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3 Americans among 21 killed in Kabul restaurant attack
- Attack could hasten exit of international organizations working in Afghanistan
- Those killed include two U.S. citizens working for the American University of Afghanistan
- White House condemns attack%2C the deadliest ever on foreigners in Afghanistan
A deadly attack on a Kabul restaurant popular among foreigners has raised worries that the assault could place pressure on the international aid community to reduce their presence in the country at a critical time.
Twenty-one people — 13 foreigners, including three Americans — were killed in the attack, which provides proof that insurgents can still execute deadly blows in Afghanistan's capital.
The restaurant, in a nondescript location on a quiet side street in the capital, is popular among Kabul's international community.
The Friday bombing struck at the heart of the international aid mission there. The dead included a variety of foreigners working for organizations, including the United Nations, that are critical for Afghanistan's political and economic development as U.S. military presence shrinks.
The attack comes as tensions are rising between Washington and the Afghan government over President Hamid Karzai's reluctance to sign an agreement to allow a residual force in his country after most American combat troops leave at the end of this year.
Karzai condemned the Kabul bombing but also used the occasion to criticize the United States for its actions in Afghanistan.
"If NATO forces and in the lead the United States of America want to cooperate and be united with Afghan people, they must target terrorism," he said without fully elaborating on what America should be doing. He added that America had followed a policy that "was not successful in the past decade."
The bombing and Karzai's constant criticisms are likely to only further alienate the international community, which is attempting to help Afghanistan, said Marc Chretien, a former political adviser to the coalition command in Kabul.
He said Karzai is quick to criticize any accidental civilian deaths caused by coalition forces but is much less sensitive to American and other coalition deaths.
Ahmad Majidyar, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said the bombing will probably not drive international workers out of Afghanistan but will further alienate foreigners from the Afghans they are trying to help.
The attack might put pressure on Western governments to limit their presence in Afghanistan and restrict their movements, which would reduce their contact with Afghans. "This is what the Taliban wants," Majidyar said.
Mark Jacobson, a former NATO official in Afghanistan now at the German Marshall Fund, said he doesn't think the bombing will prompt international officials to leave. He said their movements are already restricted and it would be difficult to limit them further.
"It would be unfortunate if this became a turning point for the international community in terms of its engagement," Jacobson said. "I think it is important to show resiliency."
The White House condemned the attack on the La Taverna du Liban restaurant in a statement Saturday.
"There is no possible justification for this attack, which has killed innocent civilians, including Americans, working every day to help the Afghan people achieve a better future with higher education and economic assistance at the American University, United Nations, International Monetary Fund and other organizations," the statement said.
It was the deadliest attack against foreign civilians since the war began nearly 13 years ago, the Associated Press reported.
Two Americans killed in the blast worked for the American University of Afghanistan and a Somali-American who worked for the United Nations was also killed. Also among the dead were the International Monetary Fund's Lebanese representative, Wabel Abdallah, and Vadim Nazarov, a Russian who was the chief political affairs officer at the U.N. Mission in Afghanistan.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in response to a coalition airstrike.
"The target of the attack was a restaurant frequented by high-ranking foreigners," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an e-mailed statement, the AP reported. He said the attack targeted a place "where the invaders used to dine with booze and liquor in the plenty."
Contributing: The Associated Press


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A beautiful patriotic addition to any room! This high quality, true flat braided rug consists of 100% spun polypropylene yarn. The fiber is so strong and colorfast that it can be washed in the machine in cold water. Lay flat to dry. Reversible for twice the wear! Measures 2' x 3' oval. Available in two styles: Antique and Rustic. Made in the USA
- Item #: 5CBRFLAG

subset: commoncrawl


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Our fitness room "Wald & Fit" features LifeFitness equipment, wall-bars and free weights. Enjoy a great workout while watching the forest and its inhabitants or a gripping movie on your own screen. A second "fitness studio" is right on the doorstep: the Hohe Promenade with its breathtaking views over Davos is perfect for walking. We also offer aquarobics three times a week for our early risers.Opening times during the winter season7.00am to 9.00pm
Rest assured, your e-mail address will only be used to receive the newsletter and will not be forwarded to any third party. You may cancel your newsletter subscription at any time.


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Located in the heart of Alberta's Peace Country, GPRC Fairview Campus delivers state-of-the-art career programs & specialty training. Students benefit from smaller class sizes coupled with high quality personalized instruction, ensuring comprehensive opportunities for the learners of our region as well as students from across Canada and around the world. Programs include hands-on training to give graduates a head start in their chosen field. Instruction in selected programs is provided in learning centres through both classroom instruction and videoconference.
A wide range of pre-employment and technical program options are offered as Apprenticeship training.
GPRC Fairview Campus is known for being a warm and caring place — a home away from home. We have very close ties with our community, building lifelong friendships and community spirit through programs such as the GPRC children's summer camps.
Opportunities abound for students to socialize and get involved in campus and community activities. The Town of Fairview and surrounding communities offer extensive walking/cross-country ski trails, 9-hole golf course, curling rink, bowling alley, hockey arena and many sports fields. There are many active recreational clubs in the community which welcome new members as well as many community events. All community services and amenities are just a short walk from the campus.
On-campus amenities include a cafeteria, bookstore, library, computer labs, theatre, fitness centre, residence, bank machines and a working farm. Our fitness centre offers a fully-equipped weight room, cardio room with state-of-the-art exercise equipment and raquetball/squash courts, plus a full-size indoor pool with waterslide and hot tub. Outdoors we have a soccer field, ball diamond, and 3-hole golf course. Students can even bring their horses to school — boarding facilities and an indoor riding arena are available on campus. Contact the Farm Manager for rates at 780.835.6663.
Dormitory, apartment, townhouse, and family living accommodations are available at reasonable rates. All units are furnished and some include cooking facilities. Parking is ample and FREE! Mailboxes, laundry and a bank machine are close at hand. Notley Square Lounge is equipped with a big-screen TV, pool tables and plenty of seating.
GPRC is proud of its record in learner service and the preparation of our students for productive employment, lifelong learning and participatory citizenship.
GPRC has something for everyone!


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Dear Sencha,
Yesterday I bought two licenses after extensive testing (also other applications).
As a result Sencha Animator came out the best for what we wanted to do with it.
So keep up the great work.
Although as you may know, there is a little competition in this type of application (Adobe Edge, Tumult Hype for example).
Now Adobe Edge has a really nice implementation that let's you create a basic preloader (showing a "I am loading bar" beforehand) that can be extended through javascript by adding the images that need to preload.
There is that and there is also a very nice open source library for this created by the guys who created the HTML5 version of the populair iPad game : Cut the Rope HD
I would really love to see this feature in the future!
Kind Regards,
Patrick van Zadel


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COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) — A Michigan camper was shot and killed as he slept when a drive-by gunman shot up five vehicles in an Oregon beach parking lot before turning the gun on himself, authorities said Tuesday.
The gunman's father was later found shot to death in a rural area 50 miles away.
Investigators had no motive for the shootings.
Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier said authorities believe Zachary Levi Brimhall, 34, of Dillard shot and killed David Jesse Hortman, 43, of Walker, Michigan, at the beach before killing himself.
Frasier, however, did not immediately blame Brimhall for the death of his father, William Ray Brimhall, 58, of Dillard, who was shot multiple times near his vehicle on a remote logging road in the Coast Range east of Coquille.
Investigators found several firearms, some large firecrackers used to frighten seals, and materials to make an improvised explosive device in Zachary Brimhall's vehicle and called the Oregon State Police bomb squad, Frasier said. Bomb technicians found no explosives in the father's vehicle.
Authorities said Hortman represented a recreational vehicle supply company and had decided to stay for a week of vacation after exhibiting at a trade show.
Mark MacPherson, whose car was also shot, told KCBY he thought someone was throwing rocks at his vehicle, "but my window shattered and I knew in that instant someone was shooting at me."
There was no known connection between Hortman and Zachary Brimhall, authorities said.
The shooting occurred early Tuesday at Bastendorff Beach just south of Coos Bay. The area has long been a popular spot for homeless people as well as people who want to have a campfire on the beach.
About a year ago, the federal Bureau of Land Management cut maximum camping time from 14 days to 24 hours at the site and stepped up patrols due to problems.
"We have had some problems in the past with some nefarious activity out there," agency spokeswoman Megan Harper said. "We have tried to step up patrols lately and it had seemed like it was getting a lot better.'
Dillard Store & Deli owner Keith Sjogren said Ray Brimhall had worked at a wood products mill and lived near the store, though Sjogren had not seen him for about six months. Sjogren described him as an easy-going man.


