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NH Gov. Hassan backs Medicaid expansion under federal health law, says it's good for economy
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) � New Hampshire should expand its Medicaid program under the Obama administration's health overhaul law because it's the right thing to do for the state's economy, finances and families, Gov. Maggie Hassan told lawmakers Thursday.
New Hampshire's current program covers low-income children, pregnant women, parents with children, elders and people with disabilities. The state is deciding whether to expand eligibility to include anyone under age 65 who earns up to 138 percent of federal poverty guidelines, which is about $15,000 for a single adult, and while it could refuse or postpone a decision, there are benefits for states that choose to expand Medicaid now: The U.S. government will pick up the entire cost in the first three years and 90 percent over the long haul.
"As both Democratic and Republican governors around the nation have said, it's a good deal, one that will, among other things, allow us to save money in existing state programs, while increasing state revenues," Hassan said in her budget address to lawmakers.
Hassan, who plans to appoint a commission to advise her on implementing the expansion, noted that the federal government historically has fulfilled its commitments to the Medicaid program. But Republican lawmakers who oppose the expansion point to special education and other areas where promised federal funding has fallen far short. They argue that expanding Medicaid is unaffordable, unnecessary and amounts to an effort by the federal government to hijack state finances.
A report commissioned by the state health department estimates that expanding Medicaid would boost enrollment by about 58,000 people by 2020, and together with the federal law's other provisions, would reduce the number of uninsured residents from roughly 170,000 to 71,000. The report estimates that expansion could cost the state $85 million during that time period, but the state would get $2.5 billion in federal funding.
Proponents of expanding Medicaid note that those who currently lack insurance frequently end up in the emergency room in crisis with conditions that could have been prevented or cured had they received routine care in a doctor's office. According to the New Hampshire Hospital Association, hospitals have seen a 40 percent increase in the amount of uncompensated care they provide since 2008.
"Uncompensated care at our hospitals' emergency rooms increase costs for everyone," Hassan said. "By moving forward with Medicaid expansion, we can reduce that uncompensated care and save the average New Hampshire household an estimated $145 per year."
Ten of the state's largest hospitals sued the state last year in part over the elimination of payments they used to receive from the state to offset what they spend on uninsured patients. Hassan's budget would make more funding available for uncompensated care payments to those hospitals � about $50 million in fiscal year 2014 and $60 million 2015.
Under the expansion, Medicaid would cover both substance abuse treatment and mental health treatment, which Hassan called both smart and right. Aside from the Medicaid expansion, her budget also includes increased spending aimed at what Hassan called one of the state's most pressing public health challenges: restoring the state's mental health system.
The state is nearly half way into a 10-year mental health plan that includes goals ranging from expanding inpatient psychiatric care in hospitals to increasing the number of group home beds to support people in their communities. But those who provide mental health services say the state not only has failed to make progress but has in some cases gone backward. Dozens of people wait for days at a time for inpatient care in emergency rooms, and some leave without care at all, putting themselves and others at risk, Hassan said.
"That's not the kind of state we are," said Hassan, who is proposing a new designated receiving facility to take the pressure off local emergency rooms, adding new acute psychiatric residential treatment beds.
Saying the focus should be on treating people in their communities, Hassan called for adding 75 new community residence beds, housing and support services for 100 additional people and 10 new community treatment teams to help adults and children in crisis.
"While this won't solve all of the challenges facing our mental health system, it is beyond time that we make real and meaningful investments in helping those in desperate need of care," she said.


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We're posting a series of blog posts on what success looks like for CFCA. Here are some goals of the Hope for a Family program, and stories that exemplify how those goals are being met in the field. We hope it encourages you, as it does us, to see hope growing in families.
GOAL: We want to create communities of equal access, where all are treated with dignity and respect.
In Antipolo, Philippines, the collective effort of CFCA small groups has led to cleaner environments, better performance in school, improved livelihoods, land acquisition and a general feeling of security, said Malou Navio, CFCA-Antipolo coordinator.
The small groups are called "kapitbahayans," a Tagalog word for "neighborhood," and consist of parents and guardians of CFCA sponsored children.
Today, the Antipolo project has 593 kapitbahayans serving the needs of 7,332 families in the Hope for a Family sponsorship program.
Members of Kapitbahayan Nazareth, a group of parents and guardians of CFCA sponsored children in Antipolo, can borrow funds from their thrift savings plan to cover emergency needs, housing repairs, education and livelihood projects.
Sixty-seven percent of Antipolo's kapitbahayans have similar thrift savings plans, Navio said. Their savings are matched by CFCA.
Nazareth's members also save money to cover their Christmas expenses, such as gifts and family celebrations.
Long term, they want to open a bank to compete with neighborhood lenders who charge high interest rates.
"A lot of work has been delegated to the kapitbahayan," Navio said. "Even the accounting (with staff supervision) is handled by the families. It's so exciting. As they become stronger, this is what will lift the community up."
GOAL: We want to cast vision for the future, and provide families opportunities to achieve their dreams. Families set clear goals for the future, and plan to achieve those goals.
Juan Rene did not let a lack of financial resources dampen his dream of attending the most prestigious agricultural school in Honduras: Escuela Agricola Panamericana El Zamorano.
Ten years in the CFCA sponsorship program in the community of Suyapa, Honduras, taught him to aim high. Juan Rene also received a CFCA scholarship.
The CFCA scholarship helped pay for Juan Rene to begin his studies at a public university, but it would not be enough to cover the $15,000 annual tuition at the private Zamorano University.
Still, he dreamed of attending Zamorano.
"I decided to call and ask for an admission test," Juan Rene said. "Later, I did everything I could to obtain a scholarship to this very prestigious university."
His persistence paid off. Zamorano awarded Juan Rene a full scholarship. Juan Rene graduated this past spring as an engineer in agricultural administration.
"I am very happy to have been directly part of CFCA," Juan Rene said. "The day is not far when I will return something as someone who is prepared for society."
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A gift from The Fruit Tree™ is a gift from the lush, fertile orchards of California and Oregon. Our fresh fruit assortment includes 3 crunchy Fuji apples, 2 navel oranges, 3 juicy D'Anjou pears. It's a tasteful gift with a healthy twist.Measures 4"H x 13"W x 18"L
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Taylor Swift Writes Song With Justin Bieber for Pop Singer's New Album
Has Justin Bieber gone country? It doesn't sound like he's ready to make that commitment, but he has written a song with country singer Taylor Swift. The two worked together to pen a cut for his upcoming third studio album called 'Believe.'
Bieber tells U.K. radio station Capital FM that the album is full of unexpected surprises. "It's crazy, I mean I even wrote a song with Taylor Swift, so the whole album ranges differently."
"With my music it doesn't only stay in a box," he added when pressed on if the song would have a country vibe. "Everything doesn't sound the same, everything's different and [after] each song you won't expect the next song to happen."
Of course this isn't the first time Swift and Bieber have "collaborated." Last month an episode of MTV's 'Punk'd' aired in which the famous teen gets the better of the 22-year-old blonde. Recently Swift said she wouldn't be seeking revenge on Bieber for that prank. 'Believe' will be available this summer.


