating, (though, a bit complicated). After some investigating, we believe there are a few key ways that mitochondria may influence how cells function and therefore how they may impact development (The first two recently reviewed here).

1) Epigenetics. Epigenetics is how the structure, or ‘landscape’, of our DNA blueprint in the cell’s nucleus influences how we make the lego structures (gene expression). If we change the landscape, we may not be able to make the blueprint copy (RNA) to produce the structures (proteins). Think of our chromosomes as newspaper. You can't read the text when it is crumpled up; it is more inaccessible than text (i.e. genes) on a flattened page and therefore turned “off”. Epigenetics would be changing the landscape to make the text on the inside of a crumpled newspaper more accessible so genes residing there could be turned “on”. The energy and byproducts produced by mitochondria can alter the landscape of our DNA, leading to an increase or decrease in the copies of genes being made. Could it be that witches’ mitochondrial genes function more efficiently? This would increase the output of mitochondria potentially altering the landscape of the nucleus more than civilians to access genes hidden in the 'crumpled newspaper' needed for developing the vocal apparatus and ears or witches?

The output from mitochondria can alter the genetic landscape in the nucleus. This could allow for genes that are “off” (crumpled ball of newspaper) in civilians to be turned “on” (flattened page of text) in witches. (image source).

2) Alternative splicing. When we make copies of our blueprint as RNA, it still needs to go through a series of changes before that copy can be used to make protein. One of these changes is splicing. Most of our blueprint is excess code and much of it needs to be “cut out” in order to have a rendered set of instructions to produce proteins. This is called “splicing” – removing the unnecessary code to properly render the blueprint to be used to create the lego structures. For many genes, the same unrendered blueprint can be rendered/spliced in many different ways, called “alternative splicing”. This allows for one gene to code different versions of the same protein that might function differently even though they are coming from the same blueprint. Think of this as the base model of a car versus the sport version. Same basic blueprint, but some versions have slightly different features that make the machine function slightly differently. If altered mitochondrial function influences alternative splicing/rendering, it could suggest that witch traits are simply already coded in our genes but it is the small alterations in how our bodies render the information that are influencing the final function.

(image source)

3) Different Amino Acids (legos). Some of the genes coded into the mitochondrial genome are known as transfer RNA (or tRNA). tRNA is the translator who knows what amino acids (lego blocks) match the instructions in the blueprint (RNA) and can fetch the appropriate piece for the appropriate location. Humans have 20 unique amino acids (lego blocks) whose different combinations are used to make our diverse range of proteins. Each amino acid has a different chemistry which influences how our proteins are structured and function, the same way that different lego blocks would end up making different structures. If mitochondrial DNA contains the code for tRNA, could witches have a different cypher, and therefore use different combination of amino acids/legos to match the blueprint instructions? Alternatively, do they have an entirely different type of amino acid that replaces one of the 20 we know? This could greatly influence the function of the final protein products, thereby potentially impacting the way our bodies form and function. However, the chances of witches having one or more different amino acids is highly unlikely as all eukaryotic life as we know it (nucleus-containing organisms) have the same 20 legos (bacteria and archaea do as well, but some use an additional 1-2 amino acids). This is most likely because all organisms on earth evolved from the same common ancestor. Therefore, the only ways witches could have different amino acids would be either an incredibly rare mutation or they evolved from a different common, extraterrestrial ancestor. The former has an extremely low probability of happening based on our current knowledge of evolution yet we cannot exclude the latter possibility of a different, other-worldly common ancestor, which could support the "witches as aliens" theory.

If witch mitochondrial DNA codes for different tRNA cyphers than civilians, this could influence protein synthesis. (image source)

---

All in all, no matter how the mitochondria may be influencing the expression of different traits, one thing is clear. Everyone could theoretically have the blueprint for “witch” – they just don’t have the power supply needed to turn it on (the mitochondria). If this is the case, then there is no reason why female witches need to reproduce with male witches and keep a “pure” blood line. It is very possible that civilian men have the blueprint and just need the metaphorical (and literal, in this case) mitochondrial ‘power supply’. By limiting the genetic diversity to a small pool of men who have “desirable traits'' that can’t actually influence whether or not a witch may be more or less powerful, witches (in America at least) are unintentionally narrowing their genetic diversity and probably, as a consequence, limit their diversity of work (explained more below). Further, a breeding program like the Imperative is going to sooner or later select against desirable traits and in worst case scenarios even select for undesirable traits (e.g. like hemophilia in European royal families).

It probably hasn’t happened with the matrilines in the army yet because matrilines used to be abundant (showcased below with Tally’s family tree), but if they continue doing this, it could happen. The first signs could already be there: The Imperatrix mentioned that fewer witches are being born. This could be because of their excessive use of work, as Adil has pointed out in season 1 episode 7, but it could also be because of the breeding program itself, inadvertently selecting against fertility.

Tally’s family tree shows that matrilines used to be very abundant.

The point though is, that the Imperative is a eugenics approach that is baseless. That is, the selective breeding of “desirable” traits that is not based on genetics, but rather on prejudiced preconceived notions of “witch is desirable, civilian is not”.

