Dropped Faster Than Quotes

The demon stopped its frantic attempts to escape. It stared at the glitter and began to pant, fingers twitching in anticipation. More twitching. Faster than she'd expected, it zoomed up to the sparkles, despite the danger. She snagged the fiend right before it picked up the last one, and dropped the Magpie into the cup. Instead of a flood of swear words or the offer of a favor, she heard a long, tortured sigh. Then it sat, sorting the glitter into piles by color. Now she'd seen everything.

You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there--the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.

Thankfully, Coach had taught me a way of embracing the pain. He called that overwhelming rust of hurt 'The Moment of No Return', a point of pure agony when the body told an athlete to quit, to rest, because the pain was so damn tough. It was a tipping point. He reckoned that if an athlete dropped in The Moment, then all the pain that went before it was pointless, the muscles wouldn't increase their current strength. But if he could work through the pinch and run another two reps, maybe 3, them the body would physically improve in that time, and that was when an athlete grew stronger.

My mother was good at reading books, making cinnamon biscuits, and coloring in a coloring book. Also she was a good eater of popcorn and knitter of sweaters with my initials right in them. She could sit really still. She knew how to believe in God and sing really loudly. When she sneezed our whole house rocked. My father was a great smoker and driver of vehicles..He could hold a full coffee cup while driving and never spill a drop, even going over bumps. He lost his temper faster than anyone.

That woman could spread gossip faster than the flu in a whorehouse.

We had to be up early in the morning. We had a goat race to go to... We asked the old man confident in the knowledge that he, like every Frenchman, would be an expert. "The goats who make the most droppings before the race are likely to do well. An empty goat is faster than a full goat. C'est logique.

Lucinda!" he shouted,but the beast had already dropped her. His whole world stopped. Daniel did not see where Lucifer went after that because he was diving across the sky toward Luce. The burning of her soul was so bright and so familiar. He shot forward, his wings clasped close to his body so that he fell faster than seemed possible, so fast that the world around him blurred.He reached out and- She landed in his arms. Immediately,his wings pulled forward, making a protective shield around her. She seemed startled at first,as if she'd just awakened from a terrible dream,and gazed deeply into his eyes, letting out all the air in her lungs. She touched his cheek,ran her fingers across the tingling ridges of his wings. "At last." He breathed into her, finding her lips. "You found me," she whispered. "Always.

I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my head and cock it. I think of my Grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I'm already hurting. I'm not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America.

That sort of news travels faster than horses, faster than boats. The messengers of the gods carry rumors through the sky the way bees carry pollen and drop them from their wings onto the earth below.

The door creaked as it began to open. Gray moved like lightning, slapping his left palm against the door and slamming it shut before it had opened more than a fraction of an inch. "Hey!" a woman squawked indignantly from the other side. "This one’s occupied," he said hoarsely, not missing a beat with his plunging hips. "Go somewhere else." Faith couldn’t say anything. Her eyes widened with alarm, but all she could do was look helplessly up at him. Gray’s lips drew back over his teeth and his head dropped forward as he began hammering faster. His face was flushed, satisfaction only a few moments away. Faith shuddered wildly as the coil of tension suddenly released and the fierce, pulsing flood of sensation swept through her. Shivering and pushing hard against him, she buried her face against his chest and bit his shirt to muffle her gasping cries. He kept his hand flat against the door, gripping her bottom with his right hand to anchor himself. He shoved hard into her, twice, three times, again, then bucked violently. His head fell back and a harsh, guttural cry rumbled up from his chest. There was an insistent banging on the door. "What are you doing in there?" the woman said in shrill, grating tones. "That’s the lady’s room! You aren’t supposed to be in there!" Slowly Gray’s head came up. The expression in his eyes was indescribable, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. He took a deep breath, and exploded. "Goddamn it, woman!" he roared with furious indignation. "Can’t you tell I’m busy?

Rowan,” she breathed, his name a plea and a prayer. She slid her fingers down the side of his tattooed cheek, and— Faster than she could see, he grabbed one wrist and then the other, yanking them away from his face and snarling softly. The world yawned open around her, cold and still. He dropped her hands as if they were on fire, stepping away, those green eyes flat and dull in a way she hadn’t seen for some time now. Her throat closed up even before he said, “Don’t do that. Don’t—touch me like that.” There was a roaring in her ears, a burning in her face, and she swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.

Only five minutes later he noticed a dozen crocuses growing round the foot of an old tree- gold and purple and white. Then came a sound even more delicious than the sound of water. Close beside the path they were following, a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off. And then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five minutes the whole wood was ringing with birds' music, and wherever Edmund's eyes turned he saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing overhead or chasing one another or having their little quarrels or tidying up their feathers with their beaks. "Faster! Faster!" said the Witch. There was no trace of the fog now. The sky became bluer and bluer, and now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time. In the wide glades there were primroses. A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travelers. The trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered with green, the laburnums with gold. Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate, transparent leaves. As the travelers walked under them the light also became green. A bee buzzed crossed their path.

My son, you are just an infant now, but on that day when the world disrobes of its alluring cloak, it is then that I pray this letter is in your hands. Listen closely, my dear child, for I am more than that old man in the dusty portrait beside your bed. I was once a little boy in my mother’s arms and a babbling toddler on my father's lap. I played till the sun would set and climbed trees with ease and skill. Then I grew into a fine young man with shoulders broad and strong. My bones were firm and my limbs were straight; my hair was blacker than a raven's beak. I had a spring in my step and a lion's roar. I travelled the world, found love and married. Then off to war I bled in battle and danced with death. But today, vigor and grace have forsaken me and left me crippled. Listen closely, then, as I have lived not only all the years you have existed, but another forty more of my own. My son, We take this world for a permanent place; we assume our gains and triumphs will always be; that all that is dear to us will last forever. But my child, time is a patient hunter and a treacherous thief: it robs us of our loved ones and snatches up our glory. It crumbles mountains and turns stone to sand. So who are we to impede its path? No, everything and everyone we love will vanish, one day. So take time to appreciate the wee hours and seconds you have in this world. Your life is nothing but a sum of days so why take any day for granted? Don't despise evil people, they are here for a reason, too, for just as the gift salt offers to food, so do the worst of men allow us to savor the sweet, hidden flavor of true friendship. Dear boy, treat your elders with respect and shower them with gratitude; they are the keepers of hidden treasures and bridges to our past. Give meaning to your every goodbye and hold on to that parting embrace just a moment longer--you never know if it will be your last. Beware the temptation of riches and fame for both will abandon you faster than our own shadow deserts us at the approach of the setting sun. Cultivate seeds of knowledge in your soul and reap the harvest of good character. Above all, know why you have been placed on this floating blue sphere, swimming through space, for there is nothing more worthy of regret than a life lived void of this knowing. My son, dark days are upon you. This world will not leave you with tears unshed. It will squeeze you in its talons and lift you high, then drop you to plummet and shatter to bits . But when you lay there in pieces scattered and broken, gather yourself together and be whole once more. That is the secret of those who know. So let not my graying hairs and wrinkled skin deceive you that I do not understand this modern world. My life was filled with a thousand sacrifices that only I will ever know and a hundred gulps of poison I drank to be the father I wanted you to have. But, alas, such is the nature of this life that we will never truly know the struggles of our parents--not until that time arrives when a little hand--resembling our own--gently clutches our finger from its crib. My dear child, I fear that day when you will call hopelessly upon my lifeless corpse and no response shall come from me. I will be of no use to you then but I hope these words I leave behind will echo in your ears that day when I am no more. This life is but a blink in the eye of time, so cherish each moment dearly, my son.

When the world changes faster than species can adapt, many fall out. This is the case whether the agent drops from the sky in a fiery streak or drives to work in a Honda.

Did your brother make it?” Uriah says. “Yeah.” Finally I see Tobias, his hand gripping Caleb’s arm, coming toward us. “Not sure why an Erudite like you can’t get it through his head,” Tobias is saying, “but you aren’t going to be able to outrun me.” “He’s right,” says Uriah. “Four’s fast. Not as fast as me, but definitely faster than a Nose like you.” Christina laughs. “A what?” “Nose.” Uriah touches the side of his nose. “It’s a play on words. ‘Knows’ with a ‘K,’ knowledge, Erudite…get it? It’s like Stiff.” “The Dauntless have the weirdest slang. Pansycake, Nose…is there a term for the Candor?” “Of course.” Uriah grins. “Jerks.” Christina shoves Uriah, hard, making him drop the flashlight. Tobias, laughing, leads us to the rest of the group, standing a few feet away.

Because complex animals can evolve their behavior rapidly. Changes can occur very quickly. Human beings are transforming the planet, and nobody knows whether it’s a dangerous development or not. So these behavioral processes can happen faster than we usually think evolution occurs. In ten thousand years human beings have gone from hunting to farming to cities to cyberspace. Behavior is screaming forward, and it might be nonadaptive. Nobody knows. Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species.” “Yes? Why is that?” “Because it means the end of innovation,” Malcolm said. “This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they’ll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down. Now, for our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behavior. We innovate new behavior to adapt. And everybody on earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it gets harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That’s the effect of mass media—it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there’s a McDonald’s on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there’s less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity—our most necessary resource? That’s disappearing faster than trees. But we haven’t figured that out, so now we’re planning to put five billion people together in cyberspace. And it’ll freeze the entire species. Everything will stop dead in its tracks. Everyone will think the same thing at the same time. Global uniformity. Oh, that hurts. Are you done?” “Almost,” Harding said. “Hang on.” “And believe me, it’ll be fast. If you map complex systems on a fitness landscape, you find the behavior can move so fast that fitness can drop precipitously. It doesn’t require asteroids or diseases or anything else. It’s just behavior that suddenly emerges, and turns out to be fatal to the creatures that do it. My idea was that dinosaurs—being complex creatures—might have undergone some of these behavioral changes. And that led to their extinction.

First, when you try to restrict calories and exercise more, your body is hardwired to perceive a starvation situation. That makes you tired (so you move less and conserve energy) and hungry (so you eat more), and it slows down your metabolism (so you don’t die!). This “eat less, exercise more” formula is not too successful for most people. It can work for a short time, certainly, but less than 10 percent of people lose weight and keep it off for a year;4 you will almost always rebound and gain back the weight. Second, when you eat carbs and sugar, insulin spikes and your blood sugar drops. The insulin drives most of the available fuel in your bloodstream into fat cells, especially the fat cells around your middle, otherwise known as belly fat. So your body is starved of fuel, and this stimulates your brain5 to make you eat more.6 You could have a year’s worth of stored energy in your fat tissue and yet feel like you are starving. The only thing that can stop this vicious cycle is eating a lot of fat and cutting out the refined carbs and sugar. A high-fat, low-carb diet leads to a faster metabolism and sustained weight loss.

steps, deep in thought. A breeze was slightly disturbing his hair. Then, as we watched, he walked very slowly up the steps. At the top, he turned and came back down, a little faster. Turning once more, my father became still again for several seconds, contemplating the steps before him. Eventually, he climbed them a second time, very deliberately. This time he continued on across the grass until he had almost reached the summerhouse, then turned and came walking slowly back, his eyes never leaving the ground. In fact, I can describe his manner at that moment no better than the way Miss Kenton puts it in her letter; it was indeed ‘as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there’.

Some species moved north faster than others; when Europeans arrived in New England, earthworms had not yet returned. As the ice sheets withdrew, large chunks of ice broke off and were left behind. When these chunks melted, they left behind water-filled depressions in the ground called kettlehole ponds. Oakland Lake, near the north end of Springfield Boulevard in Queens, is one of these kettlehole ponds. The ice sheets also dropped boulders they’d picked up on their journey; some of these rocks, called glacial erratics, can be found in Central Park today.

the work force shrinkage happened faster than anticipated. The one-child policy sharply accelerated a drop in fertility. China’s massive 800-million-person work force—larger than Europe’s population—started to contract in 2012 and will continue doing so for years to come, driving up wages and contributing to global inflationary pressures.

