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Simple Solutions When Purchasing Kids Bedroom Furniture Sets
Presently men and women not only look out for single pieces of Bedroom Furnishings but also for total Bedroom Furniture Sets, which can create sync between the bed set, and its surrounding furniture. There are many other such web sites that can assist you bring back these inventive juices when decorating your bedroom. The bedroom is one of the rooms you need ample storage, helping you preserve the space clutter totally free and organised. Regardless of theme, colour schemes, size of space, or price range, if you spend some time preparing, you will locate each decorations and bedroom furniture that performs for you. It was delivered on time, holds everything we require, and looks wonderful with our other furniture. This inner area furnishings contains a cupboard, bed, dressing table, wardrobes and mirrors.
Handcrafted rustic furniture, with its rugged style, creates a warm ambience in the bedroom. Similarly, contemporary furniture for the kitchen are bar sets, bar and counter stools, bar tables, buffets, chairs, dining sets, hutches, cabinets, kitchen carts and tables. You can constantly make a choice although opting for the proper color but my sincere suggestions to you is that you must go for standard colors of oak furniture. Bedroom decorating tips seldom keep among the sheets, and to provide a full variety of modern day bedroom furnishings, we provide dozens of bedroom decorating tips by means of our on the internet store.
These are these long sets of drawers that typically have two stacks of 2-4 drawers side by side. It can be challenging to begin with 1 piece of furnishings, such as a bed, and perform around it. Try to imagine how other furnishings will fit as you begin figuring out the appear and really feel you are trying to achieve in your bedroom.
With a bedroom which has been cautiously designed to work collectively, the use of space will be maximises to make certain you get pleasure from an open and spacious bedroom design and style. There are other style options available too like traditional, contemporary, and you can even get furnishings that combines distinct types that creates transitional selections. Not only will you locate your self sprawling out in comfort but you will be the envy of all of your unfortunate buddies that have settled for a queen or even a double set.
Our common 5 piece bed sets incorporate a headboard, dresser, mirror, chest and nightstand and come in a wide range of types from a modern wooden to an eye-catching marbleized finish. These trendy headboards are provided to you in black, brown & PU fabric & are accessible in twin, complete & queen sizes. Here are the two kinds of the poster bedroom sets that you can buy in your nearby home improvement stores. The issues to look for in contemporary bedroom sets are sleek design and style and contrasting colors.


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Because what motivates every girl to lose weight is, apparently, fat-shaming! (Hint: Not really.)
Burn Your Fat With Me is an Android and iOS app created by Creative Freaks, a Japanese gamification company with clearly zero girls testing their "for Girls" apps.
Known as, and hereon addressed as BYFWM for short, this game is basically an Otome Visual Novel that is supposed to encourage you to work out so you can shake off those love handles and get fit. Does it accomplish that, though? And does it work as a visual novel on the side?
When I saw this on the app store I figured, why not? I want to get fit, I like visual novels, how bad can it be? It seems to be pretty popular in Japan, there must be a reason why.
And it's not that bad, but it's also not good. I'd call it more of a great idea with rather poor execution as far as choice of wording went, because fat shaming, my dears, does not work for everyone and should NOT be used as a way to get you to lose weight.
The story isn't great – you're basically going through various guys that are "dream guys" that you will eventually need to make choices on to end up dating one. And yet, while they're cute and dreamy, they're also totally insulting towards you.
I'm not even kidding. The first character greets you with a very friendly (this is sarcasm, if it doesn't register) call of "fattie" and shames you into losing weight. Huh? Wait, was this supposed to motivate me or make me want to slap someone?
Creative Freaks call this "moétivation." (Because they're "moe" and "motivating", get it?) I call it "you call me fat once more you gonna regret it."
Other than the poor choice of dialog and manner of approach to weight loss, the game isn't bad. It's a typical Otome VN, with typical options and a poor storyline – which no one cares because you're there for the dating aspect of.
Adding the fitness aspect, the story guides you through either a certain amount of sit ups, squats or push-ups (in real life, too), or a certain amount of them in a set amount of time. Unfortunately, this is terribly easy to cheat on because all you have to do to make it count is tap the screen. Each tap corresponds to one full action (so, one full sit up, or squat), and the only cheat-prevention they have is a notice for you not to cheat because "you're tapping too fast."
You can't advance chapters if you don't meant a certain amount of these actions; this forces you to go into "practice" mode, where you can pick if you want time limits or not and, as long as you've unlocked it, which type of exercise you want to do. This gives you points (although in my experience so far it's a weird way of counting them, as not all count all the time) which in turn unlock the new chapters. I suppose this is the part that makes you motivated, except you could just as well sit there and tap the screen doing nothing if you were really motivated for the story but not for the fitness.
I somehow don't think that's what they were going for, though. 😉 Meanwhile, you'll still get insulted by the jerks- I mean, characters, regardless.
Onto the technical parts: the graphics are super lovely, the guys are indeed pretty cute when they're not opening their mouths to insult you, and the voices are professional and so, so nice. You can choose between English and Japanese, and, of course (as with many other free apps), you can purchase additional voice packs and outfits for the characters to wear.
Now, I reviewed the app for girls because that is the one I downloaded (you know, me being a girl and all), but they have an app "for guys", too (just look for BYFWM without the "for girls"), in which you can date girls. While I haven't downloaded it, I have seen some of it and the app actually seems a lot nicer and encouraging for the guys. Hmmm. I wonder why (this is also sarcasm).
Overall, I really liked the idea of the game and the way it worked, and was ready to give it a high score even though the cheat prevention was quite weak. What really makes it lose lots of stars is the approach to weight loss via shaming, because that, Creative Freaks, is how eating disorders are born.
Recommended only if berating and shaming are encouraging to you rather than triggering, otherwise steer clear.

subset: commoncrawl


text: What are the most important items to pack in your gear bag for a CrossFit competition? Much like packing for a vacation or preparing for a shopping trip, we recommend putting together a handy checklist so that you don't forget anything important. Most competitions are all day affairs, so you'll want to carefully prepare so […]Continuar leyendo


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The Colony
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The Surfside Colony between Sunset Beach and Seal Beach
5 responses
Steven Maguire gave props (27 Jan 2009):
Great capture!!!!!
Susan Littlefield gave props (27 Jan 2009):
Gosh, you're really sending me home with these photos! Another beautiful photo of my old stomping grounds!
May Lattanzio gave props (27 Jan 2009):
Oh! For a minute I thought this was on Long Beach Island, NJ and almost fell off my chair!
Ron LaFond added a link (28 Jan 2009):
Rob Roy (Deleted) gave props (28 Jan 2009):
Does seem a bit crowded... but I sure would like to own a piece of !! Nice take, Ron!!
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text: Areas of Expertise RV Industry Manufacturers, accessories, dealers and campgrounds serving RVers. Travel & Tourism Destination marketing, economic development, and travel industry associations. Local Business Locally-owned shops, restaurants, and services that make communities unique. Marketing Services Web Design Modern, responsive websites. Read More Social Media Strategy and account management. Read More Photography Professional photography and video. Read More Get to Know Us > About | Contact Travel Industry | RV Industry Services | Web Design | Social Media | Photography Ready to find out more? Let's Talk! Contact Us


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i&R to help teams and organisations to become more efficient and effective
After so many years of working in teams, different in sizes and coats, having much more failures than successes, something has been learnt: We always try to get a better environment but it takes time and a lot of patience to manage egos, conflicts and misunderstandings.
Working on TeamEquilibrium Development and validation of a tool to help teams to know and manage collective intelligence. + About TeamEquilibrium
Former research
[cp] Non-Technical Skills in Chronic Care Healthcare Professionals: Applying Health Consensus in Collective Self-Assessment
Martí, T., Monguet JMª, Trejo, A., Escarrabill J. (2015). Collective Intelligence 2015, University of Michigan
The goal was to test the Non-Technical Skills (NTS) model applying collective self-assessment among professionals involved in care of chronic patients. Two aspects were assessed: the current NTS level of the team and its potential for improvement. The final purpose of this model is to guide healthcare managers to design and prioritize (collective) training strategies for NTS. + [Paper]
[cp] Team Equilibrium and Innovation Performance
Ferruzca, M., Monguet, JMª, Trejo, A., & Rodrigues, J. (2013). Design Management Symposium (TIDMS). Shenzhen: IEEE.
It may be taken for granted that there must be a balance of roles within teams to foster creativity. Team Equilibrium is a system that allows a group of people to share, compare and aggregate their profiles using the "six hats model", proposed by de Bono. In a first empiric exploration, with a group of design students, it's interesting to look at the aggregated hexagon of the 60 people highlighting the natural creative bias of the group. + [Paper]


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Overall, Governor Corbett's proposed budget announced earlier this month did not include deep budget cuts to the Department of Public Welfare (DPW). However, the details of specific cuts are alarming. The proposed budget includes $56.1 million in cuts from a "Fair Share" initiative, which would dramatically cut DPW's welfare-to-work and operational budget, with serious consequences for low income families.
The "Fair Share" initiative cuts $14.4 million from "employment and training ancillary services and support costs." It also cuts $41.7 million from County Assistance Offices and employment and training providers, through savings from "rightsizing employment and training contracts."
Specifically, the budget cuts:
- $15 million from county assistance offices,
- $14.8 million from education and training providers, and
- $11.9 million from cash grants.


