Nine Months Completed Quotes

As well, they used their B-52 bombers to drop thousands of tons of bombs which included napalm and cluster bombs. In a particularly vile attack, they used poisonous chemicals on our base regions of Xuyen Moc, the Minh Dam and the Nui Thi Vai mountains. They sprayed their defoliants over jungle, and productive farmland alike. They even bull-dozed bare, both sides along the communication routes and more than a kilometre into the jungle adjacent to our base areas. This caused the Ba Ria-Long Khanh Province Unit to send out a directive to D445 and D440 Battalions that as of 01/November/1969, the rations of both battalions would be set at 27 litres of rice per man per month when on operations. And 25 litres when in base or training. So it was that as the American forces withdrew, their arms and lavish base facilities were transferred across to the RVN. The the forces of the South Vietnamese Government were with thereby more resources but this also created any severe maintenance, logistic and training problems. The Australian Army felt that a complete Australian withdrawal was desirable with the departure of the Task Force (1ATF), but the conservative government of Australia thought that there were political advantages in keeping a small force in south Vietnam. Before his election, in 1964, Johnston used a line which promised peace, but also had a policy of war. The very same tactic was used by Nixon. Nixon had as early as 1950 called for direction intervention by American Forces which were to be on the side of the French colonialists. The defoliants were sprayed upon several millions of hectares, and it can best be described as virtual biocide. According to the figure from the Americans themselves, between the years of 1965 to 1973, ten million Vietnamese people were forced to leave their villages ad move to cities because of what the Americans and their allies had done. The Americans intensified the bombing of whole regions of Laos which were controlled by Lao patriotic forces. They used up to six hundred sorties per day with many types of aircraft including B52s. On 07/January/1979, the Vietnamese Army using Russian built T-54 and T-59 tanks, assisted by some Cambodian patriots liberated Phnom Penh while the Pol Pot Government and its agencies fled into the jungle. A new government under Hun Sen was installed and the Khmer Rouge’s navy was sunk nine days later in a battle with the Vietnamese Navy which resulted in twenty-two Kampuchean ships being sunk.

Perfect crime,' he said softly. 'Yes?' 'Persuade an innocent, idealistic young girl that the future of the human race depends on her sacrificing her own life. She will come into hospital as trustingly as a lamb to the slaughter. She will welcome the implantation of a baby that will kill her. She'll lie there while her brain is destroyed for nine whole months, and no police will arrest you, no court will judge you, you'll get away scot free. At the end of nine months she'll be taken off life support and she'll be completely dead. And no one will be blamed.

Gabe watched her move to the center of the green. In one gloved hand, she clutched a leash. The other end of the leash was attached to... something furry and brown that rolled. "What is that?" "That would be mongrel with two lamed hind legs. Apparently, Her Ladyship's friend devised a little chariot for his rear half, and the dog careens around the neighborhood like a yapping billiard ball. If you think that's strange, wait until you see the goat." "Hold a moment. There's a goat?" "Oh, yes. She grazes it on the square every afternoon. Doesn't precisely elevate the atmosphere of Bloom Square, now does it?" "I see the problem." "I'm only getting started. Her Ladyship has single-handedly set us back a month on the improvements." Hammond pulled a collection of letters from a folio. He held one aloft and read from it. "'Dear Mr. Hammond, I must request that you delay completion of the parquet flooring. The fumes from the lacquer are dizzying the hens. Sincerely yours, Lady Penelope Campion.'" He withdrew another. "'Dear Mr. Hammond, I'm afraid your improvements to the mews must be temporarily halted. I've located a litter of newborn kittens in the hayloft. Their mother is looking after them, but as their eyes are not yet open, they should not be displaced for another week. Thank you for your cooperation. Gratefully yours, Lady Penelope Campion.'" Gabe sensed a theme. "Oh, and here's my favorite." Hammond shook open a letter and cleared his throat for dramatic effect. "'Dear Mr. Hammond, if it is not too great an imposition, might I ask that your workers refrain from performing heavy labor between nine o'clock in the morning and half-three in the afternoon? Hedgehogs are nocturnal animals, and sensitive to loud noises. My dear Freya is losing quills. I feel certain this will concern you as much as it does me. Neighborly yours, Lady Penelope Campion.'" He tossed the folio of letters onto the table, where they landed with a smack. "Her hedgehog. Really.

