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The nights have been consistently below zero for the last week or so, and at church this morning I found this single pane glass window with the most unbelievable feather frost I've ever seen.
This is just one of the many jaw-dropping pictures I took of the frost patterns. I'm dumbstruck at the intricate beauty of these natural formations. I can't imagine how they are formed, and I can even scarce believe my eyes themselves as I look at these pictures!
I've uploaded these in full resolution so that you can see them in full detail. Be sure to view "All Sizes" to see the highest resolution version, and spend some time scanning around the frame. The structure is beyond awesome. It leaves me speechless.
Natural History Museum ca.1941
The University of Aarhus, which dates from 1931, is a unique and coherent university campus with consistent architecture, homogenous use of yellow brickwork and adaptation to the landscape. The university has won renown and praise as an integrated complex which unites the best aspects of functionalism with solid Danish traditions in form and materials.
The competition for the university was won by the architects Kay Fisker, C. F. Møller og Povl Stegmann in 1931. Stegman left the partnership in 1937, Fisker in 1942 and C. F. Møller Architects has been in charge of the continued architectural development and building design of the university until today.
The University of Aarhus, with its extensive park in central Aarhus, includes teaching rooms, offices, libraries, workshops and student accommodation. The university has a distinct homogeneous building style and utilises the natural contours of the landscape. The campus has emerged around a distinct moraine gorge and the buildings for the departments and faculties are placed on the slopes, from the main buildings alongside the ring road to the center of the city at Nørreport. All throughout the campus, the buildings are variations of the same clear-cut prismatic volume with pitched roofs, oriented orthogonally to form individual architectural clusters sharing the same vocabulary. The way the buildings emerge from the landscape makes them seem to grow from it, rather than being superimposed on the site.
The original scheme for the campus park was made by the famous Danish landscape architect C. Th. Sørensen. Until the death of C. Th. Sørensens in 1979 the development of the park areas were conducted in a close cooperation between C. Th. Sørensen, C. F. Møller and the local park authorities. Since 1979 C. F. Møller Architects - in cooperation with the staff at the university - has continued the intentions of the original scheme for the park, and today the park is a beautiful, green area and an immense contribution to both the university and the city in general.
In 2001, C. F. Møller Architects prepared a new masterplan for the long and short term development of the university. Although the university has been extended continuously for more than 75 years, the original masterplan and design principles have been maintained, and have proven a simple yet versatile tool to create a timeless and coherent architectural expression adaptable to changing programs. Today, the university is officially recognized as a Danish national architectural treasure and is internationally renowned as an excellent example of early modern university campus planning.
Germany's energy crisis threatens a family-run business:
The Duran: Putin delivers confident Federal assembly speech, suspense start nuclear treaty:
en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70565
Presidential Address to Federal Assembly
Vladimir Putin delivered his Address to the Federal Assembly. The ceremony took place in Gostiny Dvor, Moscow.
February 21, 2023 13:50
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,
Members of the Federation Assembly – senators, State Duma deputies,
Citizens of Russia,
This Presidential Address comes, as we all know, at a difficult, watershed period for our country. This is a time of radical, irreversible change in the entire world, of crucial historical events that will determine the future of our country and our people, a time when every one of us bears a colossal responsibility.
One year ago, to protect the people in our historical lands, to ensure the security of our country and to eliminate the threat coming from the neo-Nazi regime that had taken hold in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to begin the special military operation. Step by step, carefully and consistently we will deal with the tasks we have at hand.
Since 2014, Donbass has been fighting for the right to live in their land and to speak their native tongue. It fought and never gave up amid the blockade, constant shelling and the Kiev regime’s overt hatred. It hoped and waited that Russia would come to help.
In the meantime, as you know well, we were doing everything in our power to solve this problem by peaceful means, and patiently conducted talks on a peaceful solution to this devastating conflict.
This appalling method of deception has been tried and tested many times before. They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this shame. The concepts of honour, trust, and decency are not for them.
Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world. It turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same disdain, like a master. After all, they cynically deceived them too, tricked them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN Security Council resolutions on Donbass. Indeed, the Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.
We firmly defend our interests as well as our belief that in today’s world there should be no division into so-called civilised countries and all the rest and that there is a need for an honest partnership that rejects any exclusivity, especially an aggressive one.
We were open and sincerely ready for a constructive dialogue with the West; we said and insisted that both Europe and the whole world needed an indivisible security system equal for all countries, and for many years we suggested that our partners discuss this idea together and work on its implementation. But in response, we received either an indistinct or hypocritical reaction, as far as words were concerned. But there were also actions: NATO’s expansion to our borders, the creation of new deployment areas for missile defence in Europe and Asia – they decided to take cover from us under an ‘umbrella’ – deployment of military contingents, and not just near Russia’s borders.
I would like to stress –in fact, this is well-known – that no other country has so many military bases abroad as the United States. There are hundreds of them – I want to emphasise this – hundreds of bases all over the world; the planet is covered with them, and one look at the map is enough to see this.
The whole world witnessed how they withdrew from fundamental agreements on weapons, including the treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles, unilaterally tearing up the fundamental agreements that maintain world peace. For some reason, they did it. They do not do anything without a reason, as we know.
Finally, in December 2021, we officially submitted draft agreements on security guarantees to the USA and NATO. In essence, all key, fundamental points were rejected. After that it finally became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggressive plans had been given and they were not going to stop.
The threat was growing by the day. Judging by the information we received, there was no doubt that everything would be in place by February 2022 for launching yet another bloody punitive operation in Donbass. Let me remind you that back in 2014, the Kiev regime sent its artillery, tanks and warplanes to fight in Donbass.
We all remember the aerial footage of airstrikes targeting Donetsk. Other cities also suffered from airstrikes. In 2015, they tried to mount a frontal assault against Donbass again, while keeping the blockade in place and continuing to shell and terrorise civilians. Let me remind you that all of this was completely at odds with the documents and resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, but everyone pretended that nothing was happening.
Let me reiterate that they were the ones who started this war, while we used force and are using it to stop the war.
Those who plotted a new attack against Donetsk in the Donbass region, and against Lugansk understood that Crimea and Sevastopol would be the next target. We realised this as well. Even today, Kiev is openly discussing far-reaching plans of this kind. They exposed themselves by making public what we knew already.
We are defending human lives and our common home, while the West seeks unlimited power. It has already spent over $150 billion on helping and arming the Kiev regime. To give you an idea, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the G7 countries earmarked about $60 billion in 2020–2021 to help the world’s poorest countries. Is this clear? They spent $150 billion on the war, while giving $60 billion to the poorest countries, despite pretending to care about them all the time, and also conditioning this support on obedience on behalf of the beneficiary countries. What about all this talk of fighting poverty, sustainable development and protection of the environment? Where did it all go? Has it all vanished? Meanwhile, they keep channelling more money into the war effort. They eagerly invest in sowing unrest and encouraging government coups in other countries around the world.
The recent Munich Conference turned into an endless stream of accusations against Russia. One gets the impression that this was done so that everyone would forget what the so-called West has been doing over the past decades. They were the ones who let the genie out of the bottle, plunging entire regions into chaos.
According to US experts, almost 900,000 people were killed during wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, and over 38 million became refugees. Please note, we did not invent these statistics; it is the Americans who are providing them. They are now simply trying to erase all this from the memory of humankind, and they are pretending that all this never happened. However, no one in the world has forgotten this or will ever forget it.
None of them cares about human casualties and tragedies because many trillions of dollars are at stake, of course. They can also continue to rob everyone under the guise of democracy and freedoms, to impose neoliberal and essentially totalitarian values, to brand entire countries and nations, to publicly insult their leaders, to suppress dissent in their own countries and to divert attention from corruption scandals by creating an enemy image. We continue to see all this on television, which highlights greater domestic economic, social and inter-ethnic problems, contradictions and disagreements.
I would like to recall that, in the 1930s, the West had virtually paved the way to power for the Nazis in Germany. In our time, they started turning Ukraine into an “anti-Russia.”
Actually, this project is not new. People who are knowledgeable about history at least to some extent realise that this project dates back to the 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland had conceived it for one purpose, that is, to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine. This is their goal. There is nothing new here; they are repeating everything.
The West expedited the implementation of this project today by supporting the 2014 coup. That was a bloody, anti-state and unconstitutional coup. They pretended that nothing happened, and that this is how things should be. They even said how much money they had spent on it. Russophobia and extremely aggressive nationalism formed its ideological foundation.
Quite recently, a brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was named Edelweiss after a Nazi division whose personnel were involved in deporting Jews, executing prisoners of war and conducting punitive operations against partisans in Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. We are ashamed to talk about this, but they are not. Personnel serving with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Guard are particularly fond of chevrons formerly worn by soldiers from Das Reich, Totenkopf (Death’s Head) and Galichina divisions and other SS units. Their hands are also stained with blood. Ukrainian armoured vehicles feature insignia of the Nazi German Wehrmacht.
Neo-Nazis are open about whose heirs they consider themselves to be. Surprisingly, none of the powers that be in the West are seeing it. Why? Because they – pardon my language – could not care less about it. They do not care who they are betting on in their fight against us, against Russia. In fact, anyone will do as long as they fight against us and our country. Indeed, we saw terrorists and neo-Nazis in their ranks. They would let all kinds of ghouls join their ranks, for God’s sake, as long as they act on their will as a weapon against Russia.
In fact, the anti-Russia project is part of the revanchist policy towards our country to create flashpoints of instability and conflicts next to our borders. Back then, in the 1930s, and now the design remains the same and it is to direct aggression to the East, to spark a war in Europe, and to eliminate competitors by using a proxy force.
We are not at war with the people of Ukraine. I have made that clear many times. The people of Ukraine have become hostages of the Kiev regime and its Western handlers, who have in fact occupied that country in the political, military and economic sense and have been destroying Ukrainian industry for decades now as they plundered its natural resources. This led to social degradation and an immeasurable increase in poverty and inequality. Recruiting resources for military operations in these circumstances was easy. Nobody was thinking about people, who were conditioned for slaughter and eventually became expendables. It is a sad and dreadful thing to say, but it is a fact.
Responsibility for inciting and escalating the Ukraine conflict as well as the sheer number of casualties lies entirely with the Western elites and, of course, today’s Kiev regime, for which the Ukrainian people are, in fact, not its own people. The current Ukrainian regime is serving not national interests, but the interests of third countries.
The West is using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia and as a testing range. I am not going to discuss in detail the West's attempts to turn the war around, or their plans to ramp up military supplies, since everyone is well aware of that. However, there is one circumstance that everyone should be clear about: the longer the range of the Western systems that will be supplied to Ukraine, the further we will have to move the threat away from our borders. This is obvious.
The Western elite make no secret of their goal, which is, I quote, “Russia’s strategic defeat.” What does this mean to us? This means they plan to finish us once and for all. In other words, they plan to grow a local conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and we will respond accordingly, because this represents an existential threat to our country.
However, they too realise it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield and are conducting increasingly aggressive information attacks against us targeting primarily the younger generation. They never stop lying and distorting historical facts as they attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religious organizations in our country.
Look what they are doing to their own people. It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life. They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages. Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either.
But here is what I would like to tell them: look at the holy scripture and the main books of other world religions. They say it all, including that family is the union of a man and a woman, but these sacred texts are now being questioned. Reportedly, the Anglican Church is planning, just planning, to explore the idea of a gender-neutral god. What is there to say? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Millions of people in the West realise that they are being led to a spiritual disaster. Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems, while we must protect our children, which we will do. We will protect our children from degradation and degeneration.
Clearly, the West will try to undermine and divide our society and to bet on the fifth columnists who, throughout history, and I want to emphasise this, have been using the same poison of contempt for their own Fatherland and the desire to make money by selling this poison to anyone who is willing to pay for it. It has always been that way.
Those who have embarked on the road of outright betrayal, committing terrorist and other crimes against the security of our society and the country’s territorial integrity, will be held accountable for this under law. But we will never behave like the Kiev regime and the Western elite, which have been and still are involved in witch hunts. We will not settle scores with those who take a step aside and turn their back on their Motherland. Let this be on their conscience, let them live with this – they will have to live with it. The main point is that our people, the citizens of Russia, have given them a moral assessment.
I am proud, and I think we are all proud that our multi-ethnic nation, the absolute majority of our citizens, have taken a principled stance on the special military operation. They understand the basic idea of what we are doing and support our actions on the defence of Donbass. This support primarily revealed their true patriotism – a feeling that is historically inherent in our nation. It is stunning in its dignity and deep understnding by everyone – I will stress, everyone – of the inseparable link between one’s own destiny and the destiny of the Fatherland.
My dear friends, I would like to thank everyone, all the people of Russia for their courage and resolve. I would like to thank our heroes, soldiers and officers in the Army and the Navy, the Russian Guards, the secret services staff, and all structures of authority, the fighters in Donetsk and Lugansk corps, volunteers and patriots who are now fighting in the ranks of the BARS combat army reserve.
I would like to apologise that I will not be able to mention everyone during today’s speech. You know, when I was drafting this speech, I wrote a very long list of these heroic units but then removed it from my text because, as I said, it is impossible to mention everyone, and I was afraid to offend anyone I might leave out.
My deepest gratitude to the parents, wives and families of our defenders, the doctors and paramedics, combat medics and medical nurses that are saving the wounded; to the railway workers and drivers that are supplying the front; to the builders that are erecting fortifications and restoring housing, roads and civilian facilities; to the workers and engineers at defence companies, who are now working almost around-the-clock, in several shifts; and to rural workers who reliably ensure food security for the country.
I am grateful to the teachers who sincerely care for the young generations of Russia, especially those that are working in very difficult, almost front-line conditions; the cultural figures that are visiting the zone of hostilities and hospitals to support the soldiers and officers; volunteers that are helping the front and civilians; journalists, primarily war correspondents, that are risking their lives to tell the truth to the world; pastors of Russia’s traditional religions and military clergy, whose wise words support and inspire people; government officials and business people – all those who fulfill their professional, civil and simply human duty.
My special words go to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. You, my friends, determined your future at the referendums and made a clear choice despite the neo-Nazis’ threats and violence, amid the close military actions. But there has been nothing stronger than your intent to be with Russia, with your Motherland.
(Applause)
I want to emphasise that this is the reaction of the audience to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Once again, our deepest respect for them all.
We have already begun and will expand a major socioeconomic recovery and development programme for these new regions within the Federation. It includes restoring production facilities, jobs, and the ports on the Sea of Azov, which again became Russia’s landlocked sea, and building new, modern road,s like we did in Crimea, which now has a reliable land transport corridor with all of Russia. We will definitely implement all of these plans together.
Russia’s regions are currently providing direct assistance to the cities, districts and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. They are doing it sincerely, like true brothers and sisters. We are together again, which means that we have become even stronger, and we will do everything in our power to bring back the long-awaited peace to our land and ensure the safety of our people. Our soldiers, our heroes are fighting for this, for their ancestors, for the future of their children and grandchildren, for uniting our people.
Friends, I would like to ask you to pay your respects to our fellow soldiers who were killed in the attacks of neo-Nazis and raiders, who gave up their lives for Russia, for civilians, the elderly, women and children.
(A minute of silence)
Thank you.
We all understand, and I understand also how unbearably hard it is for their wives, sons and daughters, for their parents who raised those dignified defenders of the Fatherland – like the Young Guard members from Krasnodon, young men and women who fought against Nazism and for Donbass during the Great Patriotic War. Everyone in Russia remembers their courage, resilience, enormous strength of spirit and self-sacrifice to this day.
Our duty is to support the families that have lost their loved ones and to help them raise their children and give them an education and a job. The family of each participant in the special military operation must be a priority and treated with care and respect. Their needs must be responded to immediately, without bureaucratic delays.
I suggest establishing a dedicated state fund for bringing targeted, personalised assistance to the families of fallen fighters, as well as veterans of the special military operation. This entity will be tasked with coordinating efforts to offer social, medical support and counselling, and also address matters related to sending them to health resorts and providing rehabilitation services, while also assisting them in education, sports, employment and in acquiring a new profession. This fund will also have an essential mission to ensure long-term home care and high-technology prosthetics for those who need that.
I am asking the Government to work with the State Council Commission on Social Policy and with the regions to resolve the organisational matters as quickly as possible.
The state fund must be transparent in its work, while streamlining assistance and operating as a one-stop-shop, free from red tape or administrative barriers. Every family without exception, and every veteran will have their personal social worker, a coordinator, who will be there for them in person to resolve in real time any issue they might face. Let me emphasise that the fund must open its offices in all regions of the Russian Federation in 2023.
We already have measures in place for supporting Great Patriotic War veterans, combat veterans, as well as participants in local conflicts. I believe these essential elements will be added to the state fund’s mission moving forward. We need to explore this possibility, and I am asking the Government to do so.
Make no mistake: the fact that we are establishing a state fund does not mean that other institutions or officials at other levels of government will be relieved of their responsibility. I expect all federal agencies, regions and municipalities to stay focused on veterans, on service personnel and their families. In this context, I would like to thank the senior regional officials, mayors, and governors who routinely meet with people, including by visiting the line of contact, and support their fellow countrymen.
On a special note, let me say that today, career service personnel, mobilised conscripts, and volunteers all share frontline hardships, including in terms of provisions, supplies and equipment, remuneration, and insurance payments to the wounded, as well as healthcare services. However, there are complaints that make it all the way to my office, as well as to the governors, as they have been telling me, and to the military prosecutor’s office and the Human Rights Commissioner, showing that some of these issues have yet to be resolved. We need to get to the bottom of each complaint on a case-by-case basis.
And one more thing: everyone understands that serving in the special military operation zone causes immense physical and mental stress, since people risk their lives and health every day. For this reason, I believe that the mobilised conscripts, as well as all service personnel, and all those taking part in the special military operation, including volunteers, must benefit from a leave of absence of at least 14 days every six months without counting the time it takes them to travel to their destination. This way, every fighter will be able to meet family and spend time with their loved ones.
Colleagues, as you are aware, a 2021–2025 plan for building and developing the Armed Forces was approved by a Presidential Executive Order and is being implemented and adjusted as necessary. Importantly, our next steps to reinforce the Army and the Navy and to secure the current and future development of the Armed Forces must be based on actual combat experience gained during the special military operation, which is extremely important, I would even say absolutely invaluable to us.
For example, the latest systems account for over 91 percent, 91.3 percent, of Russia's nuclear deterrence forces. To reiterate, based on our newly acquired experience, we must access a similarly high quality level for all other components of the Armed Forces.
Officers and sergeants who act as competent, modern and decisive commanders, and they are many, will be promoted to higher positions as a matter of priority, sent to military universities and academies, and will serve as a powerful personnel reserve for the Armed Forces. Without a doubt, they are a valuable resource in civilian life and at governments at all levels. I just want our colleagues to pay attention to that. It is very important. The people must know that the Motherland appreciates their contribution to the defence of the Fatherland.
We will widely introduce the latest technology to ensure high-quality standards in the Army and Navy. We have corresponding pilot projects and samples of weapons and equipment in each area. Many of them are significantly superior to their foreign counterparts. Our goal is to start mass production. This work is underway and is picking up pace. Importantly, this relies on domestic research and the industrial base and involves small- and medium-sized high-tech businesses in implementation of the state defence order.
Today, our plants, design bureaus and research teams employ experienced specialists and increasing numbers of talented and highly skilled young people who are oriented towards breakthrough achievements while remaining true to the tradition of Russian gunsmiths, which is to spare no effort to ensure victory.
We will certainly strengthen the guarantees for our workforce, in part concerning salaries and social security. I propose launching a special programme for low-cost rental housing for defence industry employees. The rental payments for them will be significantly lower than the going market rate, since a significant portion of it will be covered by the state.
The Government reviewed this issue. I instruct you to work through the details of this programme and start building such rental housing without delay, primarily, in the cities that are major defence, industrial and research centres.
Colleagues,
As I have already said, the West has opened not only military and informational warfare against us, but is also seeking to fight us on the economic front. However, they have not succeeded on any of these fronts, and never will. Moreover, those who initiated the sanctions are punishing themselves: they sent prices soaring in their own countries, destroyed jobs, forced companies to close, and caused an energy crisis, while telling their people that the Russians were to blame for all of this. We hear that.
What means did they use against us in their efforts to attack us with sanctions? They tried disrupting economic ties with Russian companies and depriving the financial system of its communication channels to shutter our economy, isolate us from export markets and thus undermine our revenues. They also stole our foreign exchange reserves, to call a spade a spade, tried to depreciate the ruble and drive inflation to destructive heights.
Let me reiterate that the sanctions against Russia are merely a means, while the aim as declared by the Western leaders, to quote them, is to make us suffer. “Make them suffer” – what a humane attitude. They want to make our people suffer, which is designed to destabilise our society from within.
However, their gamble failed to pay off. The Russian economy, as well as its governance model proved to be much more resilient than the West thought. The Government, parliament, the Bank of Russia, the regions and of course the business community and their employees all worked together to ensure that the economic situation remained stable, offered people protection and preserved jobs, prevented shortages, including of essential goods, and supported the financial system and business owners who invest in their enterprises, which also means investing in national development.
As early as in March 2022, we launched a dedicated assistance package for businesses and the economy worth about a trillion rubles. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this has nothing to do with printing money. Not at all. Everything we do is solidly rooted in market principles.
In 2022, there was a decline in the gross domestic product. Mr Mishustin called me to say, “I would like to ask you to mention this.” I think that these data were released yesterday, right on schedule.
You may remember that some predicted that the economy would shrink by 20 to 25 percent, or maybe 10 percent. Only recently, we spoke about a 2.9 percent decline, and I was the one who announced this figure. Later it came down to 2.5 percent. However, in 2022, the GDP declined by 2.1 percent, according to the latest data. And we must be mindful of the fact that back in February and March of last year some predicted that the economy would be in free fall.
Russian businesses have restructured their logistics and have strengthened their ties with responsible, predictable partners – there are many of them, they are the majority in the world.
I would like to note that the share of the Russian ruble in our international settlements has doubled as compared to December 2021, reaching one third of the total, and including the currencies of the friendly countries, it exceeds half of all transactions.
We will continue working with our partners to create a sustainable, safe system of international settlements, which will be independent of the dollar and other Western reserve currencies that are bound to lose their universal appeal with this policy of the Western elite, the Western rulers. They are doing all this to themselves with their own hands.
We are not the ones reducing transactions in dollars or other so-called universal currencies – they are doing everything with their own hands.
You know, there is a maxim, cannons versus butter. Of course, national defence is the top priority, but in resolving strategic tasks in this area, we should not repeat the mistakes of the past and should not destroy our own economy. We have everything we need to both ensure our security and create conditions for confident progress in our country. We are acting in line with this logic and we intend to continue doing this.
Thus, many basic, I will stress, civilian industries in the national economy are far from being in decline, they have increased their production last year by a considerable amount. The scale of housing put into service exceeded 100 million square meters for the first time in our modern history.
As for agricultural production, it recorded two-digit growth rates last year. Thank you very much. We are most grateful to our agricultural producers. Russian agrarians harvested a record amount – over 150 million tonnes of grain, including over 100 million tonnes of wheat. By the end of the agricultural season, that is, June 30, 2023, we will bring our grain exports to 55–60 million tonnes.
Just 10 or 15 years ago, this seemed like a fairy tale, an absolutely unfeasible plan. If you remember, and I am sure some people do remember this – the former Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture are here – just recently, agrarians took in 60 million tonnes overall in a year, whereas now 55–60 million is their export potential alone. I am convinced we have every opportunity for a similar breakthrough in other areas as well.
We prevented the labour market from collapsing. On the contrary, we were able to reduce unemployment in the current environment. Today, considering the major challenges coming at us from all sides, the labour market is even better than it used to be. You may remember that the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent before the pandemic, and now, I believe, it is 3.7 percent. What is the figure, Mr Mishustin? 3.7 percent? This is an all-time low.
