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Jul 12, 2010 ATLANTA (CIDRAP News) The vital role of preparedness, from diagnostic testing to stockpiling of antiviral medications, was one of the most important lessons from assessments of the world's response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the World Health Organization's (WHO's) top flu expert told an international infectious diseases conference yesterday.
Keiji Fukuda, MD, special influenza adviser to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, said the revised International Health Regulations (IHRs), adopted by the World Health Assembly after the 2004 reemergence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, pushed countries to be more open when the first novel H1N1 cases emerged last spring in California and Mexico.
"It set a critical precedent and set a tone that was important for the whole global response," Fukuda said in a keynote address on lessons of the H1N1 pandemic at the opening session of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases (ICEID).
Thomas Frieden, MD, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), also gave keynote presentations touching on a wide range of infectious disease issues.
Fukuda said it's clear that preparedness activities should include groups outside healthcare, such as transportation and private sector organizations. "It's broader than just health. We can't strictly think of these issues as diseases, we have to think of them as social issues," he said, referring to border and trade issues that arose soon after the pandemic virus emerged.
The IHRs were designed to balance health issues with other global concerns such as trade and business, he said, adding that the regulations represent a paradigm shift toward a more active approach of quickly identifying and containing diseases rather than just trying to keep them from crossing borders.
Preparation for future disease threats should keep moving forward, Fukuda said. "We need to make sure science is the basis for policy decisions," he said. "It will never be the only thing on the table, but it has to be on the table.
Another lesson health officials learned from the H1N1 pandemic is that despite political will and strong private-sector support, efforts were inadequate for rapidly moving pandemic vaccine to low- and middle-income countries, Fukuda said. Early in the pandemic, 99 countries had asked for vaccine, but so far only 61 countries have received 45 million doses, with 22 million more slated for delivery by the end of July, he said.
During the H1N1 response, public health officials learned that they will need to shift their communication strategies to keep up with social networking sites and other forms of citizen journalism such as blogging, Fukuda said, adding that information no longer comes top-down from experts and filtered by the major news media.
The new media have the capacity to shape global perceptions and understanding and have the advantages of being innovative, direct, interactive, and personal, he said. However, he said that without the voice of authority and a filter, the marketplace decides what's good or bad, which can lead to misinformation, confusion, and speculation.
"Whether that's good or bad is irrelevant," Fukuda said. "It's here, and public health must adapt."
On other infectious disease topics, Frieden told the group that public health has had successes on some disease fronts, such as rapid pandemic H1N1 detection and pockets of progress with malaria prevention, but urged his colleagues to focus on basics such as patient-friendly treatments and supervision of healthcare workers' infection control practices.
"The bottom line is there is no substitute for hard work," he said.
Fauci emphasized the importance of continuing to battle infectious diseases, given their ability to reshape society. Emerging diseases such as HIV infection often become established, and sometimes established diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) can resurge in a more dangerous form, such as drug-resistant TB.
"We have to use our knowledge to match the adaptive capabilities of microbes," he said.
However, prevention still looms large, Fauci said, referring to promising new monoclonal antibody findings that might someday lead to an HIV vaccine.
"We need to close the gap between seasonal influenza and pandemic influenza in our preparedness," he said. "We need to do what the CDC recommendsvaccinate everybodyand build better vaccine platforms."
The ICEID, held every other year, is organized by the CDC, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, the WHO, and the American Society for Microbiology. Meeting organizers said they had about 1,600 registrants from about 88 countries.
See also:
ICEID home page


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Philadelphia: A Perfect French Bistro Meal at Bibou with Foie Gras, Bone Marrow, and More
A weekly profile on a favorite New England dish.
Sometimes I think I'm over French bistro food, and then I eat at a place like this that reminds me what all the fuss is about.
Bibou is a teeny French BYO tucked into a corner of South Philly just a block over from the Italian Market. Its owners, Charlotte and Pierre Calmels, who took over the old Pif space two and half years ago, run a cozy, charming mom-and-pop operation. The front of the house is hers, the back is his, and they communicate with one another through the picture window cut out behind the two-seater bar, where I sat with my dad last week.
The menu is small (five apps, five entrées) and smart: a classic French foundation subtly overlaid with gutsy, imaginative tweaks that set this bistro apart from most others. And everything—right down to the amount of dressing on the salad greens—is perfectly executed.