he’s not real I can take his space. As I get into bed beside him, the strongman vanishes. I pick up my diary and record him: was there, isn’t any more. This happened in early July, 2010. I had surgery on the first of the month, and was scheduled to stay in hospital for about nine days. The last thing the surgeon said to me, on the afternoon of the procedure: ‘For you, this is a big thing, but remember, to us it is routine.’ The operation was to relieve a stricture in my bowel, before it closed completely and created an emergency. But though we had used the latest scans in preparation, neither

The three conditions without which healthy growth does not take place can be taken for granted in the matrix of the womb: nutrition, a physically secure environment and the unbroken relationship with a safe, ever-present maternal organism. The word matrix is derived from the Latin for “womb,” itself derived from the word for “mother.” The womb is mother, and in many respects the mother remains the womb, even following birth. In the womb environment, no action or reaction on the developing infant’s part is required for the provision of any of his needs. Life in the womb is surely the prototype of life in the Garden of Eden where nothing can possibly be lacking, nothing has to be worked for. If there is no consciousness — we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Knowledge — there is also no deprivation or anxiety. Except in conditions of extreme poverty unusual in the industrialized world, although not unknown, the nutritional needs and shelter requirements of infants are more or less satisfied. The third prime requirement, a secure, safe and not overly stressed emotional atmosphere, is the one most likely to be disrupted in Western societies. The human infant lacks the capacity to follow or cling to the parent soon after being born, and is neurologically and biochemically underdeveloped in many other ways. The first nine months or so of extrauterine life seem to have been intended by nature as the second part of gestation. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu has called this phase exterogestation, gestation outside the maternal body. During this period, the security of the womb must be provided by the parenting environment. To allow for the maturation of the brain and nervous system that in other species occurs in the uterus, the attachment that was until birth directly physical now needs to be continued on both physical and emotional levels. Physically and psychologically, the parenting environment must contain and hold the infant as securely as she was held in the womb. For the second nine months of gestation, nature does provide a near-substitute for the direct umbilical connection: breast-feeding. Apart from its irreplaceable nutritional value and the immune protection it gives the infant, breast-feeding serves as a transitional stage from unbroken physical attachment to complete separation from the mother’s body. Now outside the matrix of the womb, the infant is nevertheless held close to the warmth of the maternal body from which nourishment continues to flow. Breast-feeding also deepens the mother’s feeling of connectedness to the baby, enhancing the emotionally symbiotic bonding relationship. No doubt the decline of breast-feeding, particularly accelerated in North America, has contributed to the emotional insecurities so prevalent in industrialized countries. Even more than breast-feeding, healthy brain development requires emotional security and warmth in the infant’s environment. This security is more than the love and best possible intentions of the parents. It depends also on a less controllable variable: their freedom from stresses that can undermine their psychological equilibrium. A calm and consistent emotional milieu throughout infancy is an essential requirement for the wiring of the neurophysiological circuits of self-regulation. When interfered with, as it often is in our society, brain development is adversely affected.

The weeks before he died, Mr Mohun Biswas, a journalist of Sikkim Street, St James , Port of Spain, was sacked. He had been ill for some time. In less than a year he had spent more than nine weeks at the Colonial Hospital and convalesced at home for even longer. When the doctor advised him to take a complete rest the 'Trinidad Sentinel' had no choice. It gave Mr Biswas three months' notice and continued, up to the time of his death, to supply him every morning with a free copy of the paper.

The journey to Paris was effected at the end of September, and for about nine months they pitched their tent at No. 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées. It was a fortunate time to be in Paris for those who had no personal nervousness, and liked to be near the scene of great events — a most anxious time for any who were alarmed at disturbances, or took keenly to heart the horrors of street fighting. Fortunately for the Brownings, they, whether by temperament or through their Italian experiences, were not unduly disturbed at revolutions, while the horrors of Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état were, no doubt, only partly known to Mrs. Browning at the time, and were palliated to her by the view she took of Napoleon’s character.

