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"keep some parts of myself severely to myself, am thus able to maintain a deep fruitful disjunction between this real world & the real real world." (and: of _course_ the "Robin" commenting on MJH's blog is Robin Sloan)
"The lineage of luxury in art – from lapis lazuli, to bronze casting, gold plating or diamond encrusting – extends now to graphics cards, ray-tracing, skin rendering, reflection mapping and to processor speeds, hyperthreading, render farms and the complex world of outsourcing, government subsidies or mineral extraction. It's important and interesting! Curators take note!" This is good / the Ed Atkins also sounds good.
Bookmarked for reference – Dan's lists are usually good.
Beautiful. (via Denise).
"King Lear would have killed it in Silicon Valley." More Maciej, and yes, it's great.
These are also good. And funny.
Seems like a reasonable set of tools to help out with this.
"MailCatcher runs a super simple SMTP server which catches any message sent to it to display in a web interface. Run mailcatcher, set your favourite app to deliver to smtp://127.0.0.1:1025 instead of your default SMTP server, then check out http://127.0.0.1:1080 to see the mail that's arrived so far." Useful!
"The reason I am able to make Twitter bots is because I have been programming computers in a shitty, haphazard way for 15 years, followed by maybe 5 years of less-shitty programming. Every single sentence in the big preceding paragraph, every little atom of knowledge, represents hours of banging my head up against a series of technical walls, googling for magic words to get libraries to compile, scouring obscure documentation to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do, and re-learning stuff I'd forgotten because I hadn't used it in a while." This paragraph also represents my experience of both programming and how I write my toys; a slightly round-about set of experience to get to where we are now, with lots of reading the manual and doing things in dumb ways occasionally. Programming!
Yep, this all seems like a very good list to me. Filed away for the next time I have to do anything with maps.
Enjoyed this a lot: Kim Stanley Robinson on California, SF, and the relationship between the two. For me, timely.
"In this film I wanted to look beyond the childish myth of 'the cloud', to investigate what the infrastructures of the internet actually look like. It felt important to be able to see and hear the energy that goes into powering these machines, and the associated systems for securing, cooling and maintaining them." Looks beautiful: Timo's customary look in enveloping, three-screen 4K. Gosh. Also: the uses of stills-as-film is really interesting to me at the moment.
"One-thousand dollars invested at a 20% discount with 5% interest (calculating interest every 3 turns, but simple, not compounding interest) means a player will have starting debt of $1000. After three turns the debt is $1050, 6 turns is $1100, 9 turns is $1150, etc. Totally manageable. The banker is your friend and wants you to succeed."
A lovely game – almost a poem, but definitely Enough Game – by Holly Gramazio, about being a blackbird in a city. It made me feel many things, which is what the best writing does. Also, I shall now probably play it again.
"We foresee an amazing future where not only can your household devices communicate with each other, they can also communicate with us over the same Internet lines. How cool would it be if your fridge could post a Medium here on Medium every time it needed you to buy more milk? And that's just one idea." There are many more ideas in this post.


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A LABOUR politician has stunned his town council colleagues by claiming his "real mother" is a 9ft green alien with eight fingers.
Councillor Simon Parkes, who was elected to represent Stakesby ward on Whitby Town Council last month, said although he has had hundreds of close encounters with extra-terrestrials, it will not interfere with his mission to help residents at the seaside resort.
Speaking on YouTube, Coun Parkes said he first saw an alien at the age of eight months, when "a traditional kite-shaped face", with huge eyes, tiny nostrils and a thin mouth appeared over his cot.
He said: "Two green stick things came in. I was aware of some movement over my head. I thought, 'they're not mummy's hands, mummy's hands are pink'."
He added: "I was looking straight into its face. It enters my mind through my eyes and it sends a message down my optic nerve into my brain.
"It says 'I am your real mother, I am your more important mother'."
He said after contracting chicken pox at the age of three, his mother went to work and left him at home to fend for himself when an 8ft "doctor" dressed as a waiter appeared to offer help.
As an 11-year-old, he claims he was taken on a craft by his alien "mother", and made a deal with the beings on board.
He said: "The reason extraterrestrials are interested in me is not because of my physical body, but because of what is inside me. My soul."
Coun Parkes said his extraterrestrial beliefs "did not come up on the doorstep" while he was campaigning recently.
He said: "For many people who don't experience it, it's very hard to accept. We are taught to only see and believe what we can touch, but it's acceptable to believe in religion.
"It's a personal matter and it doesn't affect my work. I'm more interested in fixing someone's leaking roof or potholes. People don't want me to talk about aliens.
"I get more common sense out of the aliens than out of Scarborough Town Hall. The aliens are far more aware of stuff. People in the Town Hall seem not to be aware of the needs of Whitby."
Fellow Stakesby ward member and former Mayor of Whitby, Councillor Terry Jennison, said the matter had not been discussed by councillors.
He said: "I am completely in the dark about this."
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text: Here Ya Go A classic, minimalistic, and versatile blog theme. Perfect for culture & lifestyle blogs. View DemoDownloadGet Hosting Related Fully Responsive Designed & developed to provide a consistent, user-friendly experience across the full sprectrum of mobile devices. Smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops - no problem! Retina Ready Built using the latest CSS techniques & vector icon sets - no slow, fixed resolution raster graphics. Scales flawlessly and maintais sharp, crisp graphics on high-res displays. Lightweight & SEO Ready There's no bloat in this theme! Coded with best HTML & CSS practices in mind, this theme is optimized for performance and search engine friendly.


text:
I have to admit to admit to feeling a bit "meh" about some of the results of this week's making day (which is why I'm only showing you these slightly teasing photos) but it's always useful to try out ideas, even if they don't quite work out how you planned them :)
Saturday 10 March 2012
Another Making Day
I have to admit to admit to feeling a bit "meh" about some of the results of this week's making day (which is why I'm only showing you these slightly teasing photos) but it's always useful to try out ideas, even if they don't quite work out how you planned them :)
9 comments:
- Unknown said...
We all have those 'meh' days, I am having one at the moment about something I am stitching, but I hopeful of the final result.
- 10 March 2012 at 14:15
- Miss Smilla said...
Thanks for the post - I can totally relate to the problem, sometimes I feel quite overwhelmed with what I would like to be the "secondary" tasks - taking a "making only" day might be the answer!
- 10 March 2012 at 15:40
- diane said...
We all have those days ... :-( thankfully they pass!!!!
:-) - 10 March 2012 at 16:39
Oh don't worry - a big part of the 'making' process is failure :) And it is those failures that make you see the right path!
Keep on going, I'm sure you'll do great :)
wink - 10 March 2012 at 18:39
- nicedaydesigns said...
It's such a good idea to schedule a making day. I did a to-do list that only involved making things, and not all the other stuff that clogs up my week. It's helping me stay focused. I'm marking it off bit by with with a tic and a quantity of that product type that I made.
- 10 March 2012 at 19:58
- Claire Jain said...
I completely understand. Now that I'm trying to make a professional go of being in the sewing world from home, being involved in the online sewing world, photographing things and blogging all take up so much time. I love the idea of ensuring you have at least one built-in making day!
- 10 March 2012 at 21:06
- Emm@ said...
Have you seen teuxdeux.com? I've been using it over a year now and it is SO nice to have a To Do list in front of you the whole time with everything planned out.
- 12 March 2012 at 16:10
- Bugs and Fishes said...
Thanks for the comments everyone - it's good to know it's not just me who has not-so-great crafty days and who finds that all this "other" stuff takes over sometimes xx
My Life in Stitches - thanks! the feature was a really nice surprise, I spotted it while flicking through the craft magazines in my local newsagent :)
Emma@ - I'm very old school I'm afraid, no apps for me! I've started using one piece of paper per week for my to do list - divided into days of the week and a space for "misc" stuff, to help me plan a bit more and not overload myself with tasks as there's a limited amount of space on the page. So far it's working out quite well. - 13 March 2012 at 13:00
- emmel-prutsemieke said...
I can understand what you mean. Some people think you only have to make the item and forget al the years of study and trying you had to do before the result is there.
- 13 March 2012 at 22:34


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Winter Months at the Dude Ranch
Wonder what happens during the winter months at Horseshoe Canyon? Projects… Oh you mean what does the livestock do during the winter months? Not much. They get a well deserved break after a season of trail rides. As you can see below, in the photos, the horses just kind of hang out and eat hay.
The goats are equally as busy this time of the year with the exception of them "baking" more goats – they should start kidding in April.


