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Crews removed several sections of ceiling inside the Mercer Island Tunnel this weekend to make way for the new exhaust system. They used this machine to lower down sections of the ceiling.
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Oxidization mainly occurs on the mirrors when the moisture slides through into the glass and therefore causes a layer between the glass and the silvering which gives the glass its reflective effect.
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. . . fixing the knife at the left leg of the cocks
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A cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters (cocks), or more accurately gamecocks, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the word gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or entertainment, was recorded in 1646, after the term "cock of the game" used by George Wilson, in the earliest known book on the sport of cockfighting in The Commendation of Cocks and Cock Fighting in 1607. But it was during Magellan's voyage of discovery of the Philippines in 1521 when modern cockfighting was first witnessed and documented by Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's chronicler, in the kingdom of Taytay.
The combatants, referred to as gamecocks, are specially bred birds, conditioned for increased stamina and strength. The comb and wattle are cut off in order to meet show standards of the American Gamefowl Society and the Old English Game Club and to prevent freezing in colder climates (the standard emerged from the older practice of severing the comb, wattles, and earlobes of the bird in order to remove anatomical vulnerabilities, similar to the practice of docking a dog's tail and ears).
Cocks possess congenital aggression toward all males of the same species. Cocks are given the best of care until near the age of two years. They are conditioned, much like professional athletes prior to events or shows. Wagers are often made on the outcome of the match.
Cockfighting is a blood sport due in some part to the physical trauma the cocks inflict on each other, which is sometimes increased for entertainment purposes by attaching metal spurs to the cocks' natural spurs. While not all fights are to the death, the cocks may endure significant physical trauma. In some areas around the world, cockfighting is still practiced as a mainstream event; in some countries it is regulated by law, or forbidden outright. Advocates of the "age old sport" often list cultural and religious relevance as reasons for perpetuation of cockfighting as a sport.
PROCESS
Two owners place their gamecock in the cockpit. The cocks fight until ultimately one of them dies or is critically injured. Historically, this was in a cockpit, a term which was also used in the 16th century to mean a place of entertainment or frenzied activity. William Shakespeare used the term in Henry V to specifically mean the area around the stage of a theatre. In Tudor times, the Palace of Westminster had a permanent cockpit, called the Cockpit-in-Court.
HISTORY
Cockfighting is an ancient spectator sport. There is evidence that cockfighting was a pastime in the Indus Valley Civilization. The Encyclopædia Britannica (2008) holds:
The sport was popular in ancient times in India, China, Persia, and other Eastern countries and was introduced into Ancient Greece in the time of Themistocles (c. 524–460 BC). For a long time the Romans affected to despise this "Greek diversion", but they ended up adopting it so enthusiastically that the agricultural writer Columella (1st century AD) complained that its devotees often spent their whole patrimony in betting at the side of the pit.
Based on his analysis of a Mohenjo-daro seal, Iravatham Mahadevan speculates that the city's ancient name could have been Kukkutarma ("the city [-rma] of the cockerel [kukkuta]"). However, according to a recent study, "it is not known whether these birds made much contribution to the modern domestic fowl. Chickens from the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley (2500–2100 BC) may have been the main source of diffusion throughout the world." "Within the Indus Valley, indications are that chickens were used for sport and not for food" (Zeuner 1963) and that by 1000 BC they had assumed "religious significance".
Some additional insight into the pre-history of European and American secular cockfighting may be taken from the The London Encyclopaedia:
At first cockfighting was partly a religious and partly a political institution at Athens; and was continued for improving the seeds of valor in the minds of their youth, but was afterwards perverted both there and in the other parts of Greece to a common pastime, without any political or religious intention.
An early image of a fighting rooster has been found on a 6th-century BC seal of Jaazaniah from the biblical city of Mizpah in Benjamin, near Jerusalem. Remains of these birds have been found at other Israelite Iron Age sites, when the rooster was used as a fighting bird; they are also pictured on other seals from the period as a symbol of ferocity, such as the late-7th-century BC red jasper seal inscribed "Jehoahaz, son of the king", which likely belonged to Jehoahaz of Judah "while he was still a prince during his father's life".
The anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote the influential essay Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, on the meaning of the cockfight in Balinese culture.
REGIONAL VARIATIONS
In some regional variations, the birds are equipped with either metal spurs (called gaffs) or knives, tied to the leg in the area where the bird's natural spur has been partially removed. A cockspur is a bracelet (often made of leather) with a curved, sharp spike which is attached to the leg of the bird. The spikes typically range in length from "short spurs" of just over an inch to "long spurs" almost two and a half inches long. In the highest levels of 17th century English cockfighting, the spikes were made of silver. Ironically, the sharp spurs have been known to injure or even kill the bird handlers. In the naked heel variation, the bird's natural spurs are left intact and sharpened: fighting is done without gaffs or taping, particularly in India (especially in Tamil Nadu). There it is mostly fought naked heel and either three rounds of twenty minutes with a gap of again twenty minutes or four rounds of fifteen minutes each and a gap of fifteen minutes between them.
Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Peru, Panama, Puerto Rico, Canary Islands, Saipan, and Guam have arenas with seats or bleachers for spectators surrounding the ring. Among the competitors who raise fighting cocks, there is great pride in the prowess of their birds and in winning a championship.
AMERICAS
CUBA
Cockfighting is a popular activity in Cuba. It is a seasonal sport, held only during the coolest months of the year (November to April). Cocks are not ready to fight and their plumage moults during the warmest months (May to October).
In Cuba the tradition is to fix detachable natural (non-artificial) spurs to both legs of the fighting cocks. Before fixing the detachable spurs, the natural spurs should be trimmed, leaving a trunk not longer than 3 millimeters. The final length of the detached spurs ranks from 22 to 25 millimeters according to the relevance of the match.
Cockfights are held in a round arena commonly called valla, surrounded by a small fence around which the spectators are accommodated.
Comb and wattles should be previously trimmed but feathers should not be necessarily groomed as well, although tradition imposes an extensive feather trimming. The feathers of the chest, hackle and thighs are generally shorn completely off. The reasons for this vary among individual game fowl enthusiasts (see also Gamecock).
Cocks should have a weight within the rank of 50–69 Castilian Ounces (2300–3180 grams) to be admitted.
The combatants are strictly paired up to fight according to their body weight. The allowed difference in weight between the contenders ranks from half to one ounce (14–29 grams) according to the body weight.
Fights are limited to a single round of 30 minutes, but statistics show that more than 50% of the fights end within the first five minutes.
The persons proved to be betting are severely punished with a temporary or definite expulsion from the tournaments and the prohibition to participate in further meetings.
MEXICO
Cockfighting in Mexico has been taking place for over a hundred years. In Aguascalientes, a state capital, one of the city's principal concert halls is the cockfighting arena, the palenque. Palenques are very common throughout the country, with almost every major city having one, and are closely related to Mexican traditional music performers, such as Vicente Fernández, and also being (as mentioned below) the stage for pop artists as well. During the San Marcos Fair, well known throughout Mexico, cockfights alternate with important concerts, where the singers or dancers perform from the cockpit. Many popular singers have performed there, e.g. Latin Grammy winners Alejandro Fernández and Alejandra Guzmán.Cockfighting remains legal in the municipality of Ixmiquilpan.
PERU
In Peru, cockfighting is allowed and it takes place in coliseums with round sand fields. Only a judge and two managers each carrying a cock are allowed in the field. Judges use tables to facilitate the refereeing of fights.
Cockfighting championships of Peru are of two kinds, Beak and Spur. The Peruvian Razor Rooster ('Gallo Navajero Peruano') features in Spur fights. In Spur fights the weight and size of the rooster varies. There are free weight championships as well.
The most important cockfighting championships take place in the Lima Region at the Coliseums Sandia, Rosedal, Abraham Wong, The Peruvian Cockfighting Circle's Coliseum and The Valentino, of the Rooster Breeders' Association of Peru.
BRAZIL
Cockfighting, known in Brazil as rinha de galos ("baiting the rooster"), was banned in 1934 with the help of President Getúlio Vargas through Brazil's 1934 constitution, passed on 16 July. Based on the recognition of animals in the Constitution, a Brazilian Supreme Court ruling resulted in the ban of animal related activities that involve claimed "animal suffering such as cockfighting, and a tradition practiced in southern Brazil, known as 'Farra do Boi' (the Oxen Festival)", stating that "animals also have the right to legal protection against mistreatment and suffering".
ASIA
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Cockfighting is common throughout all of Southeast Asia, where it is implicated in spreading bird flu. Like Islam, Christianity might shun the belief in spirits, but in Southeast Asia, indigenous interpretations of the veneration of saints and passion plays dominate. In the Christian northern Philippines, respect is accorded the veneration of traditional anito (spirits), shamans number in the thousands and Catholic priests are powerless to stop cockfighting, a popular form of fertility worship among almost all Southeast Asians. Also in rural northern Thailand a religious ceremony honoring ancestral spirits takes place known as "faun phii", spirit dance or ghost dance, and includes offerings for ancestors with spirit mediums sword fighting, spirit possessed dancing, and "spirit mediums cockfighting", in a spiritual cockfight.
INDONESIA
Cockfighting is a very old tradition in Balinese Hinduism, the Batur Bang Inscriptions I (from the year 933) and the Batuan Inscription (dated 944 on the Balinese Caka calendar) disclose that the tabuh rah ritual has existed for centuries. In Bali, cockfights, known as tajen, are practiced in an ancient religious purification ritual to expel evil spirits. This ritual, a form of animal sacrifice, is called tabuh rah ("pouring blood"). The purpose of tabuh rah is to provide an offering (the blood of the losing chicken) to the evil spirits. Cockfighting is a religious obligation at every Balinese temple festival or religious ceremony. Cockfights without a religious purpose are considered gambling in Indonesia, although it is still largely practiced in many parts of Indonesia. Women are generally not involved in the tabuh rah process.
