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Adobe Illustrator for Bloggers: Setting up Templates to create blog graphics instantly. Plus FREE .ai Download!
Adobe Illustrator for Bloggers: Setting up Templates
Hi guys! Welcome back.
This is the second post for our 'Adobe Illustrator for Bloggers' blog series.
In this post, we're talking all about creating Templates, so you can design blog graphics instantly.
We'll show you shortcuts & tips for creating beautiful content for your posts.
We're going to be using clipping masks & artboards pretty intensively here, so if you haven't seen our previous post, 'Basic Guide to Photo Cropping', please check it out HERE.
You can download the free .ai template HERE. This template works for CS6 & up.
You can watch the tutorial video, or follow the steps in the post. Completely up to you!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goG5e1xRRsE]
Download and save the free template
Command+N opens new document window.
What we're going to do is open our template, you can ignore all of the options on the New Document window.
Click on 'Templates…' in the lower left corner.
This will point you to this specific folder.
For Mac, it's located: Applications > Adobe Illustrator > Cool Extras > en_US > Templates.
I like to save all of my templates in this folder so they're easy to find.
Place the downloaded template into this folder, and open it up in Illustrator.
Personalizing your template
Beautifying Content
- Start by dragging and dropping photos into the file. Don't forget to embed them! I went ahead and used clipping masks to constrain the photos to the Instagram artboard, and the post photos artboard.
- I want a 4 photo collage for one of the post photos, so I pressed on 'option' on my keyboard, and clicked and dragged the 4-photo collage guide onto an artboard, this duplicated it.
- Go ahead and use clipping masks to clip photos into this collage.
- In the left toolbar, you'll find the 'line segment' tool. Select this.
- On your 4-photo collage, click at the top of the intersection, press shift on your keyboard, and drag down to the bottom. This creates a straight stroke. A straight stroke obviously won't show a fill, but we need to give this line a stroke.
- With the line selected, go to the top left portion of Illustrator, and click on the stroke thumbnail. Choose the white color swatch. The line now has a white stroke, even though it's probably hard to see.
- Let's bump up the size of the stroke. On the right toolbar, open up the stroke window. Use the arrows to bump up the stroke weight, or size, until it's looking good.
- Add lines to the other photo intersections.
- Use the selection tool, and click on your 'header' text. Press 'option' on your keyboard, and click & drag the header text to the first post photo.
- Using the text tool on the left ('T' on your keyboard), edit the words to your post title.
- You might have to resize your text, press 'command+t' on your keyboard to open up the character style box. You can change the size there.
- Copy over your 'secondary' text, and type in a secondary title, your blog URL, or something similar.
- Select your logo, and press 'option' and drag it over onto a blog photo. Select the logo, and use the corner points to resize (holding shift to constrain proportions!). Depending on what color the logo is, you may or may not be able to see it.
- Let's change the color of it. Select the logo, and press 'i' on your keyboard. This brings up the eyedropper tool. Hover over a contrasting color on your photo, and hold shift & click. This will select the color you're hovering over. You can also use the eyedropper tool to select any colors you have in your color swatches on the right.
- Go ahead and copy those logos to the other photos for the post.
- Feel free to change colors & sizes to make the logo work with each photo.
- Go ahead and use the rectangle tool to create a square at the top of the Pinterest image. Use a clipping mask to crop a photo to the square.
- Copy over your header & secondary text, and change the message & color.
- Use the rectangle tool (m) to create a rectangle at the bottom of your Pinterest post. Up at the top of Illustrator, you'll see the width & height editing tools. Make sure the link between the two is selected, this will constrain the proportions of the rectangle.
- In the width box, after the number, type in '/2'. This will divide the rectangle into two, both in width & in height. This box is now 1/4th the size of the original box. Press option, click & drag the newly sized rectangle to copy it over to the right.
- Copy the box to the bottom quarters as well.
- Go to file > export. This brings up the export window. Find the file that you want these graphics saved to. Go ahead and choose your file type, we talked about this in the first post.
- Check 'choose artboards', and check 'all'. Click on 'export'.
- Illustrator will pop up a PNG Options window. Choose the proper screen resolution, 72dpi, and choose 'Art Optimized' (unless you have a whole lot of text going on).
- You should be good to go, click on OK.


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3AM perfume cologne
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The KARMA SHEMA DRAMA explores the ancient Hebrew tradition called SHEMA and what it means for us today.
SHEMA means hear, and in the SHEMA God calls His people to love Him. Which in turn flows outward to others, it is to be observed in a diligent fashion and expressed creatively, on a daily basis. This website is a platform for the online discussion + collaboration of SHEMA.
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Shooting Livien2005
Shooting Livien (2005)
Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
Shooting Livien Photos
Movie Info
as John Livien
as Emi
as Owen
as Robby
as Brea
as Rose Livien
as Colin Livien
as Young Livien
as Secret Service
as Record Label Executive
as Herself
as Bartender
as Old Man
as Ruth
as Groupie
as Drunk Girl
Critic Reviews for Shooting Livien
All Critics (4) | Top Critics (1) | Fresh (3) | Rotten (1) | DVD (3)
A hypnotic portrait of an almost-famous artist, Shooting Livien is alert to how creation and self-destruction go hand in glove.
When the worst you can say about a director is she tried too hard... chances are you're talking about someone who will one day... blow audiences away.
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NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF BALONEY: Sorry. Fraudulent investor-protection movements are a guilty pleasure of mine, like chocolate. I just can't resist writing about them! They are funny. Dangerous too, as well as irresponsible, and a little sick. The problem is that these paranoid crackpots influence regulatory policy, and that has to stop.
I'm going to make this item a kind of ongoing diary or "open item," so that all the latest news from the loony anti-naked-shorting movement can be posted in one place. That way this blog isn't totally overwhelmed by baloney. All your baloney in one sandwich.
After all, the anti-shorting scam artists are just one of twenty-one chapters of Wall Street Versus America. They represent just one of the ways the Street has its hand in your pocket -- in this instance by making it easier to rip you off in microcaps -- but there are far more important issues discussed in the book, such as the ghastly arbitration system and fee-happy funds. My general take on this issue is summed up in this post and a few others, most of which have the word "baloney" in the title.
I'll still post major tidings as separate items, but lesser "turns of the screw" I'll post here.
So, on with the Baloney Diaries! These items are in chronological order, with the most recent at the bottom. So you can bookmark the URL for this item (http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2006/02/news-from-world-of-baloney-sorry.html) and check back periodically:
Feb. 12: The Baloney Brigade's "Sanity Check" website (as in "check your sanity at the door") posted over the weekend what it described as an "encyclopedic analysis" of the Securities and Exchange Commission's legal brief refuting all of the naked shorting lobby's phony "stock counterfeiting" claims.
The author was gravely introduced by Phil Saunders a/k/a "Bob O'Brien," the bravely pseudonymous proprietor of the site, as "Dr. Jim DeCosta." The good doctor describes himself in SEC comment letters as "Dr. Jim DeCosta and Associates, Consultants to Victim Corporations."
"Bob," an ex-peddler of used medical equipment according to the NY Post, didn't disclose exactly what kind of PhD or whatever that this esteemed gent has, so I looked up the phone number. According to Google, this expert in naked short-selling and consultant to victim corporations is James DeCosta, DMD, of the Tualatin Family Dental Clinic in Tualatin, Oregon.
Glad the Baloney Brigade has such a sturdy "consultant" for its "victims"! I'll bet they have good teeth too.
Feb. 13: Last night, Baloney Brigadier "O'Brien" clogged Internet message boards with posts promising an "explosive" revelation. Turned out to be a rumor about somebody serving a subpoena on someone else. I won't repeat the rumor, it being obvious baloney whipped up to divert attention from the beating being endured by stocks he's been touting.
I have a better idea for "O'Brien" to lure suckers to his website: cut rate dental insurance! He seems to be staffed up for it.
Feb. 14: When the "subpoena bombshell" fell flat, "O'Brien" went back to his "sources" and came up with another "scoop" -- that the SEC was investigating Rocker Partners. He didn't disclose his "source," which makes sense because it was The Street.com, which mentioned the probe a few days ago because Rocker owns a chunk of the company (see tail end of this story). To be precise, it said, "the matter is being investigated." SEC investigations are often prompted by long-short battles, with the result usually being either nothing or sanctions on the long side. The Baloney Brigade marches on.
Feb. 15: File this under "I'm not making this up" (with apologies to the blog by that name). The bravely pseudonymous head of the anti-naked shorting coalition, a paranoid crackpot named "Bob O'Brien," wants the world to confirm unsubstantiated reports and rumors that he irresponsibly posted on his website in recent days. I'm not kidding. He issued a "challenge" to that effect today:
If I do not hear from anyone by close of business today, as I haven't heard from anyone for the last 48 hours, I, and everyone else, will assume that the above 4 statements are correct and true, and will henceforth state them as fact.Well, I guess that makes sense. Post a lot of smears on the Internet before you have gotten your facts straight, and then -- instead of getting the thing nailed down tight and asking for comment from the affected parties -- issue a "challenge" for your victims to contradict you. And these people influence regulatory policy and have gotten the attention of state regulators? NASAA, come to your senses, for Pete's sake.
Feb. 15 (later). The "Sanity Check" blog published a rambling, patently phony story about a threat supposedly conveyed to a "journalist" who was "investigating" naked shorting by "three men in Armani suits, slicked back hair, Ferragamo shoes." You know, sort of like a bad detective novel. This totally unbelievable cock-and-bull story is supposed to excuse the anonymity of "O'Brien," the leader of this crackpot movement, who hides behind a phony name while spewing paranoid conspiracy theories and smears. The "journalist" is anonymous, natch.
OK, I'll pretend for a moment that this story is not the phony that it obviously is. What is a journalist's duty in such a situation? It takes all of thirty seconds to come up with the answer -- to call the police or the FBI! Report the threat. Hell, I would. In fact, when it's happened to me, I have. So would any real, as opposed to imaginary, journalist.
What's sad is that some good people will believe this trash, no matter what, because they need someone or something to blame for their bad investment decisions.
Feb. 16. Rejoicing across the world of baloney today, as the subpoena rumor mentioned earlier -- Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. being asked for trading records by regulators in Connecticut and Utah -- is confirmed by the New York Post. What this means is that not one but two state regulators are devoting valuable resources to investigating a nonexistent scandal. It's a sad day for investors, who are ripped off by real scamsters while the regulators chase after imaginary ones.
A good example of the real thing was discussed in the Mark Cuban blog yesterday, in an item entitled "Naked Shorting -- the Real Bad Guys." Note the reference to C. Austin "Bud" Burrell, whose little "pink sheet" company is reportedly being pushed to overseas investors by a boiler room. Unfortunately, victims of real stock swindles have yet to organize. Victims of imaginary naked-shorting conspiracies, on the other hand, are not only organized but have clout, and the waste of resources reported today proves it.
Feb. 17. The rejoicing was premature. The Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. says today that the Connecticut subpoena was served several months ago, "related to an investigation the Conn. Banking Dept. is conducting of third parties." (Whatever that means.) Still, assuming "naked shorting" is the reason for this probing, the bottom line is that two state regulators are wasting their time with the Wall Street version of the flat-earth movement.
The taxpayers of these states have ample reason to be annoyed, and to ask why their investor watchdogs are chasing after baloney when there are real investor scams to stamp out.
Feb. 19: Investors in one naked shorting "victim," a cruddy mining company, aren't lapping up the "stock counterfeiting" con game. I think this entry is significant enough it deserves an item of its own, so I moved it here.
Labels: Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., Jim DeCosta, Mark Cuban, naked short-selling, Phil Saunders aka Bob OBrien, smears, subpoenas