Sharp never drops his tail to me, no matter how hard I try. I wrestle him every day, but he slips out of my paws. I run farther than him. I howl longer. I gulp down more meat than anyone, but he is still taller and heavier, louder and stronger. I can run faster than him, but that is my only victory. Mother sees me try and gives me extra licks at sleep time.

It's one of the beautiful lies of the American Dream: that you can become anything, do anything, accomplish anything, if you want it badly enough and are willing to work for it. Limits are inventions of the timid mind. You've got to believe. All things are possible through properly channeled effort: work, work, work; harder, faster, more! ...I believed it all, drank the elixir to the last drop and licked my lips for residue. I put in the time, learned to read and write and speak more capably than my friends and neighbors, followed the rules, did my homework, memorized the tics and slangs and idiosyncrasies of winners and heroes, but I could never be quite as American as they. The lie is only a lie if you fail, and I most certainly did.

Some argue shareholder capitalism has proven to be more “efficient” than stakeholder capitalism. It has moved economic resources to where they’re most productive, and thereby enabled the economy to grow faster. By this view, stakeholder capitalism locked up resources in unproductive ways, CEOs were too complacent, corporations were too fat—employing workers they didn’t need, and paying them too much—and they were too tied to their communities. It is a tempting argument, but in hindsight a fallacious one. Any change that allows some people to become better off without causing others to be worse off is technically a more “efficient” use of resources. But when all or most of these efficiency gains go to a few people at the top—as has been the case since the 1980s—the common good is not necessarily improved. Just look at the flat or declining wages of most Americans, their growing economic insecurity, and the abandoned communities now littering the nation. Then look at the record corporate profits, soaring CEO pay, and jaw-dropping compensation on Wall Street. All Americans are stakeholders in the American economy, and most stakeholders have not done well.

It's true that the audience gasped when Nina did her thirty-two fouettees. They began applauding when she was just half way through, so loudly that she couldn't hear the music and had to hope the conductor would simply follow her. With each whip of her leg she spun faster, beads of sweat flying, stinging her eyes - and yet she finished cleanly, precisely, and counted calmly to five before releasing the pose. Secretly, though, Nina finds it cheap, these technical feats. A cheap way to impress, nothing subtle or artful - just virtuostic display, demanding of applause and dropped jaws. Nina wants to do more than fancy tricks; she wants her body to sing, her eyes and her hands and the very angle of her head to convey every nuance of the music, and each facet of whichever character she is called on to play.

Physicists then tried to calculate the amount of negative matter or energy necessary to propel a starship. The latest results indicate that the amount required is equivalent to the mass of the planet Jupiter. This means that only a very advanced civilization will be able to use negative matter or energy to propel their starships, if it is possible at all. (However, it is possible that the amount of negative matter or energy necessary to go faster than light could drop, because the calculations depend on the geometry and size of the warp bubble or wormhole.) Star Trek gets around this inconvenient hurdle by postulating that a rare mineral called the dilithium crystal is the essential component of a warp drive engine. Now we know that "dilithium crystals" may be a fancy way of saying "negative matter or energy.

I think of my grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I’m so sad and I can’t really see a way out of what I’m feeling but I’m leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I’m already hurting. I’m not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America.

he guessed this was a Welsh regiment. The flare died. Walter leaped to his feet and ran, heading for the German side. The sentry would be unable to see for a few seconds, his vision spoiled by the flare. Walter ran faster than he ever had, expecting the rifle to fire again at any moment. In half a minute he came to the British wire and dropped gratefully to his knees. He crawled rapidly forward through a gap. Another flare went up.

Women often make communication mistakes that undermine their irresistibility and send men running faster than you can say, “Marriage and kids!” First of all, most of us don’t really listen. What we do is judge whether we like or dislike what a man is saying to us, decide whether we agree or disagree with what he’s saying, or determine whether we know it already. We also listen to see if what he is saying fits our agenda (like our agenda to have a boyfriend, get married, or have kids). This is not true listening. True listening happens when you drop those internal conversations in your mind and simply hear what a man is saying to you from his perspective, as though what he is saying is the most important thing on earth and you need to hear every single word. You don’t interpret, analyze, or read into it. You don’t say, “In other words . . .,” and go on to put into words what you think he means. You just take it in. When you truly listen, you become instantly attractive. By really hearing a man, you make him feel special and cared for in a very powerful way. If there’s genuine chemistry between you, he’ll continue to share more and more of himself because of how open and receptive you are to who he actually is (not who you are trying to get him to be). I cannot emphasize this point enough. If you really want to make every man want you, become a masterful listener.

Heart disease is the Jeffrey Dahmer of modern ailments. It kills more than 25 percent of us. That’s one person in the United States dying of it every 37 seconds. Expanding fitness just a bit—the equivalent of a person improving their max running speed from five to six miles an hour—reduces the risk of heart disease by 30 percent, according to the American Heart Association. Next is cancer. It kills 22.8 percent of us. The most fit people face a 45 percent lower risk of dying from the disease, according to a study in the Annals of Oncology. Then we have accidents. They take 6.8 percent of us. If a person is in a serious car accident, being in shape drops their chances of dying by 80 percent, according to a study in the Emergency Medical Journal. If the docs have to operate—regardless of whether it’s an emergency or a planned surgery—fitter people also face fewer surgical complications and recover faster than unfit people, say scientists in Brazil.

The call dragged on for more than three hours until 10:30 p.m. They went over the site line by line, as Elizabeth slowly dictated every alteration that needed to be made. Patrick nodded off at one point. But Kate and Mike stayed alert enough to notice that the language was being systematically dialed back. “Welcome to a revolution in lab testing” was changed to “Welcome to Theranos.” “Faster results. Faster answers” became “Fast results. Fast answers.” “A tiny drop is all it takes” was now “A few drops is all it takes.

Once I made weapons carved from stone, I tied the weight to a wooden handle, a club to break the bones of my enemy. Then I became wiser... and sharpened the stone to a point and then fastened it to a stick; my arrow. I bent wood and hitched string to it; my bow. I kill my enemy with skill Then I became wiser... and made weapons forged from steel and took care to sharpen the blade of my sword. I kill my enemy with a stroke. Then I became wiser... and made the rifle that would, by exploding gunpowder, shoot balls of lead faster than the eye could see. I kill my enemy with but the pull of a trigger. Then I became wiser... and I built flying machine that could transport bombs to drop over the homes of my enemy. I kill my enemy from the sky. Then I became wiser... and created the drone, now I can guide a plane by remote control from one country and kill my enemy in another. I am a proficient killer Then I became wiser...  and I found a way to split the atom and found the power of God hidden within. I kill the ground, scorch the sky, pollute the wind and kill my enemy with the push of a button. Then I became wiser... And I found that there is nothing more foolish than a "Wise Man of War

The residents of Wakarusa, Indiana, could spin gossip faster than a spider spins its web. Each time one of their own did something they shouldn’t—when Abby Schmuckers got caught shoplifting lipstick from the dime store; when the Becker kid dropped out of the 4-H volunteer club; when Jonah Schneider fell asleep and snored in church—the Wakarusa gossip chain would flap their jaws, chewing the tidbit over so thoroughly that by the time they’d finally spat it out again, the Truth was misshapen and unrecognizable, warped into the Story. And because the people of Wakarusa were churchgoing, law-abiding, capital-G God-fearing people, the Story was

-did you just ask something?" "I asked if you can undress any faster." Evie huffed with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "No, I can't. There are too many b-buttons, and they're very small." "What a pity. Because in thirty seconds, I'm going to rip away whatever clothing you have left." Evie knew full well not to take the threat lightly- he'd done it before, on more than one occasion. "Sebastian, no. I like this dress." Her husband's eyes glinted with devilish humor as he watched her increasingly frantic efforts. "No dress is as beautiful as your naked skin. All those sweet freckles scattered over you, like a thousand tiny angel kisses... you have twenty seconds left, by the way." "You don't even h-have a clock," she complained. "I'm counting by heartbeats. You'd better hurry, love." Evie glanced anxiously down at the row of pearl buttons, which seem to have multiplied. With a defeated sigh, she dropped her arms to her sides. "Just go on and rip it off," she mumbled. She heard his silky laugh, and a sluice of water. He stood with streams runneling over the sleek, muscled contours of his body, and Evie gasped as she was pulled into a steaming embrace. His amused voice curled inside the sensitive shell of her ear. "My poor little put-upon wife. Let me help you. I have a way with buttons...

The cross-section of a helicopter blade, according to Sarah, is more or less the same as the wing of an aeroplane. Its shape creates a pressure differential in the air passing over its upper and lower surfaces, producing a consequent lift. It differs from an aeroplane wing, however, in that when a helicopter moves forward, air starts passing over the blade that’s coming forward faster than it passes over the blade that’s going backwards. This produces unequal lift on the two sides of the helicopter, and the faster it goes, the more unequal the lift becomes. Eventually the ‘retreating’ blade stops producing any lift at all, and the helicopter flips on to its back and drops out of the sky. This, according to Sarah, was a negative aspect.

I know what you’re thinking, Gray,” O’Shea’s brogue lilted down through the skylight one warm morning, while Sophia was hard at work. Mr. Grayson responded, a raw longing in his voice. “Aye. It would be so easy to take her.” Sophia nearly dropped her quill. “We’ve the advantage of the wind,” O’Shea said. “And a faster ship,” Gray replied. “We’d be on her stern in no time.” Ships. Sophia breathed again. They were speaking of ships. “Those were the days.” O’Shea gave a low whistle. “One cannonball to the rudder…” “Wouldn’t even need that. She’d accept our terms with little more than a signal shot and a smile.” She could hear that smile in his voice. He continued, “Cannons are for amateurs. Seizing a ship intact…it’s all in the approach. From the moment that sail appears on the horizon, you act as though it’s already yours. All that remains is to inform the other captain.

Freddy and his brother Tesoro have not seen each other in five years, and they sit at the kitchen table in Freddy's house and have a jalapeno contest. A large bowl of big green and orange jalapeno peppers sit between the two brothers. A saltshaker and two small glasses of beer accompany this feast. When Tesoro nods his head, the two men begin to eat the raw jalapenos. The contest is to see which man can eat more peppers. It is a ritual from their father, but the two brothers tried it only once, years ago. Both quit after two peppers and laughed it off. This time, things are different. They are older and have to prove a point. Freddy eats his first one more slowly than Tesoro, who takes to bites to finish his and is now on his second. Neither says anything, though a close study of each man's face would tell you the sudden burst of jalapeno energy does not waste time in changing the eater's perception of reality. Freddy works on his second as Tesoro rips into his fourth. Freddy is already sweating from his head and is surprised to see that Tesoro's fat face has not shanged its steady, consuming look. Tesoro's long, black hair is neatly combed, and not one bead of sweat has popped out. He is the first to sip from the beer before hitting his fifth jalapeno. Freddy leans back as the table begins to sway in his damp vision. He coughs, and a sharp pain rips through his chest. Tesoro attempts to laugh at his brother, but Freddy sees it is something else. As Freddy finishes his third jalapeno, Tesoro begins to breathe faster upon swallowing his sixth. The contest momentarily stops as both brothers shift in their seats and the sweat pours down their faces. Freddy clutches his stomach as he reaches for his fourth delight. Tesor has not taken his seventh, and it is clear to Freddy that his brother is suffering big-time. There is a bright blue bird sitting on Tesoro's head, and Tesoro is struggling to laugh because Freddy has a huge red spider crawling on top of his head. Freddy wipes the sweat from his eyes and finishes his fourth pepper. Tesoro sips more beer, sprinkles salt on the tip of his jalapeno, and bites it down to the stem. Freddy, who has not touched his beer, stares in amazement as two Tesoros sit in front of him. They both rise hastily, their beer guts pushing the table against Freddy, who leans back as the two Tesoros waver in the kitchen light. Freddy hears a tremendous fart erupt from his brother, who sits down again. Freddy holds his fifth jalapeno and can't breathe. Tesoro's face is purple, but the blue bird has been replaced by a burning flame of light that weaves over Tesoro's shiny head. Freddy is convinced that he is having a heart attack as he watches his brother fight for breath. Freddy bites into his fifth as Tesoro flips his eighth jalapeno into his mouth, stem and all. This is it. Freddy goes into convulsions and drops to the floor as he tries to reach for his glass of beer. He shakes on the dirty floor as the huge animal that is Tesoro pitches forward and throws up millions of jalapeno seeds all over the table. The last thing Freddy sees before he passes out is his brother's body levitating above the table as an angel, dressed in green jalapeno robes, floats into the room, extends a hand to Tesoro, and floats away with him. When Freddy wakes up minutes later, he gets up and makes it to the bathroom before his body lets go through his pants. As he reaches the bathroom door, he turns and gazes upon the jalapeno plants growing healthy and large on the kitchen table, thick peppers hanging under their leaves, their branches immersed in the largest pile of jalapeno seeds Freddy has ever seen.