All forms of gambling, including the gambling within secular cockfighting, were made illegal in 1981 by the Indonesian government, while the religious aspects of cockfighting within Balinese Hinduism remain protected.
The American anthropologist Clifford Geertz published his most famous work, Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, on the practice of cockfights in Bali. In it, he argued that the cockfight served as a pastiche or model of wider Balinese society from which judgments about other aspects of the culture could be drawn.
JAPAN
Cockfighting is similar to boxing for the younger roosters as they battle for a victory with their blunt natural spurs or lack thereof and after maturity they battle with their mature natural spurs which may have become pointed. Despite fighting cocks allowed to be used in cockfighting, "the state has designated them a protected species".
INDIA
Cockfighting (Vetrukkaal seval porr in Tamil which means "naked heel cockfight") (Kodi Pandem in Telugu) (Kori katta in Tulu) is a favourite sport of people living in the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts of Tulu Nadu region of Karnataka, and the state of Tamil nadu India. Three- or four-inch blades (Bal in Tulu) are attached to the cocks' legs. Knockout fights to the death are widely practised in Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu, the winner is decided after three or four rounds. People watch with intense interest surrounding the cocks. The sport has gradually become a gambling sport.
In Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Tanjore, Trichy and Salem Districts, only naked heel sport is performed. In Erode, Thiruppur, Karur and Coimbatore districts only bloody blade fights are conducted. During festival seasons, this is the major game for men. Women normally don't participate. There are many rare breeds preserved by these cockfighters.
The cockfight, or more accurately expressed the secular cockfight, is an intense sport, recreation, or pastime to some, while to others, the cockfight remains an ancient religious ritual, a sacred ceremony (i.e. a religious and spiritual cockfight) associated with the ‘daivasthanams’ (temples) and held at the temples precincts. In January 2012 at India's 'Sun God' Festival the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) district committee, demanded that police not interfere in the cockfighting known as ‘kozhi kettu’ as it is a part of the temple rituals, while the police replied they would not interfere if the cockfight is held at a temple.
IRAQ
Cockfighting is illegal but widespread in Iraq. The attendees come to gamble or just for the entertainment. A rooster can cost up to $8,000. The most-prized birds are called Harati, which means that they are of Turkish or Indian origin, and have muscular legs and necks.
PAKISTAN
Cockfighting is a popular sport in rural Pakistan; however, "betting is illegal under the Prevention of Gambling Act 1977". Betting is illegal, but police often turn a blind eye towards it. In Sindh (one of 4 major provinces of Pakistan), people are fond of keeping fighting cock breed, known as Sindhi aseel in Pakistan. These cocks are noted being tall, heavy and good at fighting. Another popular breed is called Asil chicken|Mianwali Aseel. In Sindh Gamblor or Khafti uses Almond and other power enhancing medicines to feed the fighter cocks.
PHILIPPINES
Cockfighting, locally termed Sabong, is a popular pastime in the Philippines where both illegal and legal cockfights occur. Legal cockfights are held in cockpits every week, whilst Illegal ones called tupada or tigbakay, are held in secluded cockpits where authorities cannot raid them. In both types, knives or gaffs are used. There are two kinds of knives used in Philippine cockfighting. The single edge blade (use in derbies) and double edged blades, lengths of knives also vary. All knives are attached on the left leg of the bird, but depending on agreement between owners, blades can be attached on the right or even on both legs. Sabong and illegal tupada, are judged by a referee called sentensyador or koyme, whose verdict is final and not subject to any appeal. Bets are usually taken by the kristo, so named because of his outstretched hands when calling out wagers from the audience and skillfully doing so purely from memory.
The country has hosted several World Slasher Cup derbies, held biannually at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, Quezon City, where the world's leading game fowl breeders gather. World Slasher Cup is also known as the "Olympics of Cockfighting".
Cockfighting was already flourishing in pre-colonial Philippines, as recorded by Antonio Pigafetta, the Italian diarist aboard Ferdinand Magellan’s 1521 expedition. Cockfighting in the Philippines is derived from the fact that it shares elements of Indian and other Southeast Asian cultures, where the jungle fowl (bankivoid) and Oriental type of chicken are endemic.
OCEANIA
In the Mariana Islands in Micronesia, the sport of cockfighting has been considered a "cultural tradition" dating back to Spanish rule. Cockfighting became more popular with an influx of Filipino immigrants to the islands before and after World War II. Fights are held throughout the week at a government licensed pit in the village of Dededo, Guam, and in other villages during fiestas, where a patron saint of the village is celebrated. Imported roosters and hens from the U.S. mainland fetch heavy prices that can reach as much as a thousand dollars each. On the island of Saipan, north of Guam, legal cockfighting takes place several times a week in an arena called the Dome in the village of Gualo Rai.
OTHER BIRD SPECIES
In 2009, authorities caught and shut down an illegal songbird-fighting ring in Shelton, Connecticut that had been using saffron finches and canaries. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals commented that such songbird fighting is extremely rare. The ancient Greeks used to practice quail fighting, using the common quail Coturnix coturnix. Also in south east Asia and ancient China were used to practice "quail fighting", but using the female buttonquails.
LEGAL STATUS
In many places, cockfights and other animal fights have been outlawed, often based on opposition to gambling or animal cruelty. It has been banned outright in the United Kingdom since the 19th Century, however in some states of the USA, it is not illegal to possess, raise, train, advertise, or trade cocks or accoutrements that could be used for cockfighting. However, actively participating in a cockfight in any manner is illegal: advertising, transporting participants or spectators, placing wagers, hosting an event, etc. It is common for law enforcement to confiscate property associated with any cockfighting activity.
ASIA
INDIA
India's judiciary has ordered to ban the sport, saying it violated Prevention of Cruelity to Animals act. But it remains hugely popular, especially in rural areas, with large amount of betting involved.[
PHILIPPINES
There is no nationwide ban of cockfighting in the Philippines but since 1948, cockfighting is prohibited every Rizal Day on December 30 where violators can be fined or imprisoned due to the Republic Act No. 229.
EUROPE
SPAIN
Cockfighting is legal in the Canary Islands and Andalusia. Organisations such as the WWF/Adena and some political parties are trying to ban it there too. The law allows it but tries to make it disappear "naturally" by blocking its expansion. Contrasting with the rest of the country (except with Catalonia), bullfighting is instead forbidden in the Canary Islands, since it is not considered traditional, unlike cockfighting.
Cockfighting is also legal in Andalusia in the cities and villages where it is considered traditional. With its famous Jerezanos race of fighting cocks, the Cádiz province is the most popular centre of cockfighting in Andalusia.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cockfighting was banned outright in England and Wales and in the British Overseas Territories with the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835. Sixty years later, in 1895, cockfighting was also banned in Scotland, where it had been relatively common in the 18th century. A reconstructed cockpit from Denbigh in North Wales may be found at St Fagans National History Museum in Cardiff and a reference exists in 1774 to a cockpit at Stanecastle in Scotland.
According to a 2007 report by the RSPCA, cockfighting in England and Wales was still taking place, but had declined in recent years.
FRANCE
Holding cockfights is a crime in France, but there is an exemption under subparagraph 3 of article 521–1 of the French penal code for cockfights and bullfights in locales where an uninterrupted tradition exists for them. Thus, cockfighting is allowed in the Nord-Pas de Calais region, in Metropolitan France, where it takes place in a small number of towns including Raimbeaucourt, La Bistade and other villages around Lille. On Réunion Island, there are five officially authorized gallodromes (i.e. cockfighting arenas). The Nord-Pas-de-Calais has a dozen gallodromes, that also target the Belgian associations of aficionados, who travel to France to avoid the prohibition of cockfighting in Belgium. The Nord-Pas-de Calais has its own race of fighting cocks the "Combattant de Nord".
There is currently a flow of British aficionados to cockfights that come from January to June to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais to participate in the cockfights. Some of them have been arrested at the British border for transporting cockerels or material for cockfights, which has led to a small cottage industry of British-owned cockerel farms. Likewise, some caretakers in Nord-Pas-de-Calais cater exclusively to British cockfighters who, by law, are not permitted to transport and care for their birds in the United Kingdom.
AMERICAS
COSTA RICA
Cockfights have been illegal in Costa Rica since 1922. The government deems the activity as animal cruelty, public disorder and a risk for public health and is routinely repress by the State's National Secretary for Animal Welfare.
CUBA
Cockfighting was so common during the Cuban colonization by Spain, that there were arenas in every urban and rural town. The first official known document about cockfighting in Cuba dates from 1737. It is a royal decree asking, to the governor of the island, a report about the inconveniences that might cause cockfights "with the people from land and sea" and asking for information about rentals of the games. The Spaniard Miguel Tacón, Lieutenant General and governor of the colony, banned cockfighting by a decree dated on October 20, 1835, limiting these spectacles only to holidays.
In 1844 a decree dictated by the Captain General of the island, es:Leopoldo O'Donnell, forbade to non-white people the attendance to these shows. During the second half of the 19th century many authorizations were conceded for building arenas, until General es:Juan Rius Rivera, then civilian governor in Havana, prohibited cockfighting by a decree of October 31. 1899 and later the Cuban governor, General Leonard Wood, dictated the military order No. 165 prohibiting cockfights in the whole country since June 1, 1900.
In the first half of the 20th century, legality of cockfights suffered several ups and downs.
In 1909 the then Cuban president es:José Miguel Gómez, with the intention to gain followers, allowed cockfights once again, and then regulations were agreed for the fights.
Up to beginnings of 1968 cockfights used to be held everywhere in the country, but with the purpose of stopping the bets, the arenas were closed and the fights forbidden by the authorities. In 1980 authorities legallized cockfights again and a state business organization was created with the participation of the private breeders, grouped in territories. Every year the state organization announces several national tournaments from January to April, makes trade shows and sells fighting cocks to clients from other Caribbean countries.