Let me reiterate that the Russian economy has prevailed over the risks it faced – it has prevailed. Of course, it was impossible to anticipate many of them, and we had to respond literally on the fly, dealing with issues as they emerged. Both the state and businesses had to move quickly. I will note that private actors, SMEs, played an essential role in these efforts, and we must remember this. We avoided having to apply excessive regulation or distorting the economy by giving the state a more prominent role.
What else there is to say? The recession was limited to the second quarter of 2022, while the economy grew in the third and fourth quarters. In fact, the Russian economy has embarked on a new growth cycle. Experts believe that it will rely on a fundamentally new model and structure. New, promising global markets, including the Asia-Pacific, are taking precedence, as is the domestic market, with its research, technology and workforce no longer geared toward exporting commodities but manufacturing goods with high added value. This will help Russia unleash its immense potential in all spheres and sectors.
We expect to see a solid increase in domestic demand as early as this year. I am convinced that companies will use this opportunity to expand their manufacturing, make new products that are in high demand, and to take over the market niches vacated or about to be vacated by Western companies as they withdraw.
Today, we clearly see what is going on and understand the structural issues we have to address in logistics, technology, finance, and human resources. Over the past years, we have been talking a lot and at length about the need to restructure our economy. Now these changes are a vital necessity, a game changer, and all for the better. We know what needs to be done to enable Russia to make steady progress and to develop independently regardless of any outside pressure or threats, while guaranteeing our national security and interests.
I would like to point out and to emphasise that the essence of our task is not to adapt to circumstances. Our strategic task is to take the economy to a new horizon. Everything is changing now, and changing extremely fast. This is not only a time of challenges but also a time of opportunities. This is really so today. And our future depends on the way we realise these opportunities. We must put an end – and I want to emphase this – to all interagency conflicts, red tape, grievances, doublespeak, or any other nonsense. Everything we do must contribute to achieving our goals and delivering results. This is what we must strive to achieve.
Enabling Russian companies and small family-run businesses to successfully tap the market is a victory in itself. Building cutting-edge factories and kilometres of new roads is a victory. Every new school, every new kindergarten we build is a victory. Scientific discoveries and new technologies – these are also victories, of course. What matters is that all of us contribute to our shared success.
What areas should we focus the partnership of the state, the regions and domestic business on?
First, we will expand promising foreign economic ties and build new logistics corridors. A decision has already been made to extend the Moscow-Kazan expressway to Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, and eventually to Irkutsk and Vladivostok with branches to Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. This will, in part, allows us to considerably expand our ties with Southeast Asian markets.
We will develop Black Sea and Sea of Azov ports. We will pay special attention to the North-South international corridor, as those who work on this every day know. Vessels with a draft of up to 4.5 meters will be able to pass through the Volga-Caspian Sea Canal this year. This will open up new routes for business cooperation with India, Iran, Pakistan, and the Middle Eastern countries. We will continue developing this corridor.
Our plans include expedited modernisation of the eastern railways – the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAM) – and building up the potential of the Northern Sea Route. This will create not only additional freight traffic but also a foundation for reaching our national goals on developing Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East.
The infrastructure of the regions and the development of infrastructure, including communications, telecommunications and railways will receive a powerful impetus. Next year, 2024, we will bring to a proper condition at least 85 percent of all roads in the country’s largest metropolises, as well as over half of all regional and municipal roads. I am sure we will achieve this.
We will also continue our free gas distribution programme. We have already made the decision to extend it to social facilities – kindergartens and schools, outpatient clinics and hospitals, as well as primary healthcare centres. This programme will now be permanent for our citizens – they can always request a connection to the gas distribution system.
This year, we will launch a large programme to build and repair housing and utility systems. Over the next ten years, we plan to invest at least 4.5 trillion rubles in this. We know how important this is for our people and how neglected this area has been. It is necessary to improve this situation, and we will do it. It is important to give the programme a powerful start. So, I would like to ask the Government to ensure stable funding for this.
Second, we will need to significantly expand our economy’s production capabilities and to increase domestic industrial capacity.
An industrial mortgage tool has been created, and an easy-term loan can now be taken out not only to purchase production facilities, but also to build or upgrade them. The size of such a loan was discussed many times and there were plans to increase it. It is a decent amount for a first step: up to 500 million rubles. It is available at a rate of 3 or 5 percent for up to seven years. It sounds like a very good programme and should be put to good use.
New terms for industrial clusters took effect this year, including a lower fiscal and administrative burden on resident companies, and long-term state orders and subsidies to support demand for their innovative products, which are just entering the market.
According to estimates, these measures will generate high-demand projects worth over 10 trillion rubles by 2030. Investment is expected to reach about 2 trillion this year alone. Please note that these are not forecasts, but existing benchmarks.
Therefore, I would like the Government to expedite the launch of these projects, give a hand to businesses and come up with systemic support measures, including tax incentives. I am aware that the financial bloc does not like to provide incentives, and I partly share this approach: the taxation system must be consistent and without niches or exemptions, but this particular case calls for a creative approach.
So, starting this year, Russian companies will be able to reduce their revenue taxes if they purchase advanced domestic IT solutions and AI-enhanced products. Moreover, these expenses will be credited at one and a half times the actual cost, meaning that every ruble invested in purchasing such products will result in a tax deduction of 1.5 rubles.
I propose extending these deductions to purchases of all kinds of Russian high-tech equipment. I would like the Government to come up with a list of such equipment by specific industry and with the procedure for granting deductions. This is a good solution to reinvigorate the economy.
Third, a crucial issue on our economic development agenda to do with the new sources of funding investment, which we have been talking about a lot.
Thanks to our strong payments balance, Russia does not need to borrow funds abroad, kowtow and beg for money, and then hold long discussions on what, how much and on what conditions we would pay back. Russian banks are working stably and sustainably and have a solid margin for security.
In 2022, the volume of bank loans for the corporate sector increased, I repeat, increased. There was considerable concern about that, but we have reported growth, an increase of 14 percent, or more than we reported in 2021, before the miliary operation. In 2021, the figure was 11.7 percent; last year, it was 14 percent. The mortgage portfolio went up by 20.4 percent. We are growing.
Last year, the banking sector as a whole operated at a profit. It was not as large as in the preceding years, but it was considerable nevertheless: 203 billion rubles. This is another indicator of the stability of the Russian financial sector.
According to our estimates, inflation in Russia will approach the target figure of 4 percent in the second quarter this year. I would like to remind you that the inflation rate has reached 12, 17 and 20 percent in some EU countries. Our figure is 4 or 5 percent; the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry are still discussing the figure, but it will be close to the target. Given these positive dynamics and other macroeconomic parameters, we are creating objective conditions for lowering long-term interest rates in the economy, which means that loans for the real economic sector will become more affordable.
Individual long-term savings are a vital source of investment resources around the world, and we must also stimulate their attraction into the investment sphere. I would like the Government to expedite the submission of draft laws to the State Duma to launch the relevant state programme as soon as this April.
It is important to create additional conditions to encourage people to invest and earn at home, in the country. At the same time, it is necessary to guarantee the safety of people’s investment in voluntary retirement savings. We should create a mechanism here similar to the one used for insuring bank deposits. I would like to remind you that such savings, worth up to 1.4 million rubles, are insured by the state on guarantee deposits. I propose doubling the sum to 2.8 million rubles for voluntary retirement savings. Likewise, we must protect people’s investment in other long-term investment instruments, including against the possible bankruptcy of financial brokers.
Separate decisions must be taken to attract funds to rapidly growing and high-tech businesses. We will approve support for the placement of their shares on the domestic stock market, including tax benefits for both the companies and the buyers of their stock.
Freedom of enterprise is a vital element of economic sovereignty. I will repeat: against the backdrop of external attempts to contain Russia, private businesses have proven their ability to quickly adapt to the changing environment and ensure economic growth in difficult conditions. So, every business initiative aimed at benefiting the country should receive support.
I believe it is necessary to return, in this context, to the revision of a number of norms of criminal law as regards the economic elements of crime. Of course, the state must control what is happening in this area. We should not allow an anything-goes attitude here but we should not go too far, either. It is necessary to move faster towards the decriminalisation I mentioned. I hope the Government will consistently and seriously conduct this work together with Parliament, the law-enforcement bodies and business associations.
At the same time, I would like to ask the Government to suggest, in close cooperation with Parliament, additional measures for speeding up the de-offshorisation of the economy. Businesses, primarily those operating in key sectors and industries should operate in Russian jurisdiction – this is a fundamental principle.
Colleagues, in this context I would like to make a small philosophical digression. This is what I would like to single out.
We remember what problems and imbalances the Soviet economy faced in its later stages. This is why after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its planned system, in the chaos of the 1990s, the country began to create its economy along the lines of market relations and private ownership. Overall, this was the right thing to do. The Western countries were largely an example to follow in this respect. As you know, their advisers were a dime a dozen, and it seemed enough to simply copy their models. True, I remember they still argued with each other – the Europeans argued with the Americans on how the Russian economy should develop.
And what happened as a result? Our national economy was largely oriented to the West and for the most part as a source of raw materials. Naturally, there were different nuances, but overall, we were seen as a source of raw materials. The reasons for this are also clear – naturally, the new Russian businesses that were taking shape were primarily oriented toward generating profit, quick and easy profit in the first place. What could provide this? Of course, the sale of resources – oil, gas, metals and timber.
Few people thought about other alternatives or, probably, they did not have the opportunity to invest long-term. This is the reason other, more complex industries did not make much headway. It took us years – other governments saw this clearly – to break this negative trend. We had to adjust our tax system and make large-scale public investments.
We have achieved real and visible change. Indeed, the results are there, but, again, we should keep in mind the circumstances in which our major businesses developed. Technologies were coming from the West, cheaper sources of financing and lucrative markets were in the West, and capital started flowing to the West as well. Unfortunately, instead of expanding production and buying equipment and technology to create new jobs in Russia, they spent their money on foreign mansions, yachts and luxury real estate.
They began to invest in the economy later, but initially the money flowed rapidly to the West for consumption purposes. And since their money was there, that is where their children were educated, where their life was, their future. It was very difficult and almost impossible for the state to track and prevent these developments, because we lived in a free market paradigm.
Recent events have clearly shown that the image of the West as a safe haven for capital was a mirage. Those who failed to understand this in time, who saw Russia only as a source of income and planned to live mostly abroad, have lost a lot. They just got robbed there and saw even their legitimate money taken away.
At some point I made a joke – many may still remember it – I told Russian businesspeople that they will make themselves sick running from courtroom to courtroom and from office to office in the West trying to save their money. That is exactly how it turned out.
You know, I will say something that is quite simple, but truly important. Trust me, not a single ordinary citizen in our country felt sorry for those who lost their assets in foreign banks, lost their yachts or palaces abroad, and so on. In their conversations around the kitchen table, people have all recalled the privatisation of the 1990s, when enterprises that had been built by our entire nation were sold for next to nothing and the so-called new elites flaunted their lavish lifestyle.
There are other key aspects. During the years that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West never stopped trying to set the post-Soviet states on fire and, most importantly, finish off Russia as the largest surviving portion of the historical reaches of our state. They encouraged international terrorists to assault us, provoked regional conflicts along the perimeter of our borders, ignored our interests and tried to contain and suppress our economy.
I am saying this because big business in Russia controls strategic enterprises with thousands of workers that determine the socioeconomic well-being of many regions and, hence, the overall state of affairs. So, whenever leaders or owners of such businesses become dependent on governments that adopt policies that are unfriendly to Russia, this poses a great threat to us, a danger to our country. This is an untenable situation.
Yes, everyone has a choice. Some may choose to live in a seized mansion with a blocked account, trying to find a place for themselves in a seemingly attractive Western capital, a resort or some other comfortable place abroad. Anyone has the right to do that, and we will never infringe on it. But it is time to see that in the West these people have always been and will always remain second class strangers who can be treated any way, and their money, connections and the acquired titles of counts, peers or mayors will not help at all. They must understand that they are second class people there.
There is another option: to stay with your Motherland, to work for your compatriots, not only to open new businesses but also to change life around you in cities, towns and throughout your country. We have quite a few businesspeople like this, real fighters in our business community, and we associate the future of our business with them. Everyone must know that the sources of their prosperity and their future can only be here, in their native country Russia.
If they do, we will create a very strong and self-sufficient economy that will not remain aloof in the world but will make use of all its competitive advantages. Russian capital, the money earned here, must be put to work for the country, for our national development. Today, we see huge potential in the development of infrastructure, the manufacturing sector, in domestic tourism and many other industries.
I would like those who have come up against the predatory mores of the West to hear what I have to say: running around with cap in hand, begging for your own money makes no sense, and most importantly, it accomplishes nothing, especially now that you realise who you are dealing with. Stop clinging to the past, resorting to the courts to get at least something back. Change your lives and your jobs, because you are strong people – I am addressing our businesspeople now, many of whom I have known for years, who know what is what in life.
Launch new projects, earn money, work hard for Russia, invest in enterprises and jobs, and help schools and universities, science and healthcare, culture and sports. In this way, you will increase your wealth and will also win the respect and gratitude of the people for a generation ahead. The state and society will certainly support you.
Let us consider this as a message for your business: get moving in the right direction.
To be continued.
Lamborghini Veneno
In the year of its 50th anniversary Automobili Lamborghini is presenting an extremely exclusive model at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Only three unique units of the Lamborghini Veneno will be built and sold. Its design is consistently focused on optimum aerodynamics and cornering stability, giving the Veneno the real dynamic experience of a racing prototype, yet it is fully homologated for the road. With a maximum output of 552 kW / 750 hp, the Lamborghini Veneno accelerates from 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and the top speed for this street-legal racing car stands at 355 km/h. It is priced at three million Euros plus tax - and all three units have already been sold to customers.
The Lamborghini Veneno features a twelve-cylinder power unit with a displacement of 6.5 liters, an extremely fast-shifting 7-speed ISR transmission with 5 driving modes and permanent all-wheel drive, as well as a racing chassis with pushrod suspension and horizontal spring/damper units. Above all, however, the Veneno benefits from the very special expertise that Automobili Lamborghini possesses in the development and execution of carbon-fiber materials - the complete chassis is produced as a CFRP monocoque, as is the outer skin of this extreme sports car. The inside, too, features innovative, Lamborghini-patented materials such as Forged Composite and CarbonSkin.
Fully in keeping with the tradition of the brand, the name of the Veneno originates from a legendary fighting bull. Veneno is the name of one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever. He is also famous for being one of the fastest bulls in the history of bullfighting. His name became popular in 1914, when he fatally wounded the famous torero José Sánchez Rodríguez during the bullfight in the arena Sanlúcar de Barrameda's, Andalusia, Spain.
Lamborghini Veneno (2013)
2013 Lamborghini Veneno
The Design
The Lamborghini Veneno brings the aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype to the road. Every detail of its form pursues a clear function - exceptional dynamics, optimum downforce with minimal drag and perfect cooling of the high-performance engine. Yet the Veneno is unmistakably a Lamborghini; it sticks firmly to the consistent design philosophy of all the super sports cars from Sant'Agata Bolognese. That includes the extreme proportions, as well as the powerfully arrow-shaped front end and the interplay between razor-sharp lines and precise surfaces.
The entire front end of the Lamborghini Veneno has been laid out for perfect airflow and downforce. The front end works as a large aerodynamic wing. Large channels guide the air to the outlets in the front hood and in front of the windshield, as well as to the front wheels. Characteristic for Lamborghini is the Y shape of the angular headlamps that reach well into the fenders as well as the scissor doors.
The division of the fenders from the car body is a reference to the world of sport prototypes and optimizes at the same time the aerodynamic flow. The side line of the Veneno is therefore dominated by enormous sills and the mighty wheel arches front and rear. Here, too, sophisticated aerodynamics ensure perfect airflow to the large openings for engine cooling and intake air.
Just like the front end, the rear of the Lamborghini Veneno has also been optimized for underbody aerodynamics and high speed cornering stability. The smooth underbody transitions into a substantial diffuser framing the four sizable exhaust pipes divided by a splitter to increase the level of downforce peak. Large openings serve to ventilate the engine bay and manage the airflow to the rear wing, with the only sealed area at the rear being reserved for the license plate. The rear lights, including brake lights, indicator lights and fog lights, pick up the Y theme as well. The engine cover sports six wedge-shaped openings, with the focus here, too, on optimum dissipation of heat from the engine. The engine cover extends into a large central "shark" fin, which improves efficiency during braking and rear-end stability, by delivering additional downforce at high yaw angles and thus increasing the high-speed cornering performance.
The adjustable rear wing's design is the product of Motorsport experience and extensive aerodynamic simulation to ensure the best performance of rear wing interaction with rear diffuser air flow.
The exclusive alloy wheels measure 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear and are equipped with center mountings. Their design is also determined by aerodynamic functionality - a carbon-fiber ring around the wheel rim works like a turbine to deliver additional cooling air to the carbon-ceramic brake discs.
The Lamborghini Veneno is painted in an all-new, grey metallic-look color with individual parts gleaming in the black of the visible carbon-fiber structure. The only car to display all three colors of the Italian flag as an accent is the car shown at Geneva, the unit which will remain property of Lamborghini. The three cars sold to customers each feature a single color of the Italian national flag, together a triology in green, white and red accents and thus representing each a unique piece.
The Technology
The Veneno is further proof of Automobili Lamborghini's unique competence in CFRP-based lightweight design. A monocoque made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer forms the basis of the Veneno. It is largely similar to the Aventador monocoque - as are the aluminum sub-frames front and rear - although its form has been adapted to the new design. All exterior parts are made from CFRP. The Lamborghini Veneno meets all safety and registration requirements worldwide, and naturally also incorporates a full complement of safety systems from airbags through to the adapted ESP handling system.
Carbon fiber dominates the interior of the Lamborghini Veneno, too. The carbon fiber monocoque becomes visible inside the car in the area of the central tunnel and the sills. The two lightweight bucket seats are made from Lamborghini's patented Forged Composite. The woven carbon-fiber CarbonSkin® is used to clad the entire cockpit, part of the seats and the headliner. This unique material is soaked in a very special kind of resin that stabilizes the fiber structure, while allowing the material to remain supple. Like a hi-tech fabric, this extremely fine-looking carbon-fiber matting fits perfectly to any form, and it reduces weight.
The racing personality has been transferred also to the instrument panel. It has been completely redesigned and now, thanks to an aggressive graphics and to the introduction of some additional features like the G-meter, provides all necessary information to the driver for control of the car.
The systematic, carbon-fiber, lightweight design of the Lamborghini Veneno is not only visible, it is also evident on the scales: With a dry weight of just 1,450 kilograms (3,190 pounds), the Veneno is even 125 kilos (275 pounds) lighter than the already extremely lean Aventador. The highly beneficial power-to-weight ratio of 1.93 kg/hp (4,25 lbs/hp) guarantees a performance that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Even the stunning acceleration figure of 2,8 seconds cannot adequately describe it. Despite an aerodynamic setup configured for extreme downforce, the Veneno possesses exceptionally low wind resistance which allows it to reach a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph).
The twelve-cylinder with a displacement of 6.5 liters is a thrilling combination of absolute high-revving frenzy and phenomenal pulling power. Its output has been raised to 552 kW / 750 hp, facilitated through enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, a slightly higher rated rpm and an exhaust system with even lower back pressure. The ISR manual gearbox, permanent all-wheel drive and pushrod suspension have all been specifically adjusted to meet the demands of the Lamborghini Veneno.
The Lamborghini Veneno celebrates its first public appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle on show is the number 0, the Lamborghini test vehicle. Its future has not been determined yet, but it will allow Lamborghini to continue its activity of testing and innovation, both on the road and on the race track. The trilogy made of three unique vehicles will be produced in the course of the year 2013 and handed over to their future owners.
Inspired by the consistently sold-out Writing for Film & Television Summer Intensive Program, the Two-Weekend Intensive was designed for aspiring film and television writers with busy weekday schedules. Over the course of two weekends, participants learn a variety of screenwriting tools, techniques, and exercises that closely represent what students learn in the one-year Writing for Film & Television program.
Find out more about VFS’s one-year Writing for Film & Television program at vfs.com/writing.
Lamborghini Veneno
In the year of its 50th anniversary Automobili Lamborghini is presenting an extremely exclusive model at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Only three unique units of the Lamborghini Veneno will be built and sold. Its design is consistently focused on optimum aerodynamics and cornering stability, giving the Veneno the real dynamic experience of a racing prototype, yet it is fully homologated for the road. With a maximum output of 552 kW / 750 hp, the Lamborghini Veneno accelerates from 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and the top speed for this street-legal racing car stands at 355 km/h. It is priced at three million Euros plus tax - and all three units have already been sold to customers.
The Lamborghini Veneno features a twelve-cylinder power unit with a displacement of 6.5 liters, an extremely fast-shifting 7-speed ISR transmission with 5 driving modes and permanent all-wheel drive, as well as a racing chassis with pushrod suspension and horizontal spring/damper units. Above all, however, the Veneno benefits from the very special expertise that Automobili Lamborghini possesses in the development and execution of carbon-fiber materials - the complete chassis is produced as a CFRP monocoque, as is the outer skin of this extreme sports car. The inside, too, features innovative, Lamborghini-patented materials such as Forged Composite and CarbonSkin.
Fully in keeping with the tradition of the brand, the name of the Veneno originates from a legendary fighting bull. Veneno is the name of one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever. He is also famous for being one of the fastest bulls in the history of bullfighting. His name became popular in 1914, when he fatally wounded the famous torero José Sánchez Rodríguez during the bullfight in the arena Sanlúcar de Barrameda's, Andalusia, Spain.
Lamborghini Veneno (2013)
2013 Lamborghini Veneno
The Design
The Lamborghini Veneno brings the aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype to the road. Every detail of its form pursues a clear function - exceptional dynamics, optimum downforce with minimal drag and perfect cooling of the high-performance engine. Yet the Veneno is unmistakably a Lamborghini; it sticks firmly to the consistent design philosophy of all the super sports cars from Sant'Agata Bolognese. That includes the extreme proportions, as well as the powerfully arrow-shaped front end and the interplay between razor-sharp lines and precise surfaces.
The entire front end of the Lamborghini Veneno has been laid out for perfect airflow and downforce. The front end works as a large aerodynamic wing. Large channels guide the air to the outlets in the front hood and in front of the windshield, as well as to the front wheels. Characteristic for Lamborghini is the Y shape of the angular headlamps that reach well into the fenders as well as the scissor doors.
The division of the fenders from the car body is a reference to the world of sport prototypes and optimizes at the same time the aerodynamic flow. The side line of the Veneno is therefore dominated by enormous sills and the mighty wheel arches front and rear. Here, too, sophisticated aerodynamics ensure perfect airflow to the large openings for engine cooling and intake air.
Just like the front end, the rear of the Lamborghini Veneno has also been optimized for underbody aerodynamics and high speed cornering stability. The smooth underbody transitions into a substantial diffuser framing the four sizable exhaust pipes divided by a splitter to increase the level of downforce peak. Large openings serve to ventilate the engine bay and manage the airflow to the rear wing, with the only sealed area at the rear being reserved for the license plate. The rear lights, including brake lights, indicator lights and fog lights, pick up the Y theme as well. The engine cover sports six wedge-shaped openings, with the focus here, too, on optimum dissipation of heat from the engine. The engine cover extends into a large central "shark" fin, which improves efficiency during braking and rear-end stability, by delivering additional downforce at high yaw angles and thus increasing the high-speed cornering performance.
The adjustable rear wing's design is the product of Motorsport experience and extensive aerodynamic simulation to ensure the best performance of rear wing interaction with rear diffuser air flow.
The exclusive alloy wheels measure 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear and are equipped with center mountings. Their design is also determined by aerodynamic functionality - a carbon-fiber ring around the wheel rim works like a turbine to deliver additional cooling air to the carbon-ceramic brake discs.
