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By Malalai Joya
Like millions of Afghans, I have no hope in the results of today's election. In a country ruled by warlords, occupation forces, Taliban terrorists, drug money and guns, no one can expect a legitimate or fair vote. Even international observers have been speaking about widespread fraud and intimidation and, among the people on the street, there is a common refrain: the real winner has already been picked by the White House.
President Hamid Karzai has cemented alliances with brutal warlords and fundamentalists in order to maintain his position. Although our constitution forbids war criminals from running for office, the incumbent has named two notorious militia commanders as his vice-presidential running mates – Karim Khalili and Mohammad Qasim Fahim, both of whom stand accused of brutalities against our people.
Deals have also been made with countless fundamentalists. This week saw the return from exile of the dreaded warlord Rashid Dostum. And the pro-Iranian extremist Mohammad Mohaqiq, who has been accused of war crimes, has been promised five cabinet positions for his party in exchange for supporting Mr Karzai.
Rather than democracy, what we have in Afghanistan are back-room deals among discredited warlords who are sworn enemies of democracy and justice.
The President has also continued to absolutely betray the women of Afghanistan.
Even after massive international outcry – and brave protesters taking to the streets of Kabul – Mr Karzai implemented the infamous rape law, targeting Shia women, to gain support of the fundamentalist elements in the election. He had initially promised to review the most egregious clauses, but in the end it was passed with few amendments and the barbaric anti-women statements not removed. As Human Rights Watch recently stated: "Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists."
And the two main challengers to a continuation of the Karzai rule do not offer any change. Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah are both former cabinet ministers in this discredited regime and neither has a real, broad footing among the people.
Mr Abdullah, as the main candidate of fundamentalist warlords, has run a wide campaign with money he is receiving from the Iranian regime. He and some of the Northern Alliance commanders supporting him have threatened unrest if he loses the vote, raising fears of a return to the rampant violence and killing that marked the civil war years of the 1990s.
All of the major candidates' speeches and policies are very similar. They make the same sweet-sounding promises, but we are not fooled. Afghans remember how Mr Karzai abandoned his campaign pledges after winning the 2005 vote.
We Afghans know that this election will change nothing and it is only part of a show of democracy put on by, and for, the West, to legitimise its future puppet in Afghanistan. It seems we are doomed to see the continuation of this failed, mafia-like, corrupt government for another term.
The people of Afghanistan are fed up with the rampant corruption of Karzai's "narco-state" (his own brother, Wali Karzai, has been linked to drug trafficking in Kandahar province) and the escalating war waged by Nato. In May of this year, US air strikes killed approximately 150 civilians in my native province, Farah.
More than ever, Afghans are faced with powerful internal enemies – fundamentalist warlords and their Taliban brothers-in-creed – and the external enemies occupying the country.
Democracy will never come to Afghanistan through the barrel of a gun, or from the cluster bombs dropped by foreign forces. The struggle will be long and difficult, but the values of real democracy, human rights and women's rights will only be won by the Afghan people themselves.
So do not be fooled by this façade of democracy. The British and other Western governments that claim to be bringing democracy to Afghanistan ignore public opinion in their own countries, where growing numbers are against the war.
In my tours to countries that have troops in Afghanistan, I've met many bereaved parents who have lost their loved ones in the war in my home. I am very sorry to see governments putting the lives of their soldiers in danger in Afghanistan in the name of bringing democracy. In fact the soldiers are serving the strategic and regional interests of the White House and the consequences of their occupation so far have been devastating for my people.
I believe that if the ordinary folk of Afghanistan and the Nato countries were able to vote, and express their wishes, this indefinite military occupation would come to an end and there would be a real chance for peace in Afghanistan. But today's election does nothing for that.
The writer is an Afghan politician. In 2005, she became the youngest person to be elected to the new parliament, representing Farah province. Her new book Raising My Voice is out now.


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Making a Wreath Out of Peeps
Peeps used to be good for eating, as far as I knew. Those sugar-covered marshmallow birdies were a seasonal treat that came around every spring, and then went on sale after Easter. That, of course, means that a lot of us (including me) grew up eating Peeps not before, but after Easter, when they were 99 cents per pack at CVS. They tasted even better when they were a bit stale and crunchy; don't ask me why, and I know that's gross.
Peeps, unlike their contemporary, candy cigarettes, survived the ages and are still as popular as ever. The DIY crafting movement, it seems, is fueling their popularity. Also, it doesn't hurt that all things nostalgically twee are in vogue. What could be more cute, and slightly ironic, than neon colored marshmallow bunnies and birds?
A few crafty craftsters on Hometalk.com posted photos of their wreaths made of Peeps. "Well this is just the cleverest thing I've seen," thought I, and proceeded to write this here article. When I think of wreaths, I totally think of...marshmallows. No, I don't, which is what makes a wreath made of Peeps so cool. Make one of these before everyone else does. If you wait too long, you'll have to make your wreath out of saltwater taffy. Wait, that's actually a good idea.
Kelly (a DIY remodeler in NYC) from Eclectically Vintage posted her awesome yellow Peeps wreath on Hometalk. You can also check out her full blog post about how to make a wreath out of Peeps. Basically, the process is like this: You take a Styrofoam wreath, and you stick Peeps all over it with toothpicks. This is one of the many household uses for toothpicks. Then you hang it up with a ribbon, tied with a bow. Obviously, you don't need to be a professional carpenter to do this project, which also makes it cool.
If you are reading this in syndicate, now would be a great time to click over to the original article on Networx.com so that you can see the great big picture of Kelly's Peeps wreath that I'm posting below. Ready, set, get crafting!
Chaya Kurtz writes for Networx.com. Thanks to Kelly from Eclectically Vintage.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Cold callers, self-service checkouts and hand-wash only clothes - life's biggest time-wasters
Caffeine-free tea and coffee, automated telephone systems, soap operas and TV ads also feature in the top 50 list.
Social media also looms large as a 'time vampire' - including aimless tweeting, pointless videos and instant messaging at work instead of speaking to colleagues.
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdScrolling through Facebook five minutes after the last check, and waiting for YouTube videos to buffer also feature in the list.
The average Brit claims to waste one hour and 42 minutes of their precious time every day, and wishes they could spend it doing more useful things such as getting jobs done around the house and pursuing hobbies and interests.
That's the equivalent of almost of 12 hours a week wasted on things such as playing mind-numbing games likes Candy Crush, hangovers and purchasing coffee on the go.
The study shows the average person spends hours of their day waiting - for people to call back, parcels to arrive, delayed trains, pages to loads on the computer, queuing, food to defrost and the washing machine cycle to finish.
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdFor those respondents with families, much time is spent arguing over homework, booking doctors' appointments and cleaning the house only to watch everyone trash it again five minutes later.
Packing a shopping trolley, unpacking it onto a conveyor belt, packing into shopping bags and then unpacking again is also something which grates many.
Untangling ear phones, removing a ridiculous amount of packaging from a small item and browsing properties online which you have no intention of buying also feature on the list.
In fact, the average person reckons they waste at least one whole day a week at work, and could save an hour a day in the workplace if they didn't have to deal with unnecessary meetings and phone calls.
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdWhile most people admit to wasting an hour and 24 minutes using social media and surfing the internet every day.
1.Cold callers
2.Adverts before you can watch any video / TV online
3.Trying to get through to call centres
4.Having to enter a series of numbers on a telephone key pad before being able to talk to a human
5.Sitting in traffic jams
6.Automated telephone systems
7.Queuing for ages
8.People asking questions because they're too lazy to look up the answer themselves
9.Meetings which could just have easily taken place over the telephone
10.Unnecessary packaging for the smallest of items
11.Waiting for a call back
12.Trying to remember your passwords and log in details
13.TV adverts
14.Self-service checkouts where you always need assistance
15.Trying to book a doctor's appointment
16.Waiting for a parcel to arrive
17.Home insurance phone calls
18.Waiting for delayed trains
19.Waiting for pages to load on the computer
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad20.Scrolling through Facebook five minutes after you last checked it
21.Watching soap operas
22.Worrying about what might happen
23.Having to return items to a shop that don't fit
24.Spending a day being hungover and not doing anything
25.Waiting for public transport
26.Waiting in line at the post office
27.Clothes which are hand-wash only
28.Playing mind numbing games like Candy Crush
29.Dusting only for the dust to settle again
30.Watching pointless videos on social media
31.Commuting to work
32.Tweeting about nothing in particular
33.Cleaning the house, only to watch the family trash it five minutes later
34.Instant messaging at work when you could just speak to each other
35.Packing a shopping trolley, unpacking onto a conveyor belt, packing into shopping bags and unpacking again
36.Waiting for YouTube videos to buffer
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad37.Looking at pictures of people you don't even know on social media
38.Caffeine free tea and coffee
39.Weak tea bags
40.Untangling ear phones for them to get tangled again
41.Waiting for food to defrost
42.Watching television repeats
43.Waiting for the washing machine cycle to finish
44.Taking hundreds of photos to try and get the perfect selfie
45.Going out to buy coffee when you could simply have one at home or work
46.Browsing holidays online that you can't afford
47.Clients/customers that won't listen to you
48.Browsing properties online that you never plan to buy
49.The inevitable arguments with the children before the homework is finally done
50.Trying on things you can't afford