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Tom Kartheiser
I grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago with a German Irish descent. I come from a large Catholic family with seven sisters and two brothers. I moved to Colorado in 1994 and this "mountain man" is where he belongs! I am so fortunate to have raised my one and only son Dylan here, as this is truely a little boys and big boys paradise. We have both experienced all of mother natures wonders in this beautiful state in every aspect.
About my profession
I have been in the construction industry for my entire career. Over 35 years of experience in either labor, contracting, training, sales or management in this field. Almost 20 years with Alcoa Building Products. I currently am a licensed builder in Park County, Colorado as owner of RedStone Custome Homes. I am certified by the American Home Inspectors Training Institute (AHIT). I am a ASHI Certified Inspector (ACI) through the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). The State of Colorado has me certified to perform residential radon measurement testing through the National Radon Proficiency Program (NRPP) and the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). I am educated to perform mold collecting samples for testing. Continued Education (CE) is an on-going job and requirement for my profession. I am a Senior Instructor for Kaplan Universities, sharing my experience and knowledge, by teaching classes to get new inspectors certified. I am also an affiliate member of the South Metro Denver Realtor Association (SMDRA) and the owner of Legacy Home Inspections.


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Top Stories
Medal count impressive for NMMI track at State The New Mexico Military Institute Colt and Lady Colt track and field teams had a great showing at the NMAA's Class 3A State Championship Meet in Albuquerque last weekend. Eighteen NMMI cadet-student-athletes – nine girls and nine boys – competed in the two-day meet held at the UNM Track and Soccer complex on Friday and Saturday, May 10-11. Full Story
Lady Colts and Colts prepare for State Championships NMMI Sports Press The New Mexico Military Institute Colt and Lady Colt Track and Field teams will be competing in the NMAA State Championships on May 10th-11th at the UNM Track-Soccer Complex. The Colts and Lady Colts will have eight athletes each participating at the state meet. Full Story
NMMI hires second Olympic athlete to help coach For more than 30 years, NMMI has had an Olympic athlete on staff. Full Story
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BROOKVILLE, NY- The University of the District of Columbia men's lacrosse team were overcome by the LIU Post Pioneers 18-7 in the East Coast Conference battle placing the Firebirds 1-3 in the ECC.
The Firebirds (8-5, 1-3 ECC) fought hard against the Pioneers could not keep up scoring one goal by sophomore attackman Alan Singleton in the first quarter. During the second quarter the Firebirds put up two goals also from Alan Singleton with an assist from junior attackman Tyler Mace. By the start third quarter the Pioneers held the Firebirds with a five goal lead 8-3, however, towards the end of the third the Firebirds picked up two goals from senior midfielder LaRon Hinton with an assist from senior attackman Zach Hart and freshman attackman Turner Allison also assisted by Zach Hart. At the end of the third the score rested 12-5. In the fourth quarter the Firebirds continued to fight but could not catch up resulting in the 18-7 loss.
The offensive leader for the Firebirds was sophomore attackman Alan Singleton with three goals and one assist. Senior LaRon Hinton added two goals, senior midfielder Teilen Celentano scored one goal and freshman attackman Turner Allison scored one goal. Senior attackman Zach Hart had two assists.
Defensively, junior goalkeeper Nikolas-Lund-Murray had 12 saves on 30 shots. Sophomore defender Connor Mosby had 4 groundballs and sophomore defender Garrin Adolphe had three groundballs.
The Pioneers were led offensively by junior attackman Thomas Liantonio with four goals one assist, freshman attackman William Snelders three goals, senior midfielder Dylan Harned with two goals one assist and sophomore attackman Nick Grassa with one goal and three assists.
This Saturday the Firebirds will take on ECC opponent Roberts Weslayn in Rochester, NY at 3:00 pm


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A second Palm Beach County defensive back plans on going to Tampa next year.
Park Vista 2018 defensive back Jake Collins committed to the South Florida Bulls on Wednesday night, announcing his decision on his Twitter account. Glades Central 2018 defensive back Gerald Jackson III is also committed to the Bulls.
"I felt like going to USF will further me as a student-athlete," Collins said. "It's an amazing program and an even better school to go to."
[Football recruiting: Four local prospects going to Miami Hurricanes' Paradise Camp]
[Football recruiting: John Dunmore, Mark-Antony Richards and more going to Florida Gators' Friday Night Lights]
Collins, who was an All-Area honorable mention (at a position loaded with Division I talent) last year, had 71 tackles, three interceptions and one touchdown last year.
The recruiting website 247Sports has not issued Collins a ranking, but he is 18th on the Post's Big Board. He chose USF over Appalachian State, Northern Illinois and more.
Collins committed while he was at USF on Wednesday. While he was there, he met new Bulls coach Charlie Strong, who sold him on coming to South Florida.
"He's running a really good program there," Collins said. "He's a really smart man, a really good guy. I really liked meeting him, and I felt like he really wanted me to come to his school."
USF's proximity — about 3-4 hours by car — was also a selling point for Collins and his family.
"My mom really likes the idea that it's not that far, it's not out of state," Collins said. "She likes the idea that she can come to the games."


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Feeling Sad, Depressed?
Though spring is almost here (one can hope), many people are still suffering from something called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It's something that happens to people who are sensitive to the sun's rays, or the lack thereof in winter months. But there is an easy treatment for SAD, and it's known as light therapy. Seasonal affective disorder is a condition that can cause depression symptoms, moodiness, and a general feeling of lethargy. As the sun is further away from the earth in the winter, we don't get enough of it. This lack of light, along with insufficient vitamin D levels, is believed to be the culprit in the winter blues.
Light therapy seeks to remedy this lack of sunlight by providing artificial light. Research has shown light therapy to be very effective in the treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder – as effective as prescription drugs and without all the side effects.
Light Therapy
Light boxes are the treatment provider in light therapy. These boxes come from a variety of manufacturers and at a variety of price points. The box contains fluorescent bulbs that emit a bright light. For light box therapy treatment, the user sits in front of the box for an average of 20 to 40 minutes each day to get their dose of light "medicine".
People who use the light boxes will often read or eat their breakfast in front of the device. They are told to start within a foot or two of the box and to focus on the areas that the box lights up, rather than looking at the lights themselves.
Morning light therapy is the best, as it's this time of day when you need the most help pulling yourself out of your dreary-winter-day funk.
"I still say to myself, 'It's a dark crummy day,' when the clouds roll in," says one light therapy user. "The difference is, I don't feel like going back to bed."
Read full article HERE.
Tags: Alaska Northern Lights, bright light boxes, Bright light therapy, Depression, Light box therapy, Light Boxes, Light Therapy, Light therapy boxes, light therapy for sad, Melatonin, SAD, SAD light, SAD light boxes, SAD light therapy, SAD lights, Seasonal Affective Disorder, seasonal affective disorder light, Seasonal affective disorder light therapy, Severe Depression, Treatment, Winter Blues, Winter Depression