And the Imperative’s prejudices go even further than that: The Imperatrix even has something against Abigail handfasting with Adil, someone who is canonically described as a powerful witch and probably possesses many traits that a program like the Imperative would call desirable. The Tarim are considered an old and powerful tribe, focused on tradition. If power and tradition were indeed the Imperatrix’s interests, she would have been happy to match them. But that is not the case, and further demonstrates that the Imperative’s breeding program is purely based on prejudice.

Another thing is, you WANT to bring more variability into the genetic pool. It helps select against potentially detrimental traits and allows new, potentially optimized codes to form. Within the MFS universe we have two great examples of this: Raelle Collar and Penelope Silver. Both have civilian fathers. Both are incredibly strong witches. If outcrossing was so bad, how do you explain their powers? Further, Alder tells Raelle in 2x03 that new work is exceedingly rare, yet both Raelle and Penelope, our outcrosses, have created new work (Raelle and the Witchbomb and Penelope and the seed that melts glass). YES, the military matrilines are powerful; the stories we heard about Jem Bellweather and what we’ve seen Abigail and Petra do prove that. But why limit witches to just certain sets of work, no matter how powerful, and close yourself off to new work?

Just take a crash course from Scylla, she seems good at "cooking up" small bits of new work.

YES, Raelle is able to do what she does because of her connection with the mycelium, but as Izadora said in 2x02, Raelle is the only person who interacted with the mycelium and came out relatively unscathed. It is entirely possible that the mycelium CHOSE Raelle because of certain traits she has which would be due to her specific genetics.

So, in summary:

The matrilineal code is likely stored in the mitochondria, passed mother to daughter.

The Imperative is misinformed (or informed and bigoted).

It is highly likely that the outcrossing of witches with civilians will lead to the production of new work and potentially even an increase in witch strength overall.

There should be no shame in having a civilian father and maybe moving forward, the observed strengths of our outcrosses will help guide witches away from handfasting and the Imperative and towards supporting love in any form.

[wetsteve3]

This is a super-rare first-year Henderson 4-cylinder, the “Duesenberg of motorcycles,” and it is documented by experts as the real deal. The Henderson 4-cylinder motorcycle was a supremely elegant machine built to the highest standards by one of the founding families of the American automobile industry, the Wintons. William Henderson was Alexander Winton’s grandson, who founded one of the earliest automakers in the United States. William Henderson was an engineering child prodigy; his father was vice president of Winton Motors, and William joined the family firm at the age of 16. His first love was motorcycles though, and he spent his evenings sketching ideas for two wheelers, which his father critiqued. By 1909, William’s sketches became blueprints, and his father approved in detail the solid design for a new 4-cylinder motorcycle and funded the effort of building a prototype, hoping the difficult and frustrating development might curb William’s enthusiasm. In 1911, the prototype machine was finished, which used clutchless belt drive in a very long chassis; the machine worked so well, young William secured family funding of $175,000 to found the Henderson Motorcycle Company with his brother Thomas as CEO to look after the money. Henderson produced its first motorcycle from its Detroit factory in January 1912.

The first Hendersons used a 4-cylinder 57 CI (934cc) motor with inlet-over-exhaust design, a single-speed chain drive and a clutch. It was started via a folding hand crank, just like a Winton car, and the very long chassis was designed for stability and the ability to carry a passenger with ease. The front fork had a short leading-link suspension, and the fuel was carried in a long cylindrical “torpedo” tank, while a passenger could ride in front of the rider atop the fuel tank. It was a beautiful, elegant machine, wonderfully constructed, very fast and very expensive at $325. Their reputation for reliability was secured when Charles Stearns Clancy used a first-year Henderson like this one for the first-ever round-the-world motorcycle journey, which began in October 1912. He had covered 18,000 miles and completed his journey by August 1913. Clancy earned money selling press reports and photographs of his trip, making for an incredible publicity coup for Henderson as press reports about this remarkable new machine began appearing around the world.

This 1912, first-year Henderson Four was restored in the 1970s by Fred Forney of Nebraska for the Richard Schultz Collection. It was imported to Sweden in 1994, and it earned 99 points at the AMCA European Chapter meet in Germany. This bike was featured in “Henderson, Those Elegant Machines” by Henderson marque expert Richard Schultz, and Schultz has certified that this machine is an original Henderson built in Detroit in 1912. With excellent provenance, the approval of experts and a stunning restoration, this 1912 Henderson from the MC Collection is a top 10 most desirable American motorcycle and an extremely rare, documented first-year machine from one of the most respected brands in history.

[tomasorban]

THE CLONES OF ENKI (excerpt)- By J.R. Jochman from "Forgotten Ages"1979

THE LULU CLONES OF SUMER

Perhaps the most startling revelations of the advanced nature of ancient research into the manipulation of the building blocks of life come to us from Sumerian inscriptions, dated between 4,000 and 5,000 years old. Several legends speak of a time when "god-men" ruled the world of prehistory; and in order to work the mines of the land of Apsu -- identified with southern Africa -- the Sumerian deities decided to create a Lulu, or primitive worker, who would do the actual digging and other hard labor. The god Enki was placed in charge of the task to "bring about the work of great wisdom", and he, with the Mother Goddess, Ninhursag, began to fashion the Lulu. The place where the creation took place was called the Bit Shimti -- the "house where the breath of life is breathed in".