The Lamborghini Veneno is painted in an all-new, grey metallic-look color with individual parts gleaming in the black of the visible carbon-fiber structure. The only car to display all three colors of the Italian flag as an accent is the car shown at Geneva, the unit which will remain property of Lamborghini. The three cars sold to customers each feature a single color of the Italian national flag, together a triology in green, white and red accents and thus representing each a unique piece.
The Technology
The Veneno is further proof of Automobili Lamborghini's unique competence in CFRP-based lightweight design. A monocoque made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer forms the basis of the Veneno. It is largely similar to the Aventador monocoque - as are the aluminum sub-frames front and rear - although its form has been adapted to the new design. All exterior parts are made from CFRP. The Lamborghini Veneno meets all safety and registration requirements worldwide, and naturally also incorporates a full complement of safety systems from airbags through to the adapted ESP handling system.
Carbon fiber dominates the interior of the Lamborghini Veneno, too. The carbon fiber monocoque becomes visible inside the car in the area of the central tunnel and the sills. The two lightweight bucket seats are made from Lamborghini's patented Forged Composite. The woven carbon-fiber CarbonSkin® is used to clad the entire cockpit, part of the seats and the headliner. This unique material is soaked in a very special kind of resin that stabilizes the fiber structure, while allowing the material to remain supple. Like a hi-tech fabric, this extremely fine-looking carbon-fiber matting fits perfectly to any form, and it reduces weight.
The racing personality has been transferred also to the instrument panel. It has been completely redesigned and now, thanks to an aggressive graphics and to the introduction of some additional features like the G-meter, provides all necessary information to the driver for control of the car.
The systematic, carbon-fiber, lightweight design of the Lamborghini Veneno is not only visible, it is also evident on the scales: With a dry weight of just 1,450 kilograms (3,190 pounds), the Veneno is even 125 kilos (275 pounds) lighter than the already extremely lean Aventador. The highly beneficial power-to-weight ratio of 1.93 kg/hp (4,25 lbs/hp) guarantees a performance that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Even the stunning acceleration figure of 2,8 seconds cannot adequately describe it. Despite an aerodynamic setup configured for extreme downforce, the Veneno possesses exceptionally low wind resistance which allows it to reach a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph).
The twelve-cylinder with a displacement of 6.5 liters is a thrilling combination of absolute high-revving frenzy and phenomenal pulling power. Its output has been raised to 552 kW / 750 hp, facilitated through enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, a slightly higher rated rpm and an exhaust system with even lower back pressure. The ISR manual gearbox, permanent all-wheel drive and pushrod suspension have all been specifically adjusted to meet the demands of the Lamborghini Veneno.
The Lamborghini Veneno celebrates its first public appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle on show is the number 0, the Lamborghini test vehicle. Its future has not been determined yet, but it will allow Lamborghini to continue its activity of testing and innovation, both on the road and on the race track. The trilogy made of three unique vehicles will be produced in the course of the year 2013 and handed over to their future owners.
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. However in 1972, after having become a disciple of Scientology, Corea decided that he wanted to better ;communicate; with the audience. This essentially translated into his performing a more popularly accessible style of music, since avant-garde jazz enjoyed a relatively small audience.
First group (1972-1973) The first edition of Return to Forever performed primarily Latin-oriented music. Clarke himself became involved in Scientology through Corea, but eventually left the sect in the early 1980s.
Their first album, titled simply Return to Forever, was recorded for ECM Records in 1972 and was initially released only in Europe. Their second album, Light as a Feather (1973), was released by Polydor and included the song, Spain, which also became quite well-known.
Jazz rock era (1973-1976) guitarist Bill Connors, drummer Steve Gadd and percussionist Mingo Lewis were added.. Lenny White (who had played with Corea in Miles Davis's band) then replaced Gadd and Lewis on drums and percussion, and the group's third album, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (1973), was then rerecorded.
The nature of the group's music had by now completely changed into jazz-rock, Their music was still relatively melodic, relying on strong themes, but the traditional jazz element was by this time almost entirely absent- replaced by a more direct, rock oriented approach. Over-driven, distorted guitar had also become prominent in the band's new sound, and Clarke had by then switched almost completely to electric bass guitar. A replacement on vocals was not hired, and all the songs were now instrumentals. This change did not lead to a decrease in the band's commercial fortunes however, Return to Forever's jazz rock albums instead found their way onto US pop album charts.
While their second jazz rock album, Where Have I Known You Before, (1974) was similar in style to its immediate predecessor, Corea now played synthesizers in addition to electric keyboards (including piano), and Clarke's playing had evolved considerably- now using flange and fuzz-tone effects, and with his now signature style beginning to emerge. the then 19-year-old guitar prodigy Al Di Meola, who had also played on the album recording sessions joined.
Their following album, No Mystery (1975), was recorded with the same line-up as "Where Have I Known You Before", but the style of music had become more varied. The first side of the record consisted primarily of jazz-funk, while the second side featured Corea's acoustic title track and a long composition with a strong Spanish influence. On this and the following album, each member of the group composed at least one of the tracks. No Mystery went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.
The final album by this longest-lasting lineup of the group was Romantic Warrior (1976), which had by this time left Polydor for Columbia Records. This album would go on to become the best selling of all Return to Forever's efforts, eventually reaching gold disc status. Romantic Warrior continued their experiments in the realms of jazz-rock and related musical genres, and was lauded by critics for both the technically demanding style of its compositions as well as for its accomplished musicianship.
After the release of Romantic Warrior and Return To Forever's subsequent tour in support (as well as having in addition signed a multi-million dollar contract with CBS), Corea shocked Clarke by deciding to change the lineup of the group and to not include either White or Di Meola
Final album (1977)
The final incarnation of Return to Forever featured a four piece horn section and Corea's wife Gayle singing vocals, but recorded only one studio album, Musicmagic (1977).After Musicmagic, Chick Corea officially disbanded the group.
Reunion (2008) The classic Return to Forever line-up of Corea, Clarke, White, and Di Meola reunited for a tour of the United States that began in the summer of 2008. 2011 tour From February 2011, the group commences a world tour in Australia. The line-up, billed as Return to Forever IV, is Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Frank Gambale and Jean-Luc Ponty.
First group (1972-1973) The first edition of Return to Forever performed primarily Latin-oriented music. This initial band consisted of singer (and occasional percussionist) Flora Purim, her husband Airto Moreira on drums and percussion, Corea's longtime musical co-worker Joe Farrell on saxophone and flute, and the young Stanley Clarke on bass. Within this first line-up in particular, Clarke played acoustic double bass in addition to electric bass. Corea's electric piano formed the basis of this group's sound, but Clarke and Farrell were given ample solo space themselves. While Purim's vocals lent some commercial appeal to the music, many of their compositions were also instrumental and somewhat experimental in nature. The music was composed by Corea with the exception of the title track of the second album which was written by Stanley Clarke. Lyrics were often written by Corea's friend Neville Potter, and were quite often scientology themed- though this is not readily apparent to those not involved in Scientology itself. Clarke himself became involved in Scientology through Corea, but eventually left the sect in the early 1980s.
Their first album, titled simply Return to Forever, was recorded for ECM Records in 1972 and was initially released only in Europe. Their second album, Light as a Feather (1973), was released by Polydor and included the song, Spain, which also became quite well-known.
Jazz rock era (1973-1976) guitarist Bill Connors, drummer Steve Gadd and percussionist Mingo Lewis were added. However, Gadd was unwilling to tour with the band and risk his job as an in-demand session drummer. Lenny White (who had played with Corea in Miles Davis's band) replaced Gadd and Lewis on drums and percussion, and the group's third album, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (1973), was then rerecorded (the first recording, featuring Gadd on drums, was never released and has since disappeared).
The nature of the group's music had by now completely changed into jazz-rock, Their music was still relatively melodic, relying on strong themes, but the traditional jazz element was by this time almost entirely absent- replaced by a more direct, rock oriented approach. Over-driven, distorted guitar had also become prominent in the band's new sound, and Clarke had by then switched almost completely to electric bass guitar. A replacement on vocals was not hired, and all the songs were now instrumentals. This change did not lead to a decrease in the band's commercial fortunes however, Return to Forever's jazz rock albums instead found their way onto US pop album charts.
While their second jazz rock album, Where Have I Known You Before, (1974) was similar in style to its immediate predecessor, Corea now played synthesizers in addition to electric keyboards (including piano), and Clarke's playing had evolved considerably- now using flange and fuzz-tone effects, and with his now signature style beginning to emerge. After Bill Connors left the band to concentrate on his solo career, the group also hired new guitarists. Although Earl Klugh played guitar for some of the group's live performances, he was soon replaced by the then 19-year-old guitar prodigy Al Di Meola, who had also played on the album recording sessions.
Their following album, No Mystery (1975), was recorded with the same line-up as "Where Have I Known You Before", but the style of music had become more varied. The first side of the record consisted primarily of jazz-funk, while the second side featured Corea's acoustic title track and a long composition with a strong Spanish influence. On this and the following album, each member of the group composed at least one of the tracks. No Mystery went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.
The final album by this longest-lasting "classic" lineup of the group was Romantic Warrior (1976), which had by this time left Polydor for Columbia Records. This album would go on to become the best selling of all Return to Forever's efforts, eventually reaching gold disc status. "Romantic Warrior" continued their experiments in the realms of jazz-rock and related musical genres, and was lauded by critics for both the technically demanding style of its compositions as well as for its accomplished musicianship.
After the release of Romantic Warrior and Return To Forever's subsequent tour in support (as well as having in addition signed a multi-million dollar contract with CBS), Corea shocked Clarke by deciding to change the lineup of the group and to not include either White or Di Meola
Final album (1977)
The final incarnation of Return to Forever featured a four piece horn section and Corea's wife Gayle singing vocals, but recorded only one studio album, Musicmagic (1977).After Musicmagic, Chick Corea officially disbanded the group.
Reunion (2008)
The classic Return to Forever line-up of Corea, Clarke, White, and Di Meola reunited for a tour of the United States that began in the summer of 2008. 2011 tour
From February 2011, the group commences a world tour in Australia. The line-up, billed as Return to Forever IV, is Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Frank Gambale and Jean-Luc Ponty
I have observed that Dolores Park is segmented into several distinct and (sub) culturally consistent sections.
A. Hipster Valley
The Northeast corner of the Park (Dolores and 17th) is the realm of the Hipster. I suspect this is because while they can manage the walk from Valencia to Dolores they are too hung-over to make it up the hill.
Do bring: Bike, Enormous Sunglasses, Skinny jeans that show your butt crack when you sit down, Wear black and more black something army-looking works too, Ipods, beer and small speakers are encouraged.
Tips: Sit directly on grass + look bored.
Suggested canine companion: Chihuahuas, mixed breed rescues, and friendly beer drinking pit bulls in bandanas
B. Jocks, Bros and Hos
Weekend warriors, dodge ball players, soccer fans, etc…
Do bring: Spandex, knee pads and some sort of ball to chase around.
Tips: be excessively perky and organized.
Suggested Canine Companion: Golden retriever
C. Latin American Club
The locals. Watching the scene and laughing.
Do Bring: Beer, your homies, your dog
D. The bathrooms
I have only had the pleasure once, but I heard nothing good happens in this place.
Do bring: protection, toilet paper (wet naps if you are tender), a sense of balance and humor
E. Gay cruising + Sunbathing section
Bring: a towel, multi-purpose oils, a thong.
Leave at home: your boyfriend or life partner
Suggested Canine Companion: Pug, French Bulldog
F. Kids and picnickers
bring: diapers, sporks + wet naps
Suggested Canine Companion: none, the kids are enough trouble
G. Geek Section
This seems to be the spot where the digirati can be found
Bring: Food to share, sunscreen, your laptop with VZAccess PCMCIA Card because the free wireless signals are crap and your best portable devices to show off.
H. Hipster overflow and family outing section
I. Scary drunks and Hobo section
Bring: Bags full of bottles for recycling, Old English or Night Train and your invisible friend.
J. "Cold beer, cold water."
bauhaus building, dessau, germany, 1925-1926, architect: walter gropius
Gropius consistently separated the parts of the Bauhaus building according to their functions and designed each differently. He thereby arranged the different wings asymmetrically – in relation to what is today the Bauhausstraße and the Gropiusallee respectively. In order to appreciate the overall design of the complex, the observer must therefore move around the whole building. There is no central viewpoint.
The glazed, three-storey workshop wing, the block for the vocational school (also three storeys high) with its unostentatious rows of windows, and the five-storey studio building with its conspicuous, projecting balconies are the main elements of the complex. A two-storey bridge which housed, e.g., the administration department and, until 1928, Gropius’s architectural practice, connects the workshop wing with the vocational school. A single-storey building with a hall, stage and refectory, the so-called Festive Area, connects the workshop wing to the studio building. The latter originally featured 28 studio flats for students and junior masters, each measuring 20 m². The ingenious design of the portals between the foyer and the hall and a folding partition between the stage and the refectory, along with the ceiling design and colour design, impart a grandiose spatial coalescence to the sequence of foyer-hall-stage-refectory, shaping the so-called Festive Area. The façade of the students’ dormitory is distinguished in the east by individual balconies and in the south by long balconies that continue around the corner of the building.
The entire complex is rendered and painted mainly in light tones, creating an attractive contrast to the window frames, which are dark. For the interior, the junior master of the mural workshop, Hinnerk Scheper, designed a detailed colour plan that, by differentiating between supporting and masking elements through the use of colour, aimed to accentuate the construction of the building.
Inspired by the consistently sold-out Writing for Film & Television Summer Intensive Program, the Two-Weekend Intensive was designed for aspiring film and television writers with busy weekday schedules. Over the course of two weekends, participants learn a variety of screenwriting tools, techniques, and exercises that closely represent what students learn in the one-year Writing for Film & Television program.
Find out more about VFS’s one-year Writing for Film & Television program at vfs.com/writing.
Rachel Bilson
The New Chaneel Boutique Opening and Charity Event, on Robertson Blvd , hosted by Simply Consistent Management and Kathleen Checki.
323-653-1205
Singapore Zoo ranks consistently (after San Diego Zoo) as one of the best in the world.
Watching the power of this animal as he leaps for the incoming food is just breathtaking. You can see the deadly canines in the powerful jaw. At 16, Omar was already old for a tiger, and he died 16 months after this was taken.
For the story, please visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/teeth-claws-and-colou...
This a second film with my Nikon F4 to test further of its numerous functions. In particular, I would like to test the DX ISO coding, the spot metering, and the motorized film rewind. During the first test film I used mostly my external lightmeter Minolta Autometer III to check that the metering of the camera was consistent with. Here, I decided I leave the Autometer at home and to use only the Nikon F4 metering.
The Nikon F4 was loaded with a Rollei RPX100 which is the former Agfa APX100 well-known for the particular large tone range. From view 1 to 24, the AF Nikkor lens 1:1.4 f=50mm was fitted with a Yellow screw-on 52mm filter and from view 25 to the end with a Hoya HMC anti-UV protection filter. A generic cylindric metal shade hood was used all the time.
The film sensitivity was set by the camera automatically from the DX code of the Rollei RPX100 35mm cartridge. The first test film was a Fomapan 200 which is not DX coded. The Nikon F4 allows a manual ISO setting. In the DX mode, if no cartridge is present or if a not DX-coded cartridge is inserted, a red LED is blinking and not action of the shutter is possible.
The spot metering in the Nikon F4 if located behind the mirror in the reflex chamber and combined with the CCD focus sensor. The the matrix and center averaged mode is operated by different photo-diodes in the removable DP-20 photometric viewer. I mostly used the spot metering mode in my usual way, privileging the shadows. I saw that the matrix mode gave very closed results. The measure were usually manually reported to the camera in the "M" mode except for one view (Nr. 3) where I left the Nikon choosing the shutter speed (approx. 1/3000s) according to the aperture (full aperture in this case f/1.4).
As for my medium-format session, I took a bit of time to note on a session ticket the main parameter (shutter speed, aperture, focusing distance). The weather was still very mild and sunny during all the session in the afternoon.
View Nr 32: 1/30s f/2 focus at 6 m
Hoya HMC AUV 1A filter (x2)
Livres Anciens, November 8, 2024
Rue Saint-Jean
69005 Lyon
France
After completion, the film was rewound using the rewinding motor (lever R1 then lever R2). During the film rewind (manual or auto) the view counter decrements and I switched-off the R2 lever just arrived at zero. I terminated the process manual to keep the film leader outside the cartridge.
I then processed the film developed using 300 mL of Adox Adonal (Agfa Rodinal) developer prepared at the dilution 1+25 for 9min at 20°C.
Digitizing was made using a Sony A7 camera (ILCE-7, 24MP) held on a Minolta Auto Bellows with the Minolta slide duplication accessory and Minolta Macro Bellow lens 1:3.5 f=50mm. The light source was a LED panel CineStill Cine-lite.
The RAW files obtained were inverted within the latest version of Adobe Lightroom Classic version 14 and edited to the final jpeg pictures without intermediate file. They are presented either as printed files with frame or the full size JPEG's together with some documentary smartphone color pictures.
The results show that the Nikon F4 spot metering is perfectly calibrated and consistent with my traditional way to determine the exposition. The DX coding. is operating correctly but no confirming indication of the ISO value is displayed on the camera (excepted the blinking red LED if the DX code is not correctly detected). As for all SLR's of this generation, a small window on the left-side of the camera back allows the reading of the film characteristics. All the light-tight foams are in perfect order for a camera of this age (35-year old).
Overall this second session with the Nikon F4 confirms that the camera is very pleasant to use despite its 1.7kg (fitted with its standard 1.4/50mm). The minimalistic Nikon neck strap remains comfortable and well proportionated to the camera. It's areal joy to use.
--------------
About the camera :
Maybe it would have been better not to ask for this question: « what’s new do you have at the moment?» to my local photo store, because Christine grab underneath the counter, stating « I have that … » . What a beast ! A Nikon F4 in the exact state of the Nikon brochure year 1990, presented with the standard AF Nikkor 1:1.4 f=50mm. I was already hooked by the machine. After two days, I decided to buy it even with some little common issues found on early Nikon F4 (see below), fortunately not affecting the whole, numberous functions of this incredibly complex professional SLR of the year 1990’s.
Nikon F4 came to the market on September 1988 starting with the serial number 2.000.000. Fully manufactured in Japan (modules came from 3 different Nikon factories) the F4's were assembled in Mito, Ibaraki (North to Tokyo) Nikon plant (no more in the mother factory of Tokyo Oi like the Nikon’s F). When I lived in Tokyo in 1990-1991, Nikon F4 was the top-of-the-line of Nikon SLR camera’s. I saw it in particular in Shinjuku Bic Camera store when I bought there, in December 1990 my Nikonos V.
Nikon F4 incorporates many astonishing engineering features as the double vertical-travel curtain shutter capable of the 1/8000s. Compared to the Nikon F3, the F4 was an AF SLR operated by a CCD sensor (200 photo sites). The film is automatically loaded, advanced with to top speed of 5,7 frame/s !! With the MB-21 power grip (F4s version). The F4 is a very heavy camera (1.7kg with the AF Nikkor 1.4/50mm), incredibly tough and well constructed. This exemplary is devoid of any scratches or marks, and in a condition proving that it was not used for hard professional appliances, for those it was however intended. The camera has still it original Nikon neck strap, the original user manual in French. The lens is protected by a Cokin (Franc) Skylight 1A 52mm filter and the original Nikon front cap. The two small LCD displays (one on the F4 body, one in the DP-20 finder) are both affected by the classical syndrome of « bleeding ». Fortunately, all information could still be read. One says that 70% of the early Nikon F4 suffer from this problem but also found on other models.
According its serial number and the production rate of about 5000 units/month, this Nikon F4s was probably manufactured in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan in May 1989.
Consistently, more than 100,000 individuals rush to the area to wonder about the extreme holiday enhancements. From the solace of our mechanized kills, Genelou Luxury Car gives five-star Dyker Heights Christmas lights tours. We can play jingle chimes while you taste your hot chocolate. So call us at 1 (800) 674-9624 and visit Dyker Heights Christmas Holiday light tours.
Inspired by the consistently sold-out Writing for Film & Television Summer Intensive Program, the Two-Weekend Intensive was designed for aspiring film and television writers with busy weekday schedules. Over the course of two weekends, participants learn a variety of screenwriting tools, techniques, and exercises that closely represent what students learn in the one-year Writing for Film & Television program.
Find out more about VFS’s one-year Writing for Film & Television program at vfs.com/writing.
Singapore Zoo ranks consistently (after San Diego Zoo) as one of the best in the world.
Watching the power of this animal as he leaps for the incoming food is just breathtaking. You can see the deadly canines in the powerful jaw. At 16, Omar was already old for a tiger, and he died 16 months after this was taken.
For the story, please visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/teeth-claws-and-colou...
Lamborghini Veneno
In the year of its 50th anniversary Automobili Lamborghini is presenting an extremely exclusive model at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Only three unique units of the Lamborghini Veneno will be built and sold. Its design is consistently focused on optimum aerodynamics and cornering stability, giving the Veneno the real dynamic experience of a racing prototype, yet it is fully homologated for the road. With a maximum output of 552 kW / 750 hp, the Lamborghini Veneno accelerates from 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and the top speed for this street-legal racing car stands at 355 km/h. It is priced at three million Euros plus tax - and all three units have already been sold to customers.
The Lamborghini Veneno features a twelve-cylinder power unit with a displacement of 6.5 liters, an extremely fast-shifting 7-speed ISR transmission with 5 driving modes and permanent all-wheel drive, as well as a racing chassis with pushrod suspension and horizontal spring/damper units. Above all, however, the Veneno benefits from the very special expertise that Automobili Lamborghini possesses in the development and execution of carbon-fiber materials - the complete chassis is produced as a CFRP monocoque, as is the outer skin of this extreme sports car. The inside, too, features innovative, Lamborghini-patented materials such as Forged Composite and CarbonSkin.
Fully in keeping with the tradition of the brand, the name of the Veneno originates from a legendary fighting bull. Veneno is the name of one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever. He is also famous for being one of the fastest bulls in the history of bullfighting. His name became popular in 1914, when he fatally wounded the famous torero José Sánchez Rodríguez during the bullfight in the arena Sanlúcar de Barrameda's, Andalusia, Spain.
Lamborghini Veneno (2013)
2013 Lamborghini Veneno
The Design
The Lamborghini Veneno brings the aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype to the road. Every detail of its form pursues a clear function - exceptional dynamics, optimum downforce with minimal drag and perfect cooling of the high-performance engine. Yet the Veneno is unmistakably a Lamborghini; it sticks firmly to the consistent design philosophy of all the super sports cars from Sant'Agata Bolognese. That includes the extreme proportions, as well as the powerfully arrow-shaped front end and the interplay between razor-sharp lines and precise surfaces.
The entire front end of the Lamborghini Veneno has been laid out for perfect airflow and downforce. The front end works as a large aerodynamic wing. Large channels guide the air to the outlets in the front hood and in front of the windshield, as well as to the front wheels. Characteristic for Lamborghini is the Y shape of the angular headlamps that reach well into the fenders as well as the scissor doors.
The division of the fenders from the car body is a reference to the world of sport prototypes and optimizes at the same time the aerodynamic flow. The side line of the Veneno is therefore dominated by enormous sills and the mighty wheel arches front and rear. Here, too, sophisticated aerodynamics ensure perfect airflow to the large openings for engine cooling and intake air.
Just like the front end, the rear of the Lamborghini Veneno has also been optimized for underbody aerodynamics and high speed cornering stability. The smooth underbody transitions into a substantial diffuser framing the four sizable exhaust pipes divided by a splitter to increase the level of downforce peak. Large openings serve to ventilate the engine bay and manage the airflow to the rear wing, with the only sealed area at the rear being reserved for the license plate. The rear lights, including brake lights, indicator lights and fog lights, pick up the Y theme as well. The engine cover sports six wedge-shaped openings, with the focus here, too, on optimum dissipation of heat from the engine. The engine cover extends into a large central "shark" fin, which improves efficiency during braking and rear-end stability, by delivering additional downforce at high yaw angles and thus increasing the high-speed cornering performance.