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by Reb Akiva @ Mystical Paths
In Israel, to be black, also called being a penguin or a parasite, is to be part of the ultra-fervent orthodox Jewish community, where the men dress in a white shirt, black pants, black coat and a black hat.
(Times of Israel) Finance Ministry's proposed Budget Arrangements Law for 2013-2014…
National Religious and secular schools that teach 100% of the (Education Ministry Approved) curriculum will receive 100% funding. The Independent Education systems of United Torah Judaism and the Shas party's Maayan Hachinuch educational stream that teach 100% of the core curriculum will be funded at only 75%.
One could argue about the propriety of a government financing anything other than a purely secular education. However, once the government makes a decision to fund even religious schools – providing they teach the core curriculum – then that decision should be applied to all children who meet the criteria, without discrimination.
By choosing to fund National Religious schools that teach 100% of the core curriculum at the same rate as secular schools, but not funding haredi schools that teach 100% of the core curriculum, the government is violating its international legal obligation not to discriminate against children based on their religious practice.
Blatant over the top direct discrimination against the ultra-fervent orthodox Jewish community. Teach EXACTLY the same subjects, get 3/4 the funding. (And those who choose not to include those subjects that are pure secular cultural indoctrination? Ha, 50% or 30% for you!)
Yet worse is the rhetoric and shooting Israel in the foot. The Finance Minister SCREAMS that the Charedim must go to work, AND THEN TURNS AROUND AND CUTS FUNDING FOR CHAREDI EDUCATION.
So you parasitic religious Jew, stop having children and changing Israel's demographic mix (though saving Israel from being overwhelmed by the Arab birth rate) and GO TO WORK - - - while we cut your education, cut day care funding, and fine you if you didn't go into the army. Yeah, that'll work out just great.
The Finance Minster (yes you Yair Lapid) talks a good game but is absolutely trying to discriminate against the Charedi and make sure he stays in the back of the bus.
Let the Finance Minister know, discriminating against religious Jewish children is not ok. Here's his contact info:
email@example.com - - - @YairLapid1 - - - Facebook - - - Office Phone +972- 2-6408385


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Performance Management
Performance management is the process of communication between manager and employee that results in mutual understanding of what the employee has achieved over a set period of time and what they need to do during the next period of time. This includes setting performance objectives and standards.
This course covers:
- What is performance management?
- Position descriptions and KPIs
- Performance appraisal methods and meetings
- Provide regular feedback
- Recognising and dealing with performance
- Performance and skills gaps and planning for improvement
Cost $60.00 (includes GST)
Register now to commence course


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I kid you not. As we're decluttering and packing, my six year old son found an old alarm clock and asked me "WHAT is this thing? What does it do?"
It's proof of how reliant we are on our cell phones, as we use them for both alarms and radio/music, essentially rendering this thing useless.
So my kids declared it a relic of the past and said I was old.
Thanks, boys.


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STOP PRESS - New Member Playing Membership $20 to end of June
Full Playing Membership now $100 per year 1 July to 30 June
Come along any Saturday from 10 - 11am to try Lawn Bowls.
Warrawee welcomes new members and offers free coaching to those wishing to try the game of lawn bowls.
Visiting bowlers also welcome.
Green fees are only $15 which includes tea and sandwiches
Welcome to The Warrawee Bowling Club and
Function Centre!
Warrawee's Best Kept Secret for 112 years!
Here we are, ready, willing and able to entertain, feed and quench anyone who bravely ventures into our serene surrounds. We pride ourselves on great quality comfort food at competitive prices both for our private events and public functions.
We are very proud that we do not have poker machines to distract our patrons. We love to show new bowlers just how much fun the game of bowls can be - and all coaching is FREE. Our members are known to be some of the friendliest bunch around. Our bar lays claim to the fact that Asahi Premium Beer is on tap and the next closest venue to get it is Chatwood!
We really are a gem in the crown of Warrawee. You will agree when you step inside. Pleasant surrounds, quiet atmosphere and an exclusive venue for your private function. Feel free to explore this website and when you want the real thing, drop in Monday - Friday 9-5 or Saturday 10-5 for an inspection, or a schooner at Members' prices.
Please do click the subscribe button on the right to join our mailing list and be kept informed of the public events, promotions and new concepts on the boil. All the best for the moment until we meet in person....
Warm Regards
Kevin Mund
Club and Function Centre Manager, firstname.lastname@example.com 9489 1092
Feature News
1479 Pacific Highway, Warrawee NSW, 2074
Stay in Touch


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You Can Order a Well-Written Admission Essay Online
When it comes down to it, you may feel overwhelmed about getting into the college of your choice. You have probably applied for several, and you will find that the best schools require you to submit an admissions essay to be qualified for entry into the school Writing an admissions essay should be a piece of cake- right? Wrong! It isn't really as easy as it looks. Everyone thinks that they can just write the best essays, but colleges really want something that can stand out. This is why you might want to order a well-written admission essay online.
How Much Does it Cost?
One of the first questions that you may have is how much it will cost you. It is going to vary, depending on the subject matter, length and requirements of the essay. More detailed work is definitely going to cost you more money. You also have to consider the fact that a rushed essay will cost you more as well. You should look to pay a pretty penny though, especially if you want content worth paying for.
Where Should You Order?
Next, you may want to know where to order your admission essays. If you search for admission essay writing companies, you will find a whole lot of them. Choosing the best one can prove to be quite challenging. It is a good idea for you to take a look at some of their examples, and choose a company that you think will be able to offer you the best paper at the best price possible.
How Long Does it Take?
Finally, you need to know how long it will take. There are some companies that can turn around your essay in as little as a few hours, but you have to be careful about this. You don't want to push it down to the wire, because you will pay more and won't have time for revisions if necessary. You should really try to order it a couple weeks in advance to be on the safe side.
As you can see, there are a few factors that you need to keep in mind when ordering an essay online. If you keep these things in mind, you will know what to expect. Just remember to order well enough in advance to make sure that you can get any necessary revisions done in time so that your essay can be turned in before the deadline.