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Over the Christmas break, my little brother Andrew and I got together and experimented with building games for the Xbox 360 with the XNA framework. We ended up building a game called StarFight. It started as a clone of Asteroids, until we found that killing each other was more interesting than killing big space rocks.
The Xbox 360 controllers have two thumb-sticks. In our game, the left thumb-stick controls movement of the ship, while the right thumb-stick controls the direction the ship is facing. The right trigger button fires the ships cannon.
We also added boosters, which randomly appear and give the player who picks them up a special bonus. Here you can see Andrew picking up a health boost - I think I'm in trouble:
Publishing the game to the app store
I find the game quite fun to play, and I'm curious to see if anyone else does. We've submitted the game to the XNA Creators Club - there, it will be peer reviewed before being published to the Xbox 360 indie app store. I've never published anything to an app store before, so I'm curious to see how the process goes.
Open source
We submitted the game to the app store, but the primary reason for that is so other people can play it (there's no "free" option on the store, and there's no way to play XNA games on the Xbox without buying them from the marketplace or having an XNA creators club membership). But if anyone is interested, the source code to the game is at BitBucket.
On Learning XNA
XNA is a very nice framework, and does a good job of straddling the line between making life easy and avoiding leaky abstractions. It handles a lot of the complexity of loading and converting content (textures, 3D models, etc.), but most of the code you write still comes back to triangles, vectors, matrices and trigonometry. All you need to get started with XNA for PC games is the XNA Game Studio 4.0, which is free.
On Xbox Development
I'd been writing a few XNA applications for PC, and making them run on Xbox was very easy. First, you'll need to fork out some cash for an XNA Creators Club membership. Once you've done that, install the XNA Game Studio Connector onto your Xbox.
Your PC can then connect to the Xbox via the XNA Game Studio device center. The debugging experience is fantastic - just hit F5 in Visual Studio and the game will be deployed and run on your Xbox in no time.
On Australia
The recent Hanselminutes podcast is what got me into using XNA for Xbox games. While I always thought of the Xbox as a platform for large corporations to publish major game titles, the Indie store makes it more like an app store.
The Indie game store relies on peer review to establish ratings (G, PG, M15+, for example). That's fine in the USA and other countries, but in Australia apparently it's not allowed. Since games are required to be rated before being sold in Australia, the indie game store isn't available here. That's a real shame.
The funny side to this is that as an Australian, I can develop and publish an Xbox game for people in other countries to play, but I can't download and play it myself.
More links
- We set up a Facebook page for the game at http://tinyurl.com/starfight
- We have a twitter account at @starfightgame
- Source code: http://bitbucket.org/paulstovell/starfight
- We sourced audio from http://flashkit.com and http://www.freesound.org
Welcome, my name is Paul Stovell. I live in Brisbane and work on Octopus Deploy, an automated deployment tool.
Prior to founding Octopus Deploy, I worked for an investment bank in London building WPF applications, and before that I worked for Readify, an Australian .NET consulting firm. I also worked on a number of open source projects and was an active user group presenter. I was a Microsoft MVP for WPF from 2006 to 2013.
Not quite on the ratings. All Indie games are essentially unrated - they are categorized by peer review into a ratings like system but its not in any way official. Official ESRB etc rating is very expensive and time consuming. On the Xbox they are included as 'unrated' which means that they are not available if parental locks are enabled.
Australia does not (AFAIK) allow any unrated content so that's why indie games don't appear there. AS for other countries - who knows the reason its not documented anywhere.
@ZMan, thanks for the correction.
I was curious why small iPhone games (not to mention Flash games on websites) are sold in Australia while small Xbox games can't be. It appears there may be a grey area around that too:
Do you know if there are any plans under way to change the legislation?


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Next time you Tweet or post something to your Facebook status, beware! There is a good chance that piece of data is mined and run through a series of complex algorithms. Your feelings, opinions and sentiments could be interpreted by services that track human emotions, perhaps inaccurately for the purpose of determining "the bottom line" especially for companies tracking their product lines.
This NYT article says …
An emerging field known as sentiment analysis is taking shape around one of the computer world's unexplored frontiers: translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data.
This is more than just an interesting programming exercise. For many businesses, online opinion has turned into a kind of virtual currency that can make or break a product in the marketplace.
There are already a few services out there, like Tweetfeel and Twitrratr that track peoples opinions. However none of them 100% accurate. Interpreting a string of text and discerning human emotion conveyed in the string is a daunting task and an imperfect science to say the least. The algorithms typically look for keywords in a text string and assign them a positive or negative sentiment. The challenge however is accurately figuring out the human emotion associated with a series of words in a string. "Eating a handful of blue M&M's made me hungry for more". The word "hungry" is often interpreted as a negative sentiment. However in this context it's clearly meant to be positive at least for the company making M&M's (not necessarily for one's waistline ). When this string is analyzed by an algorithm the data could be misrepresented and in the final analysis interpreted as "blue M&M's are not very popular with consumers".
While a lot of emphasis is given to algorithms and how sophisticated they are it's hard not to ignore the fact that it's the data that really drives the innovation. Recognizing and identifying untapped data sources is key and with the increasing use of social networks there is an amazing volume of data available. As companies like Facebook and Twitter open up their data thru API's I think we're going to see more and more of these Artificial Intelligence type applications and services popping up all over the place.


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Highlights of the last 60 years of U.S.-Iran relations:
1953: A CIA-backed coup overthrows Iranian Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh, restores Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. The U.S. provides the increasingly autocratic shah hundreds of millions of dollars over the next quarter-century.
1979: Iranians overthrow the shah. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns from exile, seizes power and declares the U.S. the "Great Satan." Militants storm the U.S. Embassy and hold 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The United States ends diplomatic relations with Iran.
1980-88: U.S. supports Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. Some 1.5 million people are killed.
1983: Iranian-backed Hezbollah is blamed for the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon and of the Beirut barracks of the U.S. Marine Corps. The blasts kill 258 Americans.
1986: The Reagan administration is exposed for covertly selling arms to Iran and using the proceeds to bankroll a secret war in Central America.
1987-88: U.S. and Iranian forces clash in Persian Gulf.
1988: The U.S. mistakenly downs an Iranian passenger jet flying above the Strait of Hormuz, killing 290 people. Iran and Iraq reach a cease-fire.
1990s: Iran is accused of supporting a series of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist attacks around the world.
1995: President Bill Clinton imposes far-reaching oil and trade sanctions on Iran.
1997: Iran elects reformist President Mohammed Khatami as president. The U.S. scales back some sanctions.
2001: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. and Iran coordinate on action against the Taliban and aid to Afghanistan.
2002: President George W. Bush includes Iran in his "axis of evil," along with North Korea and Iraq. Washington releases information about Iran's nuclear program.
2003: After ousting Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq, U.S. accuses Iran of helping Shiite militants kill American soldiers.
2005: Hard-line conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes Iran's president, issues a series of provocative statements against the U.S. and Israel.
2006-2010: The U.S. succeeds in getting four rounds of U.N. sanctions passed against Iran. They demand Tehran stop enriching uranium and exporting weapons, and they set banking, trade and travel restrictions.
2009: Obama takes office promising engagement with Iran. Months later, Ahmadinejad gets another term as president after a contested vote and violent, postelection crackdown. U.S. and Israel covertly sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
2011: U.S. and Iran support opposing sides in Syria's civil war. After violence breaks out, Tehran actively helps Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Washington slowly expands aid to the rebels.
2012: U.S. begins working with countries around the world to reduce oil purchases from Iran. A year later, Iran's exports drop by half and its economy is in tatters.
2012-13: Several rounds of nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers fail to make progress.
2013: Hasan Rouhani assumes the Iranian presidency, promising a new course of moderation.


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- Home
- Art Licensing
- Agents
- Hannah Curtis
Hannah Curtis
Highly organised, Hannah can be relied upon to deliver strong project management for both her artists and clients, whilst maintaining her intuitive creative flair for unique and tailored results. Her honest approach and humorous personality make her a pleasure to work with.
Hannah is inspired by all things beautiful, shiny metallics, stunning colour combinations and generally anything that oozes style and perfection!
Trend Forecasting the Arts in 2018: A Break from Technology in Favour of the Natural World
16 February 2018


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My sister's roses (and more free garden books)
I'm back after a week with a sudden road trip to Tucson, Ariz., to see my big sister through major abdominal surgery. The storm that blew in from California took her DSL line out with it, and so I wasn't able to offer up "Right Rose, Right Place" at the right time last Thursday.
Tucson looked green for a desert, and being a frequent visitor, I knew chances were good that the rainy-day forecasts were not what they seemed. What passes for rain in Tucson is a morning drizzle and then low clouds that briefly hug the mountains before disappearing, chased away by gentle sun and birdsong. In my sister's back yard, one foolish hollyhock was bravely flinging girlish blooms at winter, and an intoxicating lavender-colored rose was holding onto a single tight bloom right outside her front door.
To me, roses have always stood for generous, loving welcome. And that's my big sister all over. Brash and bossy and quite the party girl in her day, she now owns a small acreage that she shares with two rescued dogs and a rescued BLM mustang and a rescued quarterhorse mare that someone brought to the feed store to give away because they couldn't afford to feed it anymore. Oh, and a rescued cowboy and his two horses. And his elderly mother. And the cowboy's friend who was staying for a while just before I came. And whatever nieces, nephews, cousins or other unrelated waifs and strays happen to stumble in.