We started with small teardrop-shaped bowls of the celariac soup ($9 for the regular portion): a satiny, clean-tasting purée of the gnarly root vegetable enriched with earthy chestnut. A gracious nod to fall without feeling like a heavy cold-weather soup.
What's New On Serious Eats
Of course, there was foie gras. That night, the rotating preparation was a twofer ($18): on one side of the rectangular platter, thick slabs of gorgeously seared liver perched on a lavender-scented, deeply caramelized Seckel pear; on the other, a foie "crème brûlée," that was as light as it was rich.
Our other appetizer, the arctic char gravlax ($13), turned out to be the perfect counterpoint to the decadent foie. Pared into a perfect brunoise with tart apple and cucumber, the cured fish was dabbed with rosemary and Meyer lemon, wrapped in a translucent cucumber slab, and crowned with green-tipped apple batons and delicately dressed greens. Alongside, a cluster of deep orange roe (all their red dots meticulously pointed face up) and a rolled spoonful of glossy white lentil purée—one of my favorite bites of the meal.
Pierre often runs a bone marrow special, which we gluttonously ordered as a third "appetizer." (It was only the night before Thanksgiving. Not like we'd be eating heavily the next day or anything.) For anyone who's a bit squeamish about ordering a sawed-in-half bone and relishing its insides like Leopold Bloom, this is a friendlier—and, to me, more palatable—preparation. Rather than roasting the split bones so that the gelatinous marrow softens enough to smear on toast, Calmels works it into a breadcrumb stuffing that he spoons back into the bones and broils until crispy. Nevermind versions with oysters and sausage and chestnuts. This is hands-down the richest (but surprisingly light) stuffing you'll ever eat, and that's before you tear into the accompanying fried potatoes.
My seared duck breast entrée ($28) might have been the best of its kind I've ever had. Over a sauté of chopped yu choy and springy chanterelles, and under a handful of house-fried purple potato chips, the meat was perfectly medium-rare leaking just a bit of fresh juice into the pool of red wine duck jus. A gorgeous old-school meets new-school mashup of classic bistro fare.
By chance, we had an "intermezzo" course. Just because they like to share new and interesting bites with their guests, Charlotte and Pierre brought out an oval-shaped, kumquat-sized item, placed it on the dessert menu in front of me, and told us to guess what it was. Two tries later, I correctly identified a finger lime (I'd recently tasted one for the first time, and loved it). She split open the thick skin and squeezed out the tiny beads, which pop like caviar and taste a bit like lemongrass. It cleaned up our palates before we dug into our shared dessert: a no-frills quince crumble, plus pairs of gratis coconut macaroons and snow-white meringues.
1009 S. 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 (map) 215-965-8290; biboubyob.com
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.

subset: commoncrawl


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November Discount for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy 2009!
If you meant to register for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy 2009 before the early bird deadline but just didn't make it… Good News! A window of opportunity is still available. From now until November 28, 2008, you can register with a $25 discount. This is a great opportunity to save on your registration fee.
Whether your interests are in a locality strategy, like the Gulf South States, England or Germany, or on improving your skills, like using the Internet or researching Beyond Libraries, the 2009 Institute has a course for you. Maybe you'll want to take advantage of a rarely offered course on Hispanic Research for Spain and Latin America. Or for more individual help, you might try Focusing on U.S. records or Problem Solving.
Whatever your choice, the 2009 Institute will be a great experience! Some courses are already full, and others are filling quickly! See the U.G.A. website at www.infouga.org for the latest registration information and information about each course.
Hope to see you at the 2009 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy!
Geoffrey Morris
Director 2009


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Veterinary Outreach to Vilachery
Last Friday 29th July a team from Projects Abroad visited the small town of Vilachery to conduct our regular veterinary outreach trips to local villages around Madurai. This village is just a few miles from the famous local rock temple close to the Projects Abroad office. There were eight volunteers along with five staff members as well as a team of local vets.
Word got round quickly of the arrival of the team with locals appearing with over 150 animals in the two hours. There were sheep, cows and goats. It created quite a situation with animals covering the main road and disrupting the local traffic. The local drivers had no hesitation in hitting their horns to get passed the assembled throng of animals, volunteers and staff.