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Flights to Croatia
AirGorilla negotiates great deals on Croatia flights. We find airline tickets, hotels, and rental cars for Croatia as well. For information on the airport, there is a link further below on this page.
Croatia Flights
Find cheap flights to Croatia by using this page. Bookmark our page for easy reference. Flights are cheap during certain seasons while more costly during other seasons. Croatia is a popular flight destination.
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Cheap Flights to Croatia
Croatia is a country in the Balkans on the east side of the Adriatic Sea, to the east of Italy. Littoral Croatia is made of north and south Croatian coastline. The northern coastline consists of: Istria (cr. "Istra") - a peninsula in the northwest, bordering Slovenia; Kvarner - seashore and highlands north of Dalmatia. The southern coastline consists of only Dalmatia (cr. "Dalmacija")- a strip of mainland and islands between the Mediterranean and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dubrovnik is a historic coastal city and UNESCO World Heritage site. Pula is the biggest town in Istria with the Roman amphitheater (commonly called Arena). Omis is a coastal jewel built by the Pirates. Ruskamen has perhaps the most beautiful beaches on Adriatic. Hvar is an island off the coast of Croatia. The main square of HvarGently rolling hills painted a brilliant purple by the fertile flowers, lush vineyards nestling at the foot of ragged mountains, gorgeous beaches with tiny inlets and secluded coves, luscious restaurants, boutiques, and a vibrant nightlife amidst the medieval streets of Hvar Town are just a few of the treats to enjoy on this dream of an island. Hvar Town may be the most stunning town on the island but Starigrad, the oldest village on the island, and Jelsa, as well as a smattering of small villages, dotting the coast or nestled in the lush interior are well worth a visit. Northern Croatia has a temperate continental climate whereas central, semi-mountainous and mountainous regions have a mountainous climate. The entire Adriatic coast has a pleasant Mediterranean climate. Spring and autumn are mild along the coast, while winter is cold and snowy in central and northern regions. Many Croatians speak English as their second language, but German and Italian are very popular too (largely because of the large annual influx of German and Italian tourists). (Pause for advertisement): Find airline tickets, travel deals, bed and breakfasts, Cheap flights. Obtain air fare prices, lodging, air tickets, and student travel. Check out flights, trip tickets, air line specials, low prices on air travel fares and more at AirGorilla.com (end of ad). People in the tourist industry most often speak English quite well, as do the younger generation, especially in the tourist areas of Istria, along the coast down to Dubrovnik, and in the capital, Zagreb. If you know Czech, you can try it as well, as Czech and Croatian are partially mutually intelligible (but some words are very different) and in many places, Croatian people are used to large number of Czech tourists. North Americans, Australians and many other nationals can enter Croatia with a valid passport and without a visa. Citizens of EU member countries and Bosnia and Herzegovina can even enter the country with a valid identity card. The document of identity must be valid at least three months longer than you plan to stay in Croatia. Some airlines flying to Croatia include Adria Airways, Croatia Airlines,Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines, Alitalia, CSA Czech Airlines, EasyJet, JAT Airways, and Wizz Air. Additionally you can use airports in neighboring countries which are within few hours of reach from Zagreb and Rijeka (apart from some of the listed options in Italy). The traveller is therefore recommended to have already validated their Eurail pass on arrival in Croatia, or to have it validated at an international window even if the first trip on it will be domestic.
Flights to Croatia and more cities. Croatia flights.
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There are two contrasting ways of countering the threat of global warming — Pro-Growth and No Growth.
There are two contrasting ways of countering the threat of global warming — Pro-Growth and No Growth.
The Pro-Growth or Cornucopian route is championed by numerous economists ranging from Julian Simon and Bjorn Lomborg to Larry Summers and Nigel Lawson. They all advocate increasing the output of the global economy so that we have sufficient wealth to buy our way out of the problems the economy causes, through the development of nuclear energy, information technology, genetic engineering and more advanced technofixes. It is the approach favoured by George Bush, Gordon Brown and all free market economists, who recognize that capitalism will collapse if the economy doesn't grow.
The No Growth or Gandhian approach tailors human needs to the limits imposed by the environment, by reducing conspicuous consumption, localizing economies and relying on renewable energy. This doesn't rule out change or evolution, and so it should perhaps be called Slow Growth. This is a proven way of life that protected the environment comparatively well up until about 1800. However it is by no means certain that it will meet the expectations of a global population which has swelled to many times its previous size, thanks to 200 years of profligate fossil fuel use.
The struggle between these two ideologies can be witnessed daily in the media, for example in disputes over whether or not to build a third runway at Heathrow, an extra lane on the M25, or another round of nuclear power stations. No/Slow Growth supporters argue that rapid economic growth has so far failed to reduce emissions, and that if ever it does so, it will be late and at the expense of people in poor countries. Free market economists respond that their opponents are Luddites who want us to return to a society when life was nasty, brutish and short.
Given that, in its own terms, capitalism has been fairly successful over the last 50 years, we can hardly discount the possibility that it will be the cornucopians who will triumph. Yet, so far, few advocates of No Growth have attempted any analysis of what kind of society we will be living in if they do. Suppose that some cheap, clean and abundant form of energy is developed which enables governments to deal with global warming, and the global economy to keep on expanding ad infinitum — what will our world be like then?
Few people in the UK green movement give thought to this matter, probably because the threat of global warming is so alarming and so imminent that it seems fruitless to look further ahead. But if capitalism does cope successfully with the environmental problems it has caused, beyond lies an economic and technological trajectory that will make climate change look like a storm in a teacup. For the scientists and economists confidently mapping out this future, global warming is an irrelevance.
A Dubious Prophet
The resistance to this long-term trajectory has been perfunctory and championed by a dubious prophet. Exactly ten years ago, in May 1998, Ted Kaczynski was sentenced to life imprisonment in a Colorado penitentiary for conducting an 18 year letter bomb campaign in which three people more or less connected with high tech industries died, and a number of others were injured. Kaczynski's demand was that his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, should be published in prominent US newspapers (1). It duly was published, in the New York Times and the Washington Post amongst others, in the hope that somebody would be able to identify the writer. That is indeed what happened: Kaczynski's brother recognized the style and reported his suspicions to the police.
It is customary, when quoting Kaczynski approvingly, to take pains to distance oneself from his terrorist activities. I will let readers make up their own minds about the ethics of his actions, just as they can make up their own minds about the moral responsibility of the scientists mentioned later in this article who carry out research for the US military, an organization which has bombed 21 countries since the second world war, and caused innumerable civilian deaths.
Kaczynski's 30,000 word manifesto starts out unpromisingly with a peevish attack on "leftists" (socialists, minority rights activists etc). This is followed by a lengthy chunk of pop psychology explaining how in industrial society the "effort needed to satisfy biological needs has been trivialized" and replaced by various surrogate activities whose purpose is to give people the sense of fulfilment they would otherwise lack. Typical surrogate activities include sports, art, scientific research or conspicuous consumption. None of this commentary is particularly wacky, and some of Kaczynski's observations are quite acute. But the reader may well start to wonder why he thought it was worth waging an 18 year bombing campaign to propagate it.
It is not until past the middle of the manifesto that Kaczynski has something more important to say:
"Suppose the industrial system survives the crisis of the next several decades. That being accomplished, it does not appear that there would be any further obstacle to the development of technology, and it would presumably advance towards its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms . . . Human freedom mostly will have vanished, because individuals and small groups will be impotent vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology and an arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools for manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance and physical coercion."
He then continues, in this much quoted passage:
" What kind of system will it be? We will consider several possibilities. First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained."
Kaczynski goes on to describe these two scenarios in greater detail. Kaczynski's bombing campaign, and the publication of his manifesto, successfully stimulated soul-searching analysis throughout the US media. Predictably representatives of the liberal establishment and most points to the near left made efforts to disassociate themselves from his actions and his views. Alexander Cockburn in The Nation accused him of "homicidal political nuttiness" and of peddling "a rotted out romanticism of the individual and of nature". Earth First! felt compelled to issue an ultimatum under the heading "Earth First! is Not the Unabomber" and called him a "lone sociopath." The Washington Post, less liable to guilt by association, carried the non-committal headline "Unabomber Manifesto Not Particularly Unique", which is a dismissive way of saying "Unabomber's Views Supported by Others".
What was more surprising was that an influential sector of the very scientific community which Kaczynski had been targeting started suggesting that he might have a point. As an ex-Harvard PhD, he was after all, one of them. The executive editor of Wired magazine, mouthpiece of Silicon Valley's digital elite, noted some method in his madness.
"This guy is a nerd. He is one of us. The [manifesto] is structured like a doctoral thesis, or those computer science papers with numbered graphs. Very tidy. Like the bombs."
And in 2003, in another famous article in Wired, entitled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", Bill Joy, head of Sun Microsystems argued that there was merit as well as method. Quoting the passage cited in the box above, he concluded:
"Kaczynski's actions were murderous and, in my view, criminally insane. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument; as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it."
Bill Joy came across the passage, not through reading the manifesto itself, but in book entitled The Age of Spiritual Machines, by another computer company executive, Ray Kurweil, who admits: "I was surprised how much of Kaczynski's manifesto I agreed with." Kurzweil has since published an updated version of his earlier book entitled The Singularity is Near, in which his response to Kaczynski, and to all who share fears about machines controlling humans, can be paraphrased as follows:
"You're right, but you have barely seen the half of it. The advances made by machines will go far further than you imagine. Humans will not merely be controlled by machines, they will become machines. It won't be as bad as you suggest, in fact it will be wonderful. Anyway, resistance is futile, so you might as well learn to like it."
Kurzweil is one of a growing swarm of cybertechnicians and theorists who call themselves as "transhumanists", "posthumanists" or "extropians" (ie they defy entropy). There is a bubbling subculture of them out on the web, on sites with names like "transutopia" or "anarcho-transhumanism.com" or even "transhumanism.meetup.com", which welcomes browsers who want to "meet other local transhumanists" with a picture of half a dozen middle-aged Americans sitting round a table in a bar.
But however cranky transhumanists may appear, they should not be underestimated. The pioneers mapping out this brave new world are either at top notch universities, working for the US military, or running cutting edge research and development corporations — and in some cases all three. Marvin Minsky, veteran artificial intelligence futurologist, is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he has received funding from the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Eric Drexler, who put nanotechnology on the map with his 1992 book Engines of Creation, is at Stanford University; Hans Moravec runs the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where he carries out work for DARPA; Ray Kurzweil has founded a number of companies specializing in computer speech recognition and is a member of the US Army Science Advisory Group; Rodney Brooks, author of Flesh and Machines, is Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT and runs a company called I-Robot which manufactures military robots for DARPA . . . and so on. Nearly all are American. The UK's leading transhumanists are rather effete by comparison: Nick Bostrom is in the faculty of philosophy at Oxford University and David Pearce, a transhumanist vegan, is also an Oxford philosopher.
Most of these guys go to extremes in their own particular field. In this article I have focused particularly on Kurzweil because his books provide a thorough and far-reaching synthesis of all these "converging technologies". They are written in a popular style, often blatantly sensationalist, but they are also copiously referenced, and by no means stupid.
GNR: The Transhumanist Programme
Transhumanists anticipate the development and convergence of an array of technologies which can be grouped under three headings: Genetics, Nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence (Robotics), or GNR for short. Convergence means that the distinction between biology, chemistry and mechanics — between live tissue (G), dead matter (N) and information (R) — will become increasingly blurred and finally disappear altogether. Kurzweil reckons that the convergence of this trinity will culminate in what he calls the "singularity", occurring around 2045 when "the non-biological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today."
Of the three, genetics, although it is currently the most debated, holds the least long-term promise. Recent advances in genetics include growing meat in test tubes from cloned animal muscle tissue; manipulating the germline to produce designer babies with disease resistance or enhanced intelligence; slowing down the ageing process by growing replacement or enhanced spare body parts from cloned human tissue.
However once techniques of this kind reach maturity, according to Kurzweil:
"limits will be encountered in biology itself. Although biological systems are remarkable in their cleverness, we have also discovered that they are dramatically suboptimal. I've mentioned the extremely slow speed of communication in the brain, and robotic replacements for our blood cells which could be thousands of times more efficient than their biological counterparts. Biology will never be able to match what we will be capable of engineering once we fully understand biology's principle of operation. The revolution in nanotechnology, however will ultimately enable us to design and rebuild, molecule by molecule, our bodies and brains and the world with which we interact."
By 2030 Kurzweil reckons we will have artificial organs which will outperform "the heart, lungs, red and white blood cells, platelets, pancreas, thyroid and all the hormone producing organs, kidneys, bladder, liver, lower oesophagus, stomach, small intestines, large intestines and bowel." Nanobots — nano-sized pre-programmed robots — will be circulating through our body repairing ageing parts and regulating the genetic code. Aside from the skeleton, all that is left at this point are "skin, sex organs, sensory organs, mouth and upper oesophagus and brain" — in short, the organs of sensory and intellectual consciousness which require more sophisticated engineering before they can be satisfactorily replaced.
As well as manipulating proteins in what remains of the human body, nanobots will also be employed as "assemblers" manipulating carbon and other molecules to fabricate absolutely anything we need out of dirt cheap feedstock. The problem here is that so many of these tiny robots will be required (literally trillions) that they will have to be self-replicating — ie programmed to assemble carbon copies of themselves. In other words they are analogous to a life form, and it is here that the famous "gray goo" scenario, first postulated by Drexler, and popularized in Bill Joy's article, comes into play:
"'Plants' with 'leaves' no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough omnivorous 'bacteria' could out-compete real bacteria. They could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days."
Kurzweil, like most transhumanists, admits this is a threat and advocates that nanobots should only be programmed to replicate on feedstock not found in the natural environment — which presumably would add to their expense.
The final and most profound element in the triune convergence is artificial intelligence. AI has two main competitive advantages over human intelligence: it is potentially far more powerful; and it can be uploaded onto another machine. Whereas the average human being, wishing to learn Latin for example, has to spend hours if not years learning to conjugate regular and irregular verbs in past, present, future and subjunctive tenses, a computer can upload the whole of Kennedy's Latin Primer, the Aenead, Caesar's Gallic Wars and everything else ever written in the language in a matter of seconds. The brain has the edge over the computer only because it's three dimensional architecture allows it to work with many more connections, giving it intuitive skills which make it more effective at recognizing patterns, for example in facial character, speech or patterns.
The transhumanists' initial answer is to copy the structure of the brain by a process they call "reverse engineering". This involves scanning and mapping the structure of the brain by "sending billions of nanobots through its capillaries" and copying it into "synthetic neural equivalents" which "can be run on a computational substrate that is already far faster than neural circuitry." Once computers achieve a human level of intelligence, they will necessarily soar past it, because nonbiological knowledge can be shared so quickly and easily.
The biological body, however, no matter how successfully enhanced, can never be more than "a second-class robot" .The final solution is to upload the human brain and consciousness — personality, memory, history, neuroses and all — so as to:
"reinstantiate those details into a suitably powerful computational substrate . . . The reinstantiated mind will need a body, since so much of our thinking is directed toward physical needs and desires. By the time we have the tools to capture and re-create a human brain with all of its subtleties, we will have plenty of options for twenty-first century bodies for both non-biological humans and biological humans who avail themselves of extensions to our intelligence. The human body version 2.0 will include virtual bodies in completely realistic virtual environments, nanotechnology-based physical bodies, and more."
Or, as Hans Moravec puts it, "a person may sometimes exist without a physical body, but never without the illusion of having one." And Kurzweil again:
"There will be no distinction between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it's simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations."
Landscapes of the Future
As humanity progresses down the path leading to transcendent nano-consciousness, the world as we know it becomes increasingly irrelevant. Human activity is gradually transformed, in Moravec's words
"from grossly physical homesteading of raw nature, to minimum-energy quantum transaction of computation. The final frontier will be urbanized, ultimately into an arena where every bit of activity is a meaningful computation: the inhabited portion of the universe will be transformed into cyberspace." (2)
The cities of the transhumanist future will be built not on real estate but virtual estate. Struggles against corporate or state enclosure will no longer focus just on land, but be fought around the architecture of cyberspace, in defence of the so-called "creative commons". The landscapes of the future will not be where we engage with nature for our survival, but the backdrop to an unending sequence of multi-media computer games, a geek's paradise. With this barren end to human endeavour in view, it becomes easier to understand why Kaczynski is so worked up about "surrogate activities".
It also explains why transhumanists are not exercised about global warming. The energy needed to power such minute information transactions is negligible, the feedstock required no more complex than a pile of atoms. Solar cells, says Drexler, will be "as cheap as newspaper and as tough as tarmac." What matter if the Earth's biodiversity is reduced by global warming to a desert of hot bare rock as it was at the end of the Permian age? That is a perfect environment for nanobot assemblers. Besides, the more degraded our biological environment becomes, through climate change or other catastrophe, the less human resistance there will be to a concerted attempt to conquer the nano-frontier.
To most of us, this sounds like the collective suicide of our biological species (along with the demise of a good many others) and it fleshes out the paradox delineated by C S Lewis in 1944 in his essay The Abolition of Man:
"The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning and by an education and propaganda based on perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won . . . But who, precisely will have won it? . . ."
"We are always conquering Nature, because 'Nature' is the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered. The price of conquest is to treat a thing as mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them: the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyse her. The wresting of powers from Nature is also the surrendering of things to Nature . . . Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man." (3)
There are other more modern critics of various elements of the transhumanist agenda — Francis Fukuyama and Bill McKibben for example (4) — but Lewis still offers the most distilled explanation of the revulsion which many people feel towards scientists who want to sacrifice humanity in their bid to play at being God.
Science Fact or Fiction?
Should take all this seriously? We have seen it all before in innumerable futurist and cyberpunk novels, and to their fans it is old hat. Is the transhumanist agenda really just third rate science fiction, dressed up as future fact? The US military and Ivy League colleges can no doubt afford to pay geeks to publish their techno-fantasies for no other reason than to provoke frissons and chatter amongst the scientific establishment.
Still more incredible is the claim from the likes of Ray Kurzweil, Max More and Hans Moravec that our
transubstantiation into virtual reality will be achieved around the middle of this century. Kurzweil predicts that the "profound and disruptive transformation in human capability" which he terms the "singularity" will occur in 2045. He argues, with the aid of dozens of graphs, that the development of technology follows an accelerating exponential curve. For example the number of bits of magnetic data that could be bought for a dollar has increased by an order of magnitude every five years or so since 1950. In 1990 a dollar would buy you a megabyte; in 1995 10 megabytes, in 2000 well over 100 megabytes, and in 2005 about 10,000 megabytes. If our capabilities increase at this logarithmic rate, Kurzweil argues, then within 40 years our universe will be "transformed into exquisitely sublime forms of intelligence."
These extrapolations are not entirely convincing. In reality anything can happen. The first unmanned spacecraft was Sputnik 1 in 1957. The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, blasted off only four years later in 1961. After another eight years, in 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. Since then, 39 years have elapsed, and humans have trod no further. In this case, the exponential curve has been in the opposite direction.
Moreover when Kurzweil makes short term predictions, he is often wrong. In 2005 he wrote:
"by the end of this decade, computers will disappear as distinct physical objects, with displays built in our eyeglasses, and electronics woven in our cloth providing full-immersion visual virtual reality. Thus 'going to a website' will mean entering a virtual-reality environment — at least for the visual and auditory senses — where we can directly interact with products and people. Although the simulated people will not be up to human standards — at least not by 2009 — they will be quite satisfactory."
Well it's 2008 and we are still some way off from all of this. No doubt it will come one day, but Kurzweil is either carried away by his own enthusiasm, or else considers that the best way to sell futurology is to compress the time frame so that readers sense that they might be affected within their lifetime.
But just because Kurzweil and other enthusiasts like to exaggerate, that does not mean that the transformation which they foresee will not occur eventually. Technology over the last decades may not have advanced towards "the singularity" at the speed that some transhumanists have anticipated but it is still moving in that direction at a brisk pace. The mapping of the human genome was completed in 2000, several years ahead of schedule (in sharp contrast to football stadiums and the like), "because DNA scanning technology grew at a double exponential rate" and at a lower cost than estimated. In the following year the number of patent applications in the field of cloning and stem cell research increased 300 per cent. The list of recent GNR developments on page 17 shows that humanity is advancing steadily towards transhumanist goals. There are tens of thousands of research scientist around the world working on such projects. The majority of them at present are in the United States, but in another decade there will be many more in China and India. We may not be rushing headlong at the speed which some hope for, but we are not exactly dawdling.
"Democratic Transhumanism"
The other reason why the transhumanist project needs to be taken seriously is that a second wave of commentators is emerging who are making the transhumanist agenda more palatable to a dominant liberal agenda that shuns extremists. James Hughes, author of the book Citizen Cyborg is an example. Whereas Drexler, Moravec, Kurzweil and the like revel in their role of maverick visionaries, Hughes couches his arguments in the language of liberal academia. He advocates "democratic transhumanism" as a middle way between the excesses of libertarian capitalist extropians and the "left-wing bio-Luddites". He reassures us that:
"Transhuman technologies can radically improve our quality of life and we have a fundamental right to use them to control our bodies and our minds. But to ensure these benefits we need to democratically regulate these technologies and make them equally available in free societies."
Hughes relies heavily on a specious form of politically-correct moral blackmail also advanced by the animal rights theorist Peter Singer (not to mention Hollywood sci-fi). It runs like this: Scientists will soon have the power to create or breed cyborgs — new life forms which are imbued with a high level of consciousnesss. To destroy, eat, enslave or discriminate against such sentient beings, were they alive, would be "human racist" (Singer's word is "speciesist", but "human racist" sounds more reprehensible). Since it is racist to prevent ethnic groups reproducing, it is "human racist" to prevent cyborgs being created.
The reverse argument is that it is precisely for this reason that reproductive human genetic modification should be stopped. The ability to reproduce sexually draws a clear line between one species and another — one of the few clear lines in nature — and it defines unambiguously what is human. Once we blur or destroy that line, in a biological world which runs on species eating and exploiting each other, we deal ourselves an ethical dilemma that no human (least of all a scientist) is sufficiently wise, or impartial, or authoritative to resolve.
Hughes doesn't subscribe to the "singularity", and the tone of the book suggests that he is wary of the more madcap proposals of extreme transhumanists. But a careful reading shows that he anticipates most of the developments that Kurzweil advocates, on only a slightly longer time scale. Technological advances, he says will be "sudden and dramatic", and he expects uploading of the human brain onto computers to occur "somewhere between 2050 and 2100". In fact Hughes's book is more disturbing than Kurzweil's precisely because it is further removed from science fiction. Its tone of politically correct moderation is designed to soften up policy-makers into accepting as safe and normal, what would once have been regarded as wacky. Next to appear will be text-books on transhumanism for undergraduates, which will give a "balanced" appraisal of the pros and coms and encourage fudged "non-extreme" conclusions that lead us further down the slippery slope.
Meanwhile, those who stand to benefit from the advance of the transhumanist agenda, the Frankenstein scientists and the cowboy corporations, are pushing, pushing, pushing at the boundaries of public opinion and policy. Those boundaries haven't yet been reached in the nano and robotics fields yet, but they are steadily being breached on the human genetics front. As the Human Fertlilization and Embryology Bill winds its way through the UK parliament, one scientist after another has been wheeled out to state the case for stem cell research and animal/human embryos, while the only opposition comes from the right to life lobby, whose understanding of the long term social and indeed spiritual issues at stake is close to zero. No MP has come forward with a secular critique of the Bill's measures.
Those of us who believe that it is not the mission of humanity to conquer the universe, but to co-evolve with the other species who share with us this special and wonderful planet, ought to be taking more notice and kicking up more of a fuss. Every step that gives scientists more control over nature and reproduction is a step towards the dire new world that the prophets of transhumanism have mapped out for us.
1. FC, Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future, Jolly Roger Press 1995. Several versions are on the internet.
2. Hans Moravec, "Pigs in Cyberspace", Extropy, Winter/Spring 1993.
3 The Abolition of Man is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm
4. F. Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future, Profile 2002; Bill McKibben, Enough, Bloomsbury, 2003.
Part 2 of this article, exploring why resistance to the transhumanist agenda from the green left has been restricted to GM crops, will be published in issue 6 of The Land.