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You're trying to kiss Emma?" Rayna says, incredulous. "But you haven't even sifted yet, Galen." "Sifted?" Emma asks. Toraf laughs. "Princess, why don't we go for a swim? You know that storm probably dredged up all sorts of things for your collection." Galen nods a silent thank you to Toraf as he ushers his sister into the living room. For once, he's thankful for Rayna's hoard of human relics. He almost had to drag her to shore by her fin to get past all the old shipwrecks along this coast. "We'll split up, cover more ground," Rayna's saying as they leave. Galen feels Emma looking at him, but he doesn't acknowledge her. Instead, he watches the beach as Toraf and Rayna disappear in the waves, hand in hand. Galen shakes his head. No one should feel sorry for Toraf. He knows just exactly what he's doing. Something Galen wishes he could say of himself. Emma puts a hand on his arm-she won't be ignored. "What is that? Sifted?" Finally he turns, meets her gaze. "It's like dating to humans. Only, it goes a lot faster. And it has more of a purpose than humans sometimes do when they date." "What purpose?" "Sifting is our way of choosing a life mate. When a male turns eighteen, he usually starts sifting to find himself a companion. For a female whose company he will enjoy and ho will be suitable for producing offspring." "Oh," she says, thoughtful. "And...you haven't sifted yet?" He shakes his head, painfully aware of her hand still on his arm. She must realize it at the same time, because she snatches it away. "Why not?" she says, clearing her throat. "Are you not old enough to sift?" "I'm old enough," he says softly. "How old are you, exactly?" "Twenty." He doesn't mean to lean closer to her-or does he? "Is that normal? That you haven't sifted yet?" He shakes his head. "It's pretty much standard for males to be mated by the time they turn nineteen. But my responsibilities as ambassador would take me away from my mate too much. It wouldn't be fair to her." "Oh, right. Keeping a watch on the humans," she says quickly. "You're right. That wouldn't be fair, would it?" He expects another debate. For her to point out, as she did last night, that if there were more ambassadors, he wouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility alone-and she would be right. But she doesn't debate. In fact, she drops the subject altogether. Backing away from him, she seems intent on widening the space he'd closed between them. She fixes her expression into nonchalance. "Well, are you ready to help me turn into a fish?" she says, as if they'd been talking about this the whole time. He blinks. "That's it?" "What?" "No more questions about sifting? No lectures about appointing more ambassadors?" "It's not my business," she says with an indifferent shrug. "Why should I care whether or not you mate? And it's not like I'll be sifting-or sifted. After you teach me to sprout a fin, we'll be going our separate ways. Besides, you wouldn't care if I dated any humans, right?" With that, she leaves him there staring after her, mouth hanging open. At the door, she calls over her shoulder, "I'll meet you on the beach in fifteen minutes. I just have to call my mom and check in and change into my swimsuit." She flips her hair to the side before disappearing up the stairs. He turns to Rachel, who's hand-drying a pan to death, eyebrows reaching for her hairline. He shrugs to her in askance, mouth still ajar. She sighs. "Sweet pea, what did you expect?" "Something other than that.

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For example, in the previously mentioned example of my leaving for work in a rush, being short with my wife, and then walking out with no further words, we can see that I am not relating with my experience in a complete way and that this is creating further karma. I am simply not present to the totality of my situation, of my feelings and my interactions with my wife. When I “rush,” I have disengaged; I am in a disembodied state. I am running from the painful feelings of my situation—of having gotten up late, not having left enough time to get ready, fearing being late for work—and from being with my wife, who looks for some basic level of decency and emotional presence from me. In my disembodied state, though the anxiety is coursing through my body, I am only dimly aware of feeling it. The anxiety has me by the throat, and I am trying to deal with it by ignoring it and everything it reflects. I do this by going faster and faster, as if I could outrun the situation and outrun my anxiety. So, driven by my fear, I am skimming the surface of my life, dropping my tube of toothpaste, leaving my pajamas on the floor (for my wife to pick up), stubbing my foot on the bedroom door, spilling my coffee, all capped off by being short with my wife. I am in a state of complete disembodiment and in such a mind of confusion that I am unconsciously acting as if being on time is of more consequence than respecting the tender and open feelings of my wife, my life partner and truest friend.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.   They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.   So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.   I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?   Myself moving forward then and now and forever, Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.   A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.   His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.   I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.

Mr. Sulu,” Jim said, “I can’t avoid the impression that you’re counting all the asteroids in this neighborhood.” “Not counting them as such, Captain. We’re building a recognition database, tagging the asteroids with nominal IDs, and noting their masses for future reference. If you know an asteroid’s mass within a couple of significant figures, you can very quickly calculate what kind of forces would need to be applied to it to make it move. Once Khiy and I get them all tagged, or all the ones in this area, we can get the ship’s computer to alert us when an enemy vessel is getting close enough for one of the asteroids to be a threat. Then either Bloodwing or Enterprise gives the necessary rock a pull with a tractor or a push with a pressor …” Jim grinned. In slower-than-light combat, the lightspeedor-faster weapons came into their own, as long as you kept away from the higher, near-relativistic impulse speeds. “You’re concentrating on the asteroids nearer to the processing facility, I see.” “Yes, sir—a sphere about a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter, including almost the entire breadth of the belt in this area. Any ship outside that diameter isn’t going to be a threat to us at subwarp speeds. If they want to engage with us, they’ve got to drop their speed and come inside the sphere.” “‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly…’” Jim said. “Get on with it, Mr. Sulu. In a situation like this, every little bit helps. Are you going to be able to have this ready by the time the ‘flies’ arrive?” “We’ll do our best, Captain. There are some inconsistencies between the ways Bloodwing’s computer handles large amounts of data like this, and the way ours does. We’ve got to solve them on the fly.” And Sulu chuckled.

...one of the most powerful examples of group feeling and belief affecting a broad geographic area was documented as a daring experiment during the war between Lebanon and Israel that began in 1982. It was during that time that researchers trained a group of people to "feel" peace in their bodies while believing that it was already present within them, rather than simply thinking about it in their minds or praying "for" it to occur. For this particular experiment, those involved used a form of meditation known as TM (Transcendental Meditation) to achieve that feeling. At appointed times on specific days of the month, these people were positioned throughout the war-torn areas of the Middle East. During the window of time when they were feeling peace, terrorist activities ceased, the rate of crimes against people went down, the number of emergency-room visits declined, and the incidence of traffic accidents dropped. When the participants' feelings changed, the statistics were reversed. This study confirmed the earlier findings: When a small percentage of the population achieved peace within themselves, it was reflected in the world around them. The experiments took into account the days of the week, holidays, and even lunar cycles; and the data was so consistent that the researchers were able to identify how many people are needed to share the experience of peace before it's mirrored in their world. The number is the square root of one percent of the population. This formula produces figures that are smaller than we might expect. For example, in a city of one million people, the number is about 100. In a world of 6 billion, it's just under 8,000. This calculation represents only the minimum needed to begin the process. The more people involved in feeling peace, the faster the effect is created. The study became known as the International Peace Project in the Middle East...

Geraldine nodded and headed for Mrs. Armstrong's lawn. I felt sorry for her in her carrot pajamas, having no idea what was really going on. I followed the other girls and stood behind the shrubs. Mrs. Armstrong's house was ginormous. Her house was even bigger than Aunt Jeanie's. There was one light on upstairs. I figured that was the bedroom. The rest of the house was dark. Geraldine went to the far end of the yard and removed a can of spray paint from the bag. She shook it and began to spray. "She's such an idiot," Ava said, taking out her phone to record Geraldine's act of vandalism. "You guys are going to get her into so much trouble," I said. "So what?" Hannah replied. "She got us in trouble at the soup kitchen, it's not like she's ever going to become a Silver Rose anyway. She's totally wasting her time." Geraldine slowly made her way up and down the huge yard carefully spraying the grass. It would take her forever to complete it and there wasn't nearly enough spray paint. "Hey, guys!" Geraldine yelled from across the lawn. "How about I spray a rose in the grass? That would be cool, right?" I cringed. The light on upstairs meant the Armstrongs were still awake. Geraldine was about to get us all caught. "O-M-G," Hannah moaned. "Shhhh," Summer hissed, but Geraldine kept screaming at the top of her lungs. "Well, what do you guys think?" My heart dropped into my stomach as a light from downstairs clicked on. We ducked behind the hedges and froze. "Who's out there?" called a man's voice. I couldn't see him and I couldn't see Geraldine. I heard the door close and I peeked over the hedges. "He went back inside," I whispered, ducking back down. At that moment something went shk-shk-shk and Geraldine screamed. We all stood to see what was happening. Someone had turned the sprinklers on and Geraldine was getting soaked. The door flew open and I heard Mrs. Armstrong's voice followed by a dog's vicious barking. "Get 'em, Killer!" "Killer!" Ava screamed and we all took off running down the street with a soggy Geraldine trailing behind us. I was faster than all the other girls. I had no intentions of being gobbled up by a dog named Killer. We stopped running when we got to Ava's street and Killer was nowhere in sight. We walked back to the house at a normal pace. "So, did I prove myself to the sisterhood?" Geraldine asked. Hannah turned to her. "Are you kidding me? Your yelling woke them up, you moron. We got chased down the street by a dog because of you." Geraldine frowned and looked down at the ground. Hopefully what I had told her before about the girls not being her friends was starting to settle in. Inside all the other girls wanted to know what had happened. Ava was giving them the gory details when a knock on the door interrupted her. It was Mrs. Armstrong. She had on a black bathrobe and her hair was in curlers. I chuckled to myself because I was used to seeing her look absolutely perfect. We all sat on our sleeping bags looking as innocent as possible except for Geraldine who still stood awkwardly by the door, dripping wet. Mrs. Armstrong cleared her throat. "Someone has just vandalized my lawn with spray paint. Silver spray paint. Since I know it's a tradition for the Silver Roses to pull a prank on me on the night of the retreat, I'm going to assume it was one of you. More specifically, the one who's soaking wet right now." All eyes went to Geraldine. She looked at the ground and said nothing. What could she possibly say to defend herself? She even had silver spray paint on her fingers. Mrs. Armstrong looked her up and down. "Young lady, this is your second strike and that's two strikes too many. Your bid to become a Junior Silver Rose is for the second time hereby revoked." Geraldine's shoulders drooped, but most of the girls were smirking. This had been their plan all along and they had accomplished it.