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Wonderful "Dear Frankie" Conveys Truth About Human Heart
- Annabelle Robertson Entertainment Critic
- Updated Jul 28, 2007
Release Date: March 18, 2005
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Genre: Drama
Run Time: 105 min.
Director: Shona Auerbach
Actors: Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Jack McElhone, Mary Riggins, Sharon Small, Sean Brown
Frankie (Jack McElhone, "Young Adam") may be deaf, but he's not dumb. The nine-year-old is smart, funny and secure enough to correct a bully's spelling, after the bully writes "Def boy" on Frankie's desk – and this, despite the fact that he and his mother Lizzie (Emily Mortimer, "Lovely and Amazing") are constantly on the go and Frankie is always the new kid. Together with Frankie's chain-smoking grandmother, Nell (Mary Riggins), they move from town to town in Scotland, trying to avoid discovery by Frankie's abusive father.
Frankie believes that his father is a merchant marine who works aboard the H.M.S. Accra, a name Lizzie created when she first spun the yarn to protect Frankie from learning the truth about his 'da.' But Lizzie's tall tale has become a disturbing ruse. She writes to Frankie in the name of his father and the boy, who lives for each letter, writes him back. Frankie also tracks his fathers 'travels' on a map in his room and is obsessed with all things maritime. The ruse works because Lizzie faithfully collects Frankie's letters at a post office box and spends a small fortune in foreign stamps from a stamp collector, which have made their way into Frankie's now-formidable collection.
When the H.M.S. Accra – which does exist – sails into the port of Glasgow, the hoax is up for Lizzie. But, pushed by a friend, Frankie bets his stamp collection that his father will come to see him. When Lizzie hears this, she has another dilemma. Does she tell her son the truth or ratchet up the ruse another notch? She confides in a friend, who offers to provide the 'da' for a small fee. In walks the stranger (Gerard Butler,"Phantom of the Opera"), who while distant at first, soon warms to the charming Frankie. In fact, he seems to be warming to Lizzie as well, who hasn't failed to notice his charms, either.
Going into this film, I expected two things. First, I expected a rather syrupy story that overflowed with contrivances and schmaltz. Second, I expected to judge the mother character for a deception which is, ultimately, abusive. On both counts, I was wrong. "Dear Frankie" is a wonderful film that conveys great truth about the human heart and the burning need we all have for a father.
Lizzie loves her son so much that she desperately wants to protect him from a terrible truth, which is greater than we initially imagine. Of course, she is definitely misguided in her decision to create the ruse, but Lizzie's motivations are pure. As she says about Frankie's letters, "This is the only way I can hear his voice." Moreover, what Lizzie does is simply the reverse of what we, as a society, do to children. She's protecting his innocence. In a world that insists children must be introduced to all forms of sex, violence and the painful truths about adult relationships, there is great merit to protecting and maintaining a child's innocence as long as possible. After all, the painful truth about the world will come soon enough.
In her first feature film, director Shona Auerbach give us yet another glimpse into Hollywood's angst about absent fathers. Just as we saw in "About a Boy," "Hearts in Atlantis" and the more recent, Oscar-nominated French film, "The Chorus," "Dear Frankie" hits all the right notes. We see how deep the longing is for a father – which is not fully revealed until the very end of the film. That influence is a crucial, indispensable one in each of our lives, no matter what the world is saying otherwise. Although this film's plot is somewhat contrived (and the ending controversial), the film never succumbs to melodrama and manages to avoid stereotypes – no small accomplishment for a new director. Auerbach also coaxes moving performances from all of her actors.
McElhone's whippersnapper smarts and unwillingness to become the victim set the stage, which is matched by Butler's gently-thawing stoicism. Scottish television and radio star Mary Riggins, who has a reputation for doing the entire spectrum of children's voices, from crying babies to teenage boys, adds humor and depth to the story, while Emily Mortimer is pitch-perfect as the shy victim of domestic violence who refuses to ever be abused ever again.
"Dear Frankie" is a film that will touch many, for many have been bereft of fathers – especially good ones. A worthy, worthwhile movie of great merit.
AUDIENCE: Older, mature adolescents and adults.
- Drugs/Alcohol Content: Smoking and drinking throughout the film, including one character who chain-smokes, one scene where characters appear to be drunk, several scenes in bars and a grandmother who insists that her grandson buy cigarettes for her.
- Language/Profanity: About a dozen obscenities, mostly "hell" and British curses (e.g. bloody), but also several uses of the f-word. At least twelve profanities such as "OMG," "Jesus/Jesus Christ/Christ" and "God Almighty."
- Sexual Content/Nudity: In one scene, a boy tells another boy to stick his finger into his palm and asks if that is how his girlfriend feels; a couple makes out in the distance; a child tells another child that she found condoms in her mother's closet; men leer provocatively at a woman in a bar and bartender treats her like a prostitute (which she is not).
- Violence: None.


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Written by Kathleen Parker
As politicians compete to prove who loves the middle class more, they're missing the elephant and the donkey in the room.
The middle class needs not just tax breaks and jobs but also marriage.
This is the finding of a new University of Virginia and Institute for American Values report, "The State of Our Unions," which tracks the decline of marriage among the nearly 60 percent of Americans who have high school but not college educations. This has far-reaching repercussions that are not only societal but economic as well. By one estimate cited in the report, which was written by five family scholars, the cost to taxpayers when stable families fail to form is about $112 billion annually — or more than $1 trillion per decade.
Obviously, marriage or the lack thereof isn't the only cause of our deficit spending, but neither is it irrelevant. Consider that in the 1980s, only 13 percent of children were born outside of marriage among moderately educated mothers. By the end of this century's first decade, the number had risen to 44 percent.
That we seem unfazed by these numbers suggests a lack of attention to the reasons marriage matters in the first place. It isn't so that wedding planners can bilk daydreamers out of $50 billion a year or so that bridezillas can have reality TV shows. Marriage matters because children do best when raised in a stable environment with two committed parents, exceptions notwithstanding.
For whatever reasons — a fear of appearing judgmental or hypocritical, perhaps — no one makes a peep. Many of us, after all, have divorced. But this fact doesn't mean that marriage is no longer important or that children's needs have changed. Furthermore, this report isn't concerned with the well-educated, who are typically better equipped to cope with dysfunction, financial or otherwise.
What happens to the other 60 percent? And what happens to a society upon whose beneficence the offspring of these broken or never-formed families ultimately may depend? Why isn't anyone talking about this?
In the past, dramatic family changes have prompted calls to national action. The Moynihan Report of 1965 focused attention on the alarming rise of African American children born out of wedlock. In the 1990s, rising divorce rates and single motherhood spawned a fatherhood movement and welfare reform. Recently, same-sex marriage has dominated our interests.
The hollowing out of marriage in middle America cries out for similarly impassioned action. As lead author Elizabeth Marquardt writes in the report:
"Marriage is not merely a private arrangement; it is also a complex social institution. Marriage fosters small cooperative unions — also known as stable families — that enable children to thrive, shore up communities, and help family members to succeed during good times and to weather the bad times. Researchers are finding that the disappearance of marriage in Middle America is tracking with the disappearance of the middle class in the same communities, a change that strikes at the very heart of the American Dream."
Our current debate about the fiscal cliff and entitlement spending can't be separated from the breakdown of marriage. In the absence of stable families, economic and societal need increases. And while most good-hearted souls wish to help those in distress, we are essentially plugging holes in leaky boats. Shouldn't we build better boats?
The report's scholars suggest doing this with a series of federal and state proposals. One is to change the tax and welfare system, which frequently imposes financial penalties — up to 20 percent of family income — on low-income couples who choose to marry.
Another suggestion is to triple the child tax credit for children under age 3, which would have the added benefit of encouraging married people to have more children — much needed in the longer term to support the nation's elderly.
These are but two of many, which can be viewed online at stateofourunions.org, along with an urgent plea that President Obama include some of these thoughts in his State of the Union address next month. It insults no one to encourage couples to marry before having children, thus making a public as well as private commitment to love and care for them.
Perhaps most important, to ignore the marriage deficit among America's middle class is essentially to be complicit in perpetuating a society of winners and losers. Those born to married, well-educated parents are more likely to prosper, while those born to fragmented families are more likely to repeat the patterns of their parents.
Therein is a national tragedy worthy of our attention.
(Re-posted from the Washington Post website.)


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You can gallop along the beach, herd cattle in the Rockies, take dressage lessons, go on wilderness pack trips or do trail rides in some of the world's most spectacular places. Large parts of our country are now densely populated and closed to riding tours by highways, fences, shopping malls and housing developments, but there are still vast expanses where one can ride freely as people used to do a century ago when horses were a prime medium of transportation.
There are a myriad of dude ranches, riding stables and trail rides on offer in the United States, but it is difficult to find riding tours which meet international standards of quality. Insurance problems in many states make riding very costly and often rights-of-way for horse travel have been lost to fences, shopping malls, highways and housing developments. Nevertheless, Equitours has been able to find some first class equestrian adventures and huge areas still exist where people can ride in open, unspoiled country as they used to everywhere a century ago.
One excellent place for people to ride at many levels on a wide variety of excellent horses from purebred Arabians to Percherons is the Bitterroot Ranch, the Equitours headquarters for over 40 years. At the Bitterroot one can take trail rides in small groups divided according to skills so that less experienced riders are not frightened and good riders are not bored by slow, nose to tail rides. There is an extensive obstacle course where advanced riders can practice their jumping skills, chances to herd cows and pack trips into the Greater Yellowstone Wild Ecosystem are also a possibility. Certified instructors can help you prepare for the most challenging international rides.
World class dressage instruction on superb Lusitano stallions is available in Massachusetts in the summer and in Florida in the winter. Guests can take instruction or go on trail rides using well trained Quarterhorses in the Texas Hill Country all year. There are also outstanding trips on sure-footed ranch horses along the border of Utah and Arizona which have been particularly popular. This area is arguably the most breathtakingly beautiful part of the world.