The adjustable rear wing's design is the product of Motorsport experience and extensive aerodynamic simulation to ensure the best performance of rear wing interaction with rear diffuser air flow.
The exclusive alloy wheels measure 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear and are equipped with center mountings. Their design is also determined by aerodynamic functionality - a carbon-fiber ring around the wheel rim works like a turbine to deliver additional cooling air to the carbon-ceramic brake discs.
The Lamborghini Veneno is painted in an all-new, grey metallic-look color with individual parts gleaming in the black of the visible carbon-fiber structure. The only car to display all three colors of the Italian flag as an accent is the car shown at Geneva, the unit which will remain property of Lamborghini. The three cars sold to customers each feature a single color of the Italian national flag, together a triology in green, white and red accents and thus representing each a unique piece.
The Technology
The Veneno is further proof of Automobili Lamborghini's unique competence in CFRP-based lightweight design. A monocoque made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer forms the basis of the Veneno. It is largely similar to the Aventador monocoque - as are the aluminum sub-frames front and rear - although its form has been adapted to the new design. All exterior parts are made from CFRP. The Lamborghini Veneno meets all safety and registration requirements worldwide, and naturally also incorporates a full complement of safety systems from airbags through to the adapted ESP handling system.
Carbon fiber dominates the interior of the Lamborghini Veneno, too. The carbon fiber monocoque becomes visible inside the car in the area of the central tunnel and the sills. The two lightweight bucket seats are made from Lamborghini's patented Forged Composite. The woven carbon-fiber CarbonSkin® is used to clad the entire cockpit, part of the seats and the headliner. This unique material is soaked in a very special kind of resin that stabilizes the fiber structure, while allowing the material to remain supple. Like a hi-tech fabric, this extremely fine-looking carbon-fiber matting fits perfectly to any form, and it reduces weight.
The racing personality has been transferred also to the instrument panel. It has been completely redesigned and now, thanks to an aggressive graphics and to the introduction of some additional features like the G-meter, provides all necessary information to the driver for control of the car.
The systematic, carbon-fiber, lightweight design of the Lamborghini Veneno is not only visible, it is also evident on the scales: With a dry weight of just 1,450 kilograms (3,190 pounds), the Veneno is even 125 kilos (275 pounds) lighter than the already extremely lean Aventador. The highly beneficial power-to-weight ratio of 1.93 kg/hp (4,25 lbs/hp) guarantees a performance that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Even the stunning acceleration figure of 2,8 seconds cannot adequately describe it. Despite an aerodynamic setup configured for extreme downforce, the Veneno possesses exceptionally low wind resistance which allows it to reach a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph).
The twelve-cylinder with a displacement of 6.5 liters is a thrilling combination of absolute high-revving frenzy and phenomenal pulling power. Its output has been raised to 552 kW / 750 hp, facilitated through enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, a slightly higher rated rpm and an exhaust system with even lower back pressure. The ISR manual gearbox, permanent all-wheel drive and pushrod suspension have all been specifically adjusted to meet the demands of the Lamborghini Veneno.
The Lamborghini Veneno celebrates its first public appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle on show is the number 0, the Lamborghini test vehicle. Its future has not been determined yet, but it will allow Lamborghini to continue its activity of testing and innovation, both on the road and on the race track. The trilogy made of three unique vehicles will be produced in the course of the year 2013 and handed over to their future owners.
Lamborghini Veneno
In the year of its 50th anniversary Automobili Lamborghini is presenting an extremely exclusive model at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Only three unique units of the Lamborghini Veneno will be built and sold. Its design is consistently focused on optimum aerodynamics and cornering stability, giving the Veneno the real dynamic experience of a racing prototype, yet it is fully homologated for the road. With a maximum output of 552 kW / 750 hp, the Lamborghini Veneno accelerates from 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and the top speed for this street-legal racing car stands at 355 km/h. It is priced at three million Euros plus tax - and all three units have already been sold to customers.
The Lamborghini Veneno features a twelve-cylinder power unit with a displacement of 6.5 liters, an extremely fast-shifting 7-speed ISR transmission with 5 driving modes and permanent all-wheel drive, as well as a racing chassis with pushrod suspension and horizontal spring/damper units. Above all, however, the Veneno benefits from the very special expertise that Automobili Lamborghini possesses in the development and execution of carbon-fiber materials - the complete chassis is produced as a CFRP monocoque, as is the outer skin of this extreme sports car. The inside, too, features innovative, Lamborghini-patented materials such as Forged Composite and CarbonSkin.
Fully in keeping with the tradition of the brand, the name of the Veneno originates from a legendary fighting bull. Veneno is the name of one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever. He is also famous for being one of the fastest bulls in the history of bullfighting. His name became popular in 1914, when he fatally wounded the famous torero José Sánchez Rodríguez during the bullfight in the arena Sanlúcar de Barrameda's, Andalusia, Spain.
Lamborghini Veneno (2013)
2013 Lamborghini Veneno
The Design
The Lamborghini Veneno brings the aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype to the road. Every detail of its form pursues a clear function - exceptional dynamics, optimum downforce with minimal drag and perfect cooling of the high-performance engine. Yet the Veneno is unmistakably a Lamborghini; it sticks firmly to the consistent design philosophy of all the super sports cars from Sant'Agata Bolognese. That includes the extreme proportions, as well as the powerfully arrow-shaped front end and the interplay between razor-sharp lines and precise surfaces.
The entire front end of the Lamborghini Veneno has been laid out for perfect airflow and downforce. The front end works as a large aerodynamic wing. Large channels guide the air to the outlets in the front hood and in front of the windshield, as well as to the front wheels. Characteristic for Lamborghini is the Y shape of the angular headlamps that reach well into the fenders as well as the scissor doors.
The division of the fenders from the car body is a reference to the world of sport prototypes and optimizes at the same time the aerodynamic flow. The side line of the Veneno is therefore dominated by enormous sills and the mighty wheel arches front and rear. Here, too, sophisticated aerodynamics ensure perfect airflow to the large openings for engine cooling and intake air.
Just like the front end, the rear of the Lamborghini Veneno has also been optimized for underbody aerodynamics and high speed cornering stability. The smooth underbody transitions into a substantial diffuser framing the four sizable exhaust pipes divided by a splitter to increase the level of downforce peak. Large openings serve to ventilate the engine bay and manage the airflow to the rear wing, with the only sealed area at the rear being reserved for the license plate. The rear lights, including brake lights, indicator lights and fog lights, pick up the Y theme as well. The engine cover sports six wedge-shaped openings, with the focus here, too, on optimum dissipation of heat from the engine. The engine cover extends into a large central "shark" fin, which improves efficiency during braking and rear-end stability, by delivering additional downforce at high yaw angles and thus increasing the high-speed cornering performance.
The adjustable rear wing's design is the product of Motorsport experience and extensive aerodynamic simulation to ensure the best performance of rear wing interaction with rear diffuser air flow.
The exclusive alloy wheels measure 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear and are equipped with center mountings. Their design is also determined by aerodynamic functionality - a carbon-fiber ring around the wheel rim works like a turbine to deliver additional cooling air to the carbon-ceramic brake discs.
The Lamborghini Veneno is painted in an all-new, grey metallic-look color with individual parts gleaming in the black of the visible carbon-fiber structure. The only car to display all three colors of the Italian flag as an accent is the car shown at Geneva, the unit which will remain property of Lamborghini. The three cars sold to customers each feature a single color of the Italian national flag, together a triology in green, white and red accents and thus representing each a unique piece.
The Technology
The Veneno is further proof of Automobili Lamborghini's unique competence in CFRP-based lightweight design. A monocoque made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer forms the basis of the Veneno. It is largely similar to the Aventador monocoque - as are the aluminum sub-frames front and rear - although its form has been adapted to the new design. All exterior parts are made from CFRP. The Lamborghini Veneno meets all safety and registration requirements worldwide, and naturally also incorporates a full complement of safety systems from airbags through to the adapted ESP handling system.
Carbon fiber dominates the interior of the Lamborghini Veneno, too. The carbon fiber monocoque becomes visible inside the car in the area of the central tunnel and the sills. The two lightweight bucket seats are made from Lamborghini's patented Forged Composite. The woven carbon-fiber CarbonSkin® is used to clad the entire cockpit, part of the seats and the headliner. This unique material is soaked in a very special kind of resin that stabilizes the fiber structure, while allowing the material to remain supple. Like a hi-tech fabric, this extremely fine-looking carbon-fiber matting fits perfectly to any form, and it reduces weight.
The racing personality has been transferred also to the instrument panel. It has been completely redesigned and now, thanks to an aggressive graphics and to the introduction of some additional features like the G-meter, provides all necessary information to the driver for control of the car.
The systematic, carbon-fiber, lightweight design of the Lamborghini Veneno is not only visible, it is also evident on the scales: With a dry weight of just 1,450 kilograms (3,190 pounds), the Veneno is even 125 kilos (275 pounds) lighter than the already extremely lean Aventador. The highly beneficial power-to-weight ratio of 1.93 kg/hp (4,25 lbs/hp) guarantees a performance that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Even the stunning acceleration figure of 2,8 seconds cannot adequately describe it. Despite an aerodynamic setup configured for extreme downforce, the Veneno possesses exceptionally low wind resistance which allows it to reach a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph).
The twelve-cylinder with a displacement of 6.5 liters is a thrilling combination of absolute high-revving frenzy and phenomenal pulling power. Its output has been raised to 552 kW / 750 hp, facilitated through enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, a slightly higher rated rpm and an exhaust system with even lower back pressure. The ISR manual gearbox, permanent all-wheel drive and pushrod suspension have all been specifically adjusted to meet the demands of the Lamborghini Veneno.
The Lamborghini Veneno celebrates its first public appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle on show is the number 0, the Lamborghini test vehicle. Its future has not been determined yet, but it will allow Lamborghini to continue its activity of testing and innovation, both on the road and on the race track. The trilogy made of three unique vehicles will be produced in the course of the year 2013 and handed over to their future owners.
Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli
La Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli è una delle chiese di Roma e sorge sul colle del Campidoglio.
Nome
Il nome originario era Santa Maria in Capitolio e la chiesa faceva parte del complesso di edifici del monastero che si era insediato sul colle capitolino mentre il resto delle costruzioni romane antiche andava in rovina.
Sull'attuale nome, attestato dal 1323 (doveva quindi essere già da tempo nell'uso popolare), vi sono varie ipotesi. Quella attualmente prevalente lo fa risalire alla leggenda, riportata nei Mirabilia Urbis Romae, per la quale la chiesa era sorta nel luogo dove Augusto, avendo avuto la visione di una bella donna con un bambino in braccio, avrebbe anche udito una voce che diceva «Questa è l'ara del figlio di Dio». Si trattava di Maria, madre di Gesù. Si dice infatti nei Mirabilia:
« Questa visione avvenne nella camera dell'imperatore Ottaviano, dove ora è la chiesa di S. Maria in Capitolio. Per questa ragione la chiesa di S. Maria fu detta Ara del cielo. »
La chiesa fu costruita sulle rovine del Tempio di Giunone Moneta, che sorgeva sull'Arx, una delle due alture del Colle Capitolino.
L'identificazione del sito non è però certa; secondo altri studi la chiesa sorgerebbe infatti dove si trovava l'antichissimo Auguraculum, luogo dal quale gli Auguri prendevano gli auspici osservando il volo degli uccelli.
La prima costruzione risale al VI secolo, quando vi si svolgevano funzioni secondo il rito greco. Come in molti altri casi, attorno alla prima chiesa si addensarono costruzioni che nella parte superiore si svilupparono in un monastero, mentre sulle pendici del colle nasceva un mercato e poi un piccolo quartiere. Resti di queste costruzioni (la chiesetta di San Biagio del Mercato e la sottostante "Insula Romana") tornarono alla luce negli anni trenta.
In un documento del XII secolo che conferisce all'abate (benedettino) di Santa maria in Capitolio la proprietà sull'intero montem Capitolii vengono descritti i tre accessi al colle all'epoca (li si può facilmente immaginare consistenti in poco più che viottoli scoscesi):
la strada che conduceva al Clivo degli Argentari (l'attuale scalinata che sale dal Carcere Mamertino), orientata verso la Suburra;
la "via pubblica che porta sotto al Campidoglio" (corrispondente all'incirca all'attuale Cordonata);
la via che porta a San Teodoro, verso il Foro, ancora esistente.
Il colle Capitolino era riemerso alla vita pubblica nel 1143, quando il popolo romano ribellatosi al papa Innocenzo II aveva designato come proprio capo Giorgio dei Pierleoni, designandolo Patricius, e aveva scelto quell'antico luogo come sede di raduno (si colloca attorno al 1195 la costruzione del primo Palazzo Senatorio).
Nei decenni della contesa tra Guelfi e Ghibellini la piazza, benché approssimativa e scoscesa, divenne il luogo fisico dell'esperienza comunale della città, e con essa la sua chiesa. Fu in questo clima che Innocenzo IV concesse nel 1250 la proprietà del sito (chiesa e monastero) ai Francescani, ordine dei tempi nuovi.
Questi ristrutturarono la chiesa, conferendole l'attuale aspetto romano-gotico, ed essa, oltre ad essere luogo di culto, divenne centro della vita politica di Roma, tanto che vi si tennero assemblee popolari del libero comune. La sintonizzazione della chiesa rinnovata con i nuovi tempi dell'Urbe si manifestò concretamente anche nella modifica del suo orientamento (prima verso il palazzo Senatorio e il Foro, ora verso San Pietro e il Campo Marzio), e nella costruzione della nuova imponente scalinata, commissionata proprio dal libero comune nel 1348, come voto alla Vergine affinché ponesse fine alla peste che imperversava in tutta Europa, e realizzata con marmi di spoglio che giacevano abbondanti lì attorno; la scala fu poi inaugurata da Cola di Rienzo.
Assai più della Basilica Papale di San Pietro e della Cattedrale di San Giovanni, dedicate soprattutto a magnificare il fasto e la potenza dei papi, l'Aracoeli è stata da allora la chiesa del popolo romano e delle sue istituzioni civiche, con particolare riferimento al vicino Senato.
Qui nel 1341 fu laureato poeta Francesco Petrarca; qui si svolse, nel 1571, il trionfo del romano Marcantonio Colonna, comandante della Lega Cattolica contro i Turchi, per festeggiare la vittoria nella Battaglia di Lepanto (e per l'occasione fu costruito il soffitto che ancor oggi possiamo ammirare); qui si svolge ancora, ogni fine d'anno, il Te Deum di ringraziamento del popolo romano al quale, dal XIV secolo al XIX secolo, prese parte ininterrottamente il Pontefice stesso, presiedendolo. Sempre nell'Aracoeli inoltre, veniva celebrato solennemente il precetto natalizio delle Guardie di Palazzo del Papa, la Milizia Urbana e la Guardia Civica scelta prima, la Guardia Palatina d'Onore poi.
Durante l'occupazione di Roma da parte dei Francesi, nel 1797, questi si impossessarono dell'intero colle, mettendo in fuga i frati francescani e riducendo a stalla la chiesa: andarono distrutte in quell'occasione gran parte delle decorazioni cosmatesche che la impreziosivano. Non migliorò la situazione l'insediamento al Campidoglio della breve Repubblica romana del 1798, in quanto marcatamente anticlericale.
Con l'Unità d'Italia la proprietà del convento passò allo Stato, e vi fu insediata la caserma e il comando dei Vigili urbani. Durante i lavori di costruzione del Vittoriano, deliberato nel 1882 e inaugurato nel 1911, furono distrutti in alcuni anni, a varie riprese, tutti gli edifici che insistevano tra il versante sud del colle capitolino e l'imbocco di via del Corso, tra cui gli edifici conventuali collegati alla chiesa e tutte le persistenze romane e medioevali del sito.
Interno
L'interno, costruito su tre navate a tutto sesto, è ricco di tesori d'arte; tra gli altri, oltre al soffitto ligneo a cassettoni e al bel pavimento cosmatesco conservato in gran parte (salvo gli inserti di lastre tombali) e molto ben tenuto, sono presenti nella Cappella Bufalini affreschi del Pinturicchio che illustrano Storie di san Bernardino, affreschi tardomanieristi absidali del Cinquecento, una tavola con una Trasfigurazione di Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, la pietra tombale di Giovanni Crivelli opera del Donatello, due pergami attribuiti a Lorenzo di Cosma e al figlio Jacopo.
La chiesa era ed è famosa anche per il "Santo Bambino", una scultura in legno del bambino Gesù intagliata nel XV secolo con il legno d'olivo proveniente dal Giardino dei Getsemani e ricoperta di preziosissimi ex voto. Secondo la credenza popolare era dotata di poteri miracolosi ed i fedeli vi si recavano per chiedere la grazia da un male o da una disgrazia. La statua è stata rubata nel febbraio del 1994 e mai più ritrovata. Oggi al suo posto è presente una copia, alla quale non mancano nuovi ex voto.
Organi
Organo maggiore [modifica]Il primo organo a canne della Basilica di cui si ha notizia certa è un piccolo organo portativo costruito nel 1583 da Dario de Mezzana. Nel 1585, per volere di papa Sisto V, fu costruito un doppio organo situato in prossimità del transetto sulla parete destra della navata centrale e costituito dall'organo grande e da un positivo tergale. Mentre la costruzione del primo fu affidata al colligiano Domenico Benvenuti, alla morte del quale subentrò il figlio, la seconda fu affidata al fivizzanese Francesco Palmieri. Nel 1595 Luca Blasi creò un meccanismo di unione dei due manuali e lo strumento fu più volte modificato nel corso del secolo successivo, prima da Giuseppe Catarinozzi, poi da Giacomo Alari, fino ad avere la seguente disposizione fonica:
Organo Grande
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Principale 8'
Ottava 4'
Quinta decima 2'
Decima nona Bassi
Decima nona Soprani
Vigesima seconda
Vigesima sesta I
Vigesima sesta II
Vigesima nona I
Vigesima nona II
Flauto in XV 2'
Tromba 8'
Positivo tergale
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Principale 4'
Principale 8'
Ottava 2'
Flauto coperto in XII 1.1/3'
Flauto scoperto in XV 1'
Regale di metallo 4'
Accessori
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Uccelli
Temolante
Tamburo
Nel 1692 l'organo fu rimosso da Alari e probabilmente collocato sulla parete fondale del transetto di sinistra. Nel 1850, in occasione del Giubileo, i fratelli Martinelli di Fratta di Perugia vennero incaricati di costruire un nuovo organo, inaugurato il 22 febraio 1848 e collocato dietro l'altar maggiore. Lo strumento venne poi ampliato da Enrico Priori nel 1863 che vi aggiunse una terza tastiera e trasformò le ottave scavezze in cromatiche estese. L'organo venne inoltre restaurato per il Giubileo del 1900. Lo strumento venne rimosso nel 1926 e al suo posto fu installato un nuovo organo, commissionato alla ditta Taburini di Crema. Lo strumento, presente tutt'ora nella basilica e funzionante (2011), ha tre tastiere di 61 tasti ciascuno ed una pedaliera di 32 note. Di seguito, la sua disposizione fonica:
Prima tastiera - Espressivo[2]
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Principalino 8'
Eufonio 8'
Bordone 8'
Salicionale 8'
Gamba 8'
Flauto Armonico 4'
Nazardo 2.2/3'
Flautino 2'
Ripieno 3 file
Voce Celeste 8'
Concerto Viole 4 file
Tuba 8'
Oboe 8'
Tuba 4'
Voce Corale 8'
Terza 1.3/5'
Seconda tastiera - Grand'Organo
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Principale 16'
Principale Forte 8'
Principale Dolce 8'
Flauto 8'
Dulciana 8'
Ottava 4'
Flauto a Camino 4'
Decima quinta 2'
Ripieno 6 file
Voce Umana 8'
Tromba 8'
Terza tastiera - Espressivo[2]
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Principalino 8'
Eufonio 8'
Bordone 8'
Salicionale 8'
Gamba 8'
Flauto Armonico 4'
Nazardo 2.2/3'
Flautino 2'
Ripieno 3 file
Voce Celeste 8'
Concerto Viole 4 file
Tuba 8'
Oboe 8'
Tuba 4'
Voce Corale 8'
Pedale
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Contrabbasso 16'
Violone 16'
Bordone 16'
Bordone Dolce 16'
Quinta 10.2/3'
Basso 8'
Bordone 8'
Violoncello 8'
Ottava 4'
Bombarda 16'
Organo della cappella dell'Immacolata [modifica]Nella cappella dedicata all'Immacolata concezione si trova un organo positivo costruito nel 1725 da Johannes Conrad Werle. Lo strumento, a trasmissione integralmente meccanica originale, ha un'unica tastiera di 45 note con prima ottava scavezza e una pedaliera scavezza di 9 senza registri propri e costantemente unita al manuale. La sua disposizione fonica in base alla posizione dei comandi dei vari registri è la seguente:
Colonna di sinistra - Ripieno
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XXIX
XXVI
XXII
XIX
XV
Ottava
Tiratutti
Colonna di destra
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Voce Umana
Flauto in XII
Flauto in VIII 4'
Flauto unisono 8'
Principale 8'
Curiosità [modifica]Secondo una leggenda, per vincere al Lotto, è necessario salire in ginocchio la scalinata d'accesso alla basilica invocando i Re Magi e recitando il De profundis per le anime del Purgatorio.
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera;
Foto Alvaro de Alvariis;
Incisione Luigi Rossini.
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent Duffy Square, Times Square is a bowtie-shaped plaza five blocks long between 42nd and 47th Streets.
Times Square is brightly lit by numerous digital billboards and advertisements as well as businesses offering 24/7 service. One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days. The Times Square–42nd Street and 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal stations have consistently ranked as the busiest in the New York City Subway system, transporting more than 200,000 passengers daily.
Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square. It is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year, in addition to a worldwide audience of one billion or more on various digital media platforms.
Times Square, specifically the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, is the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States for motorized vehicles. Times Square is sometimes referred to as "the Crossroads of the World" and "the heart of the Great White Way".
Times Square functions as a town square, but is not geometrically a square. It is closer in shape to a bowtie, with two triangles emanating roughly north and south from 45th Street, where Seventh Avenue intersects Broadway. Broadway similarly intersects other north–south avenues at Union Square, Madison Square, Herald Square, and Verdi Square, none of which are squares. The area is bounded by West 42nd street, West 47th street, 7th Avenue, and Broadway. Broadway runs diagonally, crossing through the horizontal and vertical street grid of Manhattan laid down by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, and that intersection creates the "bowtie" shape of Times Square.
Times Square is the official name of the southern triangle, below 45th Street. The northern triangle is officially known as Duffy Square and was dedicated in June 1939 to honor World War I chaplain Father Francis P. Duffy of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment. A statue by Charles Keck was dedicated in May 1937 as a memorial to Duffy. There is also a statue of composer and entertainer George M. Cohan, and the TKTS discount ticket booth for same-day Broadway and off-Broadway theaters that has been at the site since June 1973
New York, often called New York City or simply NYC, is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each of which is coextensive with a respective county. It is a global city and a cultural, financial, high-tech, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care, scientific output, life sciences, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and is sometimes described as the world's most important city and the capital of the world.
With an estimated population in 2022 of 8,335,897 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. New York is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world.
New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on the southern tip of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in approximately 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. The city was temporarily regained by the Dutch in July 1673 and was renamed New Orange; however, the city has been named New York since November 1674. New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The modern city was formed by the 1898 consolidation of its five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island, and has been the largest U.S. city ever since.
Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world's premier financial and fintech center and the most economically powerful city in the world. As of 2022, the New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan economy in the world with a gross metropolitan product of over US$2.16 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were its own country, it would have the tenth-largest economy in the world. The city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. New York City is an established safe haven for global investors. As of 2023, New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates to live. New York City is home to the highest number of billionaires, individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$30 million), and millionaires of any city in the world
The written history of New York City began with the first European explorer, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608 and New Amsterdam was founded in 1624.