This terrifying experiment has already been set in motion. Unlike nuclear war—which is a future potential—climate change is a present reality. There is a scientific consensus that human activities, in particular the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, are causing the earth’s climate to change at a frightening rate.7 Nobody knows exactly how much carbon dioxide we can continue to pump into the atmosphere without triggering an irreversible cataclysm. But our best scientific estimates indicate that unless we dramatically cut the emission of greenhouse gases in the next twenty years, average global temperatures will increase by more than 3.6ºF, resulting in expanding deserts, disappearing ice caps, rising oceans and more frequent extreme weather events such as hurricanes and typhoons.8 These changes in turn will disrupt agricultural production, inundate cities, make much of the world uninhabitable, and send hundreds of millions of refugees in search of new homes.9 Moreover, we are rapidly approaching a number of tipping points, beyond which even a dramatic drop in greenhouse gas emissions will not be enough to reverse the trend and avoid a worldwide tragedy. For example, as global warming melts the polar ice sheets, less sunlight is reflected back from planet Earth to outer space. This means that the planet absorbs more heat, temperatures rise even higher, and the ice melts even faster. Once this feedback loop crosses a critical threshold it will gather an unstoppable momentum, and all the ice in the polar regions will melt even if humans stop burning coal, oil, and gas. Therefore it is not enough that we recognize the danger we face. It is critical that we actually do something about it now. Unfortunately, as of 2018, instead of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the global emission rate is still increasing. Humanity has very little time left to wean itself from fossil fuels. We need to enter rehab today. Not next year or next month, but today. “Hello, I am Homo sapiens, and I am a fossil-fuel addict.

They'd eaten dinner in bed, and Lindsay had accidentally dropped an edamame bean down her towel dress, which he'd needed to fish out. With his mouth, naturally. "Ohhh," she moaned again. Was she trying to kill him? "My dick is hard enough to hammer nails," he said, gritting his teeth. 'I could be a proper handyman now." She didn't seem to hear him. She was too busy moaning as he rubbed her foot, using one of the techniques he'd discovered using Google. This would be the end of him. When she shimmied a little to adjust her position, her towel dress split apart, and fuck, it was a beautiful view. Her skin was so dewy, but her nipples were tight buds... He could be a fairly patient man at times, but this was testing his limits. "That's it," he growled. "I'll do the other foot afterward." "After...?" A moment later, he was on top of her. He slipped his hand down her body, cupping her mound as his middle finger slid inside her. She made some noises that were even better than the ones she'd made earlier, and she certainly squirmed more than she had during the foot massage. He grinned down at her. "How does that feel? Am I hitting the right spot?" "Yeah, that's a good...spot," she said in a strangled voice. He thrust a finger inside her before bending down and bringing the peak of her nipple into his mouth. She jerked beneath him. "What about that spot?" he asked, raising his head. In response, she cupped the back of his head and brought it down to her other breast. He tugged the brownish pink tip into his mouth as he continued to pleasure her between her legs. "Ryan," she moaned, raking her nails over his back. He didn't care about anything but making her feel good right now. He slid down her body and circled his tongue over her clit before feasting on her. "Is that the right spot?" Her inarticulate response was certainly gratifying, and when he looked up, she shoved his head back down. He chuckled. It didn't take long before she was coming apart, bucking against his face, twisting the sheets in her hands. He moved up her body and kissed her slowly, reverently on the lips as he fumbled for a condom. When he finally managed to roll it on, his hands shaking, he positioned his erection at her entrance and pushed inside. Sex was different with her than with other women. Not that sex had been bad for him before, and not that his partners hadn't enjoyed themselves---he always made sure of it. But. This. This was something else entirely. She ran her foot over the back of his leg, and he groaned as he pumped inside her. Her lips were parted, and he needed to kiss them. So, he did. She met him greedily, and that spurred him on. He didn't move faster; rather, he moved deeper. Filling her up, pulling back... again and again... When he stopped kissing her, he watched every little change in her expression, and then her face contorted in the loveliest way, and she cried out.

It’s my turn next, and I realize then that I never turned in the name of my escort--because I hadn’t planned on being here. I glance around wildly for Ryder, but he’s nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by the sea of people in cocktail dresses and suits. Crap. I thought he realized that escorting me on court was part of the deal, once I’d agreed to go. I guess he’d figured it’d be easier on me, what with the whole Patrick thing, if I was alone onstage. But I don’t want to be alone. I want Ryder with me. By my side, supporting me. Always. I finally spot him in the crowd--it’s not too hard, since he’s a head taller than pretty much everyone else--and our eyes meet. My stomach drops to my feet--you know, that feeling you get on a roller coaster right after you crest that first hill and start plummeting toward the ground. Oh my God, this can’t be happening. I’ve fallen in love with Ryder Marsden, the boy I’m supposed to hate. And it has nothing to do with his confession, his declaration that he loves me. Sure, it might have forced me to examine my feelings faster than I would have on my own, but it was there all along, taking root, growing, blossoming. Heck, it’s a full-blown garden at this point. “Our senior maid is Miss Jemma Cafferty!” comes the principal’s voice. “Jemma is a varsity cheerleader, a member of the Wheelettes social sorority, the French Honor Club, the National Honor Society, and the Peer Mentors. She’s escorted tonight by…ahem, sorry. I’m afraid there’s no escort, so we’ll just--” “Ryder Marsden,” I call out as I make my way across the stage. “I’m escorted by Ryder Marsden.” The collective gasp that follows my announcement is like something out of the movies. I swear, it’s just like that scene in Gone with the Wind where Rhett offers one hundred and fifty dollars in gold to dance with Scarlett, and she walks through the scandalized bystanders to take her place beside Rhett for the Virginia reel. Only it’s the reverse. I’m standing here doing the scandalizing, and Ryder’s doing the walking. “Apparently, Jemma’s escort is Ryder Marsden,” the principal ad-libs into the microphone, looking a little frazzled. “Ryder is…um…the starting quarterback for the varsity football team, and, um…in the National Honor Society and…” She trails off helplessly. “A Peer Mentor,” he adds helpfully as he steps up beside me and takes my hand. The smile he flashes in my direction as Mrs. Crawford places the tiara on my head is dazzling--way more so than the tiara itself. My knees go a little weak, and I clutch him tightly as I wobble on my four-inch heels. But here’s the thing: If the crowd is whispering about me, I don’t hear it. I’m aware only of Ryder beside me, my hand resting in the crook of his arm as he leads me to our spot on the stage beside the junior maid and her escort, where we wait for Morgan to be crowned queen. Oh, there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow. I have no idea what we’re going to tell our parents. Right now I don’t even care. Just like Scarlett O’Hara, I’m going to enjoy myself tonight and worry about the rest later. After all, tomorrow is another…Well, you know how the saying goes.

joke around—nothing serious—as I work to get my leg back to where it was. Two weeks later, I’m in an ankle-to-hip leg brace and hobbling around on crutches. The brace can’t come off for another six weeks, so my parents lend me their townhouse in New York City and Lucien hires me an assistant to help me out around the house. Some guy named Trevor. He’s okay, but I don’t give him much to do. I want to regain my independence as fast as I can and get back out there for Planet X. Yuri, my editor, is griping that he needs me back and I’m more than happy to oblige. But I still need to recuperate, and I’m bored as hell cooped up in the townhouse. Some buddies of mine from PX stop by and we head out to a brunch place on Amsterdam Street my assistant sometimes orders from. Deacon, Logan, Polly, Jonesy and I take a table in Annabelle’s Bistro, and settle in for a good two hours, running our waitress ragged. She’s a cute little brunette doing her best to stay cheerful for us while we give her a hard time with endless coffee refills, loud laughter, swearing, and general obnoxiousness. Her nametag says Charlotte, and Deacon calls her “Sweet Charlotte” and ogles and teases her, sometimes inappropriately. She has pretty eyes, I muse, but otherwise pay her no mind. I have my leg up on a chair in the corner, leaning back, as if I haven’t a care in the world. And I don’t. I’m going to make a full recovery and pick up my life right where I left off. Finally, a manager with a severe hairdo and too much makeup, politely, yet pointedly, inquires if there’s anything else we need, and we take the hint. We gather our shit and Deacon picks up the tab. We file out, through the maze of tables, and I’m last, hobbling slowly on crutches. I’m halfway out when I realize I left my Yankees baseball cap on the table. I return to get it and find the waitress staring at the check with tears in her eyes. She snaps the black leather book shut when she sees me and hurriedly turns away. “Forget something?” she asks with false cheer and a shaky smile. “My hat,” I say. She’s short and I’m tall. I tower over her. “Did Deacon leave a shitty tip? He does that.” “Oh no, no, I mean…it’s fine,” she says, turning away to wipe her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just…um, kind of a rough month. You know how it is.” She glances me up and down in my expensive jeans and designer shirt. “Or maybe you don’t.” The waitress realizes what she said, and another round of apologies bursts out of her as she begins stacking our dirty dishes. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Really. I have this bad habit…blurting. I don’t know why I said that. Anyway, um…” I laugh, and fish into my back pocket for my wallet. “Don’t worry about it. And take this. For your trouble.” I offer her forty dollars and her eyes widen. Up close, her eyes are even prettier—large and luminous, but sad too. A blush turns her skin scarlet “Oh, no, I couldn’t. No, please. It’s fine, really.” She bustles even faster now, not looking at me. I shrug and drop the twenties on the table. “I hope your month improves.” She stops and stares at the money, at war with herself. “Okay. Thank you,” she says finally, her voice cracking. She takes the money and stuffs it into her apron. I feel sorta bad, poor girl. “Have a nice day, Charlotte,” I say, and start to hobble away. She calls after me, “I hope your leg gets better soon.” That was big of her, considering what ginormous bastards we’d been to her all morning. Or maybe she’s just doing her job. I wave a hand to her without looking back, and leave Annabelle’s. Time heals me. I go back to work. To Planet X. To the world and all its thrills and beauty. I don’t go back to my parents’ townhouse; hell I’m hardly in NYC anymore. I don’t go back to Annabelle’s and I never see—or think about—that cute waitress with the sad eyes ever again. “Fucking hell,” I whisper as the machine reads the last line of

When playing a bear market, the same rules hold: You want to diversify your risks, especially knowing that collapses move even faster than rallies. You need to decide how much safe cash or near cash you want to hold to sleep at night and to handle financial emergencies, like the loss of your job or your house. Then decide how much to put into longer-term high-quality bonds, like those 30-year Treasuries and AAA corporates, but I think it’s still premature to make this move at the time of this writing, in August 2017. Then decide how much you want to put into a dollar bull fund or the ETF UUP, which tracks the U.S. dollar versus its six major trading partners. If you’re willing to risk part of your wealth, you can also bet on financial assets going down—from stocks to gold. Stocks are the one type of financial asset that goes down in either a deflationary crisis, like the 1930s, or an inflationary one, like the 1970s. So shorting stocks is the best way to prosper in the downturn, either way. But don’t leverage this bet. The markets are simply too volatile. You can short the stock market with no leverage by simply buying an ETF (exchange-traded fund) like the ProShares Short S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SH). It’s an inverse fund on the S&P 500, so if the index goes down 50 percent, you make 50 percent. The ProShares Ultrashort (NYSEArca: QID) is double short the NASDAQ 100, which is likely to get hit the worst. If you make this play, just do a half share, to avoid that two-times leverage (hold the other half in cash or short-term bonds). Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X ETF (NYSEArca: TZA) is triple short the Russell 2000, which is also likely to lead on the way down. So buy only a one-third share of this one, to remain without leverage. (That means the money you allocate here should be one-third in TZA and two-thirds in cash, to offset the leverage.) And unlike the gold bugs, I see gold collapsing. It’s an inflation hedge, not a deflation hedge. If gold rallies back as high as $1,425—on my predicted bear-market rally—then it could easily drop to around $700 within a year. Your last decision is whether to risk some of your funds betting on gold’s downside, for the greatest potential returns. You can buy DB Gold Double Short ETN (NYSEArca: DZZ)—double short gold—at a half share, to offset the leverage, or just simply short GLD, the ETF that follows gold. There you have it. How to handle the coming crash.