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Cold Cold Heart
Paperback(Tall Rack Paperback)
A thrilling novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag, "one of the most intense suspense writers around" (Chicago Tribune).
Dana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until a notorious serial killer tried to add her to his list of victims. Nearly a year has passed since she survived her ordeal, but the physical, emotional, and psychological scars run deep. Struggling with the torment of post-traumatic stress syndrome, plagued by flashbacks and nightmares, Dana returns to her hometown in an attempt to begin to put her life back together. But home doesn't provide the comfort she expects.
Dana's harrowing story and her return to small-town life have rekindled police and media interest in the unsolved case of her childhood best friend, Casey Grant, who disappeared without a trace the summer after their graduation from high school. Terrified of truths long buried, Dana reluctantly begins to look back at her past. Viewed through the dark filter of PTSD, old friends and loved ones become suspects and enemies. Questioning everything she knows, refusing to be defined by the traumas of her past, Dana seeks out a truth that may prove too terrible to be believed...
Product Details
|Penguin Publishing Group
|Publication date:
|Sales rank:
|Product dimensions:
|4.20(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.20(d)
|Age Range:
|18 Years
About the Author
TAMI HOAG is the #1 international bestselling author of more than thirty books. There are more than forty million copies of her books in print in more than thirty languages. Renowned for combining thrilling plots with character-driven suspense, Hoag first hit the New York Times bestseller list with Night Sins, and each of her books since has been a bestseller. She lives in California.
Read an Excerpt
She should have been dead. After everything he had put her through, she should have died hours before. There had been many moments during the ordeal when she wished she would die, when she wished he would just end the unimaginable suffering he was inflicting on her.
He had done things to her she could never have imagined, would never have wanted to know one human being could be capable of doing to another. He had abused her physically, sexually, and psychologically. He had abducted her, beaten her, tortured her, raped her. Hour after hour after hour.
She didn't really know how much time had passed. Hours? Days? A week? The concept of time had ceased to have any meaning.
She had tried to resist physically, but she had learned resistance was rewarded only with pain. The pain had surpassed anything in her most terrible nightmares. It had surpassed adjectives and gone into a realm of blinding white light and high-pitched sound. Eventually, she had ceased to fight and had found that in seemingly giving up her life, she was able to keep her life.
Where there is life, there is hope.
She couldn't remember where she had heard that. Somewhere, long ago. Childhood.
At one point during the attack she had called for her mother, for her father. She had been overwhelmed with the kind of pure fear and helplessness that stripped away maturity and logic and self-control, reducing her to a screaming mass of raw emotion. Now she couldn't remember ever being a child. She couldn't remember having parents. She could remember only the sharp pain of a knife carving into her flesh, the explosion of pain as a hammer struck her.
She had tried to resist the overwhelming desire to break down mentally, to give herself over and drown in the depths of hopelessness. It would have been so much easier to just let go. But he hadn't killed her. Yet. And she wouldn't do the job for him. She continued to choose life.
Where there is life, there is hope.
The words floated through her fractured mind like a ribbon of smoke as she lay on the floor of the van.
Her tormentor was driving. She lay directly behind his seat. He was happily singing along with the radio, as if he didn't have a care in the world, as if there wasn't a beaten, bloody, half-dead woman in the back of his van.
She was more alive than he knew. In giving up fighting, she had reserved strength. In giving up fighting, she had stopped him short of rendering her completely incapacitated. She could still move, though there was something wrong with her coordination and every effort set off nauseating explosions of pain. Her head was pounding. It felt like her brain might burst out of her skull—or maybe it already had.
She faded in and out of consciousness, but she could still form thoughts. Many were incomplete or incoherent, but then she would muster as much will and focus as she could, and something would make sense for a second or two.
The cold floor beneath her was numbing some of the pain that racked her body. The blanket he had thrown over her to hide her offered a cocoon, a place to be invisible. Her wrists were only loosely bound together in front of her with a long, wide red ribbon. He had positioned her with her elbows bent, her hands tucked beneath her chin as if in prayer.
Prayer. She had prayed and prayed and prayed, but no one had come to save her.
He had all the power, all the control. He had killed before, many times, and gotten away with it. He believed he was invincible. He believed he was a genius. He believed he was an artist.
He said she was to be his masterpiece.
She didn't know what that meant. She didn't want to find out.
The van hit a pothole in the road, jarring and rocking. She wanted to brace herself, to lessen the movement of her broken body, but the ribbon tied around her wrists prevented her. She strained against it for a few seconds, then stopped trying. The effort made her nauseous. As she rode the wave of the nausea, nonsensical words and images tumbled through her battered brain like the colored glass pieces in a kaleidoscope. As her consciousness dimmed, the glass shards of thought settled in a heap in her mind. The seductive voice of death whispered to her. She could just let go. She could go before she found out what he had in store. It would be so much easier.
The tension started to seep out of her body. Her hands relaxed . . . and she felt the satin ribbon loosen around her wrists. . . . She put her concentration to the task of working a hand free.
Where there is life, there is hope. Where there is life, there is hope . . .
"You're gonna be a star, Dana," he called back to her. "That's what you always wanted, right? Network news. Your face on televisions all across America? You'll have that now, thanks to me. It won't be the way you imagined it, but you're gonna be famous."
He cursed as the van hit another deep pothole. Dana's body bounced painfully on the van's floor. The pain rolled through her like a violent wave. She turned to her left side, curling into the fetal position, and tried not to cry out, not to make a sound, not to call attention to herself.
Next to her, the collection of tools he had brought along bounced and rattled in their open tote. Not considering her any threat to him at all in her semiconscious, beaten, broken state, he hadn't bothered to put the tote out of reach. His ego allowed him to disregard her. She was little more than an inanimate object to him now. Her purpose was as a prop to prove his point: that he was smarter than any of the many law enforcement officers who were looking for him.
They had offended him, crediting him with a murder that was sloppy; a careless crime, supposedly his ninth victim. He would show them his true ninth victim. He would present her to them as a work of art, tied up with a bright red ribbon.
He was a serial killer. The police and the media called him Doc Holiday. These were facts Dana had known before he had abducted her. She didn't fully grasp any of the details now. The story had been boiled down to this: He was a predator and she was prey. And if she couldn't pull herself together and make one valiant effort, she would soon be dead.
She had to do something.
She had to summon as much will and life as she had left. She had to form a coherent thought and be able to hang on to it for just a moment. She had to fight through the pain to find the physical strength to execute that thought.
It all seemed so hard. But she wanted to live. The fire of life had burned down to an ember inside her, but she wouldn't let it go out without a fight.
Her brain ached at the effort to form and hold the thought.
Her body protested and resisted the signals to move.
Under the blanket, her right hand trembled uncontrollably as she reached toward the tote.
In the front seat, he was still talking out loud. He was a genius. He was an artist. She would be his masterpiece. The media wanted to credit him with a victim who looked like a zombie? He would give them a zombie.
Dana pulled her legs up toward her chest and shifted her weight, turning onto her knees.
Where there is life, there is hope.
Her head swam; her thoughts tumbled. She had to fight so hard to stay in the moment.
She would have only one chance.
He laughed at his own joke. He glanced in the rearview mirror as if to see if she had heard him.
His smile died as his eyes met the eyes of his zombie.
With all the strength she had left in her body, Dana swung her arm and buried the screwdriver to the hilt in his temple.
Then everything went black, and she was falling and falling and falling into a darkness that swallowed her whole.
Hennepin County Medical Center
Minneapolis, Minnesota
She woke screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming. Loud, long, terrible screams that tore up her throat from the depths of her soul.
She didn't know why she was screaming. There was no emotion attached to it, not pain, not fear. She seemed completely detached from the noise coming out of her.
She had no awareness of her body. It was as if the essence of her being had taken up residence inside an empty shell. She couldn't feel. She couldn't move. She couldn't see. She didn't know if her eyes were open or closed or gone.
She could hear the commotion of people rushing around her. She didn't know who they were. She didn't know where she was or why she was there. The people were shouting. She couldn't really understand what they were saying. Only one frantic voice penetrated as it shouted: Dana! Dana! Dana!
The word meant nothing to her. It was just a sound.
Like the screams coming from her own throat, these words were just sounds. She continued to scream and scream and scream.
Then a sinuous sensation of warmth spread through her, and the screaming stopped, and she ceased to be aware of anything at all.
"I know this was upsetting for you, Mommy."
Lynda Mercer was still shaken and shocked by the sound of her daughter's screams, screams that had come from Dana's unconscious body lying perfectly still on the bed.
Dr. Rutten motioned for her to take one of the two seats in front of his desk. He took the other, choosing not to put a professional distance between them.
In his midfifties, Rutten was Dutch, fit, and bald, with large, kind, liquid brown eyes. It was his habit to be close when he spoke to the anxious parents and spouses of patients, to reach out and touch with a large, reassuring hand. While the tactic could have seemed a phony, contrived intimacy, his kindness was genuine and very much appreciated. He was a rock for his patients and their families. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"After all the years I've spent studying the human brain, and with all the technology we've developed to help us in our study of the human brain, the one thing I can tell you with certainty is that there is no certainty with a brain injury," he said.
"We can define the specific type of injury Dana has sustained. Based on our experience, we can attempt to predict some of the effects the injury might produce, some of the changes we might see in her personality, in her memory, in possible physical impairments. But there are no hard-and-fast rules about how her brain will react to the trauma."
"She was screaming and screaming," Lynda murmured, her trembling voice barely more than a whisper. "Was she in pain? Was she having a nightmare? All the machines were going crazy."
She could still hear her daughter's screams. She could still hear the shrill beeping and shrieking of the alarms on the monitors. Dana's heart rate had gone from a normal rhythm to a pounding pace. They had recently taken her off the ventilator, and she gulped air like a fish out of water.
"The screaming is extremely disconcerting to hear, but not an uncommon occurrence for people with brain injuries at this stage of their recovery as they begin to climb their way out of their unconscious state," Rutten assured her. "Sometimes they moan or cry hysterically. Sometimes they scream.
"Why does this happen? We believe this is caused by a misfiring of signals within the midbrain as it tries to cope and reroute itself. Neurons are firing, but the impulses are landing in strange places. Also, there can be heightened fight-or-flight responses caused by external or internal stressors, resulting in panic or combativeness."
"People scream when they're in pain," Lynda murmured.
Regardless of the neurologist's explanation, she couldn't escape the idea that her daughter was locked in a deep, unending nightmare, reliving the things a monster had done to her. Not just the skull fracture that had led to brain surgery to remove bone fragments, but also facial fractures, broken fingers, broken ribs, a fractured kneecap. Contusions and abrasions colored her body and her face. The killer the press called Doc Holiday had literally carved into her flesh with a knife.
Imagined scenes from the nightmare flashed through Lynda's mind like clips from a horror movie. Ligature marks burned into Dana's wrists and ankles indicated she had been tied down. She had been tortured. She had been raped.
"We immediately upped the amount of pain medication Dana is receiving," Rutten said. "Just in case some of that was the result of pain, but that may not be the case at all."
"I shouldn't have left her," Lynda whispered, a wave of mother's guilt washing over her.
She had left Dana's room for just a moment, needing to stretch her legs. Just a walk to the end of the hall, to the family lounge to get a cup of coffee. As she walked back, the first scream split the air and pierced her heart.
She had dropped the coffee and run to the room, flinging herself into the melee of scurrying hospital staff. She had shouted her daughter's name over and over—Dana! Dana! Dana!—until someone had taken hold of her shoulders from behind and pulled her out of the way.
Dr. Rutten squeezed her hand again, pulling her out of the memory to focus once more on him. The corners of his mouth curved subtly in the gentlest smile of understanding and commiseration.
"I'm a father myself. I have two daughters. I know how it tears at a parent's heart to think their child is suffering."
"She suffered so much already," she said. "All the things that animal did to her . . ."
Dr. Rutten frowned. "If it gives you any comfort, she probably won't have any memory of what happened to her."
"I hope not," Lynda said. If there were a God, Dana would remember nothing of her ordeal. But then, if there were a God, none of this should have happened at all.
"Will it happen again?" she asked. "The screaming?"
"It might. Or it might not. She could drift in and out like this for a long time, or she may become fully conscious tomorrow. She has been saying words these last few days. She's been responsive to vocal commands. These are positive signs, but every brain is different.
"The kinds of injuries Dana sustained can mean she may have difficulty organizing her thoughts or performing routine tasks. She may become impulsive, have trouble controlling her emotions or empathizing with other people. She may have difficulty speaking, or she may speak perfectly but not always be able to grab the right words from her brain.
"Damage to the temporal lobe of the brain may affect her memory, but how much? I can't tell you. She may have no memory of what happened to her. She may have no memory of the last ten years. She may not recognize her friends. She may not recognize herself. You may not recognize her," he said, unable to hide his sadness at a truth he had seen again and again.
"She's my daughter," Lynda said, offended. "She's my child. Of course I'll recognize her."
"Physically, yes, but she will never be exactly the girl you've known all her life," he said gently. "One thing I know is true in every case: The person you love will be changed from this, and that will be the hardest thing of all to accept.
"In a way, the daughter you had is gone. Even though she may look the same, she will behave differently, look at the world differently. But she is still your daughter, and you will still love her.
"You will have ahead of you a long and difficult road," he said. "But you will go down it together."
"But she'll get better," Lynda said, as if phrasing it as a statement instead of a question would make it so.
Dr. Rutten sighed. "We can't know how much. Every case is its own journey. This journey will be like driving at night. You can only see as far as the headlights reach, but you can make it the whole way nevertheless.
"You have to stay strong, Mommy," he said, giving her hand another squeeze. "You have to stay focused on what's positive."
Lynda almost laughed at the absurdity of his statement. "Positive," she said, staring at the floor.
The doctor hooked a knuckle under her chin and raised her head so she had to look him in the eye. "She shouldn't be alive. She survived a killer who had murdered who knows how many young women. She survived a car crash that could have killed her. She survived her injuries. She survived brain surgery. She's fighting her way back to consciousness.
"She should be dead and she's not. She's going to wake up. She's going to live. That's a lot more than I get to tell many parents."
The weight of his words pressed down on Lynda as she wandered the halls of the hospital. She needed to find a way to be positive. Dana would need that from her when she finally rejoined the world and they began her journey to recovery. But it was all uncharted territory, and thinking about the enormity of it was daunting.
She felt so tired and so alone, dealing with all of this in a strange, cold city where she knew no one. Her husband planned to come from Indiana on Fridays and go back Sunday nights. But even if Roger came to Minneapolis on the weekends, there was a part of Lynda that felt like he wasn't fully in this with her. Dana was her daughter, not Roger's. While Dana and Roger had always gotten along, they weren't close in the way Dana had been with her father before his death when Dana was fourteen.
Dana's coworkers from the television station came by but were allowed only short visits. The doctor wanted Dana to rest most of the time, to keep stimulation to a minimum to allow her brain time to heal. Her producer and mentor, Roxanne Volkman, brought a box of items from Dana's apartment so she could have some familiar things in her room—a perfume she loved, her iPod, a soft blue throw from her sofa, a couple of photographs.
Dana had been working at the station for only nine months. But even in that short time she had made a positive impression, the producer had told Lynda. Everyone appreciated Dana's sunny smile and go-getter attitude, but none of them knew her well enough to be much more than acquaintances.
The lead detectives assigned to Dana's case had come by to check on her progress. They would eventually want to speak to her, to find out if she could shed any light on the case. Even though the perpetrator was dead, there were still many questions left unanswered. Had Dana heard anything, seen anything, that might implicate the killer in other cases? According to Dr. Rutten, they would probably never find out.
The female detective—Liska—was a mother too. She brought Starbucks and cookies and lists of support groups for victims of crime and their families. They talked about the stresses and the joys of raising children. She asked Lynda what Dana had been like as a little girl, as a teenager. Lynda suspected that line of questioning was just a way to get her mind off the difficult present with stories of happier times.