Upon entering the house", Ninhursag first "washed her hands" as any lab worker would, and called to her lab assistants to prepare the first ingredient: "Mix the core of clay, from the depths of the Earth in Apsu -- and shape it into the form of a core; I have knowledgeable young gods, who will bring the clay to the right condition."

The Akkadian term for clay is Tit (molding clay); but in its earliest spelling, ti-it, it also meant "that which has life". In the Hebrew, Tit means "mud", with its synonym "bos" related to "bisa" (marsh) and "besa" (egg). These connotations, clay-marsh-egg, hint at stages of development in the creation of the cell. First, the substance began as a clay. In 1974, Dr. Graham Cairn-Smith of the University of Glasgow's Department of Chemistry, announced a new theory on the origins of life. Dr. Cairn-Smith was not satisfied that the first threads of nucleic organic material floating in the primaeval sea could have come together by chance, but must have needed a structural catalyst within which the threads formed into the first complex DNA patterns. Clay, he believes, was the ideal catalyst.

Clay has a crystalline structure that has the ability to retain and "print" a pattern upon new material. As Dr. Cairn-Smith noted: "Clay consists of stacks thin, interlocking plates containing aluminum and silicon atoms that can be arranged in random patterns. These patterns can undergo changes as new [5]clays 'print' near old layers. This is a system capable of development by natural selection, by trial and error -- the first stages necessary to produce molecules and arrangements of molecules that would eventually form the more complex systems of early life forms."

THE BLUEPRINT OF MAN

More recently, in 1977, Dr. James Lawless of NASA's Ames Research Center, together with Dr. Edward Edelson and Lewis Manning, of the American Chemical Society, succeeded in demonstrating that clay containing nickel will attract amino acids; and the concentrated amino acids will then link up to form chains similar to protein. Dr. Cairn-Smith stated, "In simple terms, clay therefore could have been the basis of life: the Blueprint of Man." (Which reminds us of Elihu to Job, 33:6, "I also am formed out of the clay." RHC)

The next stage of the "clay" development, according to the Hebrew-Akkadian word connotations, was that it became like a "marsh" -- that is, the clay material was mixed with simple organic material, as one find in marshland ooze. In the Sumerian texts, this is seen in the Mother Goddess Ninhursag's command that chemicals called "bitumens of Apsu" be used to "purify" or "impregnate" the clay. Bitumen is a petroleum substance made up of very complex hydrocarbon chains -- the basis of organic chemistry. What is described, in essence, is that organic chains were mixed in the clay, and the clay patterns began to "print" the chains into more complex structures, such as DNA.

That this shaping process was directed can be seen in the "young gods" or lab assistants shaping the clay into a specific mold, bringing it into the "right condition". Enki, the text states, further ordered the assistants to "bind upon the mixture the mold of the gods" -- or, carefully design the organic material into the genetic codes of a human-like creature. The result, in the last stage, was the formation of an egg or cell.

THE BREATH OF LIFE

The next major step, once a cell was produced, was to give the cell an "essence" or code of life. This was done by adding blood. The text reads: "I will prepare a solution. Let one god be bled… his blood. Let Ninhursag mix with the clay-egg."

(One would think, on reading Jochman's article on Sumerian Clones that the secret of making them had been blocked in Cuneiform script for 5,000 years, but Polish Rabbis of the 16th Century were adept at making servant Golem. Read this revealing quote from Gershom Scholem's "On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism":

"After saying certain prayers and holding certain fast days, they make the figure of a man from clay, and when they have said [6]the Shem Hamephorash over it (that is, breathed the breath of life into it, by ritual chanting) the image comes to life. And although the image itself cannot speak, it understands what is said to it and commanded; among the Polish Jews it does all kinds of housework, but is not allowed to leave the house. On the forehead of the image they write Emeth, that is, truth. But an image of this kind grows each day; though very small at first, it ends by becoming larger than all those in the house. In order to take away his strength, which ultimately becomes a threat to all those in the house, they quickly erase the first letter, Aleph, from the word Emeth on his forehead, so that there remains only the word Meth, that is, dead. When this is done the Golem collapses and dissolves back into the clay or mud that he was  . . .They say that a Baal Shem in Poland, by the name of Rabbi Elias, made a golem who became so large that the rabbi could no longer reach his forehead to erase the letter E. He thought up a trick, namely that the Golem, being his servant, should remove his boots, supposing that when the Golem bent over, he would erase the letters. And so it happened, but when the Golem became mud again, his whole weight fell on the rabbi, who was sitting on the bench, and crushed him."

(This delightful tale illustrates the dangers of using creative thought for selfish purposes. It was a warning to Cabalists of that day in Europe. It is a warning of this day to students of mind control and mind dynamics courses; and we use it in our latest talk on Psychic Self-Defense, Part III, "The Dweller on the Threshold", BSRF No. 24-M. Scholem does not include the secret of bringing such a man-made creation to life, charging the clay figure with freshly shed blood or sperm. The technique is described in detail by Franz Bardon in his book, "Initiation Into Hermetics". But Jochman tells us that the Sumerian adepts had their own variation on the technique and carried it several steps further.)