...sometimes I stand there watching them and I see they believe they're completely special, the first, the only people ever to feel the way they're feeling. They believe they'll live happily ever after, that all the other marriages going on around them - those ordinary, worn-down, flattened-in arrangements - why, those are nothing like they'll have. They'll never setlle for so little. And it makes me mad. I can't help it, Cody. I know it's selfish, but I can't help it. I want to ask them, Who do you think you are, anyhow? Do you imagine you're unique? Do you really suppose I was always this old difficult woman? Cody, listen. I was special too, once, to someone. I could just reach out and lay a fingertip on his arm while he was talking and he would instantly fall silent and get all confused. I had hopes; I was courted; I had the most beautiful wedding. I had three lovely pregnancies, where every morning I woke up knowing something perfect would happen in nine months, eights months, seven months...so it seemed I was full of light; it was light and plans that filled me. And then while you children were little, why, I was the center of your worlds! I was everything to you! It was Mother this and Mother that, and 'Where's Mother? Where's she gone to?' and the moment you came in from school, 'Mother? Are you home?' It's not fair, Cody. It's really not fair; now I'm old and I walk along unnoticed, just like anyone else. It strikes me as unjust, Cody.

We have weathered deep depression, hurtful arguments, separation, estrangement, anger, bewilderment, deep disappointment and suspicion of words and deeds—all in connection with those nearest to us. We have overcome our own and our spouses’ thoughts of suicide, as well as an actual suicide attempt by one spouse and another by a surviving child. We have had to deal with a sibling turning to drugs in hopes of relieving the hurt. The repercussions of our children’s deaths will echo forever in our lives and those of our close family members. The bitterness and the fury will diminish, but they will never completely disappear. But the one relationship that has never faltered has been that which we had and continue to have with our deceased children. That closeness, which we probably took for granted when our children were alive, has grown to the point that they are forever with us and within us. Our dead children have become omnipresent in our lives. They are the one sure thing. Everything else surrounding us can ebb and flow, change and perhaps go, but our dead children are as much a part of us as they were when we carried them through nine months of pregnancy. We cannot, and will not, ever think of them as no longer existing. We cannot say for certain that they are watching us from heaven, but the thought that they may be doing just that comforts us and encourages us to go on with our lives. At times, it even makes us feel a certain comedic awkwardness. No matter what is happening, our child is in the room. Phyllis: “My son and his wife came

Well, this was predictable. House Republicans last week acceded to an extension of the Export-Import Bank for at least the next nine months. The Export-Import Bank is far from the worst example of government-business cronyism. I just completed a history of American political corruption and actually had to leave Ex-Im on the cutting room floor. Its cronies are pikers compared with the corporate moguls that take advantage of tax preferences like the G.E. and Apple loopholes. They also cannot hold a candle to the American Medical Association, which is basically free to write the reimbursement rates for Medicare Part B. And nothing compares to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from 1991-2008. The two mortgage giants kept the entire D.C. political class bent over a barrel for almost 20 years as its top executives reaped enormous bonuses while putting the broader economy at risk.