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Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!
Welcome to the Sam & Dan Games Developer Blog! Let's begin!
Blog updates
I want to apologize for not having blog updates the last few weeks. As my wedding get near things start to get hectic and I have less and less time to sit down and work and so by not doing blog post I saved those precious hours, however things seemed to have calmed down a bit and so I plan to continue with blog updates every week like before. There is much to talk about.
Fundraiser lives on!
The fundraiser is alive and kicking. The last few weeks I made it a point to add new ways for you to donate and the fundraiser has gained dramatically from this. If you haven't heard about the fundraiser basically we are asking you guys to help us keep making PTD2 and Cosmoids while giving out great prizes. Some of the prizes include access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha, Shiny Rayquaza and Cosmoids Starters for your PTD2 account. Instead of going over every detail here on the blog we have made a page exclusively for the funding. You can find it here. Check it out, if you feel like we deserve to stay alive making games then give us a little help.
Phase 3 of the Fundraiser
Today we start Phase 3 of the fundraiser. What does it mean? NEW PRIZES! For funding $10 or more you will receive in the near future your choice of one of the 3 starters from Cosmoids (you can check them out in the Early Alpha). You will get to pick your favorite and they will stats and move set similar to other starters in pokemon. They won't however evolve right away since we don't have the graphics done for the evolutions. You will also receive 2 of the one that you choose so that you can trade it with somebody. Lastly if you are wondering they will not be able to breed with each other or with any other pokemon.
Cosmoids Early Alpha Released
I'm super excited to announce that for those who funded us any amount now have access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha. If you don't have access and would like to check it out it is very simple. Go to the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page and watch a video ad to fund a few cents to us and get access.
Okay so now that you checked it out I wanted to talk about a couple of things that you might have noticed. First of a lot of the graphics are not final and some are close to final. Mostly everything is not final except for the creature units. Those are pretty close to the final graphic besides a few tweaks on size and some minor details. Another huge thing is that there is a lot missing. The UI which is always important is not set up yet.
So you might ask what is the point then? Well there are plenty of points. What I want you to check out is that you can put units in any spot on the map, units have different ranges depending on the attack they are doing. Also unit's attack speed will be based around the base speed of the creature. In PTD I always wanted to do that so that electric pokemon would attack very fast and slow pokemon like slowpoke etc would have a long time between attacks. The problem with pokemon is that attack stats are not balanced around speed since speed in pokemon only means who gets to go first. For cosmoids I do want the base speed to affect attack speed and so we will be balancing around that. In the alpha you can see that the chameleon has a high attack speed but doesn't inflict as much damage. While the koala has a lower attack speed but does more damage per hit. All the numbers still need to be tweaked so the balance is not there yet but it should show a little of what I want to accomplish for this game which is...
Cosmoid Creatures should feel different from one another
I think long and hard about the games that I'm making. On one hand I have PTD a game that I have already established so I don't want to add too much or remove things. Then on the other hand I have Cosmoids which is something new. I don't have anything that tells me how the stats should work or what levels and creatures I need to have. This is both a curse and a blessing. Mostly a blessing in my eyes. So I started to think about what Cosmoids is about and in the same thought what is PTD about. Is the whole point of the game to just capture all your favorite creatures? Do you just set a unit down and watch it all unfold? I thought a lot about it and came to some conclusions, but most importantly I came to the conclusions as to what I wanted the game to be about. I want the game to be about you discovering new creatures, trying them out in battle and picking the ones that suit your playstyle and taste and using them to beat the challenges that I lay in front of you. Using the combination of attack speed, attack ranges, defense, hp and attack stats to create very unique creatures that all play a little differently. I hope that the alpha can give you a little sense of how I want to make each creature feel a little different.
Pokemon Tower Defense 2 updates!
Many of you know that I've always wanted to make a Pokemon MMO but obviously I would need the copyright to make it happen. Cosmoids is a way to creature my own original creatures so that I can still make a creature MMO in my lifetime. Cosmoids is very important to the future of Sam & Dan Games cause it make it our first truly original game that we distribute to any place we want. Steam, Android, Appstore etc. So in many ways Cosmoids is going to get a lot of my attention from here on out. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working on PTD2. I will continue to do updates for PTD2 but with a slight change in focus.
My focus now is more on getting more attacks and more creatures into the game each week. You might have noticed I'm doing giveaways the last few weeks starting with Luvdisc and then Litwick. These particular giveaways are a sort of experiment. I'm curious to see if eventually these 2 will be common among users as more and more are breed. Luvdisc will take longer in my opinion because right now it can only breed with itself. Another way I'm adding more pokemon is by starting to allow PTD1 transfers over to PTD2. Each week I want to add at least 3 new families that will be able to transfer. Also I want to reach the mighty level 100 soft cap so that most of the attacks are added in the game and will make transferring from PTD1 and adding new creatures faster as more attacks are added. Also this week I'm adding the Dusk Stone and the Reaper's Cloth so that you can evolve your recently new Ghost Pokemon. The story mode is still very important to me and even 1v1 is important. But these take a lot of time to create, this week I won't be doing a story mode level but next week I will.
So let's look at what I will be working on this week.
Weekly Progess
PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!
- Mystery Gift (100%)
- Testing! (100%) - Super Important to test out things before I hand it over to you guys.
- Bug Fixes (100%)
- Rough Skin Fix (100%)
- Flame Burst AOE Fix (100%)
- New Evolution Items (100%)
- Reaper's Cloth (100%)
- Dusk Stone (100%)
- PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers (100%) - Pikachu, Sandshrew, Nidoran Female and Nidoran Male Families
- Soft Level Cap Increase to 25 (100%) - 37 New Moves!
- Mirror Move (100%)
- Roar (100%)
- Mega Punch (100%)
- Stockpile (100%)
- Swallow (100%)
- Spit Up (100%)
- Sweet Scent (100%)
- Horn Attack (100%)
- Thunder Fang (100%)
- Fire Fang (100%)
- Rock Blast (100%)
- Baton Pass (100%)
- Cross Poison (100%)
- Water Pulse (100%)
- Protect (100%)
- Crush Claw (100%)
- Amnesia (100%)
- Chip Away (100%)
- Assurance (100%)
- Psybeam (100%)
- Metal Sound (100%)
- Dual Chop (100%)
- Imprison (100%)
- Toxic Spikes (100%)
- Silver Wind (100%)
- FeatherDance (100%)
- Air Cutter (100%)
- Smack Down (100%)
- Bulldoze (100%)
- Steamroller (100%)
- Echoed Voice (100%)
- Refresh (100%)
- Torment (100%)
- Swagger (100%)
- Revenge (100%)
- False Swipe (100%)
- Slash (100%)
- New Pokemon (100%) - Pichu, Dusknoir, Chandelure, Aron, Beldum
- Graphics (100%)
- Stats (100%)
- New Attacks (100%)
- Electro Ball (100%)
- Nasty Plot (100%)
- ThunderBolt (100%)
- Magnet Rise (100%)
- New Abilities (100%)
- Heavy Metal (100%)
- Light Metal (100%)
- Clear Body (100%)
- Evolutions (100%)
- Add to Breeding Center (100%)
- Add to Trading Center (100%)
That was a lot to read! Thanks for sticking with us and let's make Cosmoids the best that it can be! As always let me know what you think!
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Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve at the back of your eye. This can cause vision loss. Although the cause of glaucoma isn't clear, experts think it's often related to a buildup of pressure in the eye.
Glaucoma can be easily detected during regular eye exams. It usually responds well to treatment with medicine.
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"The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them."
The words, not of some leftie like me, but of Charles Moore of The Daily Telegraph, Thatcherite to the core. As Newsnight observes, no such words are coming from the left – global capitalism is in crisis, the crisis forecast for it by generations of left-wing intellectuals, yet the left in Britain is virtually silent. This theme was also addressed at length by Julian Coman in the Observer last Sunday: he comment -
"Intellectuals of the right are making withering judgments that Labour has not dared to make for quarter of a century."
Charles Moore is calling for the Right to redefine itself, intellectually and morally, while Labour, especially that pathetic thing called Scottish Labour, is engage in endless theorising and speculation about the structure of the party, and why they have now lost two Scottish Parliamentary elections.
The Right knows it is threatened by its record and by what its values have produced.
Labour is in denial over its record, and has no values: it stand for nothing, has no vision for society – it is simply the once highly successful electoral machine called New Labour, now rusting in the desert, out of fuel, with bits falling off it at regular intervals. It dare not look back at its failures, and the destruction it has wreaked – the sight is too awful for it to contemplate. It requires an acknowledgment of guilt, contrition, a repudiation of its key architects, Blair, Brown and Mandelson, and of the parasitic creatures that fed from its bloated body for so long – the the trades union officials, the strategists, the political advisers, the spin doctors and sycophantic commentators and media personalities.
Instead, the parasites now cluster around the machine trying to repair it, crying out in frustration that it had worked before, it can work again, if only they can find the replacement parts. They remember their glory days in the sun, the halcyon days before Iraq, before Parliamentary scandals, before their great leader quietly and obscenely enriched himself and departed, and they yearn desperately to relive them.
The Right, in contrast, know exactly who they are – a successful project that has run for centuries in Britain, aimed at enriching themselves by bleeding the ordinary people. Their only concern is that, in a democracy, however constrained by unelected Lords and patronage, there are limits to what the people will sit still for, and the Right are aware that they have over-reached themselves, that the curtain has been pulled aside revealing, not only the ugly face of the British Establishment behind it, but the very nature of the levers being pulled. The incompetence and venality of Labour over 13 years did not result in the great electoral victory for the right in the 2010 general election, but a messy, inconclusive outcome, and an even messier Coalition with the feeble and vacillating LibDems.
Worst of all, to the north of them, the people of Scotland have made a decisive choice in favour of a political party that has a vision, values and clear objectives, and terrifyingly, a party that is immune to the flattery, the patronage, the bribery, the bullying, the intimidation, the misinformation that is the stock in trade of the Right, a party that cares about the people it serves, and which will act solely in their interests – a centre-left Social Democratic party of the kind that has worked quietly and effectively in Scandinavia for generations. And this party has reduced the Tories and the Liberal Democrats to a pathetic, irrelevant shadow of their former selves, and has successfully challenged the power of the Scottish Labour Party and defeated it conclusively.
Charles Moore memorably describes New Labour's architects as "the people who adopted vulgar Thatcherism, people who didn't really understand …. adopting a religion that they didn't really understand."
He went on to say the caricature of "the capitalists in the top hats and stripey trousers" ripping off the people was now compounded by the fact that they were being paid by the taxpayers.
Charles Moore concluded his piece by saying "What's really important right now is that the Right should admit how much it has got on the wrong side of this argument, and somehow those who support the free market have become identified with the powerful, and with a country that feels to be, at this point, both morally and actually, bust …". The country he refers to is the UK - but my country, Scotland, is not morally or actually bust, Charles.
Now both old-time religions – Thatcherism and New Labour Thatcherism – have failed to deliver the promised land, and The Rapture will be a long time a'comin', brothers and sisters ….
Saor Alba!