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Introduction: Vaccination with formulations containing pneumococcal protein antigens such as pneumolysin toxoid (dPly) and histidine-triad protein D (PhtD) may extend serotype-related protection of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) against Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Methods: This phase II, multi-center, observer-blind trial conducted in Europe (NCT01204658) assessed 2 investigational vaccines containing 10 serotype-specific polysaccharide conjugates of PHiD-CV and either 10 or 30 mu g of dPly and PhtD each. Infants randomized 1:1:1:1 received 4 doses of PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD-10, PHiD-CV/c1Ply/PhtD-30, PHiD-CV, or 13-valent PCV (PCV13), co-administered with DTPa-HBV-IPV/Flib, at ages 2, 3, 4 and 12-15 months. Occurrences of fever >40.0 degrees C following primary vaccination with PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD vaccines compared to PHiD-CV (non-inferiority objective), dose superiority, safety and immunogenicity were assessed.
Results: 575 children received primary vaccination, and 564 booster vaccination. The non-inferiority objective was met; no fever >40.0 degrees C causally related to vaccination was reported during primary vaccination. Incidence of adverse events appeared similar between the 3 PHiD-CV groups. Serious adverse events were reported in 13, 9, 21 (1 related to vaccination), and 17 children in the PHiD-CV/c1Ply/PhtD-10, PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD-30, PHiD-CV, and PCV13 groups, respectively. PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD-30 was superior to PHiD-CV/c1Ply/PhtD-10 in terms of post-dose 3 anti-Ply and Anti-PhtD antibody levels. Anti-Ply and anti-PhtD antibody levels were higher in both PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD groups than in controls and increased from post-primary to post-booster timepoint. Post-primary and booster vaccination, for each PHiD-CV serotype, >= 98.5% of participants in PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD groups had antibody concentrations >= 0.2 mu g/mL, except for 6B (>= 72.3%) and 23 F (>= 82.7%) post-primary vaccination. Similar results were observed in the PHiD-CV group. Immune responses to protein D and DTPa-HBV-IPV/Hib were within similar ranges for the 3 PHiD-CV groups.
Conclusion: Both PHiD-CV/dPly/PhtD formulations co-administered with DTPa-HBV-IPV/Hib in infants were well-tolerated and immunogenic for dPly and PhtD antigens, while immune responses to serotype-specific, protein D and co-administered antigens did not appear altered in comparison to PHiD-CV group.