THE ESSENCE OF THE CLONE

The Akkadian texts make it clear that what was being sought in the blood was Napishtu, or an "essence" related to Shi-im-ti, the "breath-wind-life". The key is in the name of the god from whom the blood was finally taken -- Te-e-ma. According to translators W.G. Lambert and A. R. Millard of Oxford University, the name means "personality", with the further connotation "that contained within which binds the memory". This is nothing less than a description of the gene, the element which gives the cell life, and directs the cell to begin the process of reproduction.

The inscriptions tell of the delicate operation by which the god Ea "purified the Napishtu" and offered the solution to Ninhursag, who carefully held the clay-egg-cell. But it was Enki who performed the crucial injection: He blows in" the "breath-wind' into the cell, and gave it life. The injection was successful for the cell began to multiply.

IMPREGNATION OF THE BIRTH-GODDESS

The next and final step involved artificial impregnation. Ninhursag "cut off 14 pieces of the clay-egg-cell" -- she selected 14 cells out of the newly-dividing creation. There then follows a description of the coming of 14 Birth-Goddesses to the operating table: Everything is detailed, from the shaving of the pubic hair, the preparing of the scalpels and surgical instruments, and finally the operations themselves. Within each, one of the 14 selected cells was placed in the womb, and the cells began to grow into living beings.

At the beginning of the tenth month after the first operation, Ninhursag directed surgery to remove the mature creatures. The texts tell what follows: " . . .she opened the womb, Her face brightened with joy. Her face covered with a mask, she removes. That which was in the womb came forth. She cries, I have created! By my hands I have made it!" One cuneiform picture has Ninhursag showing one of the new humanoid babies to the god Ea. On the left side is a minor "god" surrounded by laboratory flasks, bringing a carefully sealed container to a boil on top of a stool-like holder, showing where the child had come from.

Once the experiment proved successful, it appears the process of artificial impregnation was repeated again and again, the cells being used all from the original cell created by Enki, Ninhursag, and Ea. The result would have been the production of a multitude of Clones -- creatures that looked exactly alike. A scene depicted on a rock carving found,in the mountains of Elam near Sumer shows a seated god holding a flask from which liquid is pouring -- a familiar representation of Enki, A goddess is seated next to him -- Ninhursag -- and about the pair are lesser deities, very likely the birth-goddesses who partook in the great experiment of creation. Facing the birth-goddesses, Enki and Ninhursag are row upon row of dwarfish, long-haired man-like creatures who look like a multitude of identical twins -- as if they had been produced from the same mold.

Who were these dwarfish creatures? Perhaps the answer may be found in the reason for the creatures' creation: They were to become "primitive workers" in the mines of Apsu. It is not without significance that this area has turned up some of the oldest prehistoric mines in the world -- as well as forms of ape-men that have become a puzzle to anthropologists: Australopithecus robustus and agile, Zinjanthropus and Homo Habilis. These forms, instead of being so-called "ancestors" of man, are actually the result of genetic creation by unknown experimenters in the past. Perhaps someday we will find the secret when the Bit Shimti is unearthed -- the laboratory-house where enigmatic "gods" manipulated the "breath of life". . .

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times Op-Ed, written by Senator Heinrich, Democrat from New Mexico:

Our future depends on our acting now to confront the climate crisis by enacting policies to convert our economy from fossil fuels to clean energy. By making this switch, we will also create millions of new jobs, save American households money on their energy bills and protect lives by improving the air we breathe in our homes and workplaces.

To get there, we need to begin by electrifying large parts of our economy and changing the supply of all that electricity from polluting fuels to clean energy. We must start with our homes and vehicles because, according to research from Rewiring America, a nonprofit organization focused on the widespread electrification of the U.S. economy, 42 percent of all of our energy-related carbon emissions come from the machines we have in our households and our cars. To keep global warming at livable temperatures, we need to replace existing machines that use fossil fuels with clean electric substitutes when they reach the end of life.

Deep decarbonization analyses, such as a recent report by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, conclude that working to electrify our vehicles, homes and businesses is a critical part of achieving economywide net-zero emissions by 2050.

We cannot rely on Energy Star, which certifies energy-efficient products. We need to get to zero emissions as soon as possible, and you can’t “efficiency” your way to zero. Even an efficient natural gas furnace installed today can emit carbon dioxide for 20 years or more.

Rewiring America offers one blueprint for this transition that underscores its enormous scope — and the benefits that will result. The group has calculated that we must replace or install one billion machines. More than half of those would replace the ones we now have in our homes that burn fossil fuels — including our space-heating machines like furnaces, water heaters, cars, and clothes dryers. What if we build those electric appliances in America? That’s a lot of manufacturing.

The other close to half a billion machines are the infrastructure we must install to generate and distribute that electricity — breaker boxes, batteries, rooftop solar systems and vehicle chargers. To power those billion machines, we will need to greatly increase the amount of electricity we produce, and do so cleanly.

[voice-of-anarchy]

ARCH ENEMY Celebrates 25th Anniversary: 'It's Been An Awesome Experience,' Says MICHAEL AMOTT

Swedish/Canadian/American metallers ARCH ENEMY are celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021.