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Is 70 too late to claim Social Security?
Social Security is a significant source of retirement income for most retirees. According to the Social Security Administration, nearly half of single retirees count...Read more
Planning for the New 3.8% Medicare Tax on Unearned Income
This blast from the past article still affects Medicare beneficiaries today. If you are a high income earner, please read below. Effective in...Read more
How To Apply For Medicare Without Claiming Social Security
The Social Security full retirement age is 66 for most baby boomers, and you receive a smaller monthly payout if you sign up at...Read more
10 Things Seniors Should Know About Hospice
Death comes in many forms. It may arrive suddenly without warning or approach slowly after a long illness. In the latter case, families have...Read more
11 Common Medicare Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
Medicare can be so complicated. These are some common mistakes that people should watch out for when signing up for coverage or picking plans...Read more
CMS Identifies Hospitals Paid Nearly $1.5B In 2015 Medicare Billing Settlement
A year after paying nearly $1.5 billion to more than a third of U.S. hospitals to resolve longstanding Medicare billing disputes, the Obama administration...Read more
Planning your Drive Toward 65
It is very important for every becoming eligible for Medicare to get accurate information about coverage, including Medicare Supplement plans, and prescription drug coverage. ...Read more
Pro's and Con's to a Medicare Supplement Policy
Medicare supplement policy: In the first part of our 'Did you know' series, we're covering the Pro's and Con's to a Medicare supplement policy....Read more
What is the "Donut Hole"?
Most Medicare Prescription Drug Plans have a coverage gap (also called the "donut hole"). This means there's a temporary limit on what the drug...Read more


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|Home Rocky Mountain Hunting Supplies Muzzleloading
FLIP-OPEN COVERSButler Creek's patented "instant action" scope covers have been the number one choice of serious shooters and hunters worldwide for over 20 years. The "Quiet Open" lid opens at the touch of your thumb. The ergonomically designed red button directs your thumb pressure correctly without ever looking. The watertight friction mount anchors the covers securely to the scope while an airtight semi O-ring seals out dust and moisture to protect optics. The spring activated lids perform flawlessly under all weather conditions and extreme temperatures ranging from +120°F to -40°F. Flip-Open covers weigh less than an ounce and are manufactured in sizes to fit all brands and models of scopes. Their superior design serves both right or left handed shooters. (Check catalog page 662 for Sizes).


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Kids Disc Golf
Published: 10/4/2016 by: Site Admin
Registration is now live!
Kids Disc Golf is excited to be offering the 2nd Annual Kids Disc Golf Tournament October 16 at Rapscallion Disc Golf Course in Sturbridge, MA. This year our event is being hosted by Green Light Disc Golf
Rapscallion Disc Golf Course 195 Arnold Road Sturbridge, MA 01518
The tournament portion of the event will consist of one round on a special course layout at Rapscallion Disc Golf Course. The check-in for the tournament portion begins at 1PM and ends at 1:30PM. The tournament round will begin soon after the "Players Meeting". We expect the round to last about an hour and a half. When the round is complete there will be field games for putting, driving, and accuracy. Following the field games we will announce the tournament round winners as well as the field game winners.
The players pack at this point will include a disc suitable for small arms as well as a mini. The players pack will continue to grow the closer we get to the event (sponsorships that come in allow us to give away more!)
The registration cost is $10 per entrant. This all goes back to making the day a success primarily through providing player's packs and prizes to the kids. Last year we were able to give away disc golf bags, stools, drink bottles, mini discs, stickers and other discs due to sponsorships! If you would like to sponsor us financially you can do so by filling out the sponsor fields in the sign-up below.
Contact us through our Facebook page at Kids Disc Golf and stay up to date on event announcements!
Registration goes live September 1 at 5PM


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Sen. Olympia Snowe and Gov. Paul Lepage have much in common when it comes to their Lewiston/Auburn upbringing.Olympia was raised an orphan by her extended family. LePage fled the welfare system to live on the streets. He found the compassion of families lending a helping hand, including the Snowe family.
I find it remarkable that both are Republicans from the same hard working democratic labeled city.
Recall that Gov. LePage, soon after his remarkable election as Governor with strong Tea Party support, announced that should Sen. Snowe seek re-election she would have his full support. A tribute to Olympia and her family's influence on him and his stunning accomplishment.
At the time, Sen. Snowe was facing fierce re-election opposition from Tea Party members. Gov. LePage's declaration of support for Sen. Snowe quickly neutralized the momentum. Perhaps one can understand their common bonds in today's political climate. Olympia, always the consummate diplomat. LePage, the plain spoken tell it like is style.
Until Thursday.
My sources tell me that Sen. Snowe is about to release a statement, on the heels of a re-election fund raising event she is co-hosting with former Maine Governor John McKernan and Florida Govenor Jeb Bush, repudiating Gov. Lepage's recent remarks regarding Sen. Troy Jackson from Allagash.
While Sen. Snowe may agree with LePage's passion for how to move Maine out of it's high-tax anti-business legacy, she is not going to let his rhetoric stand. Stay tuned.
Posted by Phil Harriman


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I love writing the monthly cat behavior column for Cat Fancy Magazine and the weekly ones for catchannel.com, Cat Fancy Magazines web presence. Readers send me questions to answer—I receive many… the majority of the questions are good questions, sent by people who are devoted cat people, who want the best for their cats. Occasionally readers will send questions that are really concerning. Thankfully they are rare.
On Monday, I received an alarming e-mail from a catchannel.com reader. Five days later, and the e-mail still haunts me. I can't get it out of my mind. The e-mail inspired me to write an article that my editor at catchannel.com titled Financial Assistance for Cat Vet Costs. It was posted today.
I usually don't blog about articles I write. This one is an exception because it includes a list of resources that were compiled by another concerned cat lover. It is a list of resources for people who are financially challenged and cannot afford the steep veterinary bills. It's a good list… and I really appreciate the person who originally did the research and put it together.
I urge you to surf on over and check out the article and if you're inspired, to comment.


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Week 9
The work has definitely shifted this week as we wind down with policy bills and begin work on the budget bills. With the budget targets agreed to by both chambers, we are now six weeks ahead of last year's timetable. Work in our standing committees has wound down. For me those are Natural Resources, Local Government, and Commerce. Detail work on the Health and Human Services budget sub-committee is now one of my prime focal points. There are many needs in this area; a need to increase fees paid to our emergency medical services for ambulance calls; the need for brain injury therapy; autism support; child abuse prevention; they are all important and they are all heart tugging needs. Deciding how to fund these services without going over our budget is a difficult task.
Monday morning I had the pleasure of touring the "On With Life" (OWL) brain injury rehabilitation facility in Ankeny. OWL is a not-for-profit organization that was started by eight families who had discovered first-hand the need for brain injury services here in Iowa.
Article Photos
State Rep. Dean Fisher
OWL is one of only six freestanding facilities in the world that provides certified hospital level skilled inpatient brain injury rehabilitation. Six days a week the staff works with up to 26 patients in various therapy settings to help the patients redevelop their cognitive and motor skills. In Iowa, one out of every 2,500 persons suffer a brain injury annually and over 50,000
Iowans live with the consequences of brain injury. There are hundreds of Iowans on a waiting list for these types of rehabilitation services. None of these numbers include concussions, the most common form of brain injury. Brain injury can occur from sudden trauma such as a car accident or fall, or it can occur as the result of a stroke, aneurysm, tumor or oxygen starvation. It can happen to anyone in an instant. Facilities like OWL are a critical part of Iowa's health care system.
Iowa Juvenile Home
Discussion among the House leadership and governor's office continue. We continue to consider the welfare of the children once served by the IJH as our top priority; Iowa needs a Girls State Training School to serve these troubled teenagers.
We also have to consider as high priorities the economic impact on the Toledo area, and the fact that we have a beautiful facility in the midst of Toledo that the taxpayers have invested $25 million into since 1997.
Bills of Note
HF 2181 - Lemon Law change - My bill to change the weight limit in the vehicle Lemon Law has passed the Senate Transportation committee and now goes to the full Senate. This bill increases the weight limit from 10,000 lbs. Gross Vehicle Weight to 15,000 lbs so that the larger pickups we have today will be covered.
HSB 672 - Legalization of Fireworks - This bill would allow the sale and use of fireworks in Iowa by unlicensed citizens. The sale of fireworks to a minor is still prohibited under this bill. A county or municipality would have the right to ban the use within their jurisdiction as well. A similar bill has been rejected in the Iowa Senate, this bill is still alive in the House Ways and Means committee.
In Closing
I would encourage you all to come down to the capitol for a visit, but hurry, we may adjourn by mid April. If you do, ask for a tour of the capitol dome, Diane will be ready to take you all the way up to the cupola. And of course you will want to take the tour of the rest of the capitol with the regular tour guides. As always, feel free to contact me with your thoughts and concerns about our state government. My contact information is:
firstname.lastname@example.com 641-750-3594


text: Not all that surprised from what happened. I put money on Holland/Denmark drawing. Danes aren't just going to roll over and in Kjaer and Agger they've got a solid centre half pairing and they play to their strengths. RVP being meh was inevitable, happens so often when a player smashed it domestically.