The "Sons of Liberty" campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped (with the notable exception of the Battle of Harlem Heights, his first victory of the war), and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees.
The city served as the national capital under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789, and briefly served as the new nation's capital in 1789–90 under the United States Constitution. Under the new government, the city hosted the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, the drafting of the United States Bill of Rights, and the first Supreme Court of the United States. The opening of the Erie Canal gave excellent steamboat connections with upstate New York and the Great Lakes, along with coastal traffic to lower New England, making the city the preeminent port on the Atlantic Ocean. The arrival of rail connections to the north and west in the 1840s and 1850s strengthened its central role.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, waves of new immigrants arrived from Europe dramatically changing the composition of the city and serving as workers in the expanding industries. Modern New York traces its development to the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 and an economic and building boom following the Great Depression and World War II. Throughout its history, New York has served as a main port of entry for many immigrants, and its cultural and economic influence has made it one of the most important urban areas in the United States and the world. The economy in the 1700s was based on farming, local production, fur trading, and Atlantic jobs like shipbuilding. In the 1700s, New York was sometimes referred to as a breadbasket colony, because one of its major crops was wheat. New York colony also exported other goods included iron ore as a raw material and as manufactured goods such as tools, plows, nails and kitchen items such as kettles, pans and pots.
The area that eventually encompassed modern day New York was inhabited by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically related Native Americans traditionally spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as Unami. Early European settlers called bands of Lenape by the Unami place name for where they lived, such as "Raritan" in Staten Island and New Jersey, "Canarsee" in Brooklyn, and "Hackensack" in New Jersey across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan. Some modern place names such as Raritan Bay and Canarsie are derived from Lenape names. Eastern Long Island neighbors were culturally and linguistically more closely related to the Mohegan-Pequot peoples of New England who spoke the Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language.
These peoples made use of the abundant waterways in the New York region for fishing, hunting trips, trade, and occasionally war. Many paths created by the indigenous peoples are now main thoroughfares, such as Broadway in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester. The Lenape developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources. By the time of the arrival of Europeans, they were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burn technique, which extended the productive life of planted fields. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bay. Historians estimate that at the time of European settlement, approximately 5,000 Lenape lived in 80 settlements around the region.
The first European visitor to the area was Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian in command of the French ship La Dauphine in 1524. It is believed he sailed into Upper New York Bay, where he encountered native Lenape, returned through the Narrows, where he anchored the night of April 17, and left to continue his voyage. He named the area New Angoulême (La Nouvelle-Angoulême) in honor of Francis I, King of France of the royal house of Valois-Angoulême and who had been Count of Angoulême from 1496 until his coronation in 1515. The name refers to the town of Angoulême, in the Charente département of France. For the next century, the area was occasionally visited by fur traders or explorers, such as by Esteban Gomez in 1525.
European exploration continued on September 2, 1609, when the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed the Half Moon through the Narrows into Upper New York Bay. Like Christopher Columbus, Hudson was looking for a westerly passage to Asia. He never found one, but he did take note of the abundant beaver population. Beaver pelts were in fashion in Europe, fueling a lucrative business. Hudson's report on the regional beaver population served as the impetus for the founding of Dutch trading colonies in the New World. The beaver's importance in New York's history is reflected by its use on the city's official seal.
The first Dutch fur trading posts and settlements were in 1614 near present-day Albany, New York, the same year that New Netherland first appeared on maps. Only in May 1624 did the Dutch West India Company land a number of families at Noten Eylant (today's Governors Island) off the southern tip of Manhattan at the mouth of the North River (today's Hudson River). Soon thereafter, most likely in 1626, construction of Fort Amsterdam began. Later, the Dutch West Indies Company imported African slaves to serve as laborers; they were forced to build the wall that defended the town against English and Indian attacks. Early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit. Willem Kieft became director in 1638 but five years later was embroiled in Kieft's War against the Native Americans. The Pavonia Massacre, across the Hudson River in present-day Jersey City, resulted in the death of 80 natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated the Dutch. Holland sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29, 1645.
On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival and ruled as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The colony was granted self-government in 1652, and New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. The first mayors (burgemeesters) of New Amsterdam, Arent van Hattem and Martin Cregier, were appointed in that year. By the early 1660s, the population consisted of approximately 1500 Europeans, only about half of whom were Dutch, and 375 Africans, 300 of whom were slaves.
A few of the original Dutch place names have been retained, most notably Flushing (after the Dutch town of Vlissingen), Harlem (after Haarlem), and Brooklyn (after Breukelen). Few buildings, however, remain from the 17th century. The oldest recorded house still in existence in New York, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, dates from 1652.
On August 27, 1664, four English frigates under the command of Col. Richard Nicolls sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, as part of an effort by King Charles II's brother James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral to provoke the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Two weeks later, Stuyvesant officially capitulated by signing Articles of Surrender and in June 1665, the town was reincorporated under English law and renamed "New York" after the Duke, and Fort Orange was renamed "Fort Albany". The war ended in a Dutch victory in 1667, but the colony remained under English rule as stipulated in the Treaty of Breda. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch briefly recaptured the city in 1673, renaming the city "New Orange", before permanently ceding the colony of New Netherland to England for what is now Suriname in November 1674 at the Treaty of Westminster.
The colony benefited from increased immigration from Europe and its population grew faster. The Bolting Act of 1678, whereby no mill outside the city was permitted to grind wheat or corn, boosted growth until its repeal in 1694, increasing the number of houses over the period from 384 to 983.
In the context of the Glorious Revolution in England, Jacob Leisler led Leisler's Rebellion and effectively controlled the city and surrounding areas from 1689 to 1691, before being arrested and executed.
Lawyers
In New York at first, legal practitioners were full-time businessmen and merchants, with no legal training, who had watched a few court proceedings, and mostly used their own common sense together with snippets they had picked up about English law. Court proceedings were quite informal, for the judges had no more training than the attorneys.
By the 1760s, the situation had dramatically changed. Lawyers were essential to the rapidly growing international trade, dealing with questions of partnerships, contracts, and insurance. The sums of money involved were large, and hiring an incompetent lawyer was a very expensive proposition. Lawyers were now professionally trained, and conversant in an extremely complex language that combined highly specific legal terms and motions with a dose of Latin. Court proceedings became a baffling mystery to the ordinary layman. Lawyers became more specialized and built their reputation, and their fee schedule, on the basis of their reputation for success. But as their status, wealth and power rose, animosity grew even faster. By the 1750s and 1760s, there was a widespread attack ridiculing and demeaning the lawyers as pettifoggers (lawyers lacking sound legal skills). Their image and influence declined. The lawyers organized a bar association, but it fell apart in 1768 during the bitter political dispute between the factions based in the Delancey and Livingston families. A large fraction of the prominent lawyers were Loyalists; their clientele was often to royal authority or British merchants and financiers. They were not allowed to practice law unless they took a loyalty oath to the new United States of America. Many went to Britain or Canada (primarily to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) after losing the war.
For the next century, various attempts were made, and failed, to build an effective organization of lawyers. Finally a Bar Association emerged in 1869 that proved successful and continues to operate.
By 1700, the Lenape population of New York had diminished to 200. The Dutch West Indies Company transported African slaves to the post as trading laborers used to build the fort and stockade, and some gained freedom under the Dutch. After the seizure of the colony in 1664, the slave trade continued to be legal. In 1703, 42% of the New York households had slaves; they served as domestic servants and laborers but also became involved in skilled trades, shipping and other fields. Yet following reform in ethics according to American Enlightenment thought, by the 1770s slaves made up less than 25% of the population.
By the 1740s, 20% of the residents of New York were slaves, totaling about 2,500 people.
After a series of fires in 1741, the city panicked over rumors of its black population conspiring with some poor whites to burn the city. Historians believe their alarm was mostly fabrication and fear, but officials rounded up 31 black and 4 white people, who over a period of months were convicted of arson. Of these, the city executed 13 black people by burning them alive and hanged the remainder of those incriminated.
The Stamp Act and other British measures fomented dissent, particularly among Sons of Liberty who maintained a long-running skirmish with locally stationed British troops over Liberty Poles from 1766 to 1776. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City in 1765 in the first organized resistance to British authority across the colonies. After the major defeat of the Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island in late 1776, General George Washington withdrew to Manhattan Island, but with the subsequent defeat at the Battle of Fort Washington the island was effectively left to the British. The city became a haven for loyalist refugees, becoming a British stronghold for the entire war. Consequently, the area also became the focal point for Washington's espionage and intelligence-gathering throughout the war.
New York was greatly damaged twice by fires of suspicious origin, with the Loyalists and Patriots accusing each other of starting the conflagration. The city became the political and military center of operations for the British in North America for the remainder of the war. Continental Army officer Nathan Hale was hanged in Manhattan for espionage. In addition, the British began to hold the majority of captured American prisoners of war aboard prison ships in Wallabout Bay, across the East River in Brooklyn. More Americans lost their lives aboard these ships than died in all the battles of the war. The British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783. George Washington triumphantly returned to the city that day, as the last British forces left the city.
Starting in 1785 the Congress met in the city of New York under the Articles of Confederation. In 1789, New York became the first national capital under the new Constitution. The Constitution also created the current Congress of the United States, and its first sitting was at Federal Hall on Wall Street. The first Supreme Court sat there. The United States Bill of Rights was drafted and ratified there. George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall. New York remained the national capital until 1790, when the role was transferred to Philadelphia.
During the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration, a visionary development proposal called the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada. By 1835, New York had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury.
In 1842, water was piped from a reservoir to supply the city for the first time.
The Great Irish Famine (1845–1850) brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, and by 1850 the Irish comprised one quarter of the city's population. Government institutions, including the New York City Police Department and the public schools, were established in the 1840s and 1850s to respond to growing demands of residents. In 1831, New York University was founded by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin as a non-denominal institution surrounding Washington Square Park.
This period started with the 1855 inauguration of Fernando Wood as the first mayor from Tammany Hall. It was the political machine based among Irish Americans that controlled the local Democratic Party. It usually dominated local politics throughout this period and into the 1930s. Public-minded members of the merchant community pressed for a Central Park, which was opened to a design competition in 1857; it became the first landscape park in an American city.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the city was affected by its history of strong commercial ties to the South; before the war, half of its exports were related to cotton, including textiles from upstate mills. Together with its growing immigrant population, which was angry about conscription, sympathies among residents were divided for both the Union and Confederacy at the outbreak of war. Tensions related to the war culminated in the Draft Riots of 1863 led by Irish Catholics, who attacked black neighborhood and abolitionist homes. Many blacks left the city and moved to Brooklyn. After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.
From 1890 to 1930, the largest cities, led by New York, were the focus of international attention. The skyscrapers and tourist attractions were widely publicized. Suburbs were emerging as bedroom communities for commuters to the central city. San Francisco dominated the West, Atlanta dominated the South, Boston dominated New England; Chicago dominated the Midwest United States. New York City dominated the entire nation in terms of communications, trade, finance, popular culture, and high culture. More than a fourth of the 300 largest corporations in 1920 were headquartered here.
In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan, and outlying areas. Manhattan and the Bronx were established as two separate boroughs and joined with three other boroughs created from parts of adjacent counties to form the new municipal government originally called "Greater New York". The Borough of Brooklyn incorporated the independent City of Brooklyn, recently joined to Manhattan by the Brooklyn Bridge; the Borough of Queens was created from western Queens County (with the remnant established as Nassau County in 1899); and the Borough of Richmond contained all of Richmond County. Municipal governments contained within the boroughs were abolished, and the county governmental functions were absorbed by the city or each borough. In 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, making five counties coterminous with the five boroughs.
The Bronx had a steady boom period during 1898–1929, with a population growth by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression created a surge of unemployment, especially among the working class, and a slow-down of growth.
On June 15, 1904, over 1,000 people, mostly German immigrant women and children, were killed when the excursion steamship General Slocum caught fire and sank. It is the city's worst maritime disaster. On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers. In response, the city made great advancements in the fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication, marking its rising influence with such events as the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909. Interborough Rapid Transit (the first New York City Subway company) began operating in 1904, and the railroads operating out of Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station thrived.
From 1918 to 1920, New York City was affected by the largest rent strike wave in its history. Somewhere between several 10,000's and 100,000's of tenants struck across the city. A WW1 housing and coal shortage sparked the strikes. It became marked both by occasional violent scuffles and the Red Scare. It would lead to the passage of the first rent laws in the nations history.
The city was a destination for internal migrants as well as immigrants. Through 1940, New York was a major destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the rural American South. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the 1920s and the era of Prohibition. New York's ever accelerating changes and rising crime and poverty rates were reduced after World War I disrupted trade routes, the Immigration Restriction Acts limited additional immigration after the war, and the Great Depression reduced the need for new labor. The combination ended the rule of the Gilded Age barons. As the city's demographics temporarily stabilized, labor unionization helped the working class gain new protections and middle-class affluence, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under Fiorello La Guardia, and his controversial parks commissioner, Robert Moses, ended the blight of many tenement areas, expanded new parks, remade streets, and restricted and reorganized zoning controls.
For a while, New York ranked as the most populous city in the world, overtaking London in 1925, which had reigned for a century.[58] During the difficult years of the Great Depression, the reformer Fiorello La Guardia was elected as mayor, and Tammany Hall fell after eighty years of political dominance.
Despite the effects of the Great Depression, some of the world's tallest skyscrapers were built during the 1930s. Art Deco architecture—such as the iconic Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, and 30 Rockefeller Plaza— came to define the city's skyline. The construction of the Rockefeller Center occurred in the 1930s and was the largest-ever private development project at the time. Both before and especially after World War II, vast areas of the city were also reshaped by the construction of bridges, parks and parkways coordinated by Robert Moses, the greatest proponent of automobile-centered modernist urbanism in America.
Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom. Demands for new housing were aided by the G.I. Bill for veterans, stimulating the development of huge suburban tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County. The city was extensively photographed during the post–war years by photographer Todd Webb.
New York emerged from the war as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading the United States ascendancy. In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan. During the late 1960s, the views of real estate developer and city leader Robert Moses began to fall out of favor as the anti-urban renewal views of Jane Jacobs gained popularity. Citizen rebellion stopped a plan to construct an expressway through Lower Manhattan.
After a short war boom, the Bronx declined from 1950 to 1985, going from predominantly moderate-income to mostly lower-income, with high rates of violent crime and poverty. The Bronx has experienced an economic and developmental resurgence starting in the late 1980s that continues into today.
The transition away from the industrial base toward a service economy picked up speed, while the jobs in the large shipbuilding and garment industries declined sharply. The ports converted to container ships, costing many traditional jobs among longshoremen. Many large corporations moved their headquarters to the suburbs or to distant cities. At the same time, there was enormous growth in services, especially finance, education, medicine, tourism, communications and law. New York remained the largest city and largest metropolitan area in the United States, and continued as its largest financial, commercial, information, and cultural center.
Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots, gang wars and some population decline in the late 1960s. Street activists and minority groups such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords organized rent strikes and garbage offensives, demanding improved city services for poor areas. They also set up free health clinics and other programs, as a guide for organizing and gaining "Power to the People." By the 1970s the city had gained a reputation as a crime-ridden relic of history. In 1975, the city government avoided bankruptcy only through a federal loan and debt restructuring by the Municipal Assistance Corporation, headed by Felix Rohatyn. The city was also forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by an agency of New York State. In 1977, the city was struck by the New York City blackout of 1977 and serial slayings by the Son of Sam.
The 1980s began a rebirth of Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide financial industry. Unemployment and crime remained high, the latter reaching peak levels in some categories around the close of the decade and the beginning of the 1990s. Neighborhood restoration projects funded by the city and state had very good effects for New York, especially Bedford-Stuyvesant, Harlem, and The Bronx. The city later resumed its social and economic recovery, bolstered by the influx of Asians, Latin Americans, and U.S. citizens, and by new crime-fighting techniques on the part of the New York Police Department. In 1989, New York City elected its first African American Mayor, David Dinkins. He came out of the Harlem Clubhouse.
In the late 1990s, the city benefited from the nationwide fall of violent crime rates, the resurgence of the finance industry, and the growth of the "Silicon Alley", during the dot com boom, one of the factors in a decade of booming real estate values. New York was also able to attract more business and convert abandoned industrialized neighborhoods into arts or attractive residential neighborhoods; examples include the Meatpacking District and Chelsea (in Manhattan) and Williamsburg (in Brooklyn).
New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census; according to census estimates since 2000, the city has continued to grow, including rapid growth in the most urbanized borough, Manhattan. During this period, New York City was a site of the September 11 attacks of 2001; 2,606 people who were in the towers and in the surrounding area were killed by a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, an event considered highly traumatic for the city but which did not stop the city's rapid regrowth. On November 3, 2014, One World Trade Center opened on the site of the attack. Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York in the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan. It flooded low-lying areas of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Electrical power was lost in many parts of the city and its suburbs.
Beyonce pays tribute to Simply Consistent client, Etta James during the Conde Nast Media Group's Fifth Annual Fashion Rocks at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Sitting next to Etta is her son Donto James and her business manager Kathleen Checki of Simply Consistent.
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Inspired by the consistently sold-out Writing for Film & Television Summer Intensive Program, the Two-Weekend Intensive was designed for aspiring film and television writers with busy weekday schedules. Over the course of two weekends, participants learn a variety of screenwriting tools, techniques, and exercises that closely represent what students learn in the one-year Writing for Film & Television program.
Find out more about VFS’s one-year Writing for Film & Television program at vfs.com/writing.
Telecabina, Canillo, Vall d'Orient, Andorra, Pyrenees - (c) Lutz Meyer
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Lamborghini Veneno
In the year of its 50th anniversary Automobili Lamborghini is presenting an extremely exclusive model at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Only three unique units of the Lamborghini Veneno will be built and sold. Its design is consistently focused on optimum aerodynamics and cornering stability, giving the Veneno the real dynamic experience of a racing prototype, yet it is fully homologated for the road. With a maximum output of 552 kW / 750 hp, the Lamborghini Veneno accelerates from 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and the top speed for this street-legal racing car stands at 355 km/h. It is priced at three million Euros plus tax - and all three units have already been sold to customers.
The Lamborghini Veneno features a twelve-cylinder power unit with a displacement of 6.5 liters, an extremely fast-shifting 7-speed ISR transmission with 5 driving modes and permanent all-wheel drive, as well as a racing chassis with pushrod suspension and horizontal spring/damper units. Above all, however, the Veneno benefits from the very special expertise that Automobili Lamborghini possesses in the development and execution of carbon-fiber materials - the complete chassis is produced as a CFRP monocoque, as is the outer skin of this extreme sports car. The inside, too, features innovative, Lamborghini-patented materials such as Forged Composite and CarbonSkin.
Fully in keeping with the tradition of the brand, the name of the Veneno originates from a legendary fighting bull. Veneno is the name of one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever. He is also famous for being one of the fastest bulls in the history of bullfighting. His name became popular in 1914, when he fatally wounded the famous torero José Sánchez Rodríguez during the bullfight in the arena Sanlúcar de Barrameda's, Andalusia, Spain.
Lamborghini Veneno (2013)
2013 Lamborghini Veneno
The Design
The Lamborghini Veneno brings the aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype to the road. Every detail of its form pursues a clear function - exceptional dynamics, optimum downforce with minimal drag and perfect cooling of the high-performance engine. Yet the Veneno is unmistakably a Lamborghini; it sticks firmly to the consistent design philosophy of all the super sports cars from Sant'Agata Bolognese. That includes the extreme proportions, as well as the powerfully arrow-shaped front end and the interplay between razor-sharp lines and precise surfaces.
The entire front end of the Lamborghini Veneno has been laid out for perfect airflow and downforce. The front end works as a large aerodynamic wing. Large channels guide the air to the outlets in the front hood and in front of the windshield, as well as to the front wheels. Characteristic for Lamborghini is the Y shape of the angular headlamps that reach well into the fenders as well as the scissor doors.
The division of the fenders from the car body is a reference to the world of sport prototypes and optimizes at the same time the aerodynamic flow. The side line of the Veneno is therefore dominated by enormous sills and the mighty wheel arches front and rear. Here, too, sophisticated aerodynamics ensure perfect airflow to the large openings for engine cooling and intake air.
Just like the front end, the rear of the Lamborghini Veneno has also been optimized for underbody aerodynamics and high speed cornering stability. The smooth underbody transitions into a substantial diffuser framing the four sizable exhaust pipes divided by a splitter to increase the level of downforce peak. Large openings serve to ventilate the engine bay and manage the airflow to the rear wing, with the only sealed area at the rear being reserved for the license plate. The rear lights, including brake lights, indicator lights and fog lights, pick up the Y theme as well. The engine cover sports six wedge-shaped openings, with the focus here, too, on optimum dissipation of heat from the engine. The engine cover extends into a large central "shark" fin, which improves efficiency during braking and rear-end stability, by delivering additional downforce at high yaw angles and thus increasing the high-speed cornering performance.
The adjustable rear wing's design is the product of Motorsport experience and extensive aerodynamic simulation to ensure the best performance of rear wing interaction with rear diffuser air flow.
The exclusive alloy wheels measure 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear and are equipped with center mountings. Their design is also determined by aerodynamic functionality - a carbon-fiber ring around the wheel rim works like a turbine to deliver additional cooling air to the carbon-ceramic brake discs.
The Lamborghini Veneno is painted in an all-new, grey metallic-look color with individual parts gleaming in the black of the visible carbon-fiber structure. The only car to display all three colors of the Italian flag as an accent is the car shown at Geneva, the unit which will remain property of Lamborghini. The three cars sold to customers each feature a single color of the Italian national flag, together a triology in green, white and red accents and thus representing each a unique piece.
The Technology
The Veneno is further proof of Automobili Lamborghini's unique competence in CFRP-based lightweight design. A monocoque made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer forms the basis of the Veneno. It is largely similar to the Aventador monocoque - as are the aluminum sub-frames front and rear - although its form has been adapted to the new design. All exterior parts are made from CFRP. The Lamborghini Veneno meets all safety and registration requirements worldwide, and naturally also incorporates a full complement of safety systems from airbags through to the adapted ESP handling system.
Carbon fiber dominates the interior of the Lamborghini Veneno, too. The carbon fiber monocoque becomes visible inside the car in the area of the central tunnel and the sills. The two lightweight bucket seats are made from Lamborghini's patented Forged Composite. The woven carbon-fiber CarbonSkin® is used to clad the entire cockpit, part of the seats and the headliner. This unique material is soaked in a very special kind of resin that stabilizes the fiber structure, while allowing the material to remain supple. Like a hi-tech fabric, this extremely fine-looking carbon-fiber matting fits perfectly to any form, and it reduces weight.
The racing personality has been transferred also to the instrument panel. It has been completely redesigned and now, thanks to an aggressive graphics and to the introduction of some additional features like the G-meter, provides all necessary information to the driver for control of the car.
The systematic, carbon-fiber, lightweight design of the Lamborghini Veneno is not only visible, it is also evident on the scales: With a dry weight of just 1,450 kilograms (3,190 pounds), the Veneno is even 125 kilos (275 pounds) lighter than the already extremely lean Aventador. The highly beneficial power-to-weight ratio of 1.93 kg/hp (4,25 lbs/hp) guarantees a performance that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Even the stunning acceleration figure of 2,8 seconds cannot adequately describe it. Despite an aerodynamic setup configured for extreme downforce, the Veneno possesses exceptionally low wind resistance which allows it to reach a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph).
The twelve-cylinder with a displacement of 6.5 liters is a thrilling combination of absolute high-revving frenzy and phenomenal pulling power. Its output has been raised to 552 kW / 750 hp, facilitated through enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, a slightly higher rated rpm and an exhaust system with even lower back pressure. The ISR manual gearbox, permanent all-wheel drive and pushrod suspension have all been specifically adjusted to meet the demands of the Lamborghini Veneno.