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You need a personal assistant
Your to do list is dragging you down. Why do tasks that do not inherently enhance the quality of your life when you could pay someone $10 and hour to do them? I learned this when my boss and I had our new computers set up at our homes. I stayed at home all day waiting for the technical person to arrive and then worked the weekend to catch up. My boss had his assistant wait at home and he got more done than I did without even having to work the weekend. Day after day I watched my boss get twice as much done as I did until I hired my own personal assistant — and after that, I looked at the tasks of daily life in a different light.
We each have big goals in our life and all big goals take time: Growing a successful career, being a good spouse, and climbing Mt. McKinley. None of these grand goals requires you to pick up the dry cleaning yourself.
Each time you do a mindless task yourself you make a statement about the value of your time. If you had an extra hour with your kids, would it be worth $10? If you had an extra hour at the office could you increase the value of your output to make up for the $10 (think: raise down the line). If you're spending a significant part of your day doing tasks that are not integral to your life goals, then you're wasting your time.
Your first thought should always be, "Do I need to do this myself?" How does a CEO create value that's bigger than herself? She has other people doing the work so she can think about big picture issues. (And in fact, you are probably a person doing this CEOs work. More incentive for you to act like the CEO of your life and pass off the slough.) If you want to create something big you need to hire people to help you.
So why doesn't everyone have a personal assistant that they hired from the local university? Heck, a fourteen year old could do half the tasks on most lists. (In fact, the first university student I hired used to sub-contract my tasks to his fraternity brothers, which I accepted as evidence of how little training it took to do my tasks.)
Some people overestimate the difficulty of tasks and underestimate the frustration impact. They say, "Training the person would take longer than doing it myself." HEL-LO!?!?! Did anyone train you to call the insurance company to complain about a bill? No. It's trial and error. So your assistant can learn himself. Even five calls would only cost you less than $10. But if you did the five calls to the insurance company yourself you'd be angry and frustrated for the next two hours.
Some people overestimate the importance of a task. They say, "The person would never do it how I want." But so what? You're not giving the core of your life to the assistant. You're not saying, for example, "Can you climb Mt. McKinely for me?" You're asking for something like food shopping. So let's say the assistant buys the wrong bread and forgets pasta. Is having the right food in the house integral to your life goals? The answer is probably No. You can eat pancakes instead of pasta. It's a small price to pay to have enough time to meet your life goals.
A time optimist does not use an assistant because she says, "It'll take me more time to ask the assistant to do the task than to do the task myself." This person misunderstands time. Buying movie tickets, for example takes ten minutes on the phone, but it takes only one minute to ask an assistant to do it. If you make the choice to spend the 10 minutes doing it yourself seven times a day, you've wasted an hour of your time.
If you are currently employed don't tell me you don't have enough money. Think of yourself as a small business, and follow the basic rules of running a business: You have to reinvest profits (your salary) back into the business (your career) if you want to see growth (your promotion). No matter how much you earn, as long as you can cover basic life necessities (food, clothes, housing — not sailing lessons) a portion of your profits should go back into your business.
Learning to use an assistant effectively is not easy — it takes practice. But using an assistant now, for your personal tasks, your will train yourself to effectively leverage the personal assistant you get from your employer when you get promotion after promotion from being so intently focused on your goals.


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Pentagon shifting $1.5 billion to border wall construction
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is shifting $1.5 billion in funds originally targeted for support of the Afghan security forces and other projects to help pay for construction of nearly 80 miles of wall at the U.S.-Mexican border, officials said Friday.
Congress was notified of the move Friday. It follows the Pentagon's decision in March to transfer $1 billion from Army personnel budget accounts to support wall construction. Some lawmakers have been highly critical of the Pentagon shifting money not originally authorized for border security.
The combined total of $2.5 billion is in response to President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border, where Customs and Border Protection personnel are struggling to cope with increasing numbers of Central American families attempting to gain entry. Trump vetoed Congress' attempt to reverse his emergency declaration.
In all, the Pentagon is expected to shift about $6.1 billion to help build a border wall, including about $3.6 billion from military construction projects, some of which will be delayed. The Pentagon has not yet announced which projects will be delayed in order to free up those funds.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who plans to visit the border on Saturday, said in an exchange with reporters Friday: "I won't be reprogramming any more money for the border wall." He appeared to be referring to having reached the goal of channeling $2.5 billion - Friday's announcement coupled with the March transfer of money - into a counterdrug program that will be used for the wall.
"We have very smart people here in the department, and we found ways to do this without having any impact on readiness," he said, speaking before a meeting with Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks.
Later, a Pentagon spokesman, Tom Crosson, said the $1.5 billion would be used to "undertake fence replacement" in and around Tucson, Arizona, and El Centro, Texas.
In a written statement announcing the shift of the $1.5 billion, Shanahan that the Pentagon is "fully engaged" in fixing the border crisis. He said the $1.5 billion he authorized to be transferred toward wall construction was drawn from a variety of sources, "including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements, and therefore will have minimal impact on force readiness."
Some in Congress, however, are opposed to the use of Pentagon funds to build the wall.
"Once again, the president has shamefully ignored his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and stolen $1.5 billion in Pentagon funds to pay for his ineffective border wall," said Rep. John Garamendi, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee.
"The Pentagon has now reprogrammed 12 times more money to the wall than for repairs for Tyndall AFB, destroyed by Hurricane Michael. We should put troops first!" Sen. Richard Durbin wrote on Twitter. He was referring to storm damage at the Air Force base in Florida where almost every building was damaged.
In its written notification to Congress, the Pentagon said it was moving the $1.5 billion to support "higher priority items based on unforeseen military requirements than those for which" the funds were originally provided by Congress. The move is "necessary in the national interest," it added, according to a copy of the notice obtained by The Associated Press.
To piece together the $1.5 billion for additional wall construction, the Pentagon is shifting funds from several programs where it says it found savings.
The biggest chunk, $604 million, is from the Afghan Security Forces Fund, which keeps the Afghan army and other security forces afloat. A standard review of the fund's contract management found the $604 million in savings, according to two defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that were not included in the Pentagon's public announcement.
Removing the $604 million means the Afghan Security Forces Fund in the current Defense Department budget is reduced from the $4.9 billion approved by Congress to about $4.3 billion. The Pentagon said the contract management review that found the $604 million in savings was conducted between September 2018 and March 2019 by the U.S. military command in Kabul.
An additional $251 million was shifted from a yearslong project to destroy lethal chemical agents and chemical munitions in order to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention. $344 million is being taken from a group of Air Force programs, where the Pentagon identified contract savings, and $224 million is being used from savings related to a military retirement system, the officials said.
The Pentagon also is taking $78 million from the Coalition Support Fund, which is money used to reimburse coalition partners - mainly Pakistan - for logistical and military support for American military operations.


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Hopefully, Jay-Z is working on a double CD, because a new track, the seventh in a year, has been leaked online. It's called When The Money Goes, from an album rumored to be called The Blueprint III.
What's interesting about these leaks, which have come via radio or the Internet, is that, so far, there's still no official word from Jay-Z's label, Def Jam, that the MC is even working on a new record.
The leaks keep on coming
Even so, the steady stream of songs suggest something is happening. Last year we had the Kanye West-produced Jockin' Jay-Z, which was followed by Swagga Like Us featuring West, Lil Wayne and T.I. Other cuts were DJ Khaled's Go Hard (remix) and Jay-Z's own tracks History and Brooklyn Go Hard featuring Santogold.
That's a lot of material for a guy who isn't technically working on a record. Or is he? Nobody's at Def Jam is saying.
In the meantime, check out When The Money Goes below.


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Linux Throws a Bit of Android Into 3.3 Kernel
Posted by By dharmesh at 20 March, at 15 : 12 PM Print
Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, announced version 3.3 of the kernel Sunday.
Among the most noteworthy changes found in 3.3 is the merging of kernel code from the Android project.
Linux 3.3 also includes support for a new architecture, the Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) VelociTI Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architecture used in its C6x family of multicore devices. These were developed for embedded processor applications.
Other new features include improved balancing, a virtual switch implementation and several network improvements.
The relative importance of the changes and improvements found in release 3.3 "depends on what you use Linux for," Greg Kroah-Hartman, a fellow at The Linux Foundation, told LinuxInsider.
"Users of the latest hardware like the new support for new hardware," Kroah-Hartman elaborated. "Others like some [other] features, and [still] others, increased speed in some areas."
However, it's the incorporation of Android features that have perhaps stirred up the most excitement in the Linux community. Although Android is based on Linux, it was a fork, meaning a separate code base that branched off from the main Linux repository at the Kernel.org website maintained by Torvalds.
There has been tension between the Linux and Android camps since the breakup, with one main point of contention reportedly being Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) "WakeLock" technology.
WakeLock lets programmers tell the kernel which computing processes should not let the computer go into a sleep state, thus reducing power consumption. It was developed by Google programmers on their own.
What Android Brings to the Table
Android features included in Linux 3.3 include Binder, Logger and the Low Memory Killer.
Binder identifies the method to invoke and pass arguments between Android processes when one Android process calls a routine in another.
Loggers are used to log records to various destinations, such as log files or the console.
Android's Low Memory Killer is put on top of existing Linux drivers for memory management. It scans the list of running processes and kills one every time its lowmem_shrink function is called.
"These aren't improvements as-is; they're different features that the Android platform uses in order to support the way the Android userspace operates," Kroah-Hartman said. "They all do different and quite varied things."
Overall, the Android code included in Linux 3.3 is "merely a tiny chunk of drivers [totaling] only 7,000 lines of code," Kroah-Hartman pointed out. "Your serial port driver is double the size of that."
Therefore, rather than Linux merging with Android, all that's happened is that the out-of-tree drivers that the Android platform uses have been added to the main kernel.org tree, Kroah-Hartman stated.
Results of the Android-Linux Tie
The addition of the Android drivers "makes it easier for Android platform vendors to take the kernel.org release and create a system without having to hunt around for external patches stored on various other servers," Kroah-Hartman pointed out.
It also has "improved the Android drivers a lot" because the code has been reviewed by the kernel community, Kroah-Hartman said. "Quite a number of bugs have been fixed already in the short time it has been in the tree.