When ARCH ENEMY released its debut album, "Black Earth", in 1996, death metal was stagnating and in desperate need of a kick up the ass. Guitarist Michael Amott's blueprint for the purest of metal strains proved an instant underground hit, both in Europe and Japan, and almost single-handedly resurrected death metal as a viable art form with mainstream potential. Signed to Century Media Records for 1998's sophomore effort "Stigmata", ARCH ENEMY marched purposefully towards a new millennium with a rapidly growing reputation. 1999's "Burning Bridges" added to the band's momentum, their razor-sharp blend of brutality and epic melody becoming more refined with each creative step. But it was in 2001, when original vocalist Johan Liiva stood aside and mercurial frontwoman Angela Gossow stepped in, that ARCH ENEMY truly took off.

Released in 2001 in Japan and nearly a year later in Europe, "Wages Of Sin" showcased a revitalized line-up and newfound gift for immortal anthems, Gossow's feral roar adding many layers of charisma and power to ARCH ENEMY's already-monstrous sound. Swiftly dedicating themselves to a relentless touring schedule, the band's upward trajectory continued throughout the first decade of the 21st century, with each successive album enhancing the band's reputation and bringing legions of new fans to this resolute heavy metal campaign. Albums like 2003's vicious "Anthems Of Rebellion" and 2011's pitch-black and savage "Khaos Legions" ensured that Amott and his loyal henchmen — Gossow, drummer Daniel Erlandsson, bassist Sharlee D'Angelo and Michael's guitarist sibling Christopher — remained firmly at the top of the extreme metal tree: respected veterans at the height of their powers.

Always focused but impervious to other's rules and expectations, ARCH ENEMY evolved once more in 2015 following the departure of Gossow (now the band's manager). Replacing one of the most iconic vocalists of the modern age was never going to be easy, but in the shape of former THE AGONIST frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz, ARCH ENEMY found the perfect candidate. Unveiled on the ferocious, anthem-laden triumph of 2014's "War Eternal", Alissa's powerful identity and extraordinary vocal talents proved a natural and instantly welcomed fit. Further extensive touring cemented the new line-up's thrilling efficacy, before one final line-up change — the arrival of legendary guitarist Jeff Loomis, formerly of NEVERMORE — completed the musical puzzle that Amott had been tinkering with for the best part of 20 years.

Amott comments: "I must admit that it feels somewhat surreal that the year 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of ARCH ENEMY. I never imagined that we would reach a point in our career where we'd be looking back on two and a half decades of creating music, releasing albums and playing live shows all over the planet! It's been an awesome experience, to say the least.

"As a group, we have been fortunate enough to achieve some incredible highs and accomplishments, but we have also lived through difficult times and lows. This is life, peaks and valleys… I have to say, whatever adversities we faced — we've always come through it all stronger than before. Overall, it's been a great journey and one that I am extremely proud of. I wouldn't change a thing.

"Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented us from doing any elaborate grand celebrations of the 25th anniversary, but we are doing some special merchandise and some other cool things - so keep your eyes peeled for that.

"A lot of my memories about the earliest days of ARCH ENEMY are connected to Japan. The first trilogy of albums, 'Black Earth' (1996), 'Stigmata' (1998) and 'Burning Bridges' (1999) were all released first in Japan and we toured there on all those three albums. Before much of the rest of the world really cared about us, we had gained a fantastic Japanese fan base that has supported us throughout the years — to this day. Domo Arigato Gozaimasu!

"With the release of our fourth album 'Wages Of Sin' in the early 2000s, we famously changed singer, a dramatic change from the classic Swedish death metal voice of original singer Johan Liiva to Angela Gossow — an unknown female German vocalist. A new concept at the time, and a bit of a gamble... I remember not being sure how the fans would react to the big change in the band. The new music we had written and recorded was also in a more straightforward style and the overall sound was a somewhat new direction for us. I needn't have worried, the 'Wages Of Sin' album was received very warmly by the fans in Japan, quickly becoming our biggest-selling album there. But maybe more importantly, it finally broke the band into the international metal arena in a big way. We found ourselves embarking on a rigorous touring schedule in Europe, USA and beyond. We had arrived!

"One thing ARCH ENEMY always did was tour a lot. We strongly believed in building the band by proving ourselves on the live stage, city by city, country by country…one show at a time. We really loved performing the concerts and the touring lifestyle — we still do.

"ARCH ENEMY is always pushing to play new uncharted territory — we have on many occasions been the first metal band to perform in a city or even country, which is always a huge thrill. Alongside building our own fan base on our countless headline tours and festival appearances, we also received fantastic opportunities with some of our early influences such as IRON MAIDEN, MEGADETH and SLAYER. They all brought us out as special guest on their tours, introducing us to their audience — for that we will always be thankful to them.

"In 2014 we released the 'War Eternal' album and introduced our new singer Alissa White-Gluz to the world, kicking off a new exciting chapter in the evolution of the band. We hit the road harder than ever before, eager to show the world what the band could do with the new lineup. In the seven years that have passed since then, the band has grown far beyond my wildest dreams. ARCH ENEMY's music continues to connect with new fans every day — it's hugely inspiring and keeps us pushing forward.