text: Joe Landman wrote: > > > Prentice Bisbal wrote: > >> Here's another reason to use tarballs: I have /usr/local shared to all > > eeek!! something named local is shared??? Nothing wrong with that. "local" doesn't necessarily mean local to the physical machine. It can mean for the local site. I do everything according to standards, and adhere to them strictly. Sharing /usr/local is is actually codified in the FHS: <quote> 4.8.2. /usr/local : Local hierarchy 18.104.22.168. Purpose The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not found in /usr. Locally installed software must be placed within /usr/local rather than /usr unless it is being installed to replace or upgrade software in /usr. </quote> You can share out /opt, too, but I use /opt for system that's installed locally on a machine and not exported to others. I find this is easier than putting it in /usr/local, since most packaged 3rd party software insist on going in /opt, anwyway. > > FWIW: we do the same thing, but put everything into /apps, and all nodes > have mounted /apps ... > > requires a little ./configure -prefix=/apps/... My configure kung-fu is very strong. I usually do this, so I can install multiple versions of the same software: ./configure --prefix/usr/local/foo-xx.yy --exec-prefix=/usr/local/foo-zxx.yy/x86 If compiling for x86_64, then --exec-prefix=/usr/local/foo-zxx.yy/x86_64. I have dozens of applications compiled for 32-bit and 64-bit on the same /usr/local. I just put 64-bit binaries (actually symlinks) in /usr/local/bin64, and make sure that comes first in the path on 64-bit systems (ditto for lib64, etc.) I do lots of other hocus-pocus, but I'm digressing enough already. > magic, but it works well. > >> my systems with with NFS. If want to install the lastest version of >> firefox, you can just do this: >> >> cd /usr/local >> >> tar zxvf firefox-x.xxx.tar.gz >> >> cd /usr/local/bin >> >> ln -s ../firefox-x.xxx/firefox . >> >> Now all users can use the latest version of firefox (/usr/local/bin is >> in their path, and comes before /usr/bin, usr/X11R6/bin, etc.) > > Oddly enough, I am not a huge fan of dumping lots of binaries into one > path. Part of the reason is the package management one ... all you need > is one renegade package and a packager that things [s]he is smart, and ... I don't dump the binaries into one path. I put symlinks into /usr/local/bin{,64}. All the binaries go into /usr/local/foo-xx.yy and stay there: ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/foo-xx.yy make make install cd /usr/local ln -s foo-xx.yy foo #this makes the non-versioned dir the default # just follow me here, okay? cd /usr/local/foo/bin for file in *; do ln -s ../foo/bin/$file /usr/local/bin/$file; done # do the same for lib, include, man,... # If I want to have multiple versions of foo available: cd /usr/local/foo-xx.yy for file in *; do ln -s ../foo-xx.yy/bin/${file} \ /usr/local/bin/${file}-xx.yy; done Users can call the latest or default version by calling 'foo'. If they want an earlier version, they call foo-<version>. If I want to delete foo-xx.yy, I just do rm /usr/local/foo-xx.yy, and then delete the broken links in /usr/local{bin,lib,incude,man}. This can easily be done before deleting the install dir with scripts. If the links are left around, they take up little disk space, since they are only inodes. If I keep an earlier version of foo around, I change /usr/local/foo to point to it.


text:
According to Yglesias, questions with the goal of providing information about the candidates' policies would — take global warming for example — show how fine the Democrats are and trap only Republicans:
And as it happens, the plans released by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards are all based on good science and good economics. So asking them questions aimed at elucidating their plans shouldn't lead to any embarrassing incidents....Come on, Russert! Can't you set things up to embarrass Republicans and not Democrats? But clear away Yglesias's laughable bias and his point is that candidates should be given room to lecture us about their policies. Or not us... because I wouldn't watch such a boring TV show... but somebody... or maybe nobody...
John McCain, by contrast, might or might not end up embarrassed by serious questions about his plan... His Republican counterparts, by contrast, would almost certainly wind up embarrassed by serious questions about their views of climate change since their policies are badly at odds with reality.
[Russert] attracts a circle of admirers who share his perverse and unethical lack of concern for whether or not his work helps produce an informed public, gobs of less-prominent television journalists seek to emulate his lack of concern with informing the public, print journalists eagerly court opportunities to appear on the non-informative shows hosted by Russert and his emulators, and down the rabbit hole we go.It's unethical to confront political candidates with the contradictions in their own statements and with pointed criticisms from their opponents? It's perverse? Russert's a sadist, don't you know, because he won't let our politicians get comfortable.
IN THE COMMENTS: Zeb Quinn writes: "It was quite clear in the immediate aftermath of the last debate that the Clintonistas had their long knives out for Russert. This more of that." Yes, I think that's right. Is Yglesias a Clinton sycophant? I notice a lot of bloggers nodding their heads a little too eagerly at the rather flabby Yglesipost. Including Kevin Drum, whom I'd already suspected was a Clinton sycophant.


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White House: Murtha's call is 'surrender'Democratic hawk: U.S. must leave Iraq Senior Democrat Rep. John Murtha on Thursday called the war in Iraq "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion." SPECIAL REPORT Interactive: Who's who in Iraq
Interactive: Sectarian divide
Timeline: Bloodiest days for civilians
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSWASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House accused a senior House Democrat -- and a decorated Vietnam veteran -- who called for a swift withdrawal from Iraq of advocating surrender, comparing him to anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore. In a broadside issued Thursday night, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said that it is "baffling that [Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha] is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party." McClellan called Murtha, a retired Marine colonel who earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, "a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting America." But McClellan added, "The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists." A senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Murtha had supported the resolution that authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But Thursday he called the Bush administration's management of the conflict "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," and said the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is "uniting the enemy against us." (Watch Murtha's take on 'flawed policy wrapped in illusion' -- 8:11) "It's time to bring the troops home," he said, noting that a withdrawal would take about six months to complete. (Read more on his statement) He also took a swipe at Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush, who have accused Democratic critics of playing politics during a war. "I like guys who've never been there who criticize us who've been there," Murtha said. "I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and sent people to war and then don't like to hear suggestions that what may need to be done." Cheney avoided military service during the 1960's Vietnam era with a series of draft deferments, and Bush served stateside in the National Guard during Vietnam. Murtha was wounded twice in Vietnam. White House Counselor Dan Bartlett called Murtha's position "out of the mainstream of his own party," and said that "immediate withdrawal would be, as one general on the ground put it, a recipe for disaster." Bartlett also called Murtha's reference to Cheney's draft deferments "unfair" and "beside the point," noting there is a long list of wartime presidents who served ably without military experience. Not all Democrats are lining up behind Murtha. Fellow veteran Sen. John Kerry, who also voted for the Iraq resolution, disagrees with Murtha's call for a swift withdrawal, arguing instead for a phased withdrawal linked "to the success of the election." But Kerry, who lost to Bush in last year's election, blasted the administration, saying that it was engaging in scare tactics by equating criticism of the war to encouraging the insurgency. (Read interview) Nearly 2,100 American troops have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein -- a war that top U.S. officials said was needed to strip Iraq of illicit stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and efforts to produce a nuclear bomb. No such weapons have turned up since Hussein's government collapsed in April 2003. Divide over the warPublic support for the conflict has dropped sharply over the last few months. Only 35 percent of those surveyed in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll published Monday supported the Bush administration's handling of the conflict, and 54 percent said the invasion was a mistake. The poll also found that 19 percent of Americans want to see the troops come home now, and 33 percent said they wanted them home within a year. Only 38 percent said they should remain "as long as needed." Republicans in the House said the United States was making progress in the conflict, with Iraqis voting in October to ratify a new constitution and elections for a permanent parliament scheduled in December. "I think that the Democrats who have undertaken this initiative have made a mistake," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "I think they've underestimated the toughness of the American people and the understanding that if we don't change the world, the world is going to change us." Hunter, whose son currently serves in the Marines, said U.S. troops should leave only when, "in the judgment of the war-fighting commanders, Iraqis are capable of defending their own country." CNN's Dana Bash and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.
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text:
Intel shaved about a billion dollars off its third-quarter revenue forecast on Friday, blaming the global economy for slowing sales. It will announce full results for the quarter on Oct. 16.
The company had previously predicted third-quarter revenue of between US$13.8 billion and $14.8 billion, but on Friday lowered its forecast to between $12.9 billion and $13.5 billion.
In last year's third quarter, Intel reported record revenue of $14.2 billion, but by the second quarter this year revenue had slipped to $13.5 billion.
Intel said it would usually expect its customers to be increasing inventory in the supply chain at this time of year, but instead they are cutting back. Enterprise PC sales are soft, and demand for products based on Intel chips is slowing in emerging markets, the company said.
Market watcher IHS iSuppli also pointed to reduced demand for PCs and related electronic components last month, when it said it now expected global semiconductor sales to shrink by 0.1 percent this year, rather than grow by up to 3 percent as it had previously forecast. This year will be the first year of decline in semiconductor sales since 2009, the company warned.
The economic situation has hit semiconductor manufacturers in Europe and Japan harder than it has hit Intel, iSuppli said earlier this week in a round-up of second-quarter semiconductor sales figures.
European chip makers saw their second-quarter revenue fall by an average of 8.3 percent year on year, compared to a 3.1 percent rise at Intel for that quarter. STMicroelectronics' revenue fell 16.4 percent, while at Infineon Technologies second-quarter revenue was 12.9 percent down on a year earlier, iSuppli said. Japanese semiconductor suppliers, meanwhile, saw revenue drop 7.5 percent for the same period.
A continued decline in revenue could also hit profitability, Intel said. It narrowed its forecast for third-quarter gross margin to between 61 percent and 63 percent, from a previous forecast of 61 percent to 65 percent.
One bright spot for Intel is the company's data centre business, which is meeting revenue expectations, the company said.
Intel said spending on research and on mergers and acquisitions will remain unchanged from the previous forecast, while capital spending for the full year will fall below previous forecasts as the company finds ways to reuse existing equipment in more advanced manufacturing processes.