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Improved method for comparing genomes as well as written text
| 28 January 2009
BERKELEY — Taking a hint from the text comparison methods used to detect plagiarism in books, college papers and computer programs, University of California, Berkeley, researchers have developed an improved method for comparing whole genome sequences.
With nearly a thousand genomes partly or fully sequenced, scientists are jumping on comparative genomics as a way to construct evolutionary trees, trace disease susceptibility in populations, and even track down people's ancestry.
To date, the most common techniques have relied on comparing a limited number of highly conserved genes - no more than a couple dozen - in organisms that have all these genes in common.
The new method can be used to compare even distantly related organisms or organisms with genomes of vastly different sizes and diversity, and can compare the entire genome, not just a selected small fraction of the gene-containing portion known to code for proteins, which in the human genome is only 1 percent of the DNA.
The technique produces groupings of organisms largely consistent with current groupings, but with some interesting discrepancies, according to Sung-Hou Kim, professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley and faculty researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. However, the relative positions of the groups in the family tree - that is, how recently these groups evolved - are quite different from those based on conventional gene alignment methods.
The computational results have surprised scientists in being able to classify some bacteria and viruses that until now were enigmatic.
The technique, which employs feature frequency profiles (FFP), is described in a paper to appear this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Whole-genome vs. gene-centric methods
Current methods for comparing the genomes of different organisms focus on a small set of genes that the organisms being compared have in common. The genomes are then lined up in order to count the sequence similarities and differences, from which a computer program constructs a family tree, with near relatives assumed to have more similar sequences than distant relatives.
This technique assumes organisms have genes in common, however, or that these "homologous" genes can be identified. When comparing distantly related species - such as bacteria that live in vastly different environments - this gene-centric method may not work, Kim said.
"What do you do when one gene tells you the organisms are closely related, and another gene tells you they're distantly related?" he asked. "It happens."
Kim, who in the past focused on creating three-dimensional demographic maps of all known protein structures, wanted a technique that could be used to compare genomes of all sizes, and even genomes only partially sequenced. He also wanted a method that would compare all regions of the genome, not just the exons - that is, the DNA transcribed into mRNA, the blueprint for proteins. Exons make up only 1 percent of the human genome, with the remainder being non-coding "introns," regulatory DNA, duplicate or redundant DNA and transposons - genes that have jumped from other places in the genome.
Kim thought that traditional text comparison - used, for example, to assess the authorship of a work of literature or to identify plagiarized text - might provide a model for whole genome comparison and a way to test comparison methods. But while text comparison involves looking at word frequency; genomes cannot be broken down into words.
"I can compare two books in two different ways. I can pick a few sentences, say a hundred that I subjectively decided are important, and compare them, but some are very similar and some very different in the two books," he explained. "So, how can I decide? I need a second method to compare some features representing one whole book to those of the other whole book."
A different vocabulary
In a test of free online books obtained through Project Gutenberg, they found that this method, which they called the feature frequency profile (FFP) method, was more successful at identifying related books - books by the same author, books of the same genre, books from the same historical era - than word frequency profile analysis. In fact, a good tree can be constructed by looking at a single "optimal" feature length, such as nine letters, where the "vocabulary" is very large, instead of looking at all possible lengths.
"I was just stunned when I saw this," Kim said. One of the reasons this method works better, he said, may be that, while word frequency analysis treats each word independently, feature frequency analysis picks up syntax.
"Here, if I take a 9-letter window and slide it along the text," he said, "I am actually picking up the relationship between the first and second words - the local syntax - which was impossible to pick up from the word frequency method. Apparently, that is very important."
Mammalian and bacterial genomes
Buoyed by this success, the researchers applied the technique to whole genomes of mammals, where there is the least controversy in evolutionary relationship. "We treat the genome like a book without spaces," Kim said.
Since these genomes are very large, the researchers translated the genome sequences using a reduced, two-letter alphabet - R for the purine nucleic acids, adenine and guanine, and Y for the pyrimidine nucleic acids, thymine and cytosine - to reduce the complexity of calculation. Using an optimal feature length of 18 base pairs, this test created a family tree identical to the phylogenetic trees constructed by scientists using genetic, morphological, anatomical, fossil and behavioral information. This was surprising, especially since the overwhelming majority of the mammalian genomes do not code for genes, Kim said.
Next, they tried the FFP method on 518 genomes, the bulk of them bacteria and Archaea, but also six eukaryotes of varying complexity and two random sequences. The eurkaryotic genomes used were as much as 1,000 times longer than the bacterial and Archaeal genomes. Because most of the bacterial and Archaeal genomes code for genes, as opposed to very little of the genomes of higher eukaryotes, the researchers used a different alphabet and vocabulary for the FFP method: short strings of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, with a 20-word alphabet representing the 20 possible amino acids.
"The question is: Can we then group all living organisms based on the whole proteome, that is, the assembly of all proteins, instead of using just a selection of a small set of proteins, which is equivalent to using a small set of genes?" said Kim.
The researchers found that the FFP method clearly segregates whole proteomes of all bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes and random sequences into separate groups or domains. Most of the phylum groups within each domain and class groups in each phylum also were well segregated, with some interesting discrepancies compared to the currently accepted groupings.
In most of the cases where the FFP grouping disagreed with an accepted phylogenetic grouping, the problem organism had been the subject of debate among biologists because of conflicting conclusions from genetics, behavior and morphology, Kim said. The new method did classify several so-far unclassified bacteria, however.
The major differences are found not in how the organisms are grouped, but in the relative position of these groups in the organism trees, he said.
Viral genomes
Finally, Kim and his colleagues analyzed the genomes of several hundred viruses, including several that could not be classified.
"Some viruses have no or few highly conserved common genes to other viruses, thus, the gene alignment-based method cannot find relationship among such groups, but we think we can," he said.
Because of the vast amount of whole genome sequence data, all of Kim's analyses monopolized a computer cluster of 320 CPUs (central processing units) for over a year.
Kim stressed the major difference between FFP and gene-centric comparisons of genomes: FFP takes into account all or most of the DNA or protein sequences in the genome, while gene alignment analysis chooses a small set of genes out of large number of genes in each organisms, and uses that to represent the organism.
"The fallacy of the view that organisms can be represented by a small set of their genes is really due to our prejudice that genes are us," Kim said. "We know now, more and more, that this is oversimplification.
"It is likely that some of the observations we come up with will turn out to be wrong, but the method will evolve and get better and better as experts come in and tell us where we have gone wrong. The math is there, now we have to remove the human bias as much as possible."
In addition to applying the method to comparative genomics, Kim expects it will help in grouping and finding relationships among sets of other information, such as electronic information encoding text, sounds and images. It may also help in tracing human ancestry and disease demography using whole genome sequences, and in grouping of metagenomic data - the sequences of genome fragments from many organisms, most of which are unknown species, found in a given environmental niche or body organ.
Kim hopes someday to return to Shakespearean texts and sort out their provenance as well.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and by a grant from the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.