I’m really enjoying my solitude after feeling trapped by my family, friends and boyfriend. Just then I feel like making a resolution. A new year began six months ago but I feel like the time for change is now. No more whining about my pathetic life. I am going to change my life this very minute. Feeling as empowered as I felt when I read The Secret, I turn to reenter the hall. I know what I’ll do! Instead of listing all the things I’m going to do from this moment on, I’m going to list all the things I’m never going to do! I’ve always been unconventional (too unconventional if you ask my parents but I’ll save that account for later). I mentally begin to make my list of nevers. -I am never going to marry for money like Natasha just did. -I am never going to doubt my abilities again. -I am never going to… as I try to decide exactly what to resolve I spot an older lady wearing a bright red velvet churidar kurta. Yuck! I immediately know what my next resolution will be; I will never wear velvet. Even if it does become the most fashionable fabric ever (a highly unlikely phenomenon) I am quite enjoying my resolution making and am deciding what to resolve next when I notice Az and Raghav holding hands and smiling at each other. In that moment I know what my biggest resolve should be. -I will never have feelings for my best friend’s boyfriend. Or for any friend’s boyfriend, for that matter. That’s four resolutions down. Six more to go? Why not? It is 2012, after all. If the world really does end this year, at least I’ll go down knowing I completed ten resolutions. I don’t need to look too far to find my next resolution. Standing a few centimetres away, looking extremely uncomfortable as Rags and Az get more oblivious of his existence, is Deepak. -I will never stay in a relationship with someone I don’t love, I vow. Looking for inspiration for my next five resolutions, I try to observe everyone in the room. What catches my eye next is my cousin Mishka giggling uncontrollably while failing miserably at walking in a straight line. Why do people get completely trashed in public? It’s just so embarrassing and totally not worth it when you’re nursing a hangover the next day. I recoil as memories of a not so long ago night come rushing back to me. I still don’t know exactly what happened that night but the fragments that I do remember go something like this; dropping my Blackberry in the loo, picking it up and wiping it with my new Mango dress, falling flat on my face in the middle of the club twice, breaking my Nine West heels, kissing an ugly stranger (Az insists he was a drug dealer but I think she just says that to freak me out) at the bar and throwing up on the Bandra-Worli sea link from Az’s car. -I will never put myself in an embarrassing situation like that again. Ever. I usually vow to never drink so much when I’m lying in bed with a hangover the next day (just like 99% of the world) but this time I’m going to stick to my resolution. What should my next resolution be?

Voyages from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific Ocean had been written by a Scottish fur trader, from Stornoway in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, named Alexander Mackenzie. Or more accurately, Sir Alexander Mackenzie—since King George III had awarded him a knighthood for becoming the first white man ever to cross the entirety of North America. Mackenzie had completed his voyage almost nine years earlier. He suspected that his seven-month overland journey to the Pacific was probably of historic moment, and so he had left a memorial. He had created what he hoped would be a lasting inscription on a tiny sea-washed rock near the present-day British Columbia fishing village of Bella Coola: “Alex. MacKenzie, from Canada by land. 22nd July, 1793.” He had inscribed the message with his finger, using an old trappers’ trick for long-duration messages, dipping it into a poultice made of bear grease mixed with vermilion powder and smearing out words that he hoped would survive the cold and lashing rains for which the Pacific coast is notorious.

The last case that Higdon presents is that of Emile, who is from Louisiana and in 1983 was visiting his sick parents at the hospital. One evening while he was at the hospital, a nurse named Debra offered to perform oral sex on him, but only if he wore a condom. After the act was complete, Debra offered to get rid of the condom filled with Emile’s sperm and must have impregnated herself, because nine months later genetic testing showed that Emile was the father of her baby. “The two never had sexual intercourse, only the one instance of oral sex with a condom.”10 The commonality in these three cases was that a man or boy was forced into fatherhood against his will and was then forced by the court against his will to pay child support. Can you imagine the uproar if a fifteen-year-old girl had sex with a thirty-four-year-old man and she was obligated in any way to him by the courts? Or if a woman passed out at a party and a man had sex with her and she was then forced to have the baby? As Warren Farrell says about reproductive rights for men:

Marrying young—very young The Koran takes child marriage for granted in its directives about divorce. Discussing the waiting period required in order to determine if a woman is pregnant, it says, “If you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4, emphasis added). Allah thus gives instructions for a situation in which a pre-pubescent woman is not only married, but is being divorced by her husband. Such a verse might have made its way into the Koran because of the notorious fact that Muhammad himself had a child bride. According to Sahih Bukhari, the hadith collection that Muslims consider most reliable, “The Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).” Another tradition recalls that at the age of nine, she was playing on a swing with some of her friends when Muhammad came for her.20

