Hurdles to installing solar panels on one’s roof in Missouri

Are you thinking of putting solar panels on your roof? It would be a great idea for many reasons. Before you begin the process, though, read the story of Frances Babb, who had to fight hard to get the job done in the west St. Louis County area of Clarkson Valley.

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Rock plus non-rock: experimenting with blending modes in Photoshop Elements

I've been experimenting with layer blending modes in Photoshop Elements. These images blend various photos I had previously taken with images of marble and granite I recently photographed with the permission of a local merchant (Graniterra). Many of these experiments don't work out, but some of them have been surprising and interesting to me. Merchant's bridge butterfly - marble GCAA marble leaves-001 Finally, here is a flower blended into a layer of a separate color: flower and gradient

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The lesson of the sentence Bradley Manning is about to receive

Michael Moore sets the stage. Here's the beginning of his long list:

Manning now faces a potential maximum sentence of 136 years in jail. When his sentence is announced tomorrow, we'll all get a good idea of how seriously the U.S. military takes different crimes. When you hear about how long Manning – now 25 years old – will be in prison, compare it to sentences received by other soldiers: Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the senior military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib and the senior officer present the night of the murder of Iraqi prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi, received no jail time. But he was reprimanded and fined $8,000. (Pappas was heard to say about al-Jamadi, "I'm not going down for this alone.") Sgt. Sabrina Harman, the woman famously seen giving a thumbs-up next to al-Jamadi's body and in another photo smiling next to naked, hooded Iraqis stacked on each other in Abu Ghraib, was sentenced to six months for maltreating detainees...

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