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Screenwriter Kevin Williamson has sold his house in the Hollywood Hills to Indiana Pacer Danny Granger for $3.715 million.
The chic contemporary, built in 1990, features walls of glass, city views and 15-foot-tall ceilings, which may have appealed to the 6-foot-8 small forward. Designed for entertaining, the house has three expansive terraces, a pool area bar and a swimming pool. There is a gym with a sauna, a home theater, four bedrooms, 51/2 bathrooms and 5,140 square feet of living space.
Williamson, of the "Scream" film series, bought the property in 2003 for $3.1 million. The 47-year-old also works on "The Vampire Diaries" series, which he developed (2009-present).
Granger, 29, has played for the Pacers since 2005.
Neal Baddin of Coldwell Banker's Sunset Boulevard office was the listing agent. Howard Zuckerman and Meirav Leibovici of Prudential's Sherman Oaks office represented the buyer, according to the Multiple Listing Service.
Follow me on Twitter: @LATHotProperty


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It has been brought to my attention that some of the Chiller Pro's would like to make this forum Pro Only or closed to outside/non-member viewers.
In doing so this would give you guys the capability to exchange documentation and greater detail your explanations/questions/replies.
not sure by doing this if that people will actually give more info. alot of info ,pdf,maunals and other already here., i would be excited if the pro will b TWICE as better.. great already!!!.,., more pics would be great!
also, i was a reg member for a while before becoming pro...i guess that someone would have to get the counts up in commercial then apply for pro.,.,
i love pro
my vote in


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Why you should add Hanoi to your RTW travel list
- The energy in this city is unmatched. Though chaotic and often frustrating, there is a palpable energy that cannot be missed. It's one of those cities you just have to experience to understand.
- Cause you can get a steaming bowl of pho in an alleyway for $1. And a bia hoi (locally brewed beer) for $0.25. And a super sweet, delicious, creamy iced coffee for about $0.75.
- Crossing the street is an adventure in itself.
- The city is 1000 years old. ONE THOUSAND! How old the city you live in?
- It's the jumping off point for one of the highlights on Vietnam - Halong Bay.
- Also the gateway to the Vietnamese highlands
- Asia collides with Europe as traditional pagodas sit next to colonial homes
Indie Travel TipsHanoi, and Vietnam for that matter, are not your typical tourist ghettos like nearby countries and cities. There are plenty of indie experiences to be had in this 1000-year-old city.
- Eat on the streets. It's safe. It's fresh. It's authentic. It's delicious. And best of all, it's cheap!
- Get up early one day (about dawn) and head to Hoan Kiem Lake in the center of the city. It will seem like every local resident of Hanoi is up early, exercising, walking, talking, and just spending time together before the work day begins and the day gets hotter.
- Explore the old quarter by foot, getting lost around every corner.
- Stop at a roadside bar for some home brewed beer called Bia Hoi (sold for rock bottom prices, usually the equivalent of about a quarter) or a roadside coffee shop for some iced Vietnamese coffee, a decadent, super sweet coffee drink.
OverviewKnown as the "Paris of the East", Hanoi is bustling with fast motorbikes, lively marketplaces, and Eurasian architecture dotting almost every corner. Work your way through Hanoi's old town in a cyclo-rickshaw or walk through the chaotic streets at your own risk. Either way you'll enjoy a unique, distinctly North Vietnamese experience. Visit Hao Lo Prison, better known to Americans as the Hanoi Hilton. It's now a museum chronicling the history of the building from French Colonial time through the Vietnam war, when American POW's were among it's inhabitants. Tour the house and grounds where Ho Chi Minh conducted his operations from during the Vietnam war and pay respects to his embalmed remains within a fortress like mausoleum.
TransportationUsing your own two feet is a great way to see the Old Quarter and much of the city, but be careful - crossing the street in Hanoi is an art - watch some locals do it first before trying your hand at it. There are plenty of other options for getting around this city:
- Taxi: Taxis are plentiful in Hanoi, but you have to know how to play the game. Don't just jump in a cab and assume they'll put the meter on and be honest - chances are they won't. Either make the driver use the meter or agree on a price before getting in and taking off. If he won't do it, get out and find another taxi.
- Motorbike taxi: Probably the fastest and cheapest way to get around, but not for the faint of heart. They dart in and out of traffic, narrowly missing accidents, but if you can summon up some bravery (or stupidity), these are great ways to get around. Like with taxis, agree on a price before hopping on.
- Cyclo: A bicycle taxi that works much the same as a motorbike taxi, agree on a price beforehand.
- Renting a motorbike: Renting and driving motorbikes around Vietnam is popular among travelers, but avoid this in a city like Hanoi unless you are extremely experienced. A great way to see the city and country at your own pace, but not the safest.
- Bus: The cheapest way to get around Hanoi, the buses can be confusing and difficult to decipher, but if you have the patience, this is a fantastic and cheap way to get around.


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Employees appear to be taking responsibility for their retirement saving and financial situation over all. Employee behavior data from Financial Finesse suggests workers were more proactive about their financial situation in the first quarter of 2013. Financial wellness scores are also up, rising to 5.2 from 4.9 for the same period in 2012.
"There has been a major paradigm shift in how employees view their benefits and their employers' roles in helping them achieve their financial goals," Liz Davidson, CEO and founder of Financial Finesse, said in a statement. "We're seeing that employees, on a mass scale, are proactively taking responsibility for their finances at levels not seen before."
Data in the report is based on calls made to Financial Finesse's hotline. Three-quarters of questions received were about planning and improving financial behavior, rather than reactions to a financial emergency.
While overall financial wellness has wavered since 2010, employees have been increasingly more proactive. In 2010, less than two-thirds of employees asked proactive questions about financial planning and wellness.
In being more proactive about their finances, workers are more involved with their retirement planning. Nearly half reported taking a risk tolerance assessment, up from 43% in the first quarter of 2012, and 40% have tried to determine whether they were on track by using a retirement calculator.
Whether they actually are on track though, is another matter. Just 19% of employees reported being on track to replace at least 80% of their preretirement income or to meet their retirement income goal. While low, that number is at least trending up: in 2012, 14% of respondents said they were on track, and 15% agreed in 2011.
Furthermore, just 25% of questions asked to the Financial Finesse hotline were about retirement planning, down five percentage points since 2012. "Since the most frequently asked question of our planners is "how much do I need to retire?" it would seem employees are becoming more self-reliant when it comes to planning for retirement," the report noted.
"We've reached a tipping point with employees proactively taking responsibility for their finances, which is absolutely critical for our financial future as a nation, but that's only the first step," Greg Ward, director of the Financial Finesse Think Tank, said in a statement. "Until we reach critical mass in terms of employees saving sufficiently, there's a lot more work to be done."
Employees are becoming more disciplined investors, too. The report found 34% rebalanced their portfolio, up from 31% last year, and 39% said they were confident about their asset allocation.
Financial Finesse found that although employees are taking responsibility for their financial situation, employers are making their workers' financial wellness a priority. The report refers to a study by AON Hewitt that found 80% of employers are prioritizing financial wellness for employees and 61% are helping them evaluate their retirement readiness.
Read The Successful Retirement Plan Advisor: The Power of Passion on AdvisorOne.


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The sustainability of fish served at most restaurants can be as murky as a muddy lake. But one company, Sea to Table, is giving consumers better products while supporting small fisheries at the same time. Though it started small, with the idea of connecting small fisheries that use sustainable practices directly to chefs, this company has expanded to serve 600 restaurants.
Founded by Sean and Michael Dimin, the company is committed to supporting both the small-time fishery — which have a hard time competing against the big guns in the marketplace — as well as not buying fish on the "red list" of sustainable rating systems (such as those published by FishWise, Seafood Watch and the Blue Ocean Institute). At-risk fish are not purchased.
Part of the group's strategy is sharing the story of each fish and each fishery. Not only do consumers get delicious fresh fish, but they also know where the fish came from and how it was caught. The company even sends out high-definition video cameras with their fisherman to capture sustainable practices first-hand.
As a consumer, I appreciate these practices. My husband recently took me out for my birthday to a local sushi place that only uses sustainable fish. Not only was the fish amazingly fresh and delicious, but it was also so nice to know that everything we ordered was sustainable.
Watch this short video for an introduction to Sea to Table.
Related sustainability story on MNN: 5 sustainable seafood recipes