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Parents in your troop expect you'll help mold their boys into better young men.
They also have another, equally important expectation: that you'll keep Scouts safe while doing so.
Before you drive Scouts to your unit's next campout or other event, ask yourself: Am I safe behind the wheel?
Your life — and the lives of your Scouts — may depend on it.
Transporting Scouts Safely
This quick, essential presentation (PDF) created by the BSA's Risk Management team outlines ways to alert the drivers in your unit to the signs that could lead someone to an accident.
The end goal of the presentation is to keep you and other Scouters out of "The Risk Zone"— that place inhabited by dangerous, distracted, and drowsy driving.
The risks are real. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16 people are killed and more than 1,300 people are injured each day by distracted drivers.
Don't let it happen to your Scout unit.
Distracted Driving
The presentation outlines the three main types of distraction:
- Visual—taking your eyes off the road.
- Manual—taking your hands off the wheel.
- Cognitive—taking your mind off what you are doing.
Have you experienced any of these common distractions when driving Scouts around?
- Fatigue
- Passenger disruptions inside the vehicle
- Traffic activity
- Surrounding landscape
- Eating
- Programming electronic devices (i.e. navigational systems)
- Mobile phone calls
- Texting
- Using smart phones
Here's how the BSA's Risk Management team suggests you avoid distracted driving:
- When you get behind the wheel put your cellphone/smartphone away, such as in your backpack or glove box.
- Turn the phone to "silent" or "off."
- Only check your phone messages during rest stops or food breaks.
- If you must use the phone, pull the vehicle off the road and to a safe location.
- Do not call or send messages to others you know are driving.
Drowsy Driving
Danger signals of drowsy driving include:
- Your eyes are burning, feel strained, or are involuntarily going out of focus and closing.
- Your head nods or you can't stop yawning.
- You have wandering thoughts and daydreams.
- You're driving erratically or at abnormal speeds, drifting, tailgating, or missing traffic signs.
- You catch yourself about to nod off.
- You don't remember the last several miles driven.
- You cross over the rumble strips on the side of the pavement.
- You have micro-sleeps, which are very brief sleep episodes.
Other topics covered
Consult the complete PDF presentation for information on multipassenger vehicles, the differences between vans and SUVs, vehicle safety features, trailers, insurance, and more.
Risk Zone Quiz — Questions
Test yourself with these questions:
- The Centers for Disease Control reports how many people are killed each day by distracted drivers?
A. Less than 5 each month
B. Less than 10 each day
C. More than 16 each day - NHTSA reports what percentage of injury crashes in 2009 involved distracted driving?
A. 100 percent
B. 20 percent
C. 50 percent - NHTSA estimates how many crashes are a direct result of driver fatigue each year?
C. 1,000 - Name three (3) distractions that can cause distracted driving.
- Name something that is an extremely hazardous distraction while driving.
- What makes these items especially hazardous when driving?
A. Because the driver takes his eyes off the road
B. Because the driver takes his hands off the steering wheel
C. Because the driver takes his mind off the road
D. All of the above - Who decides what the driver does with his mobile phone?
A. The driver
B. The Scoutmaster
C. The chartered organization representative - Name one thing the driver can do with his phone before getting behind the wheel.
A. Put it in the glove box
B. Keep it in their lap or front seat
C. Put it in their back pack - Name three (3) signs of a drowsy driver.
- What is one thing the driver can do to combat drowsy driving?
A. Just like other days, drink lots of coffee
B. Make time to sleep
C. Take cold tablets or antihistamines right before the trip - What makes 15-passenger vans susceptible to rollover accidents?
A. Improper tire pressure
B. Overcorrecting the steering after leaving the pavement
C. The center of gravity on the van higher and shifted to the center
D. All of the above - Name three (3) differences in driving characteristics in vans and SUVs
- Name three (3) safety features included in new vehicles
- What is one of the most important items when towing a trailer?
A. The paint scheme lists the unit's number
B. The ball and hitch are the proper size
C. The load is centered correctly
D. Both B and C - True or False: Motor vehicle accidents are one of the most costly and serious claims in the BSA.
Risk Zone Quiz — Answers
- fatigue
passenger disruptions inside the vehicle
Traffic activity
Surrounding landscape
programming electronic devices (i.e. navigational systems)
Mobile phone calls
Smartphones - Texting and smartphones
- A. or C.
- Eyes are burning, feel strained, or are involuntarily going out of focus and closing
head nods or you can't stop yawning
have wandering thoughts and day dreams
Driving erratically or at abnormal speeds,
drifting, tailgating, or missing traffic signs
Nodding off
Don't remember the last several miles driven
cross over the rumble strips on the side of the pavement
have micro-sleeps - B.
- Braking distance is longer
acceleration is slower
Turning is longer
Turning too sharp can cause a rollover
More blind spots
Small areas to see the blind spots
gusty winds can affect driving
parking needs more room
vehicle clearance is higher - front seat airbags and side
airbag curtains
automatic headlights and daytime running lights
antilock brakes
Reverse sensors
Backup cameras
automatic crash notification systems
Stability control systems - D.
- True.
What do you think?
What are your tips for being safe when driving to Scout events? What about when Scouts in the back are being especially noisy and distracting? Leave your tips below.
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Presentation of Misericordia Dei
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
MISERICORDIA DEI on certain aspects of the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance
Cardinal Ratzinger noted that the Motu Proprio is a response to the improper use in some countries of general absolution to replace the personal confession of sins. General absolution is designed for emergency situations where penitents must also have the intention of making their confession afterward as soon as possible for the liceity of the general absolution. In recent years the extraordinary method of general absolution has been used as the normal method. This has the bad effect of bringing about an impersonalization of the guilt of personal sin and of the personal nature of forgiveness, in which God personally forgives the sinner and raises him/her to divine life. In his Apostolic Letter, the Holy Father underlines the personal character of confession and absolution, of our sins and of their forgiveness that the sacrament promotes in a special way more than other sacraments. In the Apostolic Letter, the Holy Father also teaches that the Church does not have the power to replace with general absolution the personal confession, that Christ required for the act of judgment that the priest's activity of binding or loosing entails. Here is a translation of Cardinal Ratzinger's presentation of the summary of the teaching of the Church.
The fact that humanity needs purification and forgiveness is something that is most evident at this historical moment. For this very reason the Holy Father in his Apostolic Letter NovoMillennio ineunte placed among the priorities of the mission of the Church for the new millennium "a renewed pastoral courage in proposing in an attractive and effective way the practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation" (n. 37).
Personalist nature of Christian life
The new Motu Proprio Misericordia Dei is linked to this invitation and makes theologically, pastorally, and juridically concrete a few important aspects of the practice of this sacrament. Above all, the Motu Proprio emphasizes the personalist nature of the Sacrament of Penance: as the sin, despite all our bonds with the human community, is ultimately something totally personal, so also our healing with forgiveness has to be something that is totally personal. God does not treat us as part of a collectivity. He knows each one by name, he calls him/her personally and saves him if he has fallen into sin. Even if in all the sacraments, the Lord addresses the person as an individual, the personalist nature of the Christian life is manifested in a particularly clear way in the Sacrament of Penance. That means that the personal confession and the forgiveness directed to this person are constitutive parts of the sacrament. Collective absolution is an extraordinary form that is possible only in strictly determined cases of necessity; it also supposes, as something that belongs to the nature of the sacrament, the will to make the personal confession of sins, as soon as it will be possible to do so. The strongly personalist nature of the Sacrament of Penance was overshadowed in the last decade by the ever more frequent recourse to general absolution which was increasingly considered as a normal form of the Sacrament of Penance, an abuse that contributed to the gradual disappearance of this sacrament in some parts of the Church.
Trent understands that the power to forgive sins given to the Apostles and their successors requires a judgement
If the Pope now reduces again the extent of this possibility, the objection might be made: but has not the Sacrament of Penance undergone many transformations in history, why not this one? In this regard one needs to say that, in reality, the form manifests notable variations, but the personalist component was always essential.
The Church had and has the consciousness that only God can forgive sins (cf. Mk 2,7). For that reason she had to learn to discern carefully and almost with reverent awe what powers the Lord transmitted to her and which he did not. After a long journey of historical maturation, the Council of Trent expounded in an organic form the ecclesial doctrine on the Sacrament of Penance (DS 1667-1693; 1701-1715).
The Fathers of the Council of Trent understood the words of the Risen One to his disciples in Jn 20,22f as the specific words of the institution of the sacrament: "Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them, whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (DS 1670; 1703; 1710). Starting with Jn 20 they interpreted Mt 16,19 and 18,18 and understood the power of the keys of the Church as the power for the remission of sins (DS 1692-1 1710). They were fully conscious of the problems of the interpretation of these texts and established their interpretation in terms of the Sacrament of Penance with the help of "the understanding of the Church" that is expressed in the universal consensus of the Fathers (1670; 1679; 1683; important for this 1703). The decisive point in these words of institution lies in the fact that the Lord entrusts to the disciples the choice between loosing and binding, retaining or forgiving: the disciples are not simply a neutral instrument of divine forgiveness, but rather a power of discernment is entrusted to them and with it a duty of discernment for individual cases. The Fathers saw in this the judicial nature of the sacrament. Two aspects belong essentially to the Sacrament of Penance: on the one hand the sacramental aspect, namely the mandate of the Lord, that goes beyond the real power of the disciples and of the community of disciples of the Church; on the other hand, the commission to make the decision that must be founded objectively and, therefore, must be just and in this sense has a judicial nature. "Jurisdiction" belongs to the sacrament and it requires a juridical order in the Church, that is always directed to the essence of the sacrament, to the saving will of God (1686f). Trent is clearly differing from the position of the Reformers, in which the Sacrament of Penance signifies only the manifestation of a forgiveness already granted through faith, and so does not do anything new, but only announces what always already exists in faith.
The judicial nature of the Sacrament implies the necessity to confess each mortal sin
This juridical-sacramental character of the sacrament has two important implications: if this is the reality, we must speak of a sacrament that is different from Baptism, of a specific sacrament, that supposes a special sacramental power, that is linked with the Sacrament of Orders (1684). If however, there is also a judicial evaluation, then it is clear that the judge has to know the facts of the case on which he is to judge. The necessity of the personal confession with the telling of the sins, for which one must ask pardon of God and of the Church because they have broken the unity of love with God that is given by baptism, is implicit in the juridical aspect. At this point the Council can say that it is necessary iuredivino (by divine law) to confess each and every mortal sin (can. 7, 1707). So the Council teaches that the duty of confession was instituted by the Lord himself and is constitutive of the sacrament, and so not left to the disposition of the Church.
Church does not have the power to replace personal confession with general absolution
Therefore it is not in the power of the Church to replace personal confession with general absolution: the Pope reminds us of this in the new Motu Proprio, thatexpresses theChurch's consciousness of the limits of her power; it expresses the bond with the word of the Lord that is binding even on the Pope. Only in situations of necessity, in which the human being's final salvation is at stake, can the absolution be anticipated and the confession left for a time in which it will be possible to make it. This is the true meaning of what in a rather obscure way is meant by the word collective absolution, Now it is also the mission of the Church to define when one is in the presence of such a situation of necessity. After, as we said, experiencing in the last decades expansive, and for many reasons unsustainable, interpretations of the conceptof necessity, in this document the Pope gives precise determinations that must be applied in their particulars by the Bishops.
Confession offers experience of liberation by God from the past weight of sins
Does this document place a new burden on the backs of Christians? It is precisely the contrary: the totally personal character of Christian life is defended. Of course, the confession of one's own sin can seem to be something heavy for the person, because it humbles his pride and confronts him with his poverty. It is this that we need: we suffer exactly for this reason: we shut ourselves up in our delirium of guiltlessness and for this reason we are closed to others and to any comparison with them. In psychotherapeutic treatments a person is made to bear the burden of profound and often dangerous revelations of his inner self. In the Sacrament of Penance, the simple confession of one's guilt is presented with confidence in God's merciful goodness. It is important to do this without failing into scruples, with the spirit of trust proper to the children of God. In this way confession can become an experience of deliverance, in which the weight of the past is removed from us and we can feel rejuvenated by the merit of the grace of God who each time gives back the youthfulness of the heart.
Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
8 May 2002, page 5
L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.
The Weekly Edition in English is published for the US by:
The Cathedral Foundation
L'Osservatore Romano English Edition
320 Cathedral St.
Baltimore, MD 21201
Subscriptions: (410) 547-5315
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This book also exists in the following packages...Subscription InformationMADCAD.com SMACNA subscriptions are annual and access is concurrency based (number of people that can access the subscription at any given time). Some features of MADCAD.com SMACNA Subscriptions are: - Floating concurrency model: Set your concurrency level and share your SMACNA Subscriptions among your offices enterprise-wide. - Immediate Access: As soon as the transaction is completed, your SMACNA Subscription will be ready for access. For any further information on MADCAD.com SMACNA Subscriptions, please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com or +1 800.798.9296. About SMACNASMACNA's mission is to provide products, services, and representation to enhance members' businesses, markets, and profitability. Located in headquarters outside Washington, D.C., the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association (SMACNA), an international association of union contractors, has 1,834 members in 103 chapters throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and Brazil. SMACNA members perform work in industrial, commercial, institutional and residential markets. They specialize in heating, ventilating and air conditioning; architectural sheet metal; industrial sheet metal; kitchen equipment; specialty stainless steel work; manufacturing; siding and decking; testing and balancing; service; and energy management and maintenance. The voluntary technical standards and manuals developed by SMACNA Contractors have found worldwide acceptance by the construction community, as well as foreign government agencies. ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, has accredited SMACNA as a standards-setting organization. SMACNA does not seek to enforce its standards or provide accreditation for compliance. SMACNA standards and manuals address all facets of the sheet metal industry, from duct construction and installation to air pollution control, from energy recovery to roofing. SMACNA's Technical Resources Department fields several thousand technical questions annually from architects, engineers, manufacturers and government personnel. More than 17,000 orders for SMACNA technical manuals are processed and shipped each year from SMACNA national headquarters. The association offers contractors professional assistance in labor relations, legislative assistance, research and technical standards development, safety, marketing, business management and industry issues. |