UNITED STATES
In the United States, cockfighting is now illegal in all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The last state to implement a state law banning cockfighting was Louisiana; the Louisiana State Legislature voted to approve a Louisiana ban in June 2007. The ban took effect in August 2008. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have made cockfighting a felony. It is illegal in all fifty states to knowingly attend a cockfight or bring a minor to the event. On February 7, 2014 President Obama signed the Farm Bill which contained the U.S. H.R. 366/S. 666—Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act. "The final bill includes a provision making it a federal crime to attend or bring a child under the age of 16 to an animal fighting event[.]" "The Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act would make it a federal offense to knowingly attend an organized animal fight and would impose additional penalties for bringing children to animal fights. Violators would face up to one year in prison for attending a fight, and up to three years in prison for bringing a minor to a fight." In the District of Columbia it is illegal to be a spectator at cockfights. Animal welfare activists continue to lobby for a ban on the sport.
Cockfighting remains legal in the unincorporated US territories of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam; particularly in Guam and Puerto Rico, cockfighting is a popular spectator pastime with centuries of tradition, thanks to the islands' shared history as Spanish colonies. In 2006, the Virgin Islands adopted a law banning modifications such as the use of artificial spurs. This move, along with the aforementioned 2014 farm bill, sparked fears that cockfighting would be banned everywhere on US soil, but as of 2015 these fears have not materialized.
The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act, a federal law that made it a federal crime to transfer cockfighting implements across state or national borders and increasing the penalty for violations of federal animal fighting laws to three years in prison became law in 2007. It passed the House of Representatives 368–39 and the Senate by unanimous consent and was signed into law by President George W. Bush.
The Animal Welfare Act was amended again in 2008 when provisions were included in the 2008 Farm Bill (P.L. 110-246). These provisions tightened prohibitions on dog and other animal fighting activities, and increase penalties for violation of the act.
On February 8, 2014, law enforcement made New York State's largest cockfighting bust where they seized three thousand birds and arrested roughly seventy people across three counties. The investigation was deemed the name "Operation Angry Birds" and they made three raids: a cockfight in Queens; a pet shop in Brooklyn; and a farm in Plattekill. The raids were performed by the task force, along with New York State Police, the Homeland Security Department and the Ulster County sheriff's office. Upon entry of the Queens cockfight, authorities found the birds in small cages with razors attached to them. The seventy individuals who attended the event were taken into custody. All but nine of these men were let go. The nine men were given felony arrests and animal-fighting charges.
On July 26, 2014, Princess Irina of Romania, and her husband John Walker, appeared in federal court in Portland, Oregon in connection with running illegal cockfights they held in Irrigon, Oregon in 2012 and 2013. The couple was originally charged with twelve counts including operating an illegal gaming business, conspiracy, and violating the Animal Welfare Act but they agreed to "sell their ranch and forfeit $200,000 to the government in lieu of incarceration".
AUSTRALIA
Cockfighting, and the possession of cockfighting equipment, is illegal in Australia.
NOTABLE COCKFIGHTERS
Chicken George (born c. 1807), son of Kizzy and slave owner Tom Moore, grandson of Kunta Kinte, and ancestor of Alex Haley, was a cockfighter in the United States and England.
IN POPULAR CULTURE
Cockfighting has inspired artists in several fields to create works which depict the activity. Several organizations, including the University of South Carolina, Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, and London football team Tottenham Hotspur F.C. have a gamecock as their mascot.
IN MUSIC
Cockfighting has also been mentioned in songs such as Kings of Leon's Four Kicks and Bob Dylan's song "Cry a While" from the album Love and Theft. The story song "El Gallo del Cielo" by Tom Russell is entirely about cockfighting, and the lyrics utilize detailed imagery of fighting pits, gamecocks, and gambling on the outcome of the fights. Cockfighting has also been in Korean boy band Exo's music video for "Lotto".
IN VISUAL ARTS
The painting "The Cock Fight" (1846) an academic exercise of the French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, Vainqueur au combat de coqs (1864) bronze statue from the French sculptor Alexandre Falguière and the painting "Cockfight" (1882) from the Flemish painter Emile Claus are samples of the presence of cockfighting in visual arts.
The Expressionist painter Sir Robin Philipson, of Edinburgh, was well known for his series of works that included depictions of cockfighting.
The 1930 cartoon Mexico shows Oswald the Lucky Rabbit challenging a bear in a cockfight. The 1938 cartoon Honduras Hurricane features the pirate John Silver forcing Captain Katzenjammer into a rigged cockfight. Other cartoon depictions portray humanized roosters treating cockfights like boxing matches; these cartoons include Disney's Cock o' the Walk (1936), MGM's Little Bantamweight (1938), and Walter Lantz's The Bongo Punch (1958).
Live-action films that include scenes of the sport include the 1964 Mexican film El Gallo De Oro, the 1965 film The Cincinnati Kid, and the 1974 film Cockfighter, directed by Monte Hellman (based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford).
The 1990 film No Fear, No Die centers around two men who are part of an illegal cockfighting ring.
Cockfighting is depicted twice in the 2011 film The Rum Diary (film).
The Spike TV show 1000 Ways to Die features a death involving a cockfight, where a man who bets on a rooster attaches razors to its claws to ensure its winning, but is slashed to death himself.
In the Seinfeld episode "The Little Jerry", Kramer enters his rooster into a cockfight in order to get one of Jerry's bounced checks removed from a local bodega where the cockfights actually take place.
In the HBO series Eastbound & Down, Kenny Powers moves to Mexico and is in the cockfighting business until his cock "Big Red" dies.
The 2011 Tamil film Aadukalam revolves around the practice of cockfighting in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. In the FX Network's police drama, "The Shield" episode titled "Two Days of Blood" (season #1, episode #12), Detective Shane Vendrell and Detective Curt Lemansky go undercover in a cockfighting event to track down an illegal arms smuggler.
IN LITERATURE
Nathanael West's 1939 novel The Day of the Locust includes a detailed and graphic cockfighting scene, as does the Alex Haley novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the miniseries based on it. In literature, a description of a bordertown cockfight fiesta can be found in On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier. Charles Willeford wrote a novel, Cockfighter, which gives a detailed account of the protagonist's life as a 'cocker'. Abraham Valdelomar's 1918 tale El Caballero Carmelo depicts a cockfight between the protagonist, a cock named Carmelo, and his rival Ajiseco from a child's perspective, who considered this bird as an heroic member of his family.
In martial arts
The term "human cockfighting" was used by United States senator John McCain to describe mixed martial arts, which at the time he was campaigning to ban.
IN VIDEO GAMES
The video game Law & Order: Legacies uses a cockfight as a plot point. With a man having died because of a rooster with a spur had slashed him, but with a twist that he would have survived if his wife had called the police.
In 2016 Edge Games launched the world's first Virtual Cockfighting sports betting game.
Square Enix's video game Sleeping Dogs allows the player character to spectate and bet on various virtual cockfights based around the game's rendition of the city of Hong Kong.
IN RELIGION
Augustine of Hippo once described a cockfight in spiritual terms: "in every motion of these animals unendowed with reason there was nothing ungraceful since, of course, another higher reason was guiding everything they did".
WIKIPEDIA
My pre-ordered Snow White and Hag Doll Set. The slipcover has been removed and placed next to the dolls in their unopened display case.
My pre-ordered full set of the 2015 Disney Fairytale Designer Collection Heroes and Villains dolls arrived after a delay on November 6, 2015. I had ordered them at the D23 Expo on August 14, 2015. They are all edition number of 65 of 6000. They came in perfect condition, and I think most if not all the dolls are better than the ones I bought separately (which I have deboxed or will debox). By the way, I got 5 gift bags in this shipment, and got another 5 in a separate shipment. So like most people who pre-ordered the full collection, I am getting twice as many bags as I should have.
Here are my first photos of the set, taken with flash. They were taken in front of my KidKraft Snowflake Mansion. I will later take photos of my deboxed Designer dolls next to these dolls, which I will leave boxed. But before I do that I will have to debox the Rapunzel and Mother Gothel set and the Snow Queen Elsa and Hans set.
Remove the separation between yourself and your subject
— Graeme Williams
I'll admit I've struggled with this challenge. I've not been able to come up with anything new or fresh to do it justice. In a sense I've hit a wall. Out of time and out of ideas. I'm not happy about it but I'm going to accept this challenge has gotten the best of me and move on.
If you are a participant in this photo, and you would like it removed, message me, and I will remove it promptly.
Poortwachter 21/04/2020 13h54
The new refurbished station Poortwachter of the new Amsteltram, route 25 which is sheduled to open in December 2020. The level platform has been removed and a new platform on streetlevel is constructed.
Amsteltram (25)
The Amsteltram is a tram line under renovation between Amsterdam Zuid station in Amsterdam and Westwijk in Amstelveen. As a future second phase, the Amsteltram will be extended to Uithoorn. The tram line replaces metro line 51 (a.k.a. the Amstelveenlijn), a light rail line (sneltram) that ceased running on the 3 March 2019 to permit the renovation of the Amsteltram. The existing tram line 5 shared the same tracks with metro line 51 between De Boelelaan/VU and Oranjebaan stations, and continues to run with some bus replacement planned as the renovation progresses. On 11 September 2019, the Amsteltram was given the line number 25 (Tramlijn 25).
The Amsteltram project website presents the route as two sections. The northern section, between Amsterdam Zuid station and Westwijk in Amstelveen, retains the Amstelveenlijn name. The section south of Westwijk to Uithoorn, phase 2 of the project, is called the Uithoornlijn.