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Fahamu Trust firstname.lastname@example.com 20200409 eng COM.ONIXSUITE.BUNPDF9780857490216 01 01 Fahamu Books 01 SKU BUNPDF9780857490216 10 WX 03 9780857490216 BC 1 03 9780857490223 DG 1 01 African Awakening The Emerging Revolutions 01 GCOI 90638100375050 1 B01 Firoze Manji Manji, Firoze Firoze Manji
Firoze, a Kenyan, is founder and executive director of Fahamu and editor of Pambazuka News. He has formerly worked as programme director for the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, CEO for the Aga Khan Foundation UK, and regional representative for health for IDRC's office for Eastern and Southern Africa.
 2 B01 Sokari Ekine Ekine, Sokari Sokari Ekine Sokari Ekine is an activist with a multidisciplinary background in technology, education and human rights. She has a postgraduate degree in human rights and education and has worked in adult education and several online publications including Pambazuka News. She is the author of the blog Black Looks. 3 A23 Samir Amin Amin, Samir Samir Amin
 Samir Amin is an economist currently based in Dakar, Senegal, where he is the director of Forum du Tiers Monde (Third World Forum). Amin is also the chair of the World Forum for Alternatives. He is one of the best-known thinkers of his generation, both in development theory as well as in the relativistic–cultural critique of the social sciences. He is widely published, with titles including Spectres of Capitalism: A Critique of Current Intellectual Fashions, Beyond US Hegemony: Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World, The Liberal Virus, Obsolescent Capitalism (Zed Books 2003), Beyond US Hegemony? (Zed Books 2006), A Life Looking Forward: Memoirs of an Independent Marxist (Zed Books 2006) and Capitalism in the Age of Globalization: The Management of Contemporary Society (Zed Books 2006).
 01 eng 02 eng 25 1 POL053000 JPW 12 HBJH 12 JPWQ 24 Fahamu Subject Classification CONFLICT & PEACE 24 Fahamu Subject Classification LIBERATION, DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE 24 Fahamu Subject Classification EBOOKS (PDFs) 93 NHH 93 JPWQ 01 01 01
• What the media has missed – the 2011 uprisings in their African context.
 • Pambazuka News's respected writers offer in-the-moment comment and analysis as well as informed reflection.
 • An almanac with its eyes open – Africa's radical review of the year

The tumultuous uprisings of citizens in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts who have characterised these as 'Arab revolutions', a perspective given weight by popular demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere. However, what have been given less attention are the concurrent uprisings in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Western Sahara and Zimbabwe. The uprisings across Africa and in the Middle East, the book argues, are the result of common experiences of decades of declining living standards, mass unemployment, land dispossessions and impoverishment of the majority, while a few have engorged themselves with riches.

Through incisive contributions from analysts and activists across the continent, the essays in African Awakening provide an overview of the struggle for democratisation which goes beyond calls merely for transparent electoral processes and constitutes a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for the majority.

Contributors: Charles Abugre, Essam Al-Amin, Massan d'Almeida, Samir Amin, Patrick Bond, Horace Campbell, Lila Chouli, Sokari Ekine, Hassan El Ghayesh, Lakhdar Ghettas, Nigel C. Gibson, Adam Hanieh, Konstantina Isidoros, Peter Kenworthy, Sadri Khiari, Mahmood Mamdani, Firoze Manji, Imad Mesdoua, Fatma Naib, Explo Nani-Kofi, J. Oloka-Onyango, Richard Pithouse, Jean-Paul Pougala, Khadija Sharife, Yash Tandon, Melakou Tegegn, Kah Walla
 03
• What the media has missed – the 2011 uprisings in their African context.
 • Pambazuka News's respected writers offer in-the-moment comment and analysis as well as informed reflection.
 • An almanac with its eyes open – Africa's radical review of the year

The tumultuous uprisings of citizens in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts who have characterised these as 'Arab revolutions', a perspective given weight by popular demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere. However, what have been given less attention are the concurrent uprisings in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Western Sahara and Zimbabwe. The uprisings across Africa and in the Middle East, the book argues, are the result of common experiences of decades of declining living standards, mass unemployment, land dispossessions and impoverishment of the majority, while a few have engorged themselves with riches.

Through incisive contributions from analysts and activists across the continent, the essays in African Awakening provide an overview of the struggle for democratisation which goes beyond calls merely for transparent electoral processes and constitutes a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for the majority.

Contributors: Charles Abugre, Essam Al-Amin, Massan d'Almeida, Samir Amin, Patrick Bond, Horace Campbell, Lila Chouli, Sokari Ekine, Hassan El Ghayesh, Lakhdar Ghettas, Nigel C. Gibson, Adam Hanieh, Konstantina Isidoros, Peter Kenworthy, Sadri Khiari, Mahmood Mamdani, Firoze Manji, Imad Mesdoua, Fatma Naib, Explo Nani-Kofi, J. Oloka-Onyango, Richard Pithouse, Jean-Paul Pougala, Khadija Sharife, Yash Tandon, Melakou Tegegn, Kah Walla
 02 The tumultuous uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media but what about the rest of Africa? With incisive contributions from across the continent, "African Awakening" presents the 2011 uprisings in their African context. 04
TABLE OF CONTENTS