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Posted by Editoress on 09/3/09
The International Cycling Union (UCI) and Shimano Inc. today signed an agreement to extend their partnership contract until the end of 2012.
The signing ceremony between the UCI President, Mr Pat McQuaid, accompanied by the Director General, Mr Jean-Pierre Strebel, and the Chairman of Shimano Inc., Mr Yoshizo Shimano, took place in Friedrichshafen, Germany, during the international bike show Eurobike.
Shimano, a leading worldwide supplier of bicycle components, fishing tackle and other sports equipment, has been a UCI partner since 1999 and provides technical services at the Road, Track, Mountain Bike, Marathon, Cyclo-cross, BMX, Juniors and Para-cycling World Championships, as well as at the Mountain Bike and Cyclo-cross World Cup events.
Shimano was also in charge of technical assistance at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 and in Beijing in 2008.
Ten years after the beginning of this collaboration, which represents an essential quality guarantee for riders and teams in all the cycling disciplines, Mr Pat McQuaid expressed his pleasure that the contract has been extended: "Shimano is definitely one of our Federation's most loyal and prestigious partners, and we are honoured to have been able to extend our agreement with them. The level of the services that Shimano has always provided, as well as the importance of its support to different UCI activities – beginning with the World Cycling Centre in Aigle – have, over the years, provided us with a precious ally in our daily commitment to cycling."
Mr. Yoshizo Shimano commented: "Shimano truly feels that the opportunity to extend this agreement is a special one. We are looking forward to the continued co-operation with the UCI in the coming years with our common goal in mind: to promote the popularity of cycling all around the world in all disciplines and at all levels."
Mr. Jean-Pierre Strebel, Mr. Yoshizo Shimano and Mr. Pat McQuaid (from left to right) shake hands.
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Jailed for $280: The return of debtors' prisons
(MoneyWatch) How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn't pay a medical bill -- one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn't owe. "She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn't have to pay it," The Associated Press reports. "But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs."
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Ill. lawmakers target practice of jailing debtors
Welcome to debtors' prison: What's in your wallet can land you in jail
Under the law, debtors aren't arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing "contempt of court" in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can't pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate.
"Creditors have been manipulating the court system to extract money from the unemployed, veterans, even seniors who rely solely on their benefits to get by each month," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last month in a statement voicing support for the legislation. "Too many people have been thrown in jail simply because they're too poor to pay their debts. We cannot allow these illegal abuses to continue."
Debt collectors typically avoid filing suit against debtors, a representative with the Illinois Collectors Association tells the AP. "A consumer that has been arrested or jailed can't pay a debt. We want to work with consumers to resolve issues," he said.
Yet Illinois isn't the only state where residents get locked up for owing money. A 2010 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that focused on only five states -- Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington -- found that people were being jailed at "increasingly alarming rates" over legal debts. Cases ranged from a woman who was arrested four separate times for failing to pay $251 in fines and court costs related to a fourth-degree misdemeanor conviction, to a mentally ill juvenile jailed by a judge over a previous conviction for stealing school supplies.
According to the ACLU: "The sad truth is that debtors' prisons are flourishing today, more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts. In this era of shrinking budgets, state and local governments have turned aggressively to using the threat and reality of imprisonment to squeeze revenue out of the poorest defendants who appear in their courts."
Some states also apply "poverty penalties," including late fees, payment plan fees, and interest when people are unable to pay all their debts at once, according to a report by the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender.
"Many states are imposing new and often onerous 'user fees' on individuals with criminal convictions," the authors of the Brennan Center report wrote. "Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe -- and often hidden -- costs on communities, taxpayers, and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well to meet child-support obligations."
Such practices, heightened in recent years by the effects of the recession, amount to criminalizing poverty, say critics in urging federal authorities to intervene. "More people are unemployed, more people are struggling financially, and more creditors are trying to get their debt paid," Madigan told the AP.
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By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife reporting from Budapest, Hungary
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)– A United States Congressional delegation and other officials have gathered in Hungary's capital Budapest to remember Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who is credited with saving the lives of as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II. Friday's commemoration was part of a series of events marking the Raoul Wallenberg Year to commemorate his centennial birth.
On a chilly day, representatives of the U.S. Congress and other officials laid a wreath at the Budapest monument of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, hidden behind old trees.
While serving as Swedish envoy in Budapest from July 1944, Wallenberg gave Hungarian Jews Swedish travel documents and set up safe houses for them.
Among the thousands he saved was the late Tom Lantos, who was the first Holocaust survivor to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
Farmotel Stefania is located in hunting area in one of Hungary's most prestigious wine regions. Near hills, forests and lakes. It has all the facilities of a fine hotel and offers full privacy, huge outdoor space, sauna, grill house and much more.
Wallenberg is also credited with dissuading German officers from massacring the 70,000 inhabitants of Budapest's main Jewish ghetto.
Republican Representative Dan Burton, who led the Congressional Delegation, described Wallenberg as a special humanitarian. "Raoul Wallenberg is one of those people that throughout history is very, very rare. He risked his life, saved over 100,000 people and paid dearly for it," he said.
It was a reference to the difficult life of the young diplomat. Wallenberg eventually died in what was the Soviet Union where he had been taken by the invading Soviet Red Army, recalled the political director of Hungary's Foreign Ministry, Peter Sztaray.
"Wallenberg fought against a dictatorship and consequently disappeared in the prisons of another totalitarian power, the Soviet Communist regime," he said.
Moscow claims he died of a heart attack on June 17, 1947, in Soviet custody, but unverified witness accounts and newly uncovered evidence suggest he may have lived beyond that date.
Last month, Sweden announced it wants to reopen an investigation into Wallenberg's disappearance. Whatever the outcome of that research, the United States has already made Wallenberg an honorary citizen.
It's a rare honor that was only bestowed on two other persons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Mother Theresa.
And, marking the Raoul Wallenberg Year commemorating his 100th year of birth, U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks, a Democrat, wants to go even further.
"I have the privilege along with Nan Hayworth in the United States to sponsor a bill to give him the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest medal that the U.S. Congress can give," he said.
Friday's ceremony comes amid concerns over growing far-right extremism and religious tensions in Hungary, as well as elsewhere in Eastern Europe and the world.
In a statement to BosNewsLife, the US Congressional delegation said it had spoken with Hungary's government about "the principle of equal treatment for all religious organizations" amid concerns over a recently adopted law that recognizes just 14 of hundreds of religious groups as "churches".
Sweden's Chargé d'Affaires, Eddy Fonyodi, said at Friday's ceremony that issues such as religious intolerance shows Wallenberg's work isn't finished yet. "As long as minorities are discriminated against, as long as democracy and freedom of speech is threatened, as long as anti-semitism, Islamophobia or xenophobia still exists, Raoul Wallenberg's ideals are not fulfilled and his work is not done," he said.
About 600,000 Hungarian Jews died during World War II, when Hungary for the most part was a close ally of Nazi Germany.
There is frustration in Hungary that there is still no known grave of Raoul Wallenberg to lay flowers.


