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On July 26, 1944, troops from the Red Army entered Lwow, freeing the Polish city of its German occupiers.
Before the start of World War II, Lwow – known also by its German name, Lemberg, and today, as part of Ukraine, as Lviv – was the city with the third-largest number of Jews in Poland, about 110,000. By the time it was occupied by the Germans, two years later, that number that had swelled to double that, to 220,000. Yet when the Soviets liberated the city in 1944, the Jews they encountered numbered only in the hundreds.
Safe in Russian hands?
Jews had lived in Lwow since the city's very beginnings, in the middle of the 13th century. Over the centuries, they had played an important role as merchants, especially in the wine trade, and as financiers and artisans. Later, it became a center of both Maskilic and Hasidic life.
During World War I, Lwow’s Jews found themselves caught between the battling Poles and Ukrainians. But when the Galician city was incorporated into an independent Poland, in 1918, it resumed being a fertile center of Jewish intellectual, religious and political life.
When World War II began, Germany and the Soviet Union, which in signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, had formed a tenuous alliance, split up Poland between them. The eastern part, which included Galicia, fell into Soviet hands.
To many Jews in the German sector in the west, being under Russian control seemed safe, which is why so many migrated eastward – only to find themselves trapped when Hitler declared war on the USSR, in June 1941. (During the Soviet occupation, hundreds of thousands of residents of the city, among them tens of thousands of Jews, were forcibly exiled deep into the USSR. Although conditions there were abominable, it was, ironically, these exiled Lwow Jews who were most likely to survive the war.)
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Selection en route to the ghettoThe Germans entered Lwow on June 30, 1941. Even before they established a Jewish ghetto, they encouraged the Ukrainians in the city to attack the Jews.
During two pogroms, in July 1941, some 6,000 Jews were murdered, either by Ukrainian nationals or by German troops, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website.
Then, on November 8, the occupiers established the Lwow ghetto, in the city’s north. The residents then living in the neighborhood designated for the ghetto were ordered to go, and the Jews given until December 15 to move in.
Even as that process was under way, the Germans carried out a selection, shooting the elderly and sick as they walked across the Peltewna Street bridge, which led to the ghetto.
At its peak, the ghetto held about 120,000 residents, whose food rations were estimated to be about 10 percent of what Germans received, and half of what local Ukrainians and Poles were allocated. For those who didn’t die natural deaths, the Germans carried out three principal Aktions, in March-April 1942, in August of that year, and in January 1943, in which Jews were either deported to the Belzec extermination camp or shot to death in Lwow.
Finally, in June 1943, the Germans liquidated what remained of the ghetto, which had been serving as a labor camp since the January massacre. They were met with a modicum of armed resistance, but the rebels succeeded in killing only a small number of policemen. The Germans, for their part, lit on fire all the buildings and bunkers where they suspected Jews of trying to hide.
When the Soviet Red Army arrived in Lwow, on July 26, 1944, there were few Jews left to meet them, certainly under one thousand. After the war, as the community began to reorganize, it counted 2,571 Jews, nearly all of whom left, to be repatriated to Poland, and then classified as displaced persons. Eventually, many of them ended up in Israel or the United States.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
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Angel and I were hunting around for a cache (I won't give away the name of the cache we were at though for safty reasons) and stumbled upon something we never imagined we would find. The cache was a multi and for the first stage we were looking for a container with the coords to the second stage. We ended up finding a marker and thought that might be the cache. Upon further inspection we found out it wasn't but continued on, found what we were looking for and went on to stage 2. My youngest son thought the marker was neat (as he likes to draw all over everything) so he took it with him. While we were at stage 2 we met up with another cacher and we were talking. Tanner was playing around with the marker and the other cacher noticed that it looked funny. After we got to inspecting it we found that it was a "pipe". You know the kind... those that they hide so the police don't realize what you have. I have a feeling that someone was in the area and was afraid that they were about to get caught with it and decided to discard it. Now I have a "pot pipe" and have no idea what to do with it. I don't want to throw it away cause if someone finds it they will think it's mine. LOL!!!
Anyone else found things they never expected when looking for a cache?
rock_hound
03-11-2005, 08:27 PM
I recently found a pill bottle of "weed" in the Flatside Pinnacle cache (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=860e7723-39f9-43e7-ab0a-efab6cafc884&log=y&decrypt=). See my log of Dec. 11, 2004. Maybe you can drop off the pipe there :wink:
demonicangel
03-11-2005, 08:50 PM
ROFL!!!
Now that's funny. Maybe I should... at least that would help me get rid of it before I get into trouble with it.
Or... maybe it was the same person who left the herbs that lost his pipe? Ever thought of that?
walkingshadow
03-12-2005, 07:49 AM
Thanks for the laugh. :lol:
walkingshadow and red
cachecrazies
03-12-2005, 05:25 PM
We found a couple of joints in Culp Cache. The guys that left them also left a log that was hilarious. They were spaced and drunk and found this area to hang out in. Found the cache while they were there and decided it was a great idea to "share"! We brought the joints home to dispose of - then decided how dumb that was! :roll: What if we'd been stopped on the way home? Next time we'll just destroy them at the scene!
demonicangel
03-12-2005, 07:15 PM
We found a couple of joints in Culp Cache. The guys that left them also left a log that was hilarious. They were spaced and drunk and found this area to hang out in. Found the cache while they were there and decided it was a great idea to "share"! We brought the joints home to dispose of - then decided how dumb that was! :roll: What if we'd been stopped on the way home? Next time we'll just destroy them at the scene!
LOL!!! Can you imagine the conversation you would have with the police trying to explain to them exactly how you found them and what you were doing with them.
I got to thinking the same thing when I was going home after my find. Now what will I do if the police stop us and find this. How on earth am I going to explain this to them?
BACKPACKNJACK
03-13-2005, 01:09 PM
"As best I recall" there were some leopard panties floating from cache to cache. There are lots of stories about odd things and odd post left by muggles and of course there are things like snakes being on/over the caches also but I can't remember finding anything in/on/near a cache that wasn't supposed to be there, not even the 'dreaded' 8O "Multi-Tool" :(
arkansas_stickerdude
03-13-2005, 09:13 PM
I'm with cachecrazies I found what was left of a joint in a cache I picked up because it was left for dead.
demonicangel
03-14-2005, 09:46 PM
I try to remove anything like that I find in or around caches. I know most of the time my kids cache alongt with us and stuff like that is just not something I want them to come across.
Team_LiquidCache
03-15-2005, 08:08 AM
Back in January we found a note in a cache from the Little Rock Bomb Squad!!! That was pretty interesting. They really liked the idea of caching, but were really worried about the location of the cache. We left the cache kind of out in the open, like the bomb squad left it, and emailed the cache owner right away.
That's really about it so far. Haven't cached in awhile due to work issues, but I'm sure the warmer weather will bring out some interesting stuff!!
mountainborn
06-01-2005, 11:53 AM
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13/mountainborn0/DSC00290.jpg[/img]
walkingshadow
06-01-2005, 06:32 PM
:) wow.... that is a really cool find!!!
walkingshadow
nonnipoppy
06-01-2005, 08:46 PM
What a neat find.
We have similar stories about the joints etc in a cache. Early in our caching career while seeking GCG8D7 in Colorado we found the cache had a joint and a pipe. We took both and never mentioned them in the log.
The cache log had an entry that said (made up names here cause I forgot the real ones) "Me and Sue climbed up here to get mellow. We found your stash. Thought you might like a smoke when you are up here."
It's been said that it takes all kinds but my father was fond of saying "It doesn't reaaly take all kinds we just have got all kinds."
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Nice shot Dale. I have never seen that style of spider. The ones in my area are huge. Good capture under trying conditions. Pat yourself on the back for that one... Jerry
I never would have found it, but my wife spotted the web and said "You should see the colorful insect caught in that spider web." - And the colorful insect turned out to be this tiny spider spinning its web.
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Review by AllTheBestFights.com: 2015-02-28, good fight between Enriko Kehl and Erkan Varol: it gets three stars.
Enriko Kehl entered this fight with a pro kickboxing record of 37-7-1 (27 knockouts) and he is ranked as the No.7 super welterweight in the world; he suffered his last defeat in 2013 when he faced Dzhabar Askerov, since then he has won five consecutive bouts winning the 2014 K-1 World Max tournament against Buakaw Banchamek (the Thai refused to fight the extra-round in the final, Buakaw vs Kehl 2). After this bout Kehl beat Abdoul Toure.
His opponent, Erkan Varol, has a record of 86-15-0 (45 knockouts) and he comes off the loss against Giorgio Petrosyan suffered just one month ago (=Petrosyan vs Varol). In their first bout Kehl defeated Varol by unanimous decision (June 15, 2013); this second fight is on the undercard of Zabit Samedov vs Mert Akin – Akin Dovus Arenasi. Watch the video and rate this fight!
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Followers
Monday, April 30, 2012
Marilyn's Choice SHOP OF THE MONTH Critique
Caught My Eye Designs opened shop almost one year ago. Joyce the shop owner has built up a positive reputation for herself through her sales . She is now in 117 circles and has 46 admirers. Let's take a look at her shop and see how she has done that and consider some suggestions for improving her already shining record.
If you are looking for knitted and or crocheted shawls, caps, scarves, or even pillows, you will want to visit this shop. Joyce uses materials such as alpaca, wool, novelty yarn, beads and ribbon plus more.
Party Time Any Time Free Lace Scarf
Let's discuss some of the aspects of her shop. Her pictures are crystal clear as you will see. She does close-ups so that you can see detail. She has her items departmentalized. Like things with like things.
Her descriptions create mind pictures and fill in all the details that the pictures don't cover.
If I have anything to offer here it would be to make the title of the item descriptive using words that hopefully would come up in a search, and perhaps save those catchy names for the first of the description. Many shop owners use their descriptions for sales pitches and stories and your titles might fit right in with that type of use. A descriptive title might say something like, Knitted Lace Scarf in Purple, Fuchsia, Pink and White. It's just a suggestion, but we want our items to come up in a search, the end desire being a sale.
Scottie is a Hottie
Fleece Pillow
Fleece pillow cover measures 16.25 by 16.25 inches. The design is the
same on the front and back. Pillow insert for you to purchase is 16 by
16 inches. Colors are pink, light grey. Smaller Scottie dogs are dark
brown. The closure is a zipper as seen in picture, it is offset and
measures an opening of 13 inches. to fit your insert, fold in half and
slide it into the opening. Zip up and enjoy. Monitors are different.
Colors appear darker then they really are.
I have limited amount of this fleece so when they are gone, that is it.
This pillow is adorable, the description above, is excellent, and Joyce's title is too cute. "Scottie Is A Hottie Fleece Pillow". Love it. Imagine it as the first line of the description. Try this on for a title: Throw Pillow Pink, Gray and Brown Fleece Scottie Dog Motif. It's a suggestion.
Popcorn Spaced Out Mobius
with a Twist
We have here another of Joyce's creations, one of my favorites. She calls it Popcorn Spaced Out Mobius with a Twist. I don't really know what that is but I see it fits around the neck, it's beautiful, well made and a fair price. Looking through the shop I find that to be the guaranteed theme.
One thing I will mention here is that Joyce only used 9 of her tags and not one of them was #2grc. Let's take advantage of those tags, that's how we invite people to our shops. One other item I'd like to mention is the occasion box, Joyce put in Christmas, my concern about that is that a customer may think that it is strictly for Christmas when it is really good for all cold weather months. I personally leave that box empty on my listings but of course I never do anything that is for a particular holiday. I just don't like to limit my customer pool in anyway. Through the winter I would be wearing this beautiful item with everything in my wardrobe that it went with.
No Ouchies Here Scarf
"No Ouchies Here Scarf" , this is a beauty, for all ages and all occasions. The colors are lovely and I can feel it's softness. The description is right-on and the price is comparable. You can't go wrong with this item.
Joyce used only 10 of her 18 tags and again didn't use her team tag. Shame...Shame....
There is not a lot of advice I can give to an almost perfect shop. The banner is cheerful and eye catching, true to the shop name. It's a great place to shop, with so many selections I had trouble making up my mind what I liked the best.
Let's look at a few minor things that might help to increase sales...
1. Use all 18 tags - check shop stats for what words or phrases that are being used, do a google search yourself and find out what words it takes to get you to your shop.
2. Use descriptive words in your titles
3. Use team tag #2grc on all your items so that it will come up in a search by us
4. Tweet - use team tag #2grc on all your tweets so that team members will be able to retweet your tweets
5. Add International Shipping or at least a few places like Canada, Britain.
6. Try to make a treasury once a month, when you advertise for others they will return the favor
7. Change your Featured Items often and always promote them when you do
8. Go into your Activity often and check it out. Get into more circles, favorite more items, this gets more item views and shop views with really no work on your part.
9. Take advantage of our teams clicking group, again helping others will win you their favors in return.
All in all you have a beautiful shop, and you are doing a great job on the big issues. Your product is wonderful, your pictures are beautiful, prices are comparable. Pick one or two things suggested to work on and see if your sales don't increase.
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Smack, Crack & Pot join the Ron English Cereal Killers Crew!
Anyone hungry for some Monday morning cereal?! Perhaps a little Smack, Crack & Pot to start your week off right! The latest addition to the Ron English ‘Cereal Killers’ crew is now available for purchase. This 8inch vinyl mash-up definitely warps the mind a wee bit. We’ll just stick to our Rice Krispies, thanks! Ha.Smack, Crack & Pot is available in the UK at Collect & Display HERE for £67 and is available in the US at our pals Strangecat Toys HERE for $65/£52.
Mr English also has an exclusive Pink colourway of Smack, Crack & Pot available on his store HERE for $80/£64, which is limited to 100 pieces.
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Matt Gregory
Last time we looked at the classic approach of PCA, this time we look at a relatively modern method called t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE). The paper is fairly accessible so we work through it here and attempt to use the method in R on a new data set (there’s also a video talk).
The data science process often starts with visualisation; we want to see the data in an attempt to make sense of it. This problem of making visual sense of the data has become more problematic in recent years due to the size and dimensionality of data sets that scientists encounter. As our ability to measure the world improves, we find our old methods for interpreting the data are inadequate, thus we must iterate. Simply providing the user with a tool to view high dimensionality data in two-dimensions is not enough, the user needs help in interpreting the data also which can be achieved through dimensionality reduction methods such as t-SNE. These methods convert high dimensional data into two or three dimensions appropriate for scatterplotting.
The aim of dimensionality reduction is to preserve as much of the significant structure of the high-dimensional data as possible in the low-dimensional map. In our last blog post we looked at a linear method, this time we consider non-linear method which is superior at keeping datapoints that are similar on a low dimensional manifold closer together (a manifold is a shape that does not self intersect e.g. a line or a circle; a figure eight is not a manifold).
Why t-SNE?
The aim of dimensionality reduction is to preserve as much of the significant structure of the high-dimensional data as possible in the low-dimensional map. Rather than keeping dissimiliar data points apart (like linear methods i.e. PCA), t-SNE keeps the low-dimensional representations of very similar datapoints close together on a low-dimensional, non-linear manifold (the map).
This concept can be made more interpretable by considering a Swiss roll (a non-linear manifold):
PCA is mainly concerned with preserving large pairwise differences in the map (the squared error).
Are these measures reliable?
Which of the lines (solid or dashed) better captures the similarity between the two data connected points?
PCA is not very useful here as it preserves the unreliable large pairwise distances (dashed red-line Euclidean distance is unrepresentative of similarity of the two points). A better representation of the distance between these two points is captured by the blue line, as this considers the structure of the manifold.
What is reliable here are the small distances between points. Thus a method that focuses on preserving these distances between nearest neighbours in the mapping should be superior for these types of data.
Method overview
Reading the paper some new concepts (represented by hyperparameters when tuning the model) arise, such as perplexity. We’ll consider these later when implementing the method using code. The paper breaks down the method into a couple of steps which is also explained clearly on Wikipedia:
Use PCA to reduce the dimensions to a manageable number for pair-wise similarity calculations (i.e. 30) (the function we use later does this by default).
Convert the high-dimensional data into a matrix of pair-wise similarities map.
a. t-SNE constructs a probability distribution over pairs of high-dimensional objects in such a way that similar objects have a high probability of being picked, whilst dissimilar points have an extremely small probability of being picked.
b. t-SNE defines a similar probability distribution over the points in the low-dimensional map, and it minimizes the Kullback–Leibler divergence between the two distributions with respect to the locations of the points in the map.
Walk before you can run
We develop a toy example to help us get our head around what’s happening and the effect of tuning of the hyperparamaters on the tSNE visualisation. We did this as when learning a new techniques it’s tempting to deploy it straight away on your data without getting to grips with how it works and what the output will look like when you have input simulated data (e.g. a simple signal, or random noise). Eventually you may develop a sort of intuition for this useful tool in your arsenal.
Generate some toy data
Let’s start with a simple 2-D problem of two widely seperated clusters. We generate two clusters in the two dimensions x and y by drawing from two different normal distributions far apart on both dimensions.
We can consider df our training set. We drop the class or id dimension from the T-SNE. The class information is not used to determine the spatial coordinates of the map points. The coloring thus provides a way of evaluating how well the map preserves the similarities within each class.
The perplexity is a hyperparamater we must tune and it sorta says how to balance attention between local and global aspects of your data. The parameter is, in a sense, a guess about the number of close neighbors each point has. The perplexity value has a complex effect which we explore in the following figures. Maaten & Hinton (2008) recommend a cost function parameter for perplexity of between 5-50. The perplexity should also be lower than the number of points otherwise weird stuff happens. We suggest you read the ?Rtsne help file to make yourself aware of all the arguments therein.
With a perplexity of two our tool has performed poorly. There’s no sign of two nicely seperated clusters! Let’s investigate the impact of adjusting the perplexity by writing a custom function for this specific case to do the legwork.
If we increase the perplexity any further the function protects us by erroring and reminding us that the perplexity is too large given the small number of data points.
These series of figures have warned us against just drawing one t-SNE plot. It’s important to try a variety of perplexities as in real data setting you won’t know what the generative distributions looked like. For me, this caveat makes t-SNE a dangerous magic box, as you could use it to confirm what you want to see. That’s why it’s doubly important to be aware of all the common misuses and misconceptions when using this method (protect yourself by reading the paper and a few different blogs on the topic).
Stochastic
There’s some stochasticity involved which can result in different conclusions. There’s some nice videos demonstrating this here. We run the t-SNE several times with different random seeds.
Note how the first and second run are similar whereas the third looks like there could be more than two clusters of data. This might be overcome by checking we have set the max_iter-ations to high enough to allow the structure to stabilise, or running multiple plots with different seeds.
Number of steps
The max_iter defaults to 1000 but there is no best number (we used 500 above in our custom function). This wil vary from data set to data set thus requiring more than one t-SNE plot before settling on what you think is stability.
The MNIST data
Prior to attempting this methodlogy on a novel data set, let’s test it on the famous MNIST digits data minimising our time spent on pre-processing and foramtting. The MNIST data set contains 60,000 grayscale images of handwritten digits. In the paper’s experiments, they randomly selected 6,000 of the images for computational reasons. The digit images have 28×28 = 784 pixels (i.e., dimensions).
We’re going to use the MNIST data shared by this blog as it’s ready to go.
The first column, called “label”, is the digit that was drawn by the user. The rest of the columns contain the pixel-values of the associated image.
Each pixel column in the training set has a name like pixelx, where x is an integer between 0 and 783, inclusive. To locate this pixel on the image, suppose that we have decomposed x as x = i * 28 + j, where i and j are integers between 0 and 27, inclusive. Then pixelx is located on row i and column j of a 28 x 28 matrix, (indexing by zero).
For example, pixel31 indicates the pixel that is in the fourth column from the left, and the second row from the top, as in the ascii-diagram below.
Visually, if we omit the “pixel” prefix, the pixels make up the image like this:
Reflect on how you are good at identifying digits. Are any of these digits ambiguous to you? What about to a young child? We then proceed to use the Rtsne function which takes a while to run. Prior to optimisation, we reduce the data size to make things run faster for our convenience and to reduce plotting density.
# https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2017/01/t-sne-implementation-r-python/## Reduce training setset.seed(11235813)train_sm<-dplyr::sample_frac(train,size=0.1)## Curating the database for analysis with both t-SNELabels<-train_sm$labeltrain_sm$label<-as.factor(train_sm$label)## for plottingcolors<-rainbow(length(unique(train_sm$label)))names(colors)<-unique(train_sm$label)## Executing the algorithm on curated datatsne<-Rtsne(train_sm[,-1],dims=2,perplexity=30,verbose=TRUE,max_iter=500)
Given our reduced training set and our removal of the labels it’s difficult to make out ten distinct clusters. How many can you make out? How many would you think there were without prior knowledge? This is why t-SNE can be a bit dangerous in that you can squint and see patterns that might not be there or reinforce already held beliefs. Bare in mind the common fallacies introduced above and a few extras ( described by this blog ):
Cluster sizes in any t-SNE plot must NOT be evaluated for standard deviation, dispersion or any other similar measures. This is because t-SNE expands denser clusters and contracts sparser clusters to even out cluster sizes. This is one of the reasons for the crisp and clear plots it produces.
However, if we do add labels we can imagine what features of the digits, in terms of their pixels, are affecting the clustering.
Those digits that are clustered closer together share similar charcteristics. Think about in your life which digits cause you confusion when discerning which is which and why that might be the case. An obvious example is the number seven which can be written with a cross-bar or not, this might explain the groupings close to some fours above. A few sevens also “look” like ones. This sort of reasoning might help you pick out features of a data set that might help a machine learning classifier with its training and prediction accuracy. We could make this easier by plotting the actual images of the digits on the t-SNE plot as our plotting characters to see what features they are being clustered by. We must also remember to do more than one plot by tweaking the parameters.
Using t-SNE for feature extraction
We demonstrate a machine learning workflow you might follow recycling some code from this Kaggle notebook. Although alternative methods are probably better (e.g. XGBoost), we attempt to implement t-SNE into Support Vector Machines (SVM).
We run the t-SNE after removing the labels reducing the digits dimensions from all the pixels to a mapping of a two dimensional non-linear manifold. We then create a training and test data set assuming the data are already randomly ordered using these dimensionally reduced data.
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47-year-old Fred Lowe arrested after a highway collision killed 4 people and injured 6 others was facing felony charges of vehicular manslaughter. The driver of an overturned white sedan was transported to a hospital, but 4 other passengers in the vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene. Dary...
2 victims killed in Richmond quadruple shooting Map of 900 View Drive Richmond Hayley Flores, 26, and Robert Bill, 24, were in love. They were killed by gunfire about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Hilltop Green neighborhood
2 girls dead after accident involving stolen car suspect Lenexy Cardoza, 4, and Camila, 2, died within days of each other after an auto-theft suspect fleeing from law enforcement allegedly ran a red...
The driver of an overturned white sedan was transported to a hospital, but 4 other passengers in the vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene. Daryl Horn, 50, and Joseph Horn, 14, both of Napa, and Troy Biddle, 52, and Baden Biddle, 12, both of Bainbridge Island in Washington, died in the crash
One of the planes landed at a local airport but the other landed in a bay. Coast Guard are trying to people who were in the plane. Planes collided in passing maneuver. A single-engine Cessna 210 and a single-engine Hawker Sea...
15-year-old girl gang-raped on campus Map of 1250 23rd St Richmond Police are looking for between four and seven males who allegedly beat, robbed and gang-raped a girl on the Richmond High School campus
Missing girl found 18 years on Map of 1554 Walnut Avenue Antioch A woman who was snatched from a bus stop as an 11-year-old child in 1991 turned up after being held in isolation in an backyard compound
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Becca's "honest and loyal" comment seemed to be a shot at her ex-fiance, Arie Luyendyk Jr., who brutally dumped her on-camera several weeks after proposing marriage to her on The Bachelor's 22nd season finale.
Days after breaking Becca's heart, Arie ran back to his runner-up, Lauren Burnham, and begged for a second chance. Lauren appeared to immediately take Arie back, and then the pair got engaged on March 6 during After the Final Rose.
Becca called the dramatic and shocking ending of Arie's season "a soap opera," and it's probably safe to say she never wants to go through something like that again.
"I went through the entire grieving process: I was mad, I was sad, I was confused," admitted the Minnesota publicist.
"But now, I watched the entire season back and saw his relationships unfolding with everyone else. Seeing that kind of helped move on to realize he just found a better fit with Lauren. And so I'm doing well."
As she would put it, Becca is ready to do the damn thing! The Bachelorette begins filming on March 15, and the series will premiere May 28 on ABC.
Becca will likely have 30 men competing for her heart on the show next season.
While she's hoping her ex-boyfriend of seven years, Ross Jirgl -- who crashed The Bachelor set to win her back, but failed -- won't step out of a limo on Night 1, there's one man who would win her heart immediately if he chose to show up.
That man is Good Morning America host and former NFL player, Michael Strahan.
"I love the gap tooth!" Becca gushed of Michael. "Just everything about him... Bring him in the limo. Game over -- it'd be a really short season."
Becca may be into athletes, as Ross played college football and now works as the football sport performance coach at Stanford University. Us Weekly also reported earlier this week that Clay Harbor, a tight end for the New Orleans Saints in the NFL, will be looking to catch roses instead of footballs on Becca's season.
Whether or not Becca finds lasting love on The Bachelorette, she appears to have definitely moved on from her split with Arie. She disclosed to Ellen that she has heard "nothing" from the 36-year-old pro racing driver since their breakup, and she completely understands why.
"Just out of respect for Lauren and that relationship, I don't think he will [reach out]," Becca noted.
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page 160: '. . . a general metric at any point P is characterized
by the N2(N2-1)/12 second derivatives that
cannot be made to vanish there.' In 4-space = 20 degrees of freedom
in the determination (specification) of 4-space.
PARTICLE = OBSERVED PARTICLE.
No cloning means that we can teleport state by annihilation
[page 6]
and creation, but we cannot duplicate them. This is a constraint
on chaos that arises naturally in the definition of the symmetric
Universe.
The transfinite network is a Platonic model waiting to become
manifest. How does it achieve this? By using the power of 'error
correction' to create and exploit structure to create more by
creating structures that feed themselves effectively off their
environment. This is just evolution by repeated reproduction and
selection.
Evolution requires memory, and we do not think fundamental
particles like photons, that are completely created and annihilated
in their interactions can have any memory [but they serve as memory
in a higher system]. These particles then have not evolved but owe
their structure to some deterministic constraint in the system.
My proper time is the interval between my actions.
The squared length of the line element may bear some relationship
to the probability calculated by quantum mechanics, since both are
features of an 'event'. A point in spacetime is an event. A line is a
history of events, an ordered sequence of messages whose causal
relationships define spacetime structure.
Does the world have a computer that works out gravitational
interactions or are they a determined consequence of some other
process, the simplest and most generic and universal process in the
Universe, the ur-process defined by eit, going around and
around, being dynamic. To be dynamic one must have two states at
least, and so the qubit becomes our ur-model.
General relativity constrains the projection of quantum events on
the 4-D interface we all share. This constraint operates purely in
terms of the energy of the event and takes no account of its
complexity, ie gravitation is invariant with respect to complexity,
simply does not see it except insofar as it is coupled to energy
[which may in some way measure the cardinal of the
complexity].
All our windows on the nature of the Universe, all communications,
are associated with an exchange between kinetic and potential energy.
GEOMETRY = ORDINAL NUMBERS
ARITHMETIC = CARDINAL NUMBERS
Hobson page 176: 'Einstein's equations are . . . a set of second
order partial differential equations , , , for the metric
coefficients gmn of spacetime.
They map physical logic to spacetime (?).
[page 8]
Hobson page 184: 'Only in four dimensions or more that
gravitational fields can exist in empty space.
Einstein: deterministic (computable) general covariance. We take
general covariance into the transfinite realm where it becomes an
incomputable network, built on computable foundations. Uncertainty in
quantum mechanics seems to represent the incomputable side of things,
ie interaction, communication and superposition of computable basis
states. The computers in a computer network are the bases of that
network, each one orthogonal to the others although sharing a common
communication subspace. The network is indeterministic because the
computers in the network can interrupt and redirect one another,
leading to a non-linear potentially chaotic system. Chaos is avoided
by the enforcement of communication protocols, of which, maybe,
gravitation is the doyen.
Error proof communication protocols contribute to their own
survival and the same is true for good software in general, both in
the realm of commerce and in the broader realm of all existence,
fitness and survival.
Hobson page 499 Gravitational waves travel at c (and therefore
have no mass and cannot be their own source?).
[Hobson page 189 'The fact that the Einstein equations predict the
equation of motion is remarkable and should be contrasted with the
situation in electrodynamics. In the latter case, the Maxwell
equations for the electromagnetic field do not contain the
corresponding equation of motion for a charged particle, which has to
be postulated separately. The origin of this distinction between
gravity and electromagnetism lies in the non-linear nature of the
Einstein equations. The physical reason for this non-linearity is
that the gravitational field itself carries energy-momentum and can
therefore act as its own source, whereas electromagnetic field
carries no charge and so cannot act as its own source. ]
page 524: '. . . the variational approach that we shall outline is
extremely powerful and provides the basis for much current research
into the formulation of classical (and quantum( field theories,
including general relativity and other candidate theories of
gravitation.
Hamilton's principle: A mechanical system whose configuration can
be defined uniquely by a set of generalized coordinates qa
together with time t and which experiences only forces derived from a
potential moves from one configuration to another in some a way as to
make the action S = integral (over time) of Lagrangian (
qa, qa dot, t) stationary.
A theory of everything must do much more than explain a small set
of cardinal numbers measured by physics. It must explain how
everything works so that we can 'fit in' with it.
Monday 23 April 2007
Soames
Churchill page 370 'Imagine what will happen to India
[page 10]
when sagacious, scientific and incorruptible direction is
withdrawn.' Soames
DOUBT DESCARTES
page 391 (Soames) Churchill: 'If the Great War were resumed . . .
it will be the end of the world. How I hope and pray we may be spared
such senseless horrors.'
On the religion question: saving the world. How to write something
publishable, ie which will attract enough readers to pay for itself?
Getting closer to a story, but it takes so long. Fortunately my
enthusiasm grows as the task also grows.
Soames page 401: 'We are getting into the most terrible position,
involved definitely by honour and contract in almost every quarrel
that can break out in Europe, our defences neglected and our
government less capable a machine for conducting affairs that I have
ever seen.
On avoiding impossible situations.,
page 433: 'A thousand years hence it will be incredible to
historians that the victorious Allies delivered themselves over to
the vengeance of the foe they had overcome.
page 444: 'It is quite astonishing to reach the end of life and
feel just as you did fifty years before.' Happy but frustrated,
wanting power to guide the world.
Molecular biology = 4D logic.
[page 11]
Hilbert oscillator differentiates and integrates itself up and
down the transfinite tree whose lowest state is the quantum harmonic
oscillator.
Transfinite network = materia prima
We might say that there are no things, only messages. The task of
each scientist and every individual is to decode the messages it
receives.
Yourgrau page 36: 'In all processes in which the principle of
conservation of energy holds, the forces can be derived from a
potential, that is there exists a function V of the coordinates such
that that work done on the system in changing from the configuration
qi to q'i is equal to V( q'i) - V(
qi).'
We can think of this in terms f two binary strings, the input and
output of an entropy preserving Turing machine and the work done to
make the change is the Hamming distance between the two strings. We
would like to associate a different energy to every string. This is
possible if the elements of the string form a position sensitive
representation of the energy scale, a bit like Gödel numbering which
encodes strings of symbols as cardinal numbers.
What are the appropriate generalized coordinates of the Universe?
They are the particles (symbols) of the Universe and we say that the
transformation of one fundamental symbol into another measures one
quantum of action.
[page 12]
ALGEBRA = ABSTRACT ARITHMETIC
Hamilton's principle: 'a system moves from one form or
configuration to another in such a way that the variation of integral
Lagrangian dt between the path taken and a neighbouring virtual path
coterminate in space and time with the actual path is zero.' Yourgrau
page 47.
Page 49: 'One of the most salient characteristics of variational
principles is . . . that they express the pertinent laws without
involving coordinate system.
Quantum mechanics and general relativity are not 'what is' but
what is communicated what we see.
Greene page 129: [As we magnify
spacetime] 'The notion of smooth spatial geometry, the central
principle of general relativity, is destroyed by the violent
fluctuations of the quantum world on short distance scales.' Greene
The whole idea of 'quantum foam' is contradicted by cosmological
observations. Just because delta p.delta x = h bar does not mean that
if we observe delta x, we see momentum delta p, rather delta p is the
[page 13]
uncertainty in any attempt to measure motion.
We like the permutation approach to generating transfinite numbers
to the subset approach by writing permutations in the form of cycles
and see each cycle as a subset of the whole permutation. Different
permutations range from that that can be completely expressed in one
cycle to those whose 'atomic' cycles are just one letter, ie the n
cycles of the identity permutation of set of cardinal n.
DEGENERATE = NOT RESOLVED
The relativity of transfinity. In the Platonic world we talk about
the countably infinite set of natural numbers and there transfinite
permutation,. but all the theorems remain true if the cardinal of the
natural numbers is two or greater. If card (N) = 2, then three
is a transfinite number and so on. As the Universe evolves, it slowly
resolves itself by improving its defences against error so that the
cardinal of the resolved set gradually increases toward its Platonic
maximum.
Greene, Elegant Universe: String theory
sounds like a desperate dream on a par with Christianity in the realm
of credibility. Greene
FRUSTRATION: Bursting with energy but unable to couple to anything
(eg physical or theological establishment) to use it.
Tuesday 24 April 2007
Greene page 153: 'Particle accelerators . . . hurl bits of matter
such as electrons and protons at eachother . . . and elaborate
detectors analyze the resulting pray of debris to determine the
architecture of the the objects involved.
The whole problem seems to be in the interpretation of the
uncertainty principle. Quantum field theory assumes that the numbers
delta E, delta p, delta x and delta t in the equation (eg) delta E
delta t >+ h are real numbers. What if we go all the way to
quantization and assume that they are naturals, the delta p delta x
>= h becomes a Diophantine equation and all our problems with the
vacuum go away because all the deltas come from the set N =
{1, 2, 3, . . .}.
From Newton's time until the end of the nineteenth century
mathematicians spent much energy expanding calculus and making it
logically sound so that we have definitions of differentiability,
continuity etc which make the massage to the continuous limit
plausible. The logical definition of continuity developed in this
period was founded on the notion of continuity by cardinals, so it
seemed natural for Cantor to seek the cardinal of the continuum and
he set about doing this using logic to study sets of symbols, ie
doing mathematics.
The results of this mathematical work are everywhere to see, not
least in quantum theory and relativity. In other words, we can make a
consistent theory if we say that continuity means putting so many
points into a fixed interval that there are no gaps between them. So
even though a point has no magnitude we can imagine putting so many
of them in a box that they all touch, ie
[page 15]
the gaps between them may be ignored and the theory works out.
But is this really continuity.
Aristotle and overlap. ['. . . things are called continuous when the
touching limits of each become one and the same, and as the word
implies, are contained in one another. Aristotle, Physics V:3
226b10 ]
The metaphors of atom smashing lead us away from the truth, a
legacy of our nuclear weapon days.
A fighter. One who will suffer pain to achieve a goal.
Greene page 152: 'Recall that the problem in merging general
relativity and quantum mechanics turn up when the central tenet of
the former - =that space and time constitute a smoothly curving
geometrical structure -- confronts the essential feature of the
latter -- that everything in the Universe, including the fabric of
space and time, undergoes quantum fluctuations that become
increasingly turbulent when probed at smaller and smaller distance
scales.'
How you look influences what you see.
Wednesday 25 April 2007
Greene page 156: 'In a Universe governed by the laws of string
theory, the conventional notion that we can always dissect nature on
ever smaller distances, without limit, is not true.'
general relativity and quantum mechanics in a point-particle
framework.'
String is an extended object. In what? Can we interpret a string
logically as a proof?
Torture the body to release the soul. Is this a real feature of
our system, or something developed by the ruling classes to placate
the suffering masses. Certainly, poverty brings one closer to the
realities of life and survival.
SUPERPOSITIONED = DYNAMIC
The transfinite network is complex enough to represent a
superposition of all possible states.
Greene page 183: 'A physical dream is that the search for the
ultimate answers will lead to a single, unique, absolutely inevitable
conclusion. ideally, the final theory . . . should be the way it is
because there is simply no other possibility. If we were to discover
that there is only one logically sound theory incorporating the basic
ingredients of relativity and quantum mechanics, many feel that we
would have reached the deepest [or perhaps broadest] understanding of
thy the Universe has the properties it does. In short, this would be
unified theory paradise.'
But how does it explain the beg bang, the origin of life and this
exported interior monologue? Only a communication/computation model
is rich enough to do
[page 17]
it, but how does this relate to particle physics as we know it?
How come thee are so many protons (electrons . . . )? The software
explanation says that they are all children of the original proton
process that were born as necessary to serve different more complex
processes.
Explain the inevitable passage of time? We are on a 3-line through
4-space.
Thursday 26 April 2007
Physics in action provides us with a set of symbols and techniques
for their manipulation which have enabled us to build our world. We
are not alone in this. In fact the world has built itself, including
us, al by itself. It is this process of creation that we have to
understand if we are to fit in. Traditional religions have closed the
creation question, telling us that it is the work of an invisible and
omnipotent God, and that is that. People living on the understanding
that the Universe is divine and we are divine persons need to face
this question, however, in order to be familiar with and sure of our
foundations.
New Yorker: It is time for reform in
the religion industry. And earn two fares to the US. New Yorker
Mathematically, energy behaves like an incompressible fluid. Even
though it may be really particulate the continuous model is
sufficient for many purposes but not unification.
[page 18]
String theory introduces new letters into the alphabet of physics,
but it remains to be seen whether these new letters correspond to
anything in reality.
LETTER = EVENT
Can we say that the local quantum processes are deterministic but
that the selection of which of a superposition of exclusive processes
to execute at a given moment is outside the determinism. A turing
machine is a link in a chain (a channel) from input to output, but
something outside sets it in motion and reads its results.
Friday 27 April 2007
Life is a balance between searching and knowing. Both have their
costs, and so there might be an optimum level of investment in each,
given the technology available.
The invention of writing increases the availability and decreased
the price of memory in human affairs, and printing established
symmetries of shared memories which led ultimately to the creation of
a global culture overlaying the nation states created by the
invention of bureaucracy = paper based computation.,
The purpose of religion is to create a community of interest.
SPIN = WEIGHTING EVENTS - which is what
[page 19]
quantum field theories do by applying quantum theory to certain
Lagrangians (eg 'Standard Model')and trying to find models that fit
the observations.
What we are weighing is the probability of the occurrence of a
certain deterministic process.
SPIN, in the more political sphere is a made possible by the new
degrees of freedom opened up when the system begins to give meaning
to physical events. The physical layer is bound by local logical
consistency n as are the layers of meaning, provided that by 'local'
we mean 'in communication with'. Hence the desire of dictators for
secrecy - where there is no communication and so they can continue to
profit by the control they can exercise over an unwitting population.
Veltman page 249: 'The Lagrangian of the
Standard Model is quite voluminous and it is already a problem by
itself to get all the Feynman rules correct. Veltman
'The ghost fields must be included for internal lines, but they
should not occur as external lines. They do not correspond to
physical particles, but they occur in diagrams to correct violations
of unitarity that would otherwise arise due to the form of the vector
boson propagators chosen here. The proof of that fact is
[page 20]
really the central part of gauge field theory'. Veltman page 249.
All the vast complexity seems to contradict the idea that we are
trying to describe the simplest level of the Universe. it would be
nice to see it replaced by the basic software of a network, which may
e conceived as a set of Turing machines. The simplest such set,
containing the simplest machine, is the empty set, no operation.
Followed by the set NOP, NOT and so on up the scale each of these
sets requiring more memory for its implementation.
Pervert the course of justice.
JUSTICE - EQUALITY - MAXIMUM ENTROPY - STABILITY - PEACE
Quantum mechanics - probability plumbing.
PLUMBING = VOLUME (MASS) CONSERVATION
Standard model: although the processes are each considered to be
continuous, the actual number of discrete processes is discrete and
countable.
Our paths crossed and another person appeared, just like the
standard model.
Quantum mechanics attributes a dimension in Hilbert space to every
point in the continuum, thus
[page 21]
transforming the points in the continuum to variables, that is
memory locations with addresses in the continuum.
Saturday 28 April 2007
Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
Copyright:
You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.
Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Aristotle, and P H Wickstead and F M Cornford, translators, Physics books V-VIII, Harvard University Press,William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: 'Simplicius tells us that Books I - IV of the Physics were referred to as the books Concerning the Principles, while Books V - VIII were called On Movement. The earlier books have, in fact, defined the things which are subject to movement (the contents of the physical world) and analyzed certain concepts - Time, Place and so forth - which are involved in the occurrence of movement.' Book V is a further intoduction to the detailed analysis in Books VI - VIII. Book VI deals with continuity, Book VII is an introductory study for Book VIII, which brings us to the conclusion that all change and motionin the unvierse are ultimately caused by a Prime Mover which is itself unchanging and unmoved and which has neither magnitude nor parts, but is spiritual and not in space.Amazonback
Greene, Brian, The Elegant Universe: superstrings, hidden dimensions and the quest for the ultimate theory, W W Norton and Company 1999 Jacket: 'Brian Greene has come forth with a beautifully crafted account of string theory - a theory that appears to be a most promising way station to an ultimate theory of everything. His book gives a clear, simple, yet masterful account that makes a complex theory very accessible to nonscientists but is also a delightful read for the professional.' David M LeeAmazonback
Hobson, M P, and G. P. Efstathiou, A. N. Lasenby, General Relativity: An Introduction for Physicists, Cambridge University Press 2006 Amazon Editorial Reviews
Book Description
'After reviewing the basic concept of general relativity, this introduction discusses its mathematical background, including the necessary tools of tensor calculus and differential geometry. These tools are used to develop the topic of special relativity and to discuss electromagnetism in Minkowski spacetime. Gravitation as spacetime curvature is introduced and the field equations of general relativity derived. After applying the theory to a wide range of physical situations, the book concludes with a brief discussion of classical field theory and the derivation of general relativity from a variational principle.' Amazonback
Klir, Jiri, and Miroslav Valach, Cybernetic Modelling, Iliffe, SNTL 1965, 1967 Preface: 'The principal purpose of this book is to show the part played by cybernetic modelling in the solution of problems common to the animate and inanimate world. The system, its behaviour and structure are used here as fundamental concepts forming the basis of a wide approach that utilizes the model as a methodological instrument. ...' J Klir and M Valach, Prague, 1965.back
Luke, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 'The third gospel's distinguishing quality is due to the attractive personality of its author, which shines through all his work. Luke is at once a most gifted writer and a man of marked sensibility. ... The originality of Luke is not in his key ideas (they are identical with those of Mark and Matthew) but in his religious mentality which, apart from slight traces of Paul's influence, is ovewhelmingly distinctive of Luke's personal temperament. Luke, in Dante's phrase, is the 'scriba mansuetudinis Christi', the faithful; recorder of Christ's lovingkindness.' Amazonback
Newton, Isaac, and Julia Budenz, I. Bernard Cohen, Anne Whitman (Translators), The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, University of California Press 1999 This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. ... The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.Amazonback
Soames, Mary (editor), Speaking for Themselves: The Persona Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, Doubleday 1998 Jacket: 'Winston and Clementine Churchill wrote to each other constantly during the fifty seven years of their life together. . . . Speaking for Themselves provides a rare insight into Winston Churchill's extraordinary career, the central role he played and the world figures he met in over half a century of turbulent history. Clementine's interest in politics was almost as intense as his, and her political instincts acute. Here, therefore, are Winston and Clementine's vividly expressed reactions to the social reforms of the Edwardian era, the agitation of the Suffragettes, the Abdication Crisis, the early disasters and then the long awaited victories of the Second World War and the electoral defeat of 1945. But here also are domestic minutiae, society gossip, financial anxieties and minor quarrels,. nicknames, private jokes and endearments. . . . 'Amazonback
Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...'Amazonback
Links
New Yorker he New YorkerTimeline: '1925
Harold Ross launches The New Yorker on February 21st, with financial backing from Raoul Fleischmann, the founder of the General Baking Company. Dorothy Parker, Ralph Barton, Alexander Woollcott, Ring Lardner, and Robert Benchley are among the early contributors. Rea Irvin draws the first cover—a mythical, monocled Regency dandy, later dubbed Eustace Tilley, who becomes the face of the magazine. Katharine S. Angell (later Katharine S. White) joins the staff as the magazine’s first fiction editor. ' back
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Pages
April 30, 2013
Huge hurricane on Saturn, first time in color
The spacecraft Cassini, sent by +NASA has provided scientists of the +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of +NASA , the +European Space Agency, ESA and the Italian Space Agency.High-resolution pictures and video indicated the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth.