Get out of my way,” Devon snarled, his face dark with bloodlust. He was in a fury, the kind that grew exponentially the more one tried to calm it. His kinswoman had been defiled, and nothing less than murder would suffice. There were only two people on earth who could handle him in this state: his brother West, and Kathleen. “Leave him be,” Kathleen said, positioning herself between her husband and Rhys. “You’ve hurt him.” “Not enough.” He moved as if to push by her. “Devon, no.” Kathleen stubbornly stood her ground. Without realizing it, she slid a hand over her abdomen. Later she would confide to Helen that it had made no sense, the impulse to shield her stomach long before the baby had even begun to show, before she’d even accustomed herself to the idea of it. However, that small, unconscious action was all it took to disarm Devon completely. His gaze shot to her stomach, and he halted, breathing heavily. Comprehending her advantage, Kathleen told him promptly, “I shouldn’t be distressed in my condition.” Devon gave her a glance of mingled rage and protest. “Are you going to use that against me for the next nine months?” “No, darling, only for the next seven and a half months. After that, I’ll have to find something else to use against you.” Kathleen went to him, hugging herself against his rigid form. As his arms went around her, she slipped a soothing hand over the nape of his neck, coaxing him to relax. “You know I can’t let you murder people before dinner,” she murmured. “It throws the entire household off schedule.

The first purchase order from the army for 900 canvas-topped Gypsies came in January 1991 and the vehicles were to be delivered before 31 March of that year. Maruti manufactured the vehicles and they were parked for inspection in the factory. Army rules required that each vehicle be inspected by their own inspectors. The inspecting team would check only seven or eight vehicles in a day. It was obviously impossible to complete inspection of 900 vehicles in the time available. The inspection agency would not accept our submission that the vehicles were mass produced, following a well-documented system for quality control, and that sample checking should be adequate. They would also generally not accept Maruti’s explanation that what were being pointed out as defects were not really defects. As was foreseen, the delivery date expired before the bulk of the vehicles had been inspected. Once that happened, inspections stopped. The purchase order had to be revalidated before the remaining vehicles could be inspected. The process of revalidation took another nine to ten months. In the meantime, the vehicles were standing in the open in the factory, braving the elements. The system was not concerned about the consequences. K. Kumar made several visits to the army headquarters and met officers at various levels, to explain the Maruti-SMC system for ensuring uniformity of quality and adherence to specifications. He pleaded for expediting the process of inspection, but in vain. Kumar and I then met Lt. Gen. M.S. Bhullar, who was director general quality assurance in the army, and pointed out that exposure to the sun and rain would damage the vehicles and neither Maruti nor the army was gaining by rigidly following tortuous government procedures. Quality, I argued, was produced, not inspected and suggested that the army work out some less cumbersome methods of inspection. But the army was not willing to accept this point of view.

Is that the Crystal Palace? Oh, it must be. It’s so beautiful—much more so than the engravings I’ve seen.” The building, which covered an area of more than nine acres, housed an international show of art and science called the Great Exhibition. Win had read about it in the French newspapers, which had aptly termed the exhibition one of the great wonders of the world. “How long since it was completed?” she asked, her step quickening as they headed toward the glittering building. “Not quite a month.” “Have you been inside? Have you seen the exhibits?” “I’ve visited once,” Merripen said, smiling at her eagerness. “And I saw a few of the exhibits, but not all. It would take three days or more to look at everything.” “Which part did you go to?” “The machinery court, mostly.” “I do wish I could see even a small part of it,” she said wistfully, watching the throngs of visitors exiting and entering the remarkable building. “Won’t you take me?” “You wouldn’t have time to see anything. It’s already afternoon. I’ll bring you tomorrow.” “Now. Please.” She tugged impatiently on his arm. “Oh, Kev, don’t say no.” As Merripen looked down at her, he was so handsome that she felt a pleasant little ache at the pit of her stomach. “How could I say no to you?” he asked softly.

The 1935 Philippine Constitution, with 7,828 words and punctuation marks, was finished in nine months; the 1973 Constitution, consisting of 13,671 words and punctuation marks, was deliberated in a span of two years. The Aquino Constitution, by comparison, was completed in a record time of only four months.

      Before that first three weeks I was on over 100 units of insulin per day, and in three weeks I was taking no insulin.       In about a month, I was once again in my doctor’s office, watching as they looked at my numbers in utter amazement. When they asked me what I did, I told them I had adopted a completely plant-based diet. They didn’t seem surprised at all and told me that plant-based diets were helping to reverse diabetes. When I asked why they had not suggested it, they told me “because it is not practical.”       There I was, morbidly obese, taking nine drugs, shooting insulin into myself multiple times per day, suffering nerve damage and severe pain, and yet they thought that changing my diet in a fairly easy way would be less practical?