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University Park, Pa. -- While the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service now seeks to provide nutrition information for 40 of the most popular meat and poultry products, an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences suggests that the revised rule still leaves some questions unanswered.
"Many meat industry commodity groups support the new label requirements," said Chris Raines, assistant professor of meat science and technology and extension meats specialist. "They want to see more accurate nutritional information in the hands of U.S. consumers.
"Many consumers still don't realize how healthy and nutritious most meat is," he said. "For example, the industry group Meatmatters did a survey recently that showed that consumers overestimate fat content in red meat by up to 20 percent."
The move to provide more information on meat labels stems from a 1993 initiative that sought to have meat retailers provide consumers with nutrition information. That voluntary measure was not as successful as the U.S. Department of Agriculture hoped, because only about half of retailers complied with the program.
As a result, federal officials decided in 2010 to make labeling requirements a mandatory rule starting Jan. 1, 2012. This comprehensive nutritional labeling rule requires providing accurate values for many different cuts of meat that naturally vary in their amounts of fats, protein, minerals and calories.
"The USDA understands the scope of such a project, so it addressed those problems by adding exemptions for small processors and retailers," Raines said. "It also whittled the number of affected whole-muscle cuts down to the 40 most popular."
But one weakness in the new rule is that it doesn't address the variation in fat content or composition, said Raines. This is an important component in the nutritional value of an individual cut.
"Whole-muscle meat cuts' fat contents vary according to fat trim depth (for instance, 1/8 inch vs. 1/4 inch) and marbling, the white flecks of fat within the meat," he said. "A steak graded USDA Prime will have more intramuscular fat than one graded USDA Select."
The USDA ruling can affect processors that don't pay for a USDA meat grader (which is completely different from a USDA food-safety inspector) to assign grades to carcasses. Without proper meat grading, the federal agency will be forced to offer less-accurate, blanket nutritional information for these whole-muscle products.
"Small processors who already use statements of percent fat and percent lean on their ground products will be exempt from further labeling," Raines said. "Some small processors are exempt from nutrition-label requirements entirely. And products that are custom butchered will not require labeling."
Raines pointed out that producers and retailers of niche-market products that advertise nutrition information different from what is in the USDA's National Nutrient Data Bank will be subject to their products being sampled and analyzed so the Food Safety and Inspection Service can establish a nutrient profile.
"The new regulations don't differentiate between meat from animals raised using different practices," he said. "So if a producer elects to make a special nutritional claim about a meat product -- such as grass-fed beef -- the claim will have to be backed up with an actual test."
(Chris Raines' blogs can be found on the Web at meatblogger.org and on Twitter at @iTweetMeat.)


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Miscellaneous thoughts about miscellaneous matters
For some reason I started thinking about the Guelphs and Ghibellines, Tories, Know Nothings, Northern Leagues, and various other names that political parties have chosen. While some of the names were intended to show what the party was about, the stance of the party on issues and political preferences tend to evolve over time; thus the name might cease to be appropriate. And some of the names are just words that were applied to a political group.
Perhaps the most interesting terms
Or: Why Bernie might as well give up now
Socialism is a term that is too broad to be especially useful, but it has some meanings that are significant to U.S. politics. In its broadest sense, socialism is an economic system that is democratic; that is, operated by the people involved. Democracy is rule by the people, in contrast with republican government in which the people elect representatives, aristocracy in which an elite rules, monarchy in which a single ruler runs things. Here


text: Come to the Chestnut Hill branch of the Free Library tonight for the 7:30 p.m. showing of 'Canterville Ghost', a 1944 comedic fantasy about a four-hundred year old ghost who is serving a life sentence as a ghost until one of his descendants performs a good deed. Starring Charles Laughton as Sir Simon the ghost, Robert Young as Cuffy Williams, his American descendant, and Margaret O'Brien as Lady Jessica. Written by Oscar Wilde and directed by Jules Dassin. Running time is 114 minutes. Admission is free.


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After an agonizing wait, I finally got a chance to play with my new Surface with Windows RT, or as I will call it for sanity's sake, Surface RT or simply, Surface. It has been a few days, and I thought instead of writing a full-fledged review, I'd focus on some key likes and a long list of dislikes. Nits that I picked. I discuss the likes here, and dislikes in a second post.
Surface RT
Overall, I really like the device. I was determined to evaluate its use as an iPad replacement in my house. To be clear, in our house, the iPad is used for Facebook, Twitter, web browsing (between my wife and I), and some Netflix/PBS Kids/kid games (our kids, 4 and 6 years old). We are not using the iPad as a computer, or a "creation device". It is a pure consumption device, unless you call writing a tweet, "creation".
In that use case, the Surface has ably fit in place of the iPad for the kids. The kids have enough games that they know of, and enough games that are new, that they actually like using the Surface. My wife has not used it much, but that is because at this point of time, she considers the Surface "my baby" so she is almost afraid to some extent, of using it. However, it is only a matter of time :-)
Last night, I saw my kids fight to get to use the Surface. Mind you, we got our second iPad 2 just so they can both have their own. So, despite having two iPads, they preferred to use the Surface. Granted, it could be a novelty thing, but still, it bodes well for me that they are actually liking the device with all its oddities, like the 16:9 aspect ratio.
I replaced my iPad too, almost
As for me, the Surface has almost replaced the iPad. The big gap at this point? Twitter app! I like Tweetro, but because of their recent issue with API token limit, I was unable to sign in on the Surface despite having used it (extensively) on my Windows 8 desktop. The other two big names, Rowi and MetroTwit are both far behind what I would call a basic Twitter experience, so to me they are unusable. I am forced to use the People app and Twitter website meanwhile, and that makes for a highly sub-optimal experience for a "power user" like yours truly.
The other small issue which makes me use the iPad when the PC is not being used, is access to my work email and calendar. My work has an app which allows me to access Exchange with native iOS mail, calendar and reminders apps. They haven't yet provisioned it for Windows 8/RT.
Besides those two missing pieces, I am extremely happy with the device. I haven't yet experienced some of the performance issues that many others have experienced, nor have I found any major app missing. It is thin enough, and light enough for me to use it like I used my iPad. (Important to note, my iPad has a strong Speck case which makes the iPad feel heavier.)
Windows 8 (and Windows RT)
Some part of why I like the Surface so much is due to Windows 8. For example, all my settings including my lock screen image, theme, pinned websites, favorites, web history, etc. automatically came through as I signed in with my Microsoft account. This is because I had set up my account and settings on my desktop PC earlier and set it up so all those settings were synced across devices via the cloud.
Also, thanks to Xbox Music Match, a service that is yet to officially roll out but works anyway, all my music was available on the Surface as soon as I signed in with my Microsoft account. This includes some playlists I created just the day before. Again, this is because my music was matched from my desktop PC (which in turn is connected to my home server where all my music, photos and videos are stored). In addition, I was able to impress some of my family members by searching for and playing a bunch of songs on-demand via the Xbox Music subscription service. While I have the Xbox Music Pass, the unlimited streaming (with some, ahem, limits) is automatically included with all Windows 8 and Windows RT devices.
The last thing I want to mention why I love the Surface and why I replaced my iPad with it? Office. I use Excel and Word in addition to OneNote, for various purposes. Things like tracking expenses, creating birthday lists, sending formal letters, etc. are all done on Excel, Word and OneNote. Having "real" Office on my tablet with a constant sync to SkyDrive (which allows me to collaborate with my wife for some of those items) is a huge benefit. Not what I would call the #1 reason to buy a Surface, but definitely a huge plus when considering a Surface over an iPad.
Suffice to say, I really like my Surface. I think it is money well spent, for my use of such a device. Having said that, there are issues I have with the device and I list them in my next post.


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LONG BEACH — The Long Beach Unified Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously approved the renewal of a four-year employment contract for Superintendent Chris Steinhauser.
Steinhauser, a longtime district employee who has served as superintendent since 2002, earns an annual base salary of $233,319, in addition to a $7,000 annual "longevity raise," which brings his total salary this year to $240,319, said LBUSD spokesman Chris Eftychiou.
Employees receive an annual longevity increase once they have reached a certain number of years in the school district, Eftychiou said, adding that Steinhauser has been with the district for more than 30 years.
Under the new contract, which expires in August 2016, his base salary and longevity increase will remain the same.
As superintendent of the state's third largest school district, Steinhauser's salary puts him in line with other superintendents of large school districts.
The statewide average salary for a superintendent of a large unified school district – defined as a school district with an average daily attendance of more than 20,000 students – was $226,417 for the 2009-2010 year, according the most recent report from the California Department of Education. Long Beach Unified has more than 80,000 students.
Faced with ongoing state budget cuts and teacher layoffs, Steinhauser took a voluntary 10 percent pay cut from August 2009 to August 2011.
A product of Long Beach schools, Steinhauser graduated from Wilson High School in 1977 and went on to attend Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach.
Under his tenure, the LBUSD won the coveted Broad Prize for Urban Education in 2003 and has since been nominated three times.
email@example.com, 562-714-2181, twitter.com/kellypuentept


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Talk:Brian's Paradox
LOL. Would it be appropriate to include what I consider to be an alternative rendition: "Heads I Win, Tails you Lose"? --BronzeDome 13:42, 28 March 2012 (CDT)
- Works for me. I think I prefer Brian's Paradox as the official page (unless it can be merged into some other page), and "Heads I win..." as the redirect. --Arensb 14:37, 28 March 2012 (CDT)


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Apartment hotel "Amber" welcomes you Combining comfort and convenient location makes the apartment an ideal place for rest and business for those who want to stay in Liepaja. Apartment hotel "Amber" - a building with classical architecture.
Our hotel has 9 apartments of different categories, from studio to family class apartments, ranging from 35 to 65 square meters
Our apartments will satisfy of any tourist or businessman requirements.