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Overcoming Today’s Pakistani Desire to Look Arab
by Maz Halima – Follow @browngirlmagSome Pakistanis – at least in London where I am – pretend that they have Arab heritage. This is a fact that I’ve never really questioned until recent years when I became more curious, confident and knowledgeable of my own lineage. Why do some of us lie about our bloodline?
This is extremely embarrassing to me now but, in high school, I used to call myself Lady Cairo (I won’t delve into my wish for a rap career). I’d never been to Egypt. I didn’t know anyone from Cairo. But hey, it sounded like an exotic place. When I was a child, I was called the word ‘Paki’ – and not in an endearing way – a fair bit. Somewhere down the line, it was eventually drilled into me that a Pakistani wasn’t a desirable thing to be, and subconsciously, I realize now, I didn’t want to be associated with it anymore. I wanted to be seen as exotic, not dirty.
At the time, I truly didn’t realize this was a common phenomenon amongst those who share my ethnicity. I went to college and became friends with an absolutely stunning girl. I asked her where she was from one day; she said her mother was from Saudi Arabia and her father was from Pakistan. But I went to her home, it was clear that both her parents were definitely Pakistani. I never questioned it, but I knew the truth. Furthermore, how could I question it when I myself implied something similar to others?
Another friend of mine is half Pakistani and always looks flattered when people mistake her for being South American or Spanish. Another mate of mine used to get really excited when people asked him if he was from an Arab country.
My Bengali ex-boyfriend said – after we broke up – that he wanted to marry an Arab girl and I didn’t even question his preference, how normalized it has become. He did end up marrying a Moroccan girl, but it didn’t work out and I am not smug about that at all.
The older I got, the less I understood this urge to be other. Pakistan is so young, and people died for it – whether everyone agreed with its formation or not. Where’s our pride? Don’t we owe it to our family who came before us?
One of my friends was talking about another friend of hers who is of Indian heritage, and said “oh yeah, she’s lighter than you” in passing. My first instinct was to be offended, and I’m ashamed to say I gave in to that instinct at the time. I felt like it was a backhanded insult – partly because firstly, it wasn’t true – I’m aware that doesn’t matter, but it does because of my next point – we’re all aware of colourism. Nobody in the Arab or South Asian world could make a comment like that with no thought of what it means societally to say that – never mind the fact that it shouldn’t be seen as offensive.
I stayed quiet when that comment was made, but I wish I could have gone back in time and said “thank you!” I know it’s not our fault, but those of us with a color complex (me) need to get off the subconsciously automated defensive when someone makes a comment about us being ‘darker’ – whatever your complexion or race is. If we choose to start hearing it as a compliment, it could be the beginning of us learning that it’s not an insult.
When you search ‘Pakistanis want to be Arab’ on Google or Twitter, a disturbing amount of content comes up – it makes me sad but also assured to know this phenomenon is not exclusive to my world alone. Certain friends used to attempt to ‘wind me up’ by saying I was Indian. When I was a teenager, I would deny it vehemently and I didn’t even really know why. Those aforementioned Google search results gave me some kind of answer, as people in forums explored the idea that we are denying our ‘pagan’ roots, desperate to be seen as the best kind of Muslims, which most perceive to be Arab.
You seemingly can’t be more Muslim than a Muslim Arab – their language is that of the Quran; our most significant holy sites can only be found in their land.
The older I have grown and the more I’ve read about India – from the concept of Karma to the practice of Yoga – the more fascinated I have become. It’s magical! You can be Pakistani and only believe in one God and not be offended at the thought that once upon a time, we were all Indian. I now embrace my Indian roots with pride – I refuse to contribute to the divide between us, I refuse to desire to be something that I’m not, and ultimately I refuse to follow the rules of perceived superiority according to complexion. I grew up in a household where people used Fair and Lovely and my grandmother would tell me not to go in the sun too much.
A friend of mine recently said we are all one people, and race doesn’t really matter. But my brain interprets that as her implying I should continue to be submissively, passively ethnic. You see, my dear friend is from a country in the Middle East, and her race is ambiguous in her appearance. When I was a kid, I used to wash the back of neck until it hurt because a family member said it looked dirty (it wasn’t, it was just brown). Unlike her, my appearance alone is political.
Most Pakistanis in the western world have felt the insinuation in someone else’s words that they are dirty. That’s why, when you grow into a mental place of pride after a lifetime of self-loathing, I disagree with my aforementioned non-brown friend – you shouldn’t have to hide your pride to appease those who are still not comfortable with you finally possessing it.
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Founded as an online publication in 2008 in Houston, Texas, Brown Girl Magazine is now a multimedia company with a global reach. It was created by and for South Asian women who believe in the power of storytelling as a vehicle for community building and empowerment.
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On The Spot: Abdoulie Sey: Faces don’t usually mean what they show
Comments Off on On The Spot: Abdoulie Sey: Faces don’t usually mean what they show
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(JollofNew) – Abdoulie Sey was a former Editor-in-chief of the now closed Independent Newspaper in the Gambia. He is based in Dakar, Senegal, where he works as editor of Agence Press Africaine (APA).Who is Mr. Abdoulie Sey?
A quiet, reflective human being who lives life without a timetable.When were you happiest?
In childhood, holding hands with that first love – MWhat is your greatest fear?
The future, fraught with uncertainties.What is your earliest memory?
As a young boy feeling vulnerable right in the middle of a herd of cows.What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My voice, not deep enough.What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Their smells.What was your most embarrassing moment?
When paraded in school assembly for slapping a teacher.What is the most expensive thing you’ve bought?
The complete works of Shakespeare.What is your most treasured possession?
My children.What would your superpower be?
God.What is your favourite smell?
The scent of a novel idea, whatever that means.If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
My childhood.What is the worst thing anyone’s said to you?
“You deserve nothing but death” – while in detention [at the NIA headquarters in Banjul], 2003.Have you ever said “I love you” and not meant it?
I do not trust that phrase.Which living person do you most despise, and why?
I do not have it in my heart to despise.Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
My childhood sweetheart, her name begins with the letter M.If you could go back in time, where would you go?
Kono Spark Road, Sierra Leone.Which word do you most overuse?
OK.What has been your biggest disappointment?
My inability to read Arabic.How do you relax?
Idle evening walks around my village.What is the closest you’ve come to death?
1989, almost at the end of a loaded pistol I stole from a close cousin to satisfy an early curiosity with gunsWhat single thing would improve the quality of your life? –
Confidence.What is your greatest achievement?
Bringing children to this world.What keeps you awake at night?
The right words to use for my thoughts the next day.What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Faces don’t usually mean what they show. Is it better to give or receive?
One can’t go without the other, since you have to receive first before you are in a position to give.Which living person do you most admire?
Wole Soyinka, says at the right time the right thing that’s in everybody’s mind.How would you like to be remembered?
Sweet, even-tempered and easy to please.
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I would like to file for my GC filed thru my ex-employer in 2003, i140 also is approved and hoping the dates might be current in October.
I know it is safest route to join the ex-employer before filing 485,but I am not sure if he has a project around that time for me. The HR is always ready to give the required employment letter to hire me as a full time employee once I get my permanent residence card.
Now, my question is it safe to take this route, cos once we get the EAD and advance parole we will start using them with the spouse starting to work(so no more H4 status etc)..or any hitches as to during the interview will we have a hard time as to why I was not employed during 485 stage etc..
All the cases I see is people r filing 485 working with the current employer and plan to change jobs after 6 months..but my case is different..
Have you seen/known anyone getting GC without working for the sponsoring employer during time time of filing 485..?
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sledge_hammer
03-24 05:06 PM
My Dear Friend:
Why do you want to defend crooks? Instead of ackowledging the fact that desi consulting companies are exploiting loopholes, you rather want to know why other companies are not feeling the heat. This is typical of us desis. There is absolutely no introspection.
For once, accept that we are at fault.
Its like this - You are in school and your teacher catches you copying off the next person. Now instead of correcting yourself, if you complain to the teacher that another classmate was also copying so you should not be penalized, will your treacher let you go?
I am sorry, I am not a very knowledgeable person in immigration matters like many of you, but when it comes to finger pointing, we have to show all consulting companies and why only DESI companies are getting into this discussion. I know friends who worked for IBM & KPMG on H1b travels to all states for short term contracts. What about those biggies? They are also desi firms?
How did you come to US in the first place? if not thru a consulting company ( I know F1 is another option) either thru big companies like TCS, Wipro or Infy or through desi consulting firms. Pls do not forget the fact that USCIS changed their stand now and saying that it is not legal to work else where other than employer location. If they implement that rule from start then this mess wouldn't happen.
Now, we are in trouble and so stop finger pointing and give any good advise if you can.
FYI..I am an FTE and I came to us thru a multinational firm and never worked for a desi consulting cmpny.
This is an interesting bill and I feel it'll pass. There are lot of gotcha's but there are some good things. I'm glad to see H1-B rights and whistleblower sections. This was way past due. Really, this is more of a culmination of those few employers who have tried to exploit the system / employees.
key points to ponder:
- Finally IRS and USICS have come together. !! .. thats a big blow to the body shoppers ( may be a good thing)
-> 50 employees cant have more than 50% H1B's. I think this will basicaly create many smaller consulting companies nothing else. This I don't like .. could be bad for genuine businesses.
I hope it doesnt, without any amendments. Maybe a friendlier bill with strict H1-B rights would be nice.
This tattoo shows both the
waitnwatch
10-01 05:35 PM
I think retrogression will improve in the future. Here is why I think so.
Durbin is basically interested in changing the rules for H1-B. So one thing is assured, no more increase in the H1-B quota if Obama wins. Even if McCain wins I am doubtful there will be an H1-B quota increase in a Democratic majority house and senate.
On the other hand none of the candidates, senators or congressmen/women care too much to bet their political career on changing legal immigration. So the current EB system is just not going to change that easily. But with fewer people joining the line (the recession will reduce new immigration even further) I would assume that EB-2 will go current at some point in the next year. This will ultimately start reducing the backlogs in EB3.
Now don't start throwing numbers at me. I understand that it may still be some wait. But generally even in the worst case scenario things will not become worse as some folks predict.
I think I agree with quite a lot of what you say. But I think there is some truth in Pakistani fears that India is already supporting anti-state actors in Pakistan, like in Balochistan.
I don't think we all want that. I don't think even all Indians want that. I don't think its in the interest of India, or anyone else for that matter, to have a huge Afghanistan on its Eastern border.
Well my personal opinion, I don't believe it is true. Actually Pakistan doesn't need India for all this. It is capable by itself. By sheltering Dawood and Azhar Masood what do you expect? A university of peace?
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Macaca
03-19 01:20 PM
New Congress, Same Obstacles for Democratic Lobbyists (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801138.html), By Al Kamen, Monday, March 19, 2007
The Democrats' takeover of Congress had a lot of their interest groups -- labor, enviros, etc. -- elbowing ferociously for long-sought legislation for their constituents. The groups' lobbyists are feeling the pressure.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has been working hard to reopen contract bargaining with the Federal Aviation Administration -- it feels it got the short end in negotiations last year about work rules and pay -- and wants Congress to let it do so. But it's a tough go, NATCA President Patrick Forrey said in a March 10 "National Office Update."
"I can imagine how frustrat[ed] our membership must be that our language has not been enacted to date," Forrey wrote, "considering the tremendous amount of support in PAC dollars and campaign activity we invested into the election process." No doubt. Sounds like they've got a good consumer fraud case if they want to pursue it.
"For those who believe this should be a slam dunk," he said, "let me remind you that there are an incredible amount of organizations, associations, special interests and of course labor unions that have been subject[ed] to 12 years of bad government . . . the problem is, we are all competing against each other to get our separate issues corrected."
But the Washington office is working on it. "If you could be in my shoes and talk with these very supportive members," Forrey explained, "you'd have the opportunity to realize the difficulty in undoing something that falls in a long line of things that need undoing . . . that is why it's so difficult to get the total support" from the House leadership on "controversial bills" that might hurt passage of other bills.
But not to worry. "This past week has left us very encouraged about the progress we are making in securing a temporary legislative fix," he said, with Reps. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Jerry F. Costello (D-Ill.) having penned a joint letter to House Appropriations chair David Obey (D-Wis.) to put language in the Iraq war supplemental appropriations bill that would reopen contract negotiations.
"However, as of today," Forrey wrote, "we have not seen or been told of any language inserted" in the Iraq bill. "It appears that the final approval is going to have to come from Speaker Pelosi," he said, "so we are rounding up all of the support we can garner from" other members to get her "to give the nod."
(Last Thursday, the Appropriations Committee approved the bill without the language.)
No war yet!! Good think I wasnt holding my breath or anything. All you war mongering folk must be dissapointed.
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pitha
04-07 09:18 AM
It�s very easy and hip to blame everything in this world on desi companies but they are not completely to blame here. Consider this scenario. They are two ways to get H1, 1. You are already in US, i.e. converting from F1 to Practical training, Practical training to H1. This is an easy option for companies because you are already in US so they come to campus interviews or fly you to there company headquarters for the interviews. 2. Now what about the people who are outside the US. How are companies going to interview them, screen them and select them, you cannot give a job to somebody outside US by interviewing them on the phone, you cannot fly them to US for interview because it is costly and has visa issues. Desi companies have an advantage here because they are interviewing the people in India and those people are working for them before they file H1. Not just big desi companies like TCS, infosys, wipro etc take this route but even American companies like IBM operating in India are do this. Big companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco do not get first crack at these filings but the labor pool is increased so they do have a chance to hire them when they come to US. People transfer all the time between companies when they are on H1. I know a lot of people who are working in Cisco and Microsoft who came to US on H1 through desi companies but later on accepted full time positions in Microsoft, Cisco and other companies.
Now I am not defending desi companies nor did I ever work for desi company but I am telling you the reality. Even mom and pop desi companies are doing some service by providing a medium for employees and employers through consulting services. The only and biggest gripe I have against desi companies is that they are exploiting the h1 employees by keeping bigger margins on the H1 hourly rate.
Now if you want to reform H1, you can do things like give H1 based on credentials like UK does, you get points based on years of experience, education level (Masters, phd, bachelors etc) and give the people the ability to change jobs at will during the period of H1, that will eliminate a lot of exploitation and make it easier for companies to hire people on h1. This will eleminate some mom and pop desi consulting companies which are the middle men.
The law makers (democrats) who introduced this so called law to reform H1 are actually trying to kill H1 in the name of reform. They don�t have the backbone to come out and say H1 should be abolished but instead they are taking the back door to kill the H1 through these draconian measures.
For all those people who are misguiding the EB3 members on the forum- please stop playing with people's hopes and stop this nonsense about petition for spillover from EB1 to EB3. this is a foolish arguement and will not work. Do you think USCIS will give preference to EB2 over EB1? hell no. similarly, EB3 will not get any spill over visas unless EB2 is current. EB preferences are are established for a reason to give preference to better qualified individuals that US thinks are much needed. similarly family based preferences are established to give preference to dependents/relatives of US Citizens over other categories. Can you imagine second or third preference Family based category getting preference over the first preference category in Family based applications? No way this is going to happen.
Moreover after taking heat from Congress for wrongly interpreting the EB laws and unfairly giving visas to EB3 last year while EB2 is still retrogressed, do you really think that USCIS/DOS will make the same mistake again? some of the people seem to be wandering in a fool's paradise. this whole petition drama has caused rifts among the EB immigrant community for no good reason. the only way for EB3 to move forward is by EB2 becoming current and it may happen next year.
I can tell you for sure what kind of results this petition will produce.
1. it will not poduce any spillover to EB3 at all.
2. it will definitely attract more scrutiny towards EB2 from USCIS as it will try to establish clear distinction between EB2 and EB3 so that people are not confused between the categories thinking that they also qualify for EB2 as mentioned in the petition. USCIS may start strictly implementing "exceptional ability/ advanced degree/ Professional Occupation" part of the EB2 definition and start questioning the 5 year experience that many EB3 have used to convert to EB2. This will result in more problems for EB3 to EB2 conversions who have already filed and for future filings and will make it easier for people with Advanced degrees. This will help USCIS to make EB2 current quickly by greatly decreasing the number of applications in EB2 and may be then use the spill over to EB3.
After reading all this if people are still not convinced about my arguement, then go ahead and send in your petitions to whom ever you want to. As I said above, it will do more harm to EB3 than any good as it will potentially make it impossible for any future EB3 to EB2 conversions. Good luck in your effort.
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Ramba
08-05 03:25 PM
Please stop with this. this is truly offensive. Many of us happen to be truly qualified beyond your clarly limited imagination. Not all of us are in IT, not all of us work in body shops and NOT all of us deal with fraud in our lives. If a few do, then go chase the, and stop tarring us all with the same brush. This is really akin to my saying (and I'm not saying it) that all EB3 folks are just IT diploma holders working for body shops and the whole category is just a fruad. How does the tarring feel now?
I said most of the case. Not all. Ofcouse, most of the bodyshoppers does this abuse. Like labor subsitution, creating a duplicate job just to file EB2 etc.. I am not blaming good US employers and employees. There are tons on non-IT genuine EB2 cases are there..
we could not prevent your postings. Lou Dobbs is fould mouth. Please answer my direct questions: Can you quote or tell when Lou Dobbs has highlighted our side of the story. Why now? A passing line. It is to support his premise of the article. So, leave Lou and other foul moths alone. Don't dance with them.
We need focus and we have no focus groups. These forums in IV are the focussed forums for us. So, I suggested that we need to concentrate our efforts and channel them. That's my point.
Your conclusion otherwise is childish and please grow up. I am not from the core group. Call it whatever you want. But stick to the focus and reach the goal.
Why are members on this forum so
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shivapb80
01-06 04:45 PM
i am sorry that israel has been a little callous about collateral damage...not cool!
i have seen most of the opinions favouring israel so i need not speak out here. but these are my feelings and i don't care how many red dots i get:
a. hamas does not believe in coexistence with israel but wants its destruction. and belongs to the powerful syria-iran-hezbollah axis. not cool! event Egypt and Saudi Arabia regard Hamas with skepticism.
b. they teach kids that killing jews is the right thing. and btw for that matter US DoS had protested revised 4th grade Saudi text that teaches all non-believers should be killed. teaching hatred to kids is not cool!
c. hamas was using mosques and schools as cover. hiding amongst civilian population, using women and children as suicide bombers and then making an outcry...not cool!
d. hamas was the first to break the truce and had been secretly preparing via tunnels etc throughout the period of calm. not cool!
e. in UK sometime back i remember a church had been converted to a mosque with the blessings of the locals. so cool!
tibetians have been killed and driven out of their land for example...but you dont see the Dalai Lama summoning Tibetians for killing of chinese soldiers stationed in Tibet. so cool!
...not sure it would be possible in an islamic country. why is it that if it is "terrorism", it usually means islamic terrorism? moderates like you need to spread the message of negotiation and distance themselves from any act of violence and such teachings.
I am still confused about the whole GC issue in buying and selling a home. Why is GC an issue in owing property or even taking overseas vacations? I have done both with absolutely no issues-caribbeans, europe, India. I have owned a home, and then decided to change jobs-move to a different city and sell my house. Heck I sold my house when I was on vacation in India. I did everything by phone and fax, and this is not some few years ago, this is 2 months ago. I totally agree with the fact that location and the condition of the house being the key factors. Maybe the fact that I have been here for a few years makes me resident alien for tax purposes helped me? I am not entirely sure. Folks mentioned that what if you lose your job, and have to leave the country etc. But like I mentioned a house can be sold from abroad. And if you have a GC and you lose ur job, how will you make mortgage payments etc. So some problems will stay the same. Any thoughts/comments on my dilema? Perhaps someone can elaborate on why GC is a factor? Cheers. it depends on a persons risk amount - I guess. where did you sell yr house --was it for a loss ? maybe you are lucky to have sold it in last 2 months or something is not correct here. you can sell the house from abroad - but what if it does nt find a buyer for 6 months ..how do you make the mortgage payments. for me GC is important - for one - I don't have to worry about status / DHS . getting a job on GC is easier than on a EAD (u see some threads here already). on GC you can get a job is another field / part - time..without worrying about DHS / DL ..from abroad, I guess you give everything to a RE agent ..I can come up with tons of issues with it (but I know you will come up with counter explanations - so I won't bother). BTW I hope you are not a realtor right ?? some of desperate realtors do anything to convince people nowadays ..the latest I heard was telling me to buy before Hillary comes to white house ..with a mumbo jumbo explanation
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purgan
04-06 11:03 PM
I don't think this bill is going to go anywhere, atleast in the Senate. Durbin and Grassley have long harbored anti-H1B feelings (Grassley is a restrictionist in general, while Durban is only pro-illegal), so no wonder IEEE and Prog Guild approached them to introduce this bill. The fininshing touch came when 60 engineer-lobbyists from IEEE came to Capitol Hill the week before to influence lawmakers...
Everytime you extend non immigrant status; you are extending the white I-94 card on your last entry.
However; if you leave after the last extension and you re-enter then the white I-94 card you receive at the border overrides all previous white I-94 cards; extension of stays.
This is where the problem occurs:
H-1b for company A visa is valid until July 2009 and the h-1b approval for a is also valid until july 2009. You come into USA on white I-94 card and they gave validity until July 2009.
Now; you file for change of employer and extend status until July 2010. The notice of action will have the same I-94 number as the date of your last entry.
Now; you go outside USA; on your way back in the port of entry officer mistakenly gives you a white I-94 card only valid until your visa expires (july 2009). Now; if you overstay July 2009 then you would have been considered to be unlawfully present from July 2009.
Bottom line: your last action generally overrules your stay.
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unitednations
07-09 11:57 AM
Very insightful.
So in essence they give the boiler plate RFE's to drag you into a trap and once you oblige with the irrelevant info asked for in the RFE's, then the game is over. so we need to be very careful with the information we provide and need to be consistent no matter what is asked for.
Yes, that is correct.
I will give you what was asked for in my local office interview:
w2's tax returns from 1999 through 2006 to prove that I complied with my status upon each entry into USA.
I-134 affidavit of support
All passports
Updated and new G-325a (old one I had completed in 2003)
Letter from employer giving detailed job description; salary
last three months paystubs
Company two years of tax returns
Company two years of DE-6 (state unemployment compensation report which lists all employees names including mine and other names can be blacked out).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
My situation; entered USA on TN back in July 1999
Last entry before filing I-485 in May 2003 was December 2002 (therefore, he should not have asked for w2's; paystubs prior to december 2002).
I-140 was filed in May 2003 but approved in April 2004. left sponsoring employer at end of 2004.
From Jan. 2005 listed one company and then from October 2005 to March 2007 showed that I was self employed.
Did not have any tax returns prepared or w2 for 2005 and 2006 and no three months of paystubs (self employed).
I was going to take another job offer with another company upon greencard approval; therefore; I gave that companies two year of tax returns but no DE-6 because I wasn't working with them yet.
When I gave updated g-325a; it shows me as being self employed. He immediately picked up on this. I told him that it was allowed according to May 2005 memo and that I was in a period of authorized stay by filing the 485 in May 2003 and I had an EAD card and it was unrestricted employment.
Also, informed him that I was not porting to self employment upon greencard approval but instead going to work for another company. I gave him company job offer letter; told him since I didn't start working with them yet; then paystubs were unnecessary and that de-6 was also unnecessary since I hadn't started to work with them.
He asked for tax returns and w2's from 2001. As I was giving it to him; I questioned him why he was asking for this; I told him that I only needed to prove status from date of last entry until filing 485. (december 2002 to may 2003). He didn't say anything to this.
He got to 2005 and 2006 and I told him I didn't have tax returns prepared yet and no w2 since I was self employed. He asked for extension from IRS; told him I didn't file extension because I didn't owe any taxes. He dropped the questioning right there.
He then said case is approved.
Now; he way overreached in what he was asking for; if I didn't know these immigration laws then maybe someone would have gotten paystubs made or did fake tax returns, etc., and if USCiS officer suspected something and asked for certified IRS transcripts or called the company then he would have nailed me. Essentially; he was almost trying to get me to fake these things even though they are not required.
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Sunx_2004
07-10 02:53 PM
Just follow the law. There are lots of protections in it for us.
UN, I am impressed by your knowledge of immigration laws. Can you point me in right direction as to where I find information regarding the current immigration laws and their interpretations.
xyzgc
12-27 01:05 AM
Well... Thats a bit like asking one's father to explain the actions of Josef Fritzl.
Alisa, your points are logical. If you are from Pakistan, I'm really impressed. Its a pleasure to read your posts.
Most of the educated Pakis/muslims here on this forum have done nothing except to shower Indians with horrible, unspeakable abuses (will chop your d**k, was ur mom f***ed by Paki? to name a few) instead of explaining the opposite point of view properly.
validIV
06-26 10:32 AM
I have only one sentence to say ..watch the movie "pacific heights" ..I was watching it now and that is a perfect movie for those who intend to rent their homes.
LOL. Why dont you throw in Armageddon, Knowing and Deep Impact. Those are also valid points since thats what can happen to the earth tommorow or the day after.
Investment carries risk. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. I have lost money on other investments before, but that is what makes u grow smarter. You fall and you get back up and you know better the next time round.
If you spend the rest of your life renting, the risk is 100%�you end up with nothing. I will take my chances investing my money in buying a home because its certainly better than losing 100%.
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Unanswered: [HOW TO] [NESTED LIST] DEVELOPING BECOME HEADACHE
Unanswered: [HOW TO] [NESTED LIST] DEVELOPING BECOME HEADACHE
Dear All
I have been trying Sencha 2 since two weeks without luck. Yes i don't know so much about programming but after viewed your provided documentation which inspired me too much, i was trying and trying but don't get anything to work. Here what tried to do:
A third level nested list with full of text only where wanting one level to swipe vertically and the next level to swipe horizontally. Nothing big requirements.
But whenever i try to change something,it become worked-less Most probably having lack of knowledge on what to do after the above guide. I mean what steps should really need to add nested list coding to my project.
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MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Results 2017
MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Results 2017: Are you looking for the latest news of the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) now all candidates can check on our page. Now the applicants can download the MP Board 12th Class Supply Results, 2017 from the main website, In the below article, links are mentioned at the bottom of the page. We know all students who had faced the MP Board Class 12th Supplementary Exam are waiting for the official announcement of the main board had declared the exam results now. For more latest Govt Jobs, or latest announcement of the MPBSE 10th supply exam results can check on our page, www,jobschat.in. Board had conducted the supply exams on 1st March 2017 to 31st march 2017. Candidates can download the main results from the main website.
MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Score Cards
We know the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBS)) is shortly called as MPBSE And the board location is in Madhya Pradesh State. MPBSEChhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education (CGBSE) had conducted the CGBSE Class 12th Regular exams and CGBSE Class 12th Supplementary Exam. In March and April months, the board gave the regular exam dates and conducted the regular exam also. In earlier days, only the board had announced the MPBSE 12th regular exam results in March month ending. Many of students had passed out and some of the students are failed in the regular exam and the board again conducts the CGBSE Class 10 Supply exam in June and July 2017. Now students can download the MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Results 2017 from the main website. For more latest updates, you can check on the official website, www.Jobschat.in
Details MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Results
Organization Name
Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBS)
Name of the Exam
MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Exam
Exam Date
1st March 2017 to 31st March 2017
Category
MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Exam Results
Status
Released
Official Website
mpbse.nic.in
From the above table, aspirants can get the results about the name of the organization, name of the post, results in availability, exam conducted to date, a category that belongs to an official website link. So, aspirants can get MP Board 12th Class SupplementaryResults, details from the tabular form easily.
Download MP Board 12th Class Supplementary Results Online
We know all candidates are looking for the MPBSE 12th Class Supply Results, 2017 can search for links on our page. We are giving the direct links to download the score cards from the main website. In the below description the links are mentioned at the bottom of the page.the officials of Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education (CGBSE) had announced the results on their main website and students can check daily the main website @ cgbse.net. If the candidate scores minimum pass marks in their class 10 then only they are eligible to go for higher education. Links are opened now candidates can download Madhya Pradesh +2 Supply Score Cards 2017 from the main website. We wish all the best of luck to your good career.
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Sobriety, safety checkpoint in Quail Valley
QUAIL VALLEY -- Deputies will be conducting a sobriety and
vehicle safety checkpoint in the unincorporated Quail Valley area
on Friday night.
Along with keeping intoxicated drivers off the road, goals of
the checkpoint will include making sure motorists are complying
with the laws pertaining to possessing a valid driver's license and
having a properly equipped vehicle, said Riverside County sheriff's
Sgt. Leonard Purvis.
Drivers who are randomly stopped at the checkpoint will be asked
to show their driver's license, current vehicle registration and
proof of insurance documents, he said. Those who lack any those
items will be written a ticket and their vehicle could be impounded
for up to 30 days, Purvis said.
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If you pay even a little attention to the world of climbing, you probably know this guy gets after it and excels in all realms of the sport – hard rock climbing, alpine terrain at elevation, and just being fast.
Absurdly fast.
Anyway, here’s a video showing Steck’s speed ascent of the north faces of the Eiger, Grandes Jorasses and Matterhorn. And this gives you something of a sense of how comfortable this guy is in big mountain terrain, in order to be able to move this fast.
There are many products that are in the global SCARPA collection that are not imported into North America. The Phantom Guide is very similar to the Phantom Ultra. The biggest difference between the two boots is the warmth… and the winter temps in North America tend to be much colder than in Europe, making the Phantom Guide a more appropriate boot for us North Americans.
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Please keep in mind that this course is only set up for special events!!! The baskets are removed when there is not a scheduled activity.
All player are required to sign a Liability Wavier 1 time. If you have signed it in the past it is not necessary to sign again. It will be on file. If you would like to read and print your waiver in advance click here: http://www.supersixseries.com/event2/haywoodwaiver.doc
Individual Hole Sponsorship: $50.00 per hole and includes 1 Custom stamped Mini, 1 Tee sign, Listing in the Program, listing on the GSSS website, 1 1ST RUN ROC3!!!!! Only 18 Available and all weigh between 166-174. Of the 18 there are 5 big birds stamped. First Come First Choice!!!
Tournament Gold Sponsors: $100.00 donation and includes Event stamped disc, 1 full color tee sign, Full Page ad in the Players Program, Advertising links and logos on the Georgia Super Six Series web site under the event page, logos, links, and a special thanks on the event Facebook page, and Logo and link on the GSSS Series Sponsors Page throughout 2013!
Thank You To Our Sponsors!!!!!
Tourney Sponsors:
InnovaGatewayDiscraftMarket Place Printing
Hole Sponsors:
Hole 1: Scott Wheeler #4961 "The Competitive Edge"
Hole 2: Innova
Hole 3:
Hole 4: Gateway Disc Sports
Hole 5: Market Place Printing
Hole 6: "The Johnson Family" Keith, Dawn, and Lorelei
Hole 7:
Hole 8: Ambassador Bob Bombelyn Disc Stalker
Hole 9: "Birdie Bags" Brock Woodall
Hole 10: Discraft
Hole 11:
Hole 12: Jordy Boyd PDGA# 4826
Hole 13: Adam Ray "Southern Tele Data"
Hole 14: Hugh Torbit
Hole 15:
Hole 16: Matthew Mashburn
Hole 17:
Hole 18: "Roc Pile"
Please Email or call me for the quickest response. I rarely check the message board.
None to my knowledge. We have not surveyed the property yet, but my family just a few blocks down the road said the valley received very little damage overall. So..... Lets just keep our fingers crossed!
Waiting list is empty. Event is still full. Email me if you want on the waiting list: [email protected]
Haywood Valley Disc Golf Course will be open to all for practice and free play on Friday April 12th from 10:00am - 6:00pm. Please join us if you would like. Then Saturday morning begins "The Eagle Eye Open"
Am i fired up and ready??? YEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!! t-minus 2 days and counting until i get to spend a whole weekend in the valley!!! Makes me Happy, Happy, HAPPY!!!!!!! Looking forward to seeing everyone there!!!
WC wrote:Am i fired up and ready??? YEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!! t-minus 2 days and counting until i get to spend a whole weekend in the valley!!! Makes me Happy, Happy, HAPPY!!!!!!! Looking forward to seeing everyone there!!!
a ray and I will 8e up there as early as you'll let us Friday sooo let me know if theres anything I can do to help
My dad has been working HARD on the Course for the last week. He has leveled all the tee-pads in the woods and worked on redirecting some water runoff the help dry out a few of the holes. There will not be much work to do. Thank you very much in advance for any work i can find for you! I will let you know what i can come up with. But definitely come ready to play some serious golf!!!
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Contact Continental Girbau
Contact us using the information below or complete the form, providing your comments/questions so we may better assist and serve you. All information will be kept confidential per our Privacy Statement. A Continental representative will contact you by the next business day upon submitting this form.
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How Does Depression Affect Relationships
It can equally affect both introverts and extroverts, says Cacioppo, and the only difference between them is the number of cl.
Deterioration of social relationships. Clinical depression affects mood, mind. However, treatment can alleviate the sympto.
They ask me if I can write about something I don’t know. I tell them that I have anxiety and depression. They ask me if those.
But one reality TV star has recently opened up about how drinking affects. struggle with depression and how the few drinks she’ll sometimes enjoy have a tendency to put her in a “dark place.” “[Dep.
Generic Name: o Escitalopram. Drug Class: Antidepressant, SSRI Uses of Cipralex: Cipralex is mainly used for treating depression. SSRIs work by preventing serotonin from being reabsorbed back into the nerve cells in the brain.
The authors believe the study suggests checking one’s body weight often makes a person more aware of how their lifestyle can.
Reacting to a Traumatic Event It’s not unusual for people who have experienced traumatic events to have flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories when something terrible happens — like the 9/11 terrorist attacks and those in cities around the world (Orlando and Paris, for example) or the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon, or active combat.
Reacting to a Traumatic Event It’s not unusual for people who have experienced traumatic events to have flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories when something terrible happens — like the 9/11 terrorist attacks and those in cities around the world (Orlando and Paris, for example) or the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon, or active combat.
It is related more to quality of relationships. understand the extent of how loneliness affects mental health. Most studies of loneliness and mental health have focused solely on how loneliness rel.
Depression. can feel different, though. We’ve touched on the subject of neuroplasticity before, but the basic idea is that the brain is capable of changing. The way we behave, the habits we form, a.
Psychologist Sherry Turkle asserts that mobile phones redefine modern relationships, making us “alone together.” In her generational analyses of teens, psychologist Jean Twenge notes an increase in te.
Psychologist Sherry Turkle asserts that mobile phones redefine modern relationships, making us “alone together.” In her generational analyses of teens, psychologist Jean Twenge notes an increase in te.
There is no dispute that the depression. affect patients that, in August 2018, Doblin invited Goldsmith to a MAPS board me.
Q: Does your diet affect your mental health? A: Studies have found an association between diet and certain mental health conditions, but there are still many questions about the links between the two.
DEPRESSION is an illness that can affect a person’s emotions or behaviour for weeks or months at a time. A depressed person has long-lasting low mood which affects his or her sleep, relationships, job.
Vitamin D is traditionally obtained through sunlight; however it can also be found in fatty fish such as salmon. Grandner.
If you’ve suffered from anxiety, depression or relationship problems, a psychological theory called “attachment theory” can h.
Q: Does your diet affect your mental health? A: Studies have found an association between diet and certain mental health conditions, but there are still many questions about the links between the two.
Depression. can feel different, though. We’ve touched on the subject of neuroplasticity before, but the basic idea is that the brain is capable of changing. The way we behave, the habits we form, a.
It is related more to quality of relationships. understand the extent of how loneliness affects mental health. Most studies of loneliness and mental health have focused solely on how loneliness rel.
Generic Name: o Escitalopram. Drug Class: Antidepressant, SSRI Uses of Cipralex: Cipralex is mainly used for treating depression. SSRIs work by preventing serotonin from being reabsorbed back into the nerve cells in the brain.
Other research has shown that phubbing can affect relationships. Two separate recent studies found that when spouses phub each other, they’re more likely to experience depression and lower marital sat.
Other research has shown that phubbing can affect relationships. Two separate recent studies found that when spouses phub each other, they’re more likely to experience depression and lower marital sat.
When we go through tough times, it’s easy to let the bad memories affect how we make decisions. as he has been open about.
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First Click: How many default iPhone apps do you use?
Are you an iPhone user? If so, there’s a good chance you’ve created a folder called “Apple” or “Junk” or “Stuff I can’t delete but really want to.” It’s the place you put all those default apps that come preinstalled on every iOS device since the original iPhone. It’s an annoyance, sure, but the fact that you’re not using them poses a threat to Apple’s ecosystem — a view shared by Buzzfeed’s Charlie Warzel.
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Monthly Archives: October 2015
Post navigation
Updated November 8, 2015 with cranial data from Alonso 2004 that I just became aware of.
Figure 1. GIF animation of the skull of the London specimen of Archaeopteryx. Perhaps other bones are also present. If so I did not identify them. The bones here are clear, less clear and not very clear. Compare these colors to the colors in the reconstruction and you’ll see a close correspondence to the bones of other specimens.
As far as I know,
prior workers did not identify or illustrate the posterior skull bones of the London specimen of Archaeopteryx (Fig. 1, but see below). Bones left only the faintest of impressions (if correct here), but seem to correspond to the same bones of better known specimens (Fig. 4). Higher resolution images should confirm or refute these tracings.
New data (November 8, 2015)came in the form of Alonso et al. 2004, which extricated and CT scanned the skull of the London Archaeopteryx. The new illustration in figure 2 reflects that data. Apologies that I was not aware of this at the time of this first posting.
Figure 2. A new paper (Alsonso et al. 2004) on the cranium of this specimen has come to my attention. The cranium was buried in the matrix and these new illustrations reflect the more complete data.
Every bone here
appears to fit and not stray too far from morphologies established by better preserved skulls. As noted earlier, the large number of premaxillary teeth in the London specimen, along with other traits, make it distinct from the Eichstaett specimen (Figs. 3, 4).
While we’re on the subject of basal birds,
here are a few to scale (Figs. 3, 4). It is notable that the more primitive ones are the smaller ones in this selection of taxa.
Figure 4. Enanthiornithine birds to scale. Click to enlarge. Evidently there are a few other taxa without a sternum in this clade.
Be sure to click on figure 4 to see it at full size.
The stem birds, Xiaotingia and Eosinopteryx form a short-face clade with their own autapomorphies. Rahonavis nests with Velociraptor, not with birds in the large reptile tree.
Figure 4. Archaeopteryx and a few stem birds to scale compared to a chicken (Gallus). Click to enlarge.
The convergence of Late Jurassic birds and Late Jurassic pterosaurs
Here it is clear that the reduction of the long tail in birds occurred with phylogenetic miniaturization and neotony. Earlier I demonstrated the same tail reduction in four clades of pterosaurs that ultimately developed ‘pterodactyloid’-grade traits. They each had their genesis in tiny pterosaurs experiencing phylogenetic miniaturization and neotony.
It may be
that only tiny birds survived the end of the Jurassic, just like tiny pterosaurs. Later they both developed into larger forms.
Rahonavis
(Forster et al. 1998) survived into the Latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian). Not sure whether it stayed small or evolved smaller than other velociraptors. At present it nests basal to that clade.
I still think reconstructions bring necessary data to the table.
Hope you do too.
Figure 1. Aphanizocnemus libanensis, previously considered a dolichosaur, here recovered between Jucaraseps and Adriosaurus. Prior snake studies did not include Jucaraseps, a key taxon. Click to enlarge.
From the abstract:“Aphanizocnemus libanensis is a small monotypic lizard from platy limestones deposited in patch reef lagoons stretching across the Tethyan platform from North Africa to Europe (Cenomanian; Upper Cretaceous). The sole specimen is articulated and nearly complete, though the skull was destroyed during collection. The original description placed the taxon within the Varanoidea as a member of the aquatic Dolichosauridae. Reexamination suggests that characters cited as supporting varanoid-dolichosaur affinities are misinterpreted, i.e., an intramandibular joint, a character diagnostic of pythonomorphs (the group including the Dolichosauridae, Serpentes and the Mosasauria), is actually a break in the dentary associated with the considerable damage to the skull. The single frontal omits this animal from the Varanoidea, which have paired frontals, and the shape of the frontal-nasal suture indicates that the nasals are broad and robust, unlike the splint like condition seen in dolichosaurs. In addition, though we recognize variability in the shape of the parietals of dolichosaurs, the exceptionally large parietal of Aphanizocnemus is far wider and more extended than seen in any dolichosaur, which have posteriorly narrowed parietals far longer than they are wide. The morphology of the scapulocoracoid (rounded, semicircular) and the neural spines (low, posteriorly directed) are common to many squamates, and like many other features of the specimen, i.e., the unfused, simple girdles; the reduced, flattened limbs; the shorter hind limb; and the poorly ossified tarsus, are likely tightly linked to aquatic adaptation. The hallmark feature of the specimen is the strongly regressed tibia, which is short and flat, with unclear articular surfaces. Limb reduction is a characteristic of the Pythonomorpha, but it is also common to numerous families within Squamata, including the Scincomorpha. We hypothesize here that the genus Aphanizocnemus is not a varanoid, nor in fact an anguimorph, but may represent a new form of aquatic scincomorph, a group not previously recognized as having evolved aquatic adaptations.”
Nice to get confirmation here.
Indeed Aphanizocnemus is not a varanoid nor a member of the Pythonomorpha nor, (contra the abstract) a member of the skink/amphisbaenid clade. To shift Aphanizocnemus to the skinks or varanids adds a minimum of 26 steps in the large reptile tree. Despite the fused frontals (an autapomorphy) Aphanizocnemus is a pre-snake nesting between tiny terrestrial Jucaraseps and larger aquatic Adriosaurus in the large reptile tree.
In correspondence with Dr. Caldwell
he does not like the connection of pre-snakes to pre-gekkos recovered in the large reptile tree. preferring varanoid lizards. Unfortunately, when you test them all together, nothing else nests more parsimoniously. Snake/gekko cladograms have been produced and collected here. I’m not saying that snakes arose from geckos, but they did have a common ancestor exclusive of any other squamate clades.
Campbell et al. need to run the phylogenetic analysis and not let minor autapomorphies throw throw them off course.
ReferencesCampbell M, Caldwell M Dal Sasso C 2015. Re-evaluation of Aphanizocnemus libanensis – to be or not to be a dolichosaur.
Updated October 30, 2015 with a new GIF animation that reveals the furcula of this specimen on the newly added counter-plate.
The basal birdArchaeopteryx lithographica (Meyer 1861, Late Jurassic, Solnhofen Formation ~150 mya, 30-50 cm in length) is known from 12 skeletal specimens, 11 of which are published. Two of those are shown here (Fig. 1). Bennett (2008) reports, over the years workers have split these specimens into six generic and ten species names, while others have lumped them all into a single species.
Figure 1. The six tested Solnhofen birds currently named Archaeopteryx, Jurapteryx and Wellnhoferia.
In typical and traditional bird cladograms
only one Archaeopteryx is ever employed. Perhaps the subtle differences between the Solnhofen specimens are considered inconsequential in phylogenetic analyses that attempt to reveal early bird interrelationships. At least that is the tradition.
In like fashion
Solnhofen pterosaurs are also known from hundreds of specimens, but in typical pterosaur analyses only a single specimen from the most common genera, Rhamphorhynchus,Pterodactylus and, Scaphognathus are ever employed. At least that is the tradition.