"On a personal note, ARCH ENEMY has been my band, my passion as well as my work for half of my life now and I can't really imagine what I would do if this band had not come to be all those years ago. I am eternally grateful to all the people that have helped us along the way in some way, shape or form... My dear band members/friends, all the people in the music business and underground metal scene that believed in us, producers and engineers for making us sound great, our tireless road crew and all the ex-members of course. Most importantly, the incredibly loyal fans that we have, whom I'll never be able to thank all in person. I can only promise that ARCH ENEMY will keep on making music (YES, there is a new album on the way!) ... and, of course, we will be out there playing live shows as we embark on what will be our biggest tour ever! I am very positive about the future.

"Here's to hopefully another 25 years! See you in the pit! Metal is forever!"

[usafricahf]

Solving the Housing Crisis in Africa

Ameet Dhillon

Marketing and Business Development Executive

The continent of Africa has about 1.3 billion people today and many demographers believe it will nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050. Africa also has the youngest average population with a median age in 2012 of 19.7--the worldwide median age was 30.4. This unparalleled level of growth, coupled with youth, presents many problems such as housing: The African Development Bank estimates there is a deficit of 50.5 million housing units in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every government in Africa recognizes residential housing as a key problem, yet it is hardly being addressed. The problem seems almost intractable, particularly in the so-called “social housing” segment which is often defined as a residence that costs less than $25,000 USD. So what is the problem and is there any way to solve it?

Let’s briefly discuss the various issues that are compounding the housing crisis and then we will get to an innovative approach to solve, or at least lessen this problem. The issues with housing in Africa are numerous, but there are at least four main problems that must be overcome. The first is inconsistent or poor-quality construction due to a lack of international-class training for construction trades such as concrete mixing, roof installation, and final finish. The second is limited economies of scale because house construction is often project managed by the owner or his/her representative. As a result, cost overruns are common, and construction can take years to complete. The third is a lack of trust in real estate developers which is often what leads to the aforementioned second problem. Finally, the fourth and perhaps the biggest problem is financing. Without some sort of reasonable financing, a housing industry simply cannot exist. Imagine for a moment trying to buy your current residence in the US, Europe or indeed anywhere in the world by paying cash at the time of purchase. Would you be able to buy your house under those circumstances? For most people, the answer is no, yet that is the environment that the majority of African homebuyers face today. 

These problems seem almost insurmountable; how do we even begin to address them? Rather than walk the reader through some theoretical exercise on what could be done, I will describe what two innovative companies (full disclosure: I am Managing Director of one of them) are successfully doing right now to prove these problems can be overcome. I don’t claim these companies have fully solved the problem, but they have laid out a clear blueprint in parts of West Africa that anyone else is free to emulate anywhere on the continent. In fact, the principals of both companies are willing to share their formula for success with anyone; just for the asking; no strings attached. Email ameet@usafricahf.com to begin a discussion. 

American Homebuilders of West Africa (AHWA) and US-Africa Housing Finance (USAHF) are both US-registered LLCs that symbiotically work together to build, sell and finance houses in West Africa. The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the two companies.

AHWA markets, builds, and sells houses in West Africa and USAHF provides the financing by purchasing loans originated by AHWA. Private investors provide the capital to USAHF (earning an annual 9%, us-dollar return over the last three years) which begins the virtuous cycle that propels this relationship forward. 

One thing you will notice is the total lack of government help or any kind of philanthropy in this model to date. Both businesses are for-profit (and currently profitable) and have thus far relied 100% on private capital raised in the United States. Having said that, there is an appropriate place for governments, foundations or other quasi-government institutions to get involved to provide much needed catalytic capital to move the respective businesses forward more quickly and efficiently. Since the business model for both companies has been proven; now is the time for large institutions to step up and provide support.

So how did these companies overcome the four problems laid out earlier where others have failed? The first problem of poor construction quality is not conceptually hard to solve given that construction techniques are well understood in the US, Europe, and other developed markets. However, to do it in an environment that is used to accepting poor quality as a "fact of life" requires investing in the local team's development and a great deal of diligence and desire to produce a quality product. Fortunately, the co-founders of AHWA all have that desire and thus construct houses that anyone can be proud to live in. Part of this diligence can be traced back to their experience as peace corps volunteers in Cote d’Ivoire in the 1990s. As an example of their dedication, one of the co-founders of AHWA, Jonathan Halloran, personally trained the local African team in how to build a safer ladder (see photo below), use power tools effectively and organize a logistics depot.

Jonathan's theory is you teach one group how to do it in an international-class way and they will eagerly pass on that knowledge to anyone who will listen. Fortunately, most Africans are eager to listen and learn as they genuinely want to see their country and indeed their continent progress. 

The second problem--limited economies of scale--, and the third--lack of trust in developers--go hand in hand. If there is trust in housing developers, then there is no need for individuals to build their own house and suffer the associated pain and heartache. Ask any member of the African diaspora and they will relate either a personal story or one of some close friends or relatives that involves getting “scammed” while trying to build a house back in Africa. AHWA has gotten over the trust problem the old-fashioned way: They provide a quality product to their customers and “word of mouth” over time has done the rest. AHWA is now a trusted brand in Guinea, West Africa and beginning to develop in neighboring countries such as Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal with many more to come.    