The male detective—Kovac—didn't have as much to say. He was older, gruffer, and had probably seen more terrible things in his career than Lynda would ever want to imagine. There was a world-weariness about him, a certain sadness in his eyes when he looked at Dana. And there was an awkward kindness in him that Lynda found endearing.
In the aftermath of the crime there had been some public criticism of the police for not finding Dana or the killer sooner. Lynda didn't engage in it.
The local and national media had been all over the case as soon as it was known that Dana was missing. It was a sensational story: the pretty fledgling on-air television newscaster abducted by a serial killer. It was an even bigger story when she was found alive—if barely—and her captor was found dead. As far as anyone knew, she was his only living victim. They all believed she would have an incredible story to tell when she finally came to. They hadn't considered that she might not remember any of it. Lynda hoped she wouldn't.
Finally making her way back to Dana's room, she had no idea of the time of day or how many hours had passed since the screaming incident. As she went into the room she was surprised to see that the world beyond the window was already growing dim, as night seeped across the frigid Minnesota landscape. Darkness came early here this time of year. The pale, distant sun was gone by late afternoon.
The screens of the machines monitoring Dana's vital signs glowed in the dimly lit room, chirping and beeping to themselves. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully.
Lynda stood beside the bed, watching her daughter's chest rise and fall slowly. Her face was unrecognizable, swollen and misshapen, with centipede lines of stitches. Her head was bald beneath swathed gauze and the helmet that protected her in the event of a fall. Her right eye was covered with a thick gauze patch. The orbital bone and cheekbone had been shattered. The left eye was swollen nearly shut, and the black-and-blue seeped down into her cheek like a spreading stain.
Dana had always been a pretty girl. As a child she had been a pixie with blond pigtails and big royal-blue eyes full of wonder. She had grown into a lovely young woman with a heart-shaped face and delicate features loved by the camera. Her personality had accompanied her looks perfectly: sweet and optimistic, open and friendly. She had always been inquisitive, always wanting to dig to the bottom of every story, to research the details of anything new and unfamiliar.
Her curiosity had helped to shape her goals and had eventually led her to her career. Armed with a degree in communications, she had worked her way into broadcast news. She had only recently landed her first big job in front of the camera as a newscaster on the early-morning show of a small, independent Minneapolis station. She had been so excited to have the job, not caring at all that she had to leave her apartment at three a.m. to go on the air at four.
Lynda had worried about her going out alone at that hour. Minneapolis was a big city. Bad things happened in big cities all the time. Dana had pooh-poohed the idea that she could be put in jeopardy going from her apartment building the few dozen yards to her car in the parking lot. She argued that she lived in a very safe neighborhood, that the parking lot was well lit.
She had been abducted from that parking lot on the fourth of January, taken right out from under the false security of the light. No one had seen or heard anything.
Lynda had come to Minneapolis as soon as she heard of Dana's possible abduction. But she hadn't been able to see her daughter until she was brought to the ICU after the surgery, a tube coming out of her shaved head, attached to a machine to monitor brain pressure. Tubes seemed to come from every part of her, connecting to an IV bag and a bag of blood. A catheter line drained urine from her bladder to a bag on the side of the bed. The ventilator was breathing for her, taking one vital task away from her swollen brain.
Now the ventilator was gone. Dana was breathing on her own. The pressure monitor had been removed from her skull. She was still unconscious, but closer to the surface than she had been.
It had been eerie to watch her these last few days as her mind floated in some kind of dark limbo. She had begun to move her arms and legs, sometimes violently, to the point that she had to be restrained. And yet she wasn't awake. She responded to commands to squeeze the hand of the doctor, of the nurse, of her mother. But she wasn't awake. She spoke words that suggested she was aware of the physical world—hot, cold, hard, soft. She answered when asked who she was—Dana. But she didn't seem to recognize the voices of people she knew, some she had known for years, if not her whole life.
The physical therapist came every morning to prop Dana up in the chair beside the bed because movement was good for her. She would sit in the chair moving her arms and legs randomly, as if she were a marionette, her invisible strings being manipulated by an unseen hand.
But she had yet to open her eyes.
She stirred now, moving one arm, batting at Lynda. Her right leg bent at the knee, then pushed down again and again in a stomping motion. The rhythm of the heart monitor picked up.
"Dana, sweetheart, it's Mom. It's all right," Lynda said, trying to touch her daughter's shoulder. Dana whimpered and tried to wrench away. "It's okay, honey. You're safe now. Everything is going to be fine."
Agitated, Dana mumbled and thrashed and clawed with her left hand at her neck brace, tearing it off and flinging it aside. She hated the brace. She fussed and fought every time someone tried to put it on her. She tore it off every chance she had.
"Dana, calm down. You need to calm down."
"No, no, no, no, no, no! No! No!"
Lynda could feel her own heart rate and blood pressure rising. She tried again to touch her daughter's flailing arm.
"No! No! No! No!"
One of the night-shift nurses came into the room, a small, stout woman with a shorn hedge of maroon hair. "She has a lot to say today," she said cheerfully, checking the monitors. "I heard she was pretty loud this afternoon."
Lynda stepped back out of her way as she moved efficiently around the bed. "It's so unnerving."
"I know it is, but the more she says, the more she moves, the closer she is to waking up. And that's a good thing." She turned her attention to Dana. "Dana, you have to rein it in. You're getting too wild and crazy here. We can't have you thrashing around."
She tried to push Dana's arm gently downward to restrain her wrist. Dana flailed harder, striking the nurse in the chest with a loose fist, then grabbing at her scrub top. She rolled to her left side and tried to throw her right leg over the bed railing.
Lynda stepped closer. "Please don't restrain her. It only upsets her more."
"We can't have her throw herself out of bed."
"Dana," Lynda said, leaning down, putting her hand gently on her daughter's shoulder. "Dana, it's all right. You're all right. You have to quiet down, sweetheart."
"No, no, no, no," Dana responded, but with a softer voice. She was running out of steam, the brief burst of adrenaline waning.
Lynda leaned closer still and began to sing softly the song she had rocked her daughter to sleep with from the time she was a baby. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly . . ."
The words touched her in a very different way than they had all those years ago. The song took on a very different meaning. Dana was the broken bird. She would have to learn to fly all over again. She would have to rise from tragedy, and Lynda was the one waiting for that moment to arrive.
Tears rose in her eyes. Her voice trembled as she sang. She touched Dana's swollen cheek in a place that wasn't black-and-blue. She touched the pad of her thumb ever so softly to her daughter's lips.
Dana let go a sigh and stilled. Slowly her left eye opened—just a slit, just enough that Lynda could see the blue. She was afraid to move, afraid to take a breath lest she break the spell. Her heart was pounding.
"Welcome back, sweetheart," she murmured.
The blue eye blinked slowly in a sea of bloodred where the white should have been. Then Dana drew a breath and spoke three words that shattered her mother's heart like a piece of blown glass thrown to the floor.
"Who . . . are . . . you?"
What People are Saying About This
Praise for Cold Cold Heart
"Chilling and satisfying." People
"A top-notch psychological thriller." Kirkus Reviews
"[A] chilling psychological thriller." Publishers Weekly
"An unforgettable read." - RT Book Reviews
"Ms. Hoag weaves the intensifying plot in "Cold Cold Heart" with the expertise of a master seamstress blind stitching the facts, moving through multiple characters' voices, taking readers on a journey into the inner depths of her characters' minds, and in Hoag style, delivering a walloping ending." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Reading Group Guide
Reading Group Guide
1. The prologue of Cold Cold Heart opens with a chilling scene as Dana is poised to try and fight her captor for her life. Imagine yourself in that situation. Do you think you could summon the courage to do what she did? Do some people have more of a survivor's instinct than others?
2. As the only surviving victim of a serial killer, Dana's scars are both physical and emotional. Consider the differences between the two types of pain. Which would be the worst for you to live with? How would you cope with each?
3. In chapter 1 Dr. Rutten explains Dana's brain injury to her mother, saying every brain is different but there's one thing he does know to be true in every case: "the person you love will be changed from this, and that will be the hardest thing of all to accept." This indeed plays out throughout the novel. Discuss old Dana and new Dana.
4. Dana's mom and stepdad deal with Dana's ordeal and recovery in very different ways. Discuss their coping mechanisms, both healthy and unhealthy. Does one deal better than the other?
5. Tami Hoag never goes into too much detail about what happened to Dana during her captivity. Why do you think that is?
6. When Dana's brain injury results in memory loss she must learn about her best friend's disappearance all over again, essentially reliving it. Can you imagine having to relive a traumatic event all over again and experience it anew?
7. How does Dana's perception of her teenage self differ from how others viewed her at that time? Are you the same person you were in high school? How would someone perceive you differently today from your teenage self?
8. If you were the victim of a horrific crime would you want to remember what happened?
9. Discuss John Villante. Do you find him to be a sympathetic character?
10. What about Tim Carver? Did your opinion of him evolve as the story went on?
11. Discuss post-traumatic stress disorder and the different ways Dana and John both experience it. Do any of the other characters exhibit signs of PTSD?
12. How is the stray dog an important figure in the story? What effect does the dog have on John and his life?
13. What were your thoughts about Dan Hardy when he was first introduced into the story? Did those thoughts evolve?
14. John Villante has a complex relationship and history with his father. Dana has difficulty in her present-day relationship with her stepfather. Discuss the father/child dynamics and how the parents' lives impact their children's lives in this story.
15. Through the tragedy of Dana's experience, she gets an opportunity to reinvent her life. If you could reimagine your life, would you do things differently?
Customer Reviews
Average Review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By far the best I have ever read. Please keep writing. I'm sure you get tired of writing but your books are so wonderful. I own and have reread all of your books many times. Thank you for the fun.
One of the best mystery and suspense novels that I've read in a long time. Very well written from start to finish. This was a page turner and kept you riveted right up to the last word.
This was such an unusual mystery/thriller. But by the end of "Cold Cold Heart", the book became so great that I'm happy that I believed in Tami Hoag's prowess as an excellent writer and plowed through. "Cold, Cold Heart" had an unexpected slow start. Now, don't get me wrong, in this case that's not a bad thing. I found it quite refreshing to not know exactly where this mystery was going for several well written chapters. The book opens with the reader meeting Dana Nolen, a kidnap victim of a serial killer named Doc Holiday. She becomes the only victim of this vicious killer who lived. Dana isn't the same person now though. After surviving torture and struggling through rehab, she still has little memory of the ordeal that changed her life forever. Tami Hoag's book spends about half of it's pages teaching us about Dana's new life and what it means to be a victim of a serial killer. We learn of the lasting scars, both psychological and physical and what it's like to have PTSD. Throughout this interesting meandering through Dana's new life we also learn about her past life and the people who she grew up with. In that learning the reader discovers that there is in fact a mystery to be had after all. When Dana was younger her best friend disappeared and was never heard from again. Could she have been one of the first victims of Doc Holiday? Could there be such a cruel coincidence? What happened to Dana's bestie? Now that we're invested in Dana's life, this mystery pulls us hard into wanting to know what happened, if only to help Dana heal from the trauma of wondering if her own torturer also killed her best friend. I absolutely loved the way Ms. Hoag wrote this thriller. It was so refreshing for an author to find a new and unique way of leading the reader into the mystery. You get to love the main character first. You care about her and want her to be ok, all before the main mystery pulls you into it's spiderweb of twists and turns. This is a five out of five star book and so well worth the read. I hadn't read Tami Hoag for a few years and now I'm going to go back and fill in my reading with the books I've missed. If this book is any indication of what I've missed, I'll have a plethora of mysteries to fill my spring and summer reading. Tami Hoag's "Cold, Cold Heart" is being released January 13, 2015 so let this terrific mystery keep you warm on those cold January nights.
Slow start, but then hits you like a frieght train! Excellant book as always from this author! Keep em coming!
Enjoyed the book but felt like she really left us hanging in a few points....hoping for a 2nd book with this character to clear up what happened to her dad and the dog!
I used to read Tami Hoag, and have always liked her books, but I think this most recent was very poorly written. The plot is predictable, and the main character is annoying and not very likeable. We get that she has been traumatized, but her behavior, after the fact, seems to be the main focus of the book. I was EXTREMELY disappointed in this latest by Tami Hoag!
One reads about serial killers with very little information following about their victims. Tami Hoag breaches that impenetrable wall of silence with this novel. It's initially about Dana Nolan, a young woman who was professionally successful as a TV newscaster, a career eagerly followed by man, a woman admired for her numerous skilled deliveries of news of all levels of intensity and importance. Now she's the broken visage of news as the result of a horrific experience of abduction, cutting, burning, other torture and rape. Her serial killer attacker was known as Dr. Holiday and he called her "My Masterpiece" before she moved beyond her broken state to muster up enough strength to end his killing spree. Post-traumatic stress syndrome never looked so vicious and mind-numbingly intensely painful as it does for Tami. Not only is she oh so slowly learning to cope with the few memories and feelings that emerge over time but she also has to deal with well-intentioned family and friends who now define her as the serial "victim." Dana immediately displays that feisty personality that was a hallmark of her life before this vicious nightmare began. She fights back as she slowly recovers enough to begin to nominally function. Little by little a memory in particular from before her demise emerges. It concerns a friend of hers who disappeared and was murdered. It so becomes her focus that she decides to resurrect her reportorial skills and seek out answers that have haunted her for so long and have been exacerbated by her own experience. This quest is to provide a healing factor in her life, although she knows she will be scarred by her own past forever. Empathy indeed can be a miraculous, soul-saving exercise. While the beginning of this crime novel is initially disconcerting, it is well worth the read. Cold Cold Heart is a riveting, psychological, crime-solving novel that shows Tami Hoag's skills at their best. This is a winner for all true fans of crime and thriller fiction!
My first read by Tami Hoag, & it won't be my last! After seeing this Nook book made #7 on a best sellers list in Feb 2015, I decided to give it a try and was not disappointed. Tami keeps you hooked and turning the pages (virtually, of course, if you're on an e-reader). Loved it, gave an insight into two PTSD individuals, & also a mystery that I didn't figure out 'till the very ending. Great read and worth the $$. Good thing I'm a partially retired RN now, because I was up until after 1 am with this read!!
Tami hoag never fails to deliver a suspensful who done it with a twist!
Great read couldn't put it down
Not a thriller by any means.
I enjoyed immensely, conjuring up different scenarios of who the killer was. Very well written and keeps your interest.
What a page Turner! I couldn't put it down!
You won't be available to put this book down until you finish it. It will catch your attention from the first page
Great book - fast reading.
Not as long as the ones she's written in the past but worth reading. I would give it 3 and 1/2 stars.
Once again Tami Hoag, wrote another best seller book. I look forward from reading more books about this series. You must buy it. I have my whole family reading all of her books.
An extremely good book! Read it :)
Really enjoyed this story about a woman who survives the unthinkable horror of being the next victim of a serial killer. Dana Nolan had a great life as a TV reporter living the dream. Then she is kidnapped and nearly killed by a notorious serial killer. Her will to survive and live enables her to overcome the horror but not without many scars on the outside and the inside. She returns to her hometown to put her life back together but learns there are questions and dangers there as well. Dana's best friend, Casey, disappeared right after high school graduation and has never been seen or heard from since. Dana realizes that in order to heal from her ordeal, she has to look to the past to find the answers to questions she cannot remember, which makes her also realize that she doesn't know whom she trust. The reader doesn't meet Dana prior to her encounter with the serial killer so the Dana we know is one who is plagued with PTSD and nightmares. She isn't the sweet and happy girl her friends and family remember. She speaks her mind, quite brutally at times and seems to have lost the ability to have feelings of empathy or compassion. So you can imagine the shock and dismay people feel when Dana starts asking blunt questions about Casey and her disappearance, unaware and probably not caring whose toes she steps on or who she offends. I liked Dana, though I found her a little hard to relate to at times. I understood her anger and irritability, but it was still a little shocking at times. The author does an amazing job of weaving the past and present together, slowly peeling back layers into Dana's past, without revealing too much too soon. When the killer is revealed, I can't say I was too surprised, but more that Dana didn't catch on sooner. The ending was typical nail-biting edge-of-your-seat intense that this author does so well. My Final Verdict: Readers who enjoy intense story-lines with a mystery to solve and a thrilling ride along the way will enjoy this offering. I also highly recommend it to everyone who enjoy a good story with damaged characters who survive against all odds to come out ahead.
A very good read. Full of suspense
Loved it had me from the first page. Great story well written and enlightening,


