Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ("The Pearl of France"). The Menton area has been inhabited since the paleolithic era, and is the site of the original "Grimaldi Man" find of early modern humans, as well as remains of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. The first major settlement occurred during the 11th century CE, when the Count of Ventimiglia constructed the Château de Puypin (Podium Pinum) on the Pépin hill, north and west of the modern town center. During the 13th century, the seigneury of Puypin fell to the Vento family of Genoa who built a new castle along the Roman road, now the site of the Vieux-Château cemetery, providing the core around which the current town grew. Menton was thus incorporated into the Republic of Genoa. The first mention of Menton dates from 21 July 1262, in the peace treaty between Charles of Anjou and Genoa. Its position on the border between the Angevin-ruled Provence and the Republic of Genoa, which at the time claimed Monaco as its western limit, made it a coveted location. Acquired in 1346 by Charles Grimaldi, Lord of Monaco, Menton was ruled by the Princes of Monaco until the French Revolution. Annexed during the Revolution, Menton remained part of France through the First Empire. It belonged to the district of Sanremo in the department of Alpes-Maritimes, which at the time included Monaco and Sanremo. The Lemon Festival takes place every February. The festival follows a given theme each year; past themes include Viva España, Disney, Neverland, and India. The Casino Gardens in the centre of town are decorated in the theme of the festival, using lemons to cover the exhibits, and huge temporary statues are built and covered with citrus fruit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton
The 79th Lemon Festival is being held February17-March 7th, 2012. See pictures at: http://www.fete-du-citron.com/Lemon-Festival-Menton-French,34.html

George Cope (1855–1929) was an artist who stayed close to home. He began his career painting the lush Brandywine River Valley landscape in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and its wildlife and architecture. He later explored realism in highly detailed trompe l’oeil (literally translated, “fool-the-eye”) and in still lifes of favorite objects from the homes of his neighbors and patrons. At the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, Cope met German-born landscape painter Hermann Herzog (1832–1932), who became his lifelong friend and only teacher. The pair often took sketching and hiking trips in the Pennsylvania countryside. Cope’s Landscape with Two Horses (1883; Chester County Historical Society) is very similar to Herzog’s work in both composition and style. Cope’s big break came when Major Levi Gheen McCauley, a prominent West Chester businessman, politician, and Civil War hero, commissioned him to paint “an exhibition hanging picture” in 1887. The subject was the major’s Civil War regalia—swords, cap, belt, pistol, holster, sash, canteen, and two important military medals—all rendered in exact scale and in vivid realistic color. This was one of Cope’s first ventures into the illusionism of trompe l’oeil. See Fig. 4: The Civil War Regalia of Major Levi Gheen McCauley, 1887. Oil on canvas, 50 x 36 1/2inches. Photography by Greg Williams. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. at: http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=516

DUBLIN, Ohio 15 February 2012—OCLC Research has made FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) available for bulk download, along with some minor improvements based on user feedback and routine updates. FAST is an enumerative, faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). OCLC made FAST available as Linked Open Data in December 2011. The bulk downloadable versions of FAST are offered at no charge. Like FAST content available through the FAST Experimental Linked Data Service, the downloadable versions of FAST are made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution (ODC-By) license.
http://www.oclc.org/research/news/2012-02-15.htm

Flax (also known as common flax or linseed) (binomial name: Linum usitatissimum) is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax

Sesame (Sesamum indicum) is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office's updated analysis, replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a net benefit to the government of approximately $4.4 billion over 30 years, or an average of about $146 million per year. The overall net benefit was due solely to increased seigniorage and not to reduced production costs. This estimate differs from GAO’s 2011 estimate because it considers recent efficiency improvements in note processing that have extended the expected life of the $1 note and other updated information. GAO’s estimate covered 30 years to be consistent with previous GAO analyses and because that period roughly coincides with the life expectancy of the $1 coin. Using the same model and assumptions used for its 30-year analysis, GAO found that replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a net loss to the government of about $531 million in the first 10 years, or an average of about $53 million per year. The cost of producing a large number of coins necessary for the transition would result in a net loss in 6 of the first 7 years. In the eighth year, and for the remaining 2 years, this situation is reversed: the interest savings outweigh the production costs and the net benefits would be positive. Overall, the net loss over 10 years compared with the net benefit GAO estimated over 30 years would occur because of large costs in the first few years to produce the initial supply of $1 coins. If the interest savings due to increased seigniorage are excluded from the analysis, the government would incur a total net loss of about $1.8 billion over 10 years, or an average of $179 million per year. With no interest savings to offset the costs of coin production, net losses would be incurred in 9 of the 10 years. As in the preceding scenario, these production costs are greatest in the first 4 years, when a large number of coins need to be produced for the transition. Although this scenario suggests there are no net benefits of switching to a $1 coin, GAO believes that excluding the interest savings related to seigniorage omits a monetary benefit to the government. If it is assumed that each $1 note will be replaced by 1, rather than 1.5, $1 coins, the government would incur a total net loss of about $582 million over 10 years, or an average of about $58 million per year. The costs of producing coins for the transition dominate in the first 3 years, followed by benefits in the fourth year due to the overproduction of coins during the transition. In this scenario, net losses continue to accrue through year 10. Net losses in this scenario are smaller than in the preceding scenario because fewer coins are produced and coin production costs are lower, but the one-to-one replacement does not provide increased seigniorage. Moreover, this lower replacement ratio is not consistent with the experiences of other countries that have switched from notes to coins and is likely to produce too few coins to meet demand, which could be disruptive to the economy.
See 15-page document GAO-12-307 at: http://gao.gov/assets/590/588549.pdf

Seignorage is "The amount of real purchasing power that [a] government can extract from the public by printing money." -- Cukierman 1992
When a government prints money, it is in essence borrowing interest-free since it receives goods in exchange for the money, and must accept the money in return only at some future time. It gains further if issuing new money reduces (through inflation) the value of old money by reducing the liability that the old money represents. These gains to a money-issuing government are called "seignorage" revenues. The original meaning of seignorage was the fee taken by a money issuer (a government) for the cost of minting the money. Money itself, at that time, was intrinsically valuable because it was made of metal. http://economics.about.com/od/economicsglossary/g/seignorage.htm