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Responding to the needs of automakers and their suppliers, manufacturers of instruments that measure color are introducing new technologies to help control the quality of metallic flake, pearlescent, and other special-effect paints that have confounded optical instruments throughout the past 60 years.
New measurement techniques address the thorny problem that has troubled manufacturers since effect paints were introduced during the 1940s: how to get reliable and repeatable measurements of effect coatings that sparkle. The need to accurately quantify the hue shift of effect paints has become more critical as automakers assemble body panels, bumper fascia, and other parts made by several suppliers, each part coated with effect paints that must match under different illumination and observation angles.
When Gabe Draguicevich was asked to help fabricate a titanium hip implant based on CT (computed tomography, also known as CAT) scan data, he had to coordinate numerous technologies to complete the project. Because the CT data consisted of 2-D cross-sections, Draguicevich had to stack and align the individual scans to create a 3-D model, which he used to create a polygonal mesh in the form of a stereolithography (STL) file. After creating a prototype, he had to verify it against the original scan data, which was no mean feat considering that software capable of providing deviation analysis of the model surface to the STL file did not exist. Finally, Draguicevich created a wireframe model from the STL mesh to machine the final product. The entire process took approximately two weeks to complete.
That was 20 years ago. According to Draguicevich, "If I had the tools that are available today, I could have simply taken the CT scan data and created the STL mesh in one step, and then machined directly from the mesh. The data-processing capabilities of modern software have made the entire process painless compared to years past. Furthermore, I could have taken the finished piece and inspected it for accuracy using the original scan data as the reference. Any deviations could have been addressed by modifying the finished part in coordination with the inspection process."
Henry Troemner LLC has been in the precision measurements and calibration business since 1838. The company's work is done under the strict guidelines prescribed by ISO/IEC 17025--"General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories," with a view toward providing its customers with the lowest possible measurement uncertainties. Before undergoing the ISO/IEC 17025 registration process, however, Troemner first sought to become an ISO 9001-registered company.
"We were one of the first organizations in the Philadelphia area to achieve ISO 9001 registration," says Tracey Hill, Troemner's quality coordinator and lead internal auditor. "Once the critical step of ISO 9001 registration was successful, the company's focus shifted to the rigorous requirements of ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. The guidelines make an organization take a critical look at every aspect of performing a calibration."
Food safety standards have been well accepted in Europe for quite some time. But as international food trade expanded, it was apparent that the existing private and public food-safety policies could not stave off the food recalls that were occurring worldwide. A representation of common ground between food safety schemes was needed to enhance food safety, ensure consumer protection, and to strengthen consumer confidence.
To address these needs, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) was coordinated and launched in May 2000 by CIES--The Food Business Forum, an independent global food business network headquartered in Paris. Founded in 1953, CIES has developed numerous programs for retailers and supply chains, and continues to facilitate the development of common positions and tools on strategic and practical issues affecting the food business. CIES shares best practices throughout 150 countries.
The GFSI is a nonprofit foundation created under Belgian law with a mission to work on continuous improvement in food safety management systems to ensure confidence in the delivery of food to consumers. The GFSI objectives are to:
Welcome to Quality Digest's 2009 Quality Sourcebook, a special edition of Quality Digest that contains all of our buyers guide produced during the course of the year, and more.
Due to the size of the sourcebook, we are supplying the information in PDF files. Each link below will download a PDF for that particular section.
Test & Measurement
SPC Software
Six Sigma Services and Software
Dimensional Measurement
More than 30 years ago, W. Edwards Deming was hailed in the U.S. workplace as a potential savior of automakers. Years of Japanese automakers' supremacy in terms of quality had resulted in a steady gain of market share for manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota. Automotive manufacturers in the U.S. were in a period of crisis; they realized that the way they operated had to change if they were to remain competitive.
Health care in the United States is now in a similar state. Instead of a single person bringing the message of change, it's a nonprofit think tank, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The IHI was founded in 1991 to address the growing concern regarding the quality of health care.
Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part series looking at how companies can share best practices such as Six Sigma across the supply chain. The second part of this series, focusing on PACCAR supplier Cummins Engine Co., will appear in an upcoming issue of Quality Digest .
Few U.S. manufacturers embrace the challenges and opportunities of quality improvement in quite the same way as PACCAR of Bellevue, Washington. The company, which designs, manufactures, and distributes high-quality commercial vehicles under the Peterbilt, Kenworth, and DAF nameplates, has flourished through periods of vast change during its more than 103-year history. The world of manufacturing is changing more quickly now than ever before, as the advent of global sourcing provides a competitive advantage to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that can partner with others outside their own walls while maintaining quality leadership.
Click here for a complete version of the salary survey along with all charts.
Surveys in general, and salary surveys in particular, lend support to Mark Twain's observation that "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." In other words, when dealing with large sets of respondents broken down into numerous categories and subcategories, the granularity is such that you can make the numbers say pretty much anything you want.
So, this year we're going to say less and let you do your own interpreting of the data. We will, however, note that certain general trends keep coming up as we look at these numbers year after year:
• Gender disparities. There still appears to be a difference between what men and women get paid. However, the issue may be related to industry or title, rather than sex. In other words, there may be more women working in lower-paying positions or industries than men, but getting the same pay.
Six Sigma, lean, and similar disciplines of analysis and control have been used for decades. Ever since GE's former chairman and CEO Jack Welch sang its praises in his book, Jack: Straight from the Gut (Warner Business Books, 2001), the Six Sigma process in particular has been widely used by companies looking to streamline their operations and capitalize on opportunities. The methodology has undoubtedly helped improve the financial health of organizations such as Toyota, ING Group, and Volkswagen. Six Sigma is often cast as either an organization's hero or, as was the case for 3M and The Home Depot, scapegoat.
Given the intense scrutiny of Six Sigma, we offer the following perspective on its effectiveness, scale, and alternative approaches.
Six Sigma is a cyclical process used to identify issues and opportunities within an organization. Each step in the process is necessary to ensure the best possible results.
Manufacturing organizations that depend upon high levels of sophisticated equipment can benefit dramatically from a fully integrated value-based equipment management system. By understanding and capitalizing on several significant trends in equipment management, organizations can reduce overhead costs, reduce maintenance costs, and optimize equipment use.
Recent trends in equipment management include:
• Broadening of business processes and related software tools to encompass the entire equipment life cycle
• Enterprisewide deployment of integrated application solutions, as opposed to the "stovepipe" departmental systems typical of the past
• A dramatic shift towards commercial off-the-shelf products vs. in-house custom software
Many leading organizations are aggressively addressing these three trends and implementing what is becoming known as a value-based equipment management system because the bottom-line financial benefits are sizable, return on investment is rapid, and numerous "soft" benefits also result.


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Will all your years of training save you in a real attack? Admit it. You're not sure.
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In this film, Vladimir lays out every fundamental principle of unarmed hand-to-hand combat and teaches dozens of supporting drills that specifically work on each concept. He shows the methods used by the Russian Systema Masters to achieve their astonishing skill and sensitivity, smooth and devastating movements, striking power and endurance, and unique use of the body for defense and offense. You'll learn how to take total control of any empty-hand attack.
This film connects great explanations with non-stop action.
It will seriously rock your world!
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This production includes an unprecedented bonus feature – "Defense from a Chain" – where Vladimir shows you simple and spectacular moves against a real 40-inch chain.
Every doubter, every skeptic, everybody with any interest in martial arts – line up for Systema Hand to Hand.
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Construction employment saw gains in 26 states and the District of Columbia between February and March 2010 according to the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. Two states saw no change and 22 states experienced declines in construction employment over the last month.
Of the 26 states experiencing gains, Maryland saw the most growth in construction employment over the month with 5,200 jobs added, a gain of 3.7 percent. Pennsylvania added the second highest number of jobs at 4,900, a 2.3 percent gain over the month. Following closely behind, New York added 4,300 jobs, a 1.4 percent gain, and Missouri added 4,100 jobs, a 4.1 percent. gain. The District of Columbia experienced the highest percentage increase between February and March 2010 at 18.4 percent, an increase of 1,800 jobs over the month.
Between February and March, 22 states saw declines in construction employment. Texas lost the highest number of jobs over the month with a loss of 6,300 jobs, a decline of 1.1 percent. Louisiana lost the second highest number of jobs at a loss of 5,200, 4.1 percent, followed by Nevada, which lost 4,600 jobs, a 6.7 percent decline over the month.
Over the year, only two states experienced increases in construction employment. Arkansas added 300 jobs over the year, a 0.6 percent change from March 2009. North Dakota added 100 jobs, a 0.5 percent change from the same month last year. California experienced the largest decline in employment, losing 108,500 jobs, a 16.3 percent decline over the year. Texas lost 78,100 jobs, a decline of 12.6 percent, and Florida lost 57,000 jobs, a 13.7 percent decline since March 2009. Nevada experienced the largest percentage drop in employment with a 30 percent drop over the year, followed by Colorado with a 20.3 percent drop and Arizona with a 19.9 percent drop.
AGC chief economist Ken Simonson says it's too early to tell if the gains in 26 states and D.C. are a result of better weather or a trend towards recovery.
"Even assuming the numbers are heading in the right direction," says Simonson, "it is a long climb just to get back to normal for the construction industry."
AGC officials say the stimulus should provide a boost for the construction economy, but private sector and state and local construction activity may exceed the amount of stimulus funds laid out.
"As much as the stimulus helps, until broader demand for construction expands, our industry will be lucky to tread water," says Simonson.