The Amsteltram will use low-floor trams (type 15G) manufactured in Spain by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF). The trams are bi-directional with a cab at each end of the car to eliminate the requirement for turning loops. Each tram consists of 5 sections, and is 30 metres long and 2.4 metres wide. The capacity of each tram is 180 passengers including 50 seated. Sixty-three of these trams have been ordered. The trams can be coupled to run in pairs. The nose at each end of the tram is shaped so that in the event of a collision, the tram pushes aside the other vehicle rather than trapping it under the tram.
A new tram depot is being constructed south of the Westwijk terminus in Legmeerpolder on the south side of J.C. van Hattumweg. The site will have a service building (dienstgebouw) for GVB personnel and a mixed-use building (combinatiegebouw) with a rectifier station to convert AC to DC, technical space for minor repairs and storage space. Initially, the site will have storage for 26 trams with space for 10 more in future to handle the Uithoornlijn. There will be 2,500 metres of track including 11 turnouts. Construction started in September 2018 with a planned completion in the first quarter 2020. [ Wikipedia ]
Deboxing Designer Snow White. She is removed from the inner box by undoing the tabs and wires holding the doll and stage to the inner box.
I received my Disney Designer Collection Premiere Series Snow White Limited Edition Doll today. I had ordered her online at the release day, shortly after 12 AM in the morning of Saturday October 6, 2018. She is #1301 of 4100. She came in a shipper box that is approximately the same size as the LE 17 inch doll shippers. It original shipping label said GIRLS TOYS LE PR DSGN SNOW DOLL F18, and CART #: 01298. There was a small piece of masking tape stuck to the side of the box with the actual edition number (matching the CoA): 1301. Inside there was another corrugated cardboard box snugly fitting in the outer shipping box. Inside that was the actual doll box, which was covered with tissue paper, and fit snugly in the inner shipping box, with cardboard caps on the top and bottom of the doll box. The shipper box was undamaged in transit, as was the inner box and the doll box itself.
The doll box has folding panels in the front with magnetic closure, with a large design sketch of Snow White and the year 1937 in large numerals. In the background are photographers in silhouette snapping photos, and a red carpet. The back of the box has angled corners, making for a hexagonal shaped box. The sides and back of the box also has images of Snow White. The top of the box has a clear window with the title of the collection in gold lettering. Inside the front covers are replicas of the movie poster, invitation and tickets to the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, on December 21, 1937. The doll is behind a rectangular viewing window extending almost the full width and height of the box.
The inner box containing the doll and front viewing window can be slid out from the outer box. It is entirely enclosed, so can be displayed as is, without having to deal with the front covers either covering up the doll, or taking up space in front or to the sides of the inner box. The doll is on top a red carpet that has steps in front, and is flocked cardboard.
The doll herself is by far my favorite of the current Designer Premiere Series. I'm slightly biased because Snow White is my favorite Disney Princess, and am so happy that she turned out so well. I think her gown and accessories are very beautifully designed and produced. It also is very fitting for Snow White, and would be something she would wear to the premiere of her own movie.
I show her boxed, with the inner box removed from the outer box, and finally with the front viewing window removed from the inner box.
I will fully debox her tomorrow and post photos here when I do.
Deboxing my pre-ordered Elsa Limited Edition DVD Doll (that is the name of the doll on my Disney Store receipts). First the front cover is removed, revealing the clear plastic front of the inner box. The Certificate of Authenticity is below the plastic cover. She is #1875 of 5000. Then the plastic cover is removed, and the back outer cover is removed. What remains is the cardboard backing to which the doll is still attached. She is now in clear view from three sides. There were a few stray hairs in her front bangs, some of which I tucked in her bangs, some of which I trimmed.
I just got my pre-ordered Anna and Elsa Limited Edition dolls from my local Disney Store. I also got my pre-ordered Frozen Blu-ray/DVD movie combo. They had very few other Frozen items for sale, the male dolls (Classic Hans and Kristoff, and plush Kristoff) and the plush Anna and Elsa dolls. No girl's Anna or Elsa costumes, Classic Anna or Elsa dolls, or baby Sven. There were perhaps 50 people lined up in front of the entrance before the store opened at 10 am. I also got a second pre-ordered Anna from another local store today. I will take detailed photos of all my dolls, boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed.
Elsa Limited Edition Doll - 17'' - Frozen
US Disney Store Product Page
Updated 2014-03-18
SOLD OUT
$99.95
Item No. 6070040900983P
Cold standard
Elsa's crown glistens against her coiled blonde hair, her glamorous gown sparkling with rhinestones. Designed by Disney Store artists, this beautifully detailed limited edition doll is inspired by Frozen's coronation scene. See more
Magic in the details...
Please Note: Each Guest will be limited to ordering a maximum of one of this item per order.
• Limited Edition of 5000
• Includes Certificate of Authenticity
• Purple velvet cape with satin lining, royal crest embroidery, and sapphire blue clasp
• Teal satin floor-length gown with rosemaling embroidery, rhinestone accents, and chocolate-colored binding
• Black satin blouse with embroidery and rhinestone accents
• Satin mittens with rhinestone accents
• Patterned black slippers
• Golden coronation crown with royal gems
• Coiled blonde hair
• Rooted eyelashes
• Fully poseable
• Display stand included
• Comes in elegant window display packaging
• Inspired by Disney's Frozen
The bare necessities
• Ages 6+
• Plastic /polyester
• 17'' H
• Imported
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
Munition being loaded to Tornado GR4. This image was awarded 2nd place in the Royal Air Force Photography Competition.
When I realized there was Chandra data for this too, I wanted to make a version that included it.
Hubble+Chandra version is here: flic.kr/p/YgaWzG
Hubble-only version is here: flic.kr/p/XgFVxh
There's also an informative article at the Chandra website if you'd like to know why exactly there are objects in this galaxy emitting x-rays. See it here: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2017/ic10/
I used the same six pointings the Chandra people used in their gallery image.
North is NOT up. It is 59.8° clockwise from up.
Trust that Metro Adelaide will remove the colored tape from the overhead wires before electric trains start to operate...
© Henk Graalman
Stewart began his career photographing tourists on morecambe promenade and punk bands, including The Clash and The Ramones, as they performed at local venues. Ater studying photography at Blackpool and The Fylde College, Stewart moved to London in 1981, assisting for three years before setting up his own studio. He has since become one of the UK’s most sought-after photographers splitting his time been working on personal projects and advertising commissions.
In 2009 Stewart's latest book, Thrice Removed, was published by Browns Editions. In an interview with Creative Review at the launch event Browns Nick Jones explained Stewart's motivation for the project. “David came to us with the idea for a book on relationships, not just familial but also those tenuous ones we have with people we have met through someone else or those people who are interconnected through one person, in this case, David Stewart. Some of the images also comment on our relationships with societies or groups.” The launch itself was also somewhat unorthodox as Creative Review reported "Four images were represented by a Clydesdale horse called Buster, five disaffected teen age girls, who not only recreated the shot from the book, but also helped sell copies of the book on the night, two lumberjacks who performed wood chopping skills, and a chip van which provided food for the evening.
All images © David Stewart
The McLaren F1 is a sports car designed and manufactured by McLaren Automotive. Originally a concept conceived by Gordon Murray, he convinced Ron Dennis to back the project and engaged Peter Stevens to design the exterior and interior of the car. On 31 March 1998, it set the record for the world's fastest production car, reaching 231 mph (372 km/h) with the rev limiter enabled, and 243 mph (391 km/h) with the rev limiter removed.
The car features numerous proprietary designs and technologies; it is lighter and has a more streamlined structure than many modern sports cars, despite having one seat more than most similar sports cars, with the driver's seat located in the centre (and slightly forward) of two passengers' seating positions, providing driver visibility superior to that of a conventional seating layout. It features a powerful engine and is somewhat track oriented, but not to the degree that it compromises everyday usability and comfort. It was conceived as an exercise in creating what its designers hoped would be considered the ultimate road car. Despite not having been designed as a track machine, a modified race car edition of the vehicle won several races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995, where it faced purpose-built prototype race cars. Production began in 1992 and ended in 1998. In all, 106 cars were manufactured, with some variations in the design.
In 1994, the British car magazine Autocar stated in a road test regarding the F1, "The McLaren F1 is the finest driving machine yet built for the public road." and that "The F1 will be remembered as one of the great events in the history of the car, and it may possibly be the fastest production road car the world will ever see."
In August 2013, at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, Gooding & Company auctioned off chassis 066 for a record sale price of US$8.47 million.
Design and implementation:
Chief engineer Gordon Murray's design concept was a common one among designers of high-performance cars: low weight and high power. This was achieved through use of high-tech and expensive materials such as carbon fibre, titanium, gold, magnesium and kevlar. The F1 was the first production car to use a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis.
Gordon Murray had been thinking of a three-seat sports car since his youth. When Murray was waiting for a flight home from the Italian Grand Prix in 1988, he drew a sketch of a three seater sports car and proposed it to Ron Dennis. He pitched the idea of creating the ultimate road car, a concept that would be heavily influenced by the company's Formula One experience and technology and thus reflect that skill and knowledge through the McLaren F1.
Murray declared that "During this time, we were able to visit with Ayrton Senna and Honda's Tochigi Research Center. The visit related to the fact that at the time, McLaren's F1 Grand Prix cars were using Honda engines. Although it's true I had thought it would have been better to put a larger engine, the moment I drove the Honda NSX, all the benchmark cars—Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini-I had been using as references in the development of my car vanished from my mind. Of course the car we would create, the McLaren F1, needed to be faster than the NSX, but the NSX's ride quality and handling would become our new design target. Being a fan of Honda engines, I later went to Honda's Tochigi Research Center on two occasions and requested that they consider building for the McLaren F1 a 4.5 litre V10 or V12. I asked, I tried to persuade them, but in the end could not convince them to do it, and the McLaren F1 ended up equipped with a BMW engine."