The Lamborghini Veneno celebrates its first public appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle on show is the number 0, the Lamborghini test vehicle. Its future has not been determined yet, but it will allow Lamborghini to continue its activity of testing and innovation, both on the road and on the race track. The trilogy made of three unique vehicles will be produced in the course of the year 2013 and handed over to their future owners.
Joel Parkinson Leads ASP Top Stars in Assault on Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Round 1
BELLS BEACH, Victoria/Australia (Wednesday, April 20, 2011) – Today marks the commencement of the 50th Anniversary of competition surfing at Bells Beach as Round 1 of the 2011 Rip Curl Pro Bells presented by Ford Ranger got underway in clean four-to-six foot (1.5 - 2 metre) surf.
The Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, the second stop on the 2011 ASP World Title season, enjoyed consistent surf throughout the day as the world’s best surfers unleashed a barrage of high-performance ripping on the classic canvas of Bells Beach.
Joel Parkinson (AUS), 30, 2009 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Champion put in a sensational performance this afternoon, electing to sit up at Rincon to secure the day’s highest scores.. Parkinson locked in the highest wave score and the highest heat score of the opening day of competition scoring 17.74 (out of a possible 20.00) to advance directly through to Round 3 of competition.
"I fell off twice on the bowl," Parkinson said. "It was really hard to ride. Then CJ (Hobgood) went across to Rincon and got a score, so we followed him over and it worked out for me. It's great to get that opening heat win, especially at Bells. You never know what conditions you're going to get in a heat, so to be able to skip round two and maybe get a day off is a huge advantage."
Kelly Slater (USA), 39, reigning 10-time ASP World Champion and defending event winner, was clinical in his attack in his Round 1 heat. Slater had his fellow competitors Adam Robertson (AUS), 28, and Kai Otton (AUS), 31, on the ropes only minutes into the heat, scoring an impressive 16.00 (out of a possible 20.00) on his opening two rides.
"I don't free surf out at Bells a whole lot," Slater said. "When the waves are good the comp is on and outside of that it's pretty crowded. So I'm still learning with each heat out there still, surfing against a guy like Robbo (Adam Robertson) you've got to watch where he's sitting, how far our and how deep."
Mick Fanning (AUS), 29, currently equal 13th in the hunt for the 2011 ASP World Title, went into today’s competition with renewed vigor after a shock early exit at the last event on the Gold Coast. The past two-time ASP World Champion came out and dominated his Round 1 battle over Tiago Pires (PRT), 31, and Gabriel Medina (BRA), 17.
"I'm stoked to get a good start," Fanning said. "It's been 10 years since I won here as I wildcard, I got close last year but Kelly Slater got me in the final. You want to win every event, but being the 50th Anniversary and so much history at this event, it's like the Wimbeldon of surfing, it's a hard one to win but it's the one everyone wants."
Alejo Muniz (BRA), 21, led today’s rookie charge, continuing his sensational run after the and equal 5th on the Gold Coast, and dispatching of fellow Brazilian Ranoi Monterio (BRA), 28, and Australian Adrian Buchan (AUS), 28 in this morning’s opening round heat.
"It's so good out there!" Muniz said. "This is my first time surfing at Bells and it's the most amazing place. It's got perfect rights, and it's the kind of wave that I love to surf. It's the best place ever, best waves, best weather and I love surfing in wetsuits."
Jeremy Flores (FRA), 22, bounced back after missing the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast with a knee injury, to score a comprehensive win over Taylor Knox (USA), 39, and Cory Lopez (USA), 34.
"I wasn't very confident before the heat," Flores said. "But I got that first wave and did a big turn at the end and got a good score. I think that's what you need to do these days, finish the wave strong. My knee still isn't 100%, but I went for it and it's good to win. Big thanks to everyone at the Gold Coast Suns Football Club for helping with my knee, it's feeling much better now."
Stu Kennedy (AUS), 21, scored a last minute wildcard into the event and caused the upset of the day, eliminating 2010 ASP World Title runner-up Jordy Smith (ZAF), 23, and Dusty Payne (HAW), 22.
"I've been coming here for years," Kennedy said. "I won a Pro Junior here in 2008 and I know where to sit. I don't think Dusty and Jordy know the break as well as I do so that helps. I've been up since 3am because I'm jet-lagged from coming home from Scotland. I woke up with a bunch of energy it's my shaper's birthday so I woke him up at 5am to go surfing. I had to win my heat for him for his birthday."
When men’s competition resumes, up first will be 2010 ASP World Runner-Up Jordy Smith (ZAF), 23, up against Trials Winner Adam Robertson (AUS), 28, in the opening heat of Round 2.
Following the completion of the men’s Round 1 today, the ASP Top 17 hit the water for Round 1 of the Rip Curl Women’s Pro Bells Beach presented by Ford Fiesta.
Stephanie Gilmore (AUS), 23, reigning four-time ASP Women’s World Champion and defending three-time Rip Curl Women’s Bells Beach winner, returned to her winning ways today, after bowing out early at the last event, the Roxy Pro Gold Coast.
"My first two years on tour I didn't have great results on the Gold Coast," Gilmore said. "I always bounced back at this event and then finished the year well, so hopefully I'll do that again this year. The Gold Coast was a fine showing of what women's surfing is up to now and everyone has to try and keep up. It really pushes me and I think anyone who wins an event from now on will be a very deserving winner because of that fact."
Pauline Ado (FRA), 19, the French rookie caused the upset of the women's event, defeating current ASP World Title front runner Carissa Moore (HAW), 18, in a nail biter of a heat.
"I'm really happy, I had a lot of fun out there," Ado said "I got one of my good waves in the first few seconds so after that I felt confident and knew I could be more selective and wait for the right wave. A heat against Carissa is always a tough one, so I'm really stoked to win."
When women’s competition resumes, up first will be Paige Hareb (NZL) and Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS) in the opening heat of Round 2.
Event organizers will reconvene tomorrow morning at 7am to assess conditions for a possible 7:30am start.
Highlights from the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach presented by FORD will be webcast available via www.live.ripcurl.com and broadcast live on Fuel TV in Australia and ESPN in Brazil.
For more information, log onto www.aspworldtour.com
RIP CURL PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 13.23, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 11.26, Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 7.37
Heat 2: Adam Melling (AUS) 14.50, Josh Kerr (AUS) 12.30, Taj Burrow (AUS) 11.00
Heat 3: Heitor Alves (BRA) 14.36, Bobby Martinez (USA) 14.14, Owen Wright (AUS) 10.60
Heat 4: Mick Fanning (AUS) 15.60, Tiago Pires (PRT) 11.07, Gabriel Medina (BRA) 9.27
Heat 5: Stu Kennedy (AUS) 11.70, Dusty Payne (HAW) 10.50, Jordy Smith (ZAF) 9.00
Heat 6: Kelly Slater (USA) 16.00, Kai Otton (AUS) 10.13, Adam Robertson (AUS) 8.53
Heat 7: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 13.17, Cory Lopez (USA) 5.83, Taylor Knox (USA) 4.67
Heat 8: Michel Bourez (PYF) 12.60, Kieren Perrow (AUS) 10.20, Gabe Kling (USA) 3.50
Heat 9: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 14.60, Damien Hobgood (USA) 11.23, Daniel Ross (AUS) 11.07
Heat 10: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 17.74, C.J. Hobgood (USA) 11.44, Bede Durbidge (AUS) 8.17
Heat 11: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 14.60, Chris Davidson (AUS) 10.83, Julian Wilson (AUS) 9.83
Heat 12: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 13.40, Jadson Andre (BRA) 9.43, Brett Simpson (USA) 8.93
RIP CURL PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Adam Robertson (AUS)
Heat 2: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Gabriel Medina (BRA)
Heat 3: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Bobby Martinez (USA)
Heat 4: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Josh Kerr (AUS)
Heat 5: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Raoni Monteiro (BRA)
Heat 6: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Cory Lopez (USA)
Heat 7: Brett Simpson (USA) vs. Gabe Kling (USA)
Heat 8: Jadson Andre (BRA) vs. Daniel Ross (AUS)
Heat 9: Chris Davidson (AUS) vs. Julian Wilson (AUS)
Heat 10: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 11: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 12: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Tiago Pires (PRT)
RIP CURL WOMEN’S PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Sofia Mulanovich (PER) 12.93, Chelsea Hedges (AUS) 8.70, Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS) 8.66
Heat 2: Silvana Lima (BRA) 14.94, Laura Enever (AUS) 8.84, Melanie Bartels (HAW) 7.54
Heat 3: Pauline Ado (HAW) 14.60, Carissa Moore (HAW) 14.44, Nikki Van Dijk (AUS) 10.63
Heat 4: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) 16.30, Courtney Conlogue (USA) 9.00, Bethany Hamilton (HAW) 6.50
Heat 5: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 16.10, Alana Blanchard (HAW) 12.83 Paige Hareb (NZL) 7.47
Heat 6: Coco Ho (HAW) 12.90, Tyler Wright (AUS) 12.00, Pauline Ado (FRA) 6.37
RIP CURL WOMEN’S PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Paige Hareb (NZL) vs. Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS)
Heat 2: Laura Enever (AUS) vs. Melanie Bartels (HAW)
Heat 3: Carissa Moore (HAW) vs. Nikki Van Dijk (AUS)
Heat 4: Chelsea Hedges (AUS) vs. Bethany Hamilton (HAW)
Heat 5: Tyler Wright (AUS) vs. Alana Blanchard (HAW)
Heat 6: Courtney Conlogue (USA) vs. Rebecca Woods (AUS)
Photo ASP/Scholtz
After a horrendous winter and early spring with consistent wet weather the April planting can now get going down on the farm.
This is a Market Garden near Worcester, I've heard Worcestershire described as the Market Garden county of England.
Simply Consistent client NFL defensive lineman Esera Tuaolo
simplyconsistent.com/management
Kathleen Checki, Personal Manager
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"-Simply Consistent Management."
The bird family Phalacrocoracidae /ˈkɔrmərənts/ is represented by some 40 species of cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed recently, and the number of genera is disputed.
No consistent distinction exists between cormorants and shags. The names 'cormorant' and 'shag' were originally the common names of the two species of the family found in Great Britain, Phalacrocorax carbo (now referred to by ornithologists as the great cormorant) and P. aristotelis (the European shag). "Shag" refers to the bird's crest, which the British forms of the great cormorant lack. As other species were discovered by English-speaking sailors and explorers elsewhere in the world, some were called cormorants and some shags, depending on whether they had crests or not. Sometimes the same species is called a cormorant in one part of the world and a shag in another, e.g., the great cormorant is called the black shag in New Zealand (the birds found in Australasia have a crest that is absent in European members of the species). Van Tets (1976) proposed to divide the family into two genera and attach the name "cormorant" to one and "shag" to the other, but this flies in the face of common usage and has not been widely adopted.
The scientific genus name is Latinised Ancient Greek, from φαλακρός (phalakros, "bald") and κόραξ (korax, "raven"). This is often thought to refer to the creamy white patch on the cheeks of adult great cormorants, or the ornamental white head plumes prominent in Mediterranean birds of this species, but is certainly not a unifying characteristic of cormorants. "Cormorant" is a contraction derived either directly from Latin corvus marinus, "sea raven" or through Brythonic Celtic. Cormoran is the Cornish name of the sea giant in the tale of Jack the Giant Killer. Indeed, "sea raven" or analogous terms were the usual terms for cormorants in Germanic languages until after the Middle Ages. The French explorer André Thévet commented in 1558, "...the beak [is] similar to that of a cormorant or other corvid," which demonstrates that the erroneous belief that the birds were related to ravens lasted at least to the 16th century.
Characteristics
Great cormorant in Hyogo, Japan
Cormorants and shags are medium-to-large seabirds. They range in size from the pygmy cormorant (Phalacrocorax pygmaeus), at as little as 45 cm (18 in) and 340 g (12 oz), to the flightless cormorant (Phalacrocorax harrisi), at a maximum size 100 cm (40 in) and 5 kg (11 lb). The recently extinct spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus) was rather larger, at an average size of 6.3 kg (14 lb). The majority, including nearly all Northern Hemisphere species, have mainly dark plumage, but some Southern Hemisphere species are black and white, and a few (e.g. the spotted shag of New Zealand) are quite colourful. Many species have areas of coloured skin on the face (the lores and the gular skin) which can be bright blue, orange, red or yellow, typically becoming more brightly coloured in the breeding season. The bill is long, thin, and sharply hooked. Their feet have webbing between all four toes, as in their relatives.
They are coastal rather than oceanic birds, and some have colonised inland waters – indeed, the original ancestor of cormorants seems to have been a fresh-water bird, judging from the habitat of the most ancient lineage. They range around the world, except for the central Pacific islands.
All are fish-eaters, dining on small eels, fish, and even water snakes. They dive from the surface, though many species make a characteristic half-jump as they dive, presumably to give themselves a more streamlined entry into the water. Under water they propel themselves with their feet, though some also propel themselves with their wings (see the picture,[1] commentary [2] and existing reference video [3]). Some cormorant species have been found, using depth gauges, to dive to depths of as much as 45 metres.
After fishing, cormorants go ashore, and are frequently seen holding their wings out in the sun. All cormorants have preen gland secretions that are used ostensibly to keep the feathers waterproof. Some sources[4] state that cormorants have waterproof feathers while others say that they have water permeable feathers.[5][6] Still others suggests that the outer plumage absorbs water but does not permit it to penetrate the layer of air next to the skin.[7] The wing drying action is seen even in the flightless cormorant but commonly in the Antarctic shags[8] and red-legged cormorants. Alternate functions suggested for the spread-wing posture include that it aids thermoregulation,[9] digestion, balances the bird or indicates presence of fish. A detailed study of the great cormorant concludes that it is without doubt[10] to dry the plumage.[11][12]
Cormorants are colonial nesters, using trees, rocky islets, or cliffs. The eggs are a chalky-blue colour. There is usually one brood a year. The young are fed through regurgitation. They typically have deep, ungainly bills, showing a greater resemblance to those of the pelicans', to which they are related, than is obvious in the adults.
Singapore Zoo ranks consistently (after San Diego Zoo) as one of the best in the world.
The second largest land mammal in the world (after the elephant), the rhino has a reputation for having a tough skin. While the skin can be up to 5 centimetres (2 inches) thick, it is surprisingly sensitive, being susceptible to sunburn and insect bites.
For the story, please visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/teeth-claws-and-colou...
bauhaus building, dessau, germany, 1925-1926, architect: walter gropius
Gropius consistently separated the parts of the Bauhaus building according to their functions and designed each differently. He thereby arranged the different wings asymmetrically – in relation to what is today the Bauhausstraße and the Gropiusallee respectively. In order to appreciate the overall design of the complex, the observer must therefore move around the whole building. There is no central viewpoint.
The glazed, three-storey workshop wing, the block for the vocational school (also three storeys high) with its unostentatious rows of windows, and the five-storey studio building with its conspicuous, projecting balconies are the main elements of the complex. A two-storey bridge which housed, e.g., the administration department and, until 1928, Gropius’s architectural practice, connects the workshop wing with the vocational school. A single-storey building with a hall, stage and refectory, the so-called Festive Area, connects the workshop wing to the studio building. The latter originally featured 28 studio flats for students and junior masters, each measuring 20 m². The ingenious design of the portals between the foyer and the hall and a folding partition between the stage and the refectory, along with the ceiling design and colour design, impart a grandiose spatial coalescence to the sequence of foyer-hall-stage-refectory, shaping the so-called Festive Area. The façade of the students’ dormitory is distinguished in the east by individual balconies and in the south by long balconies that continue around the corner of the building.
The entire complex is rendered and painted mainly in light tones, creating an attractive contrast to the window frames, which are dark. For the interior, the junior master of the mural workshop, Hinnerk Scheper, designed a detailed colour plan that, by differentiating between supporting and masking elements through the use of colour, aimed to accentuate the construction of the building.
This a second film with my Nikon F4 to test further of its numerous functions. In particular, I would like to test the DX ISO coding, the spot metering, and the motorized film rewind. During the first test film I used mostly my external lightmeter Minolta Autometer III to check that the metering of the camera was consistent with. Here, I decided I leave the Autometer at home and to use only the Nikon F4 metering.
The Nikon F4 was loaded with a Rollei RPX100 which is the former Agfa APX100 well-known for the particular large tone range. From view 1 to 24, the AF Nikkor lens 1:1.4 f=50mm was fitted with a Yellow screw-on 52mm filter and from view 25 to the end with a Hoya HMC anti-UV protection filter. A generic cylindric metal shade hood was used all the time.
The film sensitivity was set by the camera automatically from the DX code of the Rollei RPX100 35mm cartridge. The first test film was a Fomapan 200 which is not DX coded. The Nikon F4 allows a manual ISO setting. In the DX mode, if no cartridge is present or if a not DX-coded cartridge is inserted, a red LED is blinking and not action of the shutter is possible.
The spot metering in the Nikon F4 if located behind the mirror in the reflex chamber and combined with the CCD focus sensor. The the matrix and center averaged mode is operated by different photo-diodes in the removable DP-20 photometric viewer. I mostly used the spot metering mode in my usual way, privileging the shadows. I saw that the matrix mode gave very closed results. The measure were usually manually reported to the camera in the "M" mode except for one view (Nr. 3) where I left the Nikon choosing the shutter speed (approx. 1/3000s) according to the aperture (full aperture in this case f/1.4).
As for my medium-format session, I took a bit of time to note on a session ticket the main parameter (shutter speed, aperture, focusing distance). The weather was still very mild and sunny during all the session in the afternoon.
View Nr 32: 1/30s f/2 focus at 6 m
Hoya HMC AUV 1A filter
Livres Anciens, November 8, 2024
Rue Saint-Jean
69005 Lyon
France
After completion, the film was rewound using the rewinding motor (lever R1 then lever R2). During the film rewind (manual or auto) the view counter decrements and I switched-off the R2 lever just arrived at zero. I terminated the process manual to keep the film leader outside the cartridge.
I then processed the film developed using 300 mL of Adox Adonal (Agfa Rodinal) developer prepared at the dilution 1+25 for 9min at 20°C.
Digitizing was made using a Sony A7 camera (ILCE-7, 24MP) held on a Minolta Auto Bellows with the Minolta slide duplication accessory and Minolta Macro Bellow lens 1:3.5 f=50mm. The light source was a LED panel CineStill Cine-lite.
The RAW files obtained were inverted within the latest version of Adobe Lightroom Classic version 14 and edited to the final jpeg pictures without intermediate file. They are presented either as printed files with frame or the full size JPEG's together with some documentary smartphone color pictures.
The results show that the Nikon F4 spot metering is perfectly calibrated and consistent with my traditional way to determine the exposition. The DX coding. is operating correctly but no confirming indication of the ISO value is displayed on the camera (excepted the blinking red LED if the DX code is not correctly detected). As for all SLR's of this generation, a small window on the left-side of the camera back allows the reading of the film characteristics. All the light-tight foams are in perfect order for a camera of this age (35-year old).
Overall this second session with the Nikon F4 confirms that the camera is very pleasant to use despite its 1.7kg (fitted with its standard 1.4/50mm). The minimalistic Nikon neck strap remains comfortable and well proportionated to the camera. It's areal joy to use.
--------------
About the camera :
Maybe it would have been better not to ask for this question: « what’s new do you have at the moment?» to my local photo store, because Christine grab underneath the counter, stating « I have that … » . What a beast ! A Nikon F4 in the exact state of the Nikon brochure year 1990, presented with the standard AF Nikkor 1:1.4 f=50mm. I was already hooked by the machine. After two days, I decided to buy it even with some little common issues found on early Nikon F4 (see below), fortunately not affecting the whole, numberous functions of this incredibly complex professional SLR of the year 1990’s.
Nikon F4 came to the market on September 1988 starting with the serial number 2.000.000. Fully manufactured in Japan (modules came from 3 different Nikon factories) the F4's were assembled in Mito, Ibaraki (North to Tokyo) Nikon plant (no more in the mother factory of Tokyo Oi like the Nikon’s F). When I lived in Tokyo in 1990-1991, Nikon F4 was the top-of-the-line of Nikon SLR camera’s. I saw it in particular in Shinjuku Bic Camera store when I bought there, in December 1990 my Nikonos V.
Nikon F4 incorporates many astonishing engineering features as the double vertical-travel curtain shutter capable of the 1/8000s. Compared to the Nikon F3, the F4 was an AF SLR operated by a CCD sensor (200 photo sites). The film is automatically loaded, advanced with to top speed of 5,7 frame/s !! With the MB-21 power grip (F4s version). The F4 is a very heavy camera (1.7kg with the AF Nikkor 1.4/50mm), incredibly tough and well constructed. This exemplary is devoid of any scratches or marks, and in a condition proving that it was not used for hard professional appliances, for those it was however intended. The camera has still it original Nikon neck strap, the original user manual in French. The lens is protected by a Cokin (Franc) Skylight 1A 52mm filter and the original Nikon front cap. The two small LCD displays (one on the F4 body, one in the DP-20 finder) are both affected by the classical syndrome of « bleeding ». Fortunately, all information could still be read. One says that 70% of the early Nikon F4 suffer from this problem but also found on other models.
According its serial number and the production rate of about 5000 units/month, this Nikon F4s was probably manufactured in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan in May 1989.
Remains of early settlements near Sauerbier Ranches LLC, where producer Dan Doornbos (vest) and son-in-law ranch operator Ryan Ellis, were able to implement brush management practices and install a solar-powered (photovoltaic) electric well pump and distribution system with the help of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS) John Wagoner (cowboy hat), at Sweetwater Basin, in southwest Montana, on August 27, 2019. Brush management practice has opened the rangeland for cattle to better graze and improve the land. On other parts of the ranches, well pumps draw water from the aquifer below a creek. The pump pushes water through pipelines, up to rangelands more than two miles away to draw cattle to a variety of grazing areas. This improves the water quality by drawing the cattle from the nearby flowing creek; provides more water from a more stable underground water resource; allows the land to rest from the presence of the cattle; allows the manure to return to the soil so that the plants can better grow back, and provides drinking water for the cattle in remote rangelands.
Brush Management is the management or removal of woody (non-herbaceous or succulent) plants including those that are invasive and noxious. This creates the desired plant community consistent with the ecological site or a desired state within the site description; restores or release desired vegetative cover to protect soils, control erosion, reduce sediment, improve water quality, or enhance hydrology.• Maintain, modify, or enhance fish and wildlife habitat; improves forage accessibility, quality, and quantity for livestock and wildlife; Manages fuel loads to achieve desired conditions; controls pervasive plant species to a desired level of treatment that will ultimately contribute to creation or maintenance of an ecological site description “steady-state” addressing the need for forage, wildlife habitat, and/or water quality.
Pumping Plant is a facility that delivers water at a designed pressure and flow rate. Includes the required pump(s), associated power unit(s), plumbing, appurtenances, and may include on-site fuel or energy source(s), and protective structures.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
For more information, please see:
Brush Management - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1254946.pdf
Water Well - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_026211.pdf
Pumping Plant Pumping Plan - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1046901.pdf
NRCS - nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/
Farm Production and Conservation - usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas
USDA - USDA.gov
Brush Management is the management or removal of woody (non-herbaceous or succulent) plants including those that are invasive and noxious. This creates the desired plant community consistent with the ecological site or a desired state within the site description; restores or release desired vegetative cover to protect soils, control erosion, reduce sediment, improve water quality, or enhance hydrology.• Maintain, modify, or enhance fish and wildlife habitat; improves forage accessibility, quality, and quantity for livestock and wildlife; Manages fuel loads to achieve desired conditions; controls pervasive plant species to a desired level of treatment that will ultimately contribute to creation or maintenance of an ecological site description “steady-state” addressing the need for forage, wildlife habitat, and/or water quality.