The main work going on was innoculating the animals against disease as well as some artificial insemination. Two stars of the show were the handsomely decorated, ornately sheared Rams painted with pink paint. It turned out these are used in local ram fights organised nearby. After a couple of hours of busy work a welcome cup of local coffee was taken from the local "Starbucks".
The locals really seemed to appreciate the visit of the veterinary team. They were then invited to visit the local craftspeople who are famous for casting and firing clay versions of local deities. It was fascinating to see the small cottage industry producing models that are sold all over Southern India.
The next outreach will take place on Friday 13th August.


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Christmas Songs
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (1) by Johnny Marks
From "A Song-book of Folk and Pop Music"
by Mario Papa & Giuliano Iantorno, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna, 1977
Christmas in New York
You know Daschunt and Dachsund
And Pretzel and Vincent,
Carmut and Kilbert and Donna and Blitzen (2);
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph the 'red-nosed reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows;
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names,
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say,
"Rudolph, with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
Then how the reindeer loved him!
As they shouted out with glee, (3)
"Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer,
You'll go down in history".
(1) It is a very nice tune on a fantastic story. Youngsters will like it and grown-ups... may be will like it more.
(2) These are all old names given to the reindeer in the folk song.
(3) Glee: Happiness.
Santa Claus
December 6th, the date of St. Nicholas's death, is a special holiday in many European countries. The custom dates back to Middie Ages when people dressed in bishops' robes, visited children, examined them on their prayers, urged them to be good, and gave them gifts. This custom was brought by Dutch settlers to New Amsterdam, now known all over the world as New York City. `The visit of St. Nicholas' was welcomed by the English settlers, especially by the children, who tried to pronounce the Dutch name for the saint, Sinter Klaas. But they could not pronounce it right, and soon the name changed to Santy Claus and then to Santa Claus. In the United States, Santa Claus is active at Christmas time, when he is very busy bringing presents and Christmas cheer. In England, St. Nicholas Day festivities were banned when Henry VIII founded the Church of England. But later, under Oueen Victoria, St. Nicholas returned as Father Christmas.


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Dirty Martini Pub Table by Michael Godard
This pub table features the trendy and contemporary artwork from Michael Godard. Often called the Rock Star of the Art World, his designs have an edgy feel and look great as a focal point of any game room or billiard room.
- Treated Acrylic Top - Scratch Resistant
- Logo Printed On Underside For Protection
- Metal Chrome Plated Finish
- Base Features a Footrest
- Partial Assembly Required
- Matching Bar Stools Available (Sold Seperately)
Model # GODPT-05
Width 28"
Depth 28"
Height 42"
Weight 40 LBS
Free Shipping
This item ships via UPS / Fed Ex. Most delivery times within the Continental U.S range from 2-5 days depending on location. All in stock pub sets orders received before noon will ship that SAME DAY.
Shipping Details & Conditions.


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Help to solve a 175 year-old mystery
15 June 2009
Help to solve a 175 year-old mystery
Citizen Sky is a citizen science project providing you with a chance to do real scientific research. We are seeking to understand a star that has been a mystery to scientists for many years. This star is epsilon Aurigae, a very bright star located in the constellation Auriga, the charioteer. This star is bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye even in the most light-polluted cities, and it is visible every autumn, winter, and spring.
Epsilon Aurigae is a variable star-this means it changes in brightness over time. Some things about the way that this star fades and then regains it brightness are still not fully understood by astronomers after over 175 years of study. The next eclipse of eps Aur is predicted to begin in August 2009. We need you to help us collect data so that we can better understand this mysterious star. Because the star is very bright, it can be observed by anyone regardless of background, training, or equipment: with just good pair of eyes and a finder chart (which we will give you,) you can monitor this eclipse.
Citizen Sky welcomes everyone to be a citizen scientist. We will guide you through the process of how to observe epsilon Aurigae, how to send us your observations, and then how to see your results, analyse them, and even publish them in a scientific journal! No previous experience is required. We hope that this project will involve thousands of people all over the world in real, active scientific research.