Later, a pair of Ultima MK3 kit cars, chassis numbers 12 and 13, "Albert" and "Edward", the last two MK3s, were used as "mules" to test various components and concepts before the first cars were built. Number 12 was used to test the gearbox with a 7.4 litre Chevrolet V8, plus various other components such as the seats and the brakes. Number 13 was the test of the V12, plus exhaust and cooling system. When McLaren was done with the cars they destroyed both of them to keep away the specialist magazines and because they did not want the car to be associated with "kit cars".
The car was first unveiled at a launch show, 28 May 1992, at The Sporting Club in Monaco. The production version remained the same as the original prototype (XP1) except for the wing mirror which, on the XP1, was mounted at the top of the A-pillar. This car was deemed not road legal as it had no indicators at the front; McLaren was forced to make changes on the car as a result (some cars, including Ralph Lauren's, were sent back to McLaren and fitted with the prototype mirrors). The original wing mirrors also incorporated a pair of indicators which other car manufacturers would adopt several years later.
The car's safety levels were first proved when during a testing in Namibia in April 1993, a test driver wearing just shorts and a T-shirt hit a rock and rolled the first prototype car several times. The driver managed to escape unscathed. Later in the year, the second prototype (XP2) was specially built for crashtesting and passed with the front wheel arch untouched.
[Text from Wikipedia
This Lego miniland-scale McLaren F1 (1997), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 89th Build Challenge, - "Over a Million, Under a Thousand", - a challenge to build vehicles valued over one million (US) dollars, or under one thousand (US) dollars.
This particular vehicle (Chassis 066) was auctioned by the Gooding & Company Auction house in August, 2013, where it sold for $8.47 million
[+5]
“The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell
A moment yet the actor stops
And looks around to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task:
And when he's laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that's anything but gay.”
- William Makepeace Thackeray
I honestly did not plan on taking pictures today, other than my one 365. However, I had friends come over to do a project and it kind of energized me.
Why? Lifting the veil: wakey wake key ~
It’s time to awaken from the larval dream. It’s time to emerge from the chrysalis and metamorphose. It’s time to step out of the plastic straitjacket and remove the blindfold tightly tied around body and mind by insecure family, indoctrinating schooling and insincere relationships. It’s time to decide who you really are, what you’re truly here for - and why.
It’s time to ask, “what’s ‘work’, what’s a ‘job’, what’s freedom, and what in hell is everyone doing – and why?” It’s time to stop making non-existent illusory money and garnering disinterested social approval by giving your time and energy to speed the destruction of Planet Earth’s biosphere – time to live a real life in a real living world instead of running a rat race through a pseudo civilisation of loathsome architect-designed concrete toilets in a pointless maze of toxic termite towers.
Yes, yes, you’ve heard it all before and you already know what’s going on. You don’t need to be told. You know what you need to do. You already know how you really could be living, thanks very much. You’ll get around to it in your own sweet time, when you’ve paid off your debts, when your family’s grown up, when you get some free time to pause and change tack, when you retire, when you win the lottery. When you’re good and ready.
Sure, buddy. Sure sis. You’ll get around to doing the right thing when you’re dead – in your next incarnation on a planet you’ve helped to thoroughly degrade and ruin – when you’re reborn in Bangladesh or Mongolia or sub-Saharan Africa, instead of in a better, blessed place where you can actually be free and make a difference, like here and now.
It’s time to find ways to share what remains of our beautiful planet with honour and without guilt. It’s time to decide whether to live a life of truth and beauty or die for a lie you know to be false. You’ve already chosen; your actions and ‘lifestyle’ are your choice, and the time has come to reassess your decisions and remake your destiny.
It’s time to realise why you’ve given yourself such an incredibly rare and privileged life that you actually have the space, mentality and leisure time to sit back and read this little diatribe. Now is the time and you are the person on the spot. You’re the one we need to save the world - now, at this critical juncture betwixt future and past. Living for life or dying for death? Choose. Now.
The system is set up to make you think you’re either on the high road to material success or sliding down a slippery slope to a loser’s failure; yet it’s designed to ensure you fail in the end. ‘Society’ is set up to ensure anything you build or create is taken from you, bit by bit, clod by clod, and stolen from any you choose to bequeath it to. Putrescent obsolescence is built into everything you’re sold and all that you’re told.
In modern all-consuming societies you’re taxed more highly than any ancient feudal serf, and even when you buy something outright you’ve just begun paying for it with the only thing you can ever really own - your time. The time of your life is taxed and stolen by those you vote for on behalf of remote controllers who think they ‘own’ the world. There are plenty of alternatives to their manipulated systems, but they’re all carefully concealed from you.
Most humans base their entire lives – plans, hopes, fears, dreams and strategies - on outdated assumptions programmed into them by brainwashed timeservers. They smother their kids in regimental uniforms and don’t care enough to notice how playtime becomes muted, how minds are restrained and freedom retrained into uniform mindlessness. They follow in the footsteps of torpid dolts and wonder why a regimented life is boringly doleful. Trained to subservience by millennia of feuding feudalists, humankind can only approach absolute truths (and long term survival) by roundabout routes that invariably lead people further astray.
Schooling isn’t education. It’s a system where open minds are successfully closed and everything not forbidden is compulsory. ‘Modern’ schooling ensures that cheats always prosper and that bullies and liars always prevail in the ‘real’ outside world of business and finance. Today’s educational establishments are dopey money factories designed to extort obedient volunteer slaves. No intelligent independent minds are found in them; none can survive there.
Schools, colleges and universities are quagmires of brainwashing, cultural imperialism and mindless training for destructive jobs that will soon cease to exist – training yards designed to serve the momentary needs of industries owned and run by short sighted paranoid sociopaths. They’re the birthplace of hierarchy and corruption. You know it’s true. Any real learning achieved is incidental. Scores and scoring a cushy job where you can lord it over others are everything. Learning and knowledge are secondary, sacrificial goals.
The system is thoroughly rigged by and for the worst elements to make sure that only most egregious people rise to the top of the dung heap and prosper. Only the worst control freaks and insecure jerks with killer ‘instincts’ claw their way to the summit. You know it’s true. There’s no ‘survival of the fittest’ (or even of the most adaptable) involved. Societies aren’t interested in change and evolution, but in security, status and stasis. And sooner or later stasis always means extinction, not survival.
But you can be different. So can your children. Deny the unloving death of blind conformity and confirm a free loving life with every action. Be what you always wanted to be, ’ere it harm none. If you’re well intentioned and wise the multiverse will provide. Choose. Now.
People are bigger than their straightjackets. You have the power to remove any blindfold and widen your vision whenever you choose. You have the ability to concentrate, meditate, cogitate and liberate. Only you can do it. Only you can free yourself, heal yourself, grow and learn. No-one can do it for you and anyone who says they can is a liar you need to avoid. And you have to do these things or die blind, lonely and incomplete before your time.
You’re a psychic immortal who gets precisely what you created. Only when people develop the inner divining and dowsing facilities latently inherent in all conscious beings are they able to discern truth from lies –able to actually tell the truth. You can only be free when you drop all that cultural conditioning and learn to open your inner sight. You can only decide what’s what, what to do and why when you have genuine personal insight.
Welcome to the new Aeon, a time when dangerous old myths can finally be laid to rest and healthier new legends allowed to arise from the ashes of yesterday’s ignorance.
One easy way to learn the truth is to ask two simple questions; ‘Why?’, and ‘Who Profits?’ Keep these liberating queries in mind as you progress onward…
Here’s a handy list of dangerous myths we need to lay to rest (and drive stakes through the hearts of. Repeatedly).
‘What did you do to save the world, daddy/mummy?’
Lie #1: The planet will soak up any mess humans make.
It won’t - not in any timeframe recognisable by you. We’ll all be dead before the planet is repaired and reforested unless WE go out and clean up our messes, stop the destruction of living treasures, replant entire continents of forests and weed and nourish them for generations, starting yesterday. Most brain-deprived, depraved ‘leaders’ seem to think the planet merely needs to be repaved. Don’t fall for their bandaid ‘solutions’. Opt out of death-dealing ‘civilisation’ and help start fresh societies in the green living world beyond the walls.
1b: Trees are a renewable resource. Forests will grow back if we cut them down.
They won’t. They haven’t. When the soil has washed away, the seed stock is gone and rainfall has disappeared (because forests make most of our rain, and store most of our fresh water) you’ve killed all the most interesting, nourishing and beneficial plants and animals and inherit a desert of sand, clay and rocks. It takes centuries for trees to be large enough, with large enough hollows, to support viable animal populations – including humans. Forests without animals are scrubby denuded death zones bereft of nutrients.
Idiots are still cutting down trees for money when there are better, cleaner, cheaper and totally renewable solutions for everything provided by natural forests - for everything except clean water, food and air! Somewhere near you, now, today, a forest is being felled. Help anyone who’s trying to stop them. Now.
Without global forests you’ll have no water fit to drink, no air fit to breathe and no crops to eat. The truth isn’t ‘out there’ – it’s obvious to any who actually look with unblinkered eyes.
Lie #2: Burning toxic fuels with lethal exhausts isn’t dangerous to the ecosystem or to people, and we need to keep doing it to fuel a prosperous civilisation.
It is. We don’t. If you don’t know about better technologies that are already available your head is in the sand with the in dust ‘realists’, looking for another oilfield or coal seam to vampirise. Some advanced nations are already totally fuelled by clean renewable energy. Literally hundreds of patents for new energy technologies are literally suppressed and stolen by ‘intelligence’ and ‘the military’ on behalf of ruthless killer corporations every year. Clean, free energy systems have been available for over a century and repeatedly eliminated, along with their investors (see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/free%20energy ). One name should suffice to explain much; Nikola Tesla.