The final problem is financing and this is perhaps the most vexing of all. Providing a home loan to a borrower is more complicated than it might seem at first glance. There is the obvious issue of raising the capital to fund the loans (this itself is hard enough when the target market is Africa), but perhaps more difficult is the underwriting process. The lender cannot just provide a loan to anyone; the borrower must be properly vetted via some systematic and repeatable process. This requires getting to know a prospective borrower and assessing the associated risk. To ease this daunting task, initially, USAHF only plans to offer loans to the African diaspora living in OECD countries such as the US, France, Canada, UK, etc. In addition, a 30% down payment is required along with customary verification of income, debt and the like.

One unique aspect of the joint AHWA/USAHF underwriting model is that they allow borrowers to pay monthly into what is effectively an "escrow account" for up to 24 months in order to reach the 30% down payment level. This is not only helpful for the borrower but also provides invaluable data and confidence about the borrower’s ability to pay. If someone has the financial discipline to make a monthly payment for a year or more without even having a house, the likelihood of them defaulting once they actually have the house is very low. In other words, they are an excellent credit risk.

The final piece of the financing puzzle is a well-developed process to handle the inevitable loan default. No matter how good an underwriting process you have, some number of defaults are expected. In fact, many bankers will tell you that if you don’t have any defaults that means you are too strict in your underwriting and should loosen the requirements. Both AHWA and USAHF have an agreed process in place for default and have successfully navigated the process multiple times with minimal impact on either business as well as the borrower. Because of the high demand for AHWA houses, resale has been relatively smooth and as expected prices are rising and this insulates the defaulting borrower from large losses.

In conclusion, both AHWA and USAHF believe they have a profitable, sustainable and replicable model that over time can solve the housing crisis in Africa. However, governments, DFIs, foundations and other similar types of institutions will need to step up and provide catalytic capital to make this promise a reality. To learn more please click on this presentation or email ameet@usafricahf.com or check out the website at www.usafricahf.com. 

Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any such offer is made only pursuant to a private placement memorandum.

[oxcake92-blog]

Tips on how to Use Weight Loss Diet Plans

There are plenty of diverse weight damage policies over the web. Query for some serious min's, and you will then construct diverse sorts of the lime diet , Atkins diet packages, Oriental diet packages, and also Native american indian diet plans. A majority of these packages will be perfect for health. You are going to be informed about a number of and other people is going to be mystery to assist you to you. The task could be to look for a functional diet plan for your personal health. You have got to go through plan pertaining to 6+ months. If you desire to live an extensive daily life, one must always consume a healthy diet. Diverse services are designed for several people. You will be informed on staying on your diet courses, clinically watched products, self-help opportunities plus well being programs. These courses hold the on the web and high street versions. You can utilize numerous apps and internet based tools towards revitalize your health. Also, you can give priority to training seminars and additionally meetings that will educate yourself on the subject of health topics. If a diet plan has exact same bowls, you're going to get bored to tears really quickly. Build one thing useful along with delicious. Try things out with assorted recipes. Each one plan entails devotion, totally focus, in addition to determination.

Astounding Tips To Help You Choose The Right Diet Plan

Studies clearly show that will the best approach to achieve a reliable, healthy weight is always follow a demanding choosing plan together with participate in usual bodily activity. Totally free diet plan should support good signs and symptoms to help most people eliminate weight along with keep up with the brand-new weight intended for extended time. Nowadays it looks like an innovative craze diet shoot out virtually everyday. And even though all those eating plans will benefit you lose weight , it won't be on a nutritious manner. Once you go back to all your unwanted eating styles you can expect to attain lots of the weight back. As fad diet plans loss balance. For this reason it's so very important you find all the diet plan that is healthy and balanced and even works best for you. Just before you have chosen any specific diet plan glance during the nutrition. Discover and some tips you're eating. You will want a plan containing the correct quantity involved with ingredients from your main foods groups. If it features those tips it is probably a safe plan. So often consumers should pick diet plan mainly because most people are executing it. The diet plan you choose should be anything at all that suits everyone lifestyle. If you're a occupied man or women you don't want a fabulous diet that really needs much major grilling as well as time with the gym. If you do not like to exercise a whole lot you do not need a new diet in which enquiries so that you can possibly be during a workout session a couple of hours a good day. The main factor is to locate a plan you truly cling to. Like that you're very likely to get to your own weight deprivation goals.

As stated when, never ever select a diet plan that needs an individual to eat under 1200 kilocalories some day. Even while you will want to reduce how many kilocalories you eat, you dont want to try to cut once again plenty of you ought to produce your body to enter undernourishment mode. As soon as you do rrt's going to turned into even more complicated so that you can lose weight. Innate and physical takes a different approach along with will need a new level of calories from fat everyday. You'll find no cost hand calculators via the internet to find available how many energy you ought to take to stay in cannot weight. Knowing this phone number a person can cut backside a bit get started on reducing weight.

Most desirable Diet Plans - How can you Find the Best One

So that you can, talk to a professional health specialized for you to aid this plan which usually is right for you. While searching for an extensive diet , individuals typically will have unwanted effect that they will have to be able to deprive independently to be able to lose weight. But that's completely absolutely wrong as in order to lose weight you must make certain you take in the correct nutrients and then the right amount in foodstuff on the suitable time. Repeating this you wonrrrt go without food your self located at any point. Bare this in mind to be able to self-control your own self any time after a diet program. Here are a few attempting out there some wonderful diet plans next you must very first check to see what you think is useful for you. The very best packages tend to be just some diet projects which will I've advocated because of more than hundreds of diet plans. Together with the valid reason May very well advised all of them is that often several of my close friends now have professionally tested out one or two and then I do know individuals work. So if you are deciding on with a diet package be sure you make a couple of diet strategies a hunt after which investigate opinions about them that can help you help to make a decision. Which means that go on and check examples of the previously listed diet blueprints in order to check out the worked as a chef regarding others.