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Case study
Mama Marion (47 years old) lives in a male-headed family of eight people in Korogwe District, Tanzania, which includes her husband (aged 50), her young sister-in-law, two daughters (aged 20 and 13), and three sons (aged 27, 8 and 4). Her children above six years of age and her sister-in-law attend school. Mama Marion's level of education is Primary. She works in a market that is 15–30 minutes walking distance away from her house, working three hours a day. She is also part of the self-help groups supported by the WDF programme. Her husband is a farmer cultivating maize and cassava.
Mama Marion is a farmer and sells part of the yield from the farm along with handicrafts such as mats. Her family is happy about her income because it contributes to buying basic things at home such as food: 'The money I get I use it in the day-to-day needs for my family like food, medication', says Mama Marion. The income from paid work helps her solve most of the essential needs like food, clothes, and her daughter's school materials. As she is often short of time, instead of going far to collect firewood she will sometimes buy wood and also water by paying someone to fetch it and bring it home for her. The income also helps her to buy working materials that she uses to make the mats.
Mama Marion does different care activities for the family such as washing utensils, cooking, collecting firewood, and preparing the children to go to school. Her husband does the farming but sometimes helps with cleaning the environment. Farming in her garden takes most of her time. 'The family feels good because I take care of them and they are in good health', says Mama Marion. She mentions that women can take care of men's responsibilities to earn:
For example, I help my husband in the farm and also when it comes to work, they always say a man is head of the family, but I take care of responsibilities even more than he does because he is not around all the time. Children always ask their mother because they see her around, as mother I always try to provide for our daughter when my husband is not around. We contribute to each other.
Mama Marion separates her time for work and family stating, 'when it is work time I do my work and ensure my time to be home, I am there even though it is never enough for both'. She takes good care of her family and ensures they eat on time and does for them the things she feels they can't handle, like cooking. She is supposed to do all the housework such as washing, cooking, collecting firewood, and also farming and business. She makes mats when she has free time to rest: 'I am able to do all these tasks because I make a programme for myself on what I should do first, then next what and finalise with what.'
There are different care tasks that she is not always able to do due to her involvement in paid work, for example, she does not get enough time to help her young sister-in-law with homework. However, because she has been able to provide for her family's fundamental needs she feels no problem participating in both activities of income-generating and homecare tasks. The only effects she reports is that when she goes for farm activities there is no one taking on her care activities so most of the work waits for her when she returns home. She gets tired and sometimes does not manage to do the work well.
She suggests that they should all help one another in the household. Also she feels that NGOs should have a policy of paying them at least a small amount of money to compensate for time attending NGO activities that could've been spent working: 'at the end of the day you have no food and the family needs to eat, at least there should be some sort of compensation.' She also suggests that the government should provide schools and water.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Show All Answers
Please visit the Job Opportunities section for a listing of all current open vacancies. Each vacancy announcement will have detailed information on how to apply as well as a brief job description, statement of required qualifications and education, and the deadline to apply. After the job closes, the review process can take up to 10 business days. At that time, applicants will be notified of their status.
The Frederick County Smoking Policy prohibits use of tobacco products and related electronic substitutes, including e-cigarettes at any time in all Frederick County Government facilities. This includes all common areas, private offices, lunchrooms, restrooms, meeting rooms and lobbies. This policy applies to employees, visitors, patients, contractors and all other persons who enter into or work in County facilities. If an employee is found smoking in a Frederick County facility, he/she will be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the Frederick County Personnel Rules.
Written employment verification requests can be faxed to Frederick County Human Resources at 301-600-2314. An employee usually has signed a written consent for release of information, this should be attached to the written request. Please allow 48-72 hours for processing. Any questions may be directed to 301-600-1068 or emailed to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Empower Retirement -For questions about the Deferred Compensation or Defined Contribution Plans:
Website: www.empower-retirement.com
Phone Number: 800-701-8255
Axis Plus-For questions about the Flexible Spending Plans:
Website: www.myaxisplus.com
Phone number: 877-872-2125
Legal Resources Plan:
Website: www.legalresources.com
Phone number: 1.800.728.5768
Cigna Health Insurance Co- For questions about your medical or dental insurance, use the information that appears on your ID card.
Website: www.mycigna.com
Customer Service Phone: 1-800-244-6224
You can find those documents here http://agency.governmentjobs.com/frederickmd/default.cfm?action=agencyspecs


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The Raspberry Pi has been very popular as a streaming music player. Sure, the only audio out option on the board is an analog stereo jack, but you can use a USB audio device to improve upon that if you wish. [Wouter van Wijk] wanted to use his RPi as a Spotify server. It's a bit tricky to get everything configured for this, so he decided to give back by publishing a ready to use Spotify server image for the Raspberry Pi.
The project is call the Pi MusicBox. Like some of the RPi Pandora setups we've seen he included the ability to use the hardware as an AirPlay device too. To connect to the Spotify service he uses the Mopidy package. It can also play tracks from local storage (including the home network). It's even capable of mixing the two sources in the same queue. Possibly the best part is that it can be controlled with any Music Player Daemon (MPD) client like the smart phone screenshots seen above.
If you're interested, check out his GitHub repo for the project.


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Eating lots of carrots and cruciferous vegetables -- collard greens, cabbage, broccoli -- could reduce breast cancer risk, particularly an aggressive form common among African American women, suggests a large new study.
The researchers looking at data from the ongoing Black Women's Health Study did not find a similar benefit from fruit intake.
Previous studies of the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and breast cancer in white women have led to conflicting results, and no prior research has investigated this link separately among African American women, lead researcher Dr. Deborah A. Boggs, of Boston University, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.
Boggs noted her team's earlier work showing that a so-called "prudent diet" high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and fish led to a lower risk of estrogen receptor-negative breast cancers among African American women.
The ER-negative form of breast cancer, which is insensitive to the hormone estrogen, is more common in this population than among white women. It is also more difficult to treat and more often fatal than estrogen-sensitive cancers.
Overall, breast cancer is the second leading cancer-killer for both African American and white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 1 in 8 American women will develop the disease at some point in life, although age, heredity and environmental factors can increase an individual's risk.
Boggs and her colleagues wanted to find out whether fruits and vegetables drove the beneficial effect they saw in women eating the prudent diet and whether specific varieties are particularly protective.
They tracked the diets and health of more than 50,000 African American women from across the U.S. for 12 years. About 1,300 of the women developed new cases of breast cancer during that period, 35 percent of them ER-negative.
The researchers found, however, that women who ate at least two servings of vegetables a day had a 43 percent lower risk of ER-negative breast cancer compared with women who ate fewer than four servings of vegetables each week.
Further, they identified certain types of vegetables that appeared to reduce the risk of all types of breast cancer, including broccoli, collard greens, cabbage and carrots.
Women who ate three or more servings a week of carrots, for instance, had a 17 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer than women who ate carrots less than once a month.
The results for all vegetables held after accounting for other potential breast cancer risk factors, such as physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and education level, as well as consumption of other components of the prudent diet, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Still, it is too early to determine if this is a true cause-and effect-relationship, they note. High vegetable consumption could mark a healthier lifestyle in general or some other unknown mechanism that accounts for the apparent protection. Vegetables' cancer-staving power needs to be confirmed in further studies, the researchers write.
"Most Americans do not meet the recommendation of five servings of vegetables per day, based on a 2,000-calorie diet, and African Americans in particular eat fewer vegetables on average than do whites," said Boggs.
"It is clear that, in addition to potential protective effects against breast cancer, higher vegetable consumption can lead to many health benefits, including lower risk of cardiovascular disease," she added. "Therefore, we recommend that African American women try to increase their daily intake of vegetables to meet the established guidelines."