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Walking Woodstock
Journeys into the Wild Heart of America's Most Famous Small Town
by Michael Perkins
and Will Nixon
Illustrated by Carol Zaloom #1 Paperback Bestseller of 2009, Golden Notebook, Woodstock, NY
The Pocket Guide to Woodstock
An Insiders' Guide with Suggested Hikes, a Walking Tour of the Historic Village, Maps, Photographs, and the Best Tips for a Memorable Visit
by Michael Perkins
and Will Nixon
Illustrated by Carol Zaloom #1 Paperback Bestseller of 2012, Golden Notebook, Woodstock, NYBooks
- December 2015
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About the Author
Will Nixon grew up in the Connecticut suburbs, spent his young adulthood in Hoboken and Manhattan, then moved to a Catskills log cabin in 1996 complete with a wood stove and mice. For years, he wrote environmental journalism, then turned to poetry and personal essays. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and listed in Best American Essays 2004. He now lives in Woodstock, NY with a wall thermostat for heat, but still can't get rid of the mice.Quotes
"Are you familiar with the writing of Woodstock poet Will Nixon? If not, you should be because of his funny, wistful, poignant poems."
-- Catskill Mountain Region Guide"The Hudson Valley has produced some of the great peregrinations of our time, most notably by John Burroughs, an inveterate walker. Add Michael Perkins and Will Nixon to the list—these are charming essays, some of them with a bit more bite than you'd guess."
-- Bill McKibben
Tag Archives: verbal paradise in not a turn away
The Chronogram Poets: George Quasha
("English owes its magisterial authority to poets like George Quasha. He finds its frontiers and surveys them. But he is concerned with more than the aeronautics of words—he choreographs their dance with his ideas," writes Djelloul Marbrook in his Chronogram … Continue reading
Posted in Poems
Tagged "Proverbs of Hell", "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", axial poetics, Biblical proverbs, Chronogram, Djelloul Marbrook, George Quasha, November, preverb, proverbs, Verbal Paradise (preverbs), verbal paradise in not a turn away, William Blake
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Dr. dent. Degree
Recommendations for authorship
The Faculty Council has updated the Recommendations for authorship in publications.
The Faculty of Medicine has the authority to award doctoral degrees. The degrees awarded by the Faculty are doctor of medicine, Dr. med. for short or doctor of dentistry, Dr. med. dent. for short.
By completing a doctorate, candidates demonstrate their ability to perform original, independent research.
As part of the doctorate, the candidate writes a dissertation which provides a distinct contribution to knowledge in the candidate's principal field of study. Moreover, they have to prove their expertise in an oral exam.
The Faculty awards the doctoral degree upon successful completion of the doctoral studies process.
On these pages you can find instructions for the six steps of the doctoral studies process.


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Hill Country Daily Bread Ministries
Our mission: To help unite and equip the Body of Christ with food, resources, and training necessary to transform our communities and the lives of those in poverty and need through the love and saving grace of Jesus Christ.     Our Partners
Who We Serve
Your neighbor needs you… It's hard to believe the number of people living below the poverty line in the Hill County is an estimated 42,000 and 15,000 are children under 18 yrs!
The people we help are your neighbors; single mothers; children under 18 years of age; elderly persons (often caring for their grandchildren); people who are disabled or suffering from chronic illness; and working, low-income families where most are suffering from food insecurity and poverty. Your neighbors must often choose between… paying for food vs. utilities, heating, housing and medical bills. (Source: SA Food Bank, Trinity University Study). They live in our rural communities where poverty is often hidden from the average person, desperate levels of poverty in the following counties: Bexar, Kendall, Bandera, Kerr, Comal, Gillespie Uvalde, and Medina. With the presence of consistent loving support, families,children and individuals gain life skills and resources to go from hopelessness to hope and from dependence and need to wholeness and dependence on Christ. We create opportunities for people to meet needs…and through Christ centered relationships break the cycle of poverty. "A generous man will himself be blessed if he shares his food with the poor." Proverbs 22:9 |
2009 Client Data |