[sjrresearch]

The Victorian Era: A Time of Advancement and Sophistication

The Victorian era took place from 1837-1901, during a time of quickly expanding wealth, technology, and social change. The period would begin with city dwellers residing in overcrowded apartments near factories; it would end with people of all income levels having the availability to buy homes outfitted with modern conveniences like running water, gas, and sewerage. Read on to discover the house styles that narrated this exciting period in history.

A product of technology

The Victorian era gets its name from Queen Victoria. Her long rule of Great Britain corresponds with the timeframe of this period. However, it was the industrial revolution that truly inspired this unique style. Advances in manufacturing and transportation allowed builders access to mass-produced materials that could be delivered cross-country by rail. Architects finally could create complex designs at an affordable cost. For the first time, vibrant, pastel paint was applied to the exterior of homes. Families were excited to add these ornate details to their simpler styles of the past.

Exterior features

Although the Victorian era encompassed different styles, some details remained common in most Victorian constructions. Below is a list of identifiable architectural features:

Multiple stories – Because builders usually constructed Victorian homes in a row on compact lots, they contain 2-3 floor levels. However, you can find some one-story Victorian cottages on the West Coast.

Vibrant facades – Victorian homes were constructed asymmetrically with either glazed brick or wood, and their exteriors were usually painted in a pastel color scheme.

Decorative windows – These houses contain multiple styles of windows, including stained glass, porthole, and cutaway bay.

Intricate details – Octagonal or round towers and turrets are distinguishable features of this style and draw the eye upward.

Eclectic roofs – Victorian-style roofs are steeply pitched with ornate gables. Some contain rooftop finials.

Gingerbread-like trim – Victorians are known for their delicate trim details that embellish windows and doorways.

Wrap-around porches – A partial or full asymmetrical porch adorned with intricate trim completes the look of the Victorian.

Gothic Revival/Carpenter Gothic 1835-1880

The European Gothic period of the 11th-15th century inspired the Gothic Revival style and launched the American Romantic Movement. This new architectural trend did not catch on in America until the 1930s. Andrew Jackson Downing, a horticulturist, was particularly fond of the Gothic Revival Style; he described it as the perfect American home for the modern farmer in his 1842 book, Cottage Residences.  

Though Gothic Revival is prevalent on cathedrals and college campuses, a sub-style called Carpenter Gothic became popular in rural areas. It is depicted on the farmhouse in the famous painting American Gothic. The architecture of this style features a wood façade, gable roofs, turrets, spires, and pointed arches.

Italianate 1840-1885

Victorian Italianate homes were inspired by Italian Renaissance villas. The style became wide-spread from Andrew Jackson Downing's 1850 book, The Architecture of Country Houses, which provided popular Italianate patterns and blueprints. The design was flexible, allowing room to interchange building materials. Because of this customization, it became a popular choice for both middle and upper classes houses.   

Italianates feature low roofs, far-reaching eaves, and ornamental brackets. The windows are tall and narrow and either rounded at the top or rectangular with decorative pediments. Italianate structures also feature belvederes, which are similar to cupolas, only square and large.

Second Empire 1852-1890

After the French Revolution in 1848, the new emperor, Napoleon III, yearned for Paris to represent “the world’s city of high fashion.” Napoleon’s architect, Baron Haussmann, demolished Paris' medieval buildings and constructed modern manor homes and sprawling apartments in their place. The city's facelift was revealed to the world at the Paris Expositions of 1855 and 1867. American spectators returned home singing the praises of this new architecture, thereby launching the Second Empire style. 

The Gothic Revival and Italianate styles were soon replaced by Second Empire, which is sometimes referred to as the General Grant style since it was popular during Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency. Second Empire architecture features a mansard roof, often embellished with colorful details, a narrow square tower that stretches past the main roofline, and a covered porch. Decorative molding, flat-arched, and oriel windows were also popular.

Queen Anne 1880-1910

Queen Anne is the most recognizable type of Victorian. Ironically, these decorative homes have little in common with the architecture during the reign of Queen Anne. However, this style gets its name from the elegance and high-fashion of the queen. 

In 1876, a British builder shipped two pre-manufactured versions of his Queen Anne homes to America. Once builders constructed the homes, architects displayed them at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. The style was a massive hit, and word quickly spread. Historians also credit British architects George Devey and Richard Norman Shaw with popularizing blueprints for this style.  

These doll-like homes feature a colorful façade created with an array of building materials. They also boast steep roofs, decorative gables, circular towers, and intricate trim. 

We learn about history through architecture

Besides adding variety and appeal to our neighborhoods, house styles provide a window to the past. There is so much we can learn from the history of our homes.  

Our experts research properties to discover architectural details, original land ownership, notable residents, and more. Visit our website to view our house history services at SJR Research ..