As readers know,
I have added dozens of Solnhofen pterosaur specimens to my analysis and found that:
those variations are the overlooked keys to understanding the interrelationships of pterosaurs in general
For instance,
from those results the widely accepted clade, “Pterodactyloidea,” was found to have not one, but four origins, all developing a complete set (rather than a partial set as in wukongopterids) of pterodactyloid-grade traits all by convergence.
So, with the presence of Galapagos-like variation in Solnhofen pterosaurs…I wondered if there was Galapagos-like variation in the Archaeopteryx specimens. And if so, what were those variations? Would they be substantial enough to appear in an analysis not focused on birds, like the large reptile tree? (It now includes 594 taxa.)
A little history on Archaeopteryx lumping and splitting
Houck et al (1990) found evidence in scatter plot analysis of immaturity in the six specimens then known and interpreted the specimens as a growth series of a single species.
Elzanowski (2002) rejected the notion that any of the specimens were immature and so recognized the London, Berlin and Munich specimens as three distinct species and the Solnhofen specimen (BSP 1999) as a new genus, Wellnhoferia grandis.
Senter and Robins (2003) repeated the Houck et al analysis with one added and one excluded specimen agreed with Houck et al. on a single species documenting an ontogenic series.
Mayr et al. (2007) described the Thermopolis specimen and lumped all specimens into two species.
Bennett (2008) likewise used statistical analysis in a study of Alligator to document variation a single species, concluding that “lengths of skeletal elements in a sample of a single species can have high correlation coefficients, and that such high correlation coefficients are not indicative of multi-species samples.”
I start with just two Archaeopteryx taxa,
the large London and small Eichstaett specimens (Fig.1). I added both to the large reptile tree and was mildly surprised by the unconventional results. The London specimen nested at the base of the few specimens currently tested in the Enantiornithes clade (Fig. 2). The Eichstaett specimen nested at the base of the few specimens tested in the Euornithes clade.
Figure 2. Here I add the Munich specimen of Archaeopteryx to the large reptile tree and recover it basal to the Scansoropterygidae, the clade of basal birds that shares a long finger 3.
These are novel nestings
Typically other specimens nest between Archaeopteryx and Enantiornithes. The classic transitional taxa include Rahonavis, Xiaotingia and Confuciusornis. In the large reptile Rahonavis nests with Velociraptor, Xiaotingia (together with Eosinopteryx) is the proximal outgroup taxon for Archaeopteryx, and Confuciusornis nests as a basal euornithine,
Remember, this is small list of pertinent taxa
with far fewer pre-birds and birds included than are usually found in bird origin cladograms. Likewise, there are also far fewer theropod and bird specific characters employed here.
The key differences
between this study and prior studies are simply the inclusion of one more Archaeopteryx specimen into the matrix, the use of reconstructions, and a set of 228 generic characters that work for reptiles at large, but are not bird or theropod specific.
London specimen enantiornithine traits from the large reptile tree:
snout constricted in dorsal view
nasal shape parallel in dorsal view
premaxilla ascending process not beyond naris
nasals subequal to frontals
maxilla with antorbital fossa
pineal foramen/cranial fontanelle absent
frontal parietal suture not straight
no temporal ledge
quadrate posterior not concave
squamosal + quadratojugal indented, no contact
jaw joint descends
premaxillary teeth: > 4
retroarticular angle: straight
mandible ventrally: straight then convex
Eichstaett specimen euornithine traits from the large reptile tree:
snout not constructed in dorsal view
nasal shape, premaxilla invasion and separation
premaxilla ascending process beyond naris
nasals shorter than frontals
maxilla without antorbital fossa
pineal foramen/cranial fontanelle present
frontal parietal suture straight and wider than n/f suture
squamosal temporal ledge
quadrate posterior concave
only squamosal indented
jaw joint in line with maxilla
premaxillary teeth: 4 or fewer
retroarticular angle: ascends
mandible ventrally: straight then concave
Plus
There are several other traits that are not universal among derived taxa in both clades. These help to lump and split the derived taxa. Request the .nex file here.
Figure 2. GIF animation London Archaeopteryx pectoral area with a focus on the scapula, coracoid and clavicles.
And then
there are several enantiornime-euornithine splitting traits not listed as traits in the large reptile tree.
Enantiornithine traits in the London specimen of Archaeopteryx:
coracoid with convex articulation with scapula
coracoid with convex lateral shape
Y-shaped clavicles
metatarsals fused proximally
Figure 2. Pectoral girdle of the Eichstaett specimen of Archaeopteryx. Two frames, each 5 seconds long.
Euornithine traits in the Eichstaett specimen of Archaeopteryx:
coracoid with concave articulation with scapula
coracoid with straight lateral shape
clavicle not preserved
metatarsals: fusion patterns not clear
As mentioned previously
this addition of one more Archaeopteryx to a phylogenetic analysis will not settle any issues. Paleontology rarely settles any issues. But hopefully others will take the time to trace the bones, create the reconstructions and add several Archaeopteryx specimens to future phylogenetic analyses. As has been demonstrated several times now, statistical analyses of Solnhofen taxa don’t reveal what phylogenetic analyses seem to.
Britt et al. (2105) found a Late Triassic pterosaur in Utah, described in the following SVP abstract.
From the abstract:“We previously reported on a wealth of tetrapods, including multiple individuals each of a coelophysoid, a drepanosauromorph, two sphenosuchian taxa, and two sphenodontian taxa. All are preserved along the shoreline of a Late Triassic oasis in the Nugget Sandstone at the Saints & Sinner Quarry (SSQ). Recently, we discovered a non-pterodactyloid pterosaur at the quarry, represented by a partial uncrushed, associated/articulated skull imaged via micro CT. The premaxillaries are spoon-shaped rostrally; the maxilla is a simple bar with a needle-like nasal process, the suborbital jugal/quadratojugal blade is high; the nasal is a short, narrow rectangle; and the fused frontals are wide with a moderately high, tripartite sagittal crest. The lower jaws are complete, with a long, slender dentary terminating rostrally in a downward-bend with a ventral expansion, a short postdentary complex and a short retroarticular process. The quadrate-articular joint is well above the tooth row. At least three, widely spaced, conical teeth are in the premaxilla; maxillary teeth are mesiodistally long (3 widely-spaced mesially and 7 close together distally); and on the dentary there are two apicobasally high, widely-spaced mesial teeth and ~20 small, multicusped, low-crowned distal teeth. The frontals and lower jaws are extensively pneumatized. With a 170 mm-long lower jaw, this is two times larger than other Triassic pterosaurs and only the second indisputable Triassic pterosaur from the Western Hemisphere (the other is from Greenland). This is the only record of desert-dwelling nonpterodactyloids and it predates by >60 Ma all known desert pterosaurs. Whereas most pterosaurs are known from fine-grained marine or lacustrine environments, and other Triassic forms are smaller, the SSQ specimen shows that early pterosaurs were widely distributed, attained a large size, and lived in wide range of habitats, including inland deserts far (>800 km) from the sea. Finally, the SSQ pterosaur corroborates the Late Triassic age of the fauna based on drepanosaurs because pterosaurs with multicusped teeth are presently known only from the Upper Triassic.”
The description
sounds like an early dimorphodontid, but withe the deep jugal of Raeticodactylus. The size of the skull is similar to both. Unfortunately, too few clues to go on. I’ll wait for the paper… eagerly!
Tamaulipasaurus morenoi (Clark and Hernandez 1994, Fig. 1) Early Jurassic ~165mya, was a very early burrowing lizard originally considered “similar to living amphisbaenian and dibamid squamates but represents an entirely new lineage related to squamates but outside the group.” That’s because it has a robust quadratojugal, a bone otherwise unknown in squamates (see figure 2).
Evidently that was confusing back then.Despite it’s strong resemblance to Bipes (Figs. 2, 3), Clark and Hernandez did not know what Tamaulipasaurus was back in 1994, and they still don’t know what it is, based on Clark’s current website (which also has other issues covered here and here). They put too much importance on the presence of the quadratojugal.
It’s not that important.
As was demonstrated earlier, the quadratojugal has a way of disappearing and reappearing in various clades. So it’s not a big deal if it’s there or if it is not in a large phylogenetic analysis that includes hundreds of traits. While we’re on the subject, temporal fenestra also appear and disappear on occasion, so don’t apply hard and fast ‘rules’ to their appearance. Just run the analysis. Let parsimony prevail.
Figure 1. Tamaulipasaurus, a burrowing reptile with an autapomorphic quadratojugal. The big question is not the novel quadratojugal, but that tiny little fenestra in the rostrum. Is it the orbit, as in Spathorhynchus and as Clark and Herenandez identify it? Or is it simply a rostral feenstra with the orbit confluent with the temporal fenestra, as in Bipes?
Phylogenetic analysis
Clark and Hernandez ran an analysis based on Gauthier (1988) as modified by Laurin (1990). They found 108 MPTs (that’s low resolution). They nested Tamaulipasaurus either between kuehneosaurs and lepidosaurs or between rhynchocephalia and squamata. Pretty broad. No indicated sister taxa.
With more taxa
in the large reptile tree that novel quaratojugal does not affect the nesting of Tamaulipasaurus as a sister to Spathorhynchus. Both are derived from a sister to Crythiosaurus, given the Clark and Hernandez data (i.e. with the labeled orbit considered the actual orbit). I find that problematic given the many other morphological differences (Fig. 2).
Earliest known burrowing lizard
The presence of such a derived lizard as early as the Early Jurassic indicates that predecessors to all these taxa must have first appeared even earlier, likely in the Permian with radiation and diversification throughout the early Mesozoic.
Figure 2. Spathorhynchus, Tamaulipasaurus and Bipes to scale. Bones colorized in Tampaulpasaurus as Clark and Hernandez identify them. Note the different ways that the jugal is oriented in Spathorhynchus.
Convergence?As noted by Clark and Hernandez, Tamaulipasaurus shared several traits and bears a strong general resemblance to the living burrowing lizard with forelimbs, Bipes (Figs. 2,3)
The big question is
not the novel quadratojugal. I’m more interested in that tiny little fenestra in the rostrum. Is it the orbit, as in Spathorhynchus (Fig. 2) and as Clark and Herenandez identify it? Or is it simply a rostral feenstra with the orbit confluent with the temporal fenestra, as in Bipes? In Bipes it appears that the prefrontal and jugal are fused to the maxilla, colorized here (Fig. 3). The only bone missing is the quadratojugal. Even the mandibles look very similar.
Figure 3. Tamaulipasaurus compared to Bipes. There is that tiny foramen in the rostrum in Bipes, exactly where the orbit was identified in Tamaulipasaurus. So, here the eyeballs are added to show where the orbits is and perhaps was in Bipes and Tamaulipasaurus. This is DGS used on a drawing of a 3D specimen, useful here just to readily compare like colored bones.
So which is it?
In phylogenetic analysis, surprisingly it makes little difference whether the foramen is an orbit or not. All the other traits trump the identification either way. No other of the 592 tested taxa are closer in morphological traits. My money is on the confluent orbit hypothesis. After seeing the photo (Fig. 1) from the Clark website,the opening looks more like a foramen than an orbit, and it’s right where a foramen should be in a sister. Until higher rez photos become available, I’m working from the drawings of Clark and Hernandez (1994) for ‘circumorbital sutures’, which may include other errors.
Confuciusornis sanctus
(Fig. 1) is an early Cretaceous ornithurine bird known from hundreds of specimens (Chiappe et al. 1999) often preserved with full plumage. The skull is of the typical archosauromorph diapsid plan. The premaxilla is very long and toothless, like that of modern birds. The premaxilla extends to the frontal, separates the nasals and greatly reduces the maxilla. This was a bird with large manual claws, a substantial breastbone and a pygostyle instead of a long bony tail.
The problem is
the skull of Confuciusornis has not been accurately traced (examples in black on Fig. 1). These prior examples do not attempt to capture the detail clearly available from the photographic data. Here DGS (digital graphic segregation) more accurately traces the elements then assembles them back to their in vivo positions.
The resulting skull
greatly resembles that of Struthio and other basal birds and demonstrates the loss of teeth early in the evolution of ornithomorph birds.
Phylogeny
Chiappe et al. 1999 considered Confuciusornis the sister group of a clade composed of the Enantiornithomorpha and the Ornithomorpha. In the large reptile tree (now 592 taxa) it nests one node up, at the base of the Ornithomorpha.
Figure 3. Fossil of Confuciousornis. Note the large manual claws.
This is but one more example
of a method that should be used universally for interpreting and reconstructing crushed fossils, DGS. This is also one more example that contradicts the tradition that one has to see the fossil firsthand in order to accurately assess its character traits. Several other examples have been posted previously. Keyword: DGS.
Figure 3. Confuciusornis pedal digit 5 (3 phalanges) and metatarsal 5. Short black lines are at the joints. When you look closely, you sometimes find things that are otherwise overlooked.
ReferencesChiappe LM, Ji S-A, Ji Q, and Norell M 1999. Anatomy and systematics of the Confuciusornithidae (Theropoda: Aves) from the Late Mesozoic of Northeastern China. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 242: 1-89.
Figure 1. Scutellosaurus is a small armored ornithischian transitional between Lesothosaurus and Stegosaurus.
From the abstract“While rare in Upper Triassic strata, the Ornithischia had achieved a global distribution by the Early Jurassic. The oldest ornithischian fossils from North America have been found in the Silty Facies of the Kayenta Formation in northeastern Arizona. These include the thyreophoran Scutellosaurus lawleri, an unnamed heterodontosaurid, and osteoderms and rib fragments tentatively attributed to the thyreophoran genus Scelidosaurus. I report here new Scutellosaurus material preserving anatomy that is poorly known or not previously reported for the taxon, including the nasal, maxilla, lacrimal, postorbital, quadratojugal, squamosal, opisthotic, scapula, ilium, and metatarsus. Both specimens were mechanically prepared until risk of damaging the fossil bone was deemed too high, at which point the specimens were scanned at The University of Texas High Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility. This approach results in three-dimensional volumetric models of individual bones.”
It is good to see
that more data is coming in for Scutellosaurus. It will be interesting to see if the new material (which I have not seen) fits the best guess offered above (Fig. 1).
In the large reptile tree, Scutellosaurus nests closer to Lesothosaurus not closer to the much larger and more primitive armored Scelidosaurus, which was basal to ankylosaurs and nodosaurs. Earlier the clade Thyreophora was shown to not be monophyletic. Scutellosaurus developed armor independently and was basal to stegosaurs. The long torso and short legs suggest a quadrupedal posture, rather than the traditional bipedal one.
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Welcome to ReefCentral.
Because of the sheer size of our forum, we've been forced to limit selling and trading to members who've met a couple of criteria. (If you're seeing this message, you haven't met them yet.) Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with our selling/trading rules to help make your stay a long and rewarding one.
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what do you need for rapid coral grouth because i am just not seeing anything pop. i have 2 175 watt M.H. on my 65 with a low fish count and an awsome DAS skimmer . and i do A B calcium everyday, what am i doin rong ?
Not sure you are doing anything wrong. The key to good coral growth for me is consistency and water changes. Keeping your levels very stable and ensuring you stay on pace with good, frequent water changes.
__________________
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain
Never liked the 175W. I had reeflux 14k, coralvue 10k, and xm 20k on an icecap ballast over 12G and never got any color out of my corals except for the reeflux and growth sucked...I then upgraded my tank with a calcium reactor and t5's and am very happy now that i am getting growth and color.
__________________
Getting out of the hobby. Look for my gear on the dry goods forums.
Originally posted by rkl303 Never liked the 175W. I had reeflux 14k, coralvue 10k, and xm 20k on an icecap ballast over 12G and never got any color out of my corals except for the reeflux and growth sucked...I then upgraded my tank with a calcium reactor and t5's and am very happy now that i am getting growth and color.
I would attribute the growth to the ca reactor added not t-5's...not trying to make this a t-5 vs. mh thread, but I know plenty of people with 150w over small tanks and they have awesome growth.
What are you holding your CA and alk levels at? I used to run my alk around 9 dkh and CA around 420. Accidentally bumped my CA up to 440-450 with the same alk levels and I can see growth daily now. Not saying these are the "ideal" levels, but my tank is certainly happy with them. JMO
tom
Ah...a goat dammit, I used a pig no wonder..but in all seriousness I to am experiencing very slow growth. My tank is a year old now, and I look @ some of the growth threads on here, and i'm getting less growth over the course of the year the some people do in a few months.
I'm struggling to figure out what the cause of it may be.. My parameters are all fine, yet something is amiss. I'm tempted to switch from 400w 20k XM's to 10ks but I have seen a number of tanks with excellent growth using the same lighting combo as me so I don't think this is the issue. I'm kinda leaning towards my leathers, yet I would think my weekly 10% water change habit, in combination with my water volume, would negative the majority of effect they would have.
I run carbon 24/7, ROWA, I feed light (1 cube per day cyclops a few times a week)
My Parameters are as follows
Salinity 1.026
Temp 79.5-81.0
Calcium recently crept up to 490 or so..which means to me my corals aren't using the calcium available to them
Ph 8.15-8.25
Alk - Unknown but I believe if I had ALK issus my Ph would be off.
Magnesium 1420-1440
Silicate 0
Phosphates 0 (when last tested)
Nitrite and Nitrate haven't tested in ages but I have no reason to believe there is any present in my system.
Skimmer wise I'm running a BM250, and just recently added a second skimmer back on the system w/ozone.
Other thoughts may include my light period as I only run my halides for 5.5 hours a day, while my t5s run for around 10 hours..yet I don't believe this to be the issue.
i haven't checked my levels in a little wile i guses that would help im also going to be changing my M.H. from a reeflux 14k to a XM 10 k for better growth and am saving for a calcium reactore as we speak its just that there klike 500$ wich is nuts but i need to do it
Originally posted by scuba connor i haven't checked my levels in a little wile i guses that would help im also going to be changing my M.H. from a reeflux 14k to a XM 10 k for better growth and am saving for a calcium reactore as we speak its just that there klike 500$ wich is nuts but i need to do it
You do not NEED a calcium reactor, I run my 75G fully stocked SPS tank with 2 part; and I like it better than when I had my calcium reactor. Just figure out exactly how much 2-part your corals use everyday and dose that. Under 100G, I really think a calcium reactor is unneccasary.
High flow, decent lighting (halide, solatube, T5's), low PO4 and NO3, low nutrient levels, run carbon (no more than a week as it will get quickly saturated and then spew out everything that it soaked up, good calc, alk and magnesium levels.
The odd water change is good to replace trace elements, how are you dosing?
High flow -- you can never have too much for SPS!
If all the params are good, lighting is good, yet your SPS are browning out, then add more flow.
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Joshua Johnston & the company of 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' and 'Hamlet'
(Inset: Patti LuPone & Joshua Johnston)
Patti LuPone's son Joshua Johnston celebrates his big opening night!
Like mother, like son! Joshua Johnston, son of two-time Tony winner Patti LuPone, is currently performing at the Pearl Theatre in The Acting Company's repertory productions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hamlet. LuPone, who is a founding member of the celebrated theater company, must surely be the proudest mama in all the land to see her son continuing the family tradition. The productions, directed by Tony winner John Rando (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) and Acting Company artistic director Ian Belknap (Hamlet), recently celebrated their official openings, which LuPone wouldn't have missed for the world. Check out photographer Bruce Glikas' snapshot of Johnston and the company on opening night. Congratulations, Joshua!
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Archive By Section - Nation
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Two Utah Boy Scout leaders who purposely knocked over an ancient desert rock formation in a state park say they've received death threats since a video of the toppling went viral.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Investigators looking into the death of a woman found in a stairwell at San Francisco General Hospital are looking into reports that an orderly told hospital authorities that he saw an unconscious woman there a week before her body was found.
CHICAGO (AP) - Human breast milk is sold for babies on several online sites for a few dollars an ounce, but a new study says buyer beware: Testing showed it can contain potentially dangerous bacteria including salmonella.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Authorities are mulling whether to press charges against a Boy Scouts leader who purposely knocked over an ancient Utah desert rock formation and against the two men who cheered him on after they posted video of the incident online.
NEW YORK (AP) - The FBI announced Friday it has assigned its Joint Terrorism Task Force to lead a probe of laser attacks on the cockpits of two planes approaching LaGuardia Airport this week, inviting help from the public as well to fight a growing threat against the nation's air transportation.
DENVER (AP) - Installation artist Christo has said opposition to his planned "Over the River" project on the Arkansas River in Colorado is part of the art, and he welcomes debate over what is appropriate for his displays.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The stepmother of a 14-year-old accused of bullying a Florida girl prior to her suicide was arrested and charged with child abuse after a video depicting the woman beating a boy was posted on Facebook, a sheriff said Friday.
ELLEN GIVES $10K TO NH WAITRESS FOR SOLDIERS' TAB: CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A New Hampshire waitress who picked up the lunch tab of two National Guard soldiers affected by the federal government's shutdown has been repaid - more than 300 times over - by television star Ellen DeGeneres.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - New Hampshire's highest court went to a high school to hear arguments in a case it thought would resonate with the more than 500 students in the audience: Whether reading a text message while driving can amount to recklessness worthy of a prison sentence.
WASHINGTON (AP) - In withering day-after criticism, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that the 16-day partial government shutdown was a Republican-provoked spectacle that "encouraged our enemies" around the world.
QUANTICO, Va. (AP) - A U.S. Marine Corps panel is recommending that an officer be forcibly discharged for failing to supervise a group of snipers who posed for a video while urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Articles by Section - Nation
MAN TAPED WOMEN IN FITTING ROOMS, SHARED ON PORN SITES: WAYNE, Pa. (AP) - A man sneaking around on his hands and knees videotaped dozens of naked girls and women in dressing rooms at one of the country's largest malls and then posted the clips on pornography websites, police said Monday.
NEW YORK (AP) - Samsung, locked in a tight race with Apple to be the world's biggest smartphone maker, has unveiled an important new phone that ditches its signature plastic design for more stylish metal and glass.
BEIJING (AP) - An index that measures China's manufacturing activity went up slightly in February but still showed contraction amid China's economy slowdown, according to official data released Sunday.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greece won't seek a third bailout deal, the prime minister said Saturday, having succeeded in separating the loan agreement from the "disastrous" austerity conditions imposed with the willing cooperation of previous governments.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Ten-year-old Alexis Carey has a rare but intractable form of epilepsy, Dravet Syndrome. The genetic disease causes severe and multiple seizures, which often leave parents guessing if the terror of watching their child seize up will pass or turn fatal.
DALLAS (AP) - A 26-year-old nurse said in a newspaper interview that a hospital where she had worked in Dallas and its parent company failed her when she contracted Ebola while caring for the first person in the U.S. diagnosed with the deadly disease.
NEW YORK (AP) - Will Smith's con-man caper "Focus" dethroned "Fifty Shades of Grey" at the box office, but the film's modest $19.1 million opening still left questions about the drawing power of the once unstoppable star.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday tried to calm tensions with Israel before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congressional address, yet insisted the Obama administration's diplomatic record with Iran entitles the U.S. to "the benefit of the doubt" as negotiators work toward a long-term nuclear deal.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - In 1975, Leonard Nimoy published an autobiography with the defiant title, "I Am Not Spock" - an attempt to show the world he had many more facets than the pointy-eared character that had come to define him.
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Sonic Generations Critical Error The Detected Configuration
Contents
I use rezolution 640 X 480 @ 60HZ. #9 pepsi dude View Profile View Posts 29 Oct, 2014 @ 3:03pm Originally posted by GBA64:Try switching your settings to the lowest settings All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. Now when you run the config tool you'll see your discrete card, save the config and then when you run sonic it'll work great since both the config tool and the Here's the other steps that you need to take if deleting the .cgf file doesn't work alone:1) Click "Play" on Sonic Generations in the Library and the click "Configure"2) Click "Graphics have a peek here
Has to be a way around that.Edit: Seems to be only resolutions matching the TV's own native ratio, not necessarily resolution. Then My Screen Goes Black and a Gray box pops up and says "Input Not Supported" #5 Leonard View Profile View Posts 28 Oct, 2014 @ 3:03pm Did you set up Any ideas? Anyone else having this problem?
Sonic Generations The Detected Configuration Does Not Match Your Current Hardware
All rights reserved. Uploaded on Dec 7, 2011this are 4 prblems i met when i wanted to download sonic generations but i fix tham and i wanted to share the aswers whith the rest Set both the Shadow Quality and Reflection Quality on "High"4) Make the Configuration window full screen so you can click the "Save and Exit" button at the bottom5) Run Sonic GenerationsDid
Please re-run the configuration tool." I've configured the game, and everything is correct. Sonic Generations Configuration Error i have deleted the local game content and reinstalled... If I knew this would happen I wouldn't spend 20 quid to pre-purchase it just to find out it's not working... Sign in to make your opinion count.
Sonic Generations Critical Error The Steam Client Is Not Running
Thank You For The Help. https://steamcommunity.com/app/71340/discussions/0/619569608711863535/ I haven't had the chance to hook it up to the TV again yet, maybe it will work then. #7 Ezodagrom View Profile View Posts 5 Dec, 2012 @ 9:55pm About Sonic Generations The Detected Configuration Does Not Match Your Current Hardware All rights reserved. Sonic Generations Configuration Tool Won't Save Remove friends to have 99 or less, and the game won't crash anymore.
Rating is available when the video has been rented. navigate here Mouse acceleration Mouse sensitivity Mouse input in menus Only for external configuration tool. After that, it worked fine. All rights reserved. Sonic Generations Configuration Tool Error
There's a way to go beyond the shadow resolution options offered by the game, and it involves some manual modifications to the executable. I can't wait to play the game, I love Sonic! Transcript The interactive transcript could not be loaded. http://91download.com/sonic-generations/sonic-generations-critical-error-hatasi.php I have waited for it to be released, I waited for it to decompress and when I want to finally play it, after running configuration...
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Some people have said that the now-force-activated Nvidia card took control anyway at this point, solving the problem. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries.Some geospatial data on this website is provided by geonames.org. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries.Some geospatial data on this website is provided by geonames.org. How To Save Sonic Generations Configuration Privacy Policy | Legal | Steam Subscriber Agreement | Refunds STORE Featured Explore Curators Wishlist News Stats COMMUNITY Home Discussions Workshop Greenlight Market Broadcasts ABOUT SUPPORT Install Steam login | language
There was two pieces of the same graphics card on the list to choose from, only separated by the number at the end. Cyberman65 371,031 views 21:11 Sonic Generations (PC) Opposite Sonics Mod - Duration: 10:46. just thinking out loud. All rights reserved.
Please re-run the configuration tool" error message, I have a fix for you.** Follow these steps and your game will run good as new as it did before it started messing It should work. Loading... Replace this with the name of your NVIDIA adapter as it appeared in Device Manager.
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Here we go. "One Tree Hill" fans have been waiting for the return of Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton since their characters mysteriously disappeared after the sixth season. No explanation has been offered for their absence, except for the title of the Season 7 premiere, "4:30 A.M. (Apparently They Were Travelling Abroad)."Now, Murray says he'd be open to returning to the show. "I honestly haven't heard a word. I haven't heard anything," he tells E!. "I know how much the fans want it, and for the fans, I think I would definitely do that. Absolutely."Of course, we've heard this before from his former co-star, Burton, when she told Zap2it last August that she hadn't yet been asked to return but that she loved "One Tree Hill." Ultimately, though, she changed her tune. That said, everyone thought Season 8 would be the final season, and Burton has yet to be asked about a possible return...
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to get the wallpaper, go to wincustomize.com and sign up for a free account, then search for "warpzone" in the wallpaper section.
to get the bottom bar you need a skinning programme called Winblinds . Once you get it (there is a free nagware version or you can pay to register) go back to wincustomize and search for the winblind skin called "Cyrix".
I also reccommend these freeware programs for windows skinning: Logonstudio to skin your log-on screen, and bootskin to change the screen that shows during windows bootup.
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70.192 BF1867Treble-bar Aplocera plagiata
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Wingspan 37-43 mm.
In the south, there are two generations of this moth, flying in May and June, then again in August and September. In the north of England and Scotland, there is usually just one brood, flying in July and August.
On of our larger Geometrids, it has a wingspan of around 40mm. It is rather difficult to tell apart from the less common Lesser Treble-bar (A. efformata), which however has a more angled inner cross-line on the forewing.
With males, it is usually possible to separate the two species by inspecting the tip of the abdomen from below. Treble-bar has elongated, pointed claspers giving rise to a narrow abdomen tip. Lesser Treble-bar has a blunter tip to the abdomen with rather shorter, curved claspers (See photo).
It is fairly common over most of Britain, the larvae feeding on St. John's wort (Hypericum).
More images
References
Skinner, BThe Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles, Second Edition (1998)
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News, People, Ideas
Evidence Found for Planet-Cooling Asteroid (Nature)
September 03, 2013
Nature points to a new study co-authored by Dartmouth’s Mukul Sharma, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, that links the impact of a comet or meteor striking the Earth to the dramatic global climate change that occurred 12,900 years ago.
“I’d say there’s evidence of an impact happening, for sure,” Sharma tellsNature. The researchers recovered minerals in Pennsylvania similar to those found in Quebec, where Sharma and his colleagues believe the impact took place, Nature reports.
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Dartmouth Freshman Charged With Rape
Hanover — A Dartmouth College freshman has been accused of raping a female student inside her dorm room earlier this month, Hanover police said.
Parker C. Gilbert, 20, has been charged with four counts of aggravated felony sex assault, police said. He appeared in Lebanon Circuit Court yesterday, police said, where a judge imposed $75,000 bail, including $40,000 cash.
Gilbert, a member of the college rugby team from London, allegedly entered the victim’s unlocked dorm room in the early morning hours of May 2. The female student filed a complaint with authorities; police did not say when she came forward.
Hanover police said the investigation is ongoing.
They arrested Gilbert in his dorm room without incident, and then executed a search warrant . Police say they plan to execute additional search warrants in connection with the case.
Police did not specify in which dormitory the alleged attack occurred. Other than gender, police did not provide any information about the victim, including whether she knew Gilbert.
Authorities urged students to lock their dorm rooms while they are sleeping and when the room is unoccupied.
Acting Hanover Police Chief Frank Moran could not be reached for comment late yesterday.
“We take all allegations of sexual assault very seriously,” Anderson said. “We are deeply committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of students and have implemented numerous new and strengthened initiatives over the past few years to reduce incidents of sexual assault, hold accountable those found responsible, and offer as much support and care as we can to survivors.”
Dartmouth College Safety and Security notified the campus community of Gilbert’s arrest in an e-mail yesterday evening, and said that Gilbert was being held in the Grafton County jail in North Haverhill.
Campus security said it learned of the arrest from Hanover police yesterday afternoon.
Gilbert, a member of the Class of 2016, is listed as a member of the college’s club rugby team and he is pictured on the team’s Facebook page.
He is scheduled to return to Lebanon Circuit Court for a probable cause hearing on Monday.
The charges filed against him each carry a 20-year maximum sentence.
Police asked anyone with further information to call Moran at (603) 643-2222.
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Back to School 2011
It’s hard to believe that summer is almost over and that it is time to start start thinking of backpacks, lunch boxes and gym shoes. But back to school shopping is upon us. Make back to school shopping fun and easy with fabulous, eco-friendly items from Natural Kidz.
School bags. We send your kidz back to school in style with our fantastic line of school bags from brands including Beatrix NY, Mimi the Sardine, Envirosax, and Fleurville. With a wide variety of styles that range from backpacks specifically designed to be small enough for your preschooler to messenger bags cool enough for your teenager, we are sure to have the perfect bag to suit the style of all of your kidz.
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Effective range of radiocarbon dating
Isotope methods for dating old groundwater - IAEA
The time periods listed here are intended to be purely chronological in nature rather than units that reflect cultural changes.
Radiometric Dating
However, we use the traditional names for various periods, names that have come to have cultural meanings for many. They are in such widespread use that it would be futile to try to change them now, but people familiar with the cultural implications should realize that in eastern Kansas there is a long temporal overlap between the Paleo Indian and Archaic ways of life (both are described below).
How Carbon-14 Dating Works -
Although a few pre-Clovis sites have been proposed in this region, there is as yet no strong evidence in Kansas for human occupation before Clovis at 11,000 B. The earliest inhabitants appear to have lived in small mobile bands and to have hunted large herd animals.
Radiocarbon Date calculation -
This way of life lasted until around 6,850 BC in the western part of the state, but in the east a different (Archaic) pattern emerges after 9,500 BC.Bayesian interpretation of radiocarbon results.
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Bihari Lal Chaube or Bihārī (Hindi: बिहारी, Persian: بِہاری), (1595 – 1663 [http://www.goloka.com/docs/bihari/about_bihari.html Kangra Paintings of the Bihari Sat Sai] National Museum, New Delhi, 1966.] , was a Hindi poet, who is famous for writing the "Satasaī" (Seven Hundred Verses) in Brajbhasha, a collection of approximately seven hundred distichs, which is perhaps the most celebrated Hindi work of poetic art, as distinguished from narrative and simpler styles. Today it is considered the most well known book of the Ritikavya Kaal or 'Riti Kaal' [RitiKavya Kaal] of Hindi literature [ [http://www.google.com/notebook/public/03553967701179803178/BDQs4SwoQx5vXjbQh Google notebook] Hindi literature.] .
The language is the form of Hindi called "Brajbhasha", spoken in the country about Mathura, where the poet lived. The couplets are inspired by the Krishna side of Vishnu-worship, and the majority of them take the shape of amorous utterances of Radha, the chief of the Gopis or cowherd maidens of Braj, and her divine lover, the son of Vasudeva. Each couplet is independent and complete in itself, and is a triumph of skill in compression of language, felicity of description. and rhetorical artifice. The distichs, in their collected form, are arranged, not in any sequence of narrative or dialogue, but according to the technical classification of the sentiments which they convey as set forth in the treatises on Indian rhetoric.
Biography
Early life and education
[frame|Radha and Krishna"] Bihari was born in Govindpur near Gwalior in 1595, and spent his boyhood in Orchha in the Bundelkhand region, where his father, Keshav Rai lived. After marriage he settled with in-law's in Mathura [http://hi.literature.wikia.com/wiki/%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%80/_%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%AF Bihari Biography] hi.literature.wikia.com.] .
His father, Kesav Rai, was a twiceborn ("Dwija") by caste, which is generally means an offspring of a Brahman father by a Kshatriya mother.
Early in his life, he studied ancient Sanskrit texts. In Orchha state, he met the famous poet Keshavdas from whom he took lessons in poetry. Later, when he had shifted to Mathura, he got an opportunity to present his in court of visiting Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, who immediately got impressed by his work and invited him to stay in Agra.
Once at Agra, he learnt Persian language and came into contact with Rahim, another famous poet. It was also at Agra that Raja Jai Singh I (ruled. 1611-1667), of Amber, near Jaipur, happened to hear him, and invited him over to Jaipur, and it was here that he composed his greatest work, Satasai.
Career
Bihārī wrote in Brajbhasha. His poetry is in "shringar" ras, depicting the divine love of Krishna and Radha.
A couplet in the "Sat-sai" states that it was completed in A.D. 1662. It is certain that his patron, whom he calls Jai Shah, Raja Jai Singh I (1611-1667), of Amber, near Jaipur, during the reigns of the emperors Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. A couplet (No. 705) appears to refer to an event which occurred in 1665, and in which Raja Jai Singh was concerned. For this prince the couplets were composed, and for each Doha or couplet, the poet is said to have received a gold piece worth sixteen rupees.
The collection very soon became celebrated. As the couplets are independent one of another, and were put together fortuitously as composed, many different recensions exist; but the standard is that settled by an assembly of poets under the direction of Prince A'zam Shah, the third son of the emperor Aurangzeb (1653—1707), and hence called the A'zam-shahi; it comprises 726 couplets.
ignificance of Bihari's work
One of the famous Dohas (couplet) written by Bihārī is "Satsaiya ke dohre jyun naavik ke teer" "Dekhan men chote lage ghaav kare ghambir." "The couplets of (Bihari's) Satsai are like the arrows of sailor, they look small but causes serious injury."
Though Bihari 'Satasai' is only known work of Bihari, an estimation in which the work is held may be measured by the number of commentators who have devoted themselves to its elucidation, of whom Dr G. A. Grierson mentions seventeen. The collection has also twice been translated into Sanskrit.
The best-known commentary is that of Lallu ji-Lal, entitled the "Lala-chandrika". The author was employed by Dr Gilchrist in the College of Fort William, where he finished his commentary in 1818. A critical edition of it has been published by Dr G. A. Grierson (Calcutta, Government of India Press, 1896).
* [http://hi.literature.wikia.com/wiki/%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%80 Poetry of Bihari in Hindi] * [http://www.rmv.nl/publicaties/5Miniaturen/e/sentiments.pdf THE SENTIMENTS OF LOVE A Selection of Indian Miniatures from the Collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden – I.]
Look at other dictionaries:
Lal Bihari — (or Lal Bihari Mritak, hi. लाल बिहारी “मृतक”; born 1961) is a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, India who was officially dead between 1976 and 1994. He founded Mritak Sangh or the Association of the Dead in Uttar Pradesh, India. He fought Indian… … Wikipedia
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Fireplace Inserts
Breathe new life into your existing fireplace and transform it into an efficient heating appliance with a fireplace insert. Our fireplace insert selection includes a variety of top of the line inserts by trusted manufacturers like Napoleon, Century, Osburn, US Stove Company, Vogelzang and more. Whether you are looking for a multi-fuel fireplace insert, a pellet burning fireplace insert or a wood burning fireplace insert you can find it here.
Our price is lower than the manufacturer's "minimum advertised price." As a result, we cannot show you the price in catalog or the product page.
You have no obligation to purchase the product once you know the price. You can simply remove the item from your cart.
Our price is lower than the manufacturer's "minimum advertised price." As a result, we cannot show you the price in catalog or the product page.
You have no obligation to purchase the product once you know the price. You can simply remove the item from your cart.
Fireplace Inserts:
A fireplace insert basically does three things:1) It seals up your
fireplace so only a small amount of room air goes up the chimney.2)
The fire is controllable which will allow long burn times.3) It acts
as a furnace utilizing either radiant heat or forced air or both.
Fireplace
inserts generally require the use of a chimney liner directly connecting from
the fireplace insert up through the chimney to the top which is safer and easier
to clean.
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David Starkey reaches the 19th and 20th centuries in his exploration of how the British monarchy shaped the direction of the nation’s music.
The period ushered in a resurgence of pride in British music and the monarchy rediscovered the power of pageantry and ceremony. Starkey looks at the origins of Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory and Parry’s I was Glad among other pieces.
The episode will feature a performance of music by Prince Albert, given by David Owen Norris in Buckingham Palace, as well as specially recorded performances by St Paul’s Cathedral Choir and the choir of Westminster Abbey.
We use cookies to improve your experience of our website. Cookies perform functions like recognising you each time you visit and delivering advertising messages that are relevant to you. Read more here
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This is my senior thesis. The title of the work is Photography Teaches Me To See You. The artist statement is as follows:
“The people in each of these photographs are both asking and telling you something. My intent is to show the people I photograph how beautiful and whole they are. When I photograph them, I find beauty in them instead of forcing it. It is up to you to look at them with as much bravery as they look at you.”
If you like what you see, comment or contact me! If you get inspired and want to be photographed, email me and we can set something up.
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Politics
U.S. to suspend security aid to Pakistan
Posted
The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan until Islamabad takes action against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network, which Washington believes is destabilizing the region.
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Balthazar of Glenrock builds armor. Not the stamped-out stuff, but true, late 15th century, German armor in his blacksmith's shop in his garage. Margaret Matray of the Casper, Wyoming Star Tribune has the story. (photos)
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Carter's is the leading brand of children's clothing, gifts and accessories in America, selling more than 10 products for every child born in the U.S. The designs are based on a heritage of quality and innovation that has earned them the trust of generations of families.
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Carters Toddler Holiday Fleece Footed Sleeper - Fun Santa
Carter's is the leading brand of children's clothing, gifts and accessories in America, selling more than 10 products for every child born in the U.S. The designs are based on a heritage of quality and innovation that has earned them the trust of generations of families.
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Product Reviews And ResourcesWe've collected resources from around the web to help you make your purchasing decisions.
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Birmingham City legend Gil Merrick to get Walk of Stars plaque
BLUES goalkeeping hero Gil Merrick will become the latest legend to receive a coveted plaque on Birmingham’s Broad Street Walk of Stars.
BLUES goalkeeping hero Gil Merrick will become the latest legend to receive a coveted plaque on Birmingham’s Broad Street Walk of Stars.
The former Birmingham City keeper, who made over 700 appearances before managing the club will now join the likes of all-time West Bromwich Albion top scorer Tony Brown, comedian Jasper Carrott, and rock legend Ozzy Osbourne.
His name will be cemented in the heart of the city’s clubbing hot-spot after the Sparkhill-born stopper beat off seven previous greats to become the public’s top choice by over 100 votes.
Included in the voting was Trevor Francis, Bob Latchford, and Frank Worthington as fans of the Premier League new-boys had their chance to vote for a star.
Merrick came out on top and he will be honoured next Saturday when the Blues kick off their 2009/10 Premier League home campaign against Stoke City – the first season they will play at St Andrew’s with the old Railway Stand re-named after the 87-year-old.
“I am extremely honoured to have been chosen to be represented by one of the Walk of Stars,” said Merrick. “First Birmingham City Football Club name a stand after me and now this. I’m almost speechless.
“It’s a wonderful gesture from the supporters to choose me and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them very much.”
During a 21-year career at St Andrew’s, Merrick became arguably the club’s best-ever keeper.
He was the first-choice No.1 in 1956 when Blues produced their best ever season – finishing sixth in Division One and reaching the FA Cup Final, where they lost to Manchester City.
He also picked up 23 international caps during his time as a player as well as guarding the sticks for England in the 1954 World Cup. After hanging up his boots in 1960, Merrick managed the club for four years.
Mike Olley, Broad Street Manager said: “Gil is the deserving winner of the vote for a Walk of Star. We are delighted to be able to honour his tremendous achievement for all time with a star on Broad Street.”
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Driveway Markers
Description
SOLAR DRIVEWAY MARKERS light the way for family and guests! Hassle-free reflector lights collect energy from the sun during the day to shine brightly at night (up to 15 hours) and increase visibility along your driveway. Install instantly without wiring, cords or electricity—just stake into ground! Set of 2. Durable poly. 42" H.
Reviews
Happy with purchase
We have a deep drop off at the edge of drive and I had a small black solar light at the edge which got crushed, so I think this one is much more visible and hope it will last longer. It is tall enough to see easily if watching when you back out, and works great after dark, flashing red all night.
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The
scandal that has ousted General Michael Flynn from the post of
National Security Adviser is absurd and concocted. Though there were
probably other reasons for his going - including his apparently poor
performance in the post of National Security Adviser - his
resignation is nonetheless a heavy blow for President Trump.
General
Michael Flynn’s resignation as National Security Adviser is by far
the biggest blow President Trump has suffered since his inauguration.
As
I have written previously, this is a completely concocted scandal.
The most General Flynn is accused of is telling Russian ambassador
Kislyak that Russia should not overreact to the sanctions President
Obama imposed on Russia during the height of the Clinton leaks
hysteria in December. Even the ‘anonymous officials’ who claim
to have seen the transcript of the tapes of his conversations with
Kislyak admit that he did not tell Kislyak that President Trump would
cancel the sanctions. Instead all Flynn did was call for was
restraint.
I
cannot see how this could possibly have threatened US national
security. Nor do I see how – just three weeks before Donald
Trump’s inauguration – it could be considered to be ‘undermining’
President Obama’s foreign policy, which Donald Trump was publicly
criticising anyway.
It
seems that back in January that was also the FBI’s view, and that
it was reporting that after checking the transcripts of Flynn’s
telephone conversations with Kislyak, that it could find nothing
illicit in them. That is obviously right, and in any sane world that
would have been the end of the whole affair.
Yet
on the strength of these calls Sally Yates as Acting Attorney General
apparently advised the White House that General Flynn might have
committed an offence under the Logan Act and initiated an FBI
investigation of General Flynn’s actions, saying he might have
opened himself up to blackmail by the Russian government.