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"Everybody Matters," Soccer Champion Chastain Tells Santa Clara University Class of 2014
Marika Krause
SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 14, 2014- Nearly 15 years after scoring the winning goal that won the U.S. the World Cup and inspired the passionate celebration that landed her on front pages across the globe, soccer legend Brandi Chastain, '91 returned to her alma mater to deliver the 163rd undergraduate commencement address. The speech helped mark 50 years of women's athletics at Santa Clara University.
The class of 2014 cheered her as loudly on the stage as if they were watching her on the field, with fist pumps and chants of "USA, USA."
Even a championship-winning player has to realize that "everybody matters," said Chastain. "Not just the players that score goals, not just the 11 that get to be on the field, not the substitutes. But every single player. The ones that are on the bench make the team great."
Chastain graduated with a degree in communications from Santa Clara University before going on to win two gold medals and one silver medal while representing the U.S. in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic games. She is also a volunteer assistant coach with the SCU women's soccer team and co-founder of the Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative. The non-profit offers a free weekly after-school program for elementary school girls to develop self-esteem and good health practices with mentoring from women athletes from collegiate and high school teams.
Chastain shared lessons from her parents, coaches, and her grandfather, that helped fuel her service-oriented life. For instance, her grandfather, who knew she loved to score goals, offered a young Chastain $1 for every goal -- but $1.50 for every assist.
Such lessons taught her that "if I gave something to somebody else so they could do something great, it would come back twofold to me," said Chastain, who was awarded an honorary doctorate of public service.
Rupert and Maryellie Johnson also received an honorary doctorate of public service for their dedication supporting higher education and scholarship. With a five million dollar gift , the Johnsons founded the Johnson Scholars Program at SCU in 2013 to cultivate compassionate, intelligent, empowered leadership in SCU students.
Rev. Howard A. Lincoln was honored with a doctorate of pastoral ministry for his outstanding work with churches across the country and his leadership in helping the poor with food, medical care and education.
The Kino Border Initiative represented by Sean Carroll, S.J. was also awarded an honorary doctorate for its work and mission to make a more humane, just and workable migration between the U.S. and Mexico a reality.
Valedictorian Ivan Krayniy, an accounting major with a minor in international business who was born in a refugee camp, told his classmates to appreciate what they have, including the diversity and diverse experiences SCU yielded them, such as study abroad, internships, charitable and humanitarian projects, and friendships.
"This is the time to hold your head high," he said.
Santa Clara University's undergraduate class of 2014 is comprised of more than 1200 students, ranging in age from 20 to 55.
Watch Highlight video here: http://bit.ly/SCU2014GradHighlightsVId
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California's Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master's and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master's universities, California's oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
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Texas A&M University Women Team News
No. 3 UNC Holds Off No. 17 Texas A&M, 4-3
Texas A&M Enters Season Ranked 7th
USTA/ITA National Indoors Recap
Duke Fab Four Invitational Results
Texas A&M Freshman Defeats 12th-Ranked Player in the World
A Thank You Message From Senior Nazari Urbina
Aggies Set School Records in Final ITA Singles, Doubles Rankings
Texas A&M's Sanchez-Quintanar Falls to Defending Champion
Stanford Tops Texas A&M 4-3 in National Championship Match
NCAA Championship Preview: No. 3 Texas A&M vs. No. 12 Stanford
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Miami Falls in Elite 8 to Texas A&M
Monday, 05/20/2013
URBANA, Ill. – The University of Miami women's tennis team holds the longest current streak of reaching the NCAA tournament quarterfinals at five straight seasons. However, the Canes were stopped on their quest for a team national title by the third-ranked Texas A&M Aggies, 4-0, on Sunday.
"I think [Texas A&M] played better in big moments," said Miami head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews. "I think we started out a little rough in some spots and on a day like today, you can't do that."
With three Canes (23-6) still battling, Texas A&M's 52nd-ranked Nazari Urbina closed out her 6-1, 6-4 victory over the Hurricanes' 102nd-ranked Lina Lileikite on Court 3, sending the higher-seed to the NCAA tournament semifinals.
Like her teammates on Courts 5, and 6. Lilekite was fighting to send her match into a third set, hoping to extend Miami's season.
On Court 4, Clementina Riobueno, the nation's 102nd-ranked singles player, was leading, 7-5, 4-2 over her opponent Ines Deheza when the match was called. Junior Melissa Bolivar was close to forcing a third set out of the No. 6 position. After the Colombian, narrowly fell in the first set, 7-5, she was leading in the second, 6-5.
Texas A&M (25-3) took a 2-0 lead when Miami's Kelsey
– ranked 81st in the country – was upended by the Aggies' 68th-ranked Cristina Stancu on Court 2, 6-1, 6-4.
The Hurricanes' highest-ranked singles player, freshman Stephanie Wagner (No. 60) gave fourth-ranked Cristina Sanchez all she could handle at the No. 1 position. The Amberg, Germany native forced an extra game in the first set, falling 7-5 and nearly did the same in the second, coming up just short, 6-4.
"I think [Stephanie] played a great match," Yaroshuk-Tews added. "She needed to play better when she was up, but she played a great match."
For the first time in its seven postseason matches, Miami dropped the doubles point.
Since becoming doubles partner late in the season, Brittany Dubins and Stephanie Wagner were a perfect 6-0. However, an 8-2 loss on Court 3 to the Deheza sisters ended their undefeated streak. The Aggies clinched the early point on Court 1 as the 18th-ranked duo of Stancu and Hristov defeated Albuquerque and Riobueno, 8-2.
"There is certain positions that you have to beat A&M at, if you want to beat them," said Yaroshuk-Tews. "Starting with No. 3 doubles. We didn't respond well to the different looks, the different paces they were giving us. In my opinion that is a must-win match and we just didn't respond well… All-in-all, we could have played better tennis."
Despite the loss it was a historic season for the
. With four first-time collegiate players competing, Miami won its first ACC Tournament Championship and advanced to the national quarterfinals for the fifth consecutive season. No other women's team can claim that feat.
When asked about Miami's season, Yaroshuk-Tews said, "Looking back on the season, I think this group overachieved… for them to do what they have done and come as far as they have come, I'm proud of them. I'm proud of the season they've had."
Wagner, named the first alternate for the NCAA Women's Tennis Singles Championships, will wait until the NCAA announces the singles draw on Tuesday to see who she may face in Wednesday's first round. Check HurricaneSports.com and @HurricaneTennis on Twitter for updates.
1. #4 Cristina Sanchez-Qui (TAMU) def. #60 Stephanie Wagner (UM) 7-5, 6-4
2. #68 Cristina Stancu (TAMU) def. #81 Kelsey Laurente (UM) 6-1, 6-4
3. #52 Nazari Urbina (TAMU) def. #105 Lina Lileikite (UM) 6-1, 6-4
4. Maria Ines Deheza (TAMU) vs. Clementina Riobueno (UM) 5-7, 2-4, unfinished
5. Anna Mamalat (TAMU) vs. Monique Albuquerque (UM) 6-4, 6-6, unfinished
6. Stefania Hristov (TAMU) vs. Melissa Bolivar (UM) 7-5, 5-6, unfinished
1. #18 Stefania Hristov/Cristina Stancu (TAMU) def. Monique Albuquerque/Clementina Riobueno (UM) 8-2
2. #49 Cristina Sanchez-Qui/Wen Sun (TAMU) vs. Melissa Bolivar/Kelsey Laurente (UM) 0-0, unfinished
3. Maria Ines Deheza/Maria Paula Deheza (TAMU) def. Stephanie Wagner/Brittany Dubins (UM) 8-2
Order of Finish: Doubles (3,1); Singles (2,1,3)


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MEADOWLANDS — In what amounted to the next phase of a project first envisioned in the early 1990s, the fate of the former Xanadu project on Route 3 in East Rutherford is now in the hands of American Dream Meadowlands.
Developer Triple Five closed on the property on July 31 and was given the keys to what has become something of a white elephant development to this point. But the builders expect to see a ground breaking on the $1.9 billion entertainment project sometime in August.
Construction is estimated to last between 18-24 months.
"It's about time they started to do something," said Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli this week.
Secaucus is east of the empty shell of the patricianly constructed retail and entertainment complex, which to some has become a multi-colored eyesore. "I just hope that the developers live up to all the commitments they've made," he said.
First proposed as a themed mall in the 1990s by a company that has successfully constructed themed malls in Florida and elsewhere, the project stagnated and shifted ownership several times. Work ceased for years until Gov. Christopher Christie pushed for the project to be completed.
The current proposal is even larger than the original concept and would create a glass-domed water park, and an amusement park inspirited by DreamWorks Animation. There will also be an indoor ski area, a performing arts center, a movie theater, and more than 400 retail shops and 50 restaurants.


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A basic construction in homotopy is Puppe sequences. Given a map $A \stackrel{f}{\to} X$, its homotopy cofiber is the map $X\to X/A=X \cup_f CA$ from $X$ to the mapping cone of $f$. If we then take the cofiber again, something remarkable happens: $(X/A)/X$ is naturally homotopy equivalent to the suspension $\Sigma A$ of $A$. This isn't hard to see geometrically; a nice picture and discussion can be found in pages 397-8 of Hatcher. If we iterate this, we end up with a sequence $$A \to X \to X/A \to \Sigma A \to \Sigma X \to \Sigma(X/A) \to \Sigma^2 A \to \cdots$$ in which each map is the homotopy cofiber of the previous map. If we then apply a functor which sends cofiber sequences to exact sequences, we get a long exact sequence. This can be understood as the origin of long exact sequences of cofibrations in (co)homology, using the fact that $H^n(X)=H^{n+1}(\Sigma X)$.
One subtlety of this construction is that under the natural identifications of $(X/A)/X$ and $((X/A)/X)/(X/A)$ with $\Sigma A$ and $\Sigma X$, the map $\Sigma A\to\Sigma X$ is not the suspension of the original map $f$, but rather its negative (i.e., $-1\wedge f: S^1\wedge A=\Sigma A \to \Sigma X=S^1\wedge X$, where -1 is a map of degree -1). The geometric explanation for this can neatly be seen in Hatcher's picture, where the cones are successively added on opposite sides, so the suspension dimensions are going in opposite directions.
However, you usually don't need to worry about this sign issue. First, since a map of degree -1 is a self-homotopy equivalence (even homeomorphism) of $\Sigma A$, we could just change our identification of $(X/A)/X$ with $\Sigma A$ by such a map and then we would just have $\Sigma f:\Sigma A \to \Sigma X$ (note though that then we are not changing how we identify the next space in the sequence with $\Sigma X$, which breaks some of the symmetry of the picture). Alternatively, if we only care about the Puppe sequence because of the long exact sequences it gives us, we could note that an exact sequence remains exact if you change the sign of one of its maps.
My question is: is there any situation where these signs really do matter and have interesting consequences? Might they be somehow connected to the signs that show up in graded commutative objects in topology?


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Jim Turner on AbortionFormer Democratic Representative (TX-2) |
For over thirty years, NARAL Pro-Choice America has been the political arm of the pro-choice movement and a strong advocate of reproductive freedom and choice. NARAL Pro-Choice America's mission is to protect and preserve the right to choose while promoting policies and programs that improve women's health and make abortion less necessary. NARAL Pro-Choice America works to educate Americans and officeholders about reproductive rights and health issues and elect pro-choice candidates at all levels of government. The NARAL ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.
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Other candidates on Abortion: | Jim Turner on other issues: | ||
TX Gubernatorial: Rick Perry TX Senatorial: John Cornyn Kay Bailey Hutchison Phil Gramm Ron Kirk Presidential: George W. Bush (GOP) V.P.Dick Cheney (GOP-V.P.) Sen.John Kerry (Dem.) Sen.John Edwards (Dem.V.P.) Ralph Nader (Reform) Peter Camejo (Reform V.P.) David Cobb (Green) Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) Michael Peroutka (Constitution) |
Budget/Economy Civil Rights Corporations Crime Drugs Education Energy/Oil Environment Families/Children Foreign Policy Free Trade Govt. Reform Gun Control Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Infrastructure/Technology Jobs Principles/Values Social Security Tax Reform War/Iraq/Mideast Welfare/Poverty |