To learn more and get involved, please visit http://www.citizensky.org/
Search IYA2009 Updates
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Organisational Associates:33
National Websites: 111
Cornerstone Projects: 12
Special Task Groups: 11
Special Projects:16
Official Products:8
Media Partners:22


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[The Black Star News Editorial: Elections 2003]
How did Senator Hillary Clinton slow down Senator Barack Obama's inexorable march to the Democratic Party's presidential candidate nomination?
By introducing race-baiting and Islamo-phobia into the race. Later in the race, the candidate and her acolytes, including Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell made outright race-based appeals, stirring up the specter of the Black boogeyman, to scare white voters into abandoning Senator Obama.
Some voters quoted in The New York Times in the weeks before the Pennsylvania primary told the newspaper that they did not believe a Black man was ready to be president of the United States. Ironically, in each case, the reporters –perhaps they understood what the people quoted meant—never asked the follow up question: Why not?
Taking advantage of the race-fears that she and her acolytes generated, Senator Clinton then spoke about her alleged base of solid supporters, heading into other primaries, including West Virginia's: She said her faithful backers were "white Americans," "hard working white Americans."
Fortunately this isn't the 1960s. The majority of white voters repudiated Clinton's obnoxious tactics. The better candidate, who introduced dynamism to American politics and promised change, prevailed.
Now there is a campaign by some in the old establishment, possibly including disgruntled Clinton supporters, to undermine Senator Obama and pre-determine the outcome of the general election. There is no better evidence of this assault than the depiction of the candidate and his wife on the current cover of The New Yorker magazine.
The cover shows the Senator in a turban, giving his wife Michelle who sports an Afro and an Ak-47, a fist bump; presumably they're in The White House. There's also a partially obstructed portrait of Osama bin Laden hanging on the wall. It is a racist and Islamophobic attack of the highest order. (More than half a century since the days when lynching still occurred, The New Yorker uses the next best method).
This alleged "cartoon," is nothing but a hatchet job against Senator Obama. This same cover will now most likely be used by reactionary Republican operatives –and even disgruntled Clinton supporters such as the one who decried the Democratic Party for electing an "inadequate" Black man as nominee. Bigotry has been emboldened by a so-called mainstream magazine, with a very large circulation.
There is no doubt that malice was involved in commissioning and publishing the "cartoon" on The New Yorker's front cover. Editors of the magazine are well-informed individuals. They have followed the racially charged Democratic primary campaign between Senator Obama and Clinton and the polarization it caused.
So, what justification does the magazine have for the "cartoon"? Where is the satire in stirring up racial fears and hostilities that have held this country back since the initial gains of the Civil Rights March of the 1960s?
Again and again Senator Obama has defied those who yearn for the bad old days when Black folk knew "their place" in these United States. He endured the Jeremiah Wright incidents; he survived the crude attempts to ghetto-ize him as a possible drug dealer in his youth; and he brushed off whispering and e-mail campaigns, and the photograph showing him in a turban while visiting Kenya, meant to depict him as a secret Muslim, who may harbor a soft-spot for terrorists.
In recent weeks, the candidate has had to defend negative attacks against his wife who has been portrayed as a radical White-people-hating "angry" Black woman.
The New Yorker has brought all these elements together in its despicable and hateful "cartoon." The only thing it proves is that there are still loathsome individuals who exert much power by abusing their control over publications with mass circulation. The New Yorker preaches racial and religious fears.
Voters have done the right thing in the past. Given the opportunity they should do so again.
The New Yorker magazine's readers that agree with our editorial should cancel their sub scri ptions. Every decent-minded person who also finds the depiction of the Obamas loathsome, should pick up the phone and dial (917) 319-9989 or (212) 286-58900 and let The New Yorker magazine's editor David Remnick get the message.
To comment, to subscribe to or advertise in New York's leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to firstname.lastname@example.com
Also visit out sister publications Harlem Business News www.harlembusinessnews.com publications and The Groove Music magazine www.thegroovemag.com
"Speaking Truth To Power."
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Markus Groh felt uneasy aboard the M/V Shear Water. A buddy had talked him into booking a six-night trip on the charter boat with nine other Austrians to scuba-dive with sharks in the Bahamas. There would be dead fish in the water to attract the big boys — tiger sharks, lemon sharks, hammerheads, and bull sharks — and there would be no cages to protect the divers. Only wetsuits. It would be the experience of a lifetime.