It
should be said clearly that this is totally absurd. Town Hall has
provided a comprehensive refutation of the claim that there has been
an offence under the Logan Act and as I cannot improve on it I here
reproduce it
[T]he
Logan Act dates to 1799, when a state legislator with no ties to any
administration tried to assert himself as personal negotiator for
final peace with France. The anti-Jefferson Federalists did not like
this private initiative, so passed the Logan Act to make private
ventures intent on negotiating personal treaties over international
feuds a crime. The bill was whipped out in days.
And
in the 200 years since, not a single individual has ever been
prosecuted under the act, not one. And its constitutionality is
widely doubted in any event, even by Democrat legal scholars. Funny
how precedent and constitutionality matter when they work for a
party, and not at all when they work against it.
The
folly of casting anyone – let alone General Flynn, an incoming
National Security Advisor – as violator of this important-sounding,
but utterly obsolete and toothless Logan Act would be funny enough,
if it were not being dressed up in congressional outrage, with somber
questions like – yes – “what did he know, and when did he know
it?” Watergate already, really?
To
compound the absurdity, if General Flynn violated the Logan Act by
talking to the Russian ambassador, then Barack Obama as a candidate
in 2008 did so on a far greater scale. As Town Hall also says
In
July 2008, independent of any policy conversations by staff,
candidate Obama went to the Middle East and Europe and spoke
extensively, one-on-one, about policy with leaders from Kuwait,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, the West Bank, Israel, France, Germany and
Britain. As a candidate, not as a president-elect.
To
cap the irony and Obama counter-example, before assuming office and
not president-elect, Mr. Obama spoke of peace and how to end world
conflicts on July 24, 2008, in a speech at the Victory Column in
Berlin, before an estimated 200,000 people. But no talk of Logan Act.
None.
It
has been suggested rather portentously that the true reason General
Flynn resigned was not because of the conversations he had with
Kislyak but because he lied about these conversations to
Vice-President Pence, and that a furious Pence has taken umbrage and
has insisted that Flynn must go.
This
is only marginally less absurd.
Firstly
since General Flynn did nothing remotely wrong either by holding the
conversations with Kislyak or by what he is reported to have said
during them, what he said about them to Vice-President Pence really
shouldn’t matter.
Secondly,
it is overwhelmingly likely that General Flynn – as he says –
simply made a mistake.
As
a former intelligence officer General Flynn surely knows that
Kislyak’s telephone conversations are monitored by US intelligence.
Indeed it is a virtual certainty that as the former head of the
Defence Intelligence Agency he has actually seen transcripts of
Kislyak’s conversations and of those of other Russian officials.
Given
that that is so Flynn would surely have known when he reported to
Pence that US intelligence had been listening in to his conversations
with Kislyak and that any lie he said to Pence would be quickly
discovered. Since he didn’t in fact say any remotely improper to
Kislyak he wouldn’t have had any reason to lie anyway.
Most
likely Flynn thought he was being asked whether he had told Kislyak
that the Trump administration would lift the sanctions, which he
denied doing because he didn’t do so. In the confusion this was
mistaken for a denial that the subject of the sanctions was even
discussed, when it was in fact touched on, though only in the most
innocuous way.
In
the rush of events this sort of thing occasionally happens, and in
his resignation statement Flynn all but says that this is what
happened. It is by far the most plausible explanation for the whole
affair, and no-one who is not completely paranoid or who is not
pursuing an agenda would think otherwise.
Why
then has Flynn been forced to resign?
There
is a possibility that, disproportionate though that would be,
Vice-President Pence might indeed have been genuinely angry about the
mix-up, and might – despite receiving an apology from Flynn –
have been so angry with Flynn that he insisted that Flynn should go.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Pence is a key figure within
the Trump administration, and if he is indeed as angry with Flynn as
some reports suggest, then Trump may have felt that he had no option
but to let Flynn go.
I
have to say however that my own view is that the explanation that
Flynn was forced to go because he lied to Pence looks to me like a
cover story to hide the true reasons why Flynn had to go.
I
suspect these are (1) that Flynn is still the subject of the FBI
probe launched by Sally Yates; and (2) that there were increasing
doubts about Flynn’s fitness for the role of National Security
Adviser.
Turning
first to the FBI probe, Sally Yates’s warnings to the White House
that Flynn might be blackmailed by the Russian government because of
what he said to Kislyak on the telephone, and the claim that he might
have violated the Logan Act, are for the reasons I have discussed
previously absurd. As I have said media reports that circulated in
January were saying that the FBI after checking the transcripts of
Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak could find nothing illicit in
them. Nonetheless it seems the probe Sally Yates ordered is still
continuing.
In
passing I should say that I find it impossible to believe that Sally
Yates herself genuinely believes that the warnings she is supposed to
have given the White House about Flynn are anything other than
absurd. What they in fact show is not that there is a serious case
against Flynn but – as was also shown by Yates’s refusal to
defend the ‘travel ban’ Executive Order in the courts – that as
Acting Attorney General Yates was actively working against the
President and the administration she was supposed to be serving, in
this case by making farfetched claims against one of the President’s
advisers.
The
problem is that absurd though the FBI probe Sally Yates launched is,
once launched it cannot be stopped by Presidential order, since doing
so would be an abuse of Presidential power.
The
result is that Flynn and the whole administration risked being
distracted for weeks or months by constant sniping by the Democrats
and the administration’s enemies within the US bureaucracy whilst
the probe was underway. It is therefore understandable that Trump’s
two closest political advisers – Preibus and Bannon – apparently
both concluded that the administration simply could not afford this,
and decided that Flynn would have to go.
I
would add that the recent media attacks on Flynn are grounded on the
fact that an FBI investigation is underway. Had there not been such
an investigation it is difficult to see how the media attacks on
Flynn could have gained traction. Indeed it is doubtful they would
have happened at all. Given that were it not for these media attacks
Flynn would still be President Trump’s National Security Adviser,
Flynn’s ouster is Sally Yates’s parting gift to an administration
she clearly deeply opposes and was working against.
Having
said all this, Donald Trump and his team would probably have stuck
with Flynn had there not also been serious concerns about his
performance as National Security Adviser.
By
most accounts Flynn is an abrasive personality, who makes enemies
easily, and there have been numerous reports of his poor management
skills in a job where such skills are essential. The fact that he
obviously failed to take proper notes of his conversations with
Kislyak – relying instead on his memory – is just one example of
his sloppy approach to paperwork, something which incidentally must
have dismayed Pence the lawyer.
Flynn
also clearly has an obsessive streak, as shown by his pathological
hostility to Iran, which is obviously inappropriate for someone who
is the President’s most important adviser on national security
questions.
There
is also another possible problem with Flynn, which may have worked
against him. This is his habit of self-promotion as shown by his
extraordinary appearance in the White House briefing room to read out
his statement about Iran.
In
the 1970s, in the age of Kissinger and Brzezinski, the President’s
National Security Adviser ran US foreign policy, ousting the
Secretary of State and the State Department from that role.
Unsurprisingly Kissinger and Brzezinsky were media stars, far
outshining the Secretaries of State of the period (William Rogers,
Cyrus Vance and Edward Muskie).
In
the 1980s under Ronald Reagan a successful effort was made to
re-establish the Secretary of State’s and the State Department’s
primacy in managing the nation’s foreign policy, with the National
Security Adviser once again relegated to an advisory role. Since
then no National Security Adviser has achieved anything like the
power or prominence that Kissinger and Brzezinski once had.
It
is not impossible that the very public role Flynn was carving out for
himself alarmed some people within the foreign policy and national
security bureaucracy, with fears that Flynn was seeking to make
himself Donald Trump’s Kissinger or Brzezinski. If so it would not
be surprising if the bureaucracy united against him to see off the
challenge, with even senior officials like Tillerson and Mattis in
that case probably wanting Flynn to go.
Whatever
the reasons for his going, Flynn’s departure is however a serious
blow for Donald Trump.
It
is a much more serious blow than the court decisions on the ‘travel
ban’ Executive Order, which I expect the administration to reverse
or overcome.
Losing
Flynn by contrast shows weakness, and has given Donald Trump’s many
enemies – including those in the bureaucracy – their first blood.
They will now be hungering for more.
Trump
and his advisers presumably calculated that the damage that would
have been done by holding on to Flynn would have been greater than
the damage that was done by letting him go. Time will show whether
they are right. Much will depend on who Trump choses to replace him.
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You’ve probably heard people say they enjoy running because it lets them switch off. Perhaps you feel that way yourself. Well recent research in mice suggests there may actually be a scientific basis for this, because brain activity really does decrease when you’re performing a simple, repetitive action. What’s more, while running may tire your body out, such exercise might actually reduce your brain’s need for sleep.
Being awake and being asleep aren’t two mutually exclusive, uniform states. At times you can be more deeply asleep or more wide awake than others, and the boundary between the two can be blurred. Your normal behaviour, such as the ability to react quickly to unexpected events, deteriorates as you stay awake beyond your regular bedtime. We don’t know exactly why this is but it may be that parts of your brain go to sleep even when you’re technically awake. But with the right motivation, we can also force ourselves to stay awake and even restore our performance temporarily.
How long we need to sleep or can stay awake for depends to some extent on our genes, but evidence suggests they are also affected by what activities we do while we’re awake. Surprisingly, we still don’t know what is it about being awake that puts pressure on our bodies to sleep, but scientists often refer to is as “Process S”. Like an hourglass, the levels of Process S indicate how long we’ve been awake or asleep and how likely we are to fall asleep or wake up at any given moment.
Recent evidence suggests that sleep is initiated not by the brain as a whole but by local networks of neurons that were used more while awake. My colleagues and I wondered if parts of the brain responsible for certain behaviours had more of an affect on our ability to stay awake than others.
Up all night with the mice
To test this theory, we made use of a well-known tendency for mice to run spontaneously on a wheel, sometimes covering many kilometres every night. When mice run like this, they spend considerably more time awake, as if their need to sleep were accumulating at a slower rate, or if something were overriding it. To shed light on this mysterious process, we investigated exactly what happens in the brain of spontaneously running mice.
In our study, we recorded the electrical activity of individual nerve cells in each mouse’s neocortex – the outer layer of the brain – as they ran on a wheel. Typically, when a mouse (or a human) is awake and active, neurons fire at a high rate. This is because the brain has to monitor the surroundings, coordinate movements, and take decisions instantaneously. This constant brain activity requires a lot of energy – an estimated 20% of all energy used by the body.
Surprisingly, we found that when the mice ran at high speed, some of their neurons stopped firing altogether. And the overall brain activity in the motor and sensory areas of the neocortex decreased on average by at least 30%. Paradoxically, this suggests that, overall, active physical behaviour and intense movement do not necessarily require a more active brain.
We also noticed that when the animals engaged in lots of different behaviour, their neurons would spike in a variety of different ways, from slow to fast discharge. But during the monotonous process of running, the neural spikes became much more consistent. This suggests that running is associated not only with less activity overall but also with an emergence of a more stable, uniform brain state.
Our next question was whether this would make a difference to overall brain activity during the course of extended waking periods. Previous studies suggested that the longer you stay awake, the more excitable your brain becomes (the more likely your neurons are to fire). We found that our mice’s neurons on average produced more spikes before they went to sleep than in the period soon after waking up, a few hours earlier. But if the mice spent a lot of time running, this increase in spiking didn’t happen. This suggests that if the neurons are not used then they don’t become more excitable.
Running state of mind
Based on these observations, we concluded that if a mouse’s day was dominated by tasks requiring repetitive or rhythmic movements (such as running), its brain would be in a fundamentally different state to normal. This state may even allow the brain to rest without entering deep sleep and provide some of the same benefits. Recent evidenceconsistently suggests that short periods of exercise may be beneficial for cognitive functions in a similar way to sleep.
Other examples from nature support this idea. For example, birds sleep far less when they’re flying non-stop for many days or migrating. There is even some evidence of a similar effect in humans, such as a link between meditation and a reduced need for sleep. We don’t know for sure why this happens but it may be that meditation is associated with a brain state where time effectively runs slower. And it could be the same for the mice on the wheel.
There are still many questions to be answered about why we need to sleep and how it effects our brains. But what is becoming increasingly clear is that we cannot understand the mystery of sleep without understanding what happens when we’re awake.
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Featured in
Architecture & Design
Mini-talks: The Machine Intelligence Landscape: A Venture Capital Perspective by David Beyer. The future of global, trustless transactions on the largest graph: blockchain by Olaf Carlson-Wee. Algorithms for Anti-Money Laundering by Richard Minerich.
Featured in
Operations & Infrastructure
Mini-talks: The Machine Intelligence Landscape: A Venture Capital Perspective by David Beyer. The future of global, trustless transactions on the largest graph: blockchain by Olaf Carlson-Wee. Algorithms for Anti-Money Laundering by Richard Minerich.
Featured in
Enterprise Architecture
Mini-talks: The Machine Intelligence Landscape: A Venture Capital Perspective by David Beyer. The future of global, trustless transactions on the largest graph: blockchain by Olaf Carlson-Wee. Algorithms for Anti-Money Laundering by Richard Minerich.
Going Offline with LocalForage
The Mozilla Foundation has released localForage, a new JavaScript library that promises to simplify the process of storing offline data in web applications.
Although it's not a recent browser technology, offline support has always been too fragmented because of the many choices available. What makes this library unique is the fact that it tries to combine the best of both worlds: the features of some more recent technologies (asynchronism and blob support) with a simple API. This offers a powerful offline capability to web applications, making them closer to their mobile native counterparts and more intuitive for developers to work.
One of the first choices available was localStorage which provided a simple data access for offline storage. However benchmark tests have shown it to be slow, it's synchronous and it cannot handle binary blobs (for example, no mp3 files caching is possible). Since then, two other popular choices have emerged - IndexedDB and Web SQL - which are asynchronous, fast, and support large data sets. The drawback of these two technologies is the fact their APIs aren't very simple to use and neither are supported in all major browsers.
The recently release of localForage tries to overcome these problems by unifying technologies – asynchronism and blob support from IndexedDB and Web SQL with the very simple localStorage syntax:
The inclusion of IndexedDB and Web SQL support allows one to store more data for the web applications than localStorage alone would allow. The non-blocking nature of their APIs makes the web applications faster by not hanging the main thread on get/set calls. Additionally, localForage supports callbacks and ES6 Promises leaving the choice of the best implementation to the developer.
The library automatically loads and manages the drivers for IndexedDB, Web SQL and localStorage so one don’t need to handle this manually (the best driver is chosen independently the browser where the application is running). When neither IndexedDB nor Web SQL are available, localForage falls back to localStorage so at least basic data can be stored offline (though with no blob support and much slower).
All modern browsers are supported by localForage. Asynchronous storage is available in all browsers, with their version that supports localStorage in parentheses:
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Every time a new record is in in the creation process Max always comments about how he thinks the fans will like it...and I don't know about everyone, but I certainly am in love with every album. That being said...while reading the blog when it first came out, I did have some chills when I read that Max now had no one to please on a business level, just the fans.
Look at the Earth. It's just so green. Perhaps it's envious of all the galaxies it's seen, where forces swirl in symbiotic harmony. Free of the taint, the gas and paint of parasites like me.
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Excuse me for being a little harsh on SASA and Youtube, but I think this animation did have some potential. But it's very long and slow-paced, some of the characters (mainly Liebea) act OOC, there are some spelling issues, and there, the animation's too long, and it just wasn't that entertaining of a project.
Sorry dude.
Last edited by Superjustinbros on Sun May 08, 2011 9:29 am; edited 1 time in total
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"For me, it was interesting to see how black has evolved from being the color of exclusivity, worn primarily by noble families, to today’s popular, democratizing choice for modern wardrobes. (A shift due in no small part to Chanel and her revolutionary little black dress from 1926.) Elsewhere, there are the odd brilliant flashes of gold, silver and white — but all in all the show, is a true ode to noir."
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UCLA stem cell scientists have shown that two common tumor suppressor genes, TSC and PTEN, are vital to regulating the stem cell-like precursor cells that create the blood supply in Drosophila, the common fruit fly.
The researchers examined a signaling pathway called TOR that the cells use to gauge nutrition levels and stress, said study senior author Dr. Julian A. Martinez-Agosto, an assistant professor of human genetics and pediatrics and a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.
"We wondered how an organism knows how many blood cells to make and when to make them in the context of injury and repair to tissue. In particular, we wondered how the blood progenitor cells sense that change and know when it's time to make more blood cells," Martinez-Agosto said. "We found that the TOR pathway uses these two genes to regulate its function and, when activated, it expands or increases the number of blood progenitor cells in the fly's blood."
The study appears Sept. 5, 2012 in the advance online issue of the peer-reviewed journal Development.
Michelle Dragojlovic-Munther, a graduate student in the Martinez-Agosto laboratory and first author of the study, found that cells with increased activity of TOR have a competitive advantage, allowing them to divide and make more of themselves so they can make blood. These progenitors, Dragojlovic-Munther found, also have high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) - ions or very small molecules that include free radicals - which are known to damage cells and can predispose humans to aging and heart disease. But in this case, the ROS proved valuable.
The precursors, Martinez-Agosto said, were producing ROS all the time and when TOR was activated, the levels increased dramatically. Too much ROS caused them to divide more than normal. If they treated the flies with antioxidants, which reduce ROS levels, the cells would develop normally.
The finding could be important because the TOR pathway is abnormally activated in many cancers, and it may be possible to target the levels of ROS, which may help regulate the pathway.
"What this study may be telling us is that too much ROS is causing more cells to divide and we may be able to target therapies that reduce ROS to significantly improve the condition," Martinez-Agosto said, adding that specifically targeted antioxidants might be a potential treatment in certain subsets of blood disorders. "Sometimes that pathway is working more than it should, and we need the right amount of ROS for balance. It's like Goldilocks, there can't be too little or too much. We need it just right."
Going forward, Martinez-Agosto and his team will try to determine where the ROS is coming from and perhaps discover an enzyme that may be a good target for therapeutics. They know that the higher ROS levels in blood progenitors are not coming from mitochondria, the cell's power source, but have not identified how they are being produced.
"This study highlights mechanistic differences between TSC and PTEN on TOR function and demonstrates the multifaceted roles of a nutrient-sensing pathway in orchestrating proliferation and differentiation of myeloid-specific blood progenitors through regulation of ROS levels and the resulting myeloproliferative disorder when deregulated," the study states.
###
The study was funded by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (GM007185) and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
The stem cell center was launched in 2005 with a UCLA commitment of $20 million over five years. A $20 million gift from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation in 2007 resulted in the renaming of the center. With more than 200 members, the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research is committed to a multi-disciplinary, integrated collaboration of scientific, academic and medical disciplines for the purpose of understanding adult and human embryonic stem cells. The center supports innovation, excellence and the highest ethical standards focused on stem cell research with the intent of facilitating basic scientific inquiry directed towards future clinical applications to treat disease. The center is a collaboration of the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and the UCLA College of Letters and Science. To learn more about the center, visit our web site at http://www.stemcell.ucla.edu.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
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This Amazing Timelapse of Singapore Took 3 Years to Shoot
Typically when you hear about principal photography taking years to complete, it's some epic 3-hour feature like Boyhood, not a 5-minute time-lapse video.
But that's exactly what Australian filmmaker Keith Loutit's piece The Lion City II: Majulah is—a 5-minute time-lapse video that took years to shoot—three years, in fact, from June 2013 until this month. The gorgeous cityscapes captured in Singapore, which are more than deserving of its Vimeo Staff Pick, show the city's interesting change over time.
"When we pass by landscapes they appear fixed in time, but they change around us constantly. The idea behind this film is to reveal this change by returning to the same camera positions over the years."
After watching this, the first question that comes to mind is, "How!?" Loutit explains that shooting, which he did on the Nikon D4, several of which were set in different locations throughout the city, took three years to complete. And because of the project's sheer amount of data, he had to edit simultaneously. But though he has shared a little bit of information about his process, Loutit is keeping his trade secrets closely guarded.
So, maybe we don't know how he did it, but, somehow, that doesn't matter so much. We can appreciate this piece for its lovely use of color grading, dynamic motion, and powerful message, that even though we may not notice, the world is changing all around us.
I think that's patently wrong. There are "master artists," and they are in each field. Otherwise, you're saying art has absolutely no objective content. Where do people get this strange idea that all art is of the same value?
Get your FREE copy of the eBook called "astonishingly detailed and useful" by Filmmaker Magazine!
It's 100+ pages on what you need to know to make beautiful, inexpensive movies using a DSLR. Subscribe to receive the free PDF!
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OSHA New Personal Protective Equipment Enforcement Guidelines
“This instruction, Enforcement Guidance for Personal Protective Equipment in General Industry, establishes OSHA’s general enforcement and guidance policy for its standards addressing personal protective equipment (PPE). It instructs OSHA enforcement personnel on both theagency’s interpretations of those standards and the procedures for enforcing them.”
Welcome to our blog, Speaking of Precision. As Director of Technology and Industry Research for PMPA, I bring 38 years of hands-on experience in areas of manufacturing, quality and steelmaking. I help answer "HOW?","WITH WHAT?" and "REALLY?"
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Comments on: Did you miss it? Breezing Along With the RML session – on Open Access? What it would be like in 2023?http://nnlm.gov/mcr/news_blog/2013/01/breezingjan2013recording/
News From The MCRhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3
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A US class action alleges that Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) labels showing the alcohol content of brands such as Budweiser are ‘false in every instance’, with consumers deliberately overcharged for watered-down beer, claims the brewer fiercely denies.
In the suit filed against the world’s largest brewer in the US District Court, Northern District of California, plaintiffs Nina Giampaoli and John Elbert claim that AB InBev’s alcohol statements “are based on its uniform corporate policy of overstating the amount of alcohol in each of AB’s products”.
“AB’s uniform misrepresentations deceive reasonable consumers who rely on AB’s labels, and allow AB to gain an unfair competitive advantage in violation of Missouri and California law,” they add.
BeverageDaily.com approached AB InBev in Belgium for a response this morning, but was not able to obtain immediate comment.
Watered-down beer claims 'groundless' - AB InBev
However, Peter Kraemer, AB InBev VP of brewing and supply, told the Associated Press (AP) in the States that the watered-down beer claims were groundless.
"Our beers are in full compliance with all alcohol labeling laws. We proudly adhere to the highest standards in brewing our beers, which have made them the best-selling in the U.S. and the world.”
The suit – led by attorneys at California-based Mills Law Firm – claims damage to millions of consumers upon the basis of AB InBev’s 47.7% beer market share in the US.
The suit seeks action to stop AB InBev from (1) continuing to misrepresent the alcohol content of its malt beverages” (2) enjoining it to fund a corrective advertising campaign (3) payment of damages.
Using advanced process control instrumentation and corporate protocols, AB knew the precise alcohol content of each unit it sold, the suit claims, and intentionally misrepresented products as containing more alcohol than they did.
Sophisticated process control technology
California native and former Budweiser fan Nina Giampaoli claims that packaging claiming 5% ABV shaped her purchasing decisions, but on learning that the claim was false, she stopped buying the beer.
AB’s process control technology (Anton Paar meters used from 2008) allowed it to measure and control the alcohol content of malt beverages to within 0.01%, the suit claims.
High gravity brewing meant key variables such as alcohol content were initially kept at levels above the desired final product, the plaintiffs add, with CO2 and water added at the last process stage.
“Because water is cheaper than alcohol,” the plaintiffs maintain, “AB adds extra water to its finished products to produce malt beverages that consistently have significantly lower alcohol content than the percentage displayed on its labels.”
“By doing so, AB is able to product a significantly higher number of units of beer from the same starting batch of ingredients. However, consumers receive watered-down beer containing less alcohol than the percentage displayed on its labels.”
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A US class action alleges that Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) labels showing the alcohol content of brands such as Budweiser are ‘false in every instance’, with consumers deliberately overcharged for watered-down beer, claims the brewer fiercely denies.
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Harvard’s Michael Porter Shares His Economic Outlook
Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter is a familiar name to almost anyone who has graduated from business school in the last twenty years or so. He recently gave an interview on CNBC in which he shares his analysis of the U.S. economy. Porter is best known for his work in competitive strategy, a field in which he is considered the preeminent expert, so his views of what ails the U.S. economy and how we can get back on track are of considerable interest. He has analyzed the forces that provide one country or region with relative competitive advantages vs. others and he applies this perspective in his commentary.
His position is that the United States used to be a leading global competitor, but we have fallen behind much of the rest of the world due to the burdensome nature of the corporate tax code, aging infrastructure, and a workforce that is poorly prepared for current needs. He also believes that entitlement programs such as Medicare are creating an enormous long-term economic drag that will make it hard for America to compete effectively with other nations.
Porter is especially concerned about the decline of the American middle class and highlights stagnant household incomes as an important issue. He believes that the middle class is ‘hollowing out,’ which will result in a small upper class and a massive population of poor workers. He believes that we are seeing declining social and economic mobility that has historically allowed motivated poor and working-class Americans to improve their lot. He states that America is simply not able to create well-paying middle-class jobs the way that we have in the past fifty to sixty years. The primary factors limiting job creation are global competition and a skills gap for workers.
So, what does Porter see as the solution? First, he states that we need to reduce the burden of entitlement programs and identifies healthcare costs as the primary problem. Without reducing healthcare costs, he believes all other budget reforms will amount to little. Second, he believes that we need to radically simplify the corporate tax code and reduce legal and regulatory burdens on U.S.-based firms. Finally, he believes that we need to aggressively pursue energy independence and capitalize on the enormous reserves of natural gas in the U.S.
I was surprised that Porter did not choose improved public education and skill development as one of the best ways to fix our economic woes, given that he explicitly identified the skills gap as a major problem for U.S. workers. Social mobility and high labor participation rates both depend on people having the ability to improve their stock of human capital and thereby move up the economic ladder.
I was also surprised that Porter did not elaborate on the problem of stagnant or falling incomes, even though he identified this as a major problem. If the U.S. is directly competing with workers in other countries who have comparable or higher skills, lower wages, or who do not have the added costs of ensuring a safe workplace, where does this leave us? The scenario that Porter describes points towards a long-term decline in the U.S. middle class unless we see some type of heroic education reform.
The future described by Porter and the implications for U.S. workers and investors are straightforward. First, U.S. workers need to develop high-value skill sets. Lower-skill manufacturing jobs are simply never coming back unless wages collapse to a level comparable to the cheapest global alternative. Second, we are simply not going to see the kind of economic growth for the U.S. that characterized the decades after World War II. This, in turn, means investments in firms that cater to discretionary income will not thrive. Housing prices will likely stagnate or fall because workers with stagnant or falling incomes are less likely to be able to purchase houses. These outcomes all point towards the U.S. looking a lot more like a second-world nation, so it is interesting that Porter also predicts that energy production will be the best hope for economic growth. The most developed economies tend to depend less on commodity production and more on technology as the basis for economic growth. A shift back towards a commodity-based economy is consistent with an overall decline in the middle class, as compared with global competitors.
Is Porter’s outlook likely? Personally, I think that it is pretty clear that the issues that he raises are real and significant. We are a very wealthy and productive nation, but we waste an awful lot of that wealth. Our spending on healthcare as a fraction of GDP is much higher than other developed countries and we have worse outcomes. We know that we need major reforms but we consistently elect representatives who seem unwilling to work together to solve the big problems. Porter also notes that a lot of the problem is attitude. He comments that “being American doesn’t guarantee a high wage.” Until we improve the skills of average workers, we are likely to see continued stagnation or decline in median household income. Given that a large fraction of the U.S. economy is based on discretionary spending, declining real incomes will further suppress economic growth.
Disclaimer
The views set forth in this blog are the opinions of the author alone and may not represent the views of any firm or entity with whom he is affiliated. The data, information, and content on this blog are for information, education, and non-commercial purposes only. The information on this blog does not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice and is limited to the dissemination of opinions on investing. No reader should construe these opinions as an offer of advisory services.
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Contents
Ellen Yin was the partner assigned to detective Ethan Bennett. She hoped to defeat Batman in hand-to-hand combat and unmask him. She is shown to be fond of her partner and is Chief Angel Rojas' favorite PD person. Yin is as physically adept as any male cop she knows. Previously head of her department in Metropolis, she transferred to Gotham City looking for a challenge. She's a career cop at the top of her game, simple and by the book. Not warming to Bruce Wayne so easily, Ellen doesn't have it out personally for The Batman. As a vigilante, he's breaking the law. Not seeing past his swinging billionaire persona, she despises his seemingly silver-spoon arrogance.
When her partner and friend Ethan Bennett is transformed into Clayface, Yin loses one of her best friends in the city. Before she and The Batman parted ways when they fought Clayface, The Batman handed her a commlink, telling her to call him whenever she needed. Keeping the commlink, Yin calls The Batman her new "partner" during a coffee shop meeting with Ethan's best friend, Bruce Wayne.
After she receives a Batwave from Batman, the two work together until "Night and the City", where her Batwave was taken by Rojas, her badge confiscated. It was returned by Commissioner James Gordon at the end of the episode, and she was promoted. Yin no longer appeared after season 2, though it is implied she becomes Police Commmisioner in the near future during the fourth season episode "Artifacts".
In the episode "Fire & Ice", Ellen attends a charity party hosted by Bruce Wayne. She tells Wayne that she knows his secret, and he initially thinks that she knows he's Batman. However, the "secret" is that Yin realizes that Bruce's "spoiled, arrogant playboy" persona is only a facade.
Though the character of Ellen Yin is largely original to the series, it appears that she, or at the very least her name, was likely inspired by the character Commissioner Ellen Yindel, from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Both displayed strong, anti-Batman beliefs at their introduction, and though never confirmed, it is implied that Yindel, like Yin, developed a certain respect for Batman, after seeing his heroics. It is also mentioned in the Time Skip episode, and likely a nod to the comic, that she became Commissioner.
Ellen Yin made her final appearance at the end of the second season and was replaced by Batgirl for the third season onward.
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While we still are studying and analysing your reports about Vietnam & Thailand, we would like to convey to your research team that they have done a very good job in compiling so much of information together.
We hope to see more of such well researched reports.
All the best & keep it up.
... "Prashant Bhagwat,General Manager, Mahindra"
We would like to appreciate Ken Research for their great efforts and wonderful support in providing the Market Intelligence Report for ITPC. The information, statistics and research are well understandable and very clear to the point. We are happy with Ken research for their good client service, on-time delivery of the report and as said the report itself. Thank you Ken research for bringing the valuable output for us. We would be looking forward to have more research with you in the near future. Wish you a success in your business!... "Jestin Mathew, Indonesian Trade Promotion Center"
Timetric's "Guardian Holdings Limited-Company Capsule" contains in depth information and data about the company and its operations. The profile contains a company overview, key facts, major products and services, financial ratios, key competitors, financial analysis, mergers & acquisitions, recent developments, key employees as well as company locations and subsidiaries.
Summary
This report is a crucial resource for industry executives and anyone looking to access key information about "Guardian Holdings Limited"
The report utilizes a wide range of primary and secondary sources, which are analyzed and presented in a consistent and easily accessible format. Timetric strictly follows a standardized research methodology to ensure high levels of data quality and these characteristics guarantee a unique report.
Scope
Identifies crucial company information about "Guardian Holdings Limited" along with major products and services for business intelligence requirements.
Acquire up-to-date company information and an understanding of the company's financial health.
Key Highlights
Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL) is a financial holding company. The company, through its subsidiaries, offers a range of life, health, and property and casualty insurance products. Its product portfolio includes term life, pension plans, investment-linked, motor, home, personal accident, travel, business, liability, money, fire and special perils, and contract work insurance. GHL provides risk management and asset management services. The company markets its products and services throughout the Eastern Caribbean, Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, the US Virgin Islands, and Belize. It has operations in Westmoorings, Chaguanas, San Fernando, and Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. GHL is headquartered in Westmoornings, Trinidad and Tobago.
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Yes very worth it. I loved the Ron one as well as this one but for this one a raise in the rating may inspire a bit more caution. Also red hair would look TERRIBLE with purple streaks.Your stories rule and I love them but could benefit from a proofreader.
Hi there! Thanks for posting such a wonderful study, MagEd! Although.... hm... I'm not really sure that merely “study” describes your little masterpiece. In my opinion, though each and every character was very well presented and you gave an accurate summary of everyone using only a few paragraphs chock-full of details (which does merit this as a perfect study), you also included relevance and plots, voices and settings (loved Arthur's!), something which is necessary to transform a profile into..... a wonderful tale like this one!!! This is rather difficult to manage sometimes (it's easy get stuck just stringing various trivia together), but you did it with flying colors! What I DID end up enjoying most most, however, were the characters, so I hope you don't mind if I give you most of the (lengthy ;) ) opinions I gathered of them in your work, skipping a bit over the other details:
Hermione's Dad was obviously needed to start the tale. It was a very good start. We saw a bit more of Hermione as the exceptional child we already knew she was. We also saw some very precious Granger family moments, which were practically nonexistent in the the books. The line: Andrew stared at his only daughter, a grown woman now, with her hair neatly clipped up and her eyes bright and an air of confidence in herself and her mind and her magical powers subtly clinging to her posture did a very important thing: it allowed the reader to, in their mind, analyze and catalogue what they knew about the journey from bushy-haired firstie to Hermione Weasley.
I think Victor's piece was the second best-written one: I was left with the impression that everything came back to Hermione, but it was not all about her. We learn Hermione giggles in an infectuos manner, Hermione is interesting to many types of people, Hermione....... but you showed very well how Hermione proved important to Victor and how he turned out. I also think developing Victor as well as you did is an example of how throughout this piece you subtly managed to paint Hermione, paint other characters and let us paint our own thoughts all at once.
Neville- It was a nice touch to include how he realized about Ron/Hermione before everyone else did. And I think you had a very nice thought with how he finds that: Hermione wasn't the only nice girl out there. You also touched upon a very important bit of information: for a girl who spent some parts of her first year at Hogwarts friendless, She had a way of reading people, Hermione did, and knowing what they needed most in a friend. He thought that was a pretty rare quality - a quality which I think throughout the books is a sign of her growing maturity. Great idea to include it!
Harry's piece, especially his sentence about how he'd been raised by a bushy-haired, buck-toothed girl was very sweet- their fraternal relationship really shows.
This was the nicest part for me. I must say, though maybe these characters aren't too relevant, that you certainly gave Ginny the persona I always expected her to have, the caring-but-relaxed-mother-who-gives-her-child-leeway-except-when-they-mess-really-badly air; I can understand why Hugo sometimes envies his cousins (except when Aunt Ginny is really, really scary) and I think it's appropriate how, though Albus is closer to Hugo's age, James is the one who gets in trouble with him (btw, I loved the cookies bit!). And Harry as the slightly indulgent father- I guess that would be an effect of his being an orphan. My favorite parts were how Hermione ran true to form spending so much quality time with her kid (I can imagine her going through mountain after mountain of parenting books, though I bet she's a bit of a natural as a mom), the muggle computer and how she let Hugo paint his room (strict mom doesn't necessarily mean stifling mom), and how she first tried to deal with the angry mother at the hospital calmly.
And finally Ron's piece: very pretty. Their growing, unending love was really well declared- it didn't matter that in their childhood relationship they had gone through many downs; they were partners through most of it, and I love how you reinforced that with Neither one had known what they were doing, but they had been doing it together, and that was all that had mattered. Ron is also another very good example of how Hermione helped many people around her grow.
I think you covered everyone important, although I would have included Hagrid. I think they were very important to each other, that Hagrid was very fond of Hermione, and that they helped one another through rough times.... but maybe that can be a subject for another story! ;)
All that said, I especially liked:1) That you included tons and tons of details about Hermione which also helped the shaping of the other characters- for example, why different people listened to her: Neville because he knew SPEW was important to her, Harry because she was his friend, and Arthur out of hearty interest.2) That you made how Hermione and Ron are a great couple very obvious3) That the caring aspect of Hermione's character was the most prominent 4) That you did all this with solid examples told in each character's POV with good, solid experiences and examples, rather than just plainly stated as their thoughts about her, therefore letting the reader discover many things on his own. Awesome!
One of my favorite aspects of the HP books was the amazingly developed characters, which may explain why I so loved your building upon and adding to them, but a wonderful achievement with this piece is that you managed to develop these descriptions into a story (I think I'm repeating myself, but I can't help it, you really nailed that part!).
Lastly, one thing that really surprised me was how, according to Ron, Hermione had a special interest in Luna Lovegood- nice though our Hermione may be, I never really thought this particular pair got on very well. Oh well! Maybe with maturity they did improve their interactions. Once again, thank you, great job, and please keep that quill writing!!!
This is a really sweet fic and a great idea. Nice the way they're sort of chronological, and end with Hermione/Ron. I liked Neville's part, it was especially sweet, and you had some really great insight in Harry's part about Hermione always caring for him. I liked the story line in Hugo's part too. Great idea, and really well-written too!
Author's Response: Thank you so much! I did try to make it some what chronological, so I'm glad you noticed and appreciated it! :)
The part with Hermione’s dad was very sweet and adorable. It seems to be one of your very straight forward sections. I think you did something very similar to Neville’s section. They’re both very platonic, sweet, and direct in how they portray love for Hermione.
And he wanted her to be his friend, too . . . or more than that. He imagined spending time with her, simply talking, or perhaps studying, or making her laugh like that, or pressing his lips to hers. It made him smile.
That was the best line from that part. I was surprised (in a good way) how pleasant the part with Viktor was. You wrote him really well, and I think a bit more sympathetically, than most authors do. I liked how you portrayed his love for Hermione as being more genuine.
What really endured him to Hermione was the simple fact that she was the first person who ever took care of him.
That part was very sweet. I liked how you acknowledged the possibility of Harry/Hermione, but also went into why Harry viewed Hermione as just a friend. I think that line really sums up how and why Harry thinks of Hermione as a sister. The dialogue with Harry and Hermione about being a good father was amazing. I also liked how Harry decided he would be a good father because Hermione raised him.
While I liked parts five and six, you really don’t recapture the brilliance of part four. Don’t get me wrong, the part with Ron was great. I think your dialogue between Ron and Hermione is very believable. Overall, I liked your piece here.
Author's Response: Thank you! This is such a detailed review, which is always a real treat :) While I'm a huge Ron/Hermione shipper, I do have something of a soft spot for Viktor, and I'm glad you thought that showed and that you liked how he was portrayed! As for Harry's part -- I think he and Hermione have such a sweet relationship, the epitome of a close relationship between a girl and a boy that remains close despite the fact that it never turns romantic. And she really is the first one to take care of him, imo! :) Thanks again.
I. Love. This. Fic. Seriously, one of my favourite pieces of fanfiction, ever. Call it a character study or whatever, it's beautiful. It made me tear up several times, especially Harry's part, and her dad's. So heart-warming. The line from Harry's part, where she was the first person to take care of him, absolutely tugged my heartstrings. Lovely, lovely job.
Author's Response: Thanks so much! Harry's part really poured out of me when I was writing it, so I'm so glad you liked it :)
I absolutely loved this story...I saw it was nominated to be read on audiofictions, and I really hope it does!!!! In response to your question about doing this for all the major characters, I say yes yes yes!!!! I would love to read all the different stories!!1! Outstanding job!
Author's Response: Thanks so much! I'm flattered that it was nominated for audiofics, and that you think it should be read aloud! :) I've just written another piece for Ginny that was posted today and I plan on writing more!
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Founded and managed directly by Ottawa International Game Conference’s fast-growing gaming industry, the events focus on building business relationships, sharing best practices and continuing to establish the city as an emerging development centre.
From magmic.com: It’s almost time for the second annual Ottawa International Games Conference (OIGC)! Are you currently working in the gaming industry or would like to? If yes, then you pretty much have to attend this conference. The Ottawa International Game Conference showcases the innovations and emerging trends in the Ottawa and Canadian gaming industry. […]
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To learn more about this event and over 150 others, you can use the Search tool found at the top of the sidebar to the right. This sidebar also contains an extensive list of featured Conferences, Conventions, Fan Events, and Industry Related events.
If you have a suggestion on how to improve Events for Gamers to fit your needs, or if you would like to be a leader in the community, we want to hear from you. Contact us!
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Airport X-ray Machines are Not Safe!
The airport x-ray machines are not safe. And for over a year, TSA has been defying a court order.
A few months ago we told you about the dangers of airport full—body scanners—that they emit low levels of ionizing radiation and can cause cancer. The x-rays skim the entire surface of your skin instead of being directed to a localized area of your body, which means that radiation levels could be 10 to 20 times higher than the manufacturer’s calculations. The cancer threat has the European Union so concerned thatit has put a moratorium on the machines.
Some doctors opt out of the backscatter scan and instead go for a full-body pat-down, intrusive as it is (more on that later). Among them is Dr. Dong Kim, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ neurosurgeon and chair of the department of neurosurgery at the University of Texas Medical School. “There is really no absolutely safe dose of radiation,” he says. “Each exposure is additive, and there is no need to incur any extra radiation when there is an alternative.” Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, never goes through a scanner when he travels because he’s concerned about whether the machines are calibrated and inspected properly.
That’s a valid concern, since a report released this year from the Department of Homeland Security found inconsistencies in how the machines are calibrated to ensure radiation safety and image quality, and says that not all TSA screeners have completed required radiation safety training. Inspectors found that the TSA made more than 3,500 maintenance calls in the first year the scanners were deployed, meaning that, on average, each machine needed service more than once a month. Millions of people go through these machines—and ProPublica reports that up to 100 US passengers could get cancer from them every year.
There has been a public backlash against the backscatter machines—from citizens, from advocacy groups like ours, and from integrative health groups. ProPublica, Dr. Joseph A.Mercola, and Natural News have all run series of articles on the dangerous x-ray scanners.
Two years ago, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a petition with the DC appeals court to suspend the TSA’s full-body scanner program, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security had violated the Administrative Procedures Act by implementing body scanners without inviting public comment, as well as the Privacy Act and the Fourth Amendment.
Last year the court ordered the agency to “promptly” undertake a formal rulemaking process and open up a public “notice and comment” period to discuss and justify the need for these scanners. A year later, Homeland Security has still not done so, thumbing its nose at the court order! So this month EPIC and other organizations filed another lawsuit to end the delay.
Moreover, two different congressional committees have now determined that not only are the machines extremely expensive, they’re also ineffective! In May, members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee sharply criticized the TSA (the Transportation Security Administration) for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a technology that they said had not been properly tested and is ineffective. And John L. Mica, chair of the House Transportation Committee, found that the machines’ ability to detect actual threats was so disappointing that he asked that no more be commissioned.
Both TSA’s own procurement specifications and a subsequent report by the Government Accountability Office indicate that the machines were never designed to detect powdered explosives. This is particularly ironic since the machines’ use was initially justified after the underwear bomber incident—and he used powdered explosives!
In January, senators on the the Homeland Security Committee introduced a bill that would require the TSA to post signs about the radiation exposure at the security checkpoints, and to hire an independent laboratory for a health study of the machines. A companion bill in the House was filed in February.
We would say they have this backwards—the health studies should have to be conductedbefore the machines are installed! The government is pushing this technology without conducting adequate safety testing, without properly evaluating its effectiveness, and without an open and transparent public review process.
So why not just opt out of the backscatter screening, the way the doctors do? First, it routinely takes an extra two minutes per person, assuming nothing unusual is found during the pat-down. Let’s say the average plane has 200 passengers. If even half of them were to opt-out of screening, it would take over three hours and twenty minutes just to get through the screening line.
Opting out also means subjecting yourself to an invasive pat-down procedure that appears designed to embarrass the traveler. There have been many pat-down incidents that are, quite frankly, outrageous, such as the bladder cancer survivor whose pat-down left himhumiliated and urine-soaked when a TSA agent broke the seal on his urostomy bag. Or the breast cancer survivor who was forced to remove her prosthetic breast from her blouse and show it to a TSA agent. Or the three-year-old who was patted town, screaming hysterically, because she didn’t want her teddy bear to go through the scanner.
An ANH-USA staff member reports that it appeared TSA deliberately tried to detain her on a recent trip. First she was subjected to an invasive pat-down, and when they didn’t find anything of concern, they rubbed a cotton swab on their gloves and put it into a machine to see if it picked up any explosive device–related powders. It set off the alarm and three TSA agents came and took her into a back room for a more thorough screening, as if she were a terrorist.
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Events
Guatemala Mission Trip Informational Meeting
If you're interested in joining us in November for a mission trip to Guatemala to help install Onil stoves, work in the medical clinic or assist with Vacation Bible School for the children, please come for an informational meeting at 12:15 in the Conference Room (2nd floor).