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Title and statement of responsibility area
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Monument at Sir Wilfrid Laurier's birthplace, St. Lin, Quebec
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1941 November 20 (Creation)
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- Unknown
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1 photograph : b&w ; 17 x 22 cm.
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Monument in dedication of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
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Located in box 7


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A blueprint for high-volume, high-quality lung cancer screening that is detecting cancer earlier—and helping to save lives
The best way to help physicians improve is to let other physicians show them the way, according to a study in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety. "Peer messengers… appropriately supported with ongoing training, high-quality data, and evidence of positive outcomes, are willing to intervene with colleagues over an extended period of time," the study states. "The physician peer messenger process reduces patient complaints...."
Those patient complaints are the foundation of the study "An Intervention Model That Promotes Accountability: Peer Messengers and Patient/Family Complaints."
Complaints were used in this study to identify underperforming doctors. At a time when patients face more choice and greater financial burden, the researchers say, "Patients and their families are well positioned to partner with health care organizations to help identify unsafe and dissatisfying behaviors and performance."
The complaints fell into to six categories: communication, concern for the patient, care and treatment, access and availability, environment, and billing.
The study, conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center from 2005 to 2009, involved training 178 physician messengers on the best ways to discuss problems with 373 peers who were considered at high risk of dissatisfactory or unsafe performance.
The physicians worked for seven academic and nine other medical centers in the United States. About 25,000 were either employed or associated in some other manner with the institutions.
The messenger physicians received eight hours of training on how to conduct interventions, emphasizing that messengers "share data in a respectful, nonpunitive, nonjudgmental, and nondirective fashion."
Most of the high-risk physicians (97%) accepted the feedback in a professional manner, and 64% were what the researchers called responders, that is, physicians who improved by at least 15%. The doctors whose scores worsened (17%) or remained unchanged were called "nonresponders."
"Responders were more often physicians practicing in medicine and surgery than emergency medicine physicians, had longer organizational tenures, and engaged in lengthier first-time intervention meetings with messengers," the study states. The overall mean and median percentage of reductions in patient complaints were 50% and 80% respectively. Not surprisingly, perhaps, one of the motivations for changing was fear of being sued.
Though highlighting the study's success, the authors also note that the problem might in fact be much worse because "many persons fear lodging a complaint about their physician's practice" and "unsolicited complaints surely represent the tip of an iceberg that may be 20 to 50 times the number of reports."
A blueprint for high-volume, high-quality lung cancer screening that is detecting cancer earlier—and helping to save lives
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Multiple Sclerosis: New Perspectives on the Patient Journey–2019 Update
Summary of an Actuarial Analysis and Report


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Did you miss Jim Penman at Celebrate Mooroolbark this year? Thanks to yarraranges.tv for capturing Mr Penman speaking about the beginnings of Jim's Mowing, you can hear it now!
If that's not enough, you can also view an interview with Jim on the yarraranges.tv website.
Did you take photos at the festival? We love to see them. You can post them onto our Facebook page or send them to email@example.com
Filed under: Celebrate Mooroolbark 2017 | Tagged: business, Celebrate Mooroolbark, community, customerservice, festival sponsors, Jim's Group, Jim's Mowing, Jim's TradeNet, jimpenman, Mooroolbark, mooroolbark festival, smallbusiness | Leave a comment »


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On-line version ISSN 0718-7181
FABRIZIO PINEDA, Adryan. Formation of Modern art in Colombia: Raising a Research Hypothesis. Aisthesis [online]. 2012, n.51, pp.93-107. ISSN 0718-7181. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-71812012000100006.
This paper presents a hypothesis about the formation of modern art in Colombia. Taking into account the concepts of ‹event› and ‹artworld›, it proposes to account for the formation of modern art as an effect of sense in the interrelationships between the level of the socio-historical transformations and the level of the uniqueness of a remarkable artistic production in the art history of the country.
Keywords : Modern art in Colombia; Sense; Event; Artworld; Institutions of Art.


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Detlev Vagts, 'Editorial Comment: Switzerland, International Law and World War II' (1997) American Society of International Law Vol. 91, No. 3, pp. 466-475.
The text is an editorial comment which appeared in The American Journal of International Law in 1997 while Vagts was Co-Editor-in-Chief. The article was written at a time of, and makes reference to, renewed interest in Swiss actions during the Second World War owing to growing attention to unclaimed deposits of holocaust victims in Swiss banks. The culmination of these investigations was the 'Swiss Banks' Settlement Agreement whereby two Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse agreed to pay out $1.25 billion to victims of the holocaust and their descendants. The text provides an informative account of Switzerland's actions during the Second World War from the perspective of international law. Covering the issues of Switzerland's territorial integrity, their trade dealings with both sides, the role the Swiss played as intermediaries, their refugee policy and the contentious financial dealings this text provides an illuminating and readable account of one of the country's most controversial periods.
Deltev Vagts has written widely on neutrality specifically in relation to the Second World War in his article Neutrality Law in World War II and more broadly in The Traditional Concept of Neutrality in a Changing Environment. More recently, amid a renewed interest in Switzerland's role in WWII, he provided the foreword for Herbert R. Reginbogin, 2009 book The faces of neutrality: A comparative analysis of the neutrality of Switzerland and other neutral countries during World War II.
In his Editorial Comment Switzerland, International Law and World War II, Professor Vagts examines the extent to which Switzerland's actions during World War II were compatible with International Law at the time. Particularly attention focuses on Switzerland's neutral status established at the Congress of Vienna in November, 1815. Vagts covers the areas of territorial integrity, trade, intermediaries, Swiss refugee policy and financial matters in view of Swiss neutrality. Not simply concerning himself with the legal basis for the country's actions Vagts also highlights the moral obligations that may have been expected of Switzerland and the immense difficulties the country faced in remaining neutral when surrounded on all sides by countries controlled by the Third Reich.
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The greatest asset of any successful professional organization is its people. This is no exception here at First Capital Financial where our team of Investment Funds Advisors and administrators have a combined 40 years plus of experience in Financial Services. Our Team knows Our Clients, ensuring that we deliver a highly personalized experience for each of our clients.
Our commitment is to our clients first and we look forward to helping you with all of your financial needs.