Even the most elite of engineers commits the most mundane and costly of errors. In late 1998, NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter on a daunting nine-month trip to Mars, a mission that fewer than half the world’s launched probes headed for that destination have completed successfully. This $327.6 million calamity crashed and burned indeed, due not to the flip of fate’s coin, but rather a simple snafu. The spacecraft came too close to Mars and disintegrated in its atmosphere. The source of the navigational bungle? One system expected to receive information in metric units (newton-seconds), but a computer programmer for another system had it speak in English imperial units (pound-seconds). Oops.

Just as we were passing the school, Blake slid his hand down my arm and intertwined our fingers. “Rachel, why did you finally agree to go out with me?” When I looked up, I was surprised at his somber expression. I would have expected something a little more taunting. “Do you want me to answer that honestly?” “I’d appreciate it. I’ve asked you out for . . . shit. I don’t know, nine months now? No matter what I said, your answer was always no. Until last night.” “Well . . .” I looked down at the sidewalk passing beneath our feet. “You can tell me, it’s fine. You never were one to hide your feelings. And your hate for me lately has been a little more than apparent. I’m already expecting the worst.” “I don’t hate you. I just don’t exactly like you . . . anymore.” I squinted up at him and nudged his side with the arm he still had a firm grip on. He gave a little grunt with a forced smile. “Um, Candice is always bugging me for turning you down. She said she would stop if I agreed to one date with you.” I know, I know, I could have made something up that wasn’t so harsh. But I didn’t. If I hadn’t looked back down, I probably would have missed the pause in his step. “Figures.” We walked for a few more minutes before he paused and turned to me. “I’m not going to make you go out with me.” “You aren’t. I said I’d go.” He raised an eyebrow, making it disappear under his shaggy hair. “You also told me earlier today that we weren’t going anymore. I’m just letting you know I’ll stop. All of it. Asking you all the time, what I did today. And I’ll talk to Candice.” “Blake—” “No, Rach, I should have stopped a long time ago. I’m sorry you felt pressured into it last night. I want you to want to go on a date with me. I don’t want you to go just so she’ll drop it or because you want me to quit asking. Which I will.” I couldn’t tell if he looked more embarrassed or hurt. Is it ridiculous that I want to comfort him? “I want to go.” “No, you don’t.” Okay, still somewhat true. “I didn’t . . . before.” Ugh, who am I kidding. He knows I’m lying anyway. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. You can’t exactly blame me for not wanting to go out with you.” He looked as if I’d slapped him. I hurried on before I could chicken out on the rest. “I mean, come on, Blake, you were rumored to be screwing all these students, coworkers, and faculty. And not once did you try to shut down those rumors. Add to that, the Blake I grew up with is completely gone; now you’re usually kind of a douche. Why would I want to go out with someone like that?” “Rumors are going to spread no matter what I do. The more I try to stop them, the guiltier I look. Trust me. As for you thinking I’m a douche . . .” His voice trailed off and he ran a hand through his hair. “Try seeing it from my side. The only girl I’ve wanted for years now and can’t get out of my head no matter what I do repeatedly blows me off like I’m nothing.” Did he say years? Letting go of my hand, he turned away from me and ran a hand agitatedly through his hair. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your dorm.” “What about drinks?” “I’m not going to make you do this, Rachel.” “Blake, why can’t you just be like this all the time? If how you were growing up, last night, and the last hour was how you always were . . . I probably wouldn’t have ever turned you down.” He huffed a sad laugh. “Yeah, well . . . obviously I’ve already fucked that up.” I watched him begin walking in the direction of the dorms and squeezed my eyes shut as I called after him, “You know, you kinda traumatized me tonight. I feel like you owe me a beer.” Peeking through my eyelashes, I saw him stop but not turn around. “And maybe dinner on Friday night?” When Blake turned to face me, his smile was wide and breathtaking.

The girls were passing a drugstore. In the window appeared a colored advertisement, a picture of a giant chocolate soda, topped with frothy whipped cream. Penny paused to gaze longingly at it. “That’s a personal invitation addressed to me,” she remarked. “How about it, Lou?” “Oh, that same picture has been in the window for months,” her chum said discouragingly. “You can’t get whipped cream unless you steal it from a cow.” “Well, how about a dish of ice cream then? I’m horribly hungry.” “That’s your natural state,” teased Louise, pulling her on. “If we stop now, we’ll be caught in the test blackout.” “Is there one tonight?” “Don’t you read the papers? It’s to be held between nine and ten o’clock. And it’s ten after nine now.” “I think it might be fun to be caught out in one—just so long as it’s not the real thing.” “I want to get home before the street lights are turned out,” Louise insisted. “In fact, I promised Mother I’d come straight home when the library closed.” “Oh, all right,” Penny gave in reluctantly. The girls began to walk faster for they were many blocks from their own street. Now and then they met an air raid warden and so knew that the time for the test blackout was close at hand.

Few could dispute Esther Ross’s claim that the Arizona was a cutting-edge weapon of its day. The behemoth was built to project American power and counter any aggressor on the high seas. Battleships made completely of steel were themselves relatively new. America’s earliest were the Texas and the Maine, commissioned within a month of each other in 1895. Barely over three hundred feet in length and displacing only sixty-seven hundred tons, they in retrospect have been termed coastal defense battleships or, in the case of the Maine, a mere armored cruiser. The Maine blew up under mysterious circumstances in Havana Harbor, Cuba, in February 1898, and its sinking became a rallying cry during the subsequent Spanish-American War. Short-lived though the war was, it underscored the importance of a battleship Navy. In one storied episode, the two-year-old battleship Oregon raced from the Pacific coast of California all the way around Cape Horn and into the Atlantic to take part in the Battle of Santiago off Cuba. It was a bold display of sea power, but the roundabout nature of the voyage set thirty-nine-year-old Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to thinking about the need for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. By 1900, the United States Navy floated five battleships and had seven more under construction. Beginning with the Indiana (BB-1), commissioned at the end of 1895, they were each given the designation “BB” for battleship and a number, usually in chronological order from the date when their keels were laid down. Save for the anomaly of the Kearsarge (BB-5), all bore the names of states.

Vardy’s rise was truly remarkable. He’d been released by Sheffield Wednesday as a teenager and completely quit football for seven months, before storming up the footballing pyramid in a manner rarely witnessed, starting at eighth-tier Stocksbridge Park Steels, where his wage was £30 a week. Following a conviction for assault, he played for six months with an electronic tag around his ankle and was forced to observe a home curfew from 6 pm every evening, which meant being substituted midway through the second half at away matches and driving home quickly. Then came a move to seventh-tier Halifax Town for £15,000, while he worked full-time at a factory making carbon-fibre splints. Twenty-nine goals in 41 games earned him a transfer to Fleetwood Town, in the fifth tier of English football. He spent just a season there, because 34 goals in 42 matches meant Leicester were prepared to spend £1m to secure his services – a record for a non-league player.

Stupid me, I’d spent months in Valhalla not realizing I could rent a raven, tie a message to its leg and send it to find anybody in the Nine Worlds. The whole thing seemed a little too Game-of-Thrones-y to me, but whatever. It worked.

Florida is full of long-range, unending road jobs that break the backs, pocketbooks, and hearts of the roadside business. The primitive, inefficient, childlike Mexicans somehow manage to survey, engineer, and complete eighty miles of high-speed divided highway through raw mountains and across raging torrents in six months. But the big highway contractors in Florida take a year and a half turning fifteen miles of two-lane road across absolutely flat country into four-lane divided highway. The difference is in American know-how. It's know-how in the tax problems, and how to solve them. The State Road Department says a half-year contract will cost the State ten million, and a one-year contract will cost nine, and a year-and-a-half deadline will go for eight. Then Doakes can take on three or four big jobs simultaneously, and lease the equipment from a captive corporation. and listlessly move the equipment from job to job, and spread it out to gain the biggest profit. The only signs of frantic activity can be two or three men with cement brooms who look at first like scarecrows but, when watched carefully, can be perceived to move, much like the minute hand on a clock.

During the nine months I carried Cerian, God came close to me again unexpectedly, wild and beautiful, good and gracious. I touched his presence as I carried Cerian and as a result I realized that underneath all my other longings lay an aching desire for God himself and for his love. Cerian shamed my strength, and in her weakness and vulnerability, she showed me a way of intimacy. The beauty and completeness of her personhood nullified the value system to which I had subscribed for so long.

In developmental psychology we talk breezily about the big differences between nine-month-olds’ and twelve-month-olds’ conceptions of objects, or three-year-olds’ and four-year-olds’ understanding of minds. But what this means is that in just a few months, these children have completely changed their minds about what the world is like. Imagine that your world-view in September was totally different from what it was in June, and then completely changed again by Christmas. Or imagine that your most basic beliefs would be entirely transformed between 2009 and 2010, and then again by 2012. Really flexible and innovative adults might change their minds this way two or three times in a lifetime.

Complete Your Implementation Intentions Every two months, create three new implementation intentions—“if X, then Y” plans to perform a particular behavior in a specific context—and check each one off as you complete them every day. Every Night Fast After 7:00 p.m. Because of our circadian rhythms, food eaten at night is more fattening than the exact same food eaten earlier in the day, so fast every night for at least twelve hours starting before 7:00 p.m. The fewer calories after sundown, the better. Get Sufficient Sleep Check this box if you got at least seven hours of sleep at your regular bedtime. Experiment with Mild Trendelenburg Try spending at least four hours a night lying with your body tilted head-down six degrees by elevating the posts at the foot of your bed by eight inches (or by nine inches if you have a California king). Be extremely careful when you get out of bed, as this causes orthostatic intolerance in most people, even if you’re young and healthy—meaning if you get up too fast, you can feel dizzy, faint, or light-headed and could fall and hurt yourself. So get up slowly. Drinking two cups of cold water thirty minutes before rising may also help prevent this potentially hazardous side effect. IMPORTANT: Do not try this at home at all if you have any heart or lung issues, acid reflux, or problems with your brain (like head trauma) or eyes (even a family history of glaucoma disqualifies you). Also do not try this until you ask your physician if they think it’s safe for you to sleep in mild Trendelenburg.

The Liverpool & Manchester Railway hauled its first test load of freight and passengers between its two eponymous cities on Saturday, 1 December 1830.56 In eighteen wagons, it moved 135 bags and bales of American cotton, 200 barrels of flour, 63 sacks of oatmeal, 34 sacks of malt, and 15 passengers. Engine, train, and contents weighed 86 tons and maintained an average speed of twelve and a half miles per hour. The completed line opened to general traffic nine months later, on 15 September 1831.

Something I'm working on, following accidental chains of ideas incorporating mistakes spontaneous self organization .cliffhanget If you turn the delusion into a story do we disappear The question with its pet tragedy crying in the deep structure of the night It forces you to ask if the night has a deep structure to go with its perplexing accent and if so where do you imagine it came from Paradise in decay Psychedelic funeral beyond mockery Every language became antique at once and pristine Extreme entropy after the most predicated sweetness It was worth the embarrassment I need to be interrupted by another logic Practice the half accidental both completely disappointed and optimistic when kindness is subversive you are in hell You are in hell there are opportunities said the nice person the birds of my dry childhood are distilled in what I remember I thought I knew you liked about me. I thought of a black pearl that only gets smaller what it told me about itself hundred bucks sometime in the next six to nine months presidential addresses will be broadcast in game show format from North Korea and Putin will have gone missing. "Where has putin gone?" We'll all say but our plaintive query will go unanswered Terrarium for a tiny nightsky

Your child grows within you for nine months. She’s completely a part of you, truly part of your body, of your being.” Jo nodded her understanding. “But for the daughter, it’s different. The mother is never part of the child. Not like the child is part of the mother.

This minimally invasive approach to hysteropexy involves laparoscopic plication of the round ligaments to the rectus sheath. A case series by O’Brien and Ibrahim (1994) of nine postmenopausal women with “moderate or marked” uterovaginal prolapse who underwent laparoscopic ventrosuspension provide discouraging results with 89% of women experiencing complete recurrence within 3 months, all of whom required additional surgery. Other authors have reported success with this procedure (Lin et al., 2005), although most literature focuses on uterosacral ligament plication and sacrohysteropexy, which are thought to provide more durable and anatomic repairs.