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Company
Hoya Productions, Inc.
Revillon Furs Inc
At first, young Regan just seems ill. But when she begins to levitate and speak in dead tongues, her mother is forced to call in a team of priests to do battle with an evil force straight from the pits of Hell.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Whether she's aware of it or not, my good friend and Jivamukti Yoga instructor deAnna Anderson is one of the city's greatest assets! Jivamukti Yoga, founded by David Life and Sharon Gannon in New York, is an all-encompassing yoga practice incorporating meditation, mudras, mantras, pranayama, asana, and most importantly the vehement message about the diet of compassion...the vegan diet.
With her connection to people of all walks of life, deAnna uses her popular asana practice as a platform to mindfully spread this message with compassion and conviction, and her recent collaborations with the Waking Dallas Raw Radical Health Meetup Group have widely expanded her audience.
Although all past Jivamukti Satsang potlucks have been entirely vegan, deAnna's joint efforts with the rawists and other forward thinkers have really raised the bar of awareness in our community!
Our most recent potluck included dishes such as Raw Vegan Ckicken-Fried-Steak, Raw Spirulina Pie, Cranberry Chia Pudding, and a number of fresh fall salads. Additionally, Radical Health Super Foods and ecologically and ethically conscious fashions by Walleska ecochicc were available for purchase.
As the only certified Jivamukti Yoga instructor in Dallas, deAnna offers a wealth of information and methods you can use to become a true vehicle for change in our community. Check out her website for class schedules, workshops, and other events.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Pan-Asian restaurant and sushi bar Oishii is regarded by many as one of Dallas' best kept secrets. Located in a sparsely occupied strip mall on Wycliff between Maple and Dallas North Tollway, Oishii is truly an oasis of fine dining in a rather questionable part of town. As we all shared a bottle of J. Lohr Cabernet Sauvignon, my dining companions devoured various not-even-close to-vegan sushi rolls while I delighted in
my beautifully crafted vegetable roll. And although Oishii has several options suitable for vegans, my favorite part of the meal was the Biddhist Delight, a savory dish consisting of tofu, vermicelli, and an assortment of fresh vegetables. So fresh, in fact, that one of my omnivorous companions seemed to enjoy my entrée more than his own. As he so eloquently commented, "Wow! The vegetables actually taste like vegetables," he proceeded to pick from my plate and ignored his own. I must admit his reaction made me feel as if I had won a small battle for all vegans.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Anybody who knows me knows that I love this season more than any other! Many of my fondest childhood memories occurred around this time of year, and it so happens that all of my major life changes (veganism included) took place around the harvest season. That being said, I like to celebrate each autumn with a warm mug of mulled wine and these super moist and chewy Autumn Harvest Oatmeal Cookies (adapted from the PPK).
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 3/4 cups evaporated cane juice sweetener
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp grade-b maple syrup
1 medium acorn squash (seeded, steamed, and puréed)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup walnuts (chopped)
1 cup Calimyrna figs (diced)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients (except sweetener) and mix together. In a separate bowl, combine sweetener and all wet ingredients and mix well. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and combine to an even consistency. Fold in walnuts and figs.
Although well known to many locals, I only recently discovered why Green Papaya has such a large following in Dallas. The quaint Vietnamese bistro provides complimentary valet, a quasi-chic atmosphere without the pretension, and has several vegetarian options, all of which can easily be made vegan by omitting the egg. Menu items include Goi Cuon Chay (tofu spring rolls served with a perfectly seasoned peanut sauce), Com Chien Chay (tofu and vegetable fried rice), Hu Tieu Xao Tofu (noodles with tofu, Chinese broccoli and bean sprouts), and Tao Hu Xao Voi Rau (mixed vegetables and tofu served with rice or pasta). With a respectable wine list and quite possibly the best peanut sauce I have ever tasted (it really is all about the little things), my only worry is the bistro's dangerously close proximity to my home!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I recently attended a raw vegan potluck with my Jivamukti satsang and came up with this super easy cashew butter cup recipe. Any type of raw nuts will suffice, but I prefer the subtle sweetness of cashews. Keep in mind that texture and soaking time will vary with different types of nuts.
Soak raw cashews in room temperature distilled water for 30 minutes. Combine soaked cashews, agave nectar, coconut oil, and salt in a food processor and mix until consistency is even. In a muffin/cupcake pan, place a dollop of nut butter in foil or parchment cups. Using finger tips, level the nut butter in each cup and place pan aside.
Grind cacao nibs to powder form in food processor. Once ground, add agave nectar and coconut oil and process until consistency is smooth. Top each cup with chocolate mixture and place pan in refrigerator. Chill at least 30 minutes before serving.
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403(b) Plans: The Flaws Teachers Should Know
It’s no secret that many teachers are underpaid, in spite of the vitally important work they do. I know first hand: my mother was a public school teacher and a single mom. While some teachers may have other assets and savings they can draw on, a great number of teachers will rely on the retirement plans commonly used by teachers, known as 403(b) plans, as a source of income once they retire.
This Is Money Teachers Will Need
In a recent series, The New York Times detailed many issues with the 403(b) plans so critical to a comfortable retirement for teachers. Their first piece, “Think Your Retirement Plan Is Bad? Talk to a Teacher” makes many of the same points we touched on previously in Teachers: Who is Managing Your 403(b)?
As the Times correctly points out: “Teachers in about a dozen states may not qualify for Social Security. And while public school teachers often are offered decent pensions, many of them do not work for the decades required to qualify for a full payout. And pension formulas are becoming less generous for newer recruits.”
Unlike 401(k) plans that are overseen and regulated by federal law based on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, many 403(b) plans fall outside of ERISA oversight and protection.
Who Can Teachers Trust?
Instead of having access to a financial advisor who is a fiduciary, someone who exclusively – and always -must have the client’s best interests in mind, teachers are often presented with salespeople from insurance brokers who earn commissions for recommending certain products. As one teacher recounted in part two of the NYT series: “From the teacher’s standpoint, they really miss out getting quality advice,” said Mr. Bergeron, 27, who sold the plans for Axa Advisors’ retirement benefits group. “People who are in the schools pitching them and positioning themselves as retirement specialists are really there just to sell them one product.” (For more, see: An Investor’s Guide to the New Fiduciary Rule.)
Fee-only fiduciary advisors are advisors who only recommend investments that are the best for their clients, not ones that reward themselves. Fiduciary financial advisors aren’t trying to hit a quota or working for sales commissions on the products they recommend to you. Fiduciaries are committed to providing the best advice to investors – like teachers – looking to build a strong foundation. These advisors grow with you, not at your expense by profiting off the products they recommend to you.
Many of the millions of employees in this country have access to 401(k) plans through their employer that are approved and monitored by the employer in some way, ensuring at least some oversight of the plan itself. Unfortunately, public school teachers as well as some teachers working for nonprofits and religious institutions are easy prey for companies trying to sell high-cost products because their retirement plans often don’t have the same oversight. Given the loosely regulated industry, the insurance salespeople or “advisors” pitching to teachers can recommend investment products that best for their own pockets, not the plan owners’.
The Costs and Confusion
While 401(k) plans are not perfect either, as we have pointed out before, the majority of them offer more traditional investment options, such as mutual funds or stocks and bonds, making it easier to understand how your money is invested. In contrast, 403(b) plans are often held inside annuities, which can be confusing even for the most intelligent individual investors. Discussing Axa Advisors, a broker that often tries to sell annuities, The New York Times writes: “The most popular version of the Equi-Vest annuity has a total annual cost that can range from 1.81 to 2.63%, according to an analysis from Morningstar. In contrast, large 401(k) plans usually charge an annual fee of less than half a percent of assets, according to a May report by BrightScope using 2013 data.”
Even if teacher realizes that they are paying excessive costs for their retirement investments, they are often locked into these annuities and required to pay a penalty if they want to make changes. If a teacher wants to transfer their assets out of the Axa Equi-Vest annuity into their own IRA, for example, they would have to pay a 5% penalty on the portion of that withdrawal that had been contributed within the last six years.
One of — if not the biggest — advantage of many retirement plans is tax deferral, which allows these accounts to grow and compound over a long time horizon. That ability to grown and earn compound interest is obviously compromised when you are paying excessive fees year over year.
Teachers are one of our most important assets and deserve to be rewarded for their years of dedication to our country’s children, and therefore our country’s future. All too frequently, however, teachers not given access to solid, low-cost and efficient long-term investment options in their retirement plans. Nor are they given access to a financial advisor they can turn to with questions, knowing that they can trust the answers they are given.
We encourage teachers to spend some time finding out more about their 403(b) retirement fund managers. It’s vital to find out whether they are a fiduciary, how they make money (fee-based or fee-only), and how personalized their investment strategy is. (For more, see: 6 Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor.)
The views expressed in this blog post are as of the date of the posting, and are subject to change based on market and other conditions. This blog contains certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected.
Please note that nothing in this blog post should be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any security or separate account. Nothing is intended to be, and you should not consider anything to be, investment, accounting, tax or legal advice. If you would like investment, accounting, tax or legal advice, you should consult with your own financial advisors, accountants, or attorneys regarding your individual circumstances and needs. No advice may be rendered by Sherman Wealth unless a client service agreement is in place.
If you have any questions regarding this Blog Post, please Contact Us.
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We use a metal assisted chemical etch process to fabricate silicon nanowire arrays (SiNWAs) onto a dense periodic array of pyramids that are formed using an alkaline etch masked with an oxide layer. The hybrid micro-nano structure acts as an anti-reflective coating with experimental reflectivity below 1% over the visible and near-infrared spectral regions. This represents an improvement of up to 11 and 14 times compared to the pyramid array and SiNWAs on bulk, respectively. In addition to the experimental work, we optically simulate the hybrid structure using a commercial finite difference time domain package. The results of the optical simulations support our experimental work, illustrating a reduced reflectivity in the hybrid structure. The nanowire array increases the absorbed carrier density within the pyramid by providing a guided transition of the refractive index along the light path from air into the silicon. Furthermore, electrical simulations which take into account surface and Auger recombination show an efficiency increase for the hybrid structure of 56% over bulk, 11% over pyramid array and 8.5% over SiNWAs.
In the interest of identification of new kinase-targeting chemotypes for target and pathway analysis and drug discovery in Trypanosomal brucei, a high-throughput screen of 42,444 focused inhibitors from the GlaxoSmithKline screening collection was performed against parasite cell cultures and counter-screened against human hepatocarcinoma (HepG2) cells. In this way, we have identified 797 sub-micromolar inhibitors of T. brucei growth that are at least 100-fold selective over HepG2 cells. Importantly, 242 of these hit compounds acted rapidly in inhibiting cellular growth, 137 showed rapid cidality. A variety of in silico and in vitro physicochemical and drug metabolism properties were assessed, and human kinase selectivity data were obtained, and, based on these data, we prioritized three compounds for pharmacokinetic assessment and demonstrated parasitological cure of a murine bloodstream infection of T. brucei rhodesiense with one of these compounds (NEU-1053). This work represents a successful implementation of a unique industrial-academic collaboration model aimed at identification of high quality inhibitors that will provide the parasitology community with chemical matter that can be utilized to develop kinase-targeting tool compounds. Furthermore these results are expected to provide rich starting points for discovery of kinase-targeting tool compounds for T. brucei, and new HAT therapeutics discovery programs.
The Mas-related G protein-coupled receptors (Mrgprs or Mas-related genes) comprise a subfamily of receptors named after the first discovered member, Mas. For most Mrgprs, pruriception seems to be the major function based on the following observations: 1) they are relatively promiscuous in their ligand specificity with best affinities for itch-inducing substances; 2) they are expressed in sensory neurons and mast cells in the skin, the main cellular components of pruriception; and 3) they appear in evolution first in tetrapods, which have arms and legs necessary for scratching to remove parasites or other noxious substances from the skin before they create harm. Because parasites coevolved with hosts, each species faced different parasitic challenges, which may explain another striking observation, the multiple independent duplication and expansion events of Mrgpr genes in different species as a consequence of parallel adaptive evolution. Their predominant expression in dorsal root ganglia anticipates additional functions of Mrgprs in nociception. Some Mrgprs have endogenous ligands, such as ?-alanine, alamandine, adenine, RF-amide peptides, or salusin-?. However, because the functions of these agonists are still elusive, the physiologic role of the respective Mrgprs needs to be clarified. The best studied Mrgpr is Mas itself. It was shown to be a receptor for angiotensin-1-7 and to exert mainly protective actions in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. This review summarizes the current knowledge about Mrgprs, their evolution, their ligands, their possible physiologic functions, and their therapeutic potential.
Human life expectancy has increased over the past 50 years due to scientific and medical advances and higher food availability. However, overweight and obesity affect more than 50% of adults and 15% of infants and adolescents. There has also been a marked increase in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in recent decades, which has been associated with a reduction in nocturnal pineal production of melatonin with aging and an increased risk of coronary diseases, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and death. Melatonin is currently under intensive investigation in experimental animal models of diabetes, obesity and MS at pharmacological doses (between 5 and 20 mg kg(-1) body weight), demonstrating its capacity to ameliorate the total metabolic profile and its potential as an alternative to conventional drug therapies for the disorders associated with the MS, i.e. elevated systolic blood pressure, and impairment of glucose homeostasis, plasma lipid profile, inflammation, oxidative stress, and increased body weight. An especially significant finding is the induction by melatonin of white adipose tissue browning, which may be related to its effects against oxidative stress, uncoupling the mitochondrial bioenergetic process by enhancing the expression of uncoupled-protein-1 (UCP-1), which has been related to body weight reduction in experimental animals. Further research is required to improve knowledge of this mechanism. Clinical studies are needed with the administration of pharmacological melatonin doses, because the dose has ranged between 0.050 and 0.16 mg kg(-1) bw in most studies to date. Melatonin is a natural phytochemical, and it is also important to test its beneficial metabolic effects when consumed in functional foods.
Characterizing the activating and inhibiting effect of protein-protein interactions (PPI) is fundamental to gain insight into the complex signaling system of a human cell. A plethora of methods has been suggested to infer PPI from data on a large scale, but none of them is able to characterize the effect of this interaction. Here, we present a novel computational development that employs mitotic phenotypes of a genome-wide RNAi knockdown screen and enables identifying the activating and inhibiting effects of PPIs. Exemplarily, we applied our technique to a knockdown screen of HeLa cells cultivated at standard conditions. Using a machine learning approach, we obtained high accuracy (82% AUC of the receiver operating characteristics) by cross-validation using 6,870 known activating and inhibiting PPIs as gold standard. We predicted de novo unknown activating and inhibiting effects for 1,954 PPIs in HeLa cells covering the ten major signaling pathways of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, and made these predictions publicly available in a database. We finally demonstrate that the predicted effects can be used to cluster knockdown genes of similar biological processes in coherent subgroups. The characterization of the activating or inhibiting effect of individual PPIs opens up new perspectives for the interpretation of large datasets of PPIs and thus considerably increases the value of PPIs as an integrated resource for studying the detailed function of signaling pathways of the cellular system of interest.
Western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), is an economically important pest all over the world. New products against thrips are necessary, as there are few effective compounds exhibiting cross-resistance among them. Lethal effects, cross-resistance, and baseline susceptibility to spirotetramat were evaluated in this study. A new bioassay method for testing thrips against spirotetramat was developed. Spirotetramat showed a significant mortality effect on larvae after 7 d of exposure, but a low effect was observed on adults. Baseline results for larval instars showed LC50 values ranging from 11.59 to 49.81 mg AI/liter, with a low natural variability (3.2-fold). Cross-resistance studies showed overlapping confidence limits of the LC50 values for laboratory-selected (against acrinathrin, methiocarb, formetanate, and spinosad) resistant and susceptible strains, and low resistance factors, from 0.5 to 1.9, suggesting no cross-resistance to conventional insecticides previously used. A slight ovicidal effect (21-40% reduction) was also detected. Despite presenting low effects on adults, spirotetramat showed high but slow efficacy on F. occidentalis larvae. Field populations in southeast Spain showed a consistent susceptibility to spirotetramat. Given the scarcity of effective products and the lack of cross-resistance to other insecticides, spirotetramat can be considered as a good chemical tool to control F. occidentalis.
Compound NVP-BEZ235 (1) is a potent inhibitor of human phospoinositide-3-kinases and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) that also showed high inhibitory potency against Trypanosoma brucei cultures. With an eye toward using 1 as a starting point for anti-trypanosomal drug discovery, we report efforts to reduce host cell toxicity, to improve the physicochemical properties, and to improve the selectivity profile over human kinases. In this work, we have developed structure-activity relationships for analogues of 1 and have prepared analogues of 1 with improved solubility properties and good predicted central nervous system exposure. In this way, we have identified 4e, 9, 16e, and 16g as the most promising leads to date. We also report cell phenotype and phospholipidomic studies that suggest that these compounds exert their anti-trypanosomal effects, at least in part, by inhibition of lipid kinases.
Paravalvular aortic regurgitation after transcatheter aortic valve implantation is associated with a hemodynamic deterioration and a poor outcome. We aim to determine the early hemodynamic effect of paravalvular aortic regurgitation in relation with the change in the left ventricle filling pattern and to assess their clinical outcome.
The PubMed® database of biomedical citations allows the retrieval of scientific articles studying the function of chemicals in biology and medicine. Mining millions of available citations to search reported associations between chemicals and topics of interest would require substantial human time. We have implemented the Alkemio text mining web tool and SOAP web service to help in this task. The tool uses biomedical articles discussing chemicals (including drugs), predicts their relatedness to the query topic with a naïve Bayesian classifier and ranks all chemicals by P-values computed from random simulations. Benchmarks on seven human pathways showed good retrieval performance (areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves ranged from 73.6 to 94.5%). Comparison with existing tools to retrieve chemicals associated to eight diseases showed the higher precision and recall of Alkemio when considering the top 10 candidate chemicals. Alkemio is a high performing web tool ranking chemicals for any biomedical topics and it is free to non-commercial users.
To assess the feasibility and reliability of aortic valve area (AVA) planimetry by means of three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography (3DTEE) as compared with the transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) calculation of AVA, to determine the systematic deviations between measurements, and to describe the distribution of mean systolic in relation with 3DTEE anatomical AVA.
There are groups of genes that need coordinated repression in multiple contexts, for example if they code for proteins that work together in a pathway or in a protein complex. Redundancy of biological regulatory networks implies that such coordinated repression might occur at both the pre- and post-transcriptional level, though not necessarily simultaneously or under the same conditions. Here, we propose that such redundancy in the global regulatory network can be detected by the overlap between the putative targets of a transcriptional repressor, as identified by a ChIP-seq experiment, and predicted targets of a microRNA (miRNA). To test this hypothesis, we used publicly available ChIP-seq data of the neural transcriptional repressor RE1 silencing transcription factor (REST) from 15 different cell samples. We found 20 miRNAs, each of which shares a significant amount of predicted targets with REST. The set of predicted associations between these 20 miRNAs and the overlapping REST targets is enriched in known miRNA targets. Many of the detected miRNAs have functions related to neural identity and glioblastoma, which could be expected from their overlap in targets with REST. We propose that the integration of experimentally determined transcription factor binding sites with miRNA-target predictions provides functional information on miRNAs.
Regulation of cell volume is critical for many cellular and organismal functions, yet the molecular identity of a key player, the volume-regulated anion channel VRAC, has remained unknown. A genome-wide small interfering RNA screen in mammalian cells identified LRRC8A as a VRAC component. LRRC8A formed heteromers with other LRRC8 multispan membrane proteins. Genomic disruption of LRRC8A ablated VRAC currents. Cells with disruption of all five LRRC8 genes required LRRC8A cotransfection with other LRRC8 isoforms to reconstitute VRAC currents. The isoform combination determined VRAC inactivation kinetics. Taurine flux and regulatory volume decrease also depended on LRRC8 proteins. Our work shows that VRAC defines a class of anion channels, suggests that VRAC is identical to the volume-sensitive organic osmolyte/anion channel VSOAC, and explains the heterogeneity of native VRAC currents.
Visceral leishmaniasis, a potentially fatal disease, remains a major international health problem. Only a limited number of effective antileishmanial agents are available for chemotherapy, and many of them are expensive with severe side effects or have a markedly reduced effectiveness due to the development of drug resistance. Hence, there is a genuine need to develop a novel effective and less toxic antileishmanial drug. Melatonin, a neurohormone found in animals, plants, and microbes, can participate in various biological and physiological functions. Several in vitro or in vivo studies have reported the inhibitory effect of melatonin against many parasites via various mechanisms, including modulation of intracellular concentrations of calcium in the parasite and/or any other suggested mechanism. Importantly, many of available antileishmanial drugs have been reported to exert their effects by disrupting calcium homeostasis in the parasite. The objective of the present study was to test the efficacy of exogenous melatonin against Leishmania infantum promastigotes in vitro. Interestingly, melatonin not only demonstrated a significant antileishmanial activity of against promastigote viability in tested cultures but was also accompanied by an alteration of the calcium homeostasis of parasite mitochondrion, represented by earlier mitochondrial permeability transition pore opening, and by changes in some mitochondrial parameters are critical to parasite survival. These pioneering findings suggest that melatonin may be a candidate for the development of novel effective antileishmanial agents either alone or in associations with other drugs.
The dynamics of mitochondria undergoing fusion and fragmentation govern many mitochondrial functions, including the regulation of cell survival. Although the machinery that catalyzes fusion and fragmentation has been well described, less is known about the signaling components that regulate these phenomena. We performed a genome-wide RNA interference (RNAi) screen and identified reactive oxygen species modulator 1 (ROMO1) as a redox-regulated protein required for mitochondrial fusion and normal cristae morphology. We showed that oxidative stress promoted the formation of high-molecular weight ROMO1 complexes and that knockdown of ROMO1 promoted mitochondrial fission. ROMO1 was essential for the oligomerization of the inner membrane guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) OPA1, which is required to maintain the integrity of cristae junctions. As a consequence, cells lacking ROMO1 displayed fragmented mitochondria and loss of cristae, causing impaired mitochondrial respiration and increased sensitivity to cell death stimuli. Together, our data identify ROMO1 as a critical molecular switch that couples metabolic stress and mitochondrial morphology, linking mitochondrial fusion to cell survival.
This study aimed at the identification of prognostic gene expression markers in early primary colorectal carcinomas without metastasis at the time point of surgery by analyzing genome-wide gene expression profiles using oligonucleotide microarrays.
The objective of this study was to analyze serum Zn and Cu concentrations and Cu/Zn ratios in 116 hemodialysis patients (HPs) over a 2-year longitudinal study at four time points (6-month intervals). The relation exerted on these values by 26 biochemical and nutritional indexes, the age and drug consumption of the patients, and the etiology of their disease were also evaluated. A healthy control group (n?=?50) was also studied. Mean serum Zn concentrations were lower (p?=?0.009) and the Cu/Zn ratios higher (p?=?0.009) in HPs than in controls. Serum Cu levels in HP did not differ to those of controls. At all four sampling times, the mean serum Zn levels and Cu/Zn ratios were lower and higher, respectively, in HPs than in the controls. There was a significant reduction in serum Zn levels and an increase in Cu concentrations and Cu/Zn ratios in HPs from the second to the fourth sampling. Serum Zn levels of the HPs diminish with age older than 50 years. Serum Cu levels were significantly higher in patients consuming antihypercalcemic or anti-infarction drugs, whereas serum Cu levels and Cu/Zn ratios were significantly lower in those treated with diuretics. Diminished Zn levels were negatively correlated with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in HPs; however, enhanced Cu/Zn ratios were positively correlated with total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. Both findings indicate an increased cardiovascular risk. We conclude that this study contributes the first evidence of a correlation between marked dyslipidemia and worsened Cu/Zn ratios in HPs, implying an increased risk of diseases associated with elevated oxidative stress, inflammation, and depressed immune function, such as cardiovascular diseases.
Transient neonatal zinc deficiency (TNZD) has a clinical presentation similar to that of acrodermatitis enteropathica but is caused by a low zinc concentration in maternal breast milk. TNZD becomes clinically evident during breastfeeding and is resolved by weaning and the introduction of complementary nutrition. We present a 4-month-old girl with TNZD due to a new autosomal dominant mutation (663delC) in the maternal SLC30A2 gene not previously described in the literature.
The ability to convert low-energy quanta into a quantum of higher energy is of great interest for a variety of applications, including bioimaging, drug delivery and photovoltaics. Although high conversion efficiencies can be achieved using macroscopic nonlinear crystals, upconverting light at the nanometre scale remains challenging because the subwavelength scale of materials prevents the exploitation of phase-matching processes. Light-plasmon interactions that occur in nanostructured noble metals have offered alternative opportunities for nonlinear upconversion of infrared light, but conversion efficiency rates remain extremely low due to the weak penetration of the exciting fields into the metal. Here, we show that third-harmonic generation from an individual semiconductor indium tin oxide nanoparticle is significantly enhanced when coupled within a plasmonic gold dimer. The plasmonic dimer acts as a receiving optical antenna, confining the incident far-field radiation into a near field localized at its gap; the indium tin oxide nanoparticle located at the plasmonic dimer gap acts as a localized nonlinear transmitter upconverting three incident photons at frequency ? into a photon at frequency 3?. This hybrid nanodevice provides third-harmonic-generation enhancements of up to 10(6)-fold compared with an isolated indium tin oxide nanoparticle, with an effective third-order susceptibility up to 3.5 × 10(3) nm V(-2) and conversion efficiency of 0.0007%. We also show that the upconverted third-harmonic emission can be exploited to probe the near-field intensity at the plasmonic dimer gap.
The current methods available to detect chromosomal abnormalities from DNA microarray expression data are cumbersome and inflexible. CAFE has been developed to alleviate these issues. It is implemented as an R package that analyzes Affymetrix *.CEL files and comes with flexible plotting functions, easing visualization of chromosomal abnormalities.
The use of melatonin, a neurohormone present in plants, represents an exciting approach for the maintenance of optimum health conditions. Melatonin administration ameliorates glucose homeostasis in Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of melatonin in diabetes in relation to the levels and regulation of plasma chromium (Cr), vanadium (V), and magnesium (Mg) in Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) and Zucker lean (ZL) rats. At the age of 6 weeks, ZDF (n = 30) and ZL (n = 30) groups were each subdivided into three groups: control (C) (n = 10), vehicle-treated (V') (n = 10) and melatonin-treated (M) (10 mg kg(-1) per day; n = 10) groups for a 6 week period. After treatment, plasma mineral concentrations were measured by flame (Mg) and electrothermal (Cr and V) atomic absorption spectrometry. No significant differences were found between the C and V' groups (p > 0.05). Plasma Mg levels were significantly lower in C-ZDF vs. C-ZL rats, demonstrating the presence of hypomagnesemia in this diabetes mellitus model. Plasma V and Cr levels were significantly higher in M-ZDF vs. C-ZDF rats. Plasma Mg levels in ZDF rats were not affected by melatonin treatment (p > 0.05). Melatonin administration ameliorates the diabetic status of ZDF rats by enhancing plasma Cr and V concentrations. This appears to be the first report of a beneficial effect of melatonin treatment on plasma Cr and V regulation in ZDF rats.
Luba is one of the four historical foci of Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) on Bioko Island, in Equatorial Guinea. Although no human cases have been detected since 1995, T. b. gambiense was recently observed in the vector Glossina palpalis palpalis. The existence of cryptic species within this vector taxon has been previously suggested, although no data are available regarding the evolutionary history of tsetse flies populations in Bioko.
We present a mid-infrared inductor that when applied to an extraordinary transmission hole array produces a strong redshift of the resonant peak accompanied by an unprecedented enlargement of the operation bandwidth. The importance of the result is twofold: from a fundamental viewpoint, the direct applicability of equivalent circuit concepts borrowed from microwaves is demonstrated, in frequencies as high as 17 THz upholding unification of plasmonics and microwave concepts and allowing for a simplification of structure design and analysis; in practical terms, a broadband funnelling of infrared radiation with fractional bandwidth and efficiency as high as 97% and 48%, respectively, is achieved through an area less than one hundredth the squared wavelength, which leads to an impressive accessible strong field localization that may be of great interest in sensing applications.
CellFinder (http://www.cellfinder.org) is a comprehensive one-stop resource for molecular data characterizing mammalian cells in different tissues and in different development stages. It is built from carefully selected data sets stemming from other curated databases and the biomedical literature. To date, CellFinder describes 3394 cell types and 50 951 cell lines. The database currently contains 3055 microscopic and anatomical images, 205 whole-genome expression profiles of 194 cell/tissue types from RNA-seq and microarrays and 553 905 protein expressions for 535 cells/tissues. Text mining of a corpus of >2000 publications followed by manual curation confirmed expression information on ?900 proteins and genes. CellFinders data model is capable to seamlessly represent entities from single cells to the organ level, to incorporate mappings between homologous entities in different species and to describe processes of cell development and differentiation. Its ontological backbone currently consists of 204 741 ontology terms incorporated from 10 different ontologies unified under the novel CELDA ontology. CellFinders web portal allows searching, browsing and comparing the stored data, interactive construction of developmental trees and navigating the partonomic hierarchy of cells and tissues through a unique body browser designed for life scientists and clinicians.
Approximately half of all human transcripts contain at least one upstream translational initiation site that precedes the main coding sequence (CDS) and gives rise to an upstream open reading frame (uORF). We generated uORFdb, publicly available at http://cbdm.mdc-berlin.de/tools/uorfdb, to serve as a comprehensive literature database on eukaryotic uORF biology. Upstream ORFs affect downstream translation by interfering with the unrestrained progression of ribosomes across the transcript leader sequence. Although the first uORF-related translational activity was observed >30 years ago, and an increasing number of studies link defective uORF-mediated translational control to the development of human diseases, the features that determine uORF-mediated regulation of downstream translation are not well understood. The uORFdb was manually curated from all uORF-related literature listed at the PubMed database. It categorizes individual publications by a variety of denominators including taxon, gene and type of study. Furthermore, the database can be filtered for multiple structural and functional uORF-related properties to allow convenient and targeted access to the complex field of eukaryotic uORF biology.
A low-loss and low-dispersive optical-fiber-like hybrid HE?? mode is developed within a wide band in metallic hollow waveguides if their inner walls are coated with a thin dielectric layer. We investigate terahertz (THz) transmission losses from 0.5 to 5.5 THz and bending losses at 2.85 THz in a polystyrene-lined silver waveguides with core diameters small enough (1 mm) to minimize the number of undesired modes and to make the waveguide flexible, while keeping the transmission loss of the HE?? mode low. The experimentally measured loss is below 10 dB/m for 2 < ? < 2.85 THz (~4-4.5 dB/m at 2.85 THz) and it is estimated to be below 3 dB/m for 3 < ? < 5 THz according to the numerical calculations. At ~1.25 THz, the waveguide shows an absorption peak of ~75 dB/m related to the transition between the TM??-like mode and the HE?? mode. Numerical modeling reproduces the measured absorption spectrum but underestimates the losses at the absorption peak, suggesting imperfections in the waveguide walls and that the losses can be reduced further.
Understanding how distinct cell types arise from multipotent progenitor cells is a major quest in stem cell biology. The liver and pancreas share many aspects of their early development and possibly originate from a common progenitor. However, how liver and pancreas cells diverge from a common endoderm progenitor population and adopt specific fates remains elusive. Using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), we defined the molecular identity of liver and pancreas progenitors that were isolated from the mouse embryo at two time points, spanning the period when the lineage decision is made. The integration of temporal and spatial gene expression profiles unveiled mutually exclusive signaling signatures in hepatic and pancreatic progenitors. Importantly, we identified the noncanonical Wnt pathway as a potential developmental regulator of this fate decision and capable of inducing the pancreas program in endoderm and liver cells. Our study offers an unprecedented view of gene expression programs in liver and pancreas progenitors and forms the basis for formulating lineage-reprogramming strategies to convert adult hepatic cells into pancreatic cells.
Proteins perform their functions in associated cellular locations. Therefore, the study of protein function can be facilitated by predictions of protein location. Protein location can be predicted either from the sequence of a protein alone by identification of targeting peptide sequences and motifs, or by homology to proteins of known location. A third approach, which is complementary, exploits the differences in amino acid composition of proteins associated to different cellular locations, and can be useful if motif and homology information are missing. Here we expand this approach taking into account amino acid composition at different levels of amino acid exposure.
The complex life cycle of Trypanosoma brucei provides an excellent model system to understand signalling pathways that regulate development. We described previously the classical functions of TOR (target of rapamycin) 1 and TOR2 in T. brucei. In a more recent study, we described a novel TOR kinase, named TOR4, which regulates differentiation from the proliferative infective form to the quiescent form. In contrast with TOR1 loss-of-function, down-regulation of TOR4 triggers an irreversible differentiation process through the development of the insect pre-adapted quiescent form. TOR4 governs a signalling pathway distinct from those controlled by the conventional TOR complexes TORC1 and TORC2. Depletion of TOR4 induces all well-known characteristics of the quiescent developmental stage in trypanosomes, including expression of the PAD (proteins associated with differentiation) surface proteins and transcriptional down-regulation of the VSG (variant surface glycoprotein) gene. TOR4 kinase forms a structurally and functionally distinct complex named TORC4. TOR4 associates with LST8 (lethal with sec-13 protein 8) and other factors including an armadillo-domain-containing protein and the major vault protein, which probably serves as a scaffold for this kinase. Research in T. brucei, a protozoan parasite that diverged from the eukaryotic tree early in evolution, may help to uncover new functions of TOR kinases.
Gene transcripts specifically expressed in a particular cell type (cell-type specific gene markers) are useful for its detection and isolation from a tissue or other cell mixtures. However, finding informative marker genes can be problematic when working with a poorly characterized cell type, as markers can only be unequivocally determined once the cell type has been isolated. We propose a method that could identify marker genes of an uncharacterized cell type within a mixed cell population, provided that the proportion of the cell type of interest in the mixture can be estimated by some indirect method, such as a functional assay.
An epsilon-near-zero graded-index converging lens with planar faces is proposed and analyzed. Each perfectly-electric conducting (PEC) waveguide comprising the lens operates slightly above its cut-off frequency and has the same length but different cross-sectional dimensions. This allows controlling individually the propagation constant and the normalized characteristic impedance of each waveguide for the desired phase front at the lens output while Fresnel reflection losses are minimized. A complete theoretical analysis based on the waveguide theory and Fermats principle is provided. This is complemented with numerical simulation results of two-dimensional and three-dimensional lenses, made of PEC and aluminum, respectively, and working in the terahertz regime, which show good agreement with the analytical work.
A popular query from scientists reading a biomedical abstract is to search for topic-related documents in bibliographic databases. Such a query is challenging because the amount of information attached to a single abstract is little, whereas classification-based retrieval algorithms are optimally trained with large sets of relevant documents. As a solution to this problem, we propose a query expansion method that extends the information related to a manuscript using its cited references.
The human mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) is one of the main components of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), the system that regulates the body exchange of water and sodium. The evolutionary origins of this protein predate those of renin and the RAAS; accordingly it has other roles, which are being characterized. The MR has two trans-activating ligand independent domains and one inhibitory domain (ID), which modulates the activity of the former. The structure of the ID is currently unknown.
Perceived risk of environmental threats often translates into psychological stress with a wide range of effects on health and well-being. Petrochemical industrial complexes constitute one of the sites that can cause considerable pollution and health problems. The uncertainty around emissions results in a perception of risk for citizens residing in neighboring areas, which translates into anxiety and physiological stress. In this context, social trust is a key factor in managing the perceived risk. In the case of industrial risks, it is essential to distinguish between trust in the companies that make up the industry, and trust in public institutions. In the context of a petrochemical industrial complex located in the port of Castellón (Spain), this paper primarily discusses how trust - both in the companies located in the petrochemical complex and in the public institutions - affects citizens health risk perception. The research findings confirm that while the trust in companies negatively affects citizens health risk perception, trust in public institutions does not exert a direct and significant effect. Analysis also revealed that trust in public institutions and health risk perception are essentially linked indirectly (through trust in companies).
Interactions of proteins regulate signaling, catalysis, gene expression and many other cellular functions. Therefore, characterizing the entire human interactome is a key effort in current proteomics research. This challenge is complicated by the dynamic nature of protein-protein interactions (PPIs), which are conditional on the cellular context: both interacting proteins must be expressed in the same cell and localized in the same organelle to meet. Additionally, interactions underlie a delicate control of signaling pathways, e.g. by post-translational modifications of the protein partners - hence, many diseases are caused by the perturbation of these mechanisms. Despite the high degree of cell-state specificity of PPIs, many interactions are measured under artificial conditions (e.g. yeast cells are transfected with human genes in yeast two-hybrid assays) or even if detected in a physiological context, this information is missing from the common PPI databases. To overcome these problems, we developed a method that assigns context information to PPIs inferred from various attributes of the interacting proteins: gene expression, functional and disease annotations, and inferred pathways. We demonstrate that context consistency correlates with the experimental reliability of PPIs, which allows us to generate high-confidence tissue- and function-specific subnetworks. We illustrate how these context-filtered networks are enriched in bona fide pathways and disease proteins to prove the ability of context-filters to highlight meaningful interactions with respect to various biological questions. We use this approach to study the lung-specific pathways used by the influenza virus, pointing to IRAK1, BHLHE40 and TOLLIP as potential regulators of influenza virus pathogenicity, and to study the signalling pathways that play a role in Alzheimers disease, identifying a pathway involving the altered phosphorylation of the Tau protein. Finally, we provide the annotated human PPI network via a web frontend that allows the construction of context-specific networks in several ways.
Trypanosoma brucei gambiense infection is widely considered an anthroponosis, although it has also been found in wild and domestic animals. Thus, fauna could act as reservoir, constraining the elimination of the parasite in hypo-endemic foci. To better understand the possible maintenance of T. b. gambiense in local fauna and investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptation, we generated adapted cells lines (ACLs) by in vitro culture of the parasites in different mammalian sera. Using specific antibodies against the Variant Surface Glycoproteins (VSGs) we found that serum ACLs exhibited different VSG variants when maintained in pig, goat or human sera. Although newly detected VSGs were independent of the sera used, the consistent appearance of different VSGs suggested remodelling of the co-transcribed genes at the telomeric Expression Site (VSG-ES). Thus, Expression Site Associated Genes (ESAGs) sequences were analysed to investigate possible polymorphism selection. ESAGs 6 and 7 genotypes, encoding the transferrin receptor (TfR), expressed in different ACLs were characterised. In addition, we quantified the ESAG6/7 mRNA levels and analysed transferrin (Tf) uptake. Interestingly, the best growth occurred in pig and human serum ACLs, which consistently exhibited a predominant ESAG7 genotype and higher Tf uptake than those obtained in calf and goat sera. We also detected an apparent selection of specific ESAG3 genotypes in the pig and human serum ACLs, suggesting that other ESAGs could be involved in the host adaptation processes. Altogether, these results suggest a model whereby VSG-ES remodelling allows the parasite to express a specific set of ESAGs to provide selective advantages in different hosts. Finally, pig serum ACLs display phenotypic adaptation parameters closely related to human serum ACLs but distinct to parasites grown in calf and goat sera. These results suggest a better suitability of swine to maintain T. b. gambiense infection supporting previous epidemiological results.
Alpha-solenoids are flexible protein structural domains formed by ensembles of alpha-helical repeats (Armadillo and HEAT repeats among others). While homology can be used to detect many of these repeats, some alpha-solenoids have very little sequence homology to proteins of known structure and we expect that many remain undetected. We previously developed a method for detection of alpha-helical repeats based on a neural network trained on a dataset of protein structures. Here we improved the detection algorithm and updated the training dataset using recently solved structures of alpha-solenoids. Unexpectedly, we identified occurrences of alpha-solenoids in solved protein structures that escaped attention, for example within the core of the catalytic subunit of PI3KC. Our results expand the current set of known alpha-solenoids. Application of our tool to the protein universe allowed us to detect their significant enrichment in proteins interacting with many proteins, confirming that alpha-solenoids are generally involved in protein-protein interactions. We then studied the taxonomic distribution of alpha-solenoids to discuss an evolutionary scenario for the emergence of this type of domain, speculating that alpha-solenoids have emerged in multiple taxa in independent events by convergent evolution. We observe a higher rate of alpha-solenoids in eukaryotic genomes and in some prokaryotic families, such as Cyanobacteria and Planctomycetes, which could be associated to increased cellular complexity. The method is available at http://cbdm.mdc-berlin.de/~ard2/.
The integration of sequencing and gene interaction data and subsequent generation of pathways and networks contained in databases such as KEGG Pathway is essential for the comprehension of complex biological processes. We noticed the absence of a chart or pathway describing the well-studied preimplantation development stages; furthermore, not all genes involved in the process have entries in KEGG Orthology, important information for knowledge application with relation to other organisms.
An effective negative refractive index (NRI) is demonstrated and experimentally verified for the first two propagation bands of a fishnet-like metamaterial at millimeter-wave frequencies. The dual-band NRI behavior is achieved by engineering the diffraction order (±1, ±1) associated with the internal mode supported between holey layers to correspond with the second propagation band. In addition to the experimental interferometric technique that accounts for the handedness of the propagation, numerical results are given to predict the dual-band effective NRI and to confirm dual-band negative refraction for a prism composed of the proposed metamaterial.
Determining usefulness of biomedical text mining systems requires realistic task definition and data selection criteria without artificial constraints, measuring performance aspects that go beyond traditional metrics. The BioCreative III Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) tasks were motivated by such considerations, trying to address aspects including how the end user would oversee the generated output, for instance by providing ranked results, textual evidence for human interpretation or measuring time savings by using automated systems. Detecting articles describing complex biological events like PPIs was addressed in the Article Classification Task (ACT), where participants were asked to implement tools for detecting PPI-describing abstracts. Therefore the BCIII-ACT corpus was provided, which includes a training, development and test set of over 12,000 PPI relevant and non-relevant PubMed abstracts labeled manually by domain experts and recording also the human classification times. The Interaction Method Task (IMT) went beyond abstracts and required mining for associations between more than 3,500 full text articles and interaction detection method ontology concepts that had been applied to detect the PPIs reported in them.
Secundum-type atrial septal defects (ASDII) account for approximately 10% of all congenital heart defects (CHD) and are associated with a familial risk. Mutations in transcription factors represent a genetic source for ASDII. Yet, little is known about the role of mutations in sarcomeric genes in ASDII etiology. To assess the role of sarcomeric genes in patients with inherited ASDII, we analyzed 13 sarcomeric genes (MYH7, MYBPC3, TNNT2, TCAP, TNNI3, MYH6, TPM1, MYL2, CSRP3, ACTC1, MYL3, TNNC1, and TTN kinase region) in 31 patients with familial ASDII using array-based resequencing. Genotyping of family relatives and control subjects as well as structural and homology analyses were used to evaluate the pathogenic impact of novel non-synonymous gene variants. Three novel missense mutations were found in the MYH6 gene encoding alpha-myosin heavy chain (R17H, C539R, and K543R). These mutations co-segregated with CHD in the families and were absent in 370 control alleles. Interestingly, all three MYH6 mutations are located in a highly conserved region of the alpha-myosin motor domain, which is involved in myosin-actin interaction. In addition, the cardiomyopathy related MYH6-A1004S and the MYBPC3-A833T mutations were also found in one and two unrelated subjects with ASDII, respectively. No mutations were found in the 11 other sarcomeric genes analyzed. The study indicates that sarcomeric gene mutations may represent a so far underestimated genetic source for familial recurrence of ASDII. In particular, perturbations in the MYH6 head domain seem to play a major role in the genetic origin of familial ASDII.
Twenty compounds selected as representative members of three series of long-chain 1,2-diamines, 2-amino-1-alkanols and 1-amino-2-alkanols structurally related to dihydrosphingosin, were synthesized and tested in vitro for their ability to inhibit the sleeping sickness parasites Trypanosoma bruceirhodesiense and Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Eight compounds showed EC(50) values in the submicromolar range, with selectivity indexes up to 39 related to the respective cytotoxicity values for Vero cells. The parasite phenotype detected after treatment with the most potent compounds showed irreversible cell morphology alterations of the flagellar pocket that lead to inhibition of cell growth and parasite death.