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My favorite scene in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln takes place in the War Department's telegraph office, as Lincoln and Stanton are waiting for news from Wilmington, NC. Lincoln decides to tell the assembled staff a vulgar story about Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen. Stanton, already on the verge of bursting with the tension, can't handle another of his boss's rambling yarns and goes scurrying off. As the room erupts in laughter, the camera cuts to a portrait of Washington hanging overhead. The first president's stern face gazes down impassively on one of his unlikeliest successors—an awkward, unpolished frontier lawyer—who's cracking up at his own off-color joke, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he's sitting at the nerve center of a vast war machine.
As it happens, the anecdote in question is one the historical Lincoln actually told on at least a couple of occasions.
Abner Ellis was one of many Lincoln acquaintances who shared their recollections about the slain president with William H. Herndon. Here's how Ellis recorded the Ethan Allen story in a written statement from 1866, which you can find in the collection of Herndon's research material edited by Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis:
It appears that Shortly after we had pease with England Mr Allen had occasion to visit England, and while their the English took Great pleasure in teasing him, and trying to Make fun of the Americans and General Washington in particular and one day they got a picture of General Washington, and hung it up the Back House whare Mr Allen Could see it
and they finally asked Mr A if he saw that picture of his freind in the Back House.
Mr Allen said no. but said he thought that it was a very appropriate for an Englishman to Keep it Why they asked, for said Mr Allen their is Nothing that Will Make an Englishman S**t So quick as the Sight of Genl Washington And after that they let Mr Allens Washington alone
(The asterisks aren't in the original, but you never know who's reading your blog.)
Ellis wasn't the only one of Herndon's sources who remembered Lincoln's fondness for the Ethan Allen story. On the day the Republican National Convention nominated him for the presidency in Chicago, Lincoln was back in Springfield, playing ball and chewing the fat with some friends. One of them was Christopher C. Brown, who recalled that Lincoln was "nervous, fidgety" that day and that he passed the time telling anecdotes, including the one about "Washingtons picture in a necessary."
Abner Ellis claimed that he never heard the Allen story from anyone but Lincoln, so one wonders where he got it. I don't think Ethan Allen went to England after the war, so if the incident with the privy actually happened, it probably wasn't exactly as Lincoln told it. Allen was imprisoned in England for a while following his capture at Longue-Pointe, so it's possible that something along the lines of Lincoln's story could have happened then.
Oddly enough, in the film Lincoln tells the War Department staff that Allen and the Green Mountain Boys captured Ft. Ticonderoga in 1776. The fort actually fell in May of 1775, just a few weeks after the war started. I'm guessing this was a slip on the part of the screenwriter; Lincoln himself had done his share of reading about the Revolution as a kid.
Anyway, it makes for a great scene.


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Naturepedic Organic Cotton Flannel Pad - Twin w/Straps
The Naturepedic Organic Cotton Flannel Pad features two layers of luxurious organic cotton flannel for an absorptive and comfortable sleep environment. Naturepedic is a GOTS certified organic bedding manufacturer and has earned the trust of moms and doctors across the country. Naturepedic also meets the strictest GREENGUARD certification standards for eliminating chemical emissions. This pad makes an excellent choice for parents seeking to remove potentially harmful chemicals from their child's sleeping environment. Please note this pad is not waterproof.
Two layers of certified organic cotton flannel - top and bottom Organic Cotton is an ideal material that is both natural and renewable. It is a healthier alternative to synthetic fibers such as polyester and rayon while avoiding less desirable materials such as allergy-prone wool.
Highly absorptive and extra soft Helps reduce uneven temperatures, sweating, and clamminess
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Standard twin size (38" x 75"). Machine wash & dry
Made in the U.S.A.
Additional Info
Additional Info


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- For the Apollo rovers, see Lunar Roving Vehicle.
A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle (rover) designed to move across the surface of the Moon. Some rovers have been designed to transport members of a human spaceflight crew, such as the U.S. Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots, such as Soviet Lunokhods and Chinese Yutu. As of 2013, three countries have had rovers on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
Past missionsEdit
Lunokhod 1Edit
- Main article: Lunokhod 1
Lunokhod 1 (Луноход) was the first polycrystalline-panel-powered of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program after previous unsuccessful attempt of launch probe with Lunokhod 0 (No.201) in 1969. The panels were designed by Electronic and Communication Engineer Bryan Mapúa. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17. The spacecraft soft-landed on the Moon in the Sea of Rains on November 1970. Lunokhod was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another celestial body. Having worked for 11 months, Lunokhod 1 held the durability record for space rovers for more than 30 years, until a new record was set by the Mars Exploration Rovers.
Lunokhod 2Edit
- Main article: Lunokhod 2
Lunokhod 2 was the second and a monocrystalline-panel-powered of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of the Lunokhod program. The Luna 21 spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover Lunokhod 2 in January 1973. The objectives of the mission were to collect images of the lunar surface, examine ambient light levels to determine the feasibility of astronomical observations from the Moon, perform laser ranging experiments, observe solar X-rays, measure local magnetic fields, and study the soil mechanics of the lunar surface material. Lunokhod 2 intended to be followed by Lunokhod 3 (No.205) in 1977 but mission was cancelled.
Apollo Lunar Roving VehicleEdit
- Main article: Lunar Roving Vehicle
The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon during the last three missions of the American Apollo program (15, 16, and 17) during 1971 and 1972. The LRV could carry one or two astronauts, their equipment, and lunar samples.
- Main article: Yutu (rover)
Yutu is a Chinese lunar rover which launched on 1 December 2013 and landed on 14 December 2013 as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. It is China's first lunar rover, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program undertaken by China National Space Administration (CNSA).[1] The lunar rover is called Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, a name selected in an online poll.[2]
The rover encountered operational difficulties after the first 14-day lunar night, and was unable to move after the end of the second lunar night, yet it is still gathering some useful data.
The Yutu rover might be the world's first true hibernating robot on the moon.[3]
Planned missionsEdit
Barcelona Moon Team roverEdit
Barcelona Moon Team is a team participating in the Google Lunar X Prize, with a planned launch date for the mission in 2015.
Astrobotic Technology roverEdit
Astrobotic Technology, a private company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, plans to send a rover to the Moon in late 2017, as part of the Google Lunar X Prize.
Chang'e 4 roverEdit
- Main article: Chang'e 4
Chinese mission with a planned launch date before 2020.
Chandrayaan-2 roverEdit
- Main article: Chandrayaan-2
The Chandrayaan-2 mission is the first lunar rover mission by India, consisting of a lunar orbiter and a lunar lander. The rover weighing 50 kg, will have six wheels and will be running on solar power. It will land near one of the poles and will operate for a year, roving up to 150 km at a maximum speed of 360 m/h. The proposed launch date of the mission is 2017.
SELENE-2 roverEdit
- Main article: SELENE-2
Planned Japanese robotic mission to the Moon will include an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It is expected to be launched in 2017.
Proposed missionsEdit
- Main article: ATHLETE
NASA's plans for future moon missions call for rovers that have a far longer range than the Apollo rovers.[4] The All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE) is a six-legged robotic lunar rover test-bed under development by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). ATHLETE is a testbed for systems and is designed for use on the Moon.[5] The system is in development along with NASA's Johnson and Ames Centers, Stanford University and Boeing.[6] ATHLETE is designed, for maximum efficiency, to be able to both roll and walk over a wide range of terrains.[5]
Luna-Grunt roverEdit
- Main article: Luna-Glob
Luna-Grunt rover (or Luna-28) is a proposed Russian lunar rover (lunokhod).
- Main article: Scarab (rover)
Scarab is a new generation lunar rover designed to assist astronauts, take rock and mineral samples, and explore the lunar surface.[7][8] It is being developed by the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, supported by NASA.
Space Exploration VehicleEdit
- Main article: Space Exploration Vehicle
The SEV is a proposed successor to the original Lunar Roving Vehicle from the Apollo missions. It combines a living module, as it has a pressurized cabin containing a small bathroom and space for 2 astronauts (4 in case of emergency), and a small truck.
See alsoEdit
- ↑ Chang'e 3: The Chinese Rover Mission
- ↑ Template:Cite news
- ↑ "China's Yutu Rover Might Be The World's First True Hibernating Robot" from InvestorSpot.com
- ↑ NASA's Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "The ATHLETE Rover". JPL. 2010-02-25. http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/systems/system.cfm?System=11.
- ↑ "The ATHLETE Rover". NASA. 2010-02-25. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_748.html.
- ↑ "NASA Day on the Hill". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1696.html.
- ↑ "Snakes, Rovers and Googly Eyes: New Robot Masters Take Many Forms". Wired. 2008-04-04. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/04/snakes-rovers-a/.
External linksEdit
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).