The truth isn’t ‘out there’ – it’s being actively suppressed all around you. Why? The answer is a nested series of onion skins; the Russian dolls of money, control and power wrapped round an inner core of ultimate terrified insecurity.
2b: Human-made global warming is a lie spread by some unnameable group to control our lives and make us poorer.
It isn’t. The fossil fuel power mongers have lied to you so successfully that many or most people have been convinced ecologists have some vested interest in misleading them – instead of the profiteering planet killers who make gazillions from mining and selling you toxic and unnecessary products. CO2 IS a ‘greenhouse gas’, whose levels have dictated global temperatures for billions of years.
Whether we inject enough heat into the biosphere to forestall an impending cyclic ice age or simply create a global desert, every industry that injects carbon dioxide into the biosphere is doing so as a byproduct of pumping far more deadly chemicals into your body all the time, in the interests of meaningless profit. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply lying or ignorant.
Any time someone tells you that carbon dioxide isn’t a greenhouse gas or that manmade global warming is a lie, challenge them for some data – any real facts – and you won’t get any that aren’t constructs of half-truths, misdirecting distractions and outright lies. Humans ARE heating the planet with toxic emissions regardless of what industry shills and conspiratorial ignoramuses tell you (see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/co2 ).
Time for an inconvenient and little-appreciated fact: when climate scientists tell you there will be, say, a five degree Celsius rise in global temperature they’re talking about global averages – including sea temperatures, which will hardly rise at all. A ‘five degree average rise’ means a TEN DEGREE rise - or more - on the land (outside the tropics) – where you and everything that makes it possible for you to survive actually lives. Forget drowning cities and sinking islands – all that will be left is desert and dust if we allow our ‘leaders’ to keep taking bribes from blindly competitive in dust ‘realists’.
There is no truth on the side of profiteering corporations, surprisingly enough – and the only ‘invested interest’ environmentalists have is the wish to survive and thrive. Have you heard of the Precautionary Principle? If you haven’t, google it. The truth isn’t ‘out there’, it’s simple: stop using toxic products fuelled by toxic fuels that make profits for toxic monopolies run by toxic people.
Authorised Docterds
Lie #3: We’re repeatedly informed that ‘education is liberation’. It isn’t. Learning is liberation; education swiftly becomes rote indoctrination. The most dangerous, authoritarian ignoramuses are those who stayed in school the longest. No-one with a doctorate is entirely sane. No-one who demands money in exchange for healing the sick, protecting another’s rights and freedom, repairing the ecosystem or providing education can be trusted; they know nothing of truth and are part of the problem, not the solution. Anyone who profits from another’s misery, toil or terror is actually, functionally, a heartless sociopath.
In ‘advanced’ notions today, more people die from medical errors than from any other cause. Only a few years ago docterds ensured that just about everyone in ‘developed’ notions had organs removed from their bodies ‘just in case’ something went wrong. Every child was expected to have their tonsils and adenoids (lymph glands), appendix and wisdom teeth ‘removed’, just in case their docterd couldn’t afford a flashier car or another mistress. And many an operation led to another, to correct the mistakes made in the first. It was all bullshit and almost everyone fell for it, because, like priests and lawyers, docterds claim a false monopoly on access to life and death and rule only by terror. See hermetic.blog.com/2012/09/16/freeing-god’s-slaves-the-e...
Today fluoridation, toxic vaccines, poisonous drugs and a host of other techniques bestow slow death and perpetual dissolution on the incredibly patient (trusting, ignorant and terrified) patient.
See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/fluoridation and nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/vaccines
Your health and mind are in your hands. Sawbones/surgeons can occasionally be handy in real emergencies but best avoided at all other times. Once in a while you may damage yourself so much you need some repairs, but the only actual healing is done by you, your self, your body. The placebo effect – whereby if you believe something will heal you it will, regardless of whether it has any active ingredients or not – is estimated by reputable sources as being around forty percent – that’s 40%! This means that almost half of all cures are widely accepted as being basically magical –consciousness-driven - in nature. The other sixty percent are as well.
Time for some Truths
Cui Bono? Who Profits? Who is it good for?
Truth #1: Who profits? No-one who doesn’t have another planet or two readily available profits from old style industrial societies. Yet there will always be some deluded power monger willing to kill millions – to wreck an entire planet and civilisation - so that they can have a flashier car or another mansion complex surrounded by bodyguards and electric fences.
There are always those who’ve been so successfully brainwashed they’ll actually believe that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Messiah, a Redeemer, a big bearded genocidal racist asshole in the sky, his fallen foes or his mythical toady son are real – and these naïfs make fine prey for patriarchal paedophilic proselytising pederast priests. Who but the most ignorant innocents fall for such superstitious claptrap? Who but an insecure control freak with delusions of grandeur would want to interpose themselves as a middleman between you and your divine psychic heritage?
Anyone who tells you the Divine is only available through some frock wearing po-faced priest, or from some Bronze Age tome cobbled together by merciless barbaric dictators, or through some graven image or guru or savant, is lying. All who ‘worship’ some odd bod god or other fetish are simply trained to doff the forelock, kneel, bow, scrape and be subservient to a dead or deadly psychopathic control freak. Watch out, little girls! Bums to the wall, boys!
Christinanity, Islime and Moronism – to name a few - are nothing more than some of the more recent pernicious death cults focused on lies of pies in the skies at the expense of happy, healthy lives in the only real place - here and now. All other ‘great religions’ are as bad or worse. Religion is a region with a li(e) in it. But they make gigantic tax-free profits! Cui bono?
The truth is always simple. The only beliefs that are true are those that spread life, light, health and diversity – the hallmarks of true survival and wisdom. Everything else is deceptive bullshit.
If you really want to learn how to access the godhead that is the birthright and crown of all beings, all you have to do is listen to the endless programs running through the rat wheel of your mind – and transcend them. Everyone can do it if they try, but the younger and fresher you start deprogramming yourself and tuning into ‘higher’ or ‘deeper’ consciousness the better. See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/meditation and nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/magic if you want to learn how.
Enlightenment will always be available to any true seeker with an open mind and compassionate heart. Guides are always available if you simply search, but accept no substitute for self-gained awareness – and anyone who demands money in exchange for spreading the light of universal awareness is not a person you want anything to do with.
The Lore of the Land
Truth #2: There is no government. There is no law. There are no companies or corporations. Money does not exist. They are fables, illusions, widely accepted truisms – but they aren’t things. They don’t actually exist, except as agreements between people. They have no inherent power. They are clever pernicious illusions.
If you take a closer look you’ll discover that none of your country’s laws has a basis in any fact. In fact, you’ll find that your nation is also merely a notion, a fable agreed to by a sectional segment of some of the people; not all, or even necessarily most, but merely those who profit the most from the fable.
No ‘higher power’ or external ‘divine plan’ or government controls your life. No dog, no master. Thou art god(dess). All human-made laws are simply constructs and contracts, and none are writ in stone. The only real inherent law is the lore or karma and dharma – the ‘golden rule’: Do unto others as you’d be done by. It’s the only law and lore that works, and needs no intercessor or interpreter, no priest, monk, scholar or savant to preserve or transmit through the ages. It’s free for all, forever.
The real Law is no mystery and has no officers. It needs no prophets, liars/lawyers, judges or arbitrators. As above, so below. You are part of a giant hologram, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and every part contains the whole. In a holographic universe where everyone shares the same consciousness, anything you do to or for anyone else is something you do to or for your self.
Don’t kid yourself that ‘good deeds for others will reap rewards’. Of course they will. But anything you do for your children, family or strangers you’re actually doing for yourself. Caring about your family more than anyone else is perfectly understandable on a mechanical, biological and genetic level – but it’s also the basis for the worst traits of humankind. Racism, genocide, slavery and most forms of discrimination are outgrowths of such ‘love’, which is actually selfish at its root. Everyone is your family.
In fact, everyone is you, and you are everyone, for thou art god(dess), recreating the manifest world from instant to moment at a level beyond and behind linguistic thought.
Abundance and Scarcity: It’s Falseconomy, Stupid!
Truth #3: Money doesn’t exist. It’s a global pyramid scam whereby only the first ones in get to the top of the pyramid – everyone else loses. We have the ability to provide everyone on the planet with enough food, water and shelter – but we don’t appear to have enough of an entirely imaginary commodity to do it with. Something is very wrong.
The ‘science’ of economics is bullshit, as any true scientist can tell you. Arbitrary rules are continually altered and no ‘economist’ can make accurate predictions based on ‘economics’. It’s just another scam to make you think ‘authorities’ know what they’re doing and can be trusted to look after your best interests. Lol.
Money is simply invented. It’s created at the flick of a keyboard. It’s all made up; simply invented by (in)vested interests with ‘interest’. When the illusion is so arranged as to make it appear the ‘economy’ is circling the drain you go down the tubes – but the banksters, monarchs and in dust realists who own actual, tangible things don’t, as we all ought to recognise. This happens regularly and repeatedly. I won’t go on – see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/banksters and never take out a loan. Don’t use banks. There are plenty of alternatives.
Become as self-sufficient and live as sustainably as possible.
People are told they must pay money to inhabit a patch of the planet, and because they’ve been trained to accept a vast raft of lies by feudal societies run by hideous robber barons surrounded by gunmen they simply accept it.
People are told they must go to school and work every day to provide enough food, water, shelter and entertainment for themselves and their families. It’s a lie. That only has to happen because we’ve allowed industrious robber barons and banksters to steal everything and arrange it that way when we have a wide choice of much better possibilities. Now, at the dawn of the Third Millennium, the new industrious revolution has begun and advancing automation, nanotech and new processed like 3d printing mean that the jig is up. Full ‘employment’ is no longer possible or desirable. Now we have to provide shelter, food, water, transport and other necessities to everyone, even the rich, for free – because now, at last, we can!