Cellular signal transduction is a complex process involving protein-protein interactions (PPIs) that transmit information. For example, signals from the plasma membrane may be transduced to transcription factors to regulate gene expression. To obtain a global view of cellular signaling and to predict potential signal modulators, we searched for protein interaction partners of more than 450 signaling-related proteins by means of automated yeast two-hybrid interaction mating. The resulting PPI network connected 1126 proteins through 2626 PPIs. After expansion of this interaction map with publicly available PPI data, we generated a directed network resembling the signal transduction flow between proteins with a naïve Bayesian classifier. We exploited information on the shortest PPI paths from membrane receptors to transcription factors to predict input and output relationships between interacting proteins. Integration of directed PPI with time-resolved protein phosphorylation data revealed network structures that dynamically conveyed information from the activated epidermal growth factor and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (EGF/ERK) signaling cascade to directly associated proteins and more distant proteins in the network. From the model network, we predicted 18 previously unknown modulators of EGF/ERK signaling, which we validated in mammalian cell-based assays. This generic experimental and computational approach provides a framework for elucidating causal connections between signaling proteins and facilitates the identification of proteins that modulate the flow of information in signaling networks.
Protein-protein interaction (PPI) databases are widely used tools to study cellular pathways and networks; however, there are several databases available that still do not account for cell type-specific differences. Here, we evaluated the characteristics of six interaction databases, incorporated tissue-specific gene expression information and finally, investigated if the most popular proteins of scientific literature are involved in good quality interactions.
Protein features are often displayed along the linear sequence of amino acids that make up that protein, but in reality these features occupy a position in the folded proteins 3D space. Mapping sequence features to known or predicted protein structures is useful when trying to deduce the function of those features and when evaluating sequence or structural predictions. To facilitate this goal, we developed PDBpaint, a simple tool that displays protein sequence features gathered from bioinformatics resources on top of protein structures, which are displayed in an interactive window (using the Jmol Java viewer). PDBpaint can be used either with existing protein structures or with novel structures provided by the user. The current version of PDBpaint allows the visualization of annotations from Pfam, ARD (detection of HEAT-repeats), UniProt, TMHMM2.0 and SignalP. Users can also add other annotations manually.
In the present study, the first objective was to follow up serum selenium (Se) concentrations in 117 hemodialysis patients (HPs) during a 2-year longitudinal study, relating concentrations to biochemical indexes (n?=?6; namely lipoprotein profile, uric acid, and total protein levels). It was also evaluated whether the disease is associated with an enhanced cardiovascular risk. A healthy control group (n?=?50) was also studied. Mean serum Se levels were significantly lower in HPs than in the controls (p?=?0.002); mean levels significantly increased from the first to third blood sampling (p?0.001). HPs showed a marked dyslipidemia, with a significant reduction in total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and a significant increase in triglyceride levels (p?0.001). HPs showed a marked hyperuricemia (p?0.001). Serum selenium levels in HPs were correlated negatively with uric acid levels (inflammation biomarker; p?0.01). In HPs, serum Se levels are reduced due to their disease (chronic renal failure). Serum Se levels rose until the third blood sampling. The marked dyslipidemia and hyperuricemia found in HPs and the negative correlation between the serum Se and uric acid levels in these patients could imply an enhanced cardiovascular risk.
Somatic cells can be reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells by over-expression of OCT4, SOX2, KLF4 and c-MYC (OSKM). With the aim of unveiling the early mechanisms underlying the induction of pluripotency, we have analyzed transcriptional profiles at 24, 48 and 72 hours post-transduction of OSKM into human foreskin fibroblasts. Experiments confirmed that upon viral transduction, the immediate response is innate immunity, which induces free radical generation, oxidative DNA damage, p53 activation, senescence, and apoptosis, ultimately leading to a reduction in the reprogramming efficiency. Conversely, nucleofection of OSKM plasmids does not elicit the same cellular stress, suggesting viral response as an early reprogramming roadblock. Additional initiation events include the activation of surface markers associated with pluripotency and the suppression of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Furthermore, reconstruction of an OSKM interaction network highlights intermediate path nodes as candidates for improvement intervention. Overall, the results suggest three strategies to improve reprogramming efficiency employing: 1) anti-inflammatory modulation of innate immune response, 2) pre-selection of cells expressing pluripotency-associated surface antigens, 3) activation of specific interaction paths that amplify the pluripotency signal.
Biomedical literature is traditionally used as a way to inform scientists of the relevance of genes in relation to a research topic. However many genes, especially from poorly studied organisms, are not discussed in the literature. Moreover, a manual and comprehensive summarization of the literature attached to the genes of an organism is in general impossible due to the high number of genes and abstracts involved. We introduce the novel Génie algorithm that overcomes these problems by evaluating the literature attached to all genes in a genome and to their orthologs according to a selected topic. Génie showed high precision (up to 100%) and the best performance in comparison to other algorithms in most of the benchmarks, especially when high sensitivity was required. Moreover, the prioritization of zebrafish genes involved in heart development, using human and mouse orthologs, showed high enrichment in differentially expressed genes from microarray experiments. The Génie web server supports hundreds of species, millions of genes and offers novel functionalities. Common run times below a minute, even when analyzing the human genome with hundreds of thousands of literature records, allows the use of Génie in routine lab work. Availability: http://cbdm.mdc-berlin.de/tools/genie/.
Biological function is greatly dependent on the interactions of proteins with other proteins and genes. Abstracts from the biomedical literature stored in the NCBIs PubMed database can be used for the derivation of interactions between genes and proteins by identifying the co-occurrences of their terms. Often, the amount of interactions obtained through such an approach is large and may mix processes occurring in different contexts. Current tools do not allow studying these data with a focus on concepts of relevance to a user, for example, interactions related to a disease or to a biological mechanism such as protein aggregation.
Pseudogenes have been mainly considered as functionless evolutionary relics since their discovery in 1977. However, multiple mechanisms of pseudogene functionality have been proposed both at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional level. This review focuses on the role of pseudogenes as post-transcriptional regulators. Two lines of research have recently presented strong evidence of their potential function as post-transcriptional regulators of the corresponding parental genes from which they originate. First, pseudogene genomic sequences can encode siRNAs. Second, pseudogene transcripts can act as indirect post-transcriptional regulators decoying ncRNA, in particular miRNAs that target the parental gene. This has been demonstrated for PTEN and KRAS, two genes involved in tumorigenesis. The role of pseudogenes in disease has not been proven and seems to be the next research landmark. In this review, we chronicle the events following the initial discovery of the useless pseudogene to its breakthrough as a functional molecule with hitherto unbeknownst potential to influence human disease.
Target repurposing utilizes knowledge of "druggable" targets obtained in one organism and exploits this information to pursue new potential drug targets in other organisms. Here we describe such studies to evaluate whether inhibitors targeting the kinase domain of the mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) and human phosphoinositide-3-kinases (PI3Ks) show promise against the kinetoplastid parasites Trypanosoma brucei, T. cruzi, Leishmania major, and L. donovani. The genomes of trypanosomatids encode at least 12 proteins belonging to the PI3K protein superfamily, some of which are unique to parasites. Moreover, the shared PI3Ks differ greatly in sequence from those of the human host, thereby providing opportunities for selective inhibition.
High-throughput biological experiments can produce a large amount of data showing little overlap with current knowledge. This may be a problem when evaluating alternative scoring mechanisms for such data according to a gold standard dataset because standard statistical tests may not be appropriate.
Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 2 (LRP2) is a multifunctional cell surface receptor conserved from nematodes to humans. In mammals, it acts as regulator of sonic hedgehog and bone morphogenetic protein pathways in patterning of the embryonic forebrain and as a clearance receptor in the adult kidney. Little is known about activities of this LRP in other phyla. Here, we extend the functional elucidation of LRP2 to zebrafish as a model organism of receptor (dys)function. We demonstrate that expression of Lrp2 in embryonic and larval fish recapitulates the patterns seen in mammalian brain and kidney. Furthermore, we studied the consequence of receptor deficiencies in lrp2 and in lrp2b, a homologue unique to fish, using ENU mutagenesis or morpholino knockdown. While receptor-deficient zebrafish suffer from overt renal resorption deficiency, their brain development proceeds normally, suggesting evolutionary conservation of receptor functions in pronephric duct clearance but not in patterning of the teleost forebrain.
Many computational methods have been used to predict novel non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), but none, to our knowledge, have explicitly investigated the impact of integrating existing cDNA-based Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) data that flank structural RNA predictions. To determine whether flanking EST data can assist in microRNA (miRNA) prediction, we identified genomic sites encoding putative miRNAs by combining functional RNA predictions with flanking ESTs data in a model consistent with miRNAs undergoing cleavage during maturation. In both human and mouse genomes, we observed that the inclusion of flanking ESTs adjacent to and not overlapping predicted miRNAs significantly improved the performance of various methods of miRNA prediction, including direct high-throughput sequencing of small RNA libraries. We analyzed the expression of hundreds of miRNAs predicted to be expressed during myogenic differentiation using a customized microarray and identified several known and predicted myogenic miRNA hairpins. Our results indicate that integrating ESTs flanking structural RNA predictions improves the quality of cleaved miRNA predictions and suggest that this strategy can be used to predict other non-coding RNAs undergoing cleavage during maturation.
To estimate the preoperative levels of anxiety and depression in patients awaiting heart surgery and to identify the risk factors associated with the development of these mood disorders. To evaluate the relationship between preoperative anxiety and depression and postoperative morbidity.
Autophagy is the degradative process by which eukaryotic cells digest their own components using acid hydrolases within the lysosome. Originally thought to function almost exclusively in providing starving cells with nutrients taken from their own cellular constituents, autophagy is in fact involved in numerous cellular events including differentiation, turnover of macromolecules and organelles, and defense against parasitic invaders. During the last 10-20 years, molecular components of the autophagic machinery have been discovered, revealing a complex interactome of proteins and lipids, which, in a concerted way, induce membrane formation to engulf cellular material and target it for lysosomal degradation. Here, our emphasis is autophagy in protists. We discuss experimental and genomic data indicating that the canonical autophagy machinery characterized in animals and fungi appeared prior to the radiation of major eukaryotic lineages. Moreover, we describe how comparative bioinformatics revealed that this canonical machinery has been subject to moderation, outright loss or elaboration on multiple occasions in protist lineages, most probably as a consequence of diverse lifestyle adaptations. We also review experimental studies illustrating how several pathogenic protists either utilize autophagy mechanisms or manipulate host-cell autophagy in order to establish or maintain infection within a host. The essentiality of autophagy for the pathogenicity of many parasites, and the unique features of some of the autophagy-related proteins involved, suggest possible new targets for drug discovery. Further studies of the molecular details of autophagy in protists will undoubtedly enhance our understanding of the diversity and complexity of this cellular phenomenon and the opportunities it offers as a drug target.
Piwi proteins are germline-specific Argonautes that associate with small RNAs called Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), and together with these RNAs are implicated in transposon silencing. The PAZ domain of Argonaute proteins recognizes the 3-end of the RNA, which in the case of piRNAs is invariably modified with a 2-O-methyl group. Here, we present the solution structure of the PAZ domain from the mouse Piwi protein, MIWI, in complex with an 8-mer piRNA mimic. The methyl group is positioned in a hydrophobic cavity made of conserved amino acids from strand ?7 and helix ?3, where it is contacted by the side chain of methionine-382. Our structure is similar to that of Ago-PAZ, but subtle differences illustrate how the PAZ domain has evolved to accommodate distinct 3 ends from a variety of RNA substrates.
Experimental evidence of phase resonances in a dual-period re?ection structure comprising three subwavelength grooves in each period is provided in the millimeter-wave regime. We have analyzed and measured the response of these structures and show that phase resonances are characterized by a minimum in the re?ected response, as predicted by numerical calculations. It is also shown that under oblique incidence these structures exhibit additional phase resonances not present for normal illumination because of the potentially permitted odd ?eld distribution. A satisfactory agreement between the experimental and numerical re?ectance curves is obtained. These results con?rm the recent theoretical predictions of phase resonances in re?ection gratings in the millimeter-wave regime, and encourage research in this subject due to the multiple potential applications, such as frequency selective surfaces, backscattering reduction and complex-surface-wave-based sensing. In addition, it is underlined here that the response becomes much more complex than the mere in?nite analysis when one considers ?nite periodic structures as in the real experiment.
The study objective was to investigate the effects of melatonin on obesity and obesity-associated systolic hypertension and dyslipidemia in young male Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats, an experimental model of the metabolic syndrome. ZDF rats (n=30) and lean littermates (ZL) (n=30) were used. At 6wk of age, both lean and fatty animals were subdivided into three groups (n=10): naive (N), vehicle-treated (V), and melatonin-treated (M) (10mg/kg/day) for 6wk. Vehicle and melatonin were added to the drinking water. Melatonin reduced mean weight gain (51±2/100g BW) versus N-ZDF group (58±3, P<0.05) without food intake differences. M-ZDF rats showed an apparent reduction in systolic hypertension that proved not to be statistically significant, and a significant improvement in dyslipidemia, with a reduction in hypertriglyceridemia from 580±40 to 420.6±40.9mg/dL (P<0.01). Melatonin raised high-density-lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol in ZDF (from 81.6±4.9 to 103.1±4.5mg/dL, P<0.01) and ZL rats (from 62.8±4.8 to 73.5±4.8mg/dL, P<0.05) and significantly reduced low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in ZDF rats from 5.20±0.4 to 4.14±0.3?mg/dL (P<0.05) but had no effect on total cholesterol levels. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of a positive effect of melatonin on overweight and lipid pattern of obese Zucker diabetic rats, supporting the proposition that melatonin administration may ameliorate overweight and lipid metabolism in humans. Because these benefits occurred in youth, before advanced metabolic and vascular complications, melatonin might help to prevent cardiovascular disease associated with obesity and dyslipidemia.
Almost 50 years following the discovery of the prokaryotic operon, the functional relevance of gene order within operons remains unclear. In this work, we take advantage of the eroded genome of Mycobacterium leprae to add evidence supporting the notion that functionally less important genes have a tendency to be located at the end of its operons. M. lepraes genome includes 1133 pseudogenes and 1614 protein-coding genes and can be compared with the close genome of M. tuberculosis. Assuming M. lepraes pseudogenes to represent dispensable genes, we have studied the position of these pseudogenes in the operons of M. leprae and of their orthologs in M. tuberculosis. We observed that both tend to be located in the 3 (downstream) half of the operon (P-values of 0.03 and 0.18, respectively). Analysis of pseudogenes in all available prokaryotic genomes confirms this trend (P-value of 7.1?×?10(-7)). In a complementary analysis, we found a significant tendency for essential genes to be located at the 5 (upstream) half of the operon (P-value of 0.006). Our work provides an indication that, in prokarya, functionally less important genes have a tendency to be located at the end of operons, while more relevant genes tend to be located toward operon starts.
Selenium (Se) is an antioxidant element that protects against cellular damage by reactive oxygen species. Therefore, total serum Se concentration may reflect protection during the development of cirrhosis, an oxidative stress-related disease. We hypothesized that serum Se levels are diminished in cirrhotic patients due to their enhanced oxidative stress, and serum Se levels are reduced the most in patients with the highest severity of cirrhosis. A case-control study was performed to determine whether cirrhosis is associated with changes in serum Se levels. Blood samples from 30 healthy controls and 93 cirrhotic patients were analyzed for total serum Se by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry. The Child-Pugh index score was used to evaluate the severity of liver disease. The mean serum Se concentration was significantly lower in patients vs controls (0.721 ± 0.239 vs 0.926 ± 0.241 ?mol/L; P = .001). Mean serum Se levels were not significantly lower in patients with higher severity of cirrhosis (0.691 ± 0.229 vs 0.755 ± 0.255 ?mol/L; P = .144). A positive and significant correlation was found between age and serum Se levels in patients (r = 0.277, P = .007). Patients showed significant sex differences in serum Se level (higher in male) and severity index (higher in female). The significantly decreased serum Se level in patients indicates that the Se component of the antioxidant system is severely impaired in cirrhosis. However, serum Se levels were not influenced by the severity of the disease.
Megalin-mediated endocytic uptake constitutes the main pathway for clearance of plasma proteins from the glomerular filtrate in proximal tubules. Little is known, however, about mechanisms that control megalin expression and activity in the kidney. A widely discussed hypothesis states that upon ligand binding a regulated intramembrane proteolysis releases the cytosolic domain of megalin and this fragment subsequently modulates megalin gene transcription. Here, we tested this by generating a mouse model that co-expressed both the soluble intracellular domain and full-length megalin. Despite pronounced synthesis in the proximal tubules, the soluble intracellular domain failed to exert distinct effects on renal proximal tubular function, including megalin expression, endocytic retrieval of proteins, or global renal gene transcription. Hence, our study argues that the soluble intracellular domain does not have a role in regulating the activity of megalin in the kidney.
Target of rapamycin (TOR) kinases are highly conserved protein kinases that integrate signals from nutrients and growth factors to coordinate cell growth and cell cycle progression. It has been previously described that two TOR kinases control cell growth in the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African trypanosomiasis. Here we studied an unusual TOR-like protein named TbTOR-like 1 containing a PDZ domain and found exclusively in kinetoplastids. TbTOR-like 1 localizes to unique cytosolic granules. After hyperosmotic stress, the localization of the protein shifts to the cell periphery, different from other organelle markers. Ablation of TbTOR-like 1 causes a progressive inhibition of cell proliferation, producing parasites accumulating in the S/G(2) phase of the cell cycle. TbTOR-like 1 knocked down cells have an increased area occupied by acidic vacuoles, known as acidocalcisomes, and are enriched in polyphosphate and pyrophosphate. These results suggest that TbTOR-like 1 might be involved in the control of acidocalcisome and polyphosphate metabolism in T. brucei.
JoVE Visualize is a tool created to match the last 5 years of PubMed publications to methods in JoVE's video library.
How does it work?
We use abstracts found on PubMed and match them to JoVE videos to create a list of 10 to 30 related methods videos.
Video X seems to be unrelated to Abstract Y...
In developing our video relationships, we compare around 5 million PubMed articles to our library of over 4,500 methods videos. In some cases the language used in the PubMed abstracts makes matching that content to a JoVE video difficult. In other cases, there happens not to be any content in our video library that is relevant to the topic of a given abstract. In these cases, our algorithms are trying their best to display videos with relevant content, which can sometimes result in matched videos with only a slight relation.
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Kor-Chem Pro Wash Press Wash
ProWash is designed to open dried or clogged images on the screen during the production run. ProWash is great for use on textile inks without harming the emulsion. Excellent for press side wash up, color changes and as a pre-step to color changes. ProWash does not have any harsh solvent odors and is practically odorless! ProWash may be rinsed with water and is drain safe.
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The challenges will be even greater when House and Senate bills have to be combined. Among the differences that need to be resolved are whether to include the option of a government-run insurance plan to compete with the private sector, how to pay for overhaul costs and where to levy taxes.
Democrats also have to be careful about losing Snowe's support. Even though she voted aye for the Baucus bill, Snowe said her vote doesn't forecast what her vote will be in the future.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who had expressed reservations about the Baucus bill, said during the committee hearing Tuesday, "We are not doing what we set out to do. It is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough."
Public option is likely to be one of the thorniest issues in the debate moving forward. Snowe today expressed concern about including that option, saying she would prefer to first give the private insurance industry a chance to oblige with new requirements set for them.
"I would prefer to allow the private sector to work through these reforms that we are going to require of them," Snowe said. "They're going to have to live up to a certain standard. If they don't, then you can have a public option kick in immediately."
Snowe was the one of the first to suggest the idea of a trigger public option, whereby a government plan would be implemented in regions where private insurance companies did not offer affordable, accessible coverage.
House Democrats are particularly sensitive about the public-option issue. Many of them don't support Baucus' bill because it doesn't include that plan. Instead, Baucus proposed the creation of member-owner, nonprofit co-operatives that would compete with private insurers.
"There is no doubt about it, through this process the Senate bill has gotten watered down and watered down and watered down," Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., told ABC News.
Feuding Democrats say the president needs to step in and offer a compromise.
"This is kind of like a baseball game where you bring in your best pitcher at the end to be your closer," Weiner said. "Well, those of us who support a public option are waiting for President Obama to come in out of the bull pen and seal this deal. Up to now every committee has moved this ball forward, now have to make sure we get it right. One thing is clear, if we don't have true competition and true cost containment that only public option can create, we're going to regret this effort in the end."
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Nurturing Selflessness in a Selfie Culture
Dec 15, 2016 10:02AM
● By Pamela Johnson
Sponsored Content
In a typical day, it’s possible for children to spend more time engaging with technology than interacting with their peers face-to-face. As a result, the “selfie culture” is on the minds of today’s parents, who worry about how they can make sure their children grow into kind and selfless adults.
However, a national survey revealed that parents don’t fully realize the power they have when it comes to developing good character in their children. The online survey, commissioned by national high-quality preschool provider Primrose Schools®, profiled hundreds of U.S. parents whose children attend, will attend or have previously attended an early education program between the ages of 3-5.
In today’s social media-focused world, 92 percent of parents agree that nurturing positive character traits in children is more important than it used to be. Yet nearly 50 percent of parents are unaware of just how early they can and should start helping their children develop these traits.
When Character-Building Should Begin
The foundational skills for good character start emerging in the first year of life. Children as young as 6 months old can demonstrate outward signs of budding empathy skills. Character and emotional intelligence continue to develop throughout the early years and are significantly influenced by young children’s interactions with their parents and caregivers. Yet almost 50 percent of parents believe preschool is too early for children to start learning social-emotional skills, and could be missing critical opportunities to support their child’s development.
Why Nurturing Good Character Early is Important
Intentionally nurturing social-emotional skills starting at birth is an important and often overlooked opportunity as these skills have been shown to be key predictors of future health, academic and life success. Early brain and child development research now shows more clearly that the first five years of life are critical for building the foundation for traits such as honesty, generosity, compassion and kindness, which will impact children for a lifetime.
“We now know that IQ no longer represents an accurate predictor of school readiness, much less future life success,” said Dr. Laura Jana, a pediatrician and nationally acclaimed parenting and children’s book author. “It’s not just about learning the ‘3 Rs’ of reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic anymore. It’s the addition of a fourth ‘R’ that represents relationships and the importance of reading other people, which sets children up for success in today’s world.”
Finding Child Care that Nurtures Good Character
In addition to parents, child care providers play a key role in helping children develop a strong foundation. However, more than half of parents surveyed feel their child did not or will not acquire honesty, generosity and compassion (54, 54 and 62 percent, respectively) during their early education experience.
Parents seeking early education and care for their children should look for providers that emphasize character development. In these nurturing environments, children have opportunities to learn and practice social-emotional skills every day through games, puppet play, books, music, art projects and more. At Primrose Schools, their Balanced Learning® approach also includes hands-on experiences to help children apply concepts like generosity in real-life situations.
For example, each year thousands of children at more than 325 Primrose schools across the country take part in the annual Caring and Giving Food Drive. The preschoolers earn money to purchase canned goods through chores at home. They practice perspective taking, learning about the importance of giving through stories, songs, art projects and more. They even take field trips to grocery stores to shop for food items, which are then donated to local charities. At the end of the experience, the children feel a sense of accomplishment and have practiced skills like empathy, generosity and compassion.
“We believe who children become is as important as what they know,” said Gloria Julius, Ed.D., vice president of education and professional development for Primrose Schools. “That’s why nurturing children’s social-emotional development and building character has been an integral part of our approach for more than 30 years.”
Developing Character at Home
Take an active approach to helping children develop a solid foundation in good character with these tips:
Help children recognize their feelings. Help little ones recognize and understand their feelings by giving them vocabulary words to express themselves.
Lead by example. Children learn a lot by watching the interactions of adults. Model social-emotional skills by listening to others, apologizing when you hurt someone’s feelings, being respectful of others, etc.
Help children identify other perspectives. Point out differences in other people’s thoughts and feelings. When reading with children, ask what they think the characters are feeling or narrate the emotions and exaggerate facial expressions for young children.
Talk about your own decisions in terms of right and wrong. As children’s abilities and understanding grows, discuss your values and take advantage of everyday situations to describe and demonstrate good citizenship and desirable behavior.
Let kindness and respect rule the day. Set household guidelines grounded in showing kindness and respect, and help children learn to follow them. When they break the rules, calmly explain how or why their behavior was unkind and how they could have better handled the situation.
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Job Description
Exclusive order to AMN. This multi-campus hospital is located within the city limits of California's state Capital, Sacramento. This hospital has been named a 2012 Leapfrog Top Hospital, which evaluates safety and top physician and nurse staffing. Enjoy the California weather while exploring the cultural, artistic, and leisure opportunities that add to a vibrant metropolitan region.
This position will float between Tele and MS units on a consistent basis. These units will provide care to the following patient population; Pneumonia on vents, trauma patients, cardiac stabilization. Special procedures include Trach care and epidural. Join this team for your next 13 week assignment. NP ratio 4:1
The role of the telemetry nurse (Tele RN) is to provide care for patients by comfortably connecting them to machines that measure blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, blood-oxygen level, and electrocardiogram information. The tele RN also monitors and interprets this data, assessing any potential health problems and needs, while also developing nursing care plans and maintaining accurate medical records. A telemetry nurse typically works in hospitals or other clinical environments.
Preferred QualificationsHealth Connect trainedPrevious travelBSN**prefers no first time travelers**
About the FacilityThe 161-bed Kaiser South Sacramento Medical Center offers a Level II Trauma Center and almost 40 private rooms dedicated to labor, delivery, and mother-baby recovery, and is among only 83 hospitals in the U.S. to be designated for excellence in breastfeeding support to new mothers and babies based on World Health Organization and UNICEF standards.
Facility LocationThe gateway to the Gold Country, the seat of California state government and the perfect launching pad for trips to stunning Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park, this thriving state capital is filled with surprises. With its abundant natural beauty, Wild West charm and many riverfront attractions, “the city of a million trees” has something for everyone.
Job BenefitsNurseChoice isn't your ordinary travel nurse recruitment agency. An AMN Healthcare company, NurseChoice is the national leader in connecting registered nurses with quick-start, short-term travel assignments (typically four to eight weeks in duration), including EMR and critical staffing assignments, while also offering some of the travel nursing industry's best benefits and highest pay rates. AMN Healthcare is an EEO/AA/Disability/Protected Veteran Employer. We encourage minority and female applicants to apply.
About the CompanyNurseChoice isn't your ordinary travel nurse recruitment agency. An AMN Healthcare company, NurseChoice is the national leader in connecting registered nurses with quick-start, short-term travel assignments (typically four to eight weeks in duration), including EMR and critical staffing assignments, while also offering some of the travel nursing industry's best benefits and highest pay rates. AMN Healthcare is an EEO/AA/Disability/Protected Veteran Employer. We encourage minority and female applicants to apply.
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{
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Write the first review for this product!
Description
Soffle's Pitta Chips are made using fresh ingredients that is mixed into the dough followed by oven roasting with olive oil, rapeseed oil, salt and pepper. So no deep fryer, no powdered flavourings, no additives or preservatives just pitta chip goodness. Extremely versatile they are at their best with a beer or a pot of hummus they pair up with pretty much anything; fresh guacamole, soup, tzatziki, a glass of wine or your favourite cheese...
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}
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Posts Tagged ‘break’
On Friday I’m going to Lebanon, a country I’ve never been to before, and going to stay there for about two weeks. I have to say I’m beyond excited, because we will be living in an apartment in Falougha ! It will be somewhere up on the mountains, and as I’ve been told, it’s usually […]
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It’s never been more important for businesses to tell their stories using video. Social Media and powerful mobile devices have changed the way your customers and prospects share and discover your business. If your business is not currently using video with a strategy that is working toward enabling and empowering your overall business goals and marketing efforts you are missing a huge opportunity.
Your video’s message needs to be clear, succinct and direct. Your interviewees may not always be as direct as you’d like them to be. Enter VO (Voiceover) Narration, the simplest and most direct means of moving your video content forward. There are many ways that VO Narration benefits a video. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest things that VO Narration can do for your next project!
Music creates and amplifies emotion. It always has, and it always will. Using music in a video creates an emotional response in the audience, and that emotional response motivates the audience to take action. There are many ways that music can help a video make an emotional connection, but let’s take a look at three in particular.
Video accounted for 50% of all mobile traffic, and for 69% of all sales and marketing campaigns as of late 2015. Facebook alone has seen video overtake its platform, with video accounting for 75,000 shared content pieces in 2015. Your audience is using social media every day, so your business needs to be leveraging its social media channels in order to reach and grow your audience. But with so many social media channels available, you might find yourself trying to decide which one will suit your video marketing needs best.
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This video tutorial belongs to the software category which is going to show you how to install Windows Movie Maker on Windows 7. Windows 7 RC does not come with Windows Movie Maker. However, you can download the movie maker from Microsoft site that will work with Windows 7 RC. Go to Microsoft Downloads, find the link for the Windows Movie Maker download and download it. Then run the exe file and follow through the steps to set up and install the program. After installation, the program can be found in the start menu. You can now run it and make movies.
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{
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Description
In 2006, Ruth's Chris Steak House was fresh off of a sizzling initial public offering and was now interested in growing their business internationally. With restaurants in just four countries outside the United States, a model to identify and rank new international markets was needed. Provides a practical example for students to take quantitative and non-quantitative variables to create a short list of potential new markets.
Learning objective:
To provide a practical example for students to take quantitative (e.g., per capita gross domestic product (GDP), population, and urbanization rates) and non-quantitative variables (e.g., political and social issues) to create a short list of potential new markets. To help achieve these objectives it: (1) Allows students to familiarize themselves with relevant procedures for short-listing possible new markets via identifying critical variables; (2) Encourages students to discuss the primary problems confronting the franchisor in balancing quantitative and non-quantitative data; (3) Provides an illustrative example of an experienced company venturing out of its comfort zone; and (4) Asks students to create a list of countries--and the methodology employed to create that list--to answer the question, where do we go next?
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Contact Us
Welcome Visitors!! If you have any questions or comments about our website, we look forward to hearing from you. Please drop us a line by filling in this form with only the information you are comfortable sharing with us, and we will be contacting you ASAP. You are also always welcome to call our church office as well at (330) 297-7196.
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Latest News
Organisations can apply for a share of £10 million to work on highly innovative, late-stage projects. Following the success of the Innovation Loans pilot programme throughout 2018, the programme is being extended to the end of 2020 with an additional £25 …
Young entrepreneurs are being challenged to develop the technology of the future – from measuring air pollution to helping everyone stay healthy as they get older. £1 million competition urges entrepreneurs to create apps to seize business opportunities of becoming …
Aldershot Enterprise Centre
Aldershot Enterprise Centre has been established by WSX Enterprise in Autumn 2014. The former officer’s mess has been converted into affordable, serviced office space.
We have been working with Hampshire County Council and the Aldershot North Camp developers, Graingers and have developed Aldershot’s first one-stop enterprise centre for new entrepreneurs and growing businesses.
Over 60 private office spaces – from 150 to 1000+ sq ft available
Co-working space for start-ups and freelancers – desk space from as little as £20/wk
Easy In, Easy Out – licence agreements to suit your business need
High-speeded Broadband – network points in each workspace
No utility bills or business rate charges – inclusive prices saving you time and money
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{
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
}
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Author
Topic: Recreating Pepe's over a 10 year period (Read 6980 times)
10 years ago my wife and I moved to Florida from the New Haven area of Connecticut. We've both grown up on Wooster St. pizza and it's our favorite style. Pepe's, The Spot, Sally's. Here in Florida, or at least where we are in Florida, you can't get good pizza. So I've spent the last 10 years trying to come as close to Pepe's as I could. Here are some observations now that I've come so close I think you could sit one pies next to a Wooster St. pie and not tell one from the other with daily variations that you do see on Wooster St. pies. I worked on dough, ovens, and ingredients all at the same time, here are my observations.
Several years ago I decided to venture into a wood fired oven after using an electric at 550 for the first 7 years thinking it was necessary for the high temps. 3 years after making pizzas in both electric and WFO with virtually infinite variations of dough my personal opinion is that a WFO is not the best for making Pepe's style pizza. When using high gluten flour and striving for the thin, stand out straight on it's own chewy slice, I have not had good luck in a hot (750-900 degree) WFO. As many others have noted "00" is much better suited to the hot WFO, I agree and have had similar better results with "00" in the WFO, but not achieving my desired crust characteristics. While traditional Neapolitan (made to the spec) pizza is wonderful, (I've made many in the WFO) it's not what I've been after. My best luck has been with high gluten based dough (Sir Lancelot) made 24 hours in advance and spending overnight in the fridge and cooked in the electric oven at 550 on a good porous stone.
For those who have been to Pepe's you'll know that the ovens there and at The Spot are coal fired. You may also know that cook times are in the 6-7 minute range, not WFO times/temperatures for sure. You'll also know that they use very high moisture content dough, just watch pizzas being made, no tossing anything in the air. Try to toss that dough and you'll wear it. The fire boxes in the ovens are also low and to the side of the cooking chamber of the ovens. In my opinion the coal fired nature of these ovens does not contribute in the same way that a traditional WFO operates, at higher temperatures with a sheet of flame on the dome. If you cook a pie in a 750 floor, 850 dome WFO without a fire in the dome the top of the pie is undercooked. So I believe that these big ovens, Pepe's, Spot, Sally's, do not rely on traditional WFO cooking principles and given the cook times also don't use the temperatures of WFO's. Also they all use high gluten flour, you can see it laying around in 50 lb. bags.
In a 550 electric oven, on a porous cast pizza stone, I get a perfectly cooked pie at 6-7 minutes which is typical of Pepe's pies. The crust just starts to blacken in places and the bottom is mottled with some dark spots, and with two ingredients or less, with or without cheese, a slice will stand out on it's own when held from the crust.
I think my claims are further supported by another New Haven area pizzeria, Zuppardi's in West Haven. In business since 1934 they make pies very similar to Wooster St. but they use standard electric ovens, heat is heat with this style pie I believe.
Pepe's observations:
High gluten flour (I understand they use bromated flour, or used to anyway, I don't see any difference in the end product I've made without bromated flour)Very wet dough6-8 minute cook times"No fire in the dome" oven technique, in fact no fire in the cooking chamber of the oven at all
So unlike some suggestions that I've seen I don't believe that a WFO or temperatures are necessary to create Wooster St. pies, and in fact I think it's very difficult to do so in a WFO.
One more note is on cheese, if you've never tried Boar's head Mozzarella, sliced in a deli section to your order, you must, it's the standard for Wooster St. pies, you'll never use any shredded mozz again if that's what you've used. The creamy taste and texture is unmatched. For tomatoes I use Pomi chopped, right out of the box, one box is good for four 12 inch pies.
I look forward and comments and discussion, there's always something new to learn!
Welcome to the forum John. I'm glad you are able to make pies that are nearly identical to Pepe's. I too would like to see pictures of your handy work. I have never eaten at Pepe's but I do see some posts about it, along with Sally's, and other NH style joints. No doubt these places are popular for a reason.
Now about the WFO. John I'm not sure that the WFO is the best tool to make NH or even old school NY styled pies either but it doesn't mean you can't make them in the WFO. Who says a WFO has to operate at 750F - 900F? Who says they are best suited for Neopolitan style pies?
As far as I understand, a WFO is just another oven that burns wood for fuel. I can operate my WFO anywhere from 200F - 1000F, therefore I can make any style of pizza I want in it. Have you ever tried baking your Pepe's pies at 600-650F in the wfo? You can if you know how.
Yes, I would agree that a WFO is a must for the NP style and only an option for the other styles. But given my choice, and I have baked with many different types of ovens, I would choose a WFO for baking a 6-8minute pie over the others anyday.
I only bake my NY style pies with coal on the side b/c I like the browning effects on the rim. John, if you want to bake a pie without any live fire or coal at all and just on the residual heat alone, that is even easier. Just let the oven cool down to 600F or so and bake it right next to the wall. Turn the pie several times and voila!
Trying to post photos... first too large, then small ones don't post for some reason, hmmm I'll attach here. Yes I have been able to do well with a cooling WFO, but honestly I'm usually making 6-12 pies and I'm cooking solo. I can't maintain the WFO myself and would just as soon shovel them in and out of the electric... this is only ok since I'm getting the results I'm looking for. Looking for photos and don't have too many that really show what I'm looking at. The white pie here is really good, it's white chicken, which is a Pepe's and Spot speciality. The pepperoni was done in a WFO where I was firing at lower temps as you can see from the dark oven in background.
Jackie, those links and pies look great. Thanks for them. In my dough, and the Wooster St. style, I don't get the rise around the edge crust, it's a more flat pie, and quite frankly in the photos I posted the Pepe's pies don't look like anything special, naturally pictures can loose a little when it comes to pizza. I see some photos are higher res postings, need to look into that to post higher res versions of mine to convey more info. The other thing is I'm using a Forno Bravo small WFO, so it's very difficult to maintain it at any temp, it's either heating up or cooling down, a lot. So not so good for "production".
I'm not a particular fan of pepperoni, but yours do look nice with the cupping and the darkened edges. I can understand about having to babysit the oven, with the temps going one way or the other fairly quickly.
Would you characterize these pizza as crispy but not crackery? or plenty of chewing action to get a bite down? Nice looking pizzas either way.
Hi Jet, yes the pepperoni really changes when the cupping happens and the edges are curled and burnt a little. This is signature of Sally's in New Haven. My pies and Pepe's style are never cracker like, but thin and chewy, the outer crust is very crisp and also chewy. There is a character to the middle bulk of these pies where the bottom is very dry and tough, then as you go up through the base of the pie it becomes softer, very subtle and hard to appreciate without seeing and chewing on a piece! All this is taking place in a 1/8 inch thick space...
John thanks for the nice words and your pies look good as well, especially that sausage pie. I hear ya about the fluctuating temps of your WFO. I have a FB as well, but it's the 40" model so the temps are probably a little bit more stable.
John, I haven't tried to make a Pepe's Pie before. Are you interested in posting up your recipe and technique. I'm sure there are many members here who would like to know how to make a Pepe's Pie, especially using an electric oven.
Jackie, 40" WFO would be just great, enjoy that oven. Yes I think it would be good to try to post my methods. But I think I might try to do it via videos since it's so easy to miss something in a written description. I'm an engineer and I'm used to documenting things in writing very well, but, I'm also all too familiar with how lacking the written word can be with these things. I've already recorded many parts of the sequence, I think over the coming weeks I'll try to complete the series and put them together and perhaps post to youtube or something. My methods seem very simple to me... but the devil is in the details that I might take completely for granted, even being a decent writer. So yes I'll try to document. Thanks for asking and motivating me to do so. That's been one reason I've waited so long to get involved in a forum such as this. Wanted to have something to offer when I did.
scott123
John, I'm a NYer, so I always appreciate some bravado. I also think that earnest recipe reverse engineers will have a special place in heaven
That being said, I'm going to have take Tom's comment one step further and say
More pictures or it didn't happen- specifically, upskirts.
Anyone can get good char with the broiler on for 6-7 minutes, but 6-7 minutes with a 'porous cast stone' at 550 will never produce an undercrust that resembles Pepe's. If you don't get that coloring/char underneath, it completely changes the nature of the pizza.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2011, 08:27:55 AM by scott123 »
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buceriasdon
Hi John, I use this free downloadable program for image compression for posting here. Once you have a photo in your computer it's an easy right click, click Optimize Here and your ready to upload here. http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspxDon
Scott, that's funny, a broiler... no, sorry to disappoint but no broiler involved. I'll have to take some better photos next time I make some pies, which will be either during the week or this weekend. The bottoms look just like the top edge crust in the white pie photo I've posted. Not sure why you don't think this can be achieved...?
Early in my engineering career I was taught to use a number of words sparingly, two of them were always and never. I'm happy to have the opportunity to show that I can achieve what we're talking about here in a 550 electric oven with a stone.
Oh, I just re-read Scott when you refer to Tom, that's Tscarborough who posted above? I actually didn't know that his words were meant for me.. "Pictures or it didn't happen." I thought that this was one of those clever sayings that people attach to all their emails and so on. I'll do better than photos, I'll do a video of the whole cooking cycle, including keeping an eye on the "Bake" indicator on the oven... LOL
scott123
Just so we're both on the same page here, I want to clarify a few things.
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My best luck has been with high gluten based dough (Sir Lancelot) made 24 hours in advance and spending overnight in the fridge and cooked in the electric oven at 550 on a good porous stone.
An electric oven at 550 degrees. Not an electric oven set at 550. From your description of your WFO experiments, it sounds like you own an IR thermometer. I'm going to need to see a temp reading from the top of the stone pre-bake.
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I get a perfectly cooked pie at 6-7 minutes which is typical of Pepe's pies.
If you're going to do a video, that's a very admirable task. That kind of irrefutable proof could very well send me scampering away with my tail between legs If you're going to do this, though, it's obvious that you've got to film the 7 minute bake in one uninterrupted shot, right?
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In a 550 electric oven, on a porous cast pizza stone, I get a perfectly cooked pie
This is a retail stone, correct? Is it Fibrament? If you, or a friend, has found some way of casting refractory that's food safe, durable and freakishly conductive, then that's something we need to talk about. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that it's a stone that anyone can purchase.
Lastly, this hasn't been broached, but I don't think it's too much to ask to make sure that we're talking about a low/no sugar dough- 1% or less.
Scott, thanks for the questions, I'm enjoying discussing all this since, as I say, I've been working away for 10 years at all this on my own. So fire all questions away and I'll answer all.
Temp of stone at baking, good question, I've never measured but I will, and yes I do have an IR gun.
LOL yes the video would have to be continuous! I might even need an independent quality monitoring representative! I think it would be easier (and more tasty) for you to get on a plane.
As for the stone. It's commercial off the shelf retail stone made by old stone oven company, I have two of them. They are very porous, if you spill oil on the top it will come out the bottom! I can take pictures of mine with burnt oil stains on the bottom.
Dough, no sugar at all, ingredients, flour, water, salt, instant yeast, nothing else. I'll publish any and all details when I get organized and have time, likely over the holidays.
The one interesting point is that this charing on the bottom and general cooking outcome has never been a problem for me, in fact with any and all dough recipes I've gotten very consistent results in this area. That's one reason I find this line of discussion funny since this has been the easy part for me... but I will say that I'm using a somewhat unusual oven, it's a Jen-Aire, I'll find the model and post here later... I wonder if that has an influence... it's not some fancy convection or other odd ball sort of thing. Just a regular oven, built in though.
I've recorded two videos, one of my dough making and the other of baking a pie. They are long and boring since they are end to end, so no need to instruct me on video editing... The cook time on this night was a little longer than prior times I've timed baking, on the order of nine and a half minutes, but the results were excellent. Also interesting that the stone temp was higher than 550, at first measure it was 610! Which is great! A note about blackness or doneness, (is that a word?) the folks I had over for pizza this night don't have the taste for charred crust that many of us do, so these are cooked slightly short of blackened. I've learned in the past to slowly introduce those that don't know good pizza to "good" pies.
scott123
First of all, John, thank you so much for shooting those videos. I know that filming the entire sequences uninterrupted felt a bit tedious, but if was invaluable for us.
You've managed to make, on your own, something to be incredibly proud of. That is a great looking pizza that many of us would devour if given the chance.
This being said, it's close to Pepe's, very close, but it's not quite there. I've got some ideas that I'm willing to share to get you those last couple steps to your destination, but before I take the time to flesh these ideas out, I wanted to make sure that you were interested in improvements. We have a lot of members that take a long time to perfect a pizza, are perfectly happy with their results and have no desire to make changes to their recipe. If this is you, then I'll pat you on the back and say great job. If, on the other hand, you would like a little assistance to get you the rest of the way, I (we) are here to help.
John, fantastic video. I only had the chance to watch them in parts this morning and will watch them in their entirety. Thanks for making and posting the videos in their entirety, in one continuos shot.
Until then just a few questions,
Once the dough balls proof up in the fridge, are you reballing them prior to stretching them out? Your dough balls seem to open up easily but they don't look quite as aerated as when they first come put of the fridge. It could be that you are just degassing them prior to opening them, but I couldn't tell. Can you specify how you handle your dough between coming out of the fridge to baking?