 1 African awakenings: the courage to invent the future
 Firoze Manji

2 The never-ending revolution: perspectives from the African blogosphere
 Sokari Ekine

3 Crisis in Côte d'Ivoire: history, interests and parallels
 Explo Nani-Kofi

4 Tunisia: the fall of the West's little dictator
 Esam al-Amin

5 Gabon's lords of poverty
 Khadija Sharife

6 Tunisia's revolution: self-organisation for self-emancipation
 Horace Campbell

7 Aslema ya Tunis, au revoir Ben Ali
 Melakou Tegegn

8 Tunisia and Egypt: revolutions without self-proclaimed revolutionaries
 Horace Campbell

9 Egypt: free at last, an inside look
 Hassan Elghayesh

10 Chronicles of an Egyptian revolution: a protestor's first-hand account
 Hassan Elghayesh

11 Egypt and the revolution in our minds
 Nigel C. Gibson

12 Egypt: women of the revolution
 Fatma Naib

13 'The power is within us': a protest diary from Cameroon
 Kah Walla

14 Uganda elections: 'an exercise in shame-faced endorsement'
 J. Oloka-Onyango

15 Crisis in Côte d'Ivoire: the impact on women
 Massan d'Almeida

16 Awakening protests in Morocco and Western Sahara
 Konstantina Isidoros

17 Peoples' revolts in Burkina Faso
 Lila Chouli

18 North African dispatches: why Algeria is different
 Imad Mesdoua

19 Libya: behind the politics of humanitarian intervention
 Mahmood Mamdani

20 Swaziland: uprising in the slipstream of North Africa
 Peter Kenworthy

21 The lies behind the West's war on Libya
 Jean-Paul Pougala

22 South Africa: on the murder of Andries Tatane
 Richard Pithouse

23 Unrest in Algeria: the window is closing fast
 Lakhdar Ghettas

24 Whose dictator is Gaddafi?
 Yash Tandon

25 An African reflection on Tahrir Square
 Mahmood Mamdani

26 How might things move forward in Libya?
 Yash Tandon

27 The Tunisian revolution did not come out of nowhere
 Sadri Khiari

28 Imperial neurosis and the dangers of 'humanitarian' interventionism
 Yash Tandon

29 International financial institutions and Egypt
 Adam Hanieh

30 Neoliberal threats to North Africa
 Patrick Bond

31 2011: An Arab springtime?
 Samir Amin

32 Libya: the true costs of war
 Charles Abugre

Appendix: Further readings from Pambazuka News

Index
 07 01 http://www.interfacejournal.net/2012/05/interface-volume-4-issue-1-the-season-of-revolution-the-arab-spring-and-european-mobilizations/ Karen Ferreira-Meyers Interface 20120516 08
 The editors assembled 32 essays, some of which were previously published as summaries of events in Pambazuka News in 2011, around uprisings and revolutions that took place in Africa since 2011. Although popularly referred to as the "Arab spring," the 2011 uprisings were not confined to the Arab-speaking world. There have also been protests, strikes and other actions -- many of which were brutally suppressed -- in Western Sahara, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Gabon, Sudan, Mauritania, Morocco, Madagascar, Mozambique, Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Djibouti, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Swaziland, South Africa, Malawi, and Uganda. Whether large or small scale, all these are manifestations of an underlying mood of discontent and disenchantment with the social and political order. According to Manji, "we are witnessing not so much an Arab spring as an African awakening" (p. 3).
 In various articles, reference is made to Franz Fanon (e.g. pp. 94-95) to underscore the idea that each generation approaches "revolution in the context of their moment in history" (p. 23), as well as to the changed use of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, which online activists use to spread information and revolutionary ideas. Nani-Koffi's contribution focuses on Côte d'Ivoire and in particular its political crisis since 2000. The author sees this disaster as another manifestation of the crisis of post-colonial Africa. Esam Al- Amin compares the 1978-79 revolution in Iran to the 2010-11 uprising in Tunisia: what took 54 weeks to accomplish in Iran took less than four in Tunisia. His conclusion is that "real change is the product of popular will and sacrifice, not imposed by foreign interference or invasions" (p. 50). Khadija Sharife's overview of Gabon's "awakening" does not directly refer to a possible revolutionary upsurge, but rather focuses on the economic corporate-state deals (like the 25-year tax holiday given to China with regard to the Belinga iron-ore mining deal) of the "focal point of Françafrique," France's Africa policy, for the reader to deduce the possibility of revolution in this country.
 Horace Campbell's articles dated 27 January 2011 and 3 February 2011 (the latter directly linking the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions), and Melakou Tegegn's contribution of 3 February 2011 comparing Tunisia to Ethiopia, complement Al-Amin's analysis of the revolutionary process in Tunisia. The Egyptian revolution built on the three revolutionary stages visible in Tunisia (1. self-immolation and sacrifice of Mohamed Bouazizi; 2. Self-mobilization of the popular forces of Tunis and removal of office of Ben Ali; and 3. Dismantling of Ben Ali's regime) by adding a fourth one: "the power of numbers and the test of creative means of self-defense" (p. 70).
 On page 79, Campbell summarizes the key characteristics of the Arab Spring and African Awakening movements:
 1. The revolutions are made by ordinary people; 2. Independent networks of networks are typical tools of these revolutions; 3. Self-mobilization of the people; 4. Non-violence; and 5. Ultimate goal: dignified human beings.
 On 17 February 2011, Hassan El Ghayes published his personal viewpoint of a middle-class Egyptian of the Egyptian revolts. In this journalistic piece, the author gives a witness report of the Tahrir ("Liberation") Square demonstrations, including the so-called "Friday of rage", 28 January 2011. Another article, this time by Nigel Gibson, looks at the Egyptian situation and explains the notion of "Revolution 2.0," the revolution without leaders, "a Wikipedia revolution" (p. 94) aided by social media. The focus of Fatma Naib's contribution is on women: on Asmaa Mahfouz, the 26-year old founding member of the April 6 Youth Movement, on Mona Seif, researcher and daughter of an imprisoned activist, on 24 year-old political activist Gigi Ibrahim, and on 33 year-old filmmaker Salma El Tarzi.
 Kah Walla, the presidential candidate for Cameroon Ô'Bosso, proposes excerpts from her protest diary recounting the peaceful protest of 23 March 2011 which was met by violent police repression. J. Oloka-Onyango writes about Uganda's most recent elections and analyses why ruling president Yoweri Museveni did not suffer from any meaningful opposition while at the same time "warning" the ruling party of similar consequences as those witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt. In doing so, the author uses comparisons with Egypt, Libya and Tanzania to explain the elections' victory: Uganda is not yet a fully functional multiparty democracy, Museveni bribed certain parts of the population during the elections, people feared the omnipresence of the military, and the existing opposition parties don't have firm ideological positions. The diplomatic, financial, economic, and social impact of the Ivorian 2010-11 post-election crisis is discussed by Massan d'Almeida mainly from the viewpoint of two women's rights activists, Mata Coulibaly and Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure.
 Protests in Morocco and the Western Sahara are examined by Konstantina Isidoros. These protests surround the "hot geopolitical potato" (p. 122) of the Western Sahara conflict, which started more than 35 years ago with the invasion of that territory by Morocco and which threatens the "fundamental tenets of our modern Western political system, which espouses the inviolable sanctity of a nation-state's own sovereignty, the basic rights of human beings and regional socio-economic stability" (p. 123). The author puts together reactions from bloggers and journalists from Morocco and Saudi Arabia to show the growing discontent about the Moroccan absolute monarch. Lila Chouli's contribution draws the attention on the March peoples' revolts, culminating in the April 8general strike and a threat of a military coup on 14 April 2011 in Burkina Faso, which explicitly referred to Tunisian and Egyptian revolts through various slogans. Even though "things calmed down from this point on in the capital," "spontaneous protests continued," (p. 142) which needed "marathon negotiations" to bring the country "sitting on a volcano" (p. 145) to proposed political reforms.
 In a not always very logical article entitled "North African dispatches: Why Algeria is different," Imad Mesdoua describes some of the attempts by the Algerian people to follow suit of the other Arab Springs. Lakhtar Ghettas complements the picture in his article entitled "Unrest in Algeria: the window is closing fast". Mahmood Mamdani evaluates the humanitarian interventions in Libya, following UN Security Council's Resolution 1973. Jean-Paul Bougala's article gives a detailed account of Libya's financial assets, within the country and abroad, to underline the West's involvement in its events. A further analysis of the Libyan situation is given by Yash Tandon in "Whose dictator is Gaddafi?" and "How might things move forward in Libya."
 This author makes a third contribution, "Imperial neurosis and the dangers of 'humanitarian' interventionism," in which the Arab Spring is analyzed in terms of the reactions of the empire. According to the writer, the "imperial neurosis" has only two possible consequences: "tightening of control over the political economies of the neocolonies of the third world" and "the emerging disintegration of the Euro-American system" (p. 232). The last chapter dealing with Libya has been written by Charles Abugre; it makes explicit the "true costs of war" (p. 297).
 Peter Kenworthy reports on the 12-15 April "campaign" (p. 155), preceded by the 18 March marches, against financial turmoil, youth unemployment, and the undemocratic political regime in Swaziland. Still in Southern Africa, the recounting of Andries Tatane's murder by Richard Pithouse gives the readers an opportunity to learn about South African police brutality and repression of grassroots dissidents.
 Mahmood Mamdani connects the Egyptian Tahrir Square events with the subsequent African "awakenings," but also linking it to the historical 1976 Soweto uprising and the 1987 Palestinian intifada. In addition, in his conclusion, the author states the remarkable fact that "no major event in contemporary history has been forecast, either by researchers or consultants, whether based in universities or in think tanks" (p. 208).
 As "the detonator of the wave of protest and uprisings which have spread across North Africa and the Middle East since January 2011" (p. 218), Tunisia's particular context receives further attention in an interview with Sadri Khiari. Samir Amin's analysis somehow counters the viewpoint of the majority of the authors participating in this volume: while these look for similarities in this stories of the Arab Spring countries, Amin warns against easy generalizations about the whole Arab world and delves deep into Egyptian history, socio- economic makeup, and the different blocs constituting the reactionary front
 before looking at the peculiarities of some other "awakening" nations and peoples (in addition to others discussed in the volume, Samin adds Syria, Bahrain and Yemen).
 As can be seen from the overview above, the first articles/chapters are day-to- day accounts of the heat of the uprisings, what happened where, and who was involved, while the articles towards the end of this compilation are more general in nature, more analytical of the long-term consequences of the revolts and revolutions. While quite often overlapping in content, most articles bring new information and analyses to the fore and therefore contribute to the world's knowledge and interpretation of the dawn, evolution and effects of the Arab spring and its impact on Africa's further awakening in which the geopolitical interests of the West (US and France namely) are at stake. This volume delivers on its promises: it contains a rich selection of reports and reviews, it gives links to additional reactions on Twitter, in blogs, newsletters and interviews (pp. 311- 312) and has an index which facilitates referencing. The publication is well-edited (in the sense that it contains few grammatical errors or spelling mistakes) but could have benefitted from a general conclusion summarizing a number of cross-cutting assumptions and deductions.
 Karen Ferreira-Meyers Interface 20120516 07 01 http://insurgentnotes.com/2012/06/book-review-african-awakenings-the-emerging-revolutions/ 20120607 08
 2011 saw the emergence of powerful new movements stretching from Wisconsin to Egypt, from Chile to Greece. It was the year of Occupations as public spaces were taken over by activists beginning with Tahrir Square in Egypt and eventually moving on to Wall Street, Oakland and hundreds of other locales worldwide, including several unsuccessful attempts in South Africa. Conspicuously absent from the renewed and resurgent discourse amongst anti-capitalist forces and the popular imagination was sub-Saharan Africa, and by this I mean "black Africa," the Africa of the eternal cycle of dictators, corruption, famine, "bad governance" and debt. African Awakenings: The Emerging Revolutions ambitiously sets out to remedy this and place the host of new movements arising across the continent in a singular socio-political context. This ambition importantly matches one of the more impressive features of the movements of 2011, in the form of the growth of a new internationalism as statements of solidarity and support were transmitted from the occupations of Wall Street to Tahrir Square and activists have begun to share tactics and experiences in what is increasingly being perceived as a global struggle, emerging from specifically local contexts.

 African Awakenings begins with Pamabazuka editor Firoze Manji posing a question which goes on to form a central part of both the book and thinking about "Africa" in general: "Where does Africa begin and where does it end?" Historically there has been conceptual distinction between predominantly Muslim North Africa, which has been lumped in with the Arabic world and "black" sub-Saharan Africa, despite the fact that much of Africa's Muslim population is, in fact, black. In this, black Africa is culturally separated and walled off from the rebellious spirit of North Africa; it is stuck in the same primal stasis which Western commentators continually repeat in the same tired coverage on the ever-constant "African Crisis."

 The book itself has an explicit goal to rescue the "Arab Awakening" or "Arab Spring" from the insular liberal narratives which seek to isolate the revolutionary wave which swept North Africa and parts of the Middle East last year as a specifically "Arab thing," a reawakening of the Arab people. This sort of ethnic narrative, which fits into the same limited pathology which failed to predict or understand the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia in the first place, except as a some of sort of Western inspired phenomena, inspired by the "Western forces" of Facebook and Twitter or according to the New York Times's most respected court jester Thomas Friedman, even "Israel"…"Africa," meaning specifically black Africa, is of course a place of stagnation and repetition, not of history and thus cannot be susceptible to such world-historic revolutionary moments. African Awakenings, on the contrary, attempts to situate this revolutionary wave within the context of long-running and emergent struggles across the continent directly linked to the events in the Maghreb.