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Hurricane Preparedness Week begins on Sunday, May 23, with a focus on the history of notable storms. Other topics include the triple threats of storm surge, high winds, and inland flooding; the forecast process; preparedness; and taking action.
The Central Pacific hurricane season outlook, released yesterday, calls for a below-average tropical cyclone threat to Hawaii. It predicts a "70% chance of a below normal season, a 25% chance of a near normal season, and only a 5% chance of an above normal season."
Meanwhile, a ClimateWire article, reposted by the New York Times, considers the effects of a hurricane on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:
Researchers Ponder a Hurricane Hitting the Oil-Slicked Gulf of Mexico
NOAA talking points list a number of open questions, such as whether the oil plume could affect storm formation by suppressing evaporation of Gulf water and how a hurricane could change the size and location of the oil slick. There's little information about what would happen if a hurricane hit the spill, experts said.In the Stupid Pet Tricks department, NBC Miami reports that a right-wing political lobbying organization, The National Center for Public Policy Research, is using the opportunity to mock climate scientist James Hansen (and conflate weather with climate) by having a chimpanzee roll dice to predict the number of hurricanes for the season:
Still, several scientists are worried that a hurricane could drive oil inland, soiling beaches and wetlands and pushing polluted water up river estuaries.
No Monkey Business: Primate Predicts Busy Hurricane Season


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It's almost as if Republicans are actively striving to get a reputation for being mean to poor, hungry people. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett plans to start restricting eligibility to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the food stamp program). Specifically, the state is imposing an "asset test" -- anyone under 60 years old with savings of more than $2,000 is no longer eligible for assistance.
The news isn't quite as bad as some outlets are spinning it. Pennsylvania's proposed asset test conforms to federal guidelines for SNAP and doesn't include the value of a recipient's home, retirement savings or car. But what's troubling is that the nationwide trend has been headed in exactly the opposite direction. Only 11 states currently impose asset tests for SNAP eligibility. Just four years ago, in fact, Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, abolished the state's asset test.
And with good reason, as we can readily learn from two new freshly updated informational fact sheets on SNAP coincidentally published on Tuesday by the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities.
SNAP serves as the bedrock of the federal safety net. Ninety-two percent of SNAP's $78 billion budget goes to benefits that can only be used to buy food. Seventy-five percent of SNAP participants are families with children. There are already plenty of restrictions in place that ensure that SNAP benefits primarily go to people who are legitimately poor. According to CBPP, "93 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with incomes below the poverty line, and 55 percent goes to households with incomes below half of the poverty line (about $9,155 for a family of three)."
SNAP gets high marks for low levels of waste and fraud, kicks into action quickly and efficiently when the economy craters, and is rated by the Congressional Budget Office as one of the two most effective forms of federal stimulus. Perhaps best of all, the number of recipients usually declines just as quickly when the economy rebounds. According to a recent study by the USDA, in the mid-2000s, "More than half of all new entrants to SNAP in the mid-2000s participated for less than one year and then left the program when their immediate need had passed."
As the U.S. economy continues to recover, SNAP outlays will surely decline. So why hurry it along? Could it be because conservatives think there's something fundamentally wrong with providing nutritional support? Or is it the racial angle -- the intersection of poverty and race that encourages people like Newt Gingrich to call Obama "the food stamp president."
The most charitable way to interpret Gingrich's slur is as a critique of the president's management of the economy: If he'd been a better president, fewer people would be eligible for assistance. But there's also a deeper, darker level that connects the classic conservative antipathy to anything vaguely smelling of the nanny state. And the more one ponders that, the harder it is to fathom. The richest Americans skated through the Great Recession, while poor people lost their jobs and their homes and struggled to put food on the table. SNAP was there to help, to prevent the kind of pain and suffering that plagued American during the Great Depression, or that still afflicts citizens of less fortunate countries today. We should be thankful that Obama is the food stamp president; it's a tribute to the progress inherent in becoming a civilized nation. We don't let our citizens starve when Wall Street causes an international catastrophe. We should be proud of that.


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Statement for Maj. Hasan Article 39A Hearing for Feb. 2
FORT HOOD, Texas - Colonel Gregory Gross, the judge for the court-martial of Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, re-set the trial date to June, 12, 2012. Previously scheduled to begin on March 5, 2012, the defense attorneys requested a delay so that they can better prepare for the trial. The judge agreed that one of the defense experts, a specialist in mitigation evidence, needs more time to complete his review of Hasan's background. The judge also agreed that the defense team needs more time to sift through the volumes of documents related to this case.
The judge considered other motions and requests from both the defense and prosecution teams in today's hearing. The judge ruled on motions presented by the defense attorneys last October, where they requested expert assistance on the effect of pre-trial publicity and for help in selecting panel (jury) members. The judge denied the pre-trial publicity expert, but granted the panel selection expert. This expert will assist the defense attorneys in questioning the panel members before the court-martial to determine which members should be excused from sitting on the panel.
The defense also filed a motion to compel the prosecution to provide them with notes from meetings and conversations between the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-ranking officials in the aftermath of the shooting on Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. The defense attorneys have requested the notes so they can determine if any matter was discussed which may have unlawfully influenced the independent discretion of Hasan's chain of command to prosecute him. The prosecution opposed the motion, saying that the Army officers who have taken action in this prosecution were under no influence from higher officials to do so. The judge reserved ruling on this matter until a later date.
Another motion considered was the prosecution team's request that investigation reports prepared by the U.S. Department of Defense regarding Hasan's military career be protected from further dissemination by the defense attorneys. The defense attorneys oppose such a protective order and requested that the judge allow them time to prepare a response to the prosecution's motion. Once the judge receives the response, he will hear arguments from both sides before ruling on the motion.
The judge commented on a matter that had been discussed at the last hearing in November. The defense attorneys have requested they be allowed to talk privately with the Commanding General of Fort Hood and the Staff Judge Advocate who gives legal advice to the Commanding General, to inquire into their qualifications to proceed with this case as a capital murder trial.
The prosecution asserts that such private access is unnecessary, and asked the judge for more time to prepare a response to the defense request. The judge granted them more time, and he will not rule on this matter until he considers the prosecution's response.
The judge will prepare a docketing order based on the new trial date, and he may allow both sides to conduct hearings or conferences with him on a weekly basis as the trial date grows near. He will allow both sides to submit questions to the pool of potential panel members before they are selected for this trial.
Hasan is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
Media Relations
(254) 287-9993
(254) 287-0106
fax: (254) 288-2750
Fort Hood, TX 76522
[email protected]


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Los Angeles prosecutors have rejected a sexual battery case against Kevin Spacey because the accuser has died.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office announced the decision Tuesday.
The case stemmed from a masseur's allegations that Spacey inappropriately touched him during a massage session at a home in Malibu, California, in October 2016.
The decision states that the allegations against Spacey could not be proven without the masseur's participation. The man also sued Spacey under the alias John Doe in a case that remains pending in federal court.
An email sent to Spacey's lawyer Alan Jackson was not immediately returned.
Massachusetts prosecutors in July dropped a criminal case against Spacey filed after accusations that he groped an 18-year-old man at a bar on the resort island of Nantucket in 2016.
In that case, Spacey's accuser invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify about text messages from the night of the alleged groping that the defense claimed were deleted.
Police in London are also investigating allegations of sexual misconduct by Spacey, but there's been no public update on that inquiry.


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In two days, the Finnish music sensation known as HIM will take to the stage of the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC for the very last time. This show marks the end of their North American tour and then its back to Europe and eventually Finland where they will close the book on the band with a final show on New Year's Eve. In honor of the historic tour, photographer Ville Juurikkala has come to New York City and is showcasing a number of band photographs that he has taken over the years at the awesome Morrison Hotel Gallery. I've noted before that Juurikkala has pointed the lens at other great Finnish artists like Michael Monroe, The 69 Eyes, Amorphis and even Nightwish. This show is all about His Infernal Majesty however (and no, they don't call themselves that anymore in case you wondered). I hit the gallery a little early to get a few minutes with Ville so I could share the scoop with those of you who would never be able to be there for yourself. Here's Ville in front of two works that I liked a lot.
Continue reading On Point For "HIM Photographs" by Ville Juurikkala @ Morrison Hotel Gallery


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The design team have chosen:
What a work of art. Beautiful colour and so much detail. We all loved it.
Honourable mentions
(in order of submission)
Not one but a collection of 4 cards, I've picked this picture as the pink and green are my favourite.
The red and white make a very smart, modern looking card but fun too.
So pretty in these soft colours. You can't go wrong with an inky background.
Such beautiful colours against that gorgeous embossed swirly background.
Congratulations everyone. Please display your winners badges on your blogs.
We look forward to seeing your entries to our current colour challenge.