Did you take the temp of your stone right before you loaded the pizza? Also what temp is your oven set to during the bake? Do you alter the dialed temp at all or do you just set and leave it alone? I having a hard time wrapping my brain around a thin crust pizza baking for 9 min with an initial stone temp of ~600f and the level of char you are getting. I would expect much more char in that time frame along with dried cheese on top.
Hi Jackie, All I do is dump the dough on the counter right where you see the one I'm not working with in the video. It's quite "fragile" for lack of a better word when you do anything to it it flattens immediately. So all I do is stretch it right then and there.
Oven setting never changes from bake 550. From about 1.5 hours prior to first pie until I turn it off at the end. That 580ish temp was just prior to putting the pie in. I'm making 6 pies tonight for friends, might be able to make a few more measurements and or video. So you're expecting more char/burning? I don't have any other frame of reference other than this technique, other than my WFO, which I run at higher temps. One thing I'm going to try is firing the WFO with coal with the door partially installed low fire, see if I can get a constant 600 and see what happens with this same dough.
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Originally posted by ZushakonObviously macroing will not be an issue this time around as all the reasons people macroed have been dealt with accordingly.
To all the people who ignored my thread when I posted it....
You were wrong, and I called it dead on.
Macroing has turned out to be one of the biggest issues in DFUW. If you believed Tasos, you got duped once again. Once the NDA is lifted we can provide the details.
For now: take a look at all the idiots in this thread who doubted me.
What exaclty is the issue? You can now become PvP viable in no time without macroing. The things being macroed can be raised through normal play in a few days. The "need" is far less than in DF1. Please explain how macroing is "one of the biggest issues" in a BETA that gets routinely wiped and is still evolving? You didnt honestly think people wouldnt be macroing did you? Macros have always been a part of MMO gaming, like it or not.
[mod edit]
Umm... How long has it been since the last wipe and how many hours a day are the servers up? [mod edit]
Its simple math! Youre saying people can max every stat in a "few days" via macro. There's only 24 hours in a day and lets assume the servers are up 22. (66-88 hours) Plus, you hardly need every stat to be viable, bringing the total hours required even lower. Your rant holds NO weight!
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Macroing is only an issue if you enjopy playing the game legit. Because if you do play legit youll get stomped by those who cheated.
This is going to be a major turnoff for a lot of people.
I just dont understand why people cant just play the game as intended, if they wanted to make a game where everyone had everything after character creation they would...so macroing clearly isnt what they wanted.
Either way if they really do allow it like in 1.0 they can expect a low pop game full of cheaters just like 1.0 was. I know im not sticking around this time if they allow it, theres no point to play unless you cheat like everyone else then.
Saddest part of this all is there seems to be a rather decent sized part of the community, who is also more vocal than any other segment, that really....REALLY...wants AV the allow them to cheat. Its really pathetic.
Oh and just so were clear here, to those not familair with darkfall terminology...macroing is botting. They bot their skills up in a safe area until maxed out. They call it macroing because you use a macro to do it, however its the same effect as botting in a themepark. Only in this game you can use that advantage to take loot ect, so the results often very detrimental to new players and people who enjoy playing legit.
Not sure who in their right mind would want to play a FFA full loot game where most of the other players are months ahead after a week...talk about completely unfun pvp.
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Macroing is only an issue if you enjopy playing the game legit. Because if you do play legit youll get stomped by those who cheated.
This is going to be a major turnoff for a lot of people.
Unlike the gap in DF1, the gap between noob and being competitve can be bridged in a matter of weeks without macros. So after the first month, all the QQing about macros isnt going to make much difference with the gains, boosters and role system balancing the field.
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Macroing is only an issue if you enjopy playing the game legit. Because if you do play legit youll get stomped by those who cheated.
This is going to be a major turnoff for a lot of people.
Unlike the gap in DF1, the gap between noob and being competitve can be bridged in a matter of weeks without macros. So after the first month, all the QQing about macros isnt going to make much difference with the gains, boosters and role system balancing the field.
IT IS NOTHING LIKE DF1.
BTW...Big difference between a bot and a macro.
You seem rather misinformed on DFUW.
Doesnt matter, no one wants to play a game where everyone cheats. No new player who wants to play legit will want to play a game like this where everyone else cheats to get ahead.
And your mistaken if you think youll be getting maxed out in a few weeks. People are going to macro up those stats, which are a big factor...and there still remains a decent amount of progression in that.
There is no difference than using a computer program to level up skills vs using a computer program to level up levels. Both are the same, no levels in this game. If this were a themepark it would be called botting because its a bit more complex than using macros in darkfall...the effect is the same however. Calling it macroing is more of a way to make it seem alright, which is pathetic that part of the community is hell bent on making it seem ok with their "legalize macroing" campaign.
If playing a game with progression is so painfull for you that you MUST bot to progress you really must get a new gaming hobby, mmorpgs are not for you buddy.
Its easy to attack the poster btw, ive been in 1.0 since the start and am in 2.0 now so i know exactly why your defending macroing skills up. Its horrible that this segment of the DF community is now advertising this on a 3rd party site...
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Macroing is only an issue if you enjopy playing the game legit. Because if you do play legit youll get stomped by those who cheated.
This is going to be a major turnoff for a lot of people.
Unlike the gap in DF1, the gap between noob and being competitve can be bridged in a matter of weeks without macros. So after the first month, all the QQing about macros isnt going to make much difference with the gains, boosters and role system balancing the field.
IT IS NOTHING LIKE DF1.
BTW...Big difference between a bot and a macro.
You seem rather misinformed on DFUW.
Doesnt matter, no one wants to play a game where everyone cheats. No new player who wants to play legit will
Its easy to attack the poster btw, ive been in 1.0 since the start and am in 2.0 now so i know exactly why your defending macroing skills up. Its horrible that this segment of the DF community is now advertising this on a 3rd party site...
So it doesnt matter?
Are you playing a different Beta than the rest of us? Your statement regarding the current progression is laughable.
You should know certain players have already hit "X" stat level, know when the server wiped and know how many hours a day the servers up. Macroing doesn't bend time. There's a finite number of possible gaming hours available regardless if one macros or not.
All stats and combat skills can be macroed to 100 using any of the above 3. Any of the above 3 is a 'macro' situation where the player can use a gaming keyboard or macro program to gain skill while afk.
The time it takes max skills and stats with casual play (1-2 hours a day) will be months, versus several days for those who macro.
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The solution to this whole mess is a diminshing return system where the player recieves less gains over time for hitting the same target over and over. This effectively stops continual gains off of players, mounts, and bugged mobs.
If this is not implemented, we will see end game characters stomping the crap out of everyone at the end of the first two weeks of release.
All stats and combat skills can be macroed to 100 using any of the above 3. Any of the above 3 is a 'macro' situation where the player can use a gaming keyboard or macro program to gain skill while afk.
The time it takes max skills and stats with casual play (1-2 hours a day) will be months, versus several days for those who macro.
-----
The solution to this whole mess is a diminshing return system where the player recieves less gains over time for hitting the same target over and over. This effectively stops continual gains off of players, mounts, and bugged mobs.
If this is not implemented, we will see end game characters stomping the crap out of everyone at the end of the first two weeks of release.
If you can't see this is a major issue, you have problems.
If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro. Of course you'll be behind most of the players base, macroing aside. You'll accomplish almost nothing in 1 hour unless you stay in the safe zones. You'll have to group, regear, travel and account for any PvP. (repeat if you lose) You can easily become competitive in weeks given 3 hours a day, unlike many months in DF1.
By your own admission you state people can max skill and stats in "several days for those who macro." This would have taken months in DF1 and is easily attainable without macro. As I've stated numerous times, the servers have only been up so long and there's only so many hours those people could have macro'd.
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If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro.
^^^^^ Can everyone else see how moronic this approach is to making a successful game?
Wow ...grasping at straws now?
Darkfall is a competitive progression based PVP centric MMO. What the hell to you expect? Should they just get rid of progression all together? Because your latest "arguement'" has NOTHING to do with macroing.
If you put in 7 hours a week and I put in 20, guess what? My character will be futher along, just like any other progession based MMO.
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If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro.
^^^^^ Can everyone else see how moronic this approach is to making a successful game?
It is a little moronic - who has that much time to play games like this?
Agreed. A lot of us don't have time to "maintain" their character in a game. If you're making an adult game you should cater to adults, agreed whole-heartedly.
Haha, Two hours a day in a game is not enough?
Most players would have to sell their soul to play more than that, if they had a job or relationship. No wonder people called DF1 players unemploid basement-dwellers. If it got the grind similar to DF1 or players can`t participate with less than 3 hours a day, no coding can save this game.
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The problem with darkfall is it took them forever and a day to get that game released, YEARS,.
And it was sadly behind the MMO curve by like 3 years, but hey, Late is better then never.
its never the players fault for using 3rd party programs, the theme now for developers is to make a game where players dont NEED to do it,. but lots still will,. just the way it is..
Darkfall devs never gave up on DF1 an released a 3year late game anyways,. Its like they have heart, like a fighter in a cage, so I think they will make something good one day,.
Macroing potential is not something that kills a game like DF.The grind alone and the gap in DF 1.0 is what killed the game. Macroing was just an excuse to leave sooner since players from day EU day 1 were hardcore enough to max out their characters with or without macroing. The grind was also infinit.
BTW, macroing is in. Thats confirmed. Self heal, transfers and most self buffs is what you're gonna spam before you start playing. While doing these, you'd probably want to go watch tv or movies. This is the truh unless they change something before release.
With that being said, the grind is still lower than ever. Nothing like it used to be. Some players already have some of their active skills at 100 and i heard one player who has 150 dex or something. Thats less than a month and also note that the DF server got wiped multple times. 3-4 times so far.
Also, the fact that you cant be a super hybrid and you must make specific decision for your stats distribution, hp mana stam and class means that the grind is even more lower than ever.
TL DR: I woudlnt worry about the macroers. If you like to grind since you enjoy it, dont do it. The grind is so fast that you will only ruin your own playstyle if you do it. Go play runescape if you want a grind for ever.
If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro.
^^^^^ Can everyone else see how moronic this approach is to making a successful game?
It is a little moronic - who has that much time to play games like this?
Agreed. A lot of us don't have time to "maintain" their character in a game. If you're making an adult game you should cater to adults, agreed whole-heartedly.
Haha, Two hours a day in a game is not enough?
Most players would have to sell their soul to play more than that, if they had a job or relationship. No wonder people called DF1 players unemploid basement-dwellers. If it got the grind similar to DF1 or players can`t participate with less than 3 hours a day, no coding can save this game.
no, 2 hours a day is nothing,. Not sure why you think your own life exp is "most players". common mistake made by the human mind, "thinking its the center of the universe"
well I got news for you, "most players" play much more then 2 hours a day,. like who are you kidding?
Path of exile has a one week race event right now, and there is a lot of people playing 40-50 hours non stop,. and a lot more doing 24 hours,. A handfull are streaming the whole thing,. 1 guy is doing 100 hours no sleep,. its crazy,
If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro.
^^^^^ Can everyone else see how moronic this approach is to making a successful game?
It is a little moronic - who has that much time to play games like this?
Agreed. A lot of us don't have time to "maintain" their character in a game. If you're making an adult game you should cater to adults, agreed whole-heartedly.
Haha, Two hours a day in a game is not enough?
Most players would have to sell their soul to play more than that, if they had a job or relationship. No wonder people called DF1 players unemploid basement-dwellers. If it got the grind similar to DF1 or players can`t participate with less than 3 hours a day, no coding can save this game.
no, 2 hours a day is nothing,. Not sure why you think your own life exp is "most players". common mistake made by the human mind, "thinking its the center of the universe"
well I got news for you, "most players" play much more then 2 hours a day,. like who are you kidding?
Path of exile has a one week race event right now, and there is a lot of people playing 40-50 hours non stop,. and a lot more doing 24 hours,. A handfull are streaming the whole thing,. 1 guy is doing 100 hours no sleep,. its crazy,
just saying,.
Didn't you do pretty much the same thing?
You gave anecdoctal evidence of why your experience is correct and theirs is wrong.
There is no way to verify the amount that "most players" spend in game. Polls from the forums only measure those who visit the forums... which for most MMOs is usually a minority of the player-base. That would be even more true for DarkFall being in it's Beta - non-released state.
So, the only thing any of us can say with certainty is that we have no idea. We can then state how we play, how friends of ours play, etc. Thank-you for your opinion on the matter and we will make note of your personal experience... just like everyone else.
If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro.
^^^^^ Can everyone else see how moronic this approach is to making a successful game?
It is a little moronic - who has that much time to play games like this?
Agreed. A lot of us don't have time to "maintain" their character in a game. If you're making an adult game you should cater to adults, agreed whole-heartedly.
Haha, Two hours a day in a game is not enough?
Most players would have to sell their soul to play more than that, if they had a job or relationship. No wonder people called DF1 players unemploid basement-dwellers. If it got the grind similar to DF1 or players can`t participate with less than 3 hours a day, no coding can save this game.
no, 2 hours a day is nothing,. Not sure why you think your own life exp is "most players". common mistake made by the human mind, "thinking its the center of the universe"
well I got news for you, "most players" play much more then 2 hours a day,. like who are you kidding?
Path of exile has a one week race event right now, and there is a lot of people playing 40-50 hours non stop,. and a lot more doing 24 hours,. A handfull are streaming the whole thing,. 1 guy is doing 100 hours no sleep,. its crazy,
just saying,.
Didn't you do pretty much the same thing?
You gave anecdoctal evidence of why your experience is correct and theirs is wrong.
There is no way to verify the amount that "most players" spend in game. Polls from the forums only measure those who visit the forums... which for most MMOs is usually a minority of the player-base. That would be even more true for DarkFall being in it's Beta - non-released state.
So, the only thing any of us can say with certainty is that we have no idea. We can then state how we play, how friends of ours play, etc. Thank-you for your opinion on the matter and we will make note of your personal experience... just like everyone else.
No, I was careful with my words, I said "much more" its an unknown number.
I based my opinion off what I have seen over the years, not the amount that " I play "
but the point here is, He said no game coding can save a game if the average player cant keep up with only 2 hours a day.
If you can only contribute 1-2 hours a day to DF perhaps you need to find another game , stick to crafting or macro.
^^^^^ Can everyone else see how moronic this approach is to making a successful game?
It is a little moronic - who has that much time to play games like this?
Agreed. A lot of us don't have time to "maintain" their character in a game. If you're making an adult game you should cater to adults, agreed whole-heartedly.
Haha, Two hours a day in a game is not enough?
Most players would have to sell their soul to play more than that, if they had a job or relationship. No wonder people called DF1 players unemploid basement-dwellers. If it got the grind similar to DF1 or players can`t participate with less than 3 hours a day, no coding can save this game.
no, 2 hours a day is nothing,. Not sure why you think your own life exp is "most players". common mistake made by the human mind, "thinking its the center of the universe"
well I got news for you, "most players" play much more then 2 hours a day,. like who are you kidding?
Path of exile has a one week race event right now, and there is a lot of people playing 40-50 hours non stop,. and a lot more doing 24 hours,. A handfull are streaming the whole thing,. 1 guy is doing 100 hours no sleep,. its crazy,
just saying,.
Didn't you do pretty much the same thing?
You gave anecdoctal evidence of why your experience is correct and theirs is wrong.
There is no way to verify the amount that "most players" spend in game. Polls from the forums only measure those who visit the forums... which for most MMOs is usually a minority of the player-base. That would be even more true for DarkFall being in it's Beta - non-released state.
So, the only thing any of us can say with certainty is that we have no idea. We can then state how we play, how friends of ours play, etc. Thank-you for your opinion on the matter and we will make note of your personal experience... just like everyone else.
No, I was careful with my words, I said "much more" its an unknown number.
I based my opinion off what I have seen over the years, not the amount that " I play "
but the point here is, He said no game coding can save a game if the average player cant keep up with only 2 hours a day.
2 hours is nothing,. what a pointless argument..
This entire chain of posts misses what use to be the main point of mmorpgs. This thread of posts im quoting assumes the ONLY thing to do in game occurs at max level, i used the word level because thats how these people act, like you need to hit 80 for the game to start.
Then the assumption is made that you cant do anything and therefore you need to hit max fast, which is why anyone who did it either macroed (botted) or has no life.
Yet you all cant even fathom the thought that people (use to and still do) play games for entertainment, not concerned with how quickly they can get to endgame.
I maxed my 1.0 character, it took about 2 years to do it, and i had a life all the way through. I enjoyed the game a few hours at a time, typically with sunday as me nerdrage grind day.
1.0 would have been 100 times more fun had the FPS community not infested its ranked and macroed up 2 years woth of skills in a month, i would have had actual pvp thought my play. I still enjoyed the game though, yeah i know im in a minority here, but that was how the game was intended to be played.
You shouldnt be required to play any amount of time because the goal of the game shouldnt be to race to the end as fast as humanly possible, it would make mmorpgs boring...which is probably why most people are so bored playing their games (yet cant think of anything else to do with their time its sad i know)
People like me do exist. It use to be the only type of people who played mmorpgs prior to 2004 when wow told everyone they need to race to endgame because the game prior to it is shit and the only good thing to do is hit max level and get on that hampsterwheel of instanced pvp and raids.
I really wish people would go back to playing the game for enjoyment and not attempting to race to the end, games were much more fun back then, and the community was so much more enjoyable, since the only goal wasnt to shit on other players and beat your chest like something was actually accomplished.
But yeah, this assumption you have to bot, its self fufilling, others see it, not doing it then puts legit payers at a huge disadvantage, they end up leaving, potential players stay away, and were left with the same boring 1.0 community who chased away the players in 1.0, used the same excuse that it was the grind and they had to bot ect.
I know this is a really tired comment, but if you feel the need to bot to enjoy the game...please...for gods sake, please go find another game to play, rather than drag down the only full loot pvp sandbox on the market again. Really you guys would be much happier in another game with no progression and super fair pvp based only on player skill.. They exist. Please find them.
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Originally posted by psykobilly
Quote from latest interview:
" To give one example, in the first Darkfall, the skills that where macroed quite a lot where movement skills like run sprint and swim because of the benefits they provided to relevant passive skills. In Unholy Wars this will not be the case as movement skills can no longer be leveled up."
Ok first of all... you didn't 'macro' sprint or swim you just hit numlock and swam into a wall. That is not a macro. You didn't do it to level up swimming, you did it to raise stats. The guy didn't mention if these activities will have an impact on stats - if they do then expect to see afk swimmers. If they don't then expect to see afk melee macros to raise stats, or whatever function raises stats.
He also mentioned heal self and transfers are in, and I assume some buffs are in - all of these spells are easily macroed.
The macro question was totally dodged and the obvious answer is that, yes, people will macro their spells and stats just like in DF1.
Be prepared to get your macro on or fall behind.
I guess you could be right... unless you can't comprehend the English language. Many people in this world can't, that's fine.
He states, explicitly, in that quote that movement skills can no longer be leveled to gain passive bonusus.
Using a bit of knowledge of the game system, one should come to the conclusion that passive bonuses means attribute gains. This must be true, because there is no other bonus gained other than the actually movement skill gain itself.
Ultimately, there is macro'ing in every single game out there. Whether it's a simple key macro or an elaborate macro script that performs the actions of what you would see in a bot, it is always going to be present in the game. People are just lazy, or really smart.. depending on how you look at it.
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The Review
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Redflex Holdings Ltd.
announced the extraordinary actions just days after board members were
briefed by an outside legal team hired to examine ties between the
company's U.S. subsidiary and the city official who oversaw its
contract, a relationship first disclosed in October by the Tribune.
In a brief statement Thursday to
the newspaper, the company also revealed for the first time that it is
sharing information with law enforcement authorities.
Redflex Holdings Ltd.
announced the extraordinary actions just days after board members were
briefed by an outside legal team hired to examine ties between the
company's U.S. subsidiary and the city official who oversaw its
contract, a relationship first disclosed in October by the Tribune.
In a brief statement Thursday to
the newspaper, the company also revealed for the first time that it is
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Friday, November 30, 2007
We all probably know how the tradition of NORAD tracking Santa began. But, we probably didn't know that Colonel Shoup's granddaughter works for Google:
It just so happens that Colonel Shoup is my grandfather, which is why I'm so excited that, 52 years later, Google is joining the effort. This holiday season, NORAD has partnered with Google to use technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle and YouTube to track Santa. I can remember tracking Santa with my grandfather as a child, and I'm so proud to see my company carry on his vision of doing something this special for kids around the world.
The countdown begins December 1st on NORAD's website, where families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. And starting at 1:00 am PST on December 24th, you'll be able to track Santa's trip in real time. You can download Google Earth and add the NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget to your iGoogle page anytime, but make sure to come back to http://www.noradsanta.org/ on December 24th to download the special Santa Tracking file for an enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience.
If you don't already have Google Earth, go download it. Those kids in 1955 may have been able to use the latest technology from NORAD to track Santa, but watching him in 3D is something I'll bet they never dreamed of.
And for all you people out there who don't like the Christmas season, I think you should let go a little, and remember what Christmas was like as a child, or at least what you think that it should be like. Let the magic in. And track Santa in 3D this Christmas Eve!
Ok, I just got this email from the Dodd campaign, and I'm more than a little irritated. I'm not stupid, and I don't appreciate them playing games in the hope that I am. Here's the email from Sheryl Cohen:
Tim,
I made a few small changes to your email draft -- you'll see them below.
Would have sent to the entire list myself, but I could only figure out how to send this test.
I know you're concerned about sending another fundraising email, but we're only $40,000 short of hitting our November goal, and that money will help keep us on the air and talking about ending the war in Iraq and the Constitution. And honestly, our supporters online are so terrific and have come through for us every time.
Plus, with votes on the war and retroactive immunity coming up, our leadership will help keep the pressure on other presidentials to keep their word.
This is just stupid and desperate, and it makes me wish I could take back the one contribution he did get from me. I'm glad he has no chance at getting elected, because he's not man enough to just ask for money (through email, no less) and has to play mind games hoping to get more from me. That's not what I want to see from a potential president. Dodd, you're off me "good guy" list.
The DNC Fall Meeting is happening today, and if you want some Democratic warmth to get you through the winter, check out the live streaming video, or download the speeches (later). Apparently all the presidential candidates will be speaking, as will Howard Dean.
Hey, kids! Can't get enough of the "Rudy expensed his adultery, then tried to cover it up" scandal, but starting to get sick of using all those words to convey what you're talking about? Sensibly refusing to lame out and call it "Rudy-gate?" Appreciative of all the hard work being done by the crack TPM investigative team on Rudy's sordid past, but not in love with TPM's "Shag Fund" sobriquet? Well, the DKos editorial team is right with you!
That's why we're inviting you to enter the 2008 Name That Rudy Scandal Contest. Somewhere out there, there's a clever Kossack that can perfectly and succinctly encapsulate the adultery, taxpayer abuse, and Nixonian coverup attempts that make this scandal so much fun.
Submit your entries below[original article here] in your comment's subject line. Explanations and whatnot can go in the comment body, though if your entry needs explaining, it's probably not that great. Enter as many times as you like. The winner will be selected today or tomorrow by the DKos editors, and will receive A) copious recognition for their contribution to the annals of American political history, and B) very possibly something tangible, TBA, at a later time.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
And the alt - "And I was really impressed with how they managed to shock the Goatse guy."
It's really telling if you get this one without cheating or doing unwise internet searches (you really don't want to click that, I promise). Of course, having a prior roommate of mine who shall remain nameless (CoughMarkCough) send me a link and forever scarring me into twitching when I hear or read "Goatse" is my excuse. What's yours? Or are you claiming innocence?
This is an event 10 months in the making, and it's finally here! On December 8, Obama's Utah Headquarters will officially be open! Please join us to celebrate at the Open House. Doors open at 11 am, and the presentations begin promptly at noon.
If you're interested in volunteering, we would love to have you! My phone is 801-386-7729, just give me a call and we'll go from there. The address of our new office is 1747 South 900 West, in the UBDA building.
There are a few needs that we're reaching out to the community to help us out with, in the form of in-kind donations. (Please note - if you want to help with any of these items, please contact one of us before bringing them, to make sure they are still needed and to take care of any in-kind donation forms that might be needed.)
General Office Items Needed
Computers
Phones
Printer
Fax machine
UT State Flag
Open House Items Needed
Helium Tank
Balloons
Ribbons for Ballons
DJ (about 3 1/2 hours of music)
PA Equipment (might already have, not confirmed)
Streamers
Poster boards
Markers
Tape
String
Signs (professionally printed)
I really can't wait for this to happen, and I hope to see you (and your family and friends) there!
Because tasering a man in front of his pregnant wife and the child in the car wasn't enough, the cops in Ohio went one step further.
Apparently, a pregnant woman tried to leave her 1 year old child with authorities because she was "tired of playing games" with the father. It's a bit unclear on what happened, but the cop didn't want to let her leave without answering questions, so she decided to leave with the 1 year old.
Let me pause a moment. This sounds like a battered woman to me. Why else would she be doing this?
So, the cop decided to force her to the ground and taser her. The article hints that the cop had no way of knowing she was pregnant. Which tells me that if cops can't tell by looking that someone (say who is pregnant or has a heart condition) could be majorly harmed by tasering them, is the use of the taser acceptible?
I think that cops should be allowed to use a taser in very limited circumstances, and any time they violate the rules, punishment should ensue. Tasers aren't toys, people.
Oh, and the officer remains on duty. I bet all of Ohio feels safer now.
SYNOPSIS: Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again." Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.
Apparently, taking phone calls while speaking at events are a norm for the GOP, and not just Rudy.
As a Christian, I take offense at this. I believe Mike Huckabee is making a mockery of my faith, and my belief in prayer. This video took place at the Republican Governors Association Dinner in 2004. ThinkProgress has the transcript. Talk about mixing politics and religion!
It turns my stomach to think that people believe men like this should run our great country.
As if we don't already have enough reasons to buy local, the King of Burgers has given us an extra one, apparently worth an entire penny.
Migrant farm workers in Florida earn 45 pennies for each 32 pound bucket of tomatoes they pick. A whopping 45 cents. And Burger King wants to reward them by giving them a 40% pay cut for Christmas.
In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny — and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald’s.
And in case you don't think the immigration debate is worthy of much attention, here's one that should make you rush to one side or the other:
Migrant farm laborers have long been among America’s most impoverished workers. Perhaps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse. During the past decade, the United States Justice Department has prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers — a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla. — has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state, investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound surcharge with fast food chains.
That's right. Slavery, right here in the Good 'ol US of A in the 21st century.
Back to the topic, though. The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, which represents about 90% of the tomato growers in Florida, is making threats against any grower who accepts the extra $.01 for the workers.
Not sure how any of this fits together? Well, if Burger King hadn't refused to pay the extra penny, McDonalds and Taco Bell would not be backing out of their new agreements which amount to about $.77 per bucket, up from the current $.45.
Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. “Florida growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit,” a Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times.
Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger King has suggested that if the poor farm workers of southern Florida need more money, they should apply for jobs at its restaurants.
I'm adding Burger King to my list of places not to spend money at. They're right up there with Wal-Mart, in my opinion.
If you're an investor with Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group or Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, you should be aware that these three control most of the stock - which means that could be another avenue of action.
And, again, don't forget that buying local benefits you and your community. Check out this list of Food and Beverage companies from Local First. And if you know of businesses that should be on this list and aren't, encourage them to get listed.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I'm pretty sure this is one of the earliest life lessons most people get. If someone does something wrong, doing something wrong in return isn't going to change anything.
Almost everyone has seen this video:
It's highly disturbing, to say the least.
Jared Massey acted like an obvious idiot. But, so did Trooper Gardner. And the difference between the two is that Jared Massey was a private individual. The Trooper is in a position of responsibility and authority. If a kid in school throws a pencil across the room because he's mad at the teacher, he's probably going to get a time out, or some minor punishment. If the teacher throws a pencil because he's mad at the kid, I'd say he deserves some time off of school and an anger class. If a private citizen drives drunk, he deserves a ticket and a court trial and probably doesn't deserve to lose his job. If the county sheriff drives drunk, I'm guessing he already knows he needs to step down.
This Trooper has a responsibility to make us feel safe, but with his actions, and the subsequent lie(s) about his actions, I don't feel safe. I don't feel that if I get pulled over on a lonely stretch of highway, that the officer of the law will uphold the law. Getting tasered is one of my worst fears - I could never ever submit willingly. And when my imagination runs away with me, and I put myself in the position of being threatened with a taser like that, I can only imagine myself becoming hysterical, and trying to follow directions, but not quite making it, and having to endure the tasering.
I know that this scenario is not what happened in the video. However, the Trooper wrongly used his taser on a citizen, and my fears have now found justification because this. And the fact that he is not being disciplined takes the fears to a new level.
Call on the Utah Legislature to standardize rules about the use of a taser.
Ezra Klein has found the key to happiness, and it came in the form of Thanksgiving Dinner.
Each Thanksgiving, our litany of gratitude suggests that, on some level, we know that [our happiness comes from other people]. But in the time between each Thanksgiving, we prove, rather decisively, that we don't know it all that well. Because so much as "people" happiness tends to rule our memories, "thing" happiness, or at least the promise of it, has a habit of governing our actions. How else to explain the ceaseless march for more hours at work, for larger incomes, for bigger houses (that, as we're rapidly finding out, we couldn't really afford in the first place)? How else to explain the fact that the United States, alone among developed nations, does not guarantee its workers even one day of compensated vacation time (France, by contrast, guarantees 30)?
He goes on to cite studies and logic in support of his case that we're trading happiness for possessions, and then sums it all up with this:
But there's an easy solution. Stop. Pull out of the competition. Seriously ask whether you want to continue trading away your time for your stuff. And that requires ignoring what your neighbors have. It requires shutting your eyes against short-term incentives and trying to remember what actually makes you happy, what you tend to remember when each year closes out. It requires keeping a little of that Thanksgiving litany in mind, even after the meal is forgotten and marshmallows and yams again seem an absurd combination.
I really think he got this right. I mean, we all know it, we've heard it for years, that keeping up with the Jones' isn't going to do anything but break our banks. But the novel suggestion of just pulling out of the rat race? It sounds insane! Which means it just might work.
I think that if I ponder this idea, and present it in just the right light, that we could get ourselves to stop. Not that we really buy things because our neighbors have them. But, we do tend to buy things that make us happy today, and might not make us happy tomorrow. I often think about where the money from my last paycheck went, and it's rather sad to realize that it bought little of lasting value. Was it worth it in the short term? Hell, yeah. But, in the long term it has no effect.
So, I think that I'll make this pledge:
I pledge to consider each purchase that I make and ask myself if it will still make me happy in a week, a month or a year. I will ask myself if there is something I could trade my time and money for that would make me happier longer. I will not trade my time and money for things that do not matter. I will consider what sort of happiness there is to be had, and trade my time and money for that instead.
Don't forget to read the entire article, Winning the Rat Race by Quitting it, to get a better perspective on why this actually means so much. If you're with me on this, I'd love to know why. Feel free to comment or link to your own blog on the topic. Come to think of it, if you disagree, or are simply ambivalent about it, I think you should also explain why.
So, here's the basic story. Robert D'Angelo sold books through Amazon.com out of his home. Mr. d'Angelo was a Madison, WI city official, and apparently the number of books he sold weren't minor. In fact, 24,000 transactions since 1999 seem to have been identified.
So, federal prosecutors went after him for tax evasion, along with fraud and money laundering charges.
Here's where my issue comes in. They wanted Amazon.com to hand over records for all 24,000 transactions. Not just the fact that Mr. D'Angelo sold which book which day, but apparently, they wanted customer identities, as well. I don't know about you, but I see no reason the government needs a list of the books I read. It would be one thing if Mr. D'Angelo's records were found and the customer info was there. But, they have all that they need to convict with evidence that a transaction indeed took place.
L.C. Angell | HomeIf you ever plan to hide out in a secret underground lair, threatening to blow up the world, you're going to need a bad-ass chair to match your evilness. Well, this is it. The Villain Chair ($7400) is an oversize, swiveling lounger with enough leather and steel for any bad guy. Posted on Nov 26, 2007 05:00 AM | Discuss (0)
All it needs is my white kitty in my lap as I sit in it.
Even if you're not dropping $7400 on me for Christmas this year (and let's be honest, no one is dropping that kind of cash on me), you'll find plenty of more moderately priced geeky gadgets for your favorite gadgety geek.
The lack of independent, accurate assessments about our progress in Iraq has stymied our efforts to secure the country and assist in its reconstruction. We have the world's most powerful military. If military might alone could succeed in Iraq, our mission would be complete by now.
We need more than a military strategy for Iraq--we need a plan for political, diplomatic and economic success. The President received such a strategy a year ago in the form of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) report. Unfortunately, he did not adopt it.
Going forward, in trying to establish a new Iraq strategy, I am guided by a set of principles that 14 Democrats and 14 Republicans support, including:
* We need a clearly defined and measurable mission for military involvement * The government of Iraq must now be responsible for Iraq's future and must make progress on political, security and economic benchmarks * Our soldiers, including Guard and Reserves, must have adequate rest and recuperation time between deployments * A safe and responsible redeployment of our Armed Forces is necessary to transfer the combat mission to the Iraqi forces * Any ongoing mission must involve counterterrorism operations, force protection, equipping Iraqis, helping refugees and preventing genocide
It is immoral to play politics with the needs of the men and women who protect the ideals we hold so dear. Our troops have performed heroically. We owe them a new approach and a thoughtful approach to the situation in Iraq. We owe them a comprehensive strategy for success.
Our intelligence community tells us Al Qaeda--the number one threat to Americans--is strengthening. We must not weaken our capability to combat that threat. I will continue to look for responsible ways to change course in Iraq without engaging in political games that would compromise the safety of our soldiers.
Sincerely,U.S. Representative2nd District of Utah
It's sad that Matheson is so far behind the Democratic platform when it comes to so many important issues.
Seriously, he's "pushing for" this "principle" to guide us?
We need a clearly defined and measurable mission for military involvement
We needed this years ago, and now we just need out.
Oh, and is Matheson still part of the group who thinks al Qaeda is a threat to us in Iraq? They're kicking our asses over in Afghanistan, but there's not enough oil there for us to really care.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Salty Peaks Snowboard shop has a new commercial on X96, talking about the North American Union and saying that anyone who can disprove it will get a $2500 shopping spree at their store. They say to go to StopTheNorthAmericanUnion.com to find out more. The Salty Peaks Snowboard shop also has a link to that site at the very bottom of their web site.
Salty Peaks also happens to have a giant Ron Paul sign leaning against the base of their store sign by the road.
Now, I would dearly love to find an MP3 of this commercial, because I can't recall exactly what it says. How am I to win this $2500 if I can't have the details except on the radio?
Anyway, putting 2 + 2 together, I did a little Google search of the fear-mongering "informational" web site in question, and oddly enough, it mentions Ron Paul 117 times. All of these seem to be, of course, pro-Paul, since he wants to stop said union. A little more curiosity led me to find out that Barack Obama is mentioned about 60 times, Hillary about 80 times, John McCain about 127 times, Rudy Giuliani about 75 times and so on and so forth.
Of course, most of these mentions are on a message board, which you must be a member of to even view. Thankfully, Google has this nifty little caching feature, where you can view Google's copy of a page. Here's one message from their message board which I find interesting:
GOSCOOTINMifflin's Sentries
Joined: Jul 16 2007POSTS: 34
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:41 am Post subject:We should of fought and stopped this crap years ago. It is so out of control right not we have to fight every day. They bring up one thing and the people get hot and they bring up something else to take the heat off the other. It's endless.We need to get more people involved. It amazes me that well educated people don't have a clue about what is going on. Our country is being invaded and it's hard not to notice!We need to keep fighting. We will only win if we get control of our representatives. I've noticed a lot of them are being very quiet now because they were slammed by the people they represent. But there are others like Kennedy that will fight for amnesty no matter what. And you can't trust any of them.Bush thinks $3 million is too much to spend on securing our country, but he gives mulitple times that to La Raza organizations. Is there something wrong with this picture? Yes, Bush doesn't want the border. And why should he? If the SPP passes, the borders will have to be opened again. America will be gone forever.Every day I hear and see more crap going on and it just tears me up. I am never going to give up the fight tho.We need to promote candidates that are for America. Like Tancredo, Paul and Romney. Someone that is as appauled about what is going on as we are.God bless America!
Working to get this information out. One step at a time and we're building momentum!
Look at Hunter, Tancredo, Steve King & DeFazio's amendments that MADE HISTORY this week! FIRST Anti-SPP amendments on legislation!!!_________________In Memory of "G" ~ USASA 66-70
So, I can't click through, since whenever you click a link to their forums, it redirects to a different page. I can't find that particular thread through the Google cache. And, there's no way to register, since clicking the register link also redirects you. I do wonder why these forums are so hard to get to - are they hiding something? What did that link that would make him "Very Happy" say?
The idea of the North American Union in ludicrous. It's the same sort of fear-mongering that GW has used to keep Americans "in-line" and supporting his "war on terror". Only, this N.A. Union bullshit is based on racism, scaring people into thinking that Mexicans are going to take over, and that they shouldn't be here because...well...they're Mexican. Ron Paul IS a racist, and that is why he has so many racist groups backing him, and why he has published racist statements, even though he attributes those statements to other people.
I don't feel a need to fight back against Ron Paul, because he stands no chance of being our next president.
However, Salty Peaks is wrong for their commercial, wrong for spreading lies and racism, and wrong for promoting that web site. That web site is wrong for the lies and racism, as well.
I generally shop local, and I haven't been inside of a Wal-Mart for a very long time. However, if I had the choice between Salty Peaks and Wal-Mart right now, I'd choose Wal-Mart.
If anyone has the Salty Peaks commercial available to listen to, please let me know. I'd even split the shopping spree with you.
The "alt" tag doesn't seem to be working, so this is what's supposed to pop up if you hover your mouse over the image: "The TI-86 was bad enough. I don't know how I'd have gotten through high school if I'd had a laptop+wifi."
Ahh, the memories. Pong. Now there was a game from hell. I loved it! And the ultra super cool "Olympics" game on my uncle's Commodore 64. To think, he typed all that code from a magazine in and out came a game. Could definitely be a contributing factor to my chose career.
I just got an email from MoveOn.org asking me to vote on (and then chip in to air) these ads. Since they're tiny on the MoveOn page, I thought I'd post them here, but don't forget to go vote for your favorite!
"America At It's Best"
"The Progressive Movement"
"Progressive VS Conservative"
"Progress Is American"
Here's what I thought, in order.
"America At It's Best" seemed a little bland to me. I don't think the point gets across to anyone.
"The Progressive Movement" was my favorite at first, because I think it expressed what progressive means and might have the widest appeal. But, on watching it a second time, I realized that only the video told the audience anything, and the audio doesn't get any point across. And the text of the video moves so fast that I don't know if the average person could read it all.
"Progressive VS Conservative" was my least favorite because I think it comes off as attacking conservatives, and does little to promote progressives. It would leave people feeling defensive, rather than open to the progressive message.
"Progress Is American" is what I ended up voting for. It's amusing, and my personal belief is that all commercials suck unless they're at least amusing, if not downright funny. It also gets the message through via audio, with the video being a reinforcement of the message. It brings up positive ideas about the progressive movement, without putting anyone on the defense.
So far, all of them except for Clinton and Paul have addressed the issue of PTSD, and all of them seem to want to fund the vets. It's definitely interesting to see what each of them felt it was important to say on the topic.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say Bill was preparing America for Barack in this video.
"I believe experience counts, but it's not everything. Values, judgment, and the record I have amassed in my state..." "We have got to have the courage to change. Experience is important, yes. I've got a lot of good experience dealing with ordinary people." "We need a new approach. The same old experience is not relevant. And you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted int he real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change."
iceburgslim at DailyKos argues that the job of the President is always one of on the job training, unless you've already served as POTUS. So, while certain kinds of experience are relevant, you have to look at their values and judgment, what new ideas they bring, the strength of their character.
Senator Obama has shown that his judgment is sound, by speaking out against the Iraq War from the beginning, when it could have hurt his political career, and by organizing inner city neighborhoods and leading the people there to bring themselves a higher standard of living.
He brings a message of hope, and it is not an empty one. Hope that we can have a president who is the leader of our entire nation, not just those who are willing to agree with him. Hope that our nation can find solutions to the energy crisis, and stop being dependent on foreign oil. Hope that we can bring a diplomatic solution to the horrible events in Iraq, not only so that our soldiers can come home, but so that the people in Iraq can share in this idea of hope for themselves, and their sons and daughters and mothers and fathers will not continue to die senseless deaths. Hope for a balanced budget that does not leave our children facing national bankruptcy due to irresponsible spending. Hope that our Constitution will be restored. Hope that we will have a President who is worthy of our trust.
If I am to vote for a president based on his or her ability to negotiate peace in Iraq and prevent war with Iran, I want someone who understood the difference between Sunni and Shia, and could explain it, way back in 2002.
If I am to vote based on how they'll do at taking care of America, I want someone who has been more than a casual tourist of low income neighborhoods, someone who has helped these people help themselves. I want someone who has lived the life of an average American, and who knows life outside of politics. Someone not indebted to special interests.
All of these things describe Barack Obama and are parts of the reason my hope is that he is our next President.
I love the fact that 6 months ago, he stood in Detroit and told auto manufacturers that they have a responsibility to produce cleaner cars, and that they had to straighten up. And 6 months later the United Auto Workers of America endorsed him. He is able to tell people truths they might not want to hear, but he can still get his message across to them. Part of today's culture is to avoid offending people, in this era of political correctness. You don't stare at cripples, you aren't supposed to notice when someone's skin is a different color, you don't tell jokes that poke fun at minorities or people less well off than yourself, and you don't tell people that their breath smells. You just don't say or do anything to directly offend others, especially when you're campaigning for their votes. So, for Senator Obama to stand in front of them and say what he meant, and criticize them, and for them to turn around and endorse him speaks volumes about his ability to be President and how much experience he truly has.
Senator Obama becoming President Obama will be the difference between being ashamed of our country, as I am now, and once more being proud to be an American.
Monday, November 19, 2007
This evening I had the privilege of meeting Aaron Wiley, the new Utah Field Director for Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign. Aaron is a recent graduate from the University of Utah, where he obtained his degree in Political Science, and was also the President of the Black Student Union. Aaron and his wife have two beautiful children, ages 15 months and 5 years. He comes to us from the campaign of Senator Gene Davis, where he started as the Deputy Director for the campaign, and is now the Director.
I met him at the new field office for Senator Obama here in Salt Lake City (which happens to be the only Presidential Campaign office in the state, at least for the moment). We are still setting up, but we'll have two offices, along with a phone banking area, a central gathering area, a large conference room with a projector that can hold nearly 150 people, and an executive conference room available.
We hope to be able to have the Open House sometime next week, and that information will be posted as soon as it's available.
If you are a supporter of Senator Obama, we will need your help, and as much of it as you can offer. We have a list of over 3,000 Utahns to call who have volunteered to help with this campaign, and our very first goal will be to reach them. As soon as the offices are stocked, we'll be sending out the call for people to come in and help us to call them.
Below are some photos I took earlier this evening. Unfortunately, I was not prepared with my "real" camera, so these are just from my phone. I'll post better ones as soon as I get them.
Here is our conference room, which has a projector and can hold around 150 people. That's Aaron off to the right.
Here is the phone banking area.
Here is our second office, just across from the one Aaron is set up in.
As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.
Say that with me, out loud this time to make sure you got it right.
Privacy can no longer mean anonymity. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.
Doh! We were just being silly! Privacy doesn't mean you get to keep your secrets, it means you just need to trust the government to keep it for you.
1 a: the quality or state of being apart from company or observation : seclusion b: freedom from unauthorized intrusion (one's right to privacy)2 archaic : a place of seclusion3 a: secrecy b: a private matter : secret
I need to grab the latest version of the George W. Bush English Dictionary, so I can be sure of exactly what "'is' is", since he might change the definition of that, too. Not that he could read it.
Leftover from last year's Senate campaign, I still get Google Alerts for Pete Ashdown. To my delight this morning, I received two newsarticles talking about how Pete has switched XMission completely over to renewable energy.