 Pambazuka is a unique entity formed of some 2800 writers, bloggers, activists, academics and artists, based in Oxford and edited by Firoze Manji; it is an earnest attempt to provide a continental forum for African intellectuals and activists located both in the continent and in exile across the globe. It is, as far as I know, the only source of both serious analysis and commentary by such leading intellectuals as Mahmood Mamdani and Samir Amin, as well as local reports of struggles from South Africa to Algeria. It functions both as an accumulator of information about various struggles across Africa and a forum for debate and conversation for those committed to serious change. The book itself is the offspring of some of the writings featured in a weekly newsletter which reaches an impressively sizable audience.

 It speaks to the sheer diversity and strength of the content carried by Pambazuka that such a book could be assembled like this without being a complete waste of time. There is nothing earth-shatteringly new contained within the pages, rather a selection of on-the-ground reports and reflections from activists, particularly activists who participated in the Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions, mixed with various essays from mainly academic contributors. In this the likes of Samir Amin and Mahmood Mamdani share the pages with dedicated members of the million strong Tahrir Square occupations. South African academics such as Patrick Bond and Richard Pithouse are featured along with those of a more international bent such as Nigel Gibson and Horace Campbell.

 Pithouse's contribution "South Africa: On the Murder of Andrias Tatane," chronicles the resurrection of police militarization in South Africa during the build-up to and following the 2010 World Cup, leading to the eventual televised murder of an activist (Andrias Tatane). This wave of militarization closely resembles both politically and tactically similar developments in the United States, the results of which were experienced first-hand by those caught up in the various occupy protests, particularly in Oakland. South Africa according to Peter Alexander "can be reasonably described as "the protest capital of the world." In the last three years, there has been an average of 2.9 "gatherings" per day resulting in a 12,654 "gathering" incidents during 2010–11.[1] This however has yet to transform into a mass movement capable of forming an effective challenge to the state or the ruling ANC's (African National Congress) hegemony.

 One of the notable points made early on in the book is the centrality of Africa to the functioning of the global economy. This centrality takes two forms, one in the form of the influx of debt payments to Western powers, most of it incurred during the heyday of Structural Adjustment Programs forced upon countries. Each year $340 billion flows from Africa Northwards to pay off $2.2 trillion of debt. Since 1980, over 50 Marshall Plans worth somewhere over $4.6 trillion have been sent from the peoples of "the periphery" to their creditors. Combine this with a staggering amount of capital flight—an estimated 30 percent of sub-Saharan Africa"s GDP and Africa might be a net creditor to the rest of the world.[2] Africa is also the location of strategically vital raw materials central to both Western powers and increasingly the emerging economic powerhouses of China and India. The immense mineral wealth of countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the oil riches of Libya, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria have been anything but a blessing to their people, as most of the population continues to live in relative poverty while a small elite continues to prosper and Western investors reap most of the benefits. Historic attempts to reverse this established neo-colonial paradigm in the form of organic attempts at building African Socialism or nationalist projects led by the likes of Burkina Faso's Thomas Sankara and Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, have ended in failure, whether through the barrel of the gun of an assassin, a US sponsored insurgency or the pressures of international capital.

 With this in mind and a recognition of both the crisis of capitalism we are currently experiencing and the emerging struggles across the globe, Africa, at least "black Africa," has been conspicuously absent from the discussion. Attention has been focused on the Occupy Movement which swept across the United States last autumn, the student movements in Chile, the UK, the May 18 movement in Spain, the increasingly militant movements in Greece and of course the forces that brought about the downfall of Mubarak and Ben Ali. At the same time shack-dwellers' movements and an increasing wave of small scale insurgent protest in my own nation of South Africa have been accompanied by protests and small insurrections in countries as diverse the Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Burkina Faso. Even the last absolutist monarchy in the world found in the tiny country of Swaziland was rocked by a wave of mass demonstrations inspired by the "Arab Spring" and chronicled in the book by Peter Kenworthy. Furthermore, there was of course the latest grand outing of imperialism in Libya, another bout of regime change led by the French and endorsed by the UN in Ivory Coast, increased covert bombing and on-the-ground activity in Somalia and the beginnings of a new outpost of the American empire in Uganda (yes, even before the almost satirical imperialism of Kony 2012).

 One of the weaknesses of the book is the homogeneity of the writers in the context of the particular struggles, mostly the country which I know best. Sadly all of the writers who have contributed in relation to the struggles are white middle-aged academics, not that their contributions are not important, but reports from working-class participants in said struggles would greatly strengthen the section. Furthermore, the lack of younger voices is troubling considering that in line with global paradigms younger activists are often at the front of these struggles, particularly in the cases of Egypt and Tunisia.

 Another notable weakness is an excessive focus on Libya, rather than focusing on the emergence of new movements and the awakening of "Africa," the text is stuck in chapter after chapter aimed at dismantling the myths surrounding the latest bout of humanitarian intervention and assaulting the myth-makers of Imperialism. Valuable as this may be, it's out of place with the desired goals of the book and becomes repetitive quickly, even reaching dangerous flirtation with Qadaffi apologetics in the case of one essay by Jean Paul Pougala.

 In South Africa, the precarious position of the youth is a national tragedy as the majority of young South Africans face the very real possibility of never finding decent work in their lifetimes. Furthermore, the official left formations of the national trade union COSATU (Congress of South Africa Trade Unions) and the SACP (South African Communist Party) have remained ensnared in a Faustian contract in the form of the tripartite alliance with the ruling ANC (African National Congress). The alliance has led to the leadership of both the SACP and COSATU being deployed as ANC cadre and defending ANC neoliberal policies. Both formations have been unable to provide a response, let alone leadership or formations, aimed at combating what is increasingly looking like a position for permanent precarity for the so-called "born frees," referring to the generation that grew up after the fall of Apartheid in 1994. This political vacuum poses a challenge to forming a resurgent independent left in South Africa and remains alive with possibility particularly because the hegemony of the ANC is not quite so potent among those who have grown up in abject poverty. The absence of these voices amongst the independent left at least in South Africa, speaks of a current location on the margins of South African politics and the failure to take advantage of the lack of interest and neglect of the ANC aligned left.

 The voices of this new generation of activists in South Africa and across the rest of the continent is where an "awakening," if it can be called that, has its base. So far, we have yet to witness the transformations of current "African" struggles from local contexts into long-term revolutionary mass movements or see the transformation of spontaneous uprisings such as the one which gripped Nigeria early this year sparked off by marked increase in gas prices, due to an end in state subsidies, into sustained mass movements. A measure of realism is needed when assessing African politics, not a banal morbid fatalism, but an honest assessment of the strength of social movements, an avoidance of romanticism and the descent into sectarianism which distinguishes a marginalised left.

 The book itself illustrates the formations of a new wave of struggles, but it is unfair to view them yet as a part of an "African Awakening." The ambition of the book fails to match up to the current reality; this is not however to say that the seeds of dissent may not spring into something else in the near future. Although it is fair to place these struggles in the same political universe as the other movements of 2011, the book itself is not going to feature as a future monument to the world-historic events of 2011. It was hastily assembled and the essays featured within are a mixed bag; however it serves as a valuable introduction to contemporary African left politics. Furthermore, the internationalism and ambition at the heart of Pambazuka is admirable in itself; the fact that a book with such a diversity of content could be assembled in such a manner serves as testament to the strength and potential of Pambazuka News. In short an admirable if not quite successful book which, ultimately, is more useful than necessary.

 20120607 08
These impressive essays, highlighting unreported struggles for empowerment and democracy across Africa, challenge you to look beyond the headlines – a political primer on 21st century Africa.
 Walter Turner, author, professor and presenter of the Pacifica radio programme 'Africa Today' 07 01 http://rajpatel.org/ Raj Patel, award-winning writer, activist and academic 08
A fine collection of insurgent voices and analyses from a continental rebellion.
 Raj Patel, award-winning writer, activist and academic 08
Digging in and gathering momentum – from Algiers to Durban to Wall Street. From African activist-scholars, an indispensable guide to the dynamics and internal workings of this tidal-wave moment in Africa's history.
 Shailja Patel, poet, playwright and activist 08
What is striking is the analysis of the emerging revolutions and how they display the reformulating of imperialist plans towards the African and Arab peoples.
 Helmi Sharawy, former director, African Arab Research Centre, Cairo 08
African Awakening is a book anyone concerned with Africa's future and contribution to world revolution must read. Rarely has a book brought together so many outstanding scholars and provided such an in-depth analysis of Africa's political reality.
 Sylvia Federici, Silvia Federici, Professor Emerita, Hofstra University. 08
African Awakening transforms the reality of the 'Arab Spring' into a North African-initiated rising of the dispossessed. The excitement contained in these writings reflects the excitement and challenge of the massive movements for democracy, sovereignty, and social transformation that the world became aware of with the Tunisian Revolution, but only associated with North Africa and the Middle East. African Awakening expands the scope and is a collection that will leave you both energized and pensive.
 Bill Fletcher, Jr., co-author of Solidarity Divided, co-founder of the Black Radical Congress. 08
A timely and readable book about current movements for change in Africa and what to expect in the coming decade. African Awakening takes a refreshingly original look at the continent that has experienced radical changes in the past few years. This book is especially recommended reading to US activists looking to engage with Africa, to connect the dots of the past with positive outlooks for the future.
 Nunu Kidane, Priority Africa Network 02 http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100375050 Fahamu Books 01 02 Dilicom FAHAMU Pambazuka Press 04 2011 01 WORLD 08 16.19 oz 08 459 gr Central Books 44 (0)845 458 9911 44(0)845 458 9912 firstname.lastname@example.com 33 www.centralbooks.com http://www.centralbooks.com 02 GB 20 02 02 02 HH1 02 32.90 GBP Z 0.00 32.90 0.00