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DRM-Free Games Platform, GOG.com, Adds Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter Games
PC platform signs Warner Bros as a publishing partner; First wave of games available now, more to come in the future.
PC platform signs Warner Bros as a publishing partner; First wave of games available now, more to come in the future.
Get the Lego games for a 75 percent discount.
LEGO has greenlit a fan-made Ghostbusters LEGO set to celebrate the movie's 30th anniversary, but when are we getting a video game version?
Phil Ring and Jonathan Smith from TT games talk about playing with huge licensed film franchises in the video game sphere, as well as making dark themes and death safe ...
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is now available on the App Store.
This week we see MotorStorm RC and Lego Harry Potter for the Vita along with Red Alert 3 on XBL and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. for the PSN.
BioWare's sci-fi trilogy capper leads big week of new releases featuring Street Fighter X Tekken, Unit 13, MLB 12, and I Am Alive.
Sony lays out launch lineup headed by Uncharted and Hot Shots Golf; games priced from $10 to $50, memory cards running from $20 for 4GB up to $100 for 32GB.
The Mario Kart franchise makes its Nintendo 3DS debut Down Under.
Learn more spells in this Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 video.
It's a big week for releases with Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Saints Row: The Third, and more coming out in the space of just a few days.
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is available now!
Check out a Halloween video for Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 featuring Lord Voldemort!
Before the crowds rush in, Dan Chiappini whips you around the Warner Bros. booth to show you what they're showing at EB Games Expo 2011!
Wingardium Lego-osa! Harry Potter is all grown up and heading back to the Lego universe.
Warner Bros. bringing the boy wizard's building-block adventures to a close at height of holiday release season.


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Workshop: Replacing the main bearings in a Hope Pro II
How to breathe life back into your rear hub
Hope hubs are superb and the bearings supplied with them are grade-A quality, but jet washing and filthy weather can wear them out. Here's how to breathe life back into your rear hub…
Time: 45 minutes
Cost: £40
Tools For The Job
- Soft hammer
- Vice
- Teflon grease
- Methylated spirits
- Seal tool HT175
- Hub bearing tool HTT174 (essential)
- Hub support tool HTT167 (optional)
- 2 x 61903RS bearings
- Disc side seal
- Cassette body seal tool HTT175 (essential)
- Torque wrench
- Wooden blocks
1. There's no need for a workstand with this job, because we're concentrating solely on the rear wheel. So spin the bike upside down, shift the rear wheel into the smallest sprocket at the back and remove it.
2. Unscrew the skewer nut, but leave the skewer in place and put the lockring tool into the lockring. Now screw the nut back on to hold it in place. With the cassette facing outwards, place the chainwhip around the sprockets so that it's in your left hand, put the adjustable spanner onto the lock ring tool and push down to crack it undone. Remove the skewer nut and the lockring fully then withdraw the cassette.
3. We recommend that you remove the disc rotor, because there's going to be grease and all sorts flying around, and you don't want that on your rotor. Removing it also stops it getting damaged. Grab your T25 Torx key and remove all six bolts.
4.The aluminium end-spacers are held in place by O-rings. To remove them, clamp them lightly in a vice, preferably with soft jaws. Pull and wiggle the hub to 'walk' them off.
5. The cassette body is held in place by the seal. To remove it, grab it nice and tightly, rotate it anti-clockwise and pull it hard at the same time – it should pop out. Take the washer that sits on the axle between the cassette body and the hub body off at this point and put it to one side with the end-spacers.
6. Now to remove the axle. You need to knock it through from the drive side, out of the disc side. Rest the hub body against a couple of pieces of wood (or onto tool HTT167) with the disc flange supported, take your soft hammer and tap sharply down on the end of the axle. This will drive the axle out along with the disc side bearing and seal.
7. Now remove the disc side bearing from the axle. Place the assembly into your vice, with the long end of the axle pointing down. The bearing needs to be supported by the jaws of the vice, but nothing clamped up. Grab your soft hammer again and sharply tap the end of the axle to drive it through the bearing.
8. You can now use your axle to drive the remaining bearing out of the hub. Grab the wheel and rest the drive-side spoke flanges against the blocks of wood (or against tool HTT167). Drop the shorter end section of the axle down into the hub and drive the axle through and out using your soft hammer. You then need to remove that bearing from the axle as per step seven.
9. Time to fit the new bits. Smear a little grease onto the inner surface of the hub body where the bearing fits, which should help it slide into place. Grab the wheel and rest it on top of your blocks of wood with the disc flange supported (or against tool HTT167). Drop the first bearing into the drive side and using tool HTT174 against the bearing, sharply tap it into place using your soft hammer.
10. Leave tool HTT174 in place, flip the wheel over and rest it on a hard surface, such as a floor without carpet. Grab your axle and put the long end section into the hub. Then get your bearing, drop that over the other end of the axle and roughly seat it into the hub. Now put tool HTT174 against the bearing and drive it sharply into place using your soft hammer.
11. To fit the disc side seal, smear some methylated spirits onto the outside of a seal – this helps lubricate it so it seats correctly and then evaporates after a few minutes. Fitting it with grease would lubricate the seal and allow it to push out when fitting the spacer, causing the hub to drag, so just use meths and wait for it to dry.
12. Place the small washer onto the drive side of the axle. Take your cassette body and smear a little Teflon grease around the inside of the ratchet in the hub body. Make sure that it's just enough to fill the ramps of the ratchet, as using too much will stop the pawls from engaging correctly and can cause premature wear and slipping of the pawls.
13. Now ensure there's a small amount of grease smeared onto the spring seated in the freehub where they touch the pawls. To refit the cassette body, rotate it anti-clockwise while pushing in gently. You then need to reseat the seal, using tool HTT175. Make sure the seal is centralised, then slip the tool over the cassette body and with a sharp push, the seal will snap into place.
14. Refit the axle-spacers. Put a little smear of grease onto the axle stubs to aid sliding them on, and also put a smear onto the contact surface of the seal but don't fill it as this will push the seal out when fitting the spacer. Then just push the spacers into place by hand.
15. Now refit the cassette. Put a smear of Teflon grease onto the splines first, slide your sprockets on and tighten the lock ring to 34Nm. Wash your hands to get rid of any grease you have on them, grab your disc rotor and refit that, checking its orientation, and tighten the rotor bolts to 5.6Nm.
16. Finally, put the wheel back in the bike, flip the bike the right way up, pat yourself on the back, make a cup of tea and look forward to a rumble and squeak-free super smooth ride next time you go out.
Workshop wisdom
Don't scrimp on replacement bearings. You get what you pay for. Genuine Hope replacement bearings are the best.
Don't cut corners. You really do need to buy the bearing installation tools, or you'll damage the new bearings when fitting them, negating all your hard work and costing you more.
If the hub binds when you reassemble it, the chances are you've missed the small spacer behind the cassette body.
Check out www.hopetech.com for a video walk-through on replacing bearings.


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More Doom and Gloom from ABC: Romney Must 'Sweep the Whole East Coast'
Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos and analyst Matt Dowd on Tuesday offered one more day of doom and gloom for the Republican presidential ticket. Discussing the prospect of Mitt Romney winning Virginia, Stephanopoulos insisted, "But it's not even enough. He really has to sweep the whole east coast."
(Of course, the east coast includes states such as Maine and Massachusetts, areas he doesn't need to win.)
Dowd, who has worked for both Democrats and Republicans, piled on: "[Romney has] a very narrow path to an electoral college victory...It's as if he has to draw an inside straight in this campaign today in order to win this tonight." For emphasis, he added, "He has got to do all those things and the path is still narrow for him to win this."
On November 2, Dowd touted the race as "breaking" for Obama. This despite the fact that the Real Clear Politics average of all the polls gives the President a 0.7 percent advantage.
On September 18, Dowd declared Romney's "47 percent" comment to be a "six" or "seven" on the "Richter scale"
A transcript of the November 6 segment follows:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get more on this now from our political Matthew Dowd, veteran of campaign war rooms. And Jake talked about the wind at the back of the President. Our poll shows that. I want to show everyone right now, ten days ago, coming out of the debates, Mitt Romney had a three-point lead over the President. Over the last ten days, that's now shifted. Our final poll has the President at 50. Mitt Romney at 47.
MATT DOWD: Yeah. You and I talked a month ago that there was going to be an unexpected event would happen. And nobody would have believed it would be a hurricane hitting the northeast of this country. I think this race was and has been always close and it has had a slight electoral advantage for the President. That's changed in the last ten days, as you pointed out. It's now gone from, it's still a slight electoral advantage for the President, but it's now a slight national popular vote advantage for the President in the course of this. A lot of votes still to be cast. But that's the shift that's happened and I think because of Sandy and because of Governor Christie.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's look at the Electoral College. You just mentioned how the night might play out. The first polls to close in the state of Virginia. And that is a must-win state for Governor Romney. I want to put it in his column right there. But it's not even enough. He really has to sweep the whole east coast, doesn't he, at the beginning of the night? Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire, as well?
DOWD: Yeah. He has got to sweep all the states that touch the Atlantic Ocean, really, to have a chance in this race. And I think Virginia is going to tell us a lot. It will tell us if this night ends early for Mitt Romney or if we're in for a long night. Virginia is going to tell us that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's right, but if he wins, he still has to do well in the Midwest. Win either Ohio or Wisconsin. Because look what happens if we give that to President Obama, Ohio, Wisconsin, where he's ahead in both states, he's five votes short of the 270 electoral votes he needs. All that leaves then is Nevada, Colorado or Iowa. The President ahead or tied in all three of the states right.
DOWD: That's the situation that Mitt Romney is in. He's got a very narrow path to an electoral college victory. And exactly as you laid it out. It's as if he has to draw an inside straight in this campaign today in order to win this tonight. He has got to do all those things and the path is still narrow for him to win this.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.