If you work at any job that isn’t actively healing the planet you’re almost certainly actively destroying it. If you go into debt you’re destroying it. If you flush a toilet into a river or ocean, if you use fossil fuelled transport to and from work or to power your home (and nuclear fuels are fossil fuels, too) you’re destroying it. If you aren’t growing at least some of your own food and medicine you’re destroying it. If you leave your kids in some regimented school (or even a childcare centre) to be mindlessly raised to do and be the same as you were brainwashed into, you’re destroying it – and them.
If you’re trapped on a treadmill with no easy way out but to simply jump off and take your chances – JUMP OFF.
You’ll be so glad you did!
Competitiveness = Death Dealers
Truth #4: The ‘killer instinct’ is no instinct – it’s a result of training. Bullies and psychopaths are made, not born – and they can be unmade if you catch, restrain and retrain them early enough. Without bullying children don’t learn hate, fear and fight. Without bullies children don’t learn to be subservient. Bullies must be separated from other kids until they can be trusted among them. The same is true for adults.
The only reason to have a gun is to murder. They’re made for no other reason. They’re the coward’s long distance death dealing weapon of choice. Only people terrified of their neighbours own guns – and that, of course, terrifies their neighbours. Violence begets violence and weapons beget weapons. They’re feedback loops. Weapon ownership is always an arms race, the stupid doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction writ small for small minded loony hoons, terrified cowards and immature halfwits who like to menace others. Anyone who wants a gun – like anyone who wants a presidency – is precisely the person you don’t want to trust with one.
Allowing gun ownership in human society is just a form of collective lunacy. No popguns will save you from a modern army – or government swat team. They’ll just get you killed more quickly and assuredly. That’s the real lesson of modern history, for anyone who cares to look; don’t fall for the lies of weapon profiteers. In modern conflicts the survivors are those who successfully avoid the fighting. Save your money and save a life; you can’t have peace with a gun in your hand and it’s almost certain that no-one will aim one at you if you don’t. War or peace; you can’t serve two masters. Choose. Now.
All free societies have a fine time without weaponised populations perpetually living under a Sword of Damocles. The US, for instance, is not a free society but a corporatocracy that’s had its freedoms surgically removed since neoconmen ensured King George II stole the (p)residency. Freedom is free. How could it be otherwise? If you have to do something to defend or promote ‘freedom’, it isn’t freedom and you aren’t free. The contrary view is oxymoronic absurdity.
Flags are just coloured rags used to blindfold sacrificial lambs and enshroud their mangled bodies. Wars are always fought to enrich a few cowardly, spiteful old dorks and their trophy girlfriends hiding in some castle or penthouse. There is no honour involved in killing – it’s simply the worst form of working for The Man.
The only people who profit from wars and weapons are weapon makers, ammunition merchants, oil barons and the politicians they coerce and bribe. No-one who kills for a wage is anything but a (poorly) paid killer. This includes virtually all soldiers – not just mercenaries – and everyone who makes a profit from raising, hunting or killing animals for food.
You may have fallen for the bullshit that humans need to eat corpses to be healthy. The opposite is true. No-one (regardless of blood type or haplogroup) needs meat to survive. It’s a choice, a habit, an appetite – an addiction, nothing more.
Cattle and ‘meat animals’ are condemned to lives of pain and torture. They’re castrated, poisoned, fed garbage, corralled into cages, beaten, shocked and terrified into submission (rather like modern domesticated primates). If you saw what happens to animals before they end up in your mouth you wouldn’t touch the poisons collected at the top of the food chain and pump them through your bloodstream. Most young kids vomit the first time they’re fed eggs or meat. Ever wonder why?
Before you accept the lie that ‘vegetarians kill too – everything kills to survive’, consider that eating the fruits, vegetables and seeds of plants doesn’t kill any plant. The plant lives on, and reproduces. Just on more lie told by profiteers; one more unexamined false assumption.
If you choose to create endless unnecessary suffering by slaughtering innocent, terrified animals you deserve all that’s coming to you. Remember that ‘karma’ thing? Choose. Now.
See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/vegetarianism
The Road to Hell is Paved with False Assumptions
When we’re kids we all ask, “Why?” Some kids mean, “Why does it work like that?” Others are asking, “Why on Earth would people do something so stupid?”
Bereft of imagination, in dust ‘realists’ force everyone to inhabit their bland, artless, heartless concrete toilets - blocky headstones designed by award winning wannabes and built by money-mastered so called craftsmen. Chintzy malls and ugly mausoleums masquerading as a civilisation. We can do much, much better.
Everything we’ve built has foundations of clay. All our sciences, beliefs and political systems are based on antiquated false assumptions; on lies, to be absolutely clear. Truth is always in here, within, waiting to be recognised by a freshly awakening mind. It isn’t going anywhere – unlike the outmoded scams perpetuated by a dying breed of conmen and the pernicious women hiding behind their thrones.
You’d think they’d know by now - you can service two mistresses but you can’t serve two masters! Life or Mammoney: Choose! Now!
It’s beyond the scope of this little entreaty to cover all these bases in detail – but they’re all explored in more (and more) depth at this website: become one of the New Illuminati by perusing truths and subscribing via one of the many ways available @ nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/
- Welcome to the New Millennium and have a great New Aeon
R. Ayana
For more by R, Ayana see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/r.%20ayana
- See ‘Older Posts’ at the end of each section
From nexusilluminati.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/why-lifting-veil-...
Batley Box at the now removed Lady Anne Crossing, set to be demolished one day in the next few week, Box destroyed & taken away in a skip 10/03/25. See's the 9M11 York to Liverpool Lime Street pass @ 12.43pm. Sad but it won't see many more trains here, More history gone from local railway. link to a 1960 photo here www.flickr.com/photos/thanoz/2989170929
Agfa Optima 200 Sensor (second version).
German viewfinder camera produced c.1969.
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A view on the Body with the Meter Unit removed.
There is a (copper?) Disk there (see red arrow).
Probably only to protect the underside of the Meter. Maybe also against EM interference ??
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WARNING :
This image is intended as a reference for the more experienced camera service man. If you have no experience in camera repair please do yourself a favor and send your camera to a professional service shop. It would be a pity to lose a vintage camera in a failed repair attempt !
My 2013 Disney Parks Mermaid Ariel 12'' Doll has been completely deboxed. She is standing, supported by a Kaiser doll stand (not included with the doll), and is photographed from various angles.
The 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel Doll has a few major changes from the 2011 Parks Mermaid Ariel Doll. She has the face and hair of the 2012 Disney Store Classic Ariel doll, which I find more attractive than the old Parks doll. She has the outfit and accessories of the old 2011 Parks doll, except that the tulle and organza overskirts have been removed. She has the body of the 2011 Parks dolls, with non-articulated arms, and rubber legs with internal knee joints and fixed angled feet. I find that the new Ariel is a more attractive and movie accurate doll. As with the old doll, the only glitter is on her shell bra, which doesn't shed. That makes the Parks doll definitely better as a play doll than the current Disney Store Ariel dolls.
Following is a detailed comparative review of the 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel Doll versus the 2011 Parks Mermaid Ariel doll. The review is divided in various physical categories.
Head and Face: The 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel doll has the same head and face as the 2012 Disney Store Classic Ariel doll, with a couple of minor differences. Her eyebrows are a little lighter, and the rouge on her cheeks applied more heavily. She has the same head and face mold as the 2011 Parks doll, but her face is painted very differently. Her big wide open blue green eyes are little bluer and brighter, her pupils are smaller, and more oval. She is also glancing severely to her right. The old doll was looking straight ahead, but glancing up slightly. She has a little silver eyeshadow, whereas the old doll has light pink eyeshadow. Both dolls have four eyelashes over each eye, but the new doll's lashes are much thicker and pointed more upwards. Her rusty brown eyebrows are longer and thicker. The new doll has a bit more rouge on her cheeks. She has a small straight now. She has a happy open mouthed smile, with light pink lips. The old doll has a wider mouth, with dark pink lips, and her mouth is more open. The new doll's face is prettier, livelier and more movie accurate.
Hair: The 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel doll has the same hair as the 2012 Disney Store Classic Ariel doll, but with some significant differences. Her bright red hair waist length is mostly straight, ending in gelled curls. It is parted on her right side (opposite to that of the movie character). To keep it out of her face, it is gelled around her forehead. There is also a portion that would normally be shaped into her iconic long curving bang (as on the 2011 Parks Ariel). Instead it is tied with a rubber band, and formed into a tubular curl, to which the starfish ornament is attached (which also happens to hide the rubber band). Her hair is considerable less full than the 2012 Disney Store Ariel, and more neatly arranged, flowing past her shoulders, rather than surrounding them. The 2011 doll has the same bright red color hair, but it is a couple of inches longer, and straighter, with only gentle soft curls at the ends. She has the proper part on her left side, with the very long stiff curly bang going across her forehead to fall down the right side of her face. Despite the part on the wrong side, and the lack of the curly bang, I think the 2013 doll has more attractive hair.
Outfit: The 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel doll has the same outfit as the 2011 Parks doll except for one major change. The floor length tulle and organza overskirt that was attached to the waist of her tail is now gone. I never cared for it, and I though it made Ariel appear like a Polynesian dancer, so I'm glad it was removed. Now Ariel looks like her normal Mermaid self. Her outfit consists of a tinseled and sequined dark green tail that is sparkly without having any glitter. There are fins at the waist and tail ends, made of glittering light green tulle. The tail fins are flat and hemmed, so they stay their shape whether she is standing or lying down. There is glitter in the fins, but it seems to bee embedded in the cloth so it doesn't shed. Her bra (or bikini top) is two layers. The base layer is green satin, that has a velcro fastener in the back, and a strap that ties behind the neck. Over the green bra is sewn a bright purple glitter covered cloth that is shaped like two clam shells.