So there he was on the morning of February 24, about to step off a 65-foot watercraft and into the ocean. At age 49, Groh was handsome and healthy. His nimble five-foot-nine frame carried just 147 pounds, and his long, thick black locks were turning gray. Back home in Vienna, he was a lawyer and a divorced father of an 11-year-old girl. Out there above the aquamarine wilderness, he was an adventurer. Groh took the plunge.
Groh and two other Austrian divers settled 70 feet below the surface and positioned themselves around a plastic crate filled with fish bits. Smelling dinner, a gang of stockily built bull sharks arrived. The species has a thug reputation: They tend to be tough and territorial, greeting potential prey with head-butts. The Austrians were trespassing in the bulls' underwater kingdom.
Shortly after 9 a.m., dive master Grey O'Hara descended with a fresh crate of bait. He saw the Austrians lying supine on the sandy bottom, 20 feet apart, snapping pictures of the sharks weaving among them. O'Hara lashed the crate to a weight at the end of a rope dangling from the surface. The crate settled onto the ocean floor, just 10 feet from Groh. Suddenly a seven-foot-long bull shark bumped the chum box with its snout, nudging it perilously close to Groh.
O'Hara, anticipating trouble, rushed toward his client. A mere two feet separated bait from human. In an instant, a sand cloud filled the cobalt depths, obscuring the horror of a shark sinking its teeth into Groh's left calf muscle, slashing through arteries and veins. Groh rolled on his back in an effort to shake the shark. O'Hara grabbed his customer's tank and kicked the shark — one, two, three times. The shark released Groh and swam away placidly.
O'Hara rushed the injured tourist to the surface. Once onboard the Shear Water, Groh passed out. He was bleeding profusely. The crew and passengers, surrounded by scuba tanks on deck, swaddled him in blankets and raised the shredded leg above his heart. They poured a coagulant powder into the gaping eight-inch wound in order to staunch the bleeding. The boat's captain, Jim Abernethy, radioed the U.S. Coast Guard for help.
The wait must have been unbearable. The Shear Water — surrounded by water as far as the eye could see — was anchored 65 miles east of the trauma centers of South Florida. The nearest landmark was a rock formation known as Great Isaac's Light, notable only for its abandoned lighthouse. At one point, Groh's heart stopped. The crew administered CPR. Abernethy told his passengers that, in 25 years of organizing shark dives, he "never believed this would ever happen."
The Coast Guard chopper arrived at 10:20 a.m., 50 minutes after receiving the distress call. O'Hara accompanied a still-unconscious Groh to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where the diver was pronounced dead at 11:33 a.m.
The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner declared the death accidental and listed the cause as "exsanguination." Groh had bled to death.
Apart from inspiring tasteless lawyer jokes on Internet message boards, the incident stirred calls for the Bahamas to ban shark diving.
The world's love-hate relationship with sharkdom has created a sprawling, often bizarre industry of shark adventures, from vicious killing expeditions to face-to-face encounters designed to debunk the animal's scary image. Even legitimate scientists are getting in on the act by turning their facilities into entertainment venues for wide-eyed diving tourists hungry to rendezvous with the creatures.
Practically every day of the week, dive masters lead tourists into Bahamian waters to interact with wild sharks. From several feet away, the spectacle is like an underwater circus. Plenty of tourists climb into the invisible ring to caress shark bellies and tails. Typically the spectators emerge with dazzling photographs, a newfound appreciation for sharks, and one hell of a fish tale to share with the folks back home. Sometimes would-be shark huggers have experiences akin to religious epiphanies.
The waters around South Florida are a mecca for shark observation and research. More than a dozen species call this region home at least part of the year, especially during mating season. Their migrations along Florida's coasts make for spectacular aerial images and lure shark lovers from across the globe who yearn to get up-close-and-personal with these majestic predators. But, as Groh's fate indicates, these adrenaline-filled comminglings can have lethal consequences.
The ocean is no petting zoo.
Many a mariner has spun uncharitable shark tales replete with references to serial-killer stares, jagged rows of sawlike teeth, and feeding frenzies. Yet even a fisherman decrying how a shark ravaged his catch still on the hook can contemplate the beasts with awe. In Moby Dick, 19th-century seafarer Herman Melville described the way sharks scooped perfectly symmetrical globular bites out of sperm whales as "all but miraculous." Unless you have seen countless sharks feasting joyously on a dead leviathan, Melville wrote, "then suspend your decision about devil worship."