"As one of Utah's top consumers of electricity, I am proud that XMission is setting the example for other businesses. You can eliminate pollution from your business and be economically viable,” said Pete Ashdown, President and founder of XMission.
With this recent upgrade, XMission has increased its renewable energy purchase by 412%. In addition to its participation in the Blue Sky program since 2006, XMission has implemented green standards in its own data center. These improved standards include upgrading equipment and increasing efficiency of power and cooling systems.
XMission also participates in Salt Lake City’s e2 Business Coalition, which helps Salt Lake area businesses reduce their carbon footprint and encourages earth-friendly business practices, such as recycling, efficient lighting, and other measures.
This is one more example of why I supported Pete last year, and plan to support him in his next bid for Utah State Senator.Congratulations, Pete! And thank you!
Friday, November 16, 2007
Ok, so I don't always love the guy, but most the time he rates up there as one of the really good guys in my book. And today he inched up a bit more. Harry Reid has said that he will hold Pro Forma sessions instead of allowing an extended break in the Senate, in order to prevent George W. Bush from making recess appointments.
The Senate will be coming in for pro-forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments.
My hope is that this will prompt the President to see that it is our mutual interests for the nominations process to get back on track.
While an election year looms, significant progress can still be made on nominations.
I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me half way.
But that progress can’t be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions.
As Democratic leader, I recommend nominees to the President for many important commissions like the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
These independent agencies are required by law to have Democratic representation.
As a result, the President has a statutory obligation to honor my recommendations and move on them in good faith.
And, up until recently, the President has generally discharged that obligation.
In the last several months, however, the administration has been stalling progress on Democratic appointments.
This problem existed before the August break.
In an effort to solve it, I worked hard to confirm over 40 administration nominees in exchange for a commitment by the President to make progress on a number of important commissions.
When we reconvened after August break, I also worked to quickly move on the President’s new Attorney General.
I did this despite my own opposition to that nominee.
Even with all this hard work on our side, the commitments the administration made to me before August break were not met.
In the almost three months since that break, we have received no Democratic nominees to full-time commission positions.
For some, in fact, absolutely no discernable progress has been made.
With Thanksgiving break looming, the administration informed me that they would make several recess appointments.
I indicated I would be willing to confirm various appointments if the administration would agree to move on Democratic appointments.
They would not make that commitment.
As a result, I am keeping the Senate in pro-forma to prevent recess appointments until we get this process back on track.
I was very upset that our Democratic "leaders" were not going to do anything to prevent this, since it was something we knew was coming. Not only is the idea of Bush going behind the Senate's back to do this wrong, but the fact that he wants to appoint a homophobe to the post of Surgeon General is ridiculous! The Senate requested answers to some questions that Holsinger never answered, therefore he never got a hearing. Bush thinks he can get away with just "doing it anyway", and if the Senate was going to let it happen, when it could so easily be prevented, I was going to be pissed to put it mildly.
Here is a collection of highlights from last night's debate, if you'd like to pick and choose what you want to watch, or I'll have the entire video later - it's not available as of yet, at least that I can find.
On Pakistan and human rights(Brilliant answer)
On the failed strategy in Iraq(By the way, this is one place where he says we'll have every combat troop out by 16 months, for those who are asking - the rumor that he won't commit to that is untrue)
On health care
On nuclear waste and energy(This is one of my favorites, I loved how he basically said to quit being pessimistic, we ARE going to find the answers)
On bipartisanship(He says "I can do it better, that's why I'm running for president" and then lays out exactly how he will lead on this subject)
On taxes and social security(He called Hillary out on this, saying that she's wrong about who she's calling middle class)
On honesty(Called Hillary out again)
Hopefully I'll be able to find the entire debate somewhere soon. What were your thoughts on these clips, or other moments in the debate?
Senator Obama spoke at Google earlier this week, just after unveiling his technology plan. This was the Senator's second trip to Google, and it seemed to make quite the impression on the Googlers in attendance. You can read what the Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Google, Andrew McLaughlin's, had to say in his blog. Here's video of the "fireside chat", or you can also watch the entire speech on Mr. McLaughlin's blog.
Interestingly, I also found this list of Technology Leaders who endorse the Senator. I've emphasized some of the ones I find the most interesting/important.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Yep, it's true! Senator Barack Obama will be opening a field office here in Utah, and we will be the first campaign to have an office in Utah for the '08 race. Raul Alvillar has been interviewing people for the staff position this week, and hopefully will be making the final decision today (Friday). As soon as that information is available, I'll write about it here. And when we find out about the party to kick off the opening of the office, that'll be here, too.
We're also hoping to find office space, preferably as an in-kind campaign donation. Volunteers will be coordinated out of the office, and we'll be able to begin our calling campaign.
I think that we stand a really good shot at bring home at least most, if not all, of Utah's delegate votes. Raul has several really good people that he's interviewed, and whoever he picks will have a ready and willing team of volunteers to make this operation a huge success.
On a side note, today is the day to donate to the Obama campaign. Why today? Well, because it's a good day! Utah for Obama hopes to raise $5,000 for Obama's campaign by the end of the year. At last night's Debate Party, many of us pledged to donate $50 today, in support of Barack's great performance in the debate. Whether you can donate $5 or $500, please consider doing so today.
[Update] I still don't know who they're hiring. But, just for the record, it won't be me. I didn't apply. I like my volunteer position, and I plan to continue volunteering. But, Raul has said it will be a local person, so chances are it might be someone you or I know already. And that's all I'm sayin' 'bout that. (At least till I know who it'll be)
He's got a plan to provide a better education for our children. Great. Most candidates do, most candidates talk about making it better. But, he says right there that the government can't make it happen all on it's own. Parents have to be involved, and their participation is what will make the difference for the children.
So many of his ideas have this same foundation. This idea that we as a society have a responsibility to those around us, but that is balanced out by the fact that each of those people also have to do their part. The government can't give you a better life, but they can provide tools so that you can give yourself a better life.
Individual responsibility is a refreshing idea that I think our country has moved away from. I don't think all of it has been completely unhealthy, but take look at the subject of auto insurance.
Auto insurance is rather necessary. If I have an accident in my $12,000 Jeep, I'm not likely to be able to fix my own vehicle, much less pay for the bumper of the Mercedes I just hit, right? But, if I take that as a license to drive like an idiot, because I won't be held accountable, that insurance isn't doing me or society any favors.
On the other hand, if I didn't have insurance, should the other guy have to pay for his own repairs because I don't have the money or the insurance? No. So, we have deductibles and fines and other ways of requiring a person to be responsible for their actions.
I believe that many of the government services we have, and some we don't have yet, are necessary. I understand the conservative view that big government is bad. But, I think that by taking the initiative to tell a parent that they have to be a part of their child's education in order for that child to succeed, Barack Obama will help to change America's sometimes lazy viewpoint about what is required in life. To stimulate Americans to achieve greatness is far better than patting them on the back and telling them "it's ok, you don't have to do anything you don't want to, we'll take care of it for you".
Just to bring this back home to Utah - this was part of my point about vouchers. If the parents and other people that were for vouchers would put their hearts and souls into public schools, we could achieve everything voucher supporters dreamed of, and more.
Barack Obama will be one of our great presidents, not just someone to fill the office for a few years. I'm excited about the possibility of seeing our country thrive.
Obama's policy for Open Government will put the new CTO in charge of open meetings which are transmitted via live feed between his Cabinet members, legislators and various agencies. Even more exciting is that he plans for a public comment period on the White House web site before legislation is signed.
He plans to aggressively support broadband access, and even wants to change the subsidies that are given to carriers to only include those who are providing both phone and broadband to rural areas.
He wants to make the open wireless spectrum available to lease to 3rd parties, so that major companies cannot buy it and sit on it to prevent competition.
Obama has come out before in support of Network Neutrality, but this is more comprehensive. Obama's plan imposes minimal regulatory burden. While he would allow the idea of offering "tiers", his plan makes certain that all companies are offered the same terms.
He calls for a review of the H1-B visa program, first by trying to bring the jobs to America through training, but secondly to remove or alter the country-specific caps on permanent visas. This will protect the workers from exploitation by employers, because of limitations on short-term visas.
Overall, this plan is very encouraging, because we've had so many people making laws and decisions about technology that do not understand it. I compare it to Utah's putting teetotalers in charge of the booze. It makes no sense. We definitely need the Technology Czar!
Why John Edwards was first to respond to DFA members with his positions on Iraq and Global Warming.
Why Barack Obama is using DFA Training Academy materials to give his supporters the skills to win.
You know that primaries matter -- and this primary is the biggest of them all. Democracy for America is not going to let the pre-ordained front runner walk away without a fight.
Chip in $15 right now and support DFA's fight for a Progressive President.
http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com/PrimariesMatter
Last week over 150,000 DFA members voted in our Presidential Primary pulse poll. No candidate was able to walk away with a majority, but one thing was clear. DFA members will not settle for the pundit's top choice.
DFA members are the boots on the ground fighting for progressive change. We are the caucus-goers, the early primary voters, the ones whose votes actually count.
DFA members support bold candidates with big ideas. Progessive candidates like Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Barack Obama. DFA members support candidates who are going to take our country in a new direction, stand for principles and make change happen.
We will not triangulate a third way. This race is not a foregone conclusion. Support DFA with a $15 contribution right now.
http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com/PrimariesMatter
Together, we will show the pundits that primaries matter.
Thank you for putting your contribution into action.
-Rachel
Rachel MossFinance Director
There are a few things I picked up in reading this. The very first point was that the Chosen One of the media (Hillary) hasn't already won the Primary. Then they mention Kucinich, Edwards and Obama in a rather positive light. Just in case a person didn't already see what they were getting at, that was followed up with saying they weren't going to "let the pre-ordained front runner walk away without a fight".
They all but say that Hillary isn't progressive, and they don't think she should be in office.
The bold type was DFA's, and not mine, so I think the impressions I got were the ones they wanted me to have. I wonder how big of a ripple this will make in the end, but I have to say I'm highly impressed that they would do this, and I hope that other Democratic organizations will take their lead and not be afraid of pissing Hillary off. Because they're right - this race is not a foregone conclusion. We should be voting for who we think is the right person, and not who the media tells us has already won.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Utah for Obama is getting together at Mo Diggity's (3434 South State) at 6:00 on Thursday to watch the CNN Democratic Debate. You don't have to be an Obama fan to join us, but you do have to be 21, since Mo's is a private club.
Mo's has a nice non-smoking movie room that we'll take over.
The debate starts at 6, but if you get there early enough, you can pick between the giant Love Sac, couches or booths. I think the kitchen might be open, but I haven't confirmed that as of yet. Rumor has it that it's also "cheap drinks night".
Energy Independence and Environmental ImpactPaul Voted NO to H.R. 6Obama voted YES to H.R. 6to move toward energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to increase the energy efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, January 2007.
Paul Rated 5% in 2003 by the League of Conservation Voters, indicating anti-environment votes.Obama rated 100%, the highest environmental rating by the LCV.
Paul Voted NO on raising CAFE standards and providing incentives for alternative fuels, August 2001.Barack Obama believes that we can meet energy needs while also protecting our environment, with such things as a Cap and Trade system, finding alternative fuels, and that the way to achieve that is to invest in them.
Paul Voted YES on restricting bankruptcy rules, making it harder for the average American, while protecting business, January 2004.Barack Obama spoke on the Floor of the Senate against such restrictions.
Paul says he'll abolish the IRS immediately after taking office.Obama has a tax plan to both cut taxes and ease the hassle of filing.
In considering the above differences, and these are just a few, I do not believe that our country would benefit from a ticket including both of them. We need progress, and Ron Paul's idea of progress is quite different from Barack Obama's. Ron Paul's voting history tells me he wants to protect businesses and eliminate government, while Barack Obama wants to protect the people of America, while eliminating government waste. Our President and Vice President should be working towards the same goals, not against each other with opposite goals.
I agree that Obama must work across party lines, which is usually the argument for this, but that doesn't mean he needs to get in bed with them. He could pick Richardson, Edwards, or whoever it is that he's inclined towards, and still be able to work just fine with the Republicans. That's just who Obama is, and he doesn't need a GOP running mate to do it.
In her Oct. 18 column, "Utah takes small, slow steps on gays," Rebecca Walsh asserts that the Utah Supreme Court recently denied a "lesbian mother's request for visitation with the daughter she had helped raise from birth."
As one of the lawyers who assisted with this case, I can state that this assertion is incorrect. The daughter in question had no biological, adoptive or legal link to the woman requesting visitation with the child. In fact, she was not the "mother," but at the time of the girl's birth, was a live-in partner with the girl's actual and biological mother.
If you take that rationale to its logical conclusion, a live-in boyfriend, who may have only known a child for seven months or so, could claim to be a "parent" and demand visitation. Once you start extending visitation rights to individuals who have no biological, adoptive or legal link to a child, you open up a Pandora's box of issues that will ultimately destroy the rights of biological or adoptive parents.
The issue was not denial of visitation to an "aggrieved parent," but instead was sleight of hand to advance an agenda that seeks to redefine the family until it has been reduced to meaninglessness.
After reading it, I was frustrated as all hell. So, I decided to write my own letter to the editor, and it was published in today's paper.
Joe Infranco (Forum, Nov. 6) wrote about parent custody. I believe that denying equal rights to same-sex relationships is exactly where the Pandora's box comes from. If two women could choose to legally define their relationship, then the nonbiological mother would have either had the rights of a parent, or those of a live-in boyfriend.
By denying same-sex partner rights, the question of what makes a parent must be raised, or equal rights given to same-sex partners in all areas regarding relationships.
People, such as Mr. Infranco, who believe that this pursuit "seeks to redefine the family until it has been reduced to meaninglessness," must not understand what a family is. Families provide children a safe place to grow, learn and explore. Until they see this, they condemn children to having that safe place ripped out from under them when they are told that "Mommy isn't Mommy," and these children may grow up without understanding how to provide loving families for their own children.
Mr. Infranco would better give meaning to family if he would put the children ahead of his own intolerance.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Wow, I can't imagine any governor, or wannabe governor, seeking his help after Byrne's meltdown. I thought I'd heard it all, until I read the article from Forbes.
A day after Utah's school-voucher program was wiped out, the chief financial backer of the movement accused voters Wednesday of being insensitive to minorities...
...also said he would take his voucher campaign to black churches in South Carolina.
But The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People opposed Utah's voucher program, saying it would lead to segregated schools.
Ok, so the above wasn't a melt down. Here it comes:
In a phone interview with the AP, Byrne blasted Huntsman, who signed the voucher law but didn't do much to try to persuade voters that it was worth keeping. Byrne gave $75,000 to Huntsman's campaign for governor in 2004.
"He said, 'I am going to be the voucher governor.' He said this was his No. 1 priority. He said this was going to be his legacy," Byrne recalled. "The moment Jon Huntsman becomes Gov. Huntsman, all this changed."
Awww, was Governor Huntsman not for sale? Well, maybe someone else will be.
"I can say definitively he has lost my trust," Byrne said of Huntsman. "I think that he, as a governor, he's house-sitting in the governor's mansion to the day Utah elects an actual governor.
"I don't care if he's communist. I wouldn't care where he was politically," Byrne said. "If any opponent emerged, he would have my unqualified support."
Wow, a communist? Impressive Mr. Byrne. Impressive. Just hope they don't find out how badly you piss your pants when you don't get your way.
The event was turned into a TV ad for the pro-voucher group, Parents for Choice in Education, although Byrne claims the governor's staff demanded the ad be pulled.
"I don't want to be mean, but I do want the citizens to know what really went on behind the scenes," Byrne said.
Well, let him go throw his money away elsewhere. I'm with JM Bell, no more of my money is heading his way.
"He clearly does not understand the African-American community," Jeanetta Williams said. "For him to think all he needs to do is go to the black churches and throw his money around and win support - that's not the case. It angers me."
All of the above is in addition to his other hissy fit, which was summarized this way by Crooks and Liars:
Got that? Disagree with the right on voucher schemes that don’t work, and you’re a child-hating moron.
Driving home rather late last evening, I caught the BBC on KCPW, and caught this little gem escaping Governor Bush's mouth:
"My message was that we believe strongly in elections and that you ought to have elections soon and you need to take off your uniform. You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time, so I had a very frank discussion with him."
Ummm, what? If Mr. Bush believes that you can't be both president and head of the military...well, I can't...I just...The Decider...he's, you know...The Chosen One, right?
My mind will explode if I try to wrap it around this any longer, or I'll need to start screaming obscenities. I might do that anyway.
12:55PM Whoa. The UTOPIA legislation is not going to be discussed today. The reason? They're going to "seek consensus" from UTOPIA, Qwest and Comcast before making further amendments on the bill. My main concern there is that this will not be done in public hearings so we might not be able to weigh in again before the general session starts. I'll make sure to keep track of this one and keep everyone updated.
Ok, raise your hand if you think that a consensus stands even a tiny chance of happening here? [crickets]
This Saturday, Utah for Obama will be joining Tree Utah to plant trees along the Jordan River Parkway. Our Events Coordinator, Janet Hurley, came up with the idea for us to help a few weeks back, and oddly enough, the Obama Campaign came out with a request for us to do a "Green Gathering" that same day, with suggested activity ideas including tree planting. Damn, are we prepared, or what?
Utah for Obama will also be resuming our bi-weekly meetings at the SLC Main Library that afternoon. Come find out more about Obama or volunteer to help with other upcoming events.
[Update] I forgot to include other events that are going on in the state. There's a River Trail Cleanup, also part of the Green Gathering effort, and then that evening's USU for Obama meeting, both in Logan.
If you can't make it in person, or create your own, you can always check out the Virtual Green Gathering that another grassroots member has created.
Monday, November 05, 2007
The FDR generation is wrong, no matter how intense the shrillness of their cries. Clarence Thomas is right. That's why so many liberally-oriented people hate Justice Thomas to this day. He's also black. That makes them hate him even worse.
I'm with Jason The on this one. I mean, seriously, liberals are the ones who want equality, and work their asses off trying to make sure the conservatives don't pull shit like preventing them from voting.
I get some points of view that I don't agree with, but this one makes my head spin. Yeah, we don't like Thomas (shhhh! it's because he's... colored!). WTFever. Stupid, stupid.
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News
IFST has brought together a COVID-19 Advisory Group, which includes our scientific staff and some of our experienced members. The COVID-19 Advisory Group are actively assessing the impact of COVID-19 - signposting to credible resources created by others, and generating additional complimentary IFST knowledge resources for consumers, members and organisations throughout the food chain. These are uploaded onto the IFST COVID-19 Knowledge Hub which is free to access.
The COVID-19 Advisory Group are working closely with our IFST member communities, other professional bodies and external Government to equip everyone with best advice at this time.
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Two Israel Chief Rabbis Differ on Kashruth, but Split is Denied
September 2, 1964
JERUSALEM (Sep. 1)
While shops in other parts of the country have already received kashruth certificates from the Rabbinate for the sale of meat slaughtered in the Marbek cooperative abattoir, the Jerusalem Rabbinate today posted warnings throughout the city that the sale of the meat has not yet been approved here.
The latest development followed the conclusion last week of an agreement between the Rabbinate and Marbek along lines proposed by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Isser Yehuha Unter-man and forestalling a clash between the secular and rabbinic authorities when a Supreme Court hearing on the matter was canceled.
The Chief Rabbinate Council, meanwhile, today issued a statement denying reports of a dispute on the matter between the two Chief Rabbis. The statement apparently referred to reports that Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim had criticized the agreement reached with Marbek by the Tel Aviv Rabbinate, which is headed by Rabbi Unterman. Rabbi Ilissim is reported to have indicated that he would have preferred a showdown on the question of the Jurisdiction of the Rabbinate and the secular courts.
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Bayshore Multi-Modal Facility Study
ON THIS PAGE
Study Description
Extensive growth in the bi-county, Bayshore area is placing significant pressure on regional and local transportation systems. To meet both current neighborhood needs as well as the expected increase in travel and commuting demand, several transportation improvements have been identified for the bi-county area; including Muni Forward service enhancements, US-101/Candlestick Point interchange, Caltrain Modernization and Geneva-Harney Bus Rapid Transit.
A multi-modal facility is one significant way to better connect these improvements and serve future transportation demand in the bi-county area. A facility will also support regional priorities of coordinating land use and transportation planning, as well as reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The Bayshore Multi-Modal Facility Location Study analyzed alternative locations, conceptual designs, and implementation plans for a multi-modal facility in the Bayshore area based on consultant analysis, public agency input and community feedback. The final report is available here.
What is a Multi-Modal Facility?
Multi-modal facilities link transportation services and infrastructure within a single location or area, providing better access and connectivity for people using regional and rapid transit, local buses and shuttles, private vehicles (cars/trucks), cycling, and walking. Facilities can take many forms, including: special street designs, a kiosk, shared platforms, or even a building.
Public Outreach
At the first open house (October 2015), community members were invited to comment on four potential multi-modal facility locations and various facility elements. Incorporating public input, transportation consultants then evaluated the four potential locations. The evaluation resulted in the preferred location of Sunnydale Avenue, with the understanding that future conditions may change enough such that a facility, or select elements of a facility, could be added or located elsewhere.
At the November 3rd, 2016 open house, consultants presented four alternative concepts for a multi-modal facility at the Sunnydale Avenue location. The consultant team is currently compiling community comments on these alternatives, on the criteria to evaluate these alternatives, and on other issues related to the project.
Members of the public are not required to provide personal identifying information when they communicate with the Commission or Department. All written or oral communications, including submitted personal contact information, may be made available to the public for inspection and copying upon request and may appear on the Department's website or in other public documents.
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books.google.comhttp://books.google.com/books/about/Geometric_Theory_of_Functions_of_a_Compl.html?id=DKcqhBr1SooC&q=quantity&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareGeometric Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable
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Trending
PEGI Versus BBFC: PEGI Wins (For Some Reason)
You may or may not have caught the news that the age rating legislation for videogames is to be decided circa July 30th 2012 solely via the PEGI classification system. Up until then it was a joint effort made by BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and PEGI (Pan European Game Information). The reason the change has occurred is to supposedly reduce the confusion that consumers faced on seeing two different age ratings on a product. Many parents buying videogames for their kids have allegedly thought up until now that the age ratings indicated the skill-level required playing the game, as opposed to the maturity of content therein. The sole PEGI system is also now legally enforceable, meaning retailers will get in serious shit if they’re caught flogging one to an underage customer.
Why Has PEGI Taken Precedence Over BBFC?
I have no idea, because it makes no sense to favour PEGI over BBFC: the BBFC is widely recognised by anyone who has ever picked up a VHS videotape (remember them?) or watched a DVD, Blu-ray or indeed any film, ever. Therefore the BBFC classification system could have been effortlessly wheeled in to govern game ratings and be instantly understood on its own terms. PEGI also has a bizarrely inflexible approach to explaining a videogame’s content: various symbols include a spider to indicate scariness and a fist for violence. Wouldn’t it have been more articulate to just state what specific content to watch out for like the BBFC does for films, ‘contains scenes of violence and strong language’? Instead we get a caveman ‘ugg’ in visual form.
It is not enough to rely on abstract images lined up on the back of a videogame box for disinterested parents to suss out. If the government thinks that parents are going to visit the PEGI website for clarification, then they still don’t truly understand that a large majority of parents will buy any videogame for their child whether it’s inappropriate or not. And this isn’t me being judgmental, but there is clearly a palpable and wilful misunderstanding that propagates itself. Implementing a sole BBFC rating system would have set a strong message to parents that rely on good ol’ ignorance to evade responsibility.
It also becomes obvious that the real reason for favouring the PEGI system is due to financial and geographical reasons: PEGI is a system that is used across Europe, and the annoyingly cumbersome content symbols don’t require translation costs to reproduce overseas. This leaves us with the unfortunate conclusion that ‘radical’ changes to the videogame age-rating system have been compromised to save money. I wouldn’t be surprised if saving money was the real motivation for the legislation changes to begin with.
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Omni Hotels offers guests online check-in. Save time at the front desk and check-in online 48 hours prior to arrival and we will have your room ready when you arrive.
Simply pull up your reservation online up to 6 p.m. hotel time and confirm your billing details and you will be set!
48 Hours in New York City
Omni Berkshire Place is located in the heart of Manhattan, providing easy access to the best New York City has to offer. Central Park, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Broadway shows, high-end shopping, world-class museums and more are all at your fingertips.
With all the options, it can be overwhelming, so we’ve outlined a two-day itinerary with extra choices for easy customization. Hit the streets, hail a cab, or settle in at your home away from home to begin your Big Apple adventure.
Day One
Morning
Start your morning right with breakfast at a nearby local favorite. If you’re craving something different, Casa Lever offers a fabulous Milanese-inspired breakfast selection where guests can dine surrounded by one of the world's largest collections of original Andy Warhol paintings, courtesy of the Lever House Art Collection. For a fresh take on “haute Greek food” try the welcoming, non-tipping restaurant, Nerai, just a block and half away.
Perhaps one of the best ways to begin your day is a trip to Central Park for a walk, run or sightseeing. The southeast entrance of the park is located a short 8-minute walk down 5th Avenue from the Omni Berkshire Place. If you’re a runner, stop by the concierge desk for a running map before heading out. Other options inside the park include the Central Park Zoo, beautiful gardens and sculptures, cycling and carriage rides, and ice skating rinks in the winter.
Afternoon
After burning some calories and enjoying the sites in Central Park, it’s time to refuel with lunch and experience some of the best street food in the city. At The Halal Guys food cart, you’ll find great gyros and falafel. Don’t let the long lines dissuade you—it’s notably worth the wait. The Halal Guys food carts are all over NYC but you’ll find the closest one to the Omni Berkshire Place—less than half a mile away—at West 53 St. and Sixth Avenue. Or try Uncle Gussy’s Greek food truck on Park Ave. at 51st. This family-run business serves up traditional Greek food with a specialty tzatziki sauce that leaves customers coming back for more.
Next, choose the perfect museum for an afternoon visit. The Museum of Modern Art—better known as MoMA— is a popular choice located just two blocks from the Omni Berkshire Place and features a world-renowned collection of modern and contemporary art. Depending on the interests of those in your party, it’s far from the only nearby option. Grab the updated museum highlights information from the concierge desk for all the latest exhibits and decide which of the 32 museums in Manhattan (from the Guggenheim Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, to the International Center of Photography and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan) you want to visit.
Evening
Enjoy dinner at one of the best steak houses in a city of great steak houses. Bob’s Steak & Chop House, the signature restaurant at Omni Berkshire Place, features large cuts of steak, chops and seafood served alongside big drinks and fine wines. After your meal, top the evening off with another dash of culture—this time featuring some live music. Legendary Irish pub Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar is noted for its creative and convivial atmosphere where you can hear talented musicians and enjoy “a proper pint.” If you’re more in the mood for a New York-style lounge atmosphere, try a specialty cocktail at the sophisticated 48 Lounge, or enjoy a fine cigar and a single malt scotch at The Carnegie Club, which is carved out of the back of Carnegie Hall and features an extensive drink and cigar menu.
Day Two
Morning
After your busy first day in New York City, ask the concierge team to perfectly customize an in-room breakfast experience, from romantic to family-style. Then, head over to Rockefeller Plaza. Located just three blocks from Omni Berkshire Place, it is home to The Tour at NBC Studios. Known as the first studio tour in television, it’s now more interactive than ever. Tour guests can go behind the scenes of shows like “Saturday Night Live,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and more. Get your tickets in advance because it does sell out. This fun experience for the entire family takes just over an hour, but afterward you can enjoy Rockefeller Center, which features more than 100 shops, dining opportunities, an observation deck with spectacular views of Manhattan, plus ice skating in the winter.
Afternoon
For lunch, head the few short blocks back to the Omni Berkshire Place, or try nearby Fresco by Scotto. It is owned by the Scotto family, who are often featured cooking up their beloved Italian food on NBC’s “Today Show.” After lunch, pamper yourself with a personalized in-room hair or makeup service from Omni’s partner, NOMI Beauty. Your NOMI stylist will cater to your style and only uses the finest products in the industry.
No trip to New York City would be complete without taking advantage of some of the best shopping in the world. Whether you only have an hour to spare or a full day, you’ll find plenty to browse and buy, all within walking distance of Omni Berkshire Place, conveniently located between Madison and Fifth avenues. Within five blocks you’ll find everything from Versace, Rolex and Gucci, to American Girl Place, the Disney Store and the LEGO Store. The concierge desk has shopping maps available and can also arrange private shopping experiences.
Evening
Taking in a Broadway show during your trip is a must, but the first order of the evening should be some delicious cuisine. Dine at the hotel, or try the iconic 21 Club speakeasy. One of America’s most famous speakeasies from the Prohibition Era, this reinvented restaurant is an intrinsic part of the fabric of New York.
Next, go to the Broadway Theater District and Times Square, just a few blocks from the Omni Berkshire Place. Get tickets in advance for the most popular shows or get same-day tickets at the TKTS Discount Booth in Times Square. You can also avoid the lines by asking the concierge team to acquire seats for you and deliver the tickets to you at your convenience.
After enjoying the performance of your choice, end the evening with nightcap at Bob’s Bar. Try a classic like the Mulled Manhattan or a signature favorite like The Dirty Bob, a Ketel One martini with house-stuffed blue cheese olives and olive brine.
If you have more time...
A destination to consider is Wave Hill located in the Bronx, about a 30-minute drive, or a little longer by subway. This 28-acre public garden and cultural center features formal gardens, a greenhouse, nature trails and sweeping views of the Hudson River and Palisades.
Everyone knows of the popular Broadway hit “Hamilton,” but you can also visit the country home that Alexander Hamilton built on his Harlem estate. The Hamilton Grange has been relocated to St. Nicholas Park in the Hamilton Heights Historic District. Admission is free.
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UN to send team to investigate Islamic State crimes in Iraq
Asaib Ahl al-Haq Shi'ite militia fighters from the south of Iraq and Kurdish peshmerga forces walk with their weapons as they take control of Sulaiman Pek from the Islamist State militants, in the northwest of Tikrit city September 1, 2014. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The United Nations agreed on Monday to send investigators to Iraq to examine crimes being committed by Islamic State militants on "an unimaginable scale", with a view to holding perpetrators to account.
"We are facing a terrorist monster," Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, told the U.N. Human Rights Council which adopted a resolution tabled by Iraq and France at an emergency sitting of the 47-member state forum in Geneva.
The Council aims to send 11 investigators, with a total budget of $1.18 million, to report back by March 2015.
Islamic State, which declared a "caliphate" in June in parts of Iraq and Syria under its control, has been cited as a major security threat by Western governments since posting a video in August of the beheading of U.S journalist James Foley.
The Sunni militants have driven more than 1.2 million people from their homes this year, the United Nations says. At least 1,420 people were killed in sectarian violence in Iraq in August alone, U.N. figures showed on Monday.
U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said there was "strong evidence" Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and allied groups had carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, sexual abuse and torture in Iraq.
"The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale," she said.
ETHNIC CLEANSING
Pansieri voiced concern at the persecution of Christians, Yazidis, Shia, and Turkmen, saying such "ethnic and religious cleansing" may amount to crimes against humanity.
Children belonging to targeted minorities have been forcibly recruited and positioned on front lines to shield fighters or made to donate blood, she said. Women are beaten for breaking rules requiring them to be veiled and escorted by men.
Al-Sudani told the session that Islamic State, "oozing with barbarity", was threatening the makeup of his country.
"The land of ancient Babylon is subjected to threats, starting with threats to its very independence. They are attempting to change its demographic and cultural composition," he said, adding: "Acts by ISIS threaten not only Iraq but the whole region and world."
Pansieri raised concerns that Iraqi government forces had also engaged in acts that may amount to war crimes.
She said government-allied militias had opened fire on a mosque in Khanaqin district, northeast of Baghdad, killing 73 men and boys. Iraqi soldiers had shelled towns and carried out air strikes killing and injuring dozens of civilians, she added.
The U.S. envoy to the rights forum, Keith Harper, urged Iraq's prime minister designate, Haider al-Abadi, to form a multi-ethnic government that would investigate allegations against government forces and "terrorist groups".
"The stories that have emerged from ISIL's bloody assault on Iraq are the ones of nightmares. Christians and others have been driven from their homes with the threat of 'convert or die'," Harper said.
"The Yazidis have been buried alive, beheaded or killed in mass executions."
Al Sudani, asked whether the U.N. investigators would look into alleged crimes by government forces, said they would focus on those committed by the Sunni militants and that the Baghdad government would look into allegations against state forces.
"These are allegations of crimes perpetrated by the government and we have a transparent investigation by our own government which will soon be deposited with all concerned members of the Human Rights Council," he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. For more information see our Acceptable Use Policy.
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Green Dreams Project - Evaluation
The Green Dreams Project partnered with Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, Health Improvement Service in March 2012. The project was successful in attracting funding from NHS East Lancashire for a twelve month pilot to establish if the model can be replicated within further General Practices across East Lancashire. The Green Dreams Project provides local, community-based solutions in East Lancashire to unemployment, isolation and reduced quality of life. It prioritises individuals whom other agencies have been unable to help. The unique approach comprises:
Tailored coordinated care
Marrying health needs with social needs
The creation of meaningful group activities
The key aims of this evaluation project are to explore the extent to which the Green Dreams project is delivered as intended and particularly, to examine the impact of the project on both service users and the wider benefits to the health agenda. A case study approach will be used to capture learning, experience and potential wider benefits from the Green Dreams pilot project reflecting on stakeholder experience and organisational systems-level working.
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Casket driven through Harrisburg to remind drivers to move over and slow down
by CBS21 WEB STAFF
WHPThumbnail
HARRISBURG, Pa —
It was a call for safety and remembrance on Wednesday for first responders and Harrisburg based H&S Towing Service workers.
They gathered together at Soldier's Field in Harrisburg to bring attention to the dangers tow truck drivers and first responders face on the side of highways.
A casket was there to honor those who lost their lives on road sides and to remind people to move over and slow down.
"If possible you need to move to the adjacent traffic lane, if there's one available," explains PSP Trooper James Spender. "If it's not possible or safe to do so, you need to slow down."
"A lot of times there's a disabled vehicle so we don't have a lot of room to work," said Robert Wohlmaker. "So, it's important that people take that extra second just to move over and maybe slow down a little bit, and give us our space."
If you do not move over for emergency vehicles you can get hit with a $250 fine and two month suspension on your license. If you accidentally kill someone on the side of the highway, you will be fined $10,000.
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Sha Tin District, Hong Kong - Sanwa Biotech Limited The company was created in December 2012 from a core team of founders with entrepreneurial spirits and cross... your application for review directly to Sanwa Biotech Limited Career Level Middle Yr(s) of Exp 5 years Qualification Degree Indu
Sha Tin District, Hong Kong - Sanwa Biotech Limited The company was created in December 2012 from a core team of founders with entrepreneurial spirits and cross... only. » APPLY NOW jobsDB will send your application for review directly to Sanwa Biotech Limited Career Level Entry Level Yr(s)
Sha Tin District, Hong Kong - Sanwa Biotech Limited The company was created in December 2012 from a core team of founders with entrepreneurial spirits and cross... only. » APPLY NOW jobsDB will send your application for review directly to Sanwa Biotech Limited Career Level Entry Level Yr(s)
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on the way….
November 24, 2012
The Journey Of Thoughts part 4
When I love someone,what are the rights ?What are the responsibilities?or just the feeling carries both together?
There is no ego and if there is ego,distance comes and it really hurts when you really love someone.Ego doesn’t matter much in usual kind of relationships.
Friends forever are not be planned,it just happens even if both people are not similar.You don’t need to force yourself for it.You just go for it.I remember there is a quote “Before we were born,in the world of souls,all souls don’t meet each other.the souls which meet,it’s easier to make up with them in this world but those who don’t meet there,can’t make up with each other.”
Sometimes,there is no reason to love and also not to love.One tries and tries but to no avail…
Just to end up with frustration and anger,it’s better to be at good terms with the person.
Silence is sometimes best solution than to speak up which is regrettable.
I know that once words spoken have an effect….really have an effect.it takes time to heal.
For the sake of living the world with beauty,go on even after you go down by some situation.
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A march near the Kremlin in 2015 honors Russian opposition leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin who was fatally shot shortly before a major opposition rally. Reps. Bennie Thompson and Robert A. Brady warn against Russian meddling in future U.S. elections. (Alexander Aksakov/Getty Images file photo)
In November 2016, 139 million Americans cast their votes in the wake of a massive Russian cyber-enabled operation to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
The Kremlin spread disinformation through hundreds of thousands of social media posts. Russian agents hacked U.S. political organizations and selectively exposed sensitive information. Russia targeted voting systems in at least 21 states, seeking to infiltrate the networks of voting equipment vendors, political parties and at least one local election board.
The House on Thursday passed a continuing resolution to fund the government past midnight on Friday, but the bill has yet to pass the Senate. The shutdown showdown cloud has loomed over Washington this entire week, but life also went on inside the halls of Congress.
House Republicans took a significant step Wednesday in an effort to overhaul the nation’s foreign lobbying disclosure regulations amid scandals in the influence sector.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced as amended, 15-6 along party lines, the measure that would give the Justice Department new subpoena-like investigative powers. That new authority sparked controversy among the panel’s Democrats.
President Donald Trump speaks during news conference with Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway in the East Room at the White House on Wednesday. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump on Friday denied using the term “shithole countries” to describe Haiti and African nations during a Thursday Oval Office meeting on immigration.
And, in classic Trumpian form, he attempted to alter the day’s new coverage to focus on a bipartisan immigration overhaul proposal offered by Sens. Richard J. Durbin and Lindsey Graham — a plan he rejected during an Oval Office meeting that also featured immigration hawks from his White House and Congress.
President Donald Trump early Friday said that he didn’t call Haiti and African countries “shithole countries” despite multiple media reports of accounts from lawmakers who were in a meeting about immigration policy. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images file photo)
Members of both parties roundly criticized President Donald Trump after the Washington Post reported he called Haiti and African countries “shithole countries.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is the first black man to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
The addition of Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave the two potential 2020 presidential hopefuls a big platform, but also a spot in the panel’s history.
Booker becomes the first black man to sit on the committee, which oversees civil rights, voting rights, housing discrimination and other Justice Department enforcement efforts that are seen as crucial to African-Americans. Harris, who is biracial, becomes the second black woman to serve on the panel, after Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, who left the Senate in 1999.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, left, and Jerrold Nadler of New York are vying to be the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. (CQ Roll Call)
Two experienced Democratic lawmakers with contrasting styles are vying to become the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and the vote this week could signal much more than just who will press the party’s agenda on the panel.
The choice of Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York or Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California will reveal much about the Democrats’ long-term strategy for a key committee as it deals with the tumult of President Donald Trump’s administration, the special counsel investigating his campaign, threats to civil rights and a reckoning of allegations of improper sexual behavior sweeping through Capitol Hill.
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Derek Jeter shows he's flawed after all
Wallace Matthews has covered New York sports since 1983 as a reporter, columnist, radio host and TV commentator. He covers the Yankees for ESPNNewYork.com after working for Newsday, the New York Post, the New York Sun and ESPN New York 98.7 FM.Follow Wallace on Twitter »Chat archive »
For 15 years now, the paparazzi have stalked Derek Jeter whenever he sets foot out his front door.
For 15 years, he has lived in the crosshairs of a media as trained on its subject as an elite sniper unit.
And in those 15 years, he has emerged remarkably unscathed.
Not once has Jeter been caught in a compromising position with a woman, or kissing himself in a mirror, or taking his shirt off in Central Park. For all we know, he's never even gotten a parking ticket.
The worst thing he has done so far is blow off Bob Sheppard's funeral, and, regretfully, haven't we all done something like that?
(Yeah, he didn't pay his property taxes in New York a few years back, but all those who believe fudging your tax returns is a crime, please raise your hand.)
And most importantly, in an era populated by overmuscled steroid cheats, Jeter has thrived despite playing the game clean (as far as we know).
To find anything wrong with this guy, we have had to resort to the sabermetricians, who with their charts and algorithms have somehow concluded that contrary to what your eyes and the results have told you, the guy is actually a bum.
Until Wednesday night. In the seventh inning of a crucial game at Tropicana Field, the cameras caught Derek Jeter, live in HD, surround sound and YES-Mo, in what an army of photographers and reporters have been rooting around for since 1996.
The guy is not above occasionally doing what lesser mortals do on a regular basis, which is trying to grab something he did not deserve to have ... in this case, first base.
That, in a word, is cheating.
There are other words for it, as well, such as lying and stealing, but for now, let's stick to the C word.
I understand that in the jockosphere, doing what Jeter did Wednesday night falls under the euphemism of "gamesmanship," code for doing whatever one can get away with in order to win.
Derek Jeter made his best case for an Academy Award on Wednesday night in Tampa. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
And I've been around enough sports, professional and amateur, as both participant and observer, to know that what Jeter did is hardly original or even very serious, although if the Yankees' 3-2 lead, courtesy of Curtis Granderson's home run immediately following Jeter's (not) hit-by-pitch, had held up, it would be a different story today.
But the fact that it even is a story today is not so much about what was done, but who did it.
Face it, if Alex Rodriguez had pulled a Jeter and played the death scene from "Madame Bovary" in response to a pitch that clearly hit the knob of his bat, we would all be having a fine day skewering him as a crybaby, and yes, a cheater.
And a lot of that is A-Rod's own fault, having already engaged in several instances of public behavior that had earned him those tags.
Certainly, what Jeter did does not fall into the realm of shouting "Ha!" at an infielder camping under a pop fly or trying to swat the ball out of a player's glove. Those were blatant instances of cheating that permanently stripped Rodriguez of any possible benefit of the doubt. And I haven't even mentioned the words "Boli" or Dallas Braden. A-Rod's resume of unseemly behavior is thick enough without them.
But Jeter is a different story entirely. This is a guy who has played as exemplary a career as could possibly be played for this team, in this media environment, for the past 15 years.
The worst thing he has done on the field is have the nerve to grow old, to hit only .262 instead of his customary .315, and at 36 years old, to have lost a step or two going to his left at shortstop.
What happened Wednesday night is something we might have come to expect from the likes of A-Rod, something unethical and faintly unseemly, something you know is accepted in sports but never quite makes you feel right when you see it, even if it is done by your favorite team or player.
In real life, it might translate to lying on your resume or fudging your sales figures. In my business, it would be equivalent to "borrowing" someone else's work and passing it off as my own, or inventing a quote and putting it into the mouth of some nonexistent "unnamed source."
In just about any profession -- except on Wall Street, where such practices seem to be rewarded with hefty bonuses -- that kind of thing will get you fired and probably blackballed.
In professional sports, it gets you the reputation of being "a gamer," a guy who will do anything to get an edge over his opponent. It is precisely that sort of thinking that gave rise to the steroid mentality.
Jeter did nothing so egregious, of course, and no one in his or her right mind could have expected him to tell the umpire that the ball did not, in fact, hit him, which he readily admitted after the game.
But there was something a little grubby about the whole act, something a little desperate, and something that reminded me of how much I scorn outfielders who jump up screaming they caught that sinking liner that the replay clearly shows they trapped, or the wide receiver who insists he caught the pass that the eye in the sky proves to have skipped.
It reveals a fundamental lack of integrity we have come, sadly, to expect of the average person, but not from Derek Jeter, who over the past 15 years has shown himself to be anything but average.
The Yankees, of course, have more serious problems to deal with than whether or not Jeter actually got hit with a pitch in a vital game that they eventually lost.
There is the very real issue of whether Joe Girardi should continue to marshal his forces for the postseason and not really care about winning the division, which to me looks like a potentially fatal mistake.
There is the anxiety over whether Andy Pettitte will return to form in time for October, and if any pitcher other than he or CC Sabathia will be of any real use to them in the playoffs.
There are the injuries to Brett Gardner and Nick Swisher, two players whose value to this team has only become more apparent in their absence.
And there are those pesky Rays, who simply refuse to slink off into a corner.
All of those issues are a lot more vital than whether or not Derek Jeter did the right thing Wednesday night, and yet, it is the Jeter issue that has so many of us thinking and talking and arguing today.
For the past 15 years, Jeter has been everything we want our ballplayers to be, and everything we would like our kids to become.
Except for one split-second Wednesday night, when he became something he has never been before: Human. And therefore, flawed.
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