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How can inhalant abuse be recognized?
Early identification and intervention are the best ways to stop inhalant abuse before it causes serious health consequences. Parents, educators, family physicians, and other health care practitioners should be alert to the following signs:
- Chemical odors on breath or clothing
- Paint or other stains on face, hands, or clothes
- Hidden empty spray paint or solvent containers, and chemical-soaked rags or clothing
- Drunk or disoriented appearance
- Slurred speech
- Nausea or loss of appetite
- Inattentiveness, lack of coordination, irritability, and depression
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Cite this article
NIDA. (2012, July 1). Inhalants. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/inhalants
Research Reports
This series of reports simplifies the science of research findings for the educated lay public, legislators, educational groups, and practitioners. The series reports on research findings of national interest.


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A revived visual identity signed Swoo
Hector Larivée, a pillar in the Quebec food industry, gave Swoo the mandate to give a breath of fresh air to his graphic design as well as his website.
Authentic design in harmony with the mission of the family business
Without compromising the visual identity of the company, witch is well known in the industry, the graphic redesign of communication tools aimed to reaffirm the foundations of the brand: Quality and freshness of the product.
A new adaptive digital platform serving users
The website has been designed to simplify the purchase process, no matter what type of device is use for the transaction. From the computer to the cell phone, via the tablet, the design is always optimized.


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Resolution Retreat – 3 week Life Changer Retreat, April 2017
SOLD OUT I will be running a half day workshop at the next 3 week Life Changer event with Resolution Retreat in the beautiful tranquil hills of the Bay of Plenty.
The Three Week Life-Changer focuses on education and changing mindsets. Everyday on the Retreat you will be involved in activities that will challenge your previous lifestyle choices. Less physically demanding than the Ten Day Intensive, but still incredibly effective, there will be more time for relaxation and pampering, so not only will we have you leaving looking great but also feeling rejuvenated
Women's three week life changer, Weight Loss, Health and Wellness Retreat – 14th April – 4th May 2017
There are limited places left, so if you are interested – find out more here>>


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The New Zealand Tap Lamp Company is the sole brainchild of Gareth Donnelly, who first discovered his love for working with metals as an apprentice with the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
He developed his passion for engineering art whilst living and working in Germany, France, Wales, and during many years in New Zealand. Gareth is a remarkably creative individual, having amassed an impressive range of constructive skills. He sculpts, welds, uses marvellously ancient lathes and equipment with nothing less than affectionate devotion.
In short, he loves his craft, and this shows in his handiwork. Using only the finest recycled and new materials and utilising handcraft skills passed down from the Victorian Era, and combined with 21st Century American made electronic components complying with the most rigorous American standards, these Tap Lamps are made to last.
Non-lead based enamels and lacquers only are used in the finishing process,
and all bronze and brass metals are carefully coated with a clear gloss
varnish. As a final touch of class, each Gareth Donnelly Tap Lamp comes
replete with its own solid brass identification plate, certifying that
you, the proud owner, have an authentic original indeed.
Home - Portfolio of Lamps - Featured Lamp - Useful Links - Company Details - Contact Details


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Free shipping in the USA (lower 48) when your order is over $89 (excluding gift certificates and sales tax, if applicable).
In Stock. Alfred's Drum Method has been combined with a pair of sticks and a practice pad to make the ultimate starter kit for aspiring drummers. This title is available in SmartMusic.
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Cinnamon buns, cinnamon rolls (whatever you call them): just when you thought they couldn't get any better, you find a recipe like this. I got the idea to add fruit to cinnamon buns for a roasted banana cinnamon bun recipe I found around Father's Day and made for our Father's Day breakfast. The filling was out of this world, but the recipe suggested one use canned Pillsbury french bread dough, a suggestion I took even though I knew I should have known better. Lesson learned.
On a recent day off, I treated myself to a nice morning of sleeping in and preparing a tasty breakfast (brunch, really) spread of sweet blueberry cinnamon buns and crispy, salty homefries. This time, I made my own dough. I've done this before with varying degrees of success. Yeast doesn't like me all that much, you see, and often decides not to work–despite being newly purchased, stored in a warm place, and married with liquids of a proper temperature–just to spite me. Usually my cinnamon roll dough doesn't rise. It still tastes good, it's just kind of thin and more pastry than bread. But this one rose, yay! All joking aside, dough-making is very temperamental and if you want to use the Pillsbury dough instead I will not mock you–I will only suggest that you use two tubes of the stuff.
And as for the homefries–what can I say? I like my homefries crispy, salty, full of onion flavor, and just barely tasting of potato, so I find these perfect. They are not quite as good as my dad's–he makes the BEST homefry style potatoes–but they are pretty darn close. An overall excellent breakfast (and life) choice.
Blueberry Cinnamon Buns
(adapted from one of my foremost food gurus, Alton Brown's, Overnight Cinnamon Rolls recipe)
- 4 large egg yolks, room temperature
- 1 large whole egg, room temperature
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 6 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, room temperature
- 6 ounces milk, heated to 120 degrees
- 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting
- 1 package rapid rise yeast
- 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- Vegetable oil or cooking spray
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch salt
- 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 C fresh blueberries, washed and dried
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, combine 2 C of flour, salt, sugar, and yeast, mixing well. In a small saucepan (or glass measuring cup and the microwave), heat milk until it reaches the temperature recommended on the back of the yeast packed, usually 110-130 degrees F. Add milk and melted butter to dry mixture and beat on low to combine. Add eggs one at a time and beat until fully incorporated.
- Remove whisk attachment from mixer and attach dough hook. Add all but 3/4 C of the remaining flour and knead on low for 5 minutes, or until dough is no longer sticky. Add more flour if necessary.
- Turn dough out onto floured work surface and knead by hand for 30 seconds. Lightly oil a large bowl and store dough in bowl, covered with plastic wrap or a damp dish towel, until dough has doubled in volume, 2-2 1/2 hours.
- While dough is rising, combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Mix well and set aside.
- Once dough has risen, remove from bowl and roll into an 18″x12″ rectangle (the long side should be facing you). Brush dough with melted butter, leaving about a half an inch of space along the top seam. Sprinkle filling over dough, leaving about a 3/4″ boarder at the top. Sprinkle blueberries over filling and press lightly into dough and sugar mixture, mashing gently with a fork if desired.
- Roll the dough into a tight cylander, beginning with the side closest to you and rolling upward. Pinch the seam and roll the cylander so that the seam is facing down. Squeeze gently to create a constent thickness throughout. Using a serrated or very sharp knife, cut cylander into 12 pieces. Arrange in a greased 9″x13″ baking dish, cover, and let rise for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. When rolls have risen, uncover and bake 25 minutes, or until golden but slightly gooey inside. Let cool and cover with icing, which can be made by combining 2 C of confectioner's sugar with milk or water, which should be added a few drops at a time until a thick glaze is achieved (think the consistency of the icing that comes with the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls).
Best Homefries
- 1 large or 2 medium russet potato
- 1 very small yellow onion, diced
- Vegetable oil
- Kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp. chili powder
- Cook potato(es) in microwave or oven until just the slightest bit underdone. Let cool, remove skin, and large dice.
- Heat 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onions and sautee with a pinch of salt until translucent.
- Raise heat to medium high and add potatoes, sprinkling with chili powder and 1 tsp. salt. Allow potatoes to cook (without touching!) for at least five minutes, or until they have developed a very crisp bottom layer. Flip and repeat on opposite side. Flip again or add more oil if a crunchier texture is desired.
- Remove from heat and sprinkle liberally with additional salt before serving.