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Rare modern map of Marche, published in Cologne by Johannes Metellus in 1579 in fine original color.
The map is one of the earliest obtainable modern maps published by the so-called Cologne School of mapmakers, which consisted primarily of Flemish and Dutch cartographers fleeing the religious persecution then being experienced in the Low Countries, which were then under the control of Spain.
Itinerarium Orbis Christiani
The present map comes from the extremely rare and early Cologne School atlas Itinerarium Orbis Christiani (also known as Itinerarium Europae Provinciae), which was published circa 1579 to 1588. The atlas, which is known in very few copies, was published anonymously but probably by Frans Hogenberg, with contributions from Johannes Metellus and Michael von Eitzing.
The aforementioned mapmakers, along with Matthias Quad, comprised the core of the Cologne School of cartography, which tried -- mostly unsuccessfully -- to compete with the Low Countries-based map publishing houses at the end of the 16th century. For more on the Cologne School, see: Meurer, Atlantes Colonienses. Die Kolner Schule der Atlas Kartographie 1570-1610.
Johannes Metellus Jean Mattel (called Johannes Matalius Metellus), (Poligny, ca. 1517-1597), was a French jurist who spent much of his early life traveling and building a network of fellow humanists in Italy. Later Metellus moved to Louvain. He made his last home in Cologne, where he became involved in that city's nascent cartographic publishing industry. Metellus's cartographic publishing career began around 1579, when he is thought to have contributed to the Itinerarium Orbis Christiani. He also contributed a description of Lyon to Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum.
Metellus was a friend to Matthias Quad, whose name is sometimes associated with the posthumous completion of the Metellus atlas of the Americas (it was published in 1598; Metellus is thought to have died in 1597). The cartographer was also in correspondence with Abraham Ortelius. At one point he gave Ortelius assistance collating Ptolemy's Cosmography with manuscripts in the Vatican. This was evidently needed for the completion of Ortelius's Parergon Theatri. (See, H. P. Kraus, Monumenta Cartographica, items 45 and 52).
Only a few examples of this atlas are known to survive. Maps from this work are extremely rare on the market.
Johannes Matalius Metellus, also known as Jean Matal or Johannes Metellus Sequanas, was born in Poligny, Burgundy, France in ca. 1517. A humanist scholar, he was a polymath devoted to cartography, geography, law, paleography, and antiquarianism. Late in life he published a series of atlases; all his maps and atlases are rare and highly sought-after.
Matal was educated at Dole, Freiburg, and several Italian institutions. At Bologna, he met Antonio Agustín, a Spanish legal scholar, who recruited Matal to be his secretary. Together, the men researched ecclesiastical law, with an especial emphasis on Roman legal manuscripts, with trips to Venice, Florence, and elsewhere in Italy to study codices. In 1555, the two traveled to England to meet with Queen Mary on a mission for the Church.
After leaving his employment with Agustín, Matal traveled in the Low Countries and eventually settled in Cologne. There, he mixed with other savants, including especially Georg Cassander and Pedro Ximénez. It was in Cologne that Matal began his serious interest in mapmaking. He contributed to Braun and Hogenberg's Civitae Orbis Terrarum; Georg Braun described him in glowing terms, "vir omni scientiarum genere praestans"—"a man outstanding in every form of knowledge."
Late in life, Matal began preparing a set of maps of the entire world. In 1594, he published an atlas of France, Austria, and Switzerland (39 maps), in 1595 an atlas of Spain (10 maps), and, posthumously, an atlas of Italy (37 maps), and one of Germany and the Netherlands (55 maps). Many of these maps were combined and augmented into atlases of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the world's islands. In 1602, a compendium work showcased all of these previous works called Speculum Orbis Terrae; this atlas was well received by contemporaries like Walter Raleigh and is very rare today. Many of these maps and atlases were released after his death in 1598, they were finished by his friend and fellow mapmaker Conrad Loew (Matthias Quad).


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According to B. Fine, G. Rosenberger, On restricted Gromov groups, Comm. Algebra 20 (1992) 2171--2181, Gromov proved the following in his long article introducing word-hyperbolic groups:
Let $x$ and $y$ be elements of a torsion-free word-hyperbolic group. Either the subgroup generated by $x$ and $y$ is cyclic, or there exists $n$ such that the subgroup generated by $x^n$ and $y^n$ is free of rank 2.
As a very special case of this, we get the following corollary
Let $x$ and $y$ be non-commuting elements in the free group on two generators. Then the subgroup generated by $x$ and $y$ contains a copy of the free group on two generators.
I am trying to cite this corollary as efficiently as possible, for background motivation in something I'm writing. Does anyone know of something slightly, erm, more accessible for the non-specialist than Gromov's original article? I don't really know any geometric group theory beyond some of the terminology and Nielsen-Schreier, but the result seems like it shouldn't be too hard to prove directly, modulo some standard results on free groups. Unfortunately, I don't really have space to sketch any proof in what I'm writing.
(So, to clarify, what I'm really hoping for is an answer saying that the result is easily deduced from material in, say, Section Z of Lyndon & Schupp or similar.)
EDIT/UPDATE: my thanks to John Stillwell and Ian Agol for pointing out what should have been blindingly obvious, namely that the result is a trivial consequence of Nielsen-Schreier, and for politely not pointing out what is just as obvious, that I should think harder before asking questions.


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A processor is the thingy inside your computer that computes the various processes that make your computer fun and useful, such as rendering pornographic websites and running video games. Processors are notable for being small, hot, and extremely expensive. So is Devon Aoki, but to our knowledge she cannot play Metal Gear Solid or Grand Theft Auto. She is, however, reputed to be able to display pornographic images of her body. Sadly, she is not presently for sale.
And hypothetically, even if she were, you probably wouldn't win the bidding war anyway. Industry experts therefore recommend that you buy a cheap PC on closeout, use the money you saved towards the purchase of a high speed Internet connection, then sequester yourself in a locked room for days at a time to masturbate like a crazed chimpanzee.
History[edit | edit source]
The first processors that saw widespread consumer adoption were produced by the Cuisinart Corporation. These were largely self-contained units that did not rely on a computer. They did however include an attached plastic dome monitor, where the activity of the processor could be visually observed. Popular applications that ran on the Cuisinart included: coleslaw, shredded carrot, egg salad, and the ever popular milkshake.
While these processors did not suffer from the heat dispersal problems that current generation CPUs do, they were enormously dangerous. The primitive circuitry of the time did not distinguish between hardware and software, nor between artificial reality and real-world objects. Consequently, many thrill seekers -- as well as the miserably ignorant -- lost fingers, toes, and other dangly bits to the rotary processing might of those old machines. Sorry. No pictures of the maimed are fit for inclusion here.
Technology[edit | edit source]
First generation processors were largely composed of plastic and stainless steel. Software was run at extremely high speeds (for the time), by the turning of a swirly-whirly rotary blade. Various buttons at the base of the unit allowed for user control, though it wasn't always clear that the various modes produced distinctly different results. Historians have since surmised that the buttons were probably included to provide the appearance of advanced functionality, and to provide weak-minded simpletons something to play with. Not surprisingly, these were a near-instant hit, and are now also regarded as the first generation ancestors of the hand-manipulated controllers that are common to modern day PCs and video game consoles.
Beginning in the early 1980s, a miniaturization craze resulted in processors shrinking down to the size of a book of matches. Thereafter, theyy ceased to be self-contained units, and instead became separate pieces of the PC. In the newly designed computer case, the clear dome top was phased out along with the neat plastic rammer used to shove in the software. In replacing this with cases sheathed in sheet metal, much of the danger of lost dangly bits was eliminated, along with much of the fun of watching them go whirrr whizzz cha cha cha plub plub plub smush smush smush.
From 1981 onward, the number of fingers, toupees and penises puréed by misadventure dropped to near zero. Insurance companies heaved a collective sigh of relief. Doctors initially mourned, but soon busied themselves with spontaneous, anonymous sex with nurses, orderlies, candy stripers, comatose patients... anything really... while continuing to bill for deceased clients, and others that hadn't been in for a check-up in years. And meanwhile, the computer industry eventually devised other ways of amusing PC buyers -- a neck and neck race between hardware capability and software upgrades, fueling regular obsolescence by a neverending variation of memory speeds and types, video graphics arrays, sound card technologies and monitor sizes. Processors continued to double in speeds every two ears, double in width every 6 months, and double in height every 5 days (if you include the fan and heat sink). Which bring us to...
State of the Art[edit | edit source]
Today's generation of processors owe as much to building-trade architects as they do to the intellectually gifted but socially inept idiot savants, who are muzzled and chained to computer workstations in marginally developed banana republics and third-world nations that no-one really cares about anyway. It is from these technological sweatshops -- owned by a manufacturer we can't actually name here due to a standing gag order -- that the "skyscraper" processors emerged.
Because single core processors had enlarged to the point where they were in danger of consuming the entire footprint of a small bungalow, and the heat sinks were nearly as large as the air conditioning unit of an averaged-sized professional sports arena, the processor industry was in trouble. Then, one particularly foul-smelling but not-terribly-obtuse geek hit upon the idea of building upward instead of outward. Of course he was perched on the balcony on the 187th floor of his cheaply built company-owned condominium at the time, so it wasn't exactly a stroke of brilliance out of the blinding blue. More like a stray thought as he grasped for his Tamagotchi, which rolled and plummeted down the 187 floor drop, where it cleaved a DHL Express deliveryman clean in two.
Happily, the struggling manufacturer was able to avoid a costly, potentially lethal wrongful death lawsuit when the deliveryman's family found themselves far too poor to sustain proceedings against a multinational corporation. This was particularly true after the company made another killing, rolling out the next generation dual-core processor.
This was followed by the quad core, and the octo-core. Not to be outdone by the company-who-shall-not-be-named, Cuisinart recently announced their forthcoming 1000 core processor -- dubbed the kilo-core -- which will undoubtedly be the subject of much debate, envy, and wet dreams for journalists, technophiles and other miscellaneous weenies for some time to come.