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Programs for Change are meant to serve as catalysts for society-wide evolutionary advancement. They are unified efforts of all PFC groups to provide model service programs for basic social needs based on collaborative principles. Drawing from the talents of all groups to create open source organizational structures, with online databases, forms and downloadable PDF documents to energize local and regional groups, the Program service package will enable these groups to organize and provide needed services to their communities wherever they are.
The Programs for Change section of the Prepare for Change website is focused on innovating basic services for the New Society, services that use all of the New Society Groups talents and abilities to solve the everyday problems of living well. These activities require a substantial investment of time and effort by local groups coordinating with global standards and guidance. They lead to the creation of institutional organizations that are intended to remain and grow on their own without further inputs from PFC.
Volunteers working through the website can turn these New Society initiatives into working concept packages for local action groups to build on with their own funding, staff and contractual commitments from their communities. The website database will eventually roll out into a new and independent website focused on its Program, after which the links on PFC will lead to that program.
The world around us is about to change. We have the opportunity to create new ways of doing things, important things that will grow into the basic services of a better world. Knowing this, we are here to lay new foundations upon which the New Society can grow and all people can prosper and be the Galactic beings they were born to be.
The Prepare for Change volunteer network is made of people from all over the planet who realize that we must take responsibility for ourselves, that the "leadership" of society has been highjacked by a small elite who have directed everything that money can buy toward the accomplishment of their very self-serving goals. This is why we are a volunteer network using open source technology, for it is only through the dedication of honorable men and women that the ambitions of the self-serving can be deterred. We take pride in building upon one another's work to create functional solutions for all the people of the planet, and that it is important that all of these efforts will evolve from the foundation of committed PFC members. Take a look at the Programs listed here and see if you would like to become involved.
The Humanitarian Project Funding Program The expected change in the way the monetary system works will create the opportunity for new ways of doing business to emerge. At the forefront of this is a commitment by the organizers of the new financial system to fund Humanitarian Projects that help bring the planetary population to a more uniform level of prosperity by investing in housing, health and education. These goals require a substantial commitment of time and energy by all who seek to fulfill them. The social entreprenuers who have the drive and passion to initiate and administer these efforts will need assistance to develop the presentations and professional relationships to succeed. The PFC Humanitarian Funding Program will focus on creating a cadre of men and women able to assist these committed individuals to achieve their humanitarian goals. A big part of this assistance will be creating online resources available through this site or related sites. PFC has already developed committed funding sources that will need proper paperwork before proceeding, but more than paperwork is the personal, social and professional resources needed to succeed. How we can meet these demands and grow quickly after the change is our challenge. If you have the skills to assist local groups to create working budgets to accomplish their goals Please volunteer for the Funding Assistance Team
The Global Communities Design Program This Program addresses the integration of new technologies and philosophies into the daily lifestyles of everyone living on Earth. One approach under consideration is to create twelve channels of needed design services so communities can choose what works best for them. The concept of "modularity" makes sense here, with each of the channel technologies fitting with the others in a mix and match fashion.
The release of our societies on Earth from the control matrix of banking, energy, petrochemicals and pharmaceutical health care will create a need for lifestyles allowing people to remain in their neighborhoods and use their time and effort to have fulfilling lives within walking distance of their homes. In this new society, travel will be optional rather than required. The role of PFC in bringing about this new lifestyle is extrapolated from our emphasis on communities of mind using the Internet to create technical alignments that can get things done. In this case an alignment of philosophy with technical competence, to connect people capable of creating a layered design for community services based on the new technologies is the advantage and reason for our involvement. If participating in the creation of new communities feels right for you, please join the discussion.
The Nature Restoration Program involves creating alignments of interest groups around specified parts of nature. The primary effort is to identify sources of volunteers that can return to the same location in nature twice a year to provide a group of services such as monitoring, reporting, repair of fences, catchments, nesting areas and to assure the ability of the natural environment to persevere in the face of encroachment from feral animals and invasive species. Church groups, school clubs, boy scout troops, ongoing youth programs from all parts of society are candidates to provide this volunteer work. The land holders will vary, but ranches, public parks, state agencies and national organizations such as the Bureau of Land Management (for the US) or similar for other countries and other private groups are probable sources of sites to be regularly maintained. Also involved will be resources of expertise and materials such as wildlife management agencies, state departments of fisheries, and others dedicated to parts of the natural environment. One of the key roles to this program is to unite thee various groups around solving a particular site's environmental and ecological problems. The reason this will be successful is that it creates win-win propositions for all involved, since most of the sites will be acknowledged to need help, but lack of money and organization will be cited as the reason for inaction. This program can use what is available from many interested parties to create a whole solution. And it begins with gathering information around a proposed solution, which is something we can do. If high level professional networking on behalf of the natural environment is what you would like to do, please Volunteer to be a Nature Restorer Contact,
The MetaChild Program is for children. As our global societies have moved from the land and into industrialized cities the art of raising children has suffered from the loss of the natural environment where children could run and play without fear or close supervision. In our overly managed world we see that children are entering school lacking the neurodevelopment to function in an educational environment. The school systems find themselves working with children that cannot process information auditorially, verbally, or visually, cannot sit still or attend to doing the work that is asked of them. While many people want to blame the schools, the environment or the nutrition, the best answer is to begin by teaching parents the basics of neurodevelopment, for it is from this basic knowledge that they can understand the importance of being kind, bonding with their child, proper feeding and rest, and perhaps the most important the necessity of appropriate stimulation every single day. The emphasis of the MetaChild is on the earliest years, but the basic information that is shared provides the foundation for the rest of childhood by teaching the parents to support their child's needs for healthy growth and development. I will publish an introduction to MetaChild as a post soon so that this important idea for a Program can be fully understood. If you understand the difference that early intervention can make for all children and would like to help, please volunteer for the MetaChild development team.
The Free Energy Engineering Program is organized around making information and training available for interested individuals worldwide, to enable them to understand all the variables involved in creating a permanent free energy installation for their home, community or business.
Neighborhood Node Wireless Independence Program is an open source project to create a software package and a hardware specification for a local wireless infrastructure capable of providing data, voice, text, and video to the neighborhood independent of Internet connectivity. While the Internet is the best way to share information, it is not wise to expect basic functions for local productivity such as local voice and file sharing to depend on the global Internet, which in emergencies could be unreliable. This program will seek to unite all universities using open source to incorporate this into their curriculum and become part of a global effort to raise the standard of living in non-urban areas. To read an article about this concept see Neighborhood Nodes: Key to Global Freedom and Prosperity
The idea of creating programs that can help our members build the new society seems obvious to us at PFC. These are programs that our members already have the skills to accomplish, but need a framework to work within in order to be of service. Whether is is being part of a community, helping nature or supporting the healthy development of children, we are already involved in some way, so being proactive about it seems wise.


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Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
(CNN) — While many people spent Christmas Eve doing last-minute shopping, two American astronauts had a more challenging matter to attend to Tuesday.
In orbit more than 200 miles above Earth, flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins embarked on a spacewalk Tuesday morning to repair part of the International Space Station's cooling system.
The spacewalk ended at 2:23 p.m. ET Tuesday and lasted 7 hours and 30 minutes, NASA said.
More than four hours into the job, the two astronauts had successfully bolted a replacement ammonia pump module into its location and were working to connect lines to allow the ammonia to flow, NASA said in a tweet.
There was a slight kink in the work when one of the fluid lines tangled. The astronauts untangled it, but when they did, the line released some ammonia flakes that landed on their space suits.
It was not a leak, but some residue, NASA spokesman John Ira Petty said. The ammonia that landed on the spacesuits will require the spacewalkers to air out their suits before going back into the station, but is otherwise not a big deal, he said.
The two engineers were carrying out the second in a series of expeditions needed to replace a malfunctioning pump, which circulates ammonia through loops outside the station to keep equipment cool.
The pump developed problems December 11 when an internal valve stuck in an incorrect position. The space station's life support system remains up and running, but operations were cut back as a result of the problem, NASA said.
It is the second Christmas Eve spacewalk in history, according to NASA.
The two astronauts spent about 5½ hours outside the space station Saturday working to remove the problematic pump.
Spacesuit problem
Mastracchio used a different spacesuit after a small amount of water leaked into the cooling system of the one he wore Saturday.
NASA said the issue with the suit, which happened at the end of the spacewalk, was unrelated to a problem experienced in July when water pooled in an Italian astronaut's helmet, causing a spacewalk to be cut short.
"Both Mastracchio and Hopkins reported dry conditions repeatedly throughout Saturday's activities and the two were never in danger," the agency said.
NASA had installed new safeguards, including snorkels inside the spacesuits that would allow astronauts to take breaths if water formed and they had to return to the space station.
Tuesday's spacewalk was the 176th to support the space station's assembly and maintenance, according to NASA.
The previous Christmas Eve spacewalk took place in 1999, the agency said, when Discovery astronauts Steve Smith and John Grunsfeld spent more than eight hours refitting parts of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The others on board the International Space Station at the moment include Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin, Sergey Ryazanskiy and Oleg Kotov and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
CNN's Ashley Corum, Ralph Ellis and John Zarrella contributed to this report.
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