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Dumas Bay Centre
3200 SW Dash Point Road
Federal Way WA 98023
Rob Ettinger
Additional Venue Information
Capacity: Theater: 234 guests; Eagleview Room: 98 guests; Heron Room: 49 guests; Osprey Room: 49 guests. Additional rooms may be available, please inquire.
Price Range: Larger meeting rooms: $55–$350/hour
Catering: Choose from standard menus or work with our executive chef to create a customized menu
Types of Events: Training seminars, board/sales meetings, crafting retreats, executive retreats, nonprofit meetings, educational conferences and holiday parties
Availability and Terms
50% of rental fee due at booking. Balance and refundable $150 damage deposit due 90 days before event. Reservations under 90 days require payment in full at booking. Please inquire for cancellation and refund policies.
Description of Services and Facility
ADA Accessible: Yes
Parking: Free parking for 104 cars
Banquet Services
• Seating: Tables/chairs available
• Servers: Please inquire
• Bar Facilities: Permit required; alcohol inside only
• Linens, Napkins, China and Glassware: Available for rent
• Decorations: Please inquire
• Cleanup: Furnished by Dumas Bay Centre for a fee
Meeting and Event Services
• A/V and Equipment: Full complement of equipment available. Please contact us to discuss specific equipment needs.
• 67 guestrooms; pkgs available (minimum booking 12 guests)
Dumas Bay Centre welcomes your group with attentive service, flexible meeting space, mouth–watering cuisine and a picturesque location. Three light–filled rooms offer stunning floor–to–ceiling views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains with 12 acres of grounds for your guests to enjoy. Built in 1956 as a convent and women's retreat center, Dumas Bay Centre continues to promote inspiration and reflection. With its affordable pricing and convenient location, charming natural setting and friendly staff, Dumas Bay Centre is the perfect location for your next business meeting, social function, group retreat or nonprofit event.
Convenient to I–5 and SeaTac International Airport
Be sure to let this business know you saw them on BanquetEvent.com