Pumping Plant is a facility that delivers water at a designed pressure and flow rate. Includes the required pump(s), associated power unit(s), plumbing, appurtenances, and may include on-site fuel or energy source(s), and protective structures.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
For more information, please see:
Brush Management - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1254946.pdf
Water Well - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_026211.pdf
Pumping Plant Pumping Plan - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1046901.pdf
NRCS - nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/
Farm Production and Conservation - usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas
USDA - USDA.gov
Pumping Plant is a facility that delivers water at a designed pressure and flow rate. Includes the required pump(s), associated power unit(s), plumbing, appurtenances, and may include on-site fuel or energy source(s), and protective structures.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
For more information, please see:
Water Well - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_026211.pdf
Pumping Plant Pumping Plan - nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1046901.pdf
NRCS - nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/
Farm Production and Conservation - usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas
USDA - USDA.gov
The companion video can be seen at youtu.be/jUIWOaa7vw4
Etta James and her husband of 40 years Artis Dee Mills
Courtesy of Etta James
Award winning talent manager Kathleen Checki.
Simply Consistent Entertainment Management
www.simplyconsistent.com/management
"-Etta James."
"-Kathleen Checki."
"-Checki."
"-Simply Consistent."
"-Simply Consistent Management."
"-Etta James and her manager Kathleen Checki."
My fellow Americans – tonight, I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.
As Commander-in-Chief, my highest priority is the security of the American people. Over the last several years, we have consistently taken the fight to terrorists who threaten our country. We took out Osama bin Laden and much of al Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We’ve targeted al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, and recently eliminated the top commander of its affiliate in Somalia. We’ve done so while bringing more than 140,000 American troops home from Iraq, and drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, where our combat mission will end later this year. Thanks to our military and counterterrorism professionals, America is safer.
Still, we continue to face a terrorist threat. We cannot erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm. That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today. That’s why we must remain vigilant as threats emerge. At this moment, the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL – which calls itself the “Islamic State.”
Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.
In a region that has known so much bloodshed, these terrorists are unique in their brutality. They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide. In acts of barbarism, they took the lives of two American journalists – Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.
So ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East – including American citizens, personnel and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region – including to the United States. While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies. Our intelligence community believes that thousands of foreigners – including Europeans and some Americans – have joined them in Syria and Iraq. Trained and battle-hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.
I know many Americans are concerned about these threats. Tonight, I want you to know that the United States of America is meeting them with strength and resolve. Last month, I ordered our military to take targeted action against ISIL to stop its advances. Since then, we have conducted more than 150 successful airstrikes in Iraq. These strikes have protected American personnel and facilities, killed ISIL fighters, destroyed weapons, and given space for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim key territory. These strikes have helped save the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
But this is not our fight alone. American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region. That’s why I’ve insisted that additional U.S. action depended upon Iraqis forming an inclusive government, which they have now done in recent days. So tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.
Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.
First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.
Second, we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground. In June, I deployed several hundred American service members to Iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi Security Forces. Now that those teams have completed their work – and Iraq has formed a government – we will send an additional 475 service members to Iraq. As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission – we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment. We will also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL control.
Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I again call on Congress to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.
Third, we will continue to draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks. Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into – and out of – the Middle East. And in two weeks, I will chair a meeting of the UN Security Council to further mobilize the international community around this effort.
Fourth, we will continue providing humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization. This includes Sunni and Shia Muslims who are at grave risk, as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities. We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands.
This is our strategy. And in each of these four parts of our strategy, America will be joined by a broad coalition of partners. Already, allies are flying planes with us over Iraq; sending arms and assistance to Iraqi Security Forces and the Syrian opposition; sharing intelligence; and providing billions of dollars in humanitarian aid. Secretary Kerry was in Iraq today meeting with the new government and supporting their efforts to promote unity, and in the coming days he will travel across the Middle East and Europe to enlist more partners in this fight, especially Arab nations who can help mobilize Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria to drive these terrorists from their lands. This is American leadership at its best: we stand with people who fight for their own freedom; and we rally other nations on behalf of our common security and common humanity.
My Administration has also secured bipartisan support for this approach here at home. I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL. But I believe we are strongest as a nation when the President and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger.
Now, it will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL. And any time we take military action, there are risks involved – especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions. But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years. And it is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.
My fellow Americans, we live in a time of great change. Tomorrow marks 13 years since our country was attacked. Next week marks 6 years since our economy suffered its worst setback since the Great Depression. Yet despite these shocks; through the pain we have felt and the grueling work required to bounce back – America is better positioned today to seize the future than any other nation on Earth.
Our technology companies and universities are unmatched; our manufacturing and auto industries are thriving. Energy independence is closer than it’s been in decades. For all the work that remains, our businesses are in the longest uninterrupted stretch of job creation in our history. Despite all the divisions and discord within our democracy, I see the grit and determination and common goodness of the American people every single day – and that makes me more confident than ever about our country’s future.
Abroad, American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world. It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorists. It is America that has rallied the world against Russian aggression, and in support of the Ukrainian peoples’ right to determine their own destiny. It is America – our scientists, our doctors, our know-how – that can help contain and cure the outbreak of Ebola. It is America that helped remove and destroy Syria’s declared chemical weapons so they cannot pose a threat to the Syrian people – or the world – again. And it is America that is helping Muslim communities around the world not just in the fight against terrorism, but in the fight for opportunity, tolerance, and a more hopeful future.
America, our endless blessings bestow an enduring burden. But as Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead. From Europe to Asia – from the far reaches of Africa to war-torn capitals of the Middle East – we stand for freedom, for justice, for dignity. These are values that have guided our nation since its founding. Tonight, I ask for your support in carrying that leadership forward. I do so as a Commander-in-Chief who could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform – pilots who bravely fly in the face of danger above the Middle East, and service-members who support our partners on the ground.
When we helped prevent the massacre of civilians trapped on a distant mountain, here’s what one of them said. “We owe our American friends our lives. Our children will always remember that there was someone who felt our struggle and made a long journey to protect innocent people.”
That is the difference we make in the world. And our own safety – our own security – depends upon our willingness to do what it takes to defend this nation, and uphold the values that we stand for – timeless ideals that will endure long after those who offer only hate and destruction have been vanquished from the Earth.
May God bless our troops, and may God bless the United States of America.
###
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
Monday, June 13, 2011
Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
Knight Concert Hall
1300 Biscayne Boulevard
Miami, Florida
Remarks by the President at a DNC Event
Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami, Florida
7:50 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Miami! (Applause.) It's good to see you. (Applause.) It is good to be back in Miami. (Applause.) Thank you, thank you, everybody. Thank you. Everybody have a seat. Have a seat.
What do you guys think of our new DNC chair? (Applause.) Debbie Wasserman Schultz. We are so thrilled to have her. You want Debbie on your side. (Applause.) She's a mom, she's got that cute smile and all that, but she is tough. Don't mess with Debbie. (Laughter.) We are so glad of her leadership.
I know that a lot of folks have already been acknowledged. I want to make sure to mention resident commissioner Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico. Where is he? Pedro, are you still here? There he is right there. (Applause.)
Adrienne Arsht, thank you so much for everything that you've done for the civic life in Miami. (Applause.) Our Florida finance chair, Kirk Wager, is here. (Applause.) Founding co-chair of Gen44, Andrew Korge, is here. (Applause.) Alonzo Mourning is in the house. (Applause.) And, look, he's not from Miami, but he's got 11 championships, so I've got to mention Bill Russell is in the house. (Applause.) Bill Russell -- greatest champion of all time in team sports in North America right here. (Applause.)
It is wonderful to be back. Many of you I've known for a very long time, some of you I'm getting a chance to see for the first time. And it got me thinking back to election night two and a half years ago, in Grant Park. It was a beautiful night in Chicago, and everybody was feeling pretty good who had supported me. And it was an incredibly hopeful time. And you will recall -- maybe you won't but I'm going to remind you -- (laughter) -- I said, this is not the end, this is the beginning. This is the beginning.
Because what I said to the American people that night was that for almost a decade too many Americans had felt as if the American Dream was slipping away. We had seen economic growth and corporate profits and a stock market that had gone up, but there were too many folks who were struggling each and every day, working as hard as they could, being responsible for their families, being responsible to their communities, but somehow they just couldn’t keep up. Wages and incomes had flat-lined, even though the cost of everything from health care to college tuitions to gas had all skyrocketed.
Around the world, the impression of America as a preeminent force for good had lost sway. We were in the midst of two wars. We didn’t seem to be able to tackle challenges that had confronted us for decades -- didn’t have an energy plan that was worthy of the greatness of America; didn’t have an immigration system that would allow us to be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants; had a school system in which we had no longer -- we were no longer at the top and weren’t preparing our young people to meet the challenges and demands of the 21st century global interdependent economy.
And so when I started the race for President, what I said to all of you was, if you’re looking for easy answers, you’re looking in the wrong place. If you’re looking for just a bunch of partisan rhetoric, I’m probably not your guy. But if you want to join me on this journey,, to make sure that America is living up to its ideals, if you wanted to reclaim the that sense that in America anything is possible if we’re willing to work for it, and if you wanted to see if we could get beyond some of the politics of the past and point towards the future, then I wanted you to be a part of this process. And so all that culminated in Grant Park that night.
But then I said, you know what, this just gives us the opportunity to do what’s possible. This is not the end state. I didn't run for President just to be President. (Applause.) I ran for President to do things -- to do big things, to do hard things.
What we didn't know at the time -- I said this is going to be a steep climb to get to where we want to go, to achieve that summit. We didn't know how steep that climb was going to be because what we now know was we were already in the midst of what would turn out to be the worst recession since the Great Depression -- came this close to a financial meltdown that would have spun the global financial system out of control.
We lost 4 million jobs in the six months before I was sworn in, and we’d lose another 4 [million] before any of our economic initiatives had a chance to take effect. And all the challenges that ordinary families, working families, middle-class families had been feeling for years were suddenly compounded. Folks were losing their jobs, losing their homes, didn't know what the future held.
And so we’ve spent the last two and a half years trying to heal this country, trying to mend what was broken. And with the help of people like Debbie and Pedro, we’ve made enormous strides. With the help of you, we have made enormous strides. I mean, think about it. An economy that was contracting is now growing. An economy that was shedding millions of jobs, we’ve seen over 2 million jobs created in the last 15 months, in the private sector. (Applause.) The financial system stabilized. And some of the decisions that we made were not popular. Everybody acts now like, well, yeah, that was easy. (Laughter.) Think about it.
Just think for a moment about the U.S. auto industry. We were on the verge of the liquidation of two of the three big automakers in the United States -- Chrysler and GM. Now, there’s been some revisionist history that’s been offered lately about, well, they might have survived without our help -- except nobody at GM or Chrysler believes that. They were going to break that up and sell off the spare parts. And as a consequence, you would have seen a million people -- suppliers, dealerships -- all gone, in the midst of this incredible hardship that people were already experiencing. (Applause.) And we made tough decisions and we made the right decisions. And now we’ve got the big three automakers -- (applause) -- all profitable, all increasing market share, hiring back workers.
And we didn’t forget the promises that we had made during the campaign. We said we wanted to make sure that once again America would have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. And so in pursuit of that goal, we said let’s stop subsidizing big banks as middlemen on the student loan program. (Applause.) Let’s take back billions of dollars and give it directly to young people so that millions of children -- a million of our kids are going to be able to go to college without $100,000 or $200,000 worth of debt.
We said we’re going to start building a genuine clean energy industry in this country, and made the largest investment in clean energy in our history. And we did that. We said that we’d begin the process of rebuilding our infrastructure in this country, and made the largest investment rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our ports since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, putting hundreds of thousands of people to work all across America, doing the work that needs to be done.
We said we had to finally, after generations, deal with the travesty of the richest nation on Earth having people who went bankrupt because they went sick and couldn’t afford to provide health care to their families -- (applause) -- and we passed a historic health care law that is going to make sure that everybody in this country can get health care and is going to help drive prices down on health care in the bargain. (Applause.) We promised we’d do that, and we did it.
Oh, and along the way, we did a few other things, like pass equal pay for equal work legislation. (Applause.) And make sure that never again will you be barred from serving your country in uniform just because of the person that you love. (Applause.) And we appointed two women to the Supreme Court, one of them the first Latina in our history. (Applause.) And we expanded national service so that our young people would know what it means to give back to this country. (Applause.)
And we passed financial regulatory reform so that not only would we not see a reprise of the financial shenanigans that had gone on before, but we’d actually have a consumer bureau that would be able to look after folks when they take out credit cards and they take out mortgages, so that they wouldn’t be cheated. (Applause.)
And on the international front, we said we would end the war in Iraq -- and we have ended combat operations in Iraq and will be bringing our troops home this year. (Applause.) And we said that we would start refocusing our efforts in Afghanistan, and especially go after al Qaeda -- and we went after al Qaeda and we’re going after al Qaeda -- (applause) -- and beginning the transition process so that Afghans can take responsibility for their security.
And in the meantime, we dealt with a few other things -- like pirates. (Laughter.) And pandemic and oil spills. So there were a few other things that kept us occupied.
And I describe all this not for us to be complacent, but for all of us to remember that as hard as these battles have been, as much resistance as we’ve gotten, as much as the political debate has been distorted at times, that our basic premise -- the idea that when we put our minds to it, there’s nothing America can’t do -- that's been proven. (Applause.) That's been borne out. We have the evidence. We’ve brought about amazing change over the last two and a half years.
And we couldn’t have done it without you. We couldn’t -- we could not --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Keep your promise, stop AIDS now!
THE PRESIDENT: That's all right. That's all right. We’re good. We’re good.
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: Hold up. Hold up.
So -- now, here’s the thing. The reason we’re here today is because our work is not done. (Applause.) For all the progress we’ve made, our work is not complete. We’re not at the summit. We just -- we’re just partway up the mountain. There’s more to do. There is more to do.
We still don't have the kind of energy policy that America needs -- and all of you experience that at the pump each and every day. Our economy is still vulnerable to the spot oil market and us having to import billions of dollars, when we could be not only producing more energy right here at home, but we could be producing energy that's clean and renewable and what would ensure that we could pass on the kind of planet to the next generation that all of us long for. (Applause.)
We know that we’re not done when it comes to issues like immigration reform. I was down here at Miami Dade -- (applause) -- an amazing institution that embodies what America is all about. Young people who can trace their heritage to 181 different countries were represented. (Applause.) And some of you who may not be familiar with the ceremony, what they do is they bring out the flags of each country where somebody can trace their roots. And everybody cheers. The Cuban flag comes up and everybody goes crazy. (Applause.) The Jamaican flag comes up and everybody is hooting and hollering. (Applause.) See, sort of just like this.
But then there’s one flag that comes up, and that is the American flag, and everybody explodes -- (applause) -- because that’s the essence of who we are. Out of many, one. But we don’t have a system that reflects those values. It is still an issue that’s exploited, that’s used to divide instead of bringing people together. We’ve got more work to do.
We’ve got more work to do when it comes to rebuilding the infrastructure of this country. We’ve got a couple of trillion dollars worth of work that needs to be done. We were at a Jobs Council meeting up in North Carolina and the chairman of Southwest, the CEO of Southwest, he explained how because our air traffic control system is so archaic, we probably waste about 15 percent of fuel because planes are having to go this way and that. The whole system was designed back in the 1930s before you even had things like GPS. But think about -- what’s true for the airlines industry is true for our roads, it’s true for our ports, it’s true for our airports, it’s true for our power system. We’ve got more work to do.
We’ve made incredible progress on education, helping students to finance their college educations, but we still don’t have enough engineers. We still don’t have enough scientists. We still lag behind other countries when it comes to training our young people for the jobs, the high-skilled jobs that are going to provide high wages and allow them to support a family.
But we’ve made incredible progress K through 12 with something we call Race to the Top, which basically says -- (applause) -- to school districts and to states, you reform the system and we will show you the money, and so providing incentives. And 40 states across the country have made critical reforms as a consequence to this program. But we still have schools where half the kids drop out. We still consign too many of our young people to lives of desperation and despair. We’ve got more work to do.
And we’ve got so much work to do on our economy. We’ve got so much more work to do on our economy. Every night I get letters. We get about 40,000 pieces of mail at the White House every day, and I ask my team to select 10 letters for me to read that are representative of what people are feeling out there. And I will tell you these really are representative, because about half of them call me an idiot. (Laughter.) And -- but most of the stories are just some ordinary folks who have done the right thing, have worked hard all their lives. Some of them are small business owners who have poured their savings into a venture, and then when the recession hit they lost everything, and now they’re trying to get back on their feet.
You get letters from moms who are trying to figure out how to pay their bills at the end of the month, and they’re going back to school while they’re working to see if they can retrain for a better job. Sometimes you get folks who have sent out 100 resumes and haven’t gotten a response, and are trying to describe what it’s like to tell your child than nobody wants to hire you. Sometimes you get a letter from a kid who says, my parents are about to lose my home -- Mr. President, is there something you can do to help?
And in all those stories, what you see is incredible resilience and incredible stick-to-itiveness, and a sense on the part of people that no matter how down they are, they’re not out. And they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. All they’re looking for is that somebody cares and that we’re doing everything we can, trying every idea to make sure that this economy is moving. And they don’t understand how it is that good ideas get caught up in partisan politics, and why is it that people seem to be arguing all the time instead of trying to do the people’s business.
So we’ve got more work to do -- investing in our education system and making sure that -- (applause) -- making sure that our infrastructure is built and we’re putting people back to work, and helping the housing market recover, and dealing with our budget in a way that allows us to once again live within our means but doing so in a way that is consistent with our values.
You know, this budget debate that we’re having in Washington right now, it’s not just about numbers. It’s about values. It’s about what we believe and who we are as a people. The easiest thing to do to balance a budget is you just slash and burn and you cut and you don’t worry about the consequences. But that’s not who we are. We’re better than that. (Applause.)
I don’t want to live in a country where we’re no longer helping young people go to college, and so your fate is basically determined by where you were born and your circumstances. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be standing here today. I don't want to live in a country where we no longer believe that we can build the best airports or the best rail systems. I don't want to live in a country where we’re no longer investing in basic research and science so that we’re at the cutting edge of technology. I don't want to live in a country where we are abandoning our commitment to the most vulnerable among us -- the disabled, our seniors -- making sure that they’ve got a basic safety net so that they can live with dignity and respect in their golden years. (Applause.)
And so here’s the -- the good news is that we can bring down our deficit and we can work down our debt, and we can do so the same way families all across America do, by prioritizing and deciding what’s important to us. So we’re going to have to scrub the federal budget and get rid of every program that doesn't work, and get rid of every regulation that is outdated. And we’ve got to make sure that we build on all the tax cuts that we’ve provided to small businesses and to individuals over the last couple years so that they’re getting back on their feet.
But we’ve also got to make sure that whatever sacrifices we make, whatever burdens are borne are spread among all of us; that we’re not just doing it on the backs of the poor; that we’re not just doing it on the backs of our seniors; that we’re not just doing it on the backs of the most vulnerable. (Applause.)
And the other side say, well, you know what, we can just cut and cut and cut and cut -- and by the way, you, Mr. President, since you’ve been so lucky, we’re going to give you a $200,000 tax break. I’d love to have a tax break. I don’t like paying taxes -- I’m the President. (Laughter.) This notion somehow that I enjoy paying taxes or administering taxes, that makes no sense. Nothing is better for a politician than saying, you know what, forget about it, you will have everything you need and everything this country needs and you don’t have to pay for a thing.
But, you know what, I don’t want a $200,000 tax break if it means that 33 seniors are each going to have to pay $6,000 more a year for their Medicare. (Applause.) I don’t want that. I don’t want a tax break if it means hundreds of kids won’t be able to go to Head Start. (Applause.) That’s not a tradeoff I’m willing to make. That’s not a tradeoff most of Americans are willing to make. That’s not who we are. That’s not what we believe in.
And the reason I’m not willing to make a tradeoff, it’s not out of charity. It’s because my life is better when I know, as I’m driving by a school, you know what, those kids in there, they’ve got the best teachers, they’ve got the best equipment -- I know that they’re going to succeed. That makes me feel better about my life and about my country. (Applause.)
And if I’m seeing an elderly couple stroll by holding hands -- and I’m saying to myself, you know, that’s going to be Michelle and me in a few years -- and I know that whatever their circumstances, I know they’ve got Social Security and they’ve got Medicare that they can count on, that makes my life better. That makes my life richer. (Applause.)
So that's what this campaign is going to be about. It’s going to be about values. It’s the same thing that the 2008 campaign was about: What's important to you? Who are we? What is it about America that makes us so proud?
When I think about why our campaign drew so much excitement, it was because it tapped into those essential things that bind us together. I look out at this auditorium, and I see people from every walk of life, every age, every demographic -- but there’s something that binds us together, that says this is what makes our country so special.
And that's what’s at stake. That's the journey that we’re on. And the only way that we stay on track, the only way that we continue that journey is if all of you are involved. Because what also made the campaign special was it wasn’t about me -- it was never about me -- it was about us. It was about you. (Applause.) It was about you being willing to be involved, and you being willing to be engaged. Because that's also what makes America special -- ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Now, two and a half years have passed since that night in Grant Park, and I’ve got a lot more gray hair. (Laughter.) And what seemed so fresh and new, now -- we’ve seen Obama so many times on TV, and we know all his quirks and all his tics and he’s been poked apart. And there’s some of you who probably have felt at times during the last two and a half years, gosh, why isn’t this happening faster? Why isn’t this easier? Why are we struggling? And why didn’t health care get done quicker? And why didn’t we get the public option? (Laughter and applause.) And what -- I know the conversation you guys are having. (Laughter.) "I’m not feeling as hopeful as I was." And I understand that. There have been frustrations, and I’ve got some dings to show for it over the last two and half years.
But I never said this was going to be easy. This is a democracy. It’s a big country and a diverse country. And our political process is messy. Yes, you don’t always get 100 percent of what you want, and you make compromises. That’s how the system was designed. But what I hope all of you still feel is that for all the frustrations, for all the setbacks, for all the occasional stumbles, that what motivates us, what we most deeply cherish, that that’s still within reach. That it’s still possible to bring about extraordinary change. That it’s still possible to make sure that the America we pass down to our kids and our grandkids is a better America than the one we inherited. (Applause.) I’m confident about that. I believe in that, because I believe in you.
And so I’m glad you guys came to the rally. But just like in 2008, if we want to bring about the change we believe in, we’re going to have to get to work. You’re going to have to make phone calls. (Applause.) You’re going to have to knock on doors. You’re going to have to talk to all your friends and all your neighbors, and you’re going to have to talk to the naysayers. And you’re going to have to go out there and say: We’ve got more work to do. And if they tell you, I don’t know, I’m not sure, I’m not convinced -- you just remind them of those three words that captured this campaign, captured the last campaign and will capture the 2012 campaign: Yes, we can.
Thank you, Miami. God bless you. (Applause.) God bless the United States of America.
END
8:20 P.M. EDT
Red Carpet Charity Event hosted by Kathleen Checki and
Simply Consistent.
Eva Herzigova by Pamela Hanson, Simply Consisent, Inc
www.simplyconsistent.com/management
The SILENT AUCTION OF ORIGINAL WORKS BY ACCLAIMED PHOTOGRAPHERS, including work from the private collections of STEVEN MEISEL, Inez Vindoodh, Pamela Hansen as well as other top fashion photographers. The goal of the event is to raise awareness, as well as critical funding for the treatment of Fibromyalgia Syndrome.
One more step in Simply Consistents mission to help America's Children !
Click video below to see one of our missions
simplyconsistent.com/fighting-childhood-obesity
Kathleen Checki
The Mascotte Kite Festival makes the most of the consistent prevailing winds blowing along The Hague's beach resort Scheveningen. Kite builders and enthusiasts from around the world come together to fly the fruits of their creative labour. The annual event sees the skies over the southern part of Scheveningen beach fill with kites of every shape and colour, flying teddy bears, elephants and fish. Visitors also get to stay up to date with the latest in kite-powered sport, from kite-surfing and kite-yachting to kite-skateboarding and kite-skiing.