So, instead of going right in, I lazily circled for just a moment before I decided to poke the wolf. And by poke, I meant a sudden flash of laser eyes right through his right arm. The big werewolf did try to duck away, but Matt wasn’t faster than the speed of light. The twin power beams blew through his arm, a shower of ruby drops following the burning light as it exploded out the other side. Not that he bled for long between his healing factor and the cauterization effect of the lasers. “I can’t believe it, folks!” Eric cried in overexaggerated alarm. “There’s blood in the ring! I repeat, there’s blood in the ring!” “Eric,” I heard Kristen mutter, “there is no ring.” He didn’t even care. “There’s blood. In. The. Riiiing!

This new sense of personal awareness also comes with many added social accessories (batteries included). Adolescent insecurity can be a devastating plague for a youngster, especially ones whose bodies are growing faster than their emotional and social maturity. One misstep can spell disaster from which recovery is next to impossible. Drop your books in the hall once between classes. Trip going up the school steps. Let a facial blemish emerge on the wrong day. Your voice cracks in class while asking a question. Suffer through the accusation of liking someone of the opposite sex. And pray hard that you don't wear the wrong clothes to your first dance. All these near-fatal mishaps can mark you forever in your classmates' eyes, socially branding you with a label that sticks like super-glue throughout your grade-school career. Most adults can recall childhood classmates from their childhood who failed to make the grade socially. Even today, though a former classmate may be a physician, she is still remembered for the time she cried and ran off stage during the school talent show. Or the successful businessman is forever known as the boy who wet his pants and had to go home early from school. We can still name the girl who always sat out during recess games because she was athletically uncoordinated.

There once were two watchmakers, named Hora and Tempus. Both of them made fine watches, and they both had many customers. People dropped into their stores, and their phones rang constantly with new orders. Over the years, however, Hora prospered, while Tempus became poorer and poorer. That’s because Hora discovered the principle of hierarchy.… The watches made by both Hora and Tempus consisted of about one thousand parts each. Tempus put his together in such a way that if he had one partly assembled and had to put it down—to answer the phone, say—it fell to pieces. When he came back to it, Tempus would have to start all over again. The more his customers phoned him, the harder it became for him to find enough uninterrupted time to finish a watch. Hora’s watches were no less complex than those of Tempus, but he put together stable subassemblies of about ten elements each. Then he put ten of these subassemblies together into a larger assembly; and ten of those assemblies constituted the whole watch. Whenever Hora had to put down a partly completed watch to answer the phone, he lost only a small part of his work. So he made his watches much faster and more efficiently than did Tempus.

You broke my heart, pretended to love me totally then dropped me with a smile. Thank you for pushing me into the truest love of my life, faster than ever. Heartbreak hurts but new love is beyond fantastic and fabulous. I will never cry about settling again

Rhys loosed a barking laugh, and his nose grazed my ear. I felt him open his mouth to whisper something, but— Something dark and fast and sleek shot for us, and he plunged down and away, swearing. But another one, and another, kept coming. Not just ordinary arrows, I realized as Rhys veered, snatching one out of the air. Others bounced harmlessly off a shield he blasted up. He studied the wood in his palm and dropped it with a hiss. Ash arrows. To kill faeries. And now that I was one … Faster than the wind, faster than death, Rhys shot for the ground. Flew, not winnowed, because he wanted to know where our enemies were, didn’t want to lose them. The wind bit my face, screeched in my ears, ripped at my hair with brutal claws. Azriel and Cassian were already hurtling for us. Shields of translucent blue and red encircled them—sending those arrows bouncing off. Their Siphons at work. The arrows shot from the pine forest coating the mountains, then vanished. Rhys slammed into the ground, snow flying in his wake, and fury like I hadn’t seen since that day in Amarantha’s court twisted his features. I could feel it thrumming against me, roiling through the clearing we now stood in.

sound. The control panel vibrated slightly and started to glow. At the same time, the wall of light that was keeping the guards at bay instantly disappeared. As soon as the aliens realized this, they started running at the students again. From behind Levi and his two friends came the cries of fear from the other students. They shouted and screamed as they watched the alien creatures scamper across the floor. “Come on, come on!” Ryan said. Levi pushed the green button again on the panel. It blinked once more, but he wasn’t sure if it made a difference. Looking up, he saw the guards were only 20 yards away. The red countdown still displayed in front of his face, but it was flickering faster than it had been earlier. The moment of auto destruct must be near, he thought. “Gentlemen,” Levi sighed. “It’s been an honor to serve with you…” “Why would you say that? Why are you such a weirdo?” Kate cried as she smeared her hand over the green button. Again, it blinked, but this time the entire console illuminated with a blinding light. In another flash, Levi felt his stomach drop. And then instantly the light faded as it did before. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes readjust at the sudden shifting in light. “We’re back,” he heard Kate say. Levi rubbed his eyes and looked beyond the control panel. The detention walls were back where they should be, and the room felt ice cold. “I guess that button had to be pushed three times?” “I guess,” said Kate. “But I don’t want to guess how many times to push the button to cancel the auto destruct!” In front of Levi’s face was the red timer, blinking too fast to make sense of it. The warning of the red skull was fading in and out as a small alarm sounded off. “Everybody out of the room!” The other students didn’t hesitate and poured through the doors of detention into the hallway. Kate and Ryan helped pull the students out as Levi remained inside the room to make sure no one was left behind. Once the last person had exited, Levi stepped into the hallway. “If that thing goes off, what’s going to happen?

Oh, really,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “I thought it was because you couldn’t get rid of me.” “Well, that, too,” she said with an impish grin. She groaned as she scrambled to her feet. “One thing’s clear at least. I’m going to have to go a little easier on all those refreshments at the balls and afternoon teas and soirees. I think they’re starting to take their toll.” “Very true,” I said, my face serious. “I’d been meaning to say something…” She shot me a worried look, and I couldn’t help grinning. “But I figured you’d notice yourself seeing as how you’ve started having to turn sideways to fit through doors.” She took a swipe at me, but I stepped deftly out of her way. “See?” I said, still smiling. “You’re getting slow, too.” She rolled her eyes, and I ducked in close enough to whisper in her ear. “You wouldn’t want to risk looking less than perfect for Miles now, would you?” She exclaimed in outrage and tried once again to catch me. I escaped her easily, and she proceeded to chase me around the fountains, much to the amusement of the children who followed behind us, shrieking encouragement to one or the other of us. I eluded her for several minutes, ducking behind fountains and jumping over benches, purely for the entertainment of our audience. She entered into the drama with equal enthusiasm, pretending to be slower than she really was. When I eventually let her catch me, we both collapsed onto a bench, laughing. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the blush,” I whispered, too quietly for the children to hear. “I hope you’re not forgetting who Miles is.” I shot her a warning look, and she met my eyes, her own full of guilt. But Ava approached us before she could reply. “If you two are quite finished, we should probably get back to the castle now.” I jumped to my feet, but she was smiling so I relaxed. “As you command, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing low. The children laughed again, and Ava shook her head at me. We were all still smiling when we left the square. None of us were really in a hurry to get back, so we walked, leading the horses behind us. Ava and Sarah were talking idly about the court when a voice called to Ava from across the street. I turned around and sucked in a sharp breath. It was Anhalt, one arm raised in greeting and a broad smile on his face. I had just enough time to whisper his name to Ava and Sarah before he had crossed over to join us. I was careful to keep my face free of all emotion as Sarah and I dropped back to walk respectfully behind Ava and the count. Anhalt seemed delighted with our chance encounter and determined to make the most of his unexpected audience with the queen. I watched the surrounding streets with my usual vigilance while I wondered if his voice really sounded so oily, or if it was my own feelings painting my perception of them. Sarah was listening intently to their conversation, her eyes never leaving the count’s form. I knew she would be paying attention for any clues, so I stopped listening myself, devoting my full attention to watching for any threat to the queen. I wasn’t sure if it was this extra attentiveness or just a heightened sense of alert due to the count’s presence, but I noticed an odd flicker of movement as we passed a small side alley. It was barely more than a shifting of shadow, and I could easily have missed it. Instead I tensed, my hand flying to my sword hilt. In one step, I placed myself between Ava and the alley. She turned to look at me, surprised out of her conversation by my sudden movement. I spoke to her but kept my eyes trained on the shadows. “It might be nothing, but I think it would be a good idea if we moved a bit faster, Your Majesty.

I should be dead. But I’m not human, am I?” She swiped a tear of frustration off her face. “Whatever I am makes me stronger, faster, and scary as hell when fighting. I changed, scaled the top of a moving truck, and fought a guy shooting a gun at me.” She ran her hand across her face to wipe away the tears. “I’m a mess. The mud in that ravine got in all the cracks, even my underwear. But the injuries are already almost gone, and somehow, I know all this will heal. Based on you being all pissy, I assume your meeting didn’t go well.” “It took an unanticipated turn.” His tone was odd as he continued to stare at her. “What exactly do you do that involves secrecy and the Crown?” “I can’t tell you.” Something about how he looked at her was different. Her skin tingled like it had before she’d shifted. Survival instinct flared. “Did they order you to…kill me?” It came out of her on a fatigued exhale. Her shoulders drooped. His face remained remote as if trying to wall off emotion. He neither confirmed nor denied, which might as well have been a screaming affirmative. She dropped her chin. He said nothing, so she looked up. He stared intently at her, making her almost shrink in place under the gaze of those thunderous eyes. “Is this when you tell me to leave again?” she asked. “Would you go?” “If they ordered you to kill me, wouldn’t you be forced to come after me? To hunt me down? So, what’s the point in me running unless you like the hunt?” He pushed his hand through his dark hair and stepped away from her. Frustration oozed from him. Seeing him start to lose some of his composure made him less threatening. He wasn’t the robot assassin. She wanted to run her fingers through his thick hair and down his scruff-roughened chiseled jawline to soothe him. Would her touch, if done in comfort, affect him the way she suspected his touch would destroy her? From the way he simply stared at her, she guessed yes. The silence was killing her. “What’s going on here?” “No idea.” He muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t make out. He stepped toward her and slid a finger under her chin to tilt her face upward. Their eyes met and held. “I’m sorry someone hurt you. That you had to fight for your life and went through a windshield.” In a whisper, he added, “I should’ve been there.” The grit in his voice, the despair, as if he’d let her down, packed one hell of a punch. What was she supposed to do with that? Oh dear…God. His hold on her face, how his thumb gently stroked over the skin on her jaw… How he moved in so she could feel the hard surfaces of his body, the concrete chest and abs… All of it swirled together, turning her mind to mush, which was bad when she needed to remain alert. Death… her death was on the line. But she was about to make a very bad decision to let him do whatever the hell he wanted after that declaration. “I made a promise to erase Dom’s kiss. To make you forget. I never go back on my promises.” Like his promise to help her get answers? He didn’t lower his head, but stood there, hesitant. “You’re too hurt right now.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She slid her good hand up his shoulders and neck. His muscles twitched under her touch, and his chest rose and fell more rapidly. Feeling how much just her hand on him affected him encouraged her to continue. Cradling the back of his head, she pressed her body into his. As she pulled him toward her mouth, his incredible size and power registered but didn’t intimidate. Didn’t scare her. Her mouth touched his. Warmth on warmth. Once… Twice… Three times. His lips were a lot softer than they appeared. The roughness of his facial scruff scratched her skin.