Accessories: They 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel doll has the same accessories as the 2011 Parks Ariel. They have a light purple hair brush with a blue green gemstone on the back. They also have a large 2 inch starfish shaped ornament in her hair, over the left side of her face. The starfish is made of green foil backed cloth and is iridescen. There is a large green gem at its center. The brush is useless for actually maintaining her hair, but the hair ornament is simple but very nice looking.
Body: Both the 2011 and 2013 Parks Mermaid Ariel dolls have the same body. The arms are not articulated. The elbows and wrists are slightly bent in fixed positions. They have rubber legs which have internal knee joints and fixed angled feet. The hip joints allow them to sit down with their legs together and back straight up. But the knees can only bend about 40 degrees, so their legs stick out when they are sitting. In their tails, the dolls stand 11 3/4 inches tall. Their skin tone is medium flesh tone.
Packaging: The 2013 Parks doll box is now rectangular, at 13'' H x 7 1/4'' W x 2 1/2'' D. The back and bottom are of double thickness cardboard, to which the doll and accessories are attached. There is a clear plastic window attached to the backing via tabs, through which the doll can be viewed from 3 sides and the top. On the back is a current Disney Princess promotional image, with background scenes from Disney Parks specific to each Princess. The box is fairly easy to take apart without damaging it, and it is sturdy and reusable.
The 2011 Parks doll box is semi-cylindrical, which measures 13 3/4'' H x 7 1/4'' W x 4'' D, so it is considerably larger than the new doll boxes. The front of the box is clear plastic, that is semi-cylindrical, so the doll can be seen from all sides except the back. The top cover is also clear plastic, and is removable. The backing with the doll attached is a separate piece that is completely removable from the box, which is necessary to debox the doll. The deboxing is trickier than for DS dolls or the 2013 Parks dolls. The box is reusable, and is sturdier than the 2013 Parks doll box.
2013 Disney Parks 12'' Princess Dolls Released in Disneyland
Disneyland Resort Anaheim (DLR) finally has the new 2013 Disney Parks 12'' Princess Dolls, which have been available in Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney World since May 2013. The are still priced at $19.95 each, which is basically twice the price of the equivalent Disney Store doll (which is frequently on sale for $10 each). They are a joint release by Disney Theme Parks Merchandise (USA) and EuroDisney (Disneyland Paris).
As of June 30, 2013, DLR had 7 of the 10 new dolls available: Cinderella, Aurora, Mermaid Ariel, Wedding Ariel, Belle, Jasmine and Rapunzel. Missing were the new Snow White, Tiana and Tinker Bell. All of the old versions of the dolls were still available. They were still selling the old (2012) Merida doll that was joint Disney Store and Disney Parks release. There hasn't been a new version released by Disney Parks so far. I bought them at the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney. The Emporium on Main Street in Disneyland had no Disney Parks Princess dolls for sale.
I will photograph them boxed, during deboxing and fully deboxed. They will also be reviewed and compared with other versions of the Disney Princess dolls.
I first started using a digital DSLR Easter weekend ten years ago and at about the same time I started using Flickr and after ten years and many, many photographs I am still surprised by the fact that I discover something new almost every day.
Today I thought that it might be a good idea to photograph scenes and events relating to Easter so I visited Merrion Square with the intention of photographing this public art installation because I thought that it depicted the removing of Jesus from the cross. While I was photographing a young girl asked her mother “is that God lying on a table” but I discovered that it is a lot more complicated that that.
This figurative sculpture, The Victims originated as a part of an unexecuted project for a war memorial for Washington, DC. The artist, Andrew O’Connor, conceived the idea of a huge war memorial in about 1918 and worked on the project until at least 1931. However, no such monument was ever commissioned from him. The memorial consisted of three sections. The first of which was a group of three figures; a dead soldier strapped to a bier, mourned by his wife and his mother. The figure of the dead soldier is The Victim, inscribed with the words; ‘Naked you came into the world’, the kneeling figure of The Wife with her hands clasped in prayer is variously called The Virgin or Mother of Sorrows. She is inscribed; ‘As cranes chanting their dolorous notes traverse the sky’ which is taken from a translation of Dante’s Inferno. The standing female figure of The Mother of the Hero leans mournfully on her left elbow. The Victim was presented by the family of the sculptor to the Dublin Municipal Gallery (now Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane) in 1947 while the other two figures were presented to the gallery by the sculptor in 1938. As is often the case with O’Connor’s work he produced other versions of some of these figures. A plaster version of The Victim is in the O’Connor family collection and a version of The Wife is at the Tate Gallery, London. The group would have been assembled with The Victim on a raised plinth, his wife kneeling at his head, his mother standing at his feet. The Victims was installed in 1976 following an exhibition to mark the centenary of the sculptor’s birth at Trinity College Dublin in 1974. It would appear that it was not until 1974 that the three figures were displayed together as originally intended creating this uncompromising figurative representation of the victims of war.
Born in Worchester, Massachusetts, USA in 1874, Andrew O’Connor was the son of an Irish-American sculptor of the same name. Having studied under his father, O’Connor Jr. began working regularly on public monuments and funerary commissions in the United States. In London c.1894-8, he met John Singer Sargent and assisted him on reliefs for his Boston Library decorations. Andrew O’Connor’s style was formulated by the time he first visited Paris in about 1903 and his earliest work is in the Franco-American style which had become popular in America by 1900. Unlike the majority of other American sculptors he remained in France and worked from a Paris studio up to 1914. From 1906 on he exhibited annually at the Salon in Paris and at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in 1907. He then returned to the USA from 1914 to the mid 1920s and received numerous commissions for funerary and public monuments including the monument to Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois and the Theodore Roosevelt memorial at Glenview, Chicago. O’Connor spent his last years in Europe, first in Paris, then from c. 1932 between Ireland and London. He resided in Dublin for the last seven months of his life and passed away at his home at No.77 Merrion Square.
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
Rollei B35
Small German 35mm camera.
I bought this camera cheap by Internet and once arrived discovered why. When i tried to focus on a close distance the Frontlens fell of the camera :-(
Problem was that the Triotar frontlens was not screwed in deep enough when its collar was tightened by one of the former owners. In that case the turning of the Focusring is not blocked any more by its endstops.
To reach the collar you have to disassemble the frontlens.
Start by removing the flat plastic ring on the front of the lens. It has a small square hole were you can put a i.e. a pin in and try to get this pin between the plastic ring and the metal underneath. The ring is (in this case) lightly glued so you can lift it a bit.
Edit 23/01/2010 : As the infinity focus of the lens was allready spoiled by a former owner i didn't mark the rotaional position of the lenstubus as would be the standard procedure. Instead of that i adjusted the lens on infinity using an auto-collimator during re-assembly.
On Dec. 13, contractor crews removed the final drill pad at the SR 203 worksite between Carnation and Duvall. The drill pads provide a level space to set heavy equipment as we install drain systems under the highway and in the hillside above. This week crews will work on removing the old, broken asphalt. Then they will pave a new road on top. A signed detour remains in place as this work continues through mid-January.
Frozen Fever Elsa has been fully deboxed. To fully show off her outfit, the orange string has been removed from her hands, and her hair untacked from her cape. She is posed standing, her supported by the included display stand.
Detailed photos of my Frozen Fever Elsa Limited Edition 17'' doll. I got her in store on release day, Tuesday November 3, 2015. She is #1559 of 5000. She is shown boxed, during deboxing and fully deboxed. I also show her with comparable dolls.
Her only accessory is a red string that was used to connect all the birthday presents for Anna. I decided to remove the string for the final photos of her fully deboxed. Her long braid was tacked to her outfit in two places with nylon thread. I cut the lower thread so her cape could be fully opened, but I decided to leave the upper one alone, so the braid would stay in place nicely draped over her shoulder. I show her ice heels from various angles. It has the same mold as the ice heels of the other two SQ LE 17'' Elsa dolls (LE 2500 and LE 100), but is transparent light blue green, with fine embedded glitter and a shiny iridescent surface. It was difficult to show the true beauty of the shoes in photographs.
Limited Edition Elsa Doll - Frozen Fever - 17''
$119.95
Item No. 6003040901307P
US Disney Store
Released in stores 2015-11-03
Released online 2015-11-04
Sold out online in less than 10 minutes
Purchased in store 2015-11-03
#1559 of 5000
Flowerful
Our latest Elsa Limited Edition doll is inspired by the short Frozen Fever. Elegant in aqua gown with sheer cape overlay, and adorned with shimmering floral details, fine embroidery and faceted gems, Elsa makes every day more perfect!
Magic in the details...
Please Note: Purchase of this item is limited to 1 per Guest.
• Limited Edition of 5000
• Includes Certificate of Authenticity
• Two-toned ombre print gown with green rhinestones and metallic embroidered detailing
• Mesh sleeve and décolletage with floral embroidery and gemstone trim
• Flowing, sheer organza cape with metallic floral embroidery, iridescent frosted glitter accents, and clear faceted gems
• Beautifully braided hair with shimmering golden highlights and floral fixtures
• Rooted eyelashes
• Glittering translucent shoes
• Satin cord accessory
• Fully poseable
• Display stand included
• Comes in elegant window display packaging
• Inspired by the Disney animated short Frozen Fever
The bare necessities
• Ages 6+
• Plastic /polyester
• 17'' H
• Imported
Safety
WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD - Small Parts. Not for children under 3 years.
Around April 1971 on Dudleys Fields Estate a trolleybus replacement 20-years-old Birmingham Guy Arab bus (of the 2564 JOJ564 series) is delayed whilst F J Berry of Leicester remove a bracket arm from a traction pole.
This infrastructure was installed in 1961 with trolleybuses ceasing to use this road in October 1970.
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