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Scheveningen ziet ze vliegen tijdens het grootste internationale vliegerevenement van Nederland! Tijdens het Mascotte Vliegerfestival Scheveningen zijn voor het Kurhaus en naast De Pier de meest bijzondere vliegers uit alle hoeken van de wereld te bewonderen. Meer dan 200 vliegeraars uit vijf continenten en bijna twintig landen presenteren vliegershows en demonstraties in verschillende thema’s en disciplines: powerkiting, stuntvliegeren (Nederlands Kampioenschap) en megakite-éénlijnsvliegeren. De shows bieden een adembenemend schouwspel met vliegers in fantastische kleuren, talloze maten en met de meest waanzinnige vormen. Naast het demonstratieterrein is altijd plek genoeg om zelf te vliegeren. Beginnende en ervaren vliegeraars, groot of klein, iedereen is welkom om z'n eigen vlieger op te laten. Ook zijn er workshop voor kinderen waar ze zelf vliegertjes of vliegers kunnen maken en versieren. Tijdens het Vliegerfestival Scheveningen kun je bij één van de stands ook een kant-en-klare vlieger kopen.
What is more consistent in nature then the tides? The powerful ocean waves rush forward and pull back with great force. The relaxation and meditation value their sounds hold is unique. Get help with sleep and study or yoga and reading. If you like what we do here then drop a like, leave a comment and subscribe to support Relaxing Sounds, we would really appreciate it. Thanks. -- Videos You Might Like -- Thunder & Rain - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du1sc5_dOtg Heart Beat Sound - www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e4wom0Kl_o Relaxing Fireplace - www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3gmjHUyOP0 Deep Sea Underwater - www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNgB8edSb_g Howling Wind - www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fzw2cbbneY Sailing Ship - www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSHzOJGPrEU Lake Waves - www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEnepah-0-k Furnace Room - www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vKX7YynuiI Rainforst Sounds - www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Uo4OK3Mw0 Jacuzzi Jets - www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d5N9Uoj3GM Heavy Rainfall - www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2F_EcPgcnY Shower Sounds - www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl2FJv3y6Uk Traffic Sounds - www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_d26eH3sZY Gentle Stream - www.youtube.com/watch?v=_773PD85ls4 Ocean Beach Campfire - www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxvWQqB10W0 Relaxing Waterfall - www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHRAcMRmDok Windchimes - www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOlb5kLoPDo River Sounds - www.youtube.com/watch?v=syuLV0SRxnk youtu.be/gV0GWJPDqQU
Le forti tensioni belliche in atto tra l’Europa cristiana, guidata dall’Impero di Carlo V, e l’Impero Ottomano, comportarono il costituirsi in Sicilia, tra i primi anni del ‘500 e l’inizio del ‘700, di un apparato difensivo di eccezionale consistenza .L’antico circuito murario medievale – che la diffusione dell’artiglieria come strumento bellico aveva reso del tutto inadeguato – fu rinforzato da possenti bastioni e circondato da ampi fossati. Lungo tutto il tracciato delle mura, furono aperte nuove e sontuose porte di città. Il vicerè Don Ferrante Gonzaga, ribadendo quanto disposto dal vicerè Pignatelli, suo predecessore, incaricò l’ingegnere Antonio Ferramolino di consolidare la cortina muraria della città, potenziando le esistenti opere di difesa con un muro a scarpa, provvisto di cordolo semicircolare all’altezza del muro d’affaccio, iniziando successivamente la costruzione dei baluardi nella piazza del Castello a mare e nella cinta, la cui ultimazione avverrà alla fine del secolo.
La realizzazione della cinta muraria bastionata cinquecentesca fu dunque un’operazione di vastissime proporzioni e dall’altissimo costo, che comportò anche la coercitiva collaborazione di buona parte della popolazione cittadina.
La costituzione delle mura cinquecentesche donò (e, in una certa misura, ribadì) la forma caratteristica della città di Palermo, la morfologia urbana quadrangolare che caratterizzerà per secoli la città. Ancora oggi, nonostante gran parte del sistema murario sia stato da tempo smantellato, la città storica di Palermo mantiene la fisionomia datale dalle gigantesche opere di fortificazione volute dal vicerè Gonzaga e dai suoi successori. Sovrapponendo la cinta muraria disegnata dal Giorgi ad una recente rappresentazione foto-cartografica del centro storico della città, è facile notare che la forma del perimetro murario permane nei viali che circondano l’impianto urbanistico storico (la Via Lincoln, il Corso Tüköry, la Via Re Ruggero, il Corso Albero Amedeo, la Via Volturno e la Via Cavour, impiantate – tra ‘700 e ‘800 o nell’aria ricavata dalle demolizioni delle mura o nei relativi fossati, appositamente colmati).
La rottura dello spazio urbano circoscritto, voluta tra il XVIII e il XIX secolo, seppur segnando, con lo smantellamento di uno dei principali parametri della forma urbana, la fine di un’epoca urbanistica, non ha compromesso (e ciò è ben testimoniabile attraverso le attuali fonti cartografiche) le specificità fisionomiche della città storica di Palermo. Il circuito murario ha, inoltre, fortemente condizionato la conformazione delle aree abitate extramoenia che prenderanno forma, nei secoli successivi, sia lungo alcune delle vie che si dipartivano dalle varie porte di città sia a ridosso delle mura stesse.
Dei dodici bastioni della cinta muraria cinquecentesca, oggi ne sopravvivono (del tutto o in parte) soltanto cinque: quello di S. Giacomo o del Papireto o di Porta di Guccia, concesso nel 1800 al marchese Cuccia, che vi edificò la propria casa ed un giardino pensile (sul Corso Alberto Amedeo); quello di S. Pietro o del Palazzo Reale, ancora in ottimo stato di conservazione, sul quale si trova il giardino annesso al Palazzo dei Normanni; quello di S. Vito o Gonzaga, ceduto, nel 1782 dal Senato palermitano alle monache del vicino monastero di S. Vito “per farne loggia di loro diporto, con flore e verzieri in mezzo” e parzialmente demolito nel 1903 per la risistemazione della vicina Piazza G. Verdi; quello dello Spasimo, sul quale insiste parte del complesso religioso dei padri Olivetani, trasferiti nel convento di S. Spirito nel 1575 (il complesso religioso dello Spasimo, mai completato proprio perché investito dal progetto di fortificazione dell’area, fu utilizzato, nei secoli successivi, come teatro, magazzino e nosocomio; è oggi destinato dal Comune a scuola di musica e a Centro Culturale); quello di Vega, parzialmente demolito nel 1783 per migliorare la viabilità della strada Colonna e ampliare la passeggiata della Marina, oggi annesso alla struttura ricettiva “Jolly Hotel” (Blandi, 1998). Della cortina muraria cinquecentesca permangono alcuni tratti: presso la Via Mura di S. Vito e la Via Mura di Porta Carini, lungo il Corso Alberto Amedeo e le Vie Mura di Porta S. Agata, Mura di Montalto e Mura della Pace (alle spalle di Via Lincoln); Lungo il Foro Italico, da piazza S. Spirito alla Porta dei Greci. Non molte porte di città appartenenti all’originaria cortina muraria si sono salvate dal piccone demolitore: la Porta Nuova, la Porta Felice, la Porta dei Greci, la Porta S. Agata e la Porta Mazara. La Porta Carini e la Porta di Vicari o di S. Antonino permangono nel loro rifacimento settecentesco. Permane, infine, la Porta Reale o Carolina, realizzata tra il 1776 e il 1885 a seguito dell’impianto dell’attiguo parco cittadino di Villa Giulia. (Da "Momenti di Performative mapping a Palermo" tesi di Laurea di A.Occhipnti)
IL DOCUMENTO è UN MIO LAVORO ORIGINALE - GRADIREI ESSERE AVVERTITO SE QUALCUNO DESIDERA COPIARLO E USARLO ALTROVE - GRAZIE!
Ti invito a visitare la mia nuova rubrica sulla storia urbanistica di Palermo su bellapalermonline.it
bellapalermonline.com/index.php/dalla-fondazione-fenicia-...
Consistent with the rest of Watco's fleet, WSOR 4052 has been repainted in the WATCO standard black scheme, yellow nose to be completed later. Cheap and effective as paint goes, but we don't have to like it..
Etta James and Miley Cyrus arrive at Conde Nast Media Group's Fifth Annual Fashion Rocks at Radio City Music Hall in New York City with renowned music manager representing Etta James Kathleen Checki, president of Simply Consistent.
Etta attended the event with husband Artis, sons Donto and Sametto, bestfriend Pat and her business manager Kathleen Checki, President of Simply Consistent Inc.,
"-Etta James."
"-Etta James and Miley Cyrus."
"-Kathleen Checki."
"-Checki."
"-Simply Consistent."
"-Simply Consistent Management."
"-Etta James and her manager Kathleen Checki."
It’s that time again where I upload a picture containing one photo from each month, looking back over the past year. Previously I’ve done Nottingham on its own, and Nottingham plus Lincoln, but for the first time here’s a look back concentrated solely on Lincoln’s buses. Obviously, unlike Nottingham, there aren’t branded buses running on dedicated routes with batches being moved around, but there have still been plenty of changes involving the various operators. As ever, so many things actually happened that I can’t cover it all, but here’s some highlights.
Almost a full year ago, we begin with PC Coaches and their loaned in micro-sized Enviro 200 MMC, which was difficult to photograph with its plain white livery brightly lit in the harsh winter sun. Lincoln bus station and Norman Street is the location for the vast majority of these photos, and is where YX21 RRV is seen on 17.1.23
For February here’s a Plymothian in Lincoln, run by Black Cat Travel on the Saturday B5. Since taking this photo the bus has gone through a repaint into plain white, and the ever-changing world of the Saturday service on ‘InterConnect 5’ has seen the northern section to Lincoln evolve into the 55, now run by PC Coaches. During the months in which Black Cat had the B5, they provided Pointer Darts of many different colours and backgrounds. WA54 JWD was the vehicle of choice on 11.2.23
On the subject of Dennis Darts, March’s photo shows 35129 which was temporarily allocated to Lincoln for a while, having come from Gainsborough and still carrying Bassetlaw branding. It’s hard to think, in the current Enviro 300 bore-fest, that so recently Lincoln still had such interesting single deckers as Pointer Darts alongside a varied mix of E200/300s and E200 MMCs. 35129 brings a 30 under Pelham Bridge on 25.3.23
Another route which chopped and changed as well as the B5/55 has been the 47, which was a fairly unremarkable PC Coaches route, until April 2023 saw a rather bizarre turn of events. The contracted route passed to Centrebus – bringing a new operator to Lincoln – yet PCC continued to duplicate the service with one of their own vehicles for another couple of months, possibly because they’d interworked it with one of their school routes. 14 plate E200s were a staple of the Centrebus operation until other vehicles began to filter in, and on 28.4.23 MX14 FUM is seen at Lincoln bus station.
Stagecoach’s blue and red driver training Dennis Darts were a familiar sight around the city, but in the past year the training fleet has completely changed from those to a new set of red and white Enviro 300s. The majority are of the all-ADL type from the GX58 batch, however a few MAN E300s are also mixed in. All-ADL GX58 GKL is in Lincoln bus station alongside a regular fleet member on 10.5.23
The coronation of King Charles III saw a specially liveried Enviro 400 MMC from the 18 plate Mansfield Pronto batch shifted around the Stagecoach East Midlands depots, and for June it was Lincoln’s. Meanwhile, the trio of Prontos were still in use at Lincoln (one temporarily went back during 10978’s visit), but finally went for good when new double deckers arrived at the end of summer. SN18 KTP sets off with a 9 on 3.6.23
For the latter part of the year, only Stagecoach really did stuff! After small amounts of patchy use through the spring, Skeg’s RoadCar Geminis finally saw consistent service. At one time it became almost a given that either of 16939/44 would be undertaking one of the day’s boards on the 56, and in this view FX06 AOF is setting off from the bus station on 3.7.23. Meanwhile, PC Coaches have been steadily painting their ex-Reading Omnicity deckers into fleet livery, and unbranded YN08 MMA arrives in the background.
Massive fleet changes occurred for Stagecoach in the late summer and autumn, hinted at by a few Enviro 300s trickling in from Gainsborough and Skegness a few months prior, one of which was 27794 shown here in August, before the Enviro flood gates really opened. As well as the vehicles, there were service changes too and the short Lincoln bus station to County Hospital 4 returned, replacing the X6 that had been a staple of my spotting over the past couple of years. FX12 BMZ heads under Pelham Bridge on 8.8.23
I wasn’t kidding when I said Stagecoach dominated the later months – here they are again, coming in with new liveries for some of their Lincolnshire services. After the Humber Flyer became the TwoFifty, the FastCat became ThreeFifty, and every so often one of the 350 branded vehicles would pitch up on the 103. Phasing out a well-known Lincolnshire brand, YX67 VHE sets off with a 103 while wearing its new ThreeFifty livery on 28.9.23
In the autumn East Midlands gained a quartet of Wright Eclipse 2 bodied Volvo B7RLEs that were previously for the Cambridge busway, and they introduced a new InterConnect livery in Stagecoach’s post-2020 house style. As with all the most interesting buses, they’ve been allocated to other depots while Lincoln gets the boring old Local liveried Enviros, but on several occasions the new Eclipses have worked the once-a-week Sunday 18 run by a Skegness vehicle. AE09 GYR takes on this duty on 8.10.23
Lincoln’s Tridents met a swift and disappointing end, with a single President barely scraping into November before its ultimate withdrawal. MX53 FLC works a 4 up to the County Hospital on 1.11.23, which I was hoping to have a ride on but ended up not having enough time, and this photo had to do.
For the end of the year, here’s another operator. Brylaine were so consistent throughout the year I didn’t think they’d be featuring, but out of the blue they reinstated a couple of their 05 plate Solos and have been routinely turning them out on a board that brings one to Lincoln around 5pm, in the dark. On 13.12.23 I managed to phot YJ05 JXH in daylight, departing Lincoln with a B5.
In my 2022 one of these I made some predictions that ended up being wrong, and for Lincoln I really have no idea what Stagecoach might have in store – sometimes it feels like not even they know what they’re doing with incessant vehicle swapping. Everyone seems pretty confident in the knowledge that the current Rocky will become the tour bus, but other than that, who knows?! Instead, here are some things I hope to see happen:
Lincoln’s masses of E300s get dispersed to other garages
One of the RoadCar Wright Volvos gets preserved (hopefully 16939)
Black Cat and other schools operators benefit from Stagecoach Trident disposals
That’s all I could come up with because I like PCC and Brylaine the way they are! Stagecoach are entertaining, if infuriating, and of course I’d like to see a Gemini, a President, an Eclipse etc preserved, but at that point I think it’d be easier for me to say preserve everything that isn’t an Enviro. With all the vehicles both Stagecoach and PC Coaches have brought in through 2023, I can’t see 2024 having quite the same level and things might calm down a bit.
Anyway, however it plays out, have a happy new year and enjoy 2024!
Joel Parkinson Leads ASP Top Stars in Assault on Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Round 1
BELLS BEACH, Victoria/Australia (Wednesday, April 20, 2011) – Today marks the commencement of the 50th Anniversary of competition surfing at Bells Beach as Round 1 of the 2011 Rip Curl Pro Bells presented by Ford Ranger got underway in clean four-to-six foot (1.5 - 2 metre) surf.
The Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, the second stop on the 2011 ASP World Title season, enjoyed consistent surf throughout the day as the world’s best surfers unleashed a barrage of high-performance ripping on the classic canvas of Bells Beach.
Joel Parkinson (AUS), 30, 2009 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Champion put in a sensational performance this afternoon, electing to sit up at Rincon to secure the day’s highest scores.. Parkinson locked in the highest wave score and the highest heat score of the opening day of competition scoring 17.74 (out of a possible 20.00) to advance directly through to Round 3 of competition.
"I fell off twice on the bowl," Parkinson said. "It was really hard to ride. Then CJ (Hobgood) went across to Rincon and got a score, so we followed him over and it worked out for me. It's great to get that opening heat win, especially at Bells. You never know what conditions you're going to get in a heat, so to be able to skip round two and maybe get a day off is a huge advantage."
Kelly Slater (USA), 39, reigning 10-time ASP World Champion and defending event winner, was clinical in his attack in his Round 1 heat. Slater had his fellow competitors Adam Robertson (AUS), 28, and Kai Otton (AUS), 31, on the ropes only minutes into the heat, scoring an impressive 16.00 (out of a possible 20.00) on his opening two rides.
"I don't free surf out at Bells a whole lot," Slater said. "When the waves are good the comp is on and outside of that it's pretty crowded. So I'm still learning with each heat out there still, surfing against a guy like Robbo (Adam Robertson) you've got to watch where he's sitting, how far our and how deep."
Mick Fanning (AUS), 29, currently equal 13th in the hunt for the 2011 ASP World Title, went into today’s competition with renewed vigor after a shock early exit at the last event on the Gold Coast. The past two-time ASP World Champion came out and dominated his Round 1 battle over Tiago Pires (PRT), 31, and Gabriel Medina (BRA), 17.
"I'm stoked to get a good start," Fanning said. "It's been 10 years since I won here as I wildcard, I got close last year but Kelly Slater got me in the final. You want to win every event, but being the 50th Anniversary and so much history at this event, it's like the Wimbeldon of surfing, it's a hard one to win but it's the one everyone wants."
Alejo Muniz (BRA), 21, led today’s rookie charge, continuing his sensational run after the and equal 5th on the Gold Coast, and dispatching of fellow Brazilian Ranoi Monterio (BRA), 28, and Australian Adrian Buchan (AUS), 28 in this morning’s opening round heat.
"It's so good out there!" Muniz said. "This is my first time surfing at Bells and it's the most amazing place. It's got perfect rights, and it's the kind of wave that I love to surf. It's the best place ever, best waves, best weather and I love surfing in wetsuits."
Jeremy Flores (FRA), 22, bounced back after missing the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast with a knee injury, to score a comprehensive win over Taylor Knox (USA), 39, and Cory Lopez (USA), 34.
"I wasn't very confident before the heat," Flores said. "But I got that first wave and did a big turn at the end and got a good score. I think that's what you need to do these days, finish the wave strong. My knee still isn't 100%, but I went for it and it's good to win. Big thanks to everyone at the Gold Coast Suns Football Club for helping with my knee, it's feeling much better now."
Stu Kennedy (AUS), 21, scored a last minute wildcard into the event and caused the upset of the day, eliminating 2010 ASP World Title runner-up Jordy Smith (ZAF), 23, and Dusty Payne (HAW), 22.
"I've been coming here for years," Kennedy said. "I won a Pro Junior here in 2008 and I know where to sit. I don't think Dusty and Jordy know the break as well as I do so that helps. I've been up since 3am because I'm jet-lagged from coming home from Scotland. I woke up with a bunch of energy it's my shaper's birthday so I woke him up at 5am to go surfing. I had to win my heat for him for his birthday."
When men’s competition resumes, up first will be 2010 ASP World Runner-Up Jordy Smith (ZAF), 23, up against Trials Winner Adam Robertson (AUS), 28, in the opening heat of Round 2.
Following the completion of the men’s Round 1 today, the ASP Top 17 hit the water for Round 1 of the Rip Curl Women’s Pro Bells Beach presented by Ford Fiesta.
Stephanie Gilmore (AUS), 23, reigning four-time ASP Women’s World Champion and defending three-time Rip Curl Women’s Bells Beach winner, returned to her winning ways today, after bowing out early at the last event, the Roxy Pro Gold Coast.
"My first two years on tour I didn't have great results on the Gold Coast," Gilmore said. "I always bounced back at this event and then finished the year well, so hopefully I'll do that again this year. The Gold Coast was a fine showing of what women's surfing is up to now and everyone has to try and keep up. It really pushes me and I think anyone who wins an event from now on will be a very deserving winner because of that fact."
Pauline Ado (FRA), 19, the French rookie caused the upset of the women's event, defeating current ASP World Title front runner Carissa Moore (HAW), 18, in a nail biter of a heat.
"I'm really happy, I had a lot of fun out there," Ado said "I got one of my good waves in the first few seconds so after that I felt confident and knew I could be more selective and wait for the right wave. A heat against Carissa is always a tough one, so I'm really stoked to win."
When women’s competition resumes, up first will be Paige Hareb (NZL) and Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS) in the opening heat of Round 2.
Event organizers will reconvene tomorrow morning at 7am to assess conditions for a possible 7:30am start.
Highlights from the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach presented by FORD will be webcast available via www.live.ripcurl.com and broadcast live on Fuel TV in Australia and ESPN in Brazil.
For more information, log onto www.aspworldtour.com
RIP CURL PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 13.23, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 11.26, Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 7.37
Heat 2: Adam Melling (AUS) 14.50, Josh Kerr (AUS) 12.30, Taj Burrow (AUS) 11.00
Heat 3: Heitor Alves (BRA) 14.36, Bobby Martinez (USA) 14.14, Owen Wright (AUS) 10.60
Heat 4: Mick Fanning (AUS) 15.60, Tiago Pires (PRT) 11.07, Gabriel Medina (BRA) 9.27
Heat 5: Stu Kennedy (AUS) 11.70, Dusty Payne (HAW) 10.50, Jordy Smith (ZAF) 9.00
Heat 6: Kelly Slater (USA) 16.00, Kai Otton (AUS) 10.13, Adam Robertson (AUS) 8.53
Heat 7: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 13.17, Cory Lopez (USA) 5.83, Taylor Knox (USA) 4.67
Heat 8: Michel Bourez (PYF) 12.60, Kieren Perrow (AUS) 10.20, Gabe Kling (USA) 3.50
Heat 9: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 14.60, Damien Hobgood (USA) 11.23, Daniel Ross (AUS) 11.07
Heat 10: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 17.74, C.J. Hobgood (USA) 11.44, Bede Durbidge (AUS) 8.17
Heat 11: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 14.60, Chris Davidson (AUS) 10.83, Julian Wilson (AUS) 9.83
Heat 12: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 13.40, Jadson Andre (BRA) 9.43, Brett Simpson (USA) 8.93
RIP CURL PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Adam Robertson (AUS)
Heat 2: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Gabriel Medina (BRA)
Heat 3: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Bobby Martinez (USA)
Heat 4: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Josh Kerr (AUS)
Heat 5: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Raoni Monteiro (BRA)
Heat 6: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Cory Lopez (USA)
Heat 7: Brett Simpson (USA) vs. Gabe Kling (USA)
Heat 8: Jadson Andre (BRA) vs. Daniel Ross (AUS)
Heat 9: Chris Davidson (AUS) vs. Julian Wilson (AUS)
Heat 10: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 11: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 12: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Tiago Pires (PRT)
RIP CURL WOMEN’S PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Sofia Mulanovich (PER) 12.93, Chelsea Hedges (AUS) 8.70, Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS) 8.66
Heat 2: Silvana Lima (BRA) 14.94, Laura Enever (AUS) 8.84, Melanie Bartels (HAW) 7.54
Heat 3: Pauline Ado (HAW) 14.60, Carissa Moore (HAW) 14.44, Nikki Van Dijk (AUS) 10.63
Heat 4: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) 16.30, Courtney Conlogue (USA) 9.00, Bethany Hamilton (HAW) 6.50
Heat 5: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 16.10, Alana Blanchard (HAW) 12.83 Paige Hareb (NZL) 7.47
Heat 6: Coco Ho (HAW) 12.90, Tyler Wright (AUS) 12.00, Pauline Ado (FRA) 6.37
RIP CURL WOMEN’S PRO BELLS BEACH ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Paige Hareb (NZL) vs. Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS)
Heat 2: Laura Enever (AUS) vs. Melanie Bartels (HAW)
Heat 3: Carissa Moore (HAW) vs. Nikki Van Dijk (AUS)
Heat 4: Chelsea Hedges (AUS) vs. Bethany Hamilton (HAW)
Heat 5: Tyler Wright (AUS) vs. Alana Blanchard (HAW)
Heat 6: Courtney Conlogue (USA) vs. Rebecca Woods (AUS)
Photo ASP/Scholtz
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