Pacific islanders built shrines to shark gods, whom they believed to be guardians of the sea. The deities were said to have saved Hawaiians from calamities such as shipwrecks, and, on occasion, the shark gods took human form to dance with a man or make love to a woman. Sailor lore also speaks of sharks ravaging the dead and dying bodies of humans, apparently even learning which vessels might provide a meal. The beasts are said to have regularly trailed overloaded slave ships en route to the Western Hemisphere so they could catch the lifeless Africans who got tossed overboard.
Most modern landlubbers, though, gave little thought to sharks until 1974, when Peter Benchley's best-selling novel Jaws — followed the next year by Steven Spielberg's haunting film adaptation — drove panicky swimmers out of the ocean. The sight of a fin slicing through the water's surface, accompanied by one of the creepiest instrumental tracks ever, made a vast swath of the American public damn near afraid to get into the bathtub, to say nothing of the open sea.
Jaws would inspire a whole new generation of shark hunters, including South Florida's notorious Mark Quartiano. After he became a charter boat captain, Quartiano dubbed himself "Mark the Shark." His website claims he has caught "more sharks on rod and reel than any human being on the planet!" For his zealous decimation of the shark population, Quartiano has become a well-known and widely despised figure among environmentalists and animal rights activists. No one better embodies the old, largely discredited notion of sharks as ruthless enemies that can, and maybe should, be destroyed at every opportunity.
Why kill sharks? "Because they're mean," Quartiano says. "I'm a hunter, not a conservationist." Besides, he argues, injured, traumatized animals who have been forcibly pulled from the ocean on fishermen's hooks wouldn't survive anyway if they were released back into the water (an assertion with which most marine biologists heatedly disagree). Of course, there's money in the hunt too. Full-day charters run $1,200 a pop, and Quartiano earns a commission if a customer wants to have his prize mounted. The trophy shops, however, can use only the shark's jaws because the animal's hide is almost impossible to preserve. So the mount is essentially a fiberglass replica.
For Mark the Shark, there's a thrill in the hunt as well as the kill. When a beast gets close enough to the deck of Striker-1, Quartiano's 50-foot Hatteras yacht, he stabs it with a harpoon; then, with the help of long hooks, he and his mate, Tim O'Hare, yank the beast onto the boat by its gills. Sensing they're in for the battle of their lives, the sharks thrash frantically from side to side. The odds are strongly against them: Out of water, sharks have little mobility or momentum. Blood spurts from their puncture wounds as they slowly suffocate on the deck. And the unholy smell of ammonia-tinged death overwhelms the sea air.
On a recent Monday, Quartiano is scouring the waters a mile off South Beach. Just the sight of a tug on the line gets him hootin' and hollerin'. "Ay-yi-yi! Nice fish, that one. Battle stations, baby!" At that, the charter customer of the day, a middle-age man from Ohio, passes his can of Miller Lite to his wife and lumbers into a fishing chair suspended over the open water. Several dull minutes tick by as the client cranks the reel until, finally, it's time to wrestle a shark into the boat.
It's a seven-foot-long sandbar shark. "You wouldn't want to go swimming with that, trust me," Quartiano says. Quartiano himself never goes into the ocean. "If I'm gonna swim, it's gonna be in a pool, because I'm a firm believer in karma, if you will. Poetic justice for the sharks. They're waiting for me to make that one plunge in the water for a couple of minutes. I'm deathly afraid of the ocean, I really am. I've got a phobia of the water.
"I know so much about sharks. I respect them, but I also fear them. I'm afraid of them because I think that eventually, you know, karma or whatever. Look at Steve Irwin and how he died ... some stupid little thing."
After the Ohio man hooks another sandbar, Quartiano idles the Striker-1 near Fisher Island as O'Hare wraps a thick rope around the tail of the creature and suspends it in the air. The shark writhes and gnashes. For good measure, O'Hare strings up the other, now-dead sandbar. It's picture time.
Carnage draws a crowd. A man behind the wheel of a red speedboat pulls in for a closer look. "Holy moley!" he shouts. "Where'd you catch that?" The live sandbar wriggles, as if on cue. "Kