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May Agnes Fleming is renowned as Canada's first best-selling novelist. She wrote 42 novels, many of which have only been published posthumely. The Midnight Queen is set in London, in the year of the plague 1665. Sir Norman Kingsley visits the soothsayer La Masque who shows him the vision of a beautiful young lady. Falling madly in love with her, he is astonished to find her only a short time later and saves her from being buried alive. He takes her home to care for her, but while he fetches a doctor, she disappears. Sir Kingsley and his friend Ormistan embark on an adventure to solve the mystery of the young lady - will they ever find her again? (Summary by Availle)...

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Fantasy, Mystery

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Bart Steele, Space Academy graduate, is on his way home to his father's business - he runs a fleet of spaceships for interstellar travel. The secret for fast interstellar travel though is still tightly kept by the alien race Lhari. An agreement between humans and Lhari has been made that permits humans only to travel in cold sleep as passengers aboard Lhari vessels as to not reveal the secret.Some humans – the Mentorians - have had a slight genetic shift which enhanced their vision to withstand the light levels that the aliens Lhari use and live in. Mentorians perceive a wider optical spectrum than ordinary humans – some can see the ‘eighth color’. Mentorians act as translators, middleman and interpreters between the two races. But their ability sets them apart from the rest of humanity. Bart, half Mentorian, has this ability.Bart, surgically altering his appearance to hire as a Lhari on a homeworld bound Lhari vessel, attempts to steal the secret of the Warp Drive - an attempt on which countless humans spies have failed before. (Summary by Stephan Möbius)...

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Science fiction

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volunteers bring you 12 recordings of A Bird in a Gilded Cage by Arthur J. Lamb. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 2, 2011. A Bird in a Gilded Cage is a song composed by Arthur J. Lamb (lyrics) and Harry Von Tilzer (music). It was a sentimental ballad (or tear-jerker) that became one of the most popular songs of 1900,[1] reportedly selling more than two million copies in sheet music. (summary from Wiipedia)...

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Fantasy, Music, Philosophy, Romance, Poetry

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The results of the Final Assessment indicate that the initiatives and actions of the Business Mobility Group (BMG) have been very successful in reducing transaction costs related to cross-border business travel in the APEC region over the TFAP II period of 2007 through 2010....

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This Introduction to Financial Statement Analysis is a complete guide to reviewing and analyzing income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Accompanied by full length videos and screenshots, as well as a downloadable Excel spreadsheet to assist with ratio calculations, this ebook is your complete guide to analyzing financial statements effectively....

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APEC Leaders in 2009 endorsed an APEC-wide improvement of 25 percent by 2015 in five key areas of doing business: 1) Starting a Business; 2) Getting Credit; 3) Enforcing Contracts; 4) Trading Across Borders; and 5) Dealing with Permits, with an interim 5 percent improvement by 2011. A quantitative assessment based on the World Bank’s Doing Business indicators from 2009-2010, the latest data available, shows APEC is making good progress toward the 5 percent interim improvement target by the end of 2011. In the absence of 2011 data in September and early October 2011 when this report was completed, this interim assessment uses a pro rata benchmark of 2.5 percent to evaluate APEC’s progress. APEC’s combined improvement across the five priority areas between 2009 and 2010 is equivalent to 2.8 percent, exceeding the pro rata benchmark. APEC demonstrated the third best improvement among nine key regional and economic blocks. ...

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This report is a collaborative effort between the APEC Economic Committee and the APEC Policy Support Unit.

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A comprehensive list of businesses and agencies in the APEC 2011 Hawaii edition of Hawaii Business Magazine. Includes investment and media contact information....

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The premise of the book is that everyone who has ever died (up until the time in which the book is set, which seems to be about the time of its publication) has gone to Styx. This does not appear to be the conventional Hell described by Dante in The Inferno, but rather the Hades described in Greek myth (both of which had Styxes): a universal collecting pot for dead souls, regardless of their deeds in life. The book begins with Charon, ferryman of the Styx (in The Inferno, he was the ferryman of the river Acheron) being startled—and annoyed—by the arrival of a house boat on the Styx. At first afraid that the boat will put him out of business, he later finds out that he is actually to be appointed the boat's janitor. What follows are eleven more stories (for a total of twelve) which are set on the house boat. There is no central theme, and the purpose of the book appears to be as a literary thought experiment to see what would happen if various famous dead people were put in the same room with each other. Each chapter is a short story featuring various souls from history and mythology. (Wikipedia)...

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Fantasy, Fiction

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The Flying Inn is a novel first published in 1914 by G.K. Chesterton. It is set in a future England where a bizarre form of Progressive Islam has triumphed and largely dominates the political and social life of the country. Because of this, alcohol sales are effectively prohibited. The plot centers around the adventures of Humphrey Pump and Captain Patrick Dalroy, who roam the country in their cart with a barrel of rum in an attempt to evade Prohibition, exploiting loopholes in the law to temporarily prevent the police taking action against them. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Fiction, Fantasy

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Robert Sterling Yard was an American writer, journalist, and wilderness activist. Born in Haverstraw, New York, Yard graduated from Princeton University and spent the first twenty years of his career in the editing and publishing business. In 1915, he was recruited by his friend Stephen Mather to help publicize the need for an independent national park agency. Their numerous publications were part of a movement that resulted in legislative support for a National Park Service (NPS) in 1916. Yard worked to promote the national parks as well as educate Americans about their use. Creating high standards based on aesthetic ideals for park selection, he also opposed commercialism and industrialization of what he called America's masterpieces. In 1935, he became one of the eight founding members of The Wilderness Society and acted as its first president from 1937 until his death eight years later. Yard is now considered an important figure in the modern wilderness movement. In the preface to this book, published in 1919, he writes, In offering the American public a carefully studied outline of its national park system, I have two principal...

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Nature, Science, History

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But the Knyght was a little less than perfect, and his horse did not have a metabolism, and his 'castle' was much more mobile - timewise! - than it had any business being! In 2178, once time travel had become a simple task, it had also been outlawed. Those who chose to ingnore this law were known as time-thieves, and Tom Mallory was among the best of them. When he learns the precise whereabouts of the Holy Grail in 542, he sets out to obtain it with the intention of returning it to the 22nd century to make a handsome profit and to settle on Get-Rich-Quick Street. Off to the year 542 he travels to the castle of Carbonek where the great Knight Sir Launcelot is said to have possession of the Sangraal. (Summary by Roger Melin with quote from Analog Science Fact & Fiction July 1963)...

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Science fiction

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"From my experience in the aviation field, I find that this unique aviation and space history book provides a very realistic view on the use of technology in the aviation and space business as it was conquered during the past half century."...

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1 Aeronautical Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 Pilots and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 3 Aircraft Procurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 4 Aeronautics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 5 Missiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 6 Computer Programming . . . . . . . . . . . .113 7 Spacefarers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 8 Secret Missiles and Tactics . . . . . . . . . . 161 9 Space Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173 10 Pilots and Airplanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 11 Cyclogiro Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 12 Giromill Wind Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 13 Aquagiro Water Power . . . . . . . . . . . . .233...

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DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii 1 THE COLD WARRIORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Strategic Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 THE LEADERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 General Curtis E. LeMay (1906–90) . . . . . . 17 Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (1900–86) . . . . 22 3 THE WEAPON SYSTEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The Bomber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The Tanker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Reconnaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 The Intercontinental Ballistic Missile-ICBM . .68 The Cruise Missile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 The Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine SSBN. . 72 SAC Alert Force Operations . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Boomer Patrol Operations . . . . . . . . . . . 88 4 FUN, GAMES, AND SERIOUS BUSINESS . . . .93 Combat Crew Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 SAC Bombing Competition . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Spot Promotions . . . . ...

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A common mistake in real and financial markets is a mix-up of means and ends. A showcase cropped up during the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftershock including the debt crisis in Southern Europe. In response to the fiasco, policymakers round the world wasted trillions of dollars worth of public funds on makeshift schemes that ended up hobbling the financial forum and the real economy. Upon closer inspection, however, the epic blowup was a consequence of excessive meddling in the markets rather than the outgrowth of a laisser-faire policy as was widely assumed in the public sector as well as the private segment. To make things worse, a confusion of the objectives and methods led to feckless and even wrackful moves in response to the financial flap along with the Great Recession and their aftermath. From a larger stance, a solid grasp of means and ends is the first step toward designing a cogent agenda in any domain....

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In any field of human enterprise, a solid grasp of means and ends is the first step toward fixing up a worthwhile scheme while cutting down waste and beefing up productivity. The next step is to thrash out a trenchant plan that exploits the opportunities and avoids the pitfalls in the landscape. The third task is to put the resulting plan into action with gumption and dispatch. In the case of the debt crisis, the proper course would require a cogent agenda to ensure a speedy recovery of the financial forum and the real economy. On the downside, the damage done to date by the banksters and politicos is far too massive to allow for a quick or painless recourse. On the upside, though, the lack of a pat answer does not mean that there are no useful cures, or that the problems should be left to fester on their own. For there are baneful schemes as well as healthful ways to deal with the ailments. To this end, it’s high time to consider the big picture and take the high ground. As things stand, the politicians will not on their own initiative take up the gauntlet and tackle the problems in a serious way. In that case, the voting p...

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Summary Private Gain and Public Mulct The Currency is Not the Debt The Currency is Not the Economy Muddle of Economic and Financial Factors Boons of Currency Union Contagion of Debt Political Factors Inflation as a Cure for Political Bungling Private Windfall and Public Largesse Noxious Impact of Misguided Schemes German Resolution to a Greek Tragedy Hale Approach to the Banking Industry Right and Wrong Ways to Boost the Economy Forward Gaze References ...

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WELCOME TO THE RETRO FUTURE When I started the Dieselpunks website years ago, the word “dieselpunk” was still a curiosity. Sure, it was loaded with familiar tropes like Pulp Adventure, Film Noir, and Weird Horror, but the artists were mashing these concepts together with something different, something a little more contemporary. At that time, the steampunks were just starting to climb their way from the underground and gain traction as a legitimate style, but there was something to be said about this little-known corner of dieselpunk, or "low-brow pop surrealism" as it was known back then. Like the French film scholars who codified Film Noir as a genre years after the movies were in the theaters, I could see a similar thread binding the dieselpunk work together. Whether they realized it or not, these artists were creating work with eerily similar concepts. They were creating a future fueled by the spirit of the Jazz Age. In their world, they wanted to see if old Sam Spade could work in an era of smartphones, or if Dillinger could make a clean getaway in a cherry red hovercar. These artists were writing cyberpunk stories...

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THE 1920s. MID-WESTERN COMMONWEALTH, CHICAGO. “Well if it ain’t that then what was it?” “It was all those damn fool bankers in New York.” “Bankers?” “Yeah, bankers. They’re the ones who caused everything that’s happened. A huge pack of New York bankers got greedy. And the country was the one to cop it in the teeth when it all headed south.” “Nah. It weren’t that.” “It was too. And everyone knows it. Bankers got greedy, they sold Louisiana back to the French and that’s why the Grand Dream of the United States of America is now just a footnote in history.” Mickey thought about this for some time before shaking his head. “Nah, that ain’t it. That don’t explain half the crazy things that have happened.” Mack growled. “Jus’ listen.” He began checking points off on his fingers. “New York sold Louisiana to the French. Which made everyone else really mad. Which made Chicago form the Mid-West militia. Which meant New York had to stop pretending and actually get serious about The Prohibition act. This made the North West secede to Canadia, which made California blame New York and change their name, which made Texas w...

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Welcome to the Retro Future That Sort of World: A Tale of the Aether Age Pandora Driver: Who are the People in Your Neighborhood The Troubleshooter: What the Wise Man Says The World of Mañana: A Friend of Spirits Last Call...

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As the nation’s campaign against terrorism proceeds, our military services continue to embrace high technology, advanced sensors, and precision weaponry for use on current battlefields. The term cyber warrior has truly stepped from the pages of science fiction into reality. Equipment and technology do not constitute the only developments, however, because today’s cyber warriors emerge from a society and military culture very different in many respects from those of past generations of warriors....

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1 EMPLOYEE WARRIORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Values Crisis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Harnessing a Different Military . . . . . . . . . . 3 Cultures in Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 2 TRADITIONAL MILITARY CULTURE . . . . . . .7 Professionalism and Homogeneity . . . . . . . .7 Fraternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Institutional Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Value Studies of the Military . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Traditional Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3 THE NEW BUSINESS-SCIENTIFIC CULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 New World Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Volunteer Fighting Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Occupational Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Technology and the Great Engineering Venture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Civilian Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Force of Specialists . . . . . ...