Reaching up, I pull the straps to the gown down over my shoulders, letting my breasts hold the material up. Aero reaches down, gripping the material near the middle of my chest and pulls it down. The move exposes my breasts, the cool air of the room causing my nipples to harden. I grit my teeth, closing my eyes, feeling entirely too uncovered and exposed. His chest expands and contracts faster than before and a low rumble leaves his throat. He reaches his hand out and gently cups the base of my hanging breast, lifting it slightly while running his thumb over the pebbled nipple before dropping it and allowing it to bounce before him. I

Expanding fitness just a bit—the equivalent of a person improving their max running speed from five to six miles an hour—reduces the risk of heart disease by 30 percent, according to the American Heart Association. Next is cancer. It kills 22.8 percent of us. The most fit people face a 45 percent lower risk of dying from the disease, according to a study in the Annals of Oncology. Then we have accidents. They take 6.8 percent of us. If a person is in a serious car accident, being in shape drops their chances of dying by 80 percent, according to a study in the Emergency Medical Journal. If the docs have to operate—regardless of whether it’s an emergency or a planned surgery—fitter people also face fewer surgical complications and recover faster than unfit people, say scientists in Brazil.

Phlebotomy. Even the word sounds archaic—and that’s nothing compared to the slow, expensive, and inefficient reality of drawing blood and having it tested. As a college sophomore, Elizabeth Holmes envisioned a way to reinvent old-fashioned phlebotomy and, in the process, usher in an era of comprehensive superfast diagnosis and preventive medicine. That was a decade ago. Holmes, now 30, dropped out of Stanford and founded a company called Theranos with her tuition money. Last fall it finally introduced its radical blood-testing service in a Walgreens pharmacy near the company headquarters in Palo Alto, California. (The plan is to roll out testing centers nationwide.) Instead of vials of blood—one for every test needed—Theranos requires only a pinprick and a drop of blood. With that they can perform hundreds of tests, from standard cholesterol checks to sophisticated genetic analyses. The results are faster, more accurate, and far cheaper than conventional methods. The implications are mind-blowing. With inexpensive and easy access to the information running through their veins, people will have an unprecedented window on their own health. And a new generation of diagnostic tests could allow them to head off serious afflictions from cancer to diabetes to heart disease. None of this would work if Theranos hadn’t figured out how to make testing transparent and inexpensive. The company plans to charge less than 50 percent of the standard Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. And unlike the rest of the testing industry, Theranos lists its prices on its website: blood typing, $2.05; cholesterol, $2.99; iron, $4.45. If all tests in the US were performed at those kinds of prices, the company says, it could save Medicare $98 billion and Medicaid $104 billion over the next decade.

EARNINGS McDonald's Plans Marketing Push as Profit Slides By Julie Jargon | 436 words Associated Press The burger giant has been struggling to maintain relevance among younger consumers and fill orders quickly in kitchens that have grown overwhelmed with menu items. McDonald's Corp. plans a marketing push to emphasize its fresh-cooked breakfasts as it battles growing competition for the morning meal. Competition at breakfast has heated up recently as Yum Brands Inc.'s Taco Bell entered the business with its new Waffle Taco last month and other rivals have added or discounted breakfast items. McDonald's Chief Executive Don Thompson said it hasn't yet noticed an impact from Taco Bell's breakfast debut, but that the overall increased competition "forces us to focus even more on being aggressive in breakfast." Mr. Thompson's comments came after McDonald's on Tuesday reported that its profit for the first three months of 2014 dropped 5.2% from a year earlier, weaker than analysts' expectations. Comparable sales at U.S. restaurants open more than a year declined 1.7% for the quarter and 0.6% for March, the fifth straight month of declines in the company's biggest market. Global same-store sales rose 0.5% for both the quarter and month. Mr. Thompson acknowledged again that the company has lost relevance with some customers and needs to strengthen its menu offerings. He emphasized Tuesday that McDonald's is focused on stabilizing key markets, including the U.S., Germany, Australia and Japan. The CEO said McDonald's has dominated the fast-food breakfast business for 35 years, and "we don't plan on giving that up." The company plans in upcoming ads to inform customers that it cooks its breakfast, unlike some rivals. "We crack fresh eggs, grill sausage and bacon," Mr. Thompson said. "This is not a microwave deal." Beyond breakfast, McDonald's also plans to boost marketing of core menu items such as Big Macs and french fries, since those core products make up 40% of total sales. To serve customers more quickly, the chain is working to optimize staffing, and is adding new prep tables that let workers more efficiently add new toppings when guests want to customize orders. McDonald's also said it aims to sell more company-owned restaurants outside the U.S. to franchisees. Currently, 81% of its restaurants around the world are franchised. Collecting royalties from franchisees provides a stable source of income for a restaurant company and removes the cost of operating them. McDonald's reported a first-quarter profit of $1.2 billion, or $1.21 a share, down from $1.27 billion, or $1.26 a share, a year earlier. The company partly attributed the decline to the effect of income-tax benefits in the prior year. Total revenue for the quarter edged up 1.4% to $6.7 billion, though costs rose faster, at 2.3%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters forecast earnings of $1.24 a share on revenue of $6.72 billion.

Michaels heard his name whispered so tenderly from Judge’s mouth. It was as if he was in some kind of euphoric trance. That carnal sound threw him over the edge faster than he could ready himself to fall. Buried balls deep, he ground his pelvis against Judge’s furry ass and jerked spastically; plastered against him as come shot from him, filling the tip of the condom. He purred and moaned Judge’s name while he rode it out. Milking every drop. With his arm still around Judge’s chest, Michaels held him close to him; trying to level out his breathing, but lingering shudders hit him as his cock deflated inside Judge’s warm channel. Michaels kissed the back of Judge’s neck. I’m ruined. He

...Her heart was racing faster than an Enzo Ferrari, and her hands became icy cold and trembling. She went wild. Her senses varnished. Suddenly her purse dropped onto the floor, but neither one of them looked away to the ground beneath their feet. Their faces attracted each other until they could feel their breaths upon each other. His hands started moving towards her without him noticing—but Chioma noticed. He moved his hands over her hips, and she slipped hers around his huge biceps. She was no longer shy.

He wanted everything of her, wanted to subject her to every craving and impulse, and she was too innocent for any of it. Tearing his mouth from hers, Christopher held her at arm’s length. Her eyes were wide and wondering. To his relief, she levered away from him and stood. And then she began to unfasten her bodice. “What are you doing?” he asked hoarsely. “Don’t worry, the door is locked.” “That isn’t what I---Beatrix--” By the time he had lurched to his feet, her bodice had listed open. A thick, primitive drumbeat started in his ears. “Beatrix, I’m not in the mood for virginal experimentation.” She gave him a purely ingenuous look. “Neither am I.” “You’re not safe with me.” He reached for the neckline of her bodice and yanked it together. While he fumbled to fasten it, Beatrix hiked up the side of her dress. A tug and a wriggle, and her petticoat dropped to the floor. “I can undress faster than you can dress me,” she informed him. Christopher clenched his teeth as he saw her push her dress below her hips. “Damn you, I can’t do this. Not now.” He was perspiring, every muscle hard. His voice shook with the force of suppressed need. “I’m going to lose control.” He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from hurting her. For their first time, he would have to approach her with absolute restraint, give himself release beforehand to take the edge from his lust…but at the moment, he would fall on her like a ravening animal. “I understand.” Beatrix pulled the combs from her hair, tossed them into the pile of discarded lavender silk, and shook out the gleaming sable locks. And she gave him a look that caused every hair on his body to lift. “I know you think I don’t understand, but I do. And I need this as much as you do.” Slowly she unhooked her corset and dropped it to the floor.

You’re not safe with me.” He reached for the neckline of her bodice and yanked it together. While he fumbled to fasten it, Beatrix hiked up the side of her dress. A tug and a wriggle, and her petticoat dropped to the floor. “I can undress faster than you can dress me,” she informed him.

When you drop a hammer and a feather together, which one hits the ground first? If you pose this question to the general public, the most expected answer is based on common sense, that the heavier objects fall faster to the ground. David Scott, the seventh man to set foot on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission, carried out this simple experiment. dropped a hammer and a feather together He onto the moon's surface and expectedly they fell on the ground together. This demonstrated Galileo's genius and corrected the general misconception that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones because they have more affinity towards the Earth Even Aristotle was proved wrong. It becomes obvious that with bit of curiosity and application of mind and intuitiveness, one can understand the laws of nature better.

Skylab might have been the only thing that fell faster than Reggie’s skirt when it came to a man squatting in the general proximity of her vestibule. The sun rises. The earth turns. Reggie drops her skirt.

mother was under virtual sentence of death, and Vicky flew to the bedside and knelt beside her. ‘Oh, Mama,’ she whispered, stricken with guilt. ‘I should have been here.’ Juba heated rounded river stones in the open fire and wrapped them in blankets. They packed them around Robyn’s body, and then covered her with four karosses of wild fur. She fought weakly to throw off the covers, but Mungo held her down. Despite the internal heat of the fever and the external temperature of the hot stones trapped under the furs, her skin was burning dry and her eyes had the flat blind glitter of water-worn rock crystal. Then as the sun touched the tree-tops and the light in the room turned to sombre orange, the fever broke and oozed from the pores of her marble pale skin like the juice of crushed sugar cane from the press. The sweat came up in fat shining beads across her forehead and chin, each drop joining with the others until they ran in thick oily snakes back into her hair, soaking it as though she had been held under water. It ran into her eyes, faster than Mungo could wipe it away. It poured down her neck and wetted and matted the fur of the kaross. It soaked through the thin mattress and pattered like rain on the hard dry floor below. The temperature of her body plunged dramatically, and when the sweat had passed, Juba and the twins sponged her naked body. She had dehydrated and wasted, so that the rack of her ribs stood out starkly, and her pelvis formed a bony hollowed basin. They handled her with exaggerated care, for any rough movement might rupture the delicate damaged walls of the renal blood vessels and bring on the torrential haemorrhage which so often ended this disease. When

You have never seen the sun set at this height. Come, look.’ The puller went to the edge and sat down, his legs hanging over the side. He saw that they hesitated. ‘Come. You can lie down and peer over the edge, if you like.’ Hillalum did not wish to seem like a fearful child, but he could not bring himself to sit at a cliff face that stretched for thousands of cubits below his feet. He lay down on his belly, with only his head at the edge. Nanni joined him. ‘When the sun is about to set, look down the side of the tower.’ Hillalum glanced downward, and then quickly looked to the horizon. ‘What is different about the way the sun sets here?’ ‘Consider, when the sun sinks behind the peaks of the mountains to the west, it grows dark down on the plain of Shinar. Yet here, we are higher than the mountaintops, so we can still see the sun. The sun must descend further for us to see night.’ Hillalum’s jaw dropped as he understood. ‘The shadows of the mountains mark the beginning of night. Night falls on the earth before it does here.’ Kudda nodded. ‘You can watch night travel up the tower, from the ground up to the sky. It moves quickly, but you should be able to see it.’ He watched the red globe of the sun for a minute, and then looked down and pointed. ‘Now!’ Hillalum and Nanni looked down. At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the moments passing, but then it grew faster as it approached, until it raced past them faster than he could blink, and they were in twilight. Hillalum rolled over and looked up, in time to see darkness rapidly ascend the rest of the tower. Gradually, the sky grew dimmer as the sun sank beneath the edge of the world, far away. ‘Quite a sight, is it not?’ said Kudda. Hillalum said nothing. For the first time, he knew night for what it was: the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky.

of the cup. “Mmmfff!” “Swallow,” he said, clapping a hand tightly across my mouth and ignoring both my frenzied squirming and the muffled sounds of protest I was making. He was a lot stronger than I was, and he didn’t mean to let go. It was swallow or strangle. I swallowed. “Good as new.” Jamie finished polishing the silver ring on his shirttail and held it up, admiring it in the glow of the lantern. “That is somewhat better than can be said of me,” I replied coldly. I lay in a crumpled heap on the deck, which in spite of the placid current, seemed still to be heaving very slightly under me. “You are a grade-A, double-dyed, sadistic fucking bastard, Jamie Fraser!” He bent over me and smoothed the damp hair off my face. “I expect so. If ye feel well enough to call me names, Sassenach, you’ll do. Rest a bit, aye?” He kissed me gently on the forehead and sat back. Excitement over and order restored to the ravaged decks, the other men had gone back to the cabin to restore themselves with the aid of a bottle of applejack that Captain Freeman had contrived to save from the pirates by dropping it into the water barrel. A small cup of this beverage rested on the deck near my head; I was still too queasy to countenance swallowing anything, but the warm, fruity smell was mildly comforting. We were under sail; everyone was eager to get away, as though some danger still lingered over the place of the attack. We were moving faster, now; the usual small cloud of insects that hovered near the lanterns had dispersed, reduced to no more than a few lacewings resting on the beam above, their delicate green bodies casting tiny streaks of shadow. Inside the cabin, there was a small burst of laughter, and an answering growl

When I arrived at the river, I sat on the bank for a while just looking at the water level and considering my options. I could camp on the riverbank and wait for the level to drop, which would take a least one day; I could walk down to the highway and back up to the opposite bank—a 15-mile detour; or I could find another place to cross. I scouted up and down the river for a while, looking for a better place to cross, and secondarily, for a nice campsite. In the end, I came back to the crossing and sat there for a while, looking at the beaver dam which people normally walk on to cross this river. One third of the dam had washed out completely and the river was pouring through here faster than the section that was overflowing the dam outright. None of this was good.