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Presuppositional Blindness
I was recently interacting with a person who stated: "I do not know what the real story of 9-11 is, but I am confident that the official story is bogus. I would be happy to debate the issue, but I am confident that nobody will take up my offer since it would only dignify a "nut-ball" position."
As an aside, I immediately took up his offer. It's an easily winnable debate. How do I know?
I was, like many, initially skeptical that the official reports were generally correct. I watched the "squibs" of dust on the Loose Change video, and reviewed the many analyses of the various data. I read many skeptical reports, and saw the far left and the Libertarian and Anarchist right responses to the official report.
Then, I dug deeper. I spoke with a civil engineer who had the same initial reaction of "How on earth could a building fall down like that," but who was persuaded by the explanation provided. I spoke with a person who actually saw the plane fly into the side of the Pentagon. I reviewed the detractors' articles, and then reviewed the source materials.
You know what I found? Most of the detractors (not all, certainly) were willing to distort the evidence, truncate quotations, change quotations, assert scientific falsehood, and maintain not just unproven but disproven hypotheses.
In speaking with the person whom I've quoted above, one favorite tactic was to take a quotation from Mr. Silverstein (a leaseholder of the WTC complex), alter the quotation and then take it out of context! I was absolutely flabbergasted, because this man is someone who is ordinarily not just rational and cogent, but intelligent and respectable. I've enjoyed, over the years, listening to what this man has explained and reading the articles he has written. I have immense respect for this man.
I could not figure out why he would treat the evidence with such open disregard. After all, his distortions were easily identifiable. The quotation was taken from a documentary that aired on PBS in September 2002, and at least one person legally recorded the quotation and its immediate context and posted it to the Net. All I had to do was provide a link, and Mr. Silverstein could be heard, and - for part of the quotation - seen saying what he actually said.
Then, later in the discussion, a third party asked one of the frequently asked questions that one sees, because of the many deceptive web sites that claim that there are unanswered questions. The person's question related to the mechanics of the collapse, an issue that was dealt with in great depth by the NIST report on the topic, and dealt with in summary form on various web sites.
I had commented that the only way to discard the scientific arguments is essentially to have a severe prejudice against the government.
One part of the commenter's response was striking: "'Severe prejudice' might better read 'prudent presupposition,' given the history of our government and most others."
Leaving aside the prudence of the presupposition, I think the commenter hit the nail on the head.
The denial of 9/11 is, for many people, presuppositional. No amount of evidence will dissuade them from their tenacious denial of the facts that a group of Muslim terrorists killed thousands of people and damaged or destroyed several large buildings. There are confessions of the terrorists. There is both documentary and image evidence of the terrorists preparing for the attack and boarding the planes. There are a myriad of witnesses who actually saw the planes hit their targets. And so on, and so forth.
One of the other commenters on this same thread wrote (regarding me): "TF — I get the feeling that nothing short of a full and public confession by the responsible parties would convince you." I was amazed. In fact, we do have a fairly full and reasonably public confession by the responsible party (Al Qaeda). Yet, even THAT is not enough to convince the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
That's when I realized why the conspiracy theorists rarely agree to debate the topic, normally avoid structured debates when they do debate the topic, and inevitably lose the debates when they do debate the topic in any structured way: their position is based on presupposition.
Presuppositions are important and useful, as long as they are correct. I am a presuppositionalist, and my presuppositions are correct. I presuppose that God exists, that He revealed Himself in His Word, and that He is True to His Word. From those presuppositions I derive my doctrine and worldview. If someone wants to debate the existence of God, I can demolish their arguments against God's existence, but I cannot positively prove my presuppositions. I can explain the usual arguments for the existence of God, including the intuitive "first cause" and "source of meaning" arguments. Nevertheless, these will only be persuasive if the person already shares my presuppositions, or if God opens their eyes to the truth.
The same is somewhat the case here as well. While the presuppositions against the U.S. government may not be as fundamental as religious presuppositions, these men have real presuppositions that should be identified and stated. The masking of these presuppositions is a great evil.
Dr. James White, a Reformed Baptist elder, likes to say that the person who denies that he has traditions is the greatest slave to them. It's a bit glib, but it is generally accurate. People who do not recognize what their presuppitions are, are to a large extent blind. The result is that they can deceive themselves, and deceive those around them. They can leave gaping holes in their arguments without even recognize that the hole exists.
This is why you see comments like this one: "I do not know what the real story of 9-11 is, but I am confident that the official story is bogus." Someone does not recognize, or is unwilling to state, his own presupposition that if something really bad happens, wickedness on the part of the government (or a puppeteer behind the government) is behind it. Even though this person recognizes that there is no coherent alternative to the official story, and even though this person cannot disprove the official story, this person is absolutely convinced that the official story cannot be true.
As such, to a limited extent, this otherwise cogent, intelligent, rational, God-fearing man is blind. He cannot see the evidence because he has already decided the issue as a matter or presupposition. He himself made the comparison between his failure to accept the evidence presented in the extensive and detailed government reports and the failure of unbelieving Jews to accept the evidence of the New Testament. I think it may be too harsh a comparison against him, because I - presuppositionally - have some hope that a regenerate man (like himself) could be fully reasonable on such matters.
But I'll tell you what doesn't help: posts like this one that call 9/11 conspiracy theorists "nut-balls," and that ridicule them. I know many intelligent, reasonable people who spin out conspiracy theories. Mocking them is not a serious response, and saying that the ridiculous deserves ridicule is not a kind and merciful remark. It does not show love.
I am happy to discuss the evidence with 9/11 conspiracy theorists, but I think the bigger point that they need to recognize is that they believe what they believe not because of the evidence, but because of their presuppositions.
And its not just a lesson for 9/11 conspiracy theorists but for others as well. If you presuppose that Joseph Smith or Mohammed was a prophet of God, or that Vatican II was a council of the godly you will reach certain conclusions regarding doctrine that are not driven by the Word, but by presupposition. If presuppose that man's destiny is not fixed in stone, you will arrive at a different conclusion from reading Scripture than if you discard that presupposition.
If you cannot identify your own presuppositions, you are - at least to some degree - blind, no matter how wise you are in general. May God enable all of us, this author included, to more clearly see our presuppositions, and to more clearly identify those presuppositions to those with whom we interact.


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6 Acts To Watch Out For At The Malta Jazz Festival
1. Snarky Puppy
Having performed with the likes of Snoop Dogg and Justin Timberlake, this Texas-based ensemble certainly goes against the elitist associations jazz still carries with it. Made up of a rotating band of merry musicians – all glued together by their bassist, composer and producer Michael League – and with a total of 11 albums and two Grammy Awards to their name, their should be a show to remember. Or at least enjoy immensely.
2. Oliver Degabriele Trio
The wiry and likeable double-bassist Oliver Degabriele has had his agile fingers stuck in a number of important musical pies over the past few of years. Dividing his time between Malta and Paris, he is a founding member of bands like Brikkuni, Etnika, Akale Wube and Festen.
Now, he's brought along his former Brikkuni colleagues Manuel Pulis (drums) and Jimmy Bartolo (guitar) with him for this upcoming Jazz Festival gig. Promising to give some rock energy to their interpretation of both classics and originals, the trio will be joined by French saxophonist Damien Fleau for the show.
3. Harold López-Nussa
Coming from a musical family, Harold López-Nussa has since become an award-winning jazz pianist in his own right, bursting out of his native Cuba after gaining international attention at the Montreux Jazz Piano Competition in 2005. He is now the leader of a trio with his younger brother, drummer Ruy Adián López-Nussa and Senegalese bassist Alune Wade, and also composes music for films.
4. Omer Avital
The word on the street is that this highly acclaimed Israeli virtuoso is responsible for putting his country on the jazz map. Having lived in New York since 1992, Avital combines his native country's sounds with Western rhythms, a mix that has gone down a treat with fans and critics alike.
5. Marcus Roberts
After losing his sight at age five, Marcus Roberts started teaching himself to play the piano, and took his first formal lesson only when he was 12. He's since become an accomplished musician at the top of his field, performing with orchestras worldwide.
6. The Fringe Youth Jazz Ensemble
It doesn't get much fresher than this. Artistic Director Sandro Zerafa has assembled a medium-sized jazz ensemble made up of the best Maltese musicians, along with some talent from France. Come watch them take the plunge!
For more info and a full programme, log on to the festival's site.


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Dental Treatment Of Sleep Apnea
People with sleep apnea tend to stop breathing periodically as they sleep. Throughout the night, they may suffer from hundreds of episodes in which their breathing is paused before restarting. These pauses can cause poor sleep quality. In addition, tissues of the body may suffer from oxygen deprivation.
Severe forms of sleep apnea are often treated using a CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure machine. The device, which includes a mask, blows a continuous stream of air toward the patient's nose to encourage continuous breathing. Additional types of treatment may include the removal of the tonsils or adenoids. However, people who have a mild case of sleep apnea may not have to suffer the discomfort of wearing a CPAP machine nightly or undergoing an invasive procedure. Dental options may help. Here is a bit of information to help you understand how dentistry is used in the treatment of sleep apnea:
How is dentistry used to treat sleep apnea?
As a person with sleep apnea falls into a deep sleep, the lower jaw may relax, and the soft tissues of the mouth may collapse to obstruct the airway. A dental appliance may be prescribed to help keep the jaw in a forward position that discourages the collapse of oral tissues.
Unlike the CPAP machine, which must be worn over the face, an oral appliance used in the treatment of sleep apnea is simply worn like a mouth guard.The appliance should be worn whenever the patient sleeps, but since it is customized to the individualized contours of the patient's mouth, the device is typically quite comfortable.
What are some of the benefits of a dental device to treat sleep apnea?
In addition to the comfort and lack of invasiveness, sleep apnea patients who are treated with an oral appliance enjoy:
- convenience during travel due to the small size of the appliance
- silence during use of the appliance
- uncomplicated wear
What can you expect from your dentist?
Your dentist will examine your mouth thoroughly and perform x-rays to reveal details of your oral structure. To develop a suitable oral appliance, he or she will also obtain an impression of your mouth. The impression is used by the dental laboratory to construct a customized appliance that fits comfortably. When the appliance returns from the lab, your dentist will perform a final fitting for maximum comfort and effectiveness.
If you suffer from sleep apnea and would like to determine if an oral appliance is suitable for you, schedule a consultation with a dentist like Jacob L. Revercomb DMD.