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If you're in need in of some inspiration you needn't look further than your favourite fictional characters. From Rafiki from Disney's The Lion King, to Professor Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter franchise and Yoda from Star Wars, get the best advice on life and positive vibes from some of the most epic fictional characters.
Playground Equipment put this infographic together of many of the best and most memorable fictional characters and the inspirational life advice they offer. The characters might not be real and the problems posed in their lives might be made up, but many situations are relatable and the advice provided by some of the wisest characters in movies, books, shows and franchises is spot on.
We really enjoyed the nostalgia this infographic offered and some of our favourite pieces of advice comes from classic and memorable characters like:
- Ms. Valerie Frizzle from the Magic School bus franchise who advices that you "take chances. make mistakes and get messy".
- Mufasa from the Lion King wisely proclaims that he is only brave when he has to be and that he doesn't go looking for trouble.
- Ms. Norbury from the Mean Girls movie attempts to uplift young women and encourage education.
There are many more inspirational quotes and good pieces of advice from different characters you have come to love from TV shows, movies, video games and other franchises. Here is a compilation of some of Yoda's quotes from the Star Wars franchise:
Drop us a comment and let us know which quote from these famous characters is your favourite.


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Last week, Johnny Rockets appointed a new President & CEO, as well as a new SVP of Marketing. Within that time, the two new executives have announced three new location concepts for the franchise, plus two menu additions.
New York Times reports that John Fuller and Tim Hackbardt, respectively, both attended Thursday's opening of the two-story Johnny Rockets Sports Lounge in New York City. In an official news release, the company describes the location as "a prototype" of the chain's "newest concept." Johnny Rockets Sports Lounge trades in the restaurant's famous 1950's diner theme and replaces it with a modern, sports bar look. The menu remains the same, however, focusing on American standards like hamburgers, hot dogs and sandwiches (albeit with new twists, like milkshake-and-mixed-drink hybrids).
In his short tenure, Fuller has also unveiled plans for expansion, including Johnny Rockets FAST!, which promises the same Johnny Rockets quality and overall atmosphere, but in a smaller space. QSR Magazine quotes the president and CEO of Johnny Rockets Group on the concept: "we still want to have as many traditional locations as we can as well, [but Johnny Rockets FAST!] allows people who can't find the square footage [for a traditional location]…something that would fit for them." The article claims that the FAST! concept involves a retail space about half the size of a normal Johnny Rockets, a streamlined menu, and a quick-service operating model (no dining room, no servers).
The chain's third new concept takes the franchise on the road. The Times reports that the first Johnny Rockets mobile kitchen has been spotted at FedEx Field in Maryland. QSR reports that more food trucks will soon be available to franchisees seeking to expand their business.
Hackbardt, who the company says will focus on "consumer research, new media, and product development," most likely had a hand in the chain's other recent development — the permanent addition of the Houston hamburger and the Oreo Peppermint Shake to the Johnny Rockets menu. The former, originally a limited-time offer, adds jalapeño peppers, pepper jack cheese, and a spicy sauce to the restaurant's trademark entreé, the Rocket Single. The Oreo Peppermint Shake, a milkshake consisting of its namesake flavors and hand-dipped vanilla ice cream, becomes the twentieth milkshake variety available at Johnny Rockets and has been named the franchise's Shake of the Month.
Johnny Rockets currently operates nearly 300 locations worldwide. The chain hopes to open up to 40 U.S. locations in 2010 and is actively seeking new franchisees.
Tags: Johnny Rockets