I once read an article on CNN.com that stated, “Up to 59% of Glaucoma patients regularly skip their eye drops, even though untreated glaucoma can lead to blindness.” If you have glaucoma you are going to lose your eyesight if you don’t use your drops! Why don’t people do it? People simply don’t do it because they think that the future will be a better place than today, without doing anything to make it better.

In the blink of an eye, the ship dropped out of faster than light travel and came to an almost dead stop five hundred meters from the California.

Did you know Kyle’s back?” "Yes, we saw him earlier, why my panties just dropped at the sight of him. I simply have to get him into my bed faster than a stripper looses her inhibitions.

A brick could be used to help you become an Olympic swimmer. Tie the brick around your legs and have a friend drop you off someplace, say the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and then simply swim back to shore. By the time you hit the beach, you’ll be able to swim faster than a shark. In fact, you’ll have to if you plan on making it home.


The nerve of him. How dare he imply that she might try and manipulate a scientific study. “Now it’s your turn to listen, Mr. Mayor. I don’t give a damn about your political ambitions, or your plans for Coral Beach,” she hissed. “They mean nothing to me. The only thing I care about is the condition of this town’s reef. You managed to get one thing right, though. I do have a good reputation. It’s excellent, actually. Say one thing to defame it, and I will sink your political career faster than the Titanic.” Incensed, Lily shoved the car door open and scrambled out. Sean’s opened in tandem. His words carried over the sound of doors slamming, one after the other. “I always think it’s great to clear the air like this. Must admit, I’m looking forward to these next few weeks. Diving with a world-renowned scientist. Hey, maybe I’ll even drop by the lab; we could do an experiment together, just for old times’ sake. Wouldn’t that be fun, Lily?” Lily glared at his smiling face. Her most fervent wish was that they might already be in the water. So she could drown him. As if he could read her mind, Sean shook his head. “Shame on you, Lily,” he cheerfully mocked. “Now, let’s see a big, happy smile for your Granny May.

Frag out!” I heard Mgurn call from behind the Skrangs and I dropped to the floor faster than a Lipian whore’s panties during Fleet week. More

  The boys hopped into Lee’s brand new, shiny, red truck and started the drive to Freddy’s Pizza. The place was not too far away, especially with Lee’s wild driving.   About 15 minutes later, the boys arrived at the pizza place. They grabbed their supplies and locked the car. They walked up to the front door and looked inside. All the lights were off and the door was locked.   Stampy reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.     He put it into the lock and opened the door up. The restaurant was pitch black. The boys could not see anything.         Stampy felt around the wall and found the light switch. As soon as he turned around, his jaw dropped.   Roaming around in the shadows of restaurant were animatronics characters.   They had creepy smiles and eyes that were scarier than the Ender Dragon!   The boys began shaking. On the floor was a notepad. They quickly grabbed and read it. The note was written by the previous security guard it seemed. Apparently this place wasn’t as fun at night as it was during the day….   The boys could hear the metallic noises of the animatronics. Their hearts began racing.   Stampy felt something behind him. He looked up in horror…   It was Freddy the bear behind Stampy! He had glowing red eyes and looked like he was about to eat Stampy for dinner!   The boys ran out of the door faster than ever.

she spat a single word. A long, guttural, twisting word that evoked frozen Germanic winters. The trigger to the spell she’d been weaving for days. The toxic miasma above our heads exploded with a peal of thunder and her spite-fueled power crashed down on Cesar, one man alone in a torrent of death. The paper cut on his bicep ripped open, as if someone had taken pliers to his skin and given it one brutal, wrenching tug. Blood gushed from the wound as he screamed, flowing faster than it should have, and even faster by the second. He collapsed to his knees, shrieking, and a scarlet torrent blasted from the wound like the spray from a fire hose and splashed across the arcade wall. His skin turned ashen and taut, his fingers and toes curling, crumpling. Bones cracked as his limbs folded in on themselves and the flesh on his skull stretched taut like a mummified corpse. Jennifer’s death curse slowly crushed his body like a juice box, squeezing every drop of blood from every last ragged vein. What collapsed to the floor when the spell was done, gray and bloodless and small as a child, didn’t look human anymore. “That’s what you get for fuckin’ with a witch,” Jennifer said. “My momma taught me that trick.

Is there anything between us?” “Oh, I think there’s much.” “Tell me…” “Well, I am determined to do anything I can to be there for you, and you are determined to break my heart. That heart-breaking business, it’s very serious.” She laughed at him. She felt his head drop forward to her shoulder and nuzzle her hair. A hand on her upper left arm gently squeezed and he said, “Brie… Tu creas un fuego en mi corazón.” Brie, you create a fire in my heart. She straightened a bit, but didn’t pull away. “What did you say?” she whispered. “You are lovely. You touch my heart,” he answered, pulling her back against him again. He slipped an arm around her waist gently, tenderly, cautiously holding her against him, very careful that she not feel confined. “Tu debes sentir estas manos amorosas así a ti.” You should feel loving hands on you. Her heart beat a little faster and she knew that it was not fear she felt. She wanted to say, “Deja a que sean sus manos.” Let them be your hands. But she wasn’t ready. Instead, she said, “Your language is beautiful.” “Te tengo en mis brazos,” he said. I will hold you in my arms. “Tell me what you said,” she urged him. “Nothing, really. Just an endearment. It is a very romantic language.” She could tell him now she spoke his language fluently, that she knew he lied. But she didn’t want to break the spell he had created in thinking she couldn’t understand him. He spoke his heart while he thought she was innocent of his desires. “Say something to me—something heartfelt,” she said, not turning around. He touched the hair at her temple, threading his fingers into it. “Te querido más te de lo tu hubieras.” I have wanted you for longer than you know. She let her eyes close. “What did you say?” she asked in a whisper. “You deserve all happiness,” he said—he lied. A small smile floated across her face. She was on to him. “No te merezco.” I don’t deserve you. “Te quiero en mi vida.” I want you in my life. “I think you seduce women with your language.” “When you are with me, you should know that I care about you as much as I care about any of my sisters. Or my mother, who is queen of the world.” She laughed a little. “I’m not sure that was entirely flattering.” “I want you to believe you are completely safe and protected when you’re with me. I promise you, you have nothing to fear from me. Not ever.” “I think you’re manipulating me.” “Do you, now?” he asked, humor in his voice. “You’re luring me into a false sense of security, trying to trick me so I forget my plan to break your heart a hundred times.” He laughed, stroking that long mane of hair that floated down her back. “I know you’re a very determined woman, and if breaking my heart is your goal, you won’t rest until it’s done.” “I’m going to make mincemeat out of you,” she said. “I have no doubt.” She

NOTHING CAN GO FASTER THAN LIGHT Of course the idea that there is an ultimate speed of light is very high by earthly standards, the magnitude is not the point; any kind of speed limit in nature doesn't make sense. Suppose, for example, that a spaceship is traveling at almost the speed of light. Why can't you fire the engine again and make it go faster-or if necessary, build another ship with a more powerful engine? Or if a proton is whirling around in a cyclotron at close to the speed of light, why can't you give it additional energy boosts and make it go faster? Intuitive explanation. When we think of the spaceship and the proton as made of fields, not as solid objects, the idea is no longer ridiculous. Fields can't move infinitely fast. Changes in a field propagate in a "laborious" manner, with a change in intensity at one point causing a change at nearby points, in accordance with the field equations. Consider the wave created when you drop a stone in water: The stone generates a disturbance that moves outward as the water level at one point affects the level at another point, and there is nothing we can do to speed it up. Or consider a sound wave traveling through air: The disturbance in air pressure propagates as the pressure at one point affects the pressure at an adjacent point, and we can't do anything to speed it up. In both cases the speed of travel is determined by properties of the transmitting medium- air and water, and there are mathematical equations that describe those properties. Fields are also described by mathematical equations, based on the properties of space. It is the constant c in those equations that determines the maximum speed of propagation. If the field has mass, there is also a mass term that slows down the propagation speed further. Since everything is made of fields - including protons and rocketships - it is clear that nothing can go faster than light. As Frank Wilczek wrote, One of the most basic results of special relativity, that the speed of light is a limiting velocity for the propagation of any physical influence, makes the field concept almost inevitable. - F. Wilczek ("The persistence of Ether", p. 11, Physics Today, Jan. 1999) David Bodanis tried to make this point in the following way: Light will always be a quick leapfrogging of electricity out from magnetism, and then of magnetism leaping out from electricity, all swiftly shooting away from anything trying to catch up to it. That's why it's speed can be an upper limit - D. Bodanis However, Bodanis only told part of the story. It is only when we recognize that everything, not just light, is made of fields that we can conclude that there is a universal speed limit.

NOTHING CAN GO FASTER THAN LIGHT Of course the idea that there is an ultimate speed limit seems absurd. While the speed of light is very high by earthly standards, the magnitude is not the point; any kind of speed limit in nature doesn't make sense. Suppose, for example, that a spaceship is traveling at almost the speed of light. Why can't you fire the engine again and make it go faster-or if necessary, build another ship with a more powerful engine? Or if a proton is whirling around in a cyclotron at close to the speed of light, why can't you give it additional energy boosts and make it go faster? Intuitive explanation. When we think of the spaceship and the proton as made of fields, not as solid objects, the idea is no longer ridiculous. Fields can't move infinitely fast. Changes in a field propagate in a "laborious" manner, with a change in intensity at one point causing a change at nearby points, in accordance with the field equations. Consider the wave created when you drop a stone in water: The stone generates a disturbance that moves outward as the water level at one point affects the level at another point, and there is nothing we can do to speed it up. Or consider a sound wave traveling through air: The disturbance in air pressure propagates as the pressure at one point affects the pressure at an adjacent point, and we can't do anything to speed it up. In both cases the speed of travel is determined by properties of the transmitting medium- air and water, and there are mathematical equations that describe those properties. Fields are also described by mathematical equations, based on the properties of space. It is the constant c in those equations that determines the maximum speed of propagation. If the field has mass, there is also a mass term that slows down the propagation speed further. Since everything is made of fields - including protons and rocketships - it is clear that nothing can go faster than light. As Frank Wilczek wrote, One of the most basic results of special relativity, that the speed of light is a limiting velocity for the propagation of any physical influence, makes the field concept almost inevitable. - F. Wilczek ("The persistence of Ether", p. 11, Physics Today, Jan. 1999) David Bodanis tried to make this point in the following way: Light will always be a quick leapfrogging of electricity out from magnetism, and then of magnetism leaping out from electricity, all swiftly shooting away from anything trying to catch up to it. That's why it's speed can be an upper limit - D. Bodanis However, Bodanis only told part of the story. It is only when we recognize that everything, not just light, is made of fields that we can conclude that there is a universal speed limit.