text:
BMW Fuel Injector 13648625397 - Bosch 13648625397
BMW/Mini OE: 13648625397
Fuel Injector by Bosch
About Fuel Injectors
A fuel injector is actually a combination of a nozzle and valve that controls the delivery of fuel into the combustion chamber of an engine. The nozzle is carefully designed to atomize fuel in a very fine spray to achieve a homogenous mixture of air and fuel. A failing or clogged injector can cause incomplete burn and/or a dangerous lean condition in a cylinder. This can present itself as a misfire, hesitation, stumbling, or low power. Leaking fuel injectors can have symptoms such as hard starting, poor emissions, increased fuel consumption, damaged catalytic converters, and increase fuel odor in and around the car. Some success can be had with fuel injector cleaner but it is critical to an engine's performance and life that properly functioning fuel injectors be used at all times.
eEuroparts.com® carries an extensive catalog of aftermarket, OEM, original, and genuine parts from over 200 manufacturers. We are also constantly updating our Bosch parts selection to give you the best possible selection of parts.
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Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.330
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The Robert Bosch company is one of the oldest automotive parts manufacturers in the world. Bosch created the original generator for Mercedes Benz and worked for Mercedes prior to be allowed to enter into a contract with Mercedes to provide generators. For almost 150 years the Bosch name and reputation for quality has been unsurpassed in the automotive aftermarket.
Currently the largest automotive parts company in the world, Bosch is an OEM for most European and many domestic and Asian vehicle manufacturers. They specialize in engine management, starters, alternators, spark plugs, oxygen sensors, and fuel delivery and injection. Along with those OEM and OES products they also have complete aftermarket programs in automotive filtration, brakes, HVAC management, along with a multitude of other programs.
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text:
Ken McRae
Should You Tell Your Ex You Got a Raise?
For some time there has been a weakness in the Kansas Child Support system. Child support is calculated on the income of the child's parents. If one parent's income changes the child support will likely change. But, Kansas law provides a modification to child support will not take effect until at least 30 days after a party files a Motion to Modify. So the party who receives a raise has a strong incentive to keep the raise a secret. The longer they conceal the raise the longer until the Court could start any increase in child support.
The Kansas Supreme Court attempted to solve this problem by adding language to the Child Support Guidelines which allowed the trial court to issue a sanction against a party who failed to disclose a material change in circumstances. But, the language of the statue regarding child support modification did not change. A modification still cannot take effect until at least 30 days have passed since a motion was filed. This led to some confusion. Can the court calculate what child support would have been if the raise had been disclosed and set that amount as the sanction? Or is that just a back door attempt to modify child support retroactively in violation of the statute?
On August 15, 2014, the Kansas Court of Appeals addressed this issue in a case captioned In re Marriage of Johnson. In this case the father told mother he was moving from Wichita to Washington for a new job, but did not tell her he was getting a raise. In October she discovered he received a pay raise and filed a Motion to Modify. The court calculated that father's child support should increase from about $430 per month to around $1200 per month. (Although the father's pay rate is not listed, and the facts are somewhat murky in the Court's ruling, it appears at least part of this increase is due to the expiration of father's maintenance payment to mother and that the entire increase is not based on the father's new pay). The trail court ruled that the new child support would start on November 1 and that it could not issue a sanction which had the effect of increasing child support prior to that date. The Court of Appeals overturned that decision and sent the case back to the district court. The Court of Appeals ruling makes it clear that it is permissible to issue a sanction equal to the amount of child support that should have been paid because the sanction is different than a retroactive increase in support. Furthermore, the father can be liable for mother's attorney fees and any costs incurred in obtaining the information. However, the Court of Appeals also makes it clear the award of the sanction is discretionary with the trial court and that it is not mandatory.
As a result of this decision it is clear that concealing information about your pay raise may cost you more in the long run because you can be ordered to pay a sanction equal to the modified support, plus costs and attorney's fees for the other party. Also, the opinion would appear to apply to any changes which impact the child support calculations including the price of health insurance or child care for the minor child or, in certain circumstance, a change in income for the party receiving child support.


text:
Hi, there
I have looked it up in the current textbook. The conventional numerical method to compute the inversion of an $n \times n$ matrix requires $O(n^3)$. However, for the following special matrix ${(E-a \cdot X)}^{-1}$,
where $E$ is an $n \times n$ identity matrix, $ a \in (0,1)$ is a scalar, and $X$ is a sparse stochastic matrix (the sum of each row is 1, and all its entries are between 0 and 1),
do you have some ideas to compute ${(E-a \cdot X)}^{-1}$ as fast as you can? (to reduce its $O(n^3)$ complexity is preferable, or approximate solution is also acceptable) ? Thanks in advance!


text:
When it comes to Al Qaeda's threat to the United States, recent months have brought both good and bad news, according to top US intelligence officials.
The good news is that the reputation of Muslim extremists may be declining among some in the Islamic world. The brutal attacks on Muslim civilians by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq appear to be affecting public opinion outside Iraq's borders.
"Al Qaeda has had difficulty in raising funds and sustaining itself," perhaps due to disaffection among Saudi Arabian contributors, said Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell at a House hearing Thursday.
The bad news is that a new influx of Western recruits – including American citizens – are being trained in Al Qaeda camps in Pakistan. These recruits would be able to more easily enter and move about the US than foreign operatives.
"Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the US: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack on the homeland," wrote Mr. McConnell in prepared Congressional testimony.
There's no evidence that these recruits have already entered the US, added officials at Senate and House intelligence hearings this week.
So far, the principal terrorist threat within the US are self-radicalized individuals with no contact with any foreign terrorist leaders, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 5.
The FBI rolled up two such native networks last year, he said, one intent on attacking John F. Kennedy airport, the other plotting against New Jersey's Fort Dix.
Europe has been the scene of the most recent attacks by individuals associated with the core Al Qaeda group, such as the bombs that hit the London transport network in July, 2005. "Our great concern is that, while it is happening in Europe, it is one plane ticket away from occurring in the United States," Mr. Mueller.
US security officials and experts outside government have long been concerned that a few Western recruits could give Al Qaeda a flexibility that has eluded it so far. Terrorists with US passports, able to easily melt back into American society, would be difficult for current homeland security measures to detect.
Over the years, the group has lost its Afghanistan training camps, and much of its senior leadership, including key operational planners. But Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants have been able to retreat to the sanctuary of Pakistan's wild border areas, while drawing on a bench of skilled operatives to replace members that have been killed or captured.
"It's an immensely adaptive organization," says William C. Martel, an associate professor of international security studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Recruitment of disaffected Americans would fit right in with Al Qaeda's style, says Mr. Martel. But such a move could also backfire on the group's central leadership, he says.
Until now, the Central Intelligence Agency has found the terror group difficult to infiltrate, due to its cellular structure and its reliance on natives from Islamic lands. If Al Qaeda is opening its doors to Westerners, however, it could potentially be more open to penetration by western spies.
"It could make it easier for us to understand what they're doing, and why," says Martel.
As to its affiliate group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, this has been a year of major setbacks, with hundreds of its members killed and facilities destroyed.
The brutality of the group's methods has even earned it rebukes from Al Qaeda's top leaders, hiding out in Pakistan. US officials claim that Sunni Muslims throughout the world have been repulsed by the group's attacks on Iraqi Sunni tribes that had switched to aiding the US effort.
"Are we reaching a tipping point, where we'll see a decline in this radical [Islamist] behavior? " asked McConnell at the hearing. "We don't know yet. We're watching it very closely."
The group's ability to reconstitute and retain a base of operations in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has been a major setback to counterterror efforts, admit intelligence officials. The FATA has given the group many of the advantages it once took from its bases in Afghanistan. The region has served as a staging area for Al Qaeda attacks in Afghanistan, as well as a base for training operations.
Pakistan remains in political turmoil following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Its security forces are thought to number many Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters.
Still, Pakistani intelligence officials have shown increasing determination to strengthen their counterterror performance, McConnell said. They have realized the stakes of the struggle, he said, since the number of Pakistani civilians and soldiers killed in 2007 by terrorist attacks equaled the total of those killed in the six previous years.