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- In Alerts 2009
- Post 18 June 2009
- Last Updated on 27 March 2013
"Not since Orwell and Chomsky has perceived reality been so skilfully revealed in the cause of truth." (John Pilger on NEWSPEAK)
Dear friends, Pluto Press are offering a limited number of pre-order copies of the second Media Lens book, 'NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century', at a discounted price. The book is officially released on August 20, 2009. But eager readers who pre-order from Pluto will receive their books weeks earlier, at the beginning of August.
Pricing is as follows:
UK: £13.50 inc P & P
EUROPE: £17.50 inc P & P
REST OF WORLD: £18.50 inc P & P
We've provided further details about the book below. But first, here's an extract from chapter two...
Best wishes
David Cromwell and David Edwards
Growing Up With Auntie
We grew up with the BBC, or 'Auntie Beeb'. We watched Watch With Mother with our mothers; we walked the walk and talked the talk with Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men. The excitement of childhood at Christmas is forever linked in our minds with the lighting of advent candles on Blue Peter, with the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show. And then there was Top of the Pops, Tomorrow's World, The Sky At Night. These were more like old friends than TV programmes. Even the BBC voice-overs were a source of comfort - calm, reassuring (if conspicuously well-spoken), gently guiding us between programmes.
A dentist once asked one of us (Edwards): "So what do you write about?" Through a tangle of drills, clamps and tubes, Edwards gurgled: "Thought control in democratic society."
The answering micro-expressions - impossible to misread at a distance of six inches - signalled anxiety and confusion. A momentary curl of the upper lip unmistakably communicated disdain, as though the word 'Marxist' had flitted darkly, like a bat, across the good doctor's mind.
What micro-expressions are likely to register, now, among our readers - people like us, people who grew up loving the Beeb - when we argue that the BBC is part of a system of thought control complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people abroad, in severe political oppression at home, and in the possible termination of human life on this planet. Are these fantastic claims? Or is it in fact possible to justify them?
The Selection In Perception
The BBC's grand conceit is that it stands neutrally between all contending views. Its journalists will describe the full range of opinions of others, but will never, ever reveal their own.
This even-handedness is said to be firmly established in BBC guidelines, which declare a "commitment to impartiality", requiring that journalists "strive to reflect a wide range of opinion and explore a range and conflict of views so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or under represented." (BBC, Editorial Guidelines, http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/ editorialguidelines/edguide/impariality/; accessed January 23, 2008)
We are reminded of Star Trek's "Prime Directive" - the policy of non-interference, ostensibly guiding the crew of the starship Enterprise. Captain Kirk would often discourse earnestly on the need to avoid interfering in the development of alien cultures, even as he and his crew blasted the self-same aliens to atoms.
Richard Sambrook, the former BBC director of news, told one newspaper:
"People sometimes ask me what I'm going to do after the BBC. And the answer is that I'm going to have opinions again. They've been repressed for so long. In dinner party conversations, I find it quite hard to have an opinion, because I'm so used to the 'on-the-one-hand, on-the-other' outlook." (Charlie Courtauld, 'Richard Sambrook: "War coverage has changed for ever,' Independent, March 31, 2003)
The problem is that while BBC journalists may stand neutrally between the range of views presented, the range itself inevitably reflects their value judgements.
Consider an item on the Six O'Clock News of March 20, 2006. Diplomatic Correspondent Bridget Kendall declared solemnly:
"There's still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?" (Kendall, BBC Six O'Clock News, March 20, 2006)
What ten-year-old could fail to see through the claim that Kendall was not thereby offering an opinion?
The assertion that the alternative to the pro-war justification was to argue that the war was merely a "disastrous miscalculation" offered a deeply personal, and in fact outrageous, view. The anti-war movement has always argued that the war was not just a "miscalculation", but a deliberate and criminal war of aggression. Would Kendall describe the Nazi Holocaust as a "disastrous miscalculation"? Were the 9/11 attacks on America a "misjudgement"?
Many people, including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and numerous specialists in international law, are clear that the invasion of Iraq was an "illegal" war of aggression. Many argue, along with the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials after World War Two, that the launching of a war of aggression is "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". (Quoted, Walter J. Rockler, 'War crimes law applies to U.S. too,' Chicago Tribune, May 23, 1999)
So by what right does the BBC airbrush from reality the swath of informed public opinion that sees the invasion as a crime, rather than as a mistake? By what right does it declare this framing of the topic 'impartial,' 'balanced', 'objective' reporting?
As noted in the previous chapter, while working as the BBC's political editor, Andrew Marr, declared:
"When I joined the BBC, my Organs of Opinion were formally removed."
And yet, as Baghdad fell to American tanks, on April 9, 2003, Marr told a national audience on prime-time TV of Tony Blair:
"He said that they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right. And it would be entirely ungracious, even for his critics, not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result." (Marr, BBC 1, News At Ten, April 9, 2003)
Just this single comment makes a mockery of the BBC's claims to impartiality and freedom from personal bias. What could more obviously have reflected Marr's personal opinion, his personal sympathy for both Blair and the invasion? Marr has himself commented on his role in his book, My Trade:
"Gavin Hewitt, John Simpson, Andrew Marr and the rest are employed to be studiously neutral, expressing little emotion and certainly no opinion; millions of people would say that news is the conveying of fact, and nothing more." (Andrew Marr, My Trade - A Short History of British Journalism, Macmillan, London, 2004, p.279)
Millions of people would be deceived - Marr most conspicuously among them!
Or consider this, by comparison, innocuous example of bias. A BBC website article reported:
"US President George W Bush has arrived in Israel to take part in celebrations for the country's 60th anniversary.
"He also hopes to inject some momentum into the current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians." ('Bush begins tour of Middle East,' BBC website, May 14, 2008)
How did the BBC know what Bush truly hoped? Why was it 'neutral' to present Bush's claimed "hopes" as the uncontroversial reality? Given his record, it would have been far more reasonable to assert that Bush's claim was bogus, that his intention was to continue to obstruct the international consensus on the need for a just and equitable settlement.
As American political scientist Norman Finkelstein has noted, the US has consistently opposed a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Except for the US and Israel (and the occasional US client state), an international consensus has backed what is called the "two-state" settlement for the past 30 years. The US cast the only veto blocking Security Council resolutions in 1976 and 1980 calling for a two-state settlement that was endorsed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and front-line Arab states. A December 1989 General Assembly resolution along similar lines passed 151-3 (no abstentions) - the three negative votes were cast by Israel, the US, and Dominica. Finkelstein commented:
"The problem with the Bush administration, we are repeatedly told, is that it has been insufficiently engaged with the Middle East... But who gave the green light for Israel to commit the massacres? Who supplied the F-16s and Apache helicopters to Israel? Who vetoed the Security Council resolutions calling for international monitors to supervise the reduction of violence?"
He added:
"Consider this scenario. A and B stand accused of murder. The evidence shows that A provided B with the murder weapon, A gave B the 'all-clear' signal, and A prevented onlookers from answering the victim's screams. Would the verdict be that A was insufficiently engaged or that A was every bit as guilty as B of murder?" (Norman G. Finkelstein, 'First the Carrot, Then the Stick: Behind the Carnage in Palestine,' ZNet, April 18, 2002)
The BBC could have approached commentators like Finkelstein for a dissenting challenge to Bush's claim, but that is unthinkable - it is simply understood that Western leaders are to be portrayed as men and women of peace. If the BBC had provided a contrary view, it would have been interpreted as a sign that the BBC was "anti-American". To be balanced is 'biased' - propaganda is 'neutral.'
Critics might argue that the examples we have provided above were isolated slip ups. But in fact, as we will see, they are the norm. Sceptics might also have a case if examples could be cited exaggerating facts and opinions in a way that harmed powerful interests. But when did we ever hear the BBC report in 2002 or early 2003:
"Saddam Hussein hopes to inject some momentum into the current peace talks"?
This, after all, is what Saddam Hussein claimed, so why could the claim not be presented at face value? In fact, as we know, Saddam Hussein was very keen to avoid war in 2003 for very good reasons to do with self-preservation. He was the only actual peace-seeker in 2002 - Bush and Blair were determined to go to war. But these are unthinkable conclusions for the Western media, the BBC very much included.
From Chapter Two, 'BBC Balance - The Magnificent Fiction'
About the book
NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century
by David Edwards and David Cromwell
PB / 9780745328935 / £16.99 (full, non-discount price)
Since 2001, Media Lens has encouraged thousands of readers to challenge the filtered and distorted version of the world provided by major newspapers and broadcasters. The media responses, collected in NEWSPEAK, are an exposé of the arrogance and servility to power of our leading journalists and editors, starring Andrew Marr, Alan Rusbridger, Roger Alton, Jon Snow, Jeremy Bowen and even George Monbiot.
Picking up where the highly acclaimed and successful Guardians of Power (2006) left off, NEWSPEAK is packed with forensic media analysis, revealing the lethal bias in 'balanced' reporting. Even the 'best' UK media - the Guardian, the Independent, Channel 4 News and the BBC - turn out to be cheerleaders for government, business and war.
Alongside an A-Z of BBC propaganda and chapters on Iraq and climate change, NEWSPEAK focuses on the demonisation of Iran and Venezuela, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the myth of impartial reporting and the dark art of smearing dissidents.


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Posted on Sep 26, 2012 11:27am PDT
Alabama officials recently announced that they had seized nearly $10 million worth of synthetic marijuana, as part of an ongoing crackdown on illegal drugs throughout the state.
Birmingham drug crime lawyers know that an increasing number of people are going to be caught up in felony drug charges as investigators continue their aggressive tactics.
This particular bust, in Mobile, is being hailed by law enforcement officers as "the most important things we've seen happen" in the city. Arrests came about after two months of undercover investigations by both county and city law enforcement agencies.
According to police, more than 700 pounds of synthetic marijuana was seized over the course of serving four search warrants. Officials have estimated the worth somewhere between $3 million and $10 million. Police also confiscated nearly $27,000 in cash, 19 firearms, four vehicles and numerous smoking paraphernalia.
Three men in their 20s were charged with distribution of a controlled substance, a felony.
Synthetic drugs, and synthetic marijuana in particular, has proven troublesome both for law enforcement and regulators.
Earlier this summer, President Barack Obama signed the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 that banned synthetic marijuana and other synthetic drugs. A number of state and local governments had already taken similar action. The federal law merits stiffer penalties for first-time sellers of synthetic marijuana.
Alabama outlawed synthetic marijuana in 2011. Referred to by street names such as Spice, K-2, and Genie, the drug was not too long ago sold in drug and convenience stores. Now, store owners face possession of a controlled substance charges just for carrying it.
It costs about $20 a gram, and is essentially made from legal plant materials combined with chemical powders.
While there are few studies outlining the physical effects of the substance, health care providers have laid forth anecdotal evidence pointing to serious side effects, which is what led legislators to act so swiftly.
However, the problem for regulators and law enforcement has been that the chemical make-up of the substances, as defined in these legislative measures, has often already been altered. This is one argument that could be made by Birmingham defense attorneys. If the drug as it exists isn't currently listed under the state or federal laws, then it's not technically illegal.
What's also interesting is that news of this high-profile bust as part of a greater crackdown came just as researchers from the University of Philadelphia reported that Alabama has the lowest rate of illegal drug use in the nation, as measured by doctors who routinely screen for drugs.
In fact, the illegal rate of drug use in Alabama was measured at 6 percent. Compare that to the state with the highest drug abuse, Massachusetts, which claimed a rate three times that much at 18 percent.
Such data certainly begs the question of whether our resources are being appropriately spent, particularly if the laws are they are written are not even effective or fully enforceable.
If you have been arrested for a drug crime in Birmingham, contact Birmingham Drug Crime Defense Attorney Steven Eversole at (866) 831-5292.
Additional Resources:
Mobile PD: Millions of dollars worth of drugs seized in narcotics raid , Sept. 24, 2012, By Theresa Seiger, Press-Register
More Blog Entries:
Alabama Marijuana Trafficking Arrest Yields 100 Pounds , Aug. 19, 2012, Birmingham Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog


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Problem solve
Get help with specific problems with your technologies, process and projects.
Secure data disposal and destruction
Lessons learned: The Texas Insurance Claims Services case
In this tip, we explore the Texas Insurance Claims Services data disposal case and what the current requirements for data disposal at financial firms are. Continue Reading
A path to destruction
Data destruction can be tricky business, but financial services firms can follow six principals to create an effective process. Continue Reading
The TJX data security breach: 10-K filing shows IAM and compliance mistakes
Analysis of TJX's recent 10-K regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission exposes the company's lack of basic security and non-compliance with industry standards. But as Joel Dubin writes, a closer look highlights lessons from ... Continue Reading
Week 11: Are you throwing out company secrets?
In this week's column, Shelley Bard discusses when and how to destroy electronic data. Continue Reading
Talking trash: Secure information disposal
Find out what's in your dumpster that could fall into the wrong hands, and measures for secure trash disposal. Continue Reading


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Interested in working together? Have questions about medicinal plants or clinical herbalism? Erika is available for personal consultations, speaking gigs, teaching workshops, or guiding tours through the thickets of our native wild spaces. She is also enthusiastic about guest blogging, article writing, and online course development!. Please feel free to check out 'Speaking Topics' in the navigation menu at the bottom of this page. And don't hesitate to get in touch...Erika loves good conversation, especially about medicinal plants!
The medicine gardener


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In the throes of blood frenzy, you can unleash a whirlwind of claws and teeth against your foes.
Prerequisite(s): Combat Expertise, Greater Blood Frenzy, base attack bonus +6, blood frenzy ability, sahuagin.
Benefit(s): When you make a full attack while in a blood frenzy, you can give up your regular attacks to instead make one melee attack at your highest base attack bonus against each bleeding or wounded opponent within reach. You must use a natural weapon with these attacks, and you must make a separate attack roll against each opponent. You do not need to use the same natural weapon against each opponent.
When you use Blood Tide, you also forfeit any extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Monster Codex © 2014, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Ross Byers, John Compton, Robert N. Emerson, Jonathan H. Keith, Dale C. McCoy, Jr., Mark Moreland, Tom Phillips, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Sean K Reynolds, Thomas M. Reid, Patrick Renie, Mark Seifter, Tork Shaw, Neil Spicer, Owen K.C. Stephens, and Russ Taylor.


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Some of our Successes to Date
The entire line of the Canal is protected by Local Authority Policy to safeguard and support its restoration.
2000 - Over Canal Basin and a short section of canal restored £750k of contract work delivered by volunteers for £65k – showing the power of volunteers and private sector working together with public sector facilitation.
2001 –2012 – The Trust secure the crucial Asset Transfer of the shell of The Wharf House, that volunteers have transformed into a Visitor Centre and a AA Red Rosette Restaurant with Rooms – directly creating employment and enhancing Gloucester's tourism.
The Trust have secured a number of Heritage Boats from British Waterways which are being restored and finished in Trust 'house colours' for use on canal restoration projects.
A new stretch at Vineyard Hill doubles the length in water at Over – volunteers completed this length within 12 months of the acquisition of the land.
At Moat Farm near Malswick, negotiations in January 2012 were concluded to allow work to start on restoring good length of well defined canal bed much of which has remained virtually undisturbed since its abandonment when the railway was constructed.
At Oxenhall much work has been done by volunteers in the refacing of House Lock, the spill weir and surrounding area. Also, the restoration of an aqueduct over Ell Brook has been completed.
At Dymock, a rail bridge has been restored by Gloucestershire County Council for Canal use in the centre of Dymock.
At Yarkhill, the summit of the Canal, a mile long stretch has been restored by volunteers, in collaboration with the local landowners.
At Kymin East – thanks to the generous support of the landowner in 2012, we were able to access a further 1,000 yards of the Canal as part of the wider Withington Project to restore the Canal from the existing Yarkhill site to Withington.
At Aylestone Park, Hereford, our volunteers and supporters have partially restored the Canal and constructed a new slipway. These volunteers have also laid footpaths and cycleways throughout the Park.
At Hereford Retail Park – we assisted to secure retail consent, gaining £1.5 million of developer investment/land (including 2 new bridges) on a £10 million scheme.... and in Hereford - a new bridge was constructed for Roman Road - this is 32 miles from the nearest point of navigation!
Thanks to a bequest we acquired the freehold of Llanthony Lock and Cottages thus securing the connection for the H&G Canal with the national inland waterways network. Our volunteers are improving the cottages and maintaining the site.
H&G CT have promoted a major Hydro-electric, Flood Relief and new Lock scheme at Llanthony which the local MP described as 'The most exciting environmental project Gloucester has seen for a long time.'
We have many more new exciting Restoration Projects in the pipeline.
Please help us to deliver them by becoming a Member of the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust.
Find out more about Membership of the Trust.


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Troubleshoot Your Windows PC Using Safe Mode
Safe mode tells you one thing best: whether the problem you are trying to troubleshoot is with Windows. In Safe mode, only Windows itself is loaded: the basic parts of the operating system. Any other software — including device drivers, start-up processes, and other programs — aren't loaded in Safe mode. This leads to one immediate, solid conclusion:
When the computer runs fine in Safe mode, the problem you have is not caused by Windows.
Also, when the computer performs flawlessly in Safe mode, the problem is also not caused by your computer hardware. No, the problem lies in some program being loaded after Windows itself starts.
Your job in Safe mode is to determine which piece of software is causing the problem and to either update that software or disable it to keep the computer running properly.
When the problem persists in Safe mode, it's most likely a Windows issue.
In some circumstances, Windows doesn't cause a problem that continues in Safe mode. These problems are hardware related. The most common one is overheating. Check the power supply. Other hardware may also be screwing up.
If your PC starts itself in Safe mode, odds are very good that the problem is caused by one of three things:
Power management
These three areas are known as the problem sisters. The problem most likely lies with the software — the device driver — used to control the specific hardware. Especially if you recently upgraded the hardware or software in any of these three areas, problems can occur that thrust the PC into Safe mode.
The first thing to try is waiting. Just let the computer sit. Or, if possible, try to re-create the situation that caused the computer to crash. If the action can be repeated in Safe mode, the problem lies with Windows, not with the device.
The second thing to try depends on what happened recently. If you recently updated software, run System Restore to return the computer to a point before the update.
Finally, check for new software. Use the Device Manager. If there's known trouble with the device, its Properties dialog box in the Device Manager tells you so. If not, click the Update Driver button to find a new driver. Also consider contacting the hardware manufacturer to see whether an update is available. (You have to use Safe mode with Networking to access the Internet in Safe mode.).


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About Blue Devils B
Current Staff | Current Members
Blue Devils B is an augmentation to the participants' school music and performing arts experiences and involves 150 people from California. Ages 14–19.
BD Performing Arts began in 1957 when the Concord branch of the V.F.W. acquired the Martinettes (an 50-member all-boy drum corps and all-girl drill team) and founded the Blue Devils – named "Blue" for the V.F.W. color and "Devils" after Concord's local landmark, Mt. Diablo. Read the full history of BDPA.
In 1968, the then-Junior Drum and Bell Corps transitioned to a Senior Drum and Bell Corps (eventually becoming the current Blue Devils A Corps) and a new Junior Corps was established.
Then, in 1973, the Blue Devils Junior Drum and Bell Corps was converted to a B Bugle Corps, and an even younger-aged C Bugle Corps was established.
Today, Blue Devils B contains 150 members from California and compete in the DCI Open Class division.
For more information, please contact email@example.com.