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Technical people want details that execs don't. How do we balance this?Cate's got a lot of company here: Scientists and non-scientists tell me they have trouble presenting when there will be both scientists and non-scientists in the group. My clients tell me they want to show what they know, and they anticipate the technical experts in the audience will criticize them for leaving out details. At the same time, they know the decision-makers' eyes will glaze over if too much detail is presented. It's a special dilemma for the presenter who's a scientist or technical expert.
This happens a lot in corporate cultures, but not exclusively: Government officials and even nonprofits will find occasions when a technical expert's knowledge is needed to help a group of important decision-makers get informed on key issues. At some point, technical folks need to work with fundraisers, marketers, policymakers, decision-makers of all kinds.
My recommendations?
- Know the purpose of the presentation. If it's to help non-technical executives make a decision, that should guide your path. If it's to show your technical expertise and eye for detail, that's another thing entirely.
- Even an audience of experts appreciates a clear, compelling presentation. Secretly, technical folks admire short and sweet presentations--despite the flow of questions that may follow--and the non-technical folks will thank you, again and again.
- Define your territory. State at the outset--and throughout your presentation--how far you will and will not be diving into detail. Both groups will appreciate that, and you'll head off some questions as well as subtly demonstrate that you do have the data, even if you're not showing it.
- Structure your presentation with a 3-point message: Developing a three-point message helps you add focus and boil down the technical details into three themes, results or decision-making points. A message also can help you stick to simple, clear terms that any listener can follow, a must in this type of presentation. You can also work to make it more memorable by dressing it up with analogies, alliteration and other rhetorical tools. In this type of presentation, use the three points strategically: to summarize findings (the three most surprising points), what will appeal to key audiences (the points you think donors or venture capitalists will appreciate), or decision opportunities (the points that suggest a change of course).
- Head off some questions with advance information. Can you post more detailed charts, data sets and analyses on an intranet or website sent to participants in advance? Then do it, and refer to that summary in the presentation. "The data sets are all available at this URL, but for this morning, I want to focus on this..."
- Leave something for the Q&A. Don't underestimate the value of leaving some detail for the question-and-answer session. You can even allude to your willingness to present it later: "We can go into this in more depth later if you like, but the main takeaway from our research is...." will go a long way to signaling to both groups your ability to ride that see-saw: You've got the details, but are passing over them to get to the results.
- Speak to both groups when answering questions: When you do get a high-tech question, be sure to answer in a way that both groups can appreciate. ("You're quite right, Fred--that does look like an anomaly. But the bottom line is....")
Share your additional questions, tips or challenges in the comments. What kinds of presentations are you making to audiences of technical and non-technical experts?
Related post: What's the difference between when scientists present to other scientists, and to the public?
This post and the "what's the difference?" post noted above were included in the weekly roundup of the best public speaking articles in the blogosphere on Andrew Dlugan's great Six Minutes blog. Thanks, Andrew!
Enter your email address in the box at right to get Step Up Your Speaking, my free monthly newsletter that focuses in-depth on a different speaker issue each month, then head over to The Eloquent Woman on Facebook to continue the discussion.


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Sydney - With next week's Australian Open in mind, a weary Venus Williams has opted to skip the Hobart International while her American compatriot Sloane Stephens has pulled out of the Sydney International with a minor wrist injury.
Following her 6-2 5-7 6-4 defeat to fellow former world number one Ana Ivanovic in the Auckland Classic final on Saturday, Williams withdrew from the Hobart event to recover ahead of the first grand slam of the season beginning next week.
"After a long week during my first tournament of the year, my body needs time to rest and recover," the 33-year-old Williams told the Hobart International website.
"Unfortunately, I am not able to play this week in Hobart. I was looking forward to playing in Tasmania and I sincerely do hope to play there in the coming years," the seven-time grand slam winner added.
Stephens, the world number 12, also saw her preparations for the Australian Open compromised.
"I was having some pain in my wrist and the doctor recommended I not play this week," the 20-year-old American, a semi-finalist at Melbourne Park a year ago, said.
"This is a difficult decision, but the best decision for me and my team to make," she added.


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Dhoni's cameo took Pune to the FinalsMay 17, 2017 10:55
The first play-offs match in this season's IPL was between the two Maharastrian giants. Two time IPL champions Mumbai stood at the top of the table and met second place, Rising Pune Supergiants at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.
Mumbai won the toss and did what everyone would have expected. They elected to field first, as Wankhede's pitch has always been beneficial for the chasers.
RPS batting took a major blow, when two of their batsmen departed in the first two overs. Rahul Tripathi, who did not even open his account was struck down by Mitchell McClenaghan and Hardik Pandya caught skipper Steven Smith (1 off 2 balls) off Malinga's delivery. But opener Ajinkya Rahane stood as a wall, as he went on to score 56 off 43 balls hitting, 5 boundaries and 1 six.
Rahane was equally supported by Manoj Tiwary, who scored 58 off 48 balls striking, 4 boundaries and 2 sixes. After Rahane's dismissal in the 13th over, when former Indian skipper Dhoni came to bat, the whole stadium went onto roar "Dhoni," Dhoni," "Dhoni, "Dhoni." No matter which team you support, you just cannot hate this man and he always proved his worth in crucial matches.
In the 18th over RPS were struggling to score, they were 121/3 at that time. That is when Dhoni hit 26 runs in the 19th over off McCenaghan. With Dhoni hitting two sixes one came from Tiwary.
The duo scored another 15 runs in the final over bringing the total to 162/3.
Though 162 is a mediocre score, Mumbai drowned with 142/9 in front of the home crowd. Wicket-keeper batsmen Parthiv Patel was the only player who managed to score 52 off 40 balls. No other players could not even manage to cross the 20-run mark. Skipper Rohit Sharma had a miserable season. He could have proved his worth in this match, but left the crease scoring just 1 run.
RPS will meet the winner of the second qualifier for finals. MI still had the chance to reach finals as they will now travel to Bengaluru and face the winners of eliminator between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkat Knightriders.


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With AIR 3.4, it would be possible to use ADT to install AIR applications on the iOS devices (i.e iPod, iPhone and iPad) from both desktop operating systems (i.e MAC and Windows). Prior to AIR3.4, developers have to use iTunes, XCode etc to install the iOS AIR applications and that was a cumbersome process.
This new capability will make the install/uninstall process a lot more seamless. To install/uninstall an iOS AIR application on the device, simply follow the following instructions:
First of all, we need to know the number of devices, along with their device-id's, which are attached to the machine. This can be done using the following ADT command.
adt -devices -platform ios List of attached devices: Handle DeviceClass DeviceUUID DeviceName 22 iPhone 24d9b6fd...................a861117a7866510 myiPhone 23 iPod 24d9b6fd...................a861117a7866510 myIpod
The handle in the output of the above command is the device-id to be used to install/uninstall application in that particular device.
Once, we have the information about the devices attached to the machine we can use the following command to install the application on the device.
adt -installApp PLATFORM-OPTION PLATFORM-SDK-OPTION? DEVICE-OPTION? -package
eg. adt -installApp -platform ios -device <device-id> -package /path/to/my.ipa
In case only one device is attached, there is no need to specify -device argument.
adt -installApp -platform ios -package /path/to/my.ipa
Similarly to uninstall the application from the ios device, use the following command line
adt -uninstallApp PLATFORM-OPTION PLATFORM-SDK-OPTION? DEVICE-OPTION? -appid
eg. adt -uninstallApp -platform ios -device <device-id> -appid com.adobe.myapp
In case only one device is attached, there is no need to specify -device argument.
adt -uninstallApp -platform ios -appid com.adobe.myapp
<app-id> is specified in the application descriptor file (app.xml) within the <id> tag . If you create your project using Flash Builder, by default it would be the same as your app name.


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"cough" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jpsuMx_fOk
this stuffs been going on for years though in this case the priest did the actual tanking,
"cough" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jpsuMx_fOk
this stuffs been going on for years though in this case the priest did the actual tanking,
Nice video!
Side Note: I don't use no clipping macro for mind flay aswell but I never seem to clip em, I'm sitting on 40-50ms latency
(yes I do use quartz as reference to see when I have to cast a new one) It isnt needed in my opinion if you just learn what to do. I think I can chaincast mind flay with my eyes closed without clipping
I'll not spend my days glancing over my shoulder for assassins. Let them look back for me. --Elbryan, the Nightbird.
This thread hurts and I now see why some spriests do so poorly for dps =[
next realm first will be with 9 ambush rogues and a kitty -.-
good job btw
Hello, What is the point in doing all of this? Ther is NONE is there ? You will prob say to show people what you can do. But why do you even want to do that? We live in a world were people think they are better than others but were not we are all EQUAL! Do please tatoo that onto your hand. . Another point. Dont take this to bad because it's not a argument its just my oppinion. Slyder Hellsceam (EU)
FAST while u still can! do the same with a different tank and claim another EU first
best backpeddling ive ever seen
the vid did make me lol tho, guy dying on 1:00
This vid made me sad, like the priest running at 0:50 RIGHT INTO THE FRIGING wave. I mean why ?
Even Guild - Ysondre FR http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/eu/ysondre/Even
My Resto/Balance Druid : http://eu.battle.net/wow/fr/characte...oshelol/simple
imo, some people gotta stop being elitist douchebags, they obviously did this for the lulz, and just wanted to show its possible, so what if he did a rotation wrong, or fuck up clipping, IT DOES NOT MATTER, this was boviously just him and some friends having some fun.
Also nice work Nabias, i'm happy it worked for you guys
Bow down before our new furry overlords!
Perhaps he will take some useful advice from this thread and improve, perhaps he won't but don't try and drag him down to your level by telling him that sucking is just another playstyle.
Very impressive. The thought of doing 9Spriest with 1 warrior or pala have been ocouring to me from time to time. cool to see someone finaly doing it!


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Welcome Back
Do you ever start a creative experiment, just trowing things on the page to see what happens? Then find a result you like so much you just have to stop as you like it too much to add more? Here is the piece where that happened to me. This piece reminds me of a documentary I saw where they showed a diver swimming though kelp, lots of long strands of kelp with the sunlight twinkling though the half-light beneath the water.
I had applied gesso to the base board, then applied heavy body acrylic thickly with a sponge, then I heated it. (Best done in a well ventilated room as O. M days did it whiff!) The result looked a bit like crackled wood. Loving it too much to continue I left it aside for a few weeks. I do this as I frequently seem to make things I love too much to cover. I do this too with stuff I think doesn't work as with a few weeks wait, you come back to a project with new eyes.
So I came back to the crackly paint, and applied a layer of green paint with the brayer (my new but now covered with acrylic paint so it gives good textures brayer). This gave an even better look, once dry I have added more layers of washes and sponged on more texture.
This piece is likely to evolve further in the future so it will get perhaps text or imagery, but for right now, I love it just as it is.
How about you, what do you do if you get a piece you don't like? Do you hide it in a box for a while and come back to it later? Maybe you gesso over it and hide all the evidence it ever existed? Do you feel the need to add lettering, images to every piece or are you happy to have a beautiful piece that you may once have thought of as a background, a place to start but now love just for its own right? Would love to hear your thoughts?
Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon
Billie 🙂


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With iBlogger, wherever you are, you have access to your blog.
You can effortlessly post pictures (with captions!) along with your thoughts.
You can add Categories and Tags.
You can even add your location at the touch of a finger, so if you're wandering around in the winding streets of an ancient city, you can blog the location of the cool little shop you stumbled upon.
Upload, browse, and embed pictures from your Picasa account into a blog post. Works with any blog.
Sign up for Picasa using your Google ID, and iBlogger will automatically configure your Picasa account when you add your Blogspot account. All you need to do is touch "Yes" when asked.
Why use Picasa? Blogspot and some other blogs don't support picture uploads via the remote editing API that iBlogger and ecto use to interact with the blog engine. Sometimes the blog engine actually supports picture uploads, but the service hosting provider has disabled the feature to limit bandwidth usage for free blog accounts, for example.
Sign up for your free Google Picasa account
iBlogger provides the same cropping and scaling features that have been in iBlogger since the App Store opened. With this update, iBlogger also handles full-resolution images from any camera, which you may have in your iPhone or iPod photo library, or at Picasa.
iBlogger provides advanced integration with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) so that iBlogger posts can be tailored to any extent desired.
You can look at this CSS template for examples of full styling with CSS (copy the file to your blog as a .css file, or copy the content of the file into your CSS file).
All elements of an iBlogger post are wrapped in named div containers. This allows you to style iBlogger headers and other content to either perfectly match your blog's standard formatting, or stand out as mobile posts on your blog. An example CSS stylesheet is available that you can tailor to your site. CSS styling degrades gracefully, so if you don't define custom settings for an iBlogger header, for example, your post will use the default header styling in your blog template.
iBlogger allows you to easily describe images with a caption. Like every other element of a blog post, iBlogger allows full CSS styling of images and the accompanying caption.
Image thumbnail sizes are easily selectable, providing a CSS scaled thumbnail at 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, and 1/5 scale. As you would expect on the web, users can see the full size image by clicking on the image.
If you have Lightbox 2 on your blog, iBlogger effortlessly integrates with it, for fancy display of full sized images.
iBlogger now emits HTML which is compliant with XHTML 1.0.
NOTE: Most blog engines re-write the HTML that they receive from remote blog editors, so your milage may vary, but illumineX is doing our part to uphold modern web standards!
iBlogger 2 went through an extensive beta testing cycle involving dozens of bloggers and nearly a year of testing. During that time, all memory leaks and related errors were fixed. In addition, 131 beta test issues were addressed.
Improved stability and performance was a major goal for this new release. Apple recently released XCode 4 with the new LLVM 2 compiler which allowed us to find subtle defects and fix them before shipping the product. The new compiler also generates code that runs faster on iOS 4.3 than code generated by the old gcc compiler.
That's geek speak, but it means that the new iBlogger is VERY SNAPPY! Our beta testers who had used earlier versions of iBlogger 2 were amazed at the performance of our recent builds for things like browsing their Picasa photo albums. The performance of the Picasa photo browser on an iPhone or iPod Touch will blow your mind.
This level of performance simply wasn't possible without the combination of iOS 4.3, XCode 4, and LLVM 2.0, so many thanks to Apple for making these advanced iBlogger features possible.
iBlogger makes mobile blogging as easy as possible, and yet gives you as much power as possible to blog "on the go".
With iBlogger you can compose entries offline for later posting, if you're totally out of network range, on Safari in Africa or in the basement of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Club in Washington, D.C.
If you have separate blogs for your Jazz and exotic animal quests, no problem. You can have as many as you want.
iBlogger is the best way to blog!
iBlogger works with your blog
iBlogger works with many blogs. Here are a few of the blogs that iBlogger works with, with more on the way.
iBlogger works great with iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch. We did extensive performance tuning so iBlogger works great over WiFi, 3G, and even Edge networks.
Using iBlogger from your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can blog from most anywhere. iBlogger is based on the award winning ecto, the popular blogging client application for the Mac.
Almost certainly, yes. iBlogger works with all of the most popular blog systems, and most of the minor ones, too.
iBlogger is compatible with many fine blog engines, including:
iBlogger has optimized plugins for these Blog Hosting Services:
If it's not listed above, iBlogger may not have been tested with your blog, but should work with most any blog engine so long as you can connect via one of these generic API types:
iBlogger is sexy, too!
— Brian & Julie, of Missoula, Montana, USA


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Get your sun screen, pack your speedos. The Caps are off to the balmy climes of Winnipeg, Manitoba (predicted temperature at game time – 18 degrees...Fahrenheit). Hopefully, the Caps can provide some warmth with a little more heat from the offense, which has been limited to 11 goals in their last five games. In none of those games did they score more than three goals.
Meanwhile, the Jets are basking in the still new-found glow of a new city with eager and adoring fans. Those fans not only had to wait 15 years for the NHL to return to Manitoba, but they have seen their Jets at MTS Centre only twice in the last three-plus weeks. Eight of their last ten games have come on the road, a seven-game road trip starting this stretch. That road trip started with what might be to date the wildest game of the year, a 9-8 win over Philadelphia. Of course, they lost their next game – in Tampa – by a 1-0 score. Over these ten games the Jets are 4-4-2, which when you think about it, is not really much different from the Caps' 4-5-1 record over their last ten. Here is how the two teams compare to date:
(click pic for larger image)
The Jets have averaged 3.00 goals per game over their last ten games, but it has been a bumpy ride to get there. Three times they scored five or more goals in a game; twice they were shutout, and they scored only one goal against the hapless Columbus Blue Jackets (which is almost like a shutout). They have allowed 33 goals over those ten games, three times allowing five or more goals.
2. Winnipeg is like the horse that sets the pace in a Triple Crown race. Out fast, fade late. The goals scored by period go 19-14-14. Their goals against go 16-19-22. And the Jets lost their only two games settled in overtime. Only two teams have scored more first period goals; only three have allowed more third period goals.
3. Only one team in the league has taken more minor penalties than the Jets (Philadelphia). Twelve Jets have at least ten minutes in penalties (compare that to four for the Caps). No team averages more shorthanded situations at home than does Winnipeg (5.0 occurrences per game).
4. Only three teams have a worse takeaway-to-giveaway ratio at home than the Jets (0.48:1). Only seven of 16 Jets playing in ten or more games overall have more takeaways than giveaways. Compare that to 13 of 17 Caps playing in at least ten games.
5. Once upon a time, the Caps beat up on this team. From April 5, 2009 thorough November 14, 2010, the Caps beat the Jets (then as the Atlanta Thrashers) in ten of eleven games. Since then, however, the Jets are 4-1-1, and they have shut out the Caps twice in their last three meetings, both of them on Jet/Thrasher ice.
1. From the "It's not where you are, it's how you get there" file… The Caps are 10-5-1 at the moment. After 16 games last year they were 12-4-0. Not a lot different. But last year the Caps were riding a six-game winning streak into Game 17 (which they lost in overtime to Buffalo). At the moment the Caps are 1-3-1 in their last five games and 3-5-1 in their last nine.
2. Winnipeg is the only team in the league against whom John Erskine has more than one goal (two).
3. After eight games the Caps had a 5-on-5 goals for-to-goals against ratio of 2.33:1. Since then the Caps have been outscored, 24-20, at even strength, and they have been outscored at even strength by 15-6 since Alex Ovechkin scored at 18:41 of the first period against the Islanders on November 5th.
4. The Caps have the best intradivisional record to date. Their 4-0-0 record against the Southeast Division is one of two unblemished records against foes in their own division, and it is one more win than Pittsburgh has (3-0-0).
5. Through 16 games no Capital forward is averaging more than 19 minutes of total ice time per game. Alex Ovechkin leads the team's forwards with 18:45 per game. No Cap forward having played in ten or more games is averaging less than ten minutes per game.
The Peerless' Players to Ponder
Winnipeg: Ondrej Pavelec
Ondrej Pavelec has had a very uneven career record against the Caps. Overall he is 4-8-0, 2.99, .911. However, in his last three appearances against Washington he stopped 110 of 111 shots (.991) and won all three decisions. But he is currently on a 1-3-2 skid (3.32, .890). The Jets are 3-9-3 when they score three or fewer goals. They are not getting any games from their goaltenders in which the netminder steals a win in a close, low scoring affair. The Caps have only 11 goals in their last five games. And it is not as if Pavelec hasn't been successful against this team recently. As he goes, so will the Jets.
Washington: Nicklas Backstrom
Nicklas Backstrom is in uncharted territory in the young season. He is on a two-game streak without a point. And, among the other four teams in the Southeast Division, Winnipeg is the only one against which he is averaging less than a point per game for his career (24 points in 26 games). If he breaks through, it would seem likely he would do it himself instead of setting up a teammate. His eight career goals against the Jets are the most he has against any single team except Carolina.
1. It's three periods…three. As noted, the Jets are not a third period team when it comes to scoring. In their last five losses the Caps have allowed 12 third period goals, four times allowing three goals in the final frame. If the Jets punch through late, the Caps have real problems.
2. Unleash the Russian Machine. Alex Ovechkin is in the same uncharted territory in which Backstrom finds himself at the moment – a two-game streak without a point, his first this season (you'd hardly know that from the ink he gets). And this is the team tailor-made for him to bust out. The Jets are not an especially good defensive team, they are getting inconsistent goaltending, and the Jets are the only team in the league against which Ovechkin has at least 30 career goals (in 42 career games). If not now, when?
3. No Peeking Past the 'Peg. The Caps might be in Winnipeg, but they might be thinking of a Hockey Night in Canada date with Toronto on Saturday night at Air Canada Centre. The Caps have been guilty of at least the appearance of doing that sort of thing a few times this year… a 6-5 Gimmick win over Tampa Bay before a visit to Pittsburgh, a 2-1 loss to Edmonton before a visit to Vancouver, a 5-3 loss to the Islanders before hosting Dallas. In two of those three games they allowed multiple goals in the third period (two to Tampa Bay, three to the Islanders).
In the end, let's go back to the tale o' the tape. The Caps have a better record, better offense, better defense, better 5-on-5 results, better power play, better penalty kill, and they are healthier, even on the blue line where Tobias Enstrom, Ron Hainsey, Randy Jones, and Derek Meech are on injured reserve, and Brett Festerling is questionable. The Caps can, should, and really ought to make the competitive portion of this game short and ugly for the home team. But how has that logic worked out so far this season?
Caps 3 – Jets 2


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New Zealand is home to 2,065 native plants found nowhere else on Earth. They range from magnificent towering kauri trees to tiny flowers that form tightly packed mounds called vegetable sheep.
When Europeans began arriving in New Zealand, they brought with them alien plants crops, garden plants and stowaway weeds. Today, 22,000 non-native plants grow in New Zealand. Most of them can survive only with the loving care of gardeners and farmers. But 2,069 have become naturalized: they have spread out across the islands on their own. There are more naturalized invasive plant species in New Zealand than native species.
It sounds like the makings of an ecological disaster: an epidemic of invasive species that wipes out the delicate native species in its path. But in a paper published in August in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dov Sax, an ecologist at Brown University, and Steven D. Gaines, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, point out that the invasion has not led to a mass extinction of native plants. The number of documented extinctions of native New Zealand plant species is a grand total of three.
Exotic species receive lots of attention and create lots of worry. Some scientists consider biological invasions among the top two or three forces driving species into extinction. But Dr. Sax, Dr. Gaines and several other researchers argue that attitudes about exotic species are too simplistic. While some invasions are indeed devastating, they often do not set off extinctions. They can even spur the evolution of new diversity.
"I hate the 'exotics are evil' bit, because it's so unscientific," Dr. Sax said.
Dr. Sax and his colleagues are at odds with many other experts on invasive species. Their critics argue that the speed with which species are being moved around the planet, combined with other kinds of stress on the environment, is having a major impact.
There is little doubt that some invasive species have driven native species extinct. But Dr. Sax argues that they are far more likely to be predators than competitors.
In their new paper, Dr. Sax and Dr. Gaines analyze all of the documented extinctions of vertebrates that have been linked to invasive species. Four-fifths of those extinctions were because of introduced predators like foxes, cats and rats. The Nile perch was introduced into Lake Victoria in 1954 for food. It then began wiping out native fish by eating them.
"If you can eat something, you can eat it everywhere it lives," Dr. Sax said.
But Dr. Sax and Dr. Gaines argue that competition from exotic species shows little sign of causing extinctions. This finding is at odds with traditional concepts of ecology, Dr. Sax said. Ecosystems have often been seen as having a certain number of niches that species can occupy. Once an ecosystem's niches are full, new species can take them over only if old species become extinct.
But as real ecosystems take on exotic species, they do not show any sign of being saturated, Dr. Sax said. In their paper, Dr. Sax and Dr. Gaines analyze the rise of exotic species on six islands and island chains. Invasive plants have become naturalized at a steady pace over the last two centuries, with no sign of slowing down. In fact, the total diversity of these islands has doubled.
Fish also show this pattern, said James Brown of the University of New Mexico. He said that whenever he visits a river where exotic fish have been introduced, "I ask, 'Have you seen any extinctions of the natives?' " "The first response you get is, 'Not yet,' as if the extinction of the natives is an inevitable consequence. There's this article of faith that the net effect is negative."
Dr. Brown does not think that faith is warranted. In Hawaii, for example, 40 new species of freshwater fish have become established, and the 5 native species are still present. Dr. Brown and his colleagues acknowledge that invasive species can push native species out of much of their original habitat. But they argue that native species are not becoming extinct, because they compete better than the invasive species in certain refuges.
These scientists also point out that exotics can actually spur the evolution of new diversity. A North American plant called saltmarsh cordgrass was introduced into England in the 19th century, where it interbred with the native small cordgrass. Their hybrid offspring could not reproduce with either original species, producing a new species called common cordgrass.
Long before humans moved plants around, many plants hybridized into new species by this process. "Something like a third of the plant species you see around you formed that way," Dr. Sax said.
Biological invasions also set off bursts of natural selection. House sparrows, for example, have moved to North America from Europe and have spread across the whole continent. "Natural selection will start to change them," Dr. Sax said. "If you give that process enough time, they will become new species."
"The natives themselves are also likely to adapt," Dr. Sax added. Some of the fastest rates of evolution ever documented have taken place in native species adapting to exotics. Some populations of soapberry bugs in Florida, for example, have shifted from feeding on a native plant, the balloon vine, to the goldenrain tree, introduced from Asia by landscapers in the 1950s. In five decades, the smaller goldenrain seeds have driven the evolution of smaller mouthparts in the bugs, along with a host of other changes.
In Australia, the introduction of cane toads in the 1930s has also spurred evolution in native animals. "Now that you have cane toads in Australia, there's a strong advantage for snakes that can eat them," said Mark Vellend, of the University of British Columbia. Cane toads are protected by powerful toxins in their skin that can kill predators that try to eat them. But in parts of the country where the toads now live, black snakes are resistant to the toxins in their skin. In the parts where the toad has yet to reach, the snakes are still vulnerable.
Dr. Brown argues that huge negative effects of invasions are not documented in the fossil record, either. "You see over and over and over again that this is never the case," he said. Species have invaded new habitats when passageways between oceans have opened up or when continents have collided.
"The overall pattern almost always is that there's some net increase in diversity," Dr. Brown said. "That seems to be because these communities of species don't completely fill all the niches. The exotics can fit in there."
In a recent paper in the journal Science, Peter Roopnarine of the California Academy of Sciences and Geerat Vermeij of the University of California, Davis, looked at the history of invasions among species of mollusks, a group that includes mussels, clams and whelks. About 3.5 million years ago, the mollusks of the North Pacific staged a major invasion of the North Atlantic. Before then, the Arctic Ocean had created a barrier, because the mussels could not survive in the dark, nutrient-poor water under the ice.
A period of global warming made the Arctic less forbidding. Yet the migration did not lead to a significant drop in the diversity of the Atlantic native mussels. Instead, the Atlantic's diversity rose. Along with the extra exotic species, new species may have arisen through hybridization.
The Arctic Ocean is now warming again, this time because of human activity. Computer projections indicate it will become ice-free at least part of the year by 2050. Dr. Roopnarine and Dr. Vermeij predicted that today's mollusks would make the same transoceanic journey they did 3.5 million years ago. They also expect the invasion to increase, rather than decrease, diversity.
But critics, including Anthony Ricciardi of McGill University in Montreal, argue that today's biological invasions are fundamentally different from those of the past.
"What's happening now is a major form of global change," Dr. Ricciardi said. "Invasions and extinctions have always been around, but under human influence species are being transported faster than ever before and to remote areas they could never reach. You couldn't get 35 European mammals in New Zealand by natural mechanisms. They couldn't jump from one end of the world to another by themselves."
It is estimated that humans move 7,000 species a day. In the process, species are being thrown together in combinations that have never been seen before. "We're seeing the assembly of new food webs," said Phil Cassey of the University of Birmingham in England. Those new combinations may allow biological invasions to drive species extinct in unexpected ways.
Botulism, for example, is killing tens of thousands of birds around the Great Lakes. Studies indicate that two invasive species triggered the outbreak. The quagga mussel, introduced from Ukraine, filters the water for food, making it clearer. The sunlight that penetrates the lakes allows algae to bloom, and dead algae trigger an explosion of oxygen-consuming bacteria. As the oxygen level drops, the botulism-causing bacteria can multiply. The quagga mussels take up the bacteria, and they in turn are eaten by another invasive species: a fish known as the round goby. When birds eat round gobies, they become infected and die.
"If you pour on more species, you don't just increase the probability that one is going to arrive that's going to have a high impact," Dr. Ricciardi said. "You also get the possibility of some species that triggers a change in the rules of existence."
Dr. Ricciardi argues that biological invasions are different today for another reason: they are occurring as humans are putting other kinds of stress on ecosystems. "Invasions will interact with climate change and habitat loss," he said. ". We're going to see some unanticipated synergies."
Both sides agree, however, that decisions about invasive species should be based on more than just a tally of positive and negative effects on diversity. Invasive weeds can make it harder to raise crops and graze livestock, for example. The Asian long-horned beetle is infesting forests across the United States and is expected to harm millions of acres of hardwood trees. Zebra mussels have clogged water supply systems in the Midwestern United States. Exotic species can also harm humans' health. "West Nile virus, influenza these things are invasions," Dr. Ricciardi said.
On the other hand, some invasive species are quite important. In the United States, many crops are pollinated by honeybees originally introduced from Europe.
"It's not that this is all good or all bad, and I'm not sure science should be the arbiter," Dr. Brown said. "Placing values on these things is the job of society as a whole."


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Twins Callup Parmelee, Option DeVries
The Twins called up first baseman Chris Parmelee from triple-A Rochester and sent righthander Cole DeVries to triple-A Rochester to make room for Parmelee. Parmelee was batting .375 with 4 homeruns and 12 RBIs at triple-A. He was hitting .179 in 27 games with the Twins to begin the season. DeVries was 1-1 with a 4.20 ERA in 3 starts for the Twins.
The Twins were off Thursday and will open a 3-game series at home against the Chicago Cubs tonight at 7:10, pregame on WJON at 6:40. Righthander P.J. Walters (2-1) gets the start on the mound for the Twins and lefthander Travis Wood (0-2) toes the rubber for the Cubs.


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House Republicans plan to introduce legislation next week that would increase the nation's borrowing authority for three months, a tactical retreat that postpones a looming showdown over whether the party is prepared to hike the U.S. debt ceiling.
The measure is contingent on both the House and Senate's ability to adopt a budget within the next 90 days, a feat that the Senate hasn't managed to pull off in nearly four years. Failure to do so in either chamber of Congress would strip representatives of their pay.
"We must pay our bills and responsibly budget for our future. Next week, we will authorize a three month temporary debt limit increase to give the Senate and House time to pass a budget," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement. "Furthermore, if the Senate or House fails to pass a budget in that time, Members of Congress will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job. No budget, no pay. While the House that might have plunged the country into default in the coming weeks."
The decision is a sharp departure from House Republicans' repeated insistence that any increase in the U.S. debt limit would require commensurate spending cuts. The strategic shift signals a growing realization that another round of brinkmanship over the country's full faith and credit would be politically poisonous for a party whose approval ratings have plummeted. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday, 49% of respondents said they had a negative view of the GOP, compared to 26% who had a positive view — the party's worst ratio in that poll since 2008. The survey also showed that a plurality of the public is poised to blame the GOP if a new round of debt-limit negotiations go awry.
Confronted with this grim reality during a conference retreat this week at a tony resort in Williamsburg, Va., House Republicans have apparently decided to tackle the coming cascade of fiscal battles in a different order. Current borrowing limits and the New Year's Day fiscal cliff deal required the two parties to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling sometime between mid-February and early March, depending on how long the Treasury Department can use "extraordinary measures" to stretch its resources. Next Congress will need resolve the sequester, a package of across-the-board cuts to domestic and defense programs, before it takes effect March 1. Finally, Democrats and Republicans must pass a resolution to fund the government beyond March 27, when it is scheduled to run out of money.
In the wake of a fiscal cliff deal that raised taxes for the first time in a generation, many House Republicans have said that the party needs to take a strong stand to cut spending, even if it meant shutting down the government — or forcing a default — and weathering the ensuing blowback from voters. A large bloc of conservatives have said they were willing to go to the mat over the debt limit, the first of the three scheduled fights — and also the one that would wreak the most havoc on the economy. But powerful conservative outside groups, corporate executives and Republican strategists have warned that a default would be disastrous, both for the U.S. and the GOP brand. Republicans may yet be willing to dig in their heels over the sequester or force a government shutdown. For the GOP, kicking the debt limit to the back of the line of budget crises has three major advantages: it puts the Senate on the defensive, gives members cover by tying the measure to a long-sought passage of a budget, and lets them make their stand on safer political ground.
Despite Cantor's confidence that the measure will pass, there is, of course, no guarantee that his colleagues won't blow up the agreement.


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All the Ordinary Angels
All The Ordinary Angels is a comedy of treats and dirty tricks in the world of ice-cream, as a family business becomes a family feud.
When ice-cream man Giuseppe Raffa decides it's finally time to come in from the cold and retire, he sets his two sons in competition with each other. The winner will gain the family business; the loser will be left with nothing. Supported and obstructed by Rocco's wife Bernie and Lino's girlfriend Lulu, their fight for the hearts and money of the people quickly becomes deadly serious. It is a lively and satirical story of love, competition and selling ice-cream in rainy Manchester.
All the Ordinary Angels premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2005.


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The first in a series of storms hit the Bay Area Wednesday morning. It didn't come as early as planned, but when it hit - it hit hard.
The rains and gusty winds caused dozens of car crashes, downed trees and flight cancellations throughout the region.
And beware: Meteorologists say more is set to come in a series of storms that won't be done until the end of the weekend.
By noon on Wednesday, emergency crews were racing to help out with minor to moderate problems all over the nine-county region, but no major calamities were reported. Some of those rain-related problems included trees down in Woodside and Menlo Park, downed power lines in Santa Cruz, and lengthy commutes in the driving rain.
By 11 a.m., the North Bay, Santa Cruz mountains and the Peninsula were getting hit the hardest, while San Jose wasn't feeling all too wet. The winds, however, were gusting fiercely: Speeds were clocked at Poverty Flats in Santa Clara at a whopping 77 mph, 66 mph at Mt. Diablo, 53 mph in Los Gatos, and 45 mph in San Francisco.
No major accidents were reported by 11 a.m., but traffic was sluggish on U.S. Highway 101 near Foster City and San Mateo. Traffic on the Bay Bridge was also super slow.
"Traffic was terrible," said Bobby Edwards, who was commuting from Benicia over the Bay Bridge. His commute took an hour on Wednesday, a drive that would normally take him 25 minutes.
San Francisco International Airport's Doug Yakel said a total of 90 flights were canceled because of rain, low visibility and also southeasterly winds.
Anais Suchiam, who was stuck at SFO and hails from London - where it rains a lot - said she simply "couldn't understand" what all the fuss and cancellations were about.
At the summit in Santa Cruz, tree tops were blowing in the wind, and several emergency vehicles and police cars were lined along state route 17, hoping to prevent car accidents and warn drivers to slow down.
On NBC Bay Area's Facebook page, a poster named Welton C Flynn wrote it was "windy and pouring" in San Francisco and Chris Gulden wrote it was "pouring rain and wind in Antioch."
In Daly City before dawn, crews shored up hillsides with bales of hay after a one neighborhood was flooded with mud about two weeks ago. The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department along with a host of other agencies - was giving out free sandbags to residents who needed them, and the California Highway Patrol was tweeting out "drive safe" messages.
The rain should taper off by 3 p.m. Wednesday and not appear again until Thursday at 3 p.m., when another series of storms should batter the Bay Area.
Many are concerned about flooding in the North Bay and in the Santa Cruz mountains.
The San Anselmo creeks and rivers are among those at risk, so the city is handing out free sandbags and sand so residents can prepare for the wet weather. They remember the devastating flood in 2005, and a smaller one in 2008. And so, the city wants to prevent downtown businesses from being submerged in water, like in years past.
Here's how it breaks down according to the NBC Bay Area weather department.
- Storm No. 1 arrived later Wednesday morning. This will be heavy on the winds and moderate on the rain. This is a Bay Area wide system that will hit the entire region. It arrived closer to 11 a.m. Rain totals will be between .25 to 1.25 inch. The highest totals will be over the North Bay valleys. Rain will linger into the afternoon. Widespread Bay Area wind gusts of up to 50 mph could also bring down trees and create power outages.
- Storm No. 2 will arrive Thursday and will last into Friday. It is a traditional north to south weather system with rain starting north of the Golden Gate and moving south. This system has more moisture content with as much as five inches of rain falling the North Bay. The current model projections have the flooding risk the highest on Friday. Local creeks, small rivers and streams will be at the greatest risk for quick rising water. Large Bay Area rivers could rise as much as 3 to 10 feet. There are no flood stages expected at this time. You can monitor conditions here.
- Storm No. 3 and 4 are still developing, but has the potential for even more moisture with periods of heavy rains on Saturday and Sunday. The first break in the weather won't come until next Monday.
The storms will also bring high surf along the coast. Probably not enough for the Mavericks surf contest to be called, but that is a possibility so stay tuned.
Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol are reminding motorists to drive safely this week/weekend by taking the following steps:
• Reduce your speed in rainy, foggy and windy conditions. Motorists should be aware that Black Ice may develop, usually near bridges, underpasses and low or shaded areas.
• Slow down and move over when Caltrans workers, law enforcement or tow truck drivers are working near the roadway.
• Be aware of electronic message boards and other road signs with information on incidents, changing road conditions, lane closures or detours.
• Make sure that vehicle brakes, windshield wiper blades and tires are in good condition and inspect your head and tail lights for maximum visibility on the highway.
• Call 911 to report any hazardous conditions.