African-Americans living in high crime urban areas benefit the most from either carrying or owning a gun for protection. For example, while allowing people to carry concealed handguns reduces violent crime rates across the board, the annual drop in violent crime is 4 percentage points faster in the counties that are 40 percent African-American than in counties that are only 5 percent African-American. The drop in murder rates for the heavily African-American counties was eight times larger than in the counties with few African-Americans.

When Angelina had scored, Harry had done a couple of loop-the-loops to let off his feelings. Now he was back to staring around for the Snitch. Once he caught sight of a flash of gold, but it was just a reflection from one of the Weasleys’ wristwatches, and once a Bludger decided to come pelting his way, more like a cannonball than anything, but Harry dodged it and Fred Weasley came chasing after it. “All right there, Harry?” he had time to yell, as he beat the Bludger furiously toward Marcus Flint. “Slytherin in possession,” Lee Jordan was saying, “Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the — wait a moment — was that the Snitch?” A murmur ran through the crowd as Adrian Pucey dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear. Harry saw it. In a great rush of excitement he dived downward after the streak of gold. Slytherin Seeker Terence Higgs had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch — all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch. Harry was faster than Higgs — he could see the little round ball, wings fluttering, darting up ahead — he put on an extra spurt of speed — WHAM! A roar of rage echoed from the Gryffindors below — Marcus Flint had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry’s broom spun off course, Harry holding on for dear life. “Foul!” screamed the Gryffindors. Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free shot at the goalposts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again. Down

The first truth is that this is a big decision. It is a decision that has many pros and cons: from credibility, mainstreaming, lifelong friendships, and pre-reqs for worthwhile advanced degrees on the one hand to binge drinking, staggering debt and subsequent indentured servitude, high drop out rates (especially for males), aimlessness, and protracted adolescence on the other. Selecting a college is also a different decision than it was 30 years ago, or 20, or 10. College costs have been rising faster than the economy and inflation for decades. Meanwhile, the predictive value of a college education is going down as corporations are increasingly less likely to provide extended training resources and opportunities to new grads. This is a result of the average length of tenure for new employees going ever downward.

Dropping to my knees faster than a Catholic craving Christ crackers,

At a light, a guy pulls up next to me and points a pistol in my direction. A little pocket nine-millimeter. Adorable. He road rages at me like a jabbering gorilla. From what I can make out, he doesn’t like my driving skills. Of course, he has a point, but he also has a gun, which makes me apologizing out of the question. Anyway, I’m faster than him. When he pauses to take a breath, I snatch the pistol out of his hand and drop it in my coat pocket. When something like that happens, most sensible people back off and live to scream another day. Not this guy.

Renewables, according to a 2019 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, now account for one-third of the world’s power, and their cost has dropped below coal

You’re sick, Tirone. Sicker than I’ve ever imagined.” He moved faster, harder. “If I’m sick, what does that make you?” My tears dropped on the desk. “What does it make me?” His groans of climax filled my ear while his cum filled my pussy. “The fucking disease.

Naval Warfare: For surface vessels and even submarines there was much continuity between the First and Second World Wars. The battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines of the 1939-45 period were generally bigger, faster, and better armed than their 1914-18 predecessors but not fundamentally different. Indeed, they had not changed much since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Yet naval warfare was nevertheless transformed by the introduction of aviation. Fleets that were once built around battleships came to be built around aircraft carriers instead. Aircraft proved superior not just to conventional surface ships but also, in the Battle of the Atlantic, to submarines as well. German U-boats preying on Allied shipping were foiled through a variety of means including convoying of merchants ships and the use of radar and sonar. But the weapon that proved most effective was an aircraft dropping depth charges. The dispatch of long-range B-24s equipped with the latest radar to patrol the North Atlantic in 1943 helped to turn the tide against the U-boats. The proliferation of small escort carriers also allowed air cover for convoys even in the middle of the ocean. Submarines proved more effective in teh Pacific, where the vast distances precluded effective patrolling by aircraft and where the Japanese did not devleop the types of advanced antisubmarine techniques employed by the Allies in the Atlantic. U.S. submarines took a heavy toll on Japanese merchantmen and warships alike once they managed to fix the problems that bedeviled their Mark 14 torpedo early in the war. "A force comprising less than 2 percent of U.S. Navy personnel," naval historian Ronald Spector would write of U.S. submariners, "had accounted for 55 percent of Japan's losses at sea." The torpedo, whether launched by submarines, surface ships, or airplanes, proved the biggest ship-killer of the war.

Squirrels are much better at burning fat than gaining it. When temperatures drop, some internal switch flips and they begin to turn fat into heat thirteen and a half times faster than normal. This performance “stands as one of the best among animals,” according to Steele and his fellow squirrel researcher John Koprowski of the University of Arizona. Without even moving, they then can produce energy like a pro cyclist powering up into the Pyrenees.

Don’t be an idiot, Drake. I’m more than capable of enough poor decision-making on my own,” I reminded him. “I don’t need you falling victim to my half-assed decisions today.” A smile tugged at his lips, and before I knew it, he’d had his arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me closer against him. I was fast, but he was faster. Much faster, it seemed. “You don’t get to make my mind up for me, Harley. I’m more than capable of making my own decisions.” “Well then, perhaps you should learn to make some good ones.” Drake tightened his grasp on my waist and dropped his head so that our foreheads touched. I felt the heat of his breath on my lips as he opened his mouth to speak. “Whatever happens to you today, I’m going to be there by your side. No matter what.” “Don’t be a creep,” I teased. Truthfully, though, I actually wanted him there. It was stupid, and I knew as much. I needed to retain a distance between us; I needed to keep him safe, no matter what. And yet, I needed him to be there for me because I was terrified of what awaited me.

The web began to seem a vast, silent stock exchange trading in ever more anonymous and hostile pen pals. The web was a neighborhood more efficiently lonely than the one it replaced. Its solitude was bigger and fasters. When relentless intelligence finally completed its program, when the terminal drop box brought the last barefoot, abused child on line and everyone could at last say anything instantly to everyone else in existence, it seemed to me we'd still have nothing to say to each other and many more ways not to say it. Yet I could not log off.

It had happened in a street in New Orleans. He had turned a corner and come upon an old woman with a basket of yellow flowers; sprays of yellow sending out a honey-sweet perfume. Mimosa--but before he could think of the name he was overcome by a feeling of place, was dropped, cassock and all, into a garden in the south of France where he had been sent one winter in his childhood to recover from an illness. And now this silvery bell note had carried him farther and faster than sound could travel.

As I scanned the crowd, my eyes met with those of a masked faerie across the path. One was russet and shone as brightly as his red hair. The other was- metal. I blinked at the same moment he did, and then his eyes went wide. He vanished into nothing, and a second later, someone grabbed my elbow and yanked me out of the crowd. 'Have you lost your senses?' Lucien shouted above the drums. His face was ghostly pale. 'What are you doing here?' None of the faeries noticed us- they were all staring intensely down the path, away from the cave. 'I wanted to-' I started, but Lucien cursed violently. 'Idiot!' he yelled at me, then glanced behind him toward where the other faeries stared. 'Useless human fool.' Without further word, he slung me over his shoulder as if I were a sack of potatoes. Despite my wriggling and shouts of protest, despite my demands than he get my horse, he held firm, and when I looked up, I found that he was running- fast. Faster than anything should be able to move. It made me so nauseated that I shut my eyes. He didn't stop until the air was cooler and calmer, and the drumming was distant. Lucien dropped me on the floor of the manor hallway, and when I steadied myself, I found his face just as pale as before. 'You stupid mortal,' he snapped. 'Didn't he tell you to stay in your room?' Lucien looked over his shoulder, toward the hills, where the drumming became so loud and fast that it was like a rainstorm.

Go away! All of you! Just get the hell away from me!” I turned on my heel, the sodden folds of my nightgown clinging to my legs like wet spider webs. “Regina! Don’t be an idiot!” Konner growled, his boots and cane raggedly thumping behind me. I walked faster, lengthening my stride no matter how much my thighs screamed in protest, until a hand latched on my shoulder. “No! You don’t get to say anything!” Using my finger like a sword, I jabbed my finger in the center of his chest. Freya’s jaws snapping closed with a loud pop, barely missing my fingertip by seconds as her long neck stretched out towards my hand. “You could have avoided all this by seeing it! You have that magic, if you wouldn’t be so stupid and use it!” The seeping rain slowed, turning into a fine shower of mist straight from the heavens above, and it dripped off the tightly carved lines of his face pulled sharp with tension. He was silent, still as stone, with nothing but the slight heave of his shoulders even proof that he was alive. His eyes dropped from my face, the uneven shadow of blonde hair hiding them from my sight. Part of his neck bobbed with the effort of a heavy swallow, like he had something stuck, and the tentative flicker of something else across face made me take a step back. A flash of anger, chilled by fear, a few tiny cracks started to appear in his stoic mask. Ones that I’m not sure why, but they made a strange ache start to stab deep in my heart. “Do you love him?” So soft that it was nearly lost in the rolling thunder, I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen his lips move. “Yes. No! I don’t know!” I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t love Ivo, not like that. But I couldn’t lose him either. “He’s my friend! My best friend! Why does it matter?” “I see. It matters more than you know.” Konner drawled slowly, the thick muscles of his shoulders rolling in a shrug that sent rivers of rainwater coursing down his chest. Mixing with the streaks of bloody red and ash grey in a ghoulish highlight to his muscles, the water slowly pooled in the ruined fabric of his shirt, further pulling it down his shoulders. He led out a heavy sigh, then suddenly straightened to the full length of his imposing height. Shoulders back and spine stiff. Then he straightened, drawing himself up to his full imposing height, and clasped his right arm across his chest. With his clenched fist resting right over his heart, he slowly lowered himself down to one knee at my feet, bowing his head over until it nearly touched my thighs. “Then I’ll get him back for you. I swear it on my life!

Don't fool April; she always finds an escape. Drained empty, but she still loves herself. Helping someone who is not too strong and taking the right turn in a place that appears to be wrong. Head spins faster than the days; she never forgets herself. Whistling a lullaby in the air, she says goodbye before dropping dead. The floor becomes a crimson pool, wearing shades of cool and telling the world; she's April, who you cannot fool.

I often end up rewriting. Sometimes I do that without ever finding the bug. I get to the point where I can just feel that it’s in this part here. I’m just not very comfortable about this part. It’s a mess. It really shouldn’t be that way. Rather than tweak it a little bit at a time, I’ll just throw away a couple hundred lines of code, rewrite it from scratch, and often then the bug is gone. Sometimes I feel guilty about that. Is that a failure on my part? I didn’t understand what the bug was. I didn’t find the bug. I just dropped a bomb on the house and blew up all the bugs and built a new house. In some sense, the bug eluded me. But if it becomes the right solution, maybe it’s OK. You’ve done it faster than you would have by finding it.

The things she catches Doug-firs doing, over the course of these years, fill her with joy. When the lateral roots of two Douglas-firs run into each other underground, they fuse. Through those self-grafted knots, the two trees join their vascular systems together and become one. Networked together underground by countless thousands of miles of living fungal threads, her trees feed and heal each other, keep their young and sick alive, pool their resources and metabolites into community chests. . . . It will take years for the picture to emerge. There will be findings, unbelievable truths confirmed by a spreading worldwide web of researchers in Canada, Europe, Asia, all happily swapping data through faster and better channels. Her trees are far more social than even Patricia suspected. There are no individuals. There aren’t even separate species. Everything in the forest is the forest. Competition is not separable from endless flavors of cooperation. Trees fight no more than do the leaves on a single tree. It seems most of nature isn’t red in tooth and claw, after all. For one, those species at the base of the living pyramid have neither teeth nor talons. But if trees share their storehouses, then every drop of red must float on a sea of green.

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