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This Is Why Buttons On Men's And Women's Shirts Are On Different Sides.
If you remember NBC's hit faux-reality sitcom The Office, you may recall an episode where Michael Scott (brilliantly played by Steve Carrell) accidentally wears a women's suit to work. His coworkers notice right away, and don't mince words when they let him know. At one point, someone asks him, "Are you wearing lady clothes?"
He denies it at first, as the suit fits him like a glove -- but then he realizes the cold hard truth about his new suit: The buttons are on the wrong side of the jacket. Women's buttons are generally on the left, while men's are on the right.
It made for a hilarious moment on the show, but did you ever stop to think why the buttons switch side according to gender? It turns out that there's a few historical theories on the matter, including ideas about Napoleon, sword-fighting, and breastfeeding. Learn more about this curious trend below.
One theory claims that Napoleon had some issues with the buttons on his shirt.
In all his portraits, Napoleon had his right hand tucked into his coat -- believe it or not, it was a sign of "good breeding" at the time,m and his buttons were on the left. Because Napoleon felt men were superior and was sick of women mocking his signature posed, he allegedly demanded that women's buttons be moved to the opposite side.
Another theory involves weaponry.
Men carried their swords on their right hand, so it was easier for them to unbutton with their left hand.
Grannies Roots
So we have a few ideas about why men's are on the right, but why are women's buttons on the left?
One theory has to do with babies and breastfeeding: Women held babies with their left hand to keep their right hand free for unbuttoning their top so they could get the job done.
Another theory posits that it's become back in the day, women didn't dress themselves.
Also, since women were dressed by servants, who were usually right handed, it was easier for them if buttons were on the left.
Or it might have had something to do with horseback riding.
Women sat sidesaddle to the left, so buttons on the left prevented wind from getting in. Contrastingly, men rode on the left side of the road with their swords on their left hips, so having buttons on the right kept it from getting caught in their clothes.
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How a Nordstrom personal stylist saved me from looking like a fool in front of Cam Newton
I've never been especially fashion conscious. Now that I work at home, however, my wardrobe has really tanked. So when I learned I was going to be on national TV with my daughter as part of Cam Newton's All In show on Nickelodeon, I knew I needed to up my style game.
"Just wear something professional," the producer said. Not a problem, I thought, mentally reviewing the contents of my closet.
But there was more: "No black. No white. No patterns. Bright colors are best. A dress would be great."
And then, the kicker: "Try to coordinate with your daughter's dress."
Ummm, what? My daughter was planning to wear a flashy number in bright blue and neon green.
Over the next few days, I hit Belk, Ann Taylor, Stein Mart and a few other favorite shops. I tried on dresses, suits, blouses – nothing was right. With only a few days until the taping, I was frantic.
Then I remembered: didn't Nordstrom offer some kind of free personal stylist service? Nordstrom had always seemed out of my league price-wise, but I was desperate, so I made the call. I gave a brief rundown of my query to the woman who answered. "The only time I can come in is at 10 a.m. tomorrow," I told her.
No problem, she said. A few minutes later, I got a call from personal stylist Belinda Ugarte. She had me text her a full length picture of me, my sizes and a photo of my daughter's dress. In addition to the producer's guidelines, I threw in one more requirement: I didn't want to spend more than $130.
"Don't worry," she said. "I have the perfect dress."
I was skeptical, but I dutifully showed up the next day. Hanging in the dressing room was a bright blue dress. Yep, that's right – only one dress. That's awfully confident, I thought, noting that the dress didn't look like anything I would have picked out.
Then I slipped it on. Whoa. It smoothed over my middle-aged lumps and bumps. It looked nice against my skin, and it matched my daughter's dress. Best of all, it fit my budget.
I bought it on the spot. I was in and out in less than 15 minutes.
"People don't believe this, but we really can save you time and money," Belinda told me. "We have a lot of different price points. And when you're shopping alone, you may buy things you don't end up wearing. I can help you stay focused and make sure you're getting high-quality items that are going to last."
Most of the people who use the service are simply too busy to shop for themselves, Belinda says. Many come in once a season to update their wardrobe with just a few pieces. Others come in only when they have a special event. If there's a brand you like, she can even text you when it goes on sale. The service is totally free, but the stylists do work on commission.
As for me, the taping went well, and the producers said the dress looked great. Cam Newton was funny, kind and even better looking in real life than he is on TV. And I almost forgot to mention one last thing I loved about my new dress: it was the exact same shade of blue as Cam's gingham shirt.
To schedule a session with a Nordstrom Personal Stylist, call 704-442-6000. And to see the trailer for "All in with Cam Newton" click here.
Michelle Crouch is a Charlotte-based freelance writer. The All In episode featuring her daughter, Rosie, will air on Nickelodeon in August.


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Eat My Heart Out
Behind the Danish food blog "Eat My Heart Out" is the lovely social media manager Christina Bennetzen from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her blog contains endless food and delicious dessert recipes and is the perfect place to visit when you're out of dinner ideas. She believes in cooking with love and showing respect for the produce, which truly shows in the result.
Your food is fantastic! When and how did you find your passion for cooking?
Thank you :) I guess my first interest in food started when the women in my family let me cook with them from a very early age. My mom and grandmother have always included me in their baking and cooking projects. I often find that my recipes somehow originate in a family recipe that I have updated.
I have always had a natural craving for - fresh produce straight from the vegetable garden. When I grew up - I often visited a woman who had the most wonderful vegetable garden and some of the happiest memories from my childhood take place between the rows of carrots, haricotverts and raspberries in her beautiful garden.
What's your favourite food?
I love all kinds of food, but freshly fried fish and veggies is always a favourite.
Is there anything you eat a lot of or don't eat at all?
I love having hotdog dates with my boyfriend. We usually make alternative toppings like avocado, fried veggies, pickled greens and sprouts. I could actually go for that right now.
What is typical Danish food?
Smørrebrød is a very popular Danish dish. It consists of rye bread with various toppings. I often make miniature smørrebrød with very simple toppings like eggs, pickled herring, salmon and left over cold meats or good cheese. The smaller versions are always rather popular with my guests because that way they get to try all kinds.
What is your normal breakfast routine?
I am pregnant right now - so my morning routines are very consistent. I have a piece of toasted ryebread, a soft boiled egg, juice and a cup of earl grey tea every day.
Do you have a favourite local restaurant?
We really love going to a small restaurant called Café Alma on Islands Brygge - it is in our neighborhood and the food is always great and the atmosphere is nice and cozy.
What is your drink of choice?
Fresh juice with lots of ginger
What's the most unique thing about Denmark?
I love how the seasons change and the long summer nights.
What Danish personality do you look up to?
The political climate in Denmark is messed up right now and it makes me so depressed but there is a former politician Özlem Cekic who try to create debates across political and religious boundaries. I don't agree with her on everything but I really admire her approach to radicalism and her willingness to always try and have a constructive debate.
Can you give us your best Danish travel tips?
My absolute favourite destination in Denmark has to be Fanø. It is a small island off the west coast of Jutland. My family has had a summerhouse there ever since I was born and it always feels like coming home when I step on the ferry and the salty wind hits my face. There are plenty of experiences both in Nature and food wise.
What is your favourite Nordic destination?
I have not traveled too much in the Nordic countries but I do love the Wild Nature of Norway and Sweden.
Visit Christinas blog at www.eatmyheartoutcph.wordpress.com or follow her on Instagram @christinabennetzen


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Everytime I go shopping, I inevitably always make a stop at Old Navy. If any of my shopping companions ever ask if we should go in, I always answer "of course." And to this very day, I don't own one thing that I actually wear from Old Navy. So why do I go in? Because it always sounds like a good idea. I see the jungle of chinos and peasant tops and something in my brain clicks on, and I'm hopeful that I will find something good for 2 bucks--even though I never have before. Well, there's a lot of stuff out there that sounds like a good idea to me, and yet I can't make a decision on whether or not I like it. Here are a few, and feel free to give me your opinion on whether or not I should hate it.
1. Leggings-- Actually I love leggings. I love them despite the fact that they make my legs look like old man walking sticks. What I'm not sure that I like are leggings underneath those short jean mini-skirts. I'm leaning towards roach and trashy, but you tell me.
2. Peasant Tops-- They're empire waisted, embroidered and sometimes even bedazzled. All three of these things, in theory, sound pretty good to me. But when I actually see a peasant top all I keep thinking is that they actually look like "peasant" tops.
3. Leg warmers-- Ok this is one that I really really love. I have purchased two pairs of hot leg warmers when I was in Japan and I love them, and yet have still not rocked them. Deep down, I know that they're roach, but I can't let it go. I think they're so cool with black stilletos--cool in a chic street walker kind of way.
4. Lil' Kim jackets-- The small puffy jackets with the fur on the hood. I'm not actually on the fence with this one. I love it, I own one, and don't talk smack about it because I will throw down like a gangsta.


text: Because of their small stature, mosquitoes are easy to ignore. The South Dakota Department of Health needed to get the message across that taking adequate precautions to protect from illness such as West Nile virus is critical, particularly in a state where related death rates were at a national high rate. The "Are You Next?" campaign capitalized on the severity of this issue with jarring closeups to make the urgency undeniable.


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A place for embroidery people to meet
I have wanted to make a Sunbonnet Sue quilt for a long time. While growing up I went to quilting bees and one quilt was of Sunbonnet Sue. My GD is to make her arrival sometime this month and I have been sewing and crocheting like crazy.
Views: 107
Thank you, Paged. That's a wonderful comment coming from a professional quilter like yourself.
Beautiful job with this Sunbonnet quilt. Love the fabrics, I have most of them. GD will love this.


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Movers and Losers: May 2011
May sales marked the first decline in total car sales in the past eight months. This is mainly a result of inventory shortages due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, high gas prices and low retail incentive offerings. Cars took slightly longer to move off lots, too. The average number of days it took to sell a new vehicle went from 48 days in April to 54 days in May. That number was at 50 days in May 2010.
Despite the lull, there were winners in May, most notably the Hyundai Elantra. The redesigned model has been a hot seller for some time — a member of the Movers' list since December 2010 — and it's now the fastest-moving model, taking just three days to sell. That rate is actually for the 2012 model that went on sale recently. The 2011 was the first year of the redesign, and it also made the Movers' list this month. We can't recall two model years of the same vehicle ever making the Movers' list in the three years we've been publishing it.
Chrysler's Sebring replacement, the 2011 200, also did well for the month, taking only 19 days to sell. The model was the best-selling Chrysler brand product in May. All three Chrysler models — 200, 300 and Town & Country — are selling better than May's monthly average.
The number of days it takes to sell a new car is a poor measure of actual inventories, so it's hard to gauge the performance of automakers like Honda and Toyota that may have been affected by the Japanese earthquake earlier this year.
The 2011 Toyota Prius and new 2012 Honda Civic models were hot items for the month, but many popular models, like the Toyota Camry, performed below May's average.
About the Lists
The Movers and Losers list reports the average number of days it takes to sell models from the day they arrive on the lot until the final paperwork is signed by a buyer. This is not a days-of-inventory list like you may find on otherwebsites. We're now focusing on only 2011 and 2012 model years.
For Movers, we only list vehicles that pass a certain threshold of sales in order to weed out limited editions, ultra-high-performance cars and others that might skew the numbers or otherwise inaccurately portray popularity. For Losers, we have removed any threshold to reflect 2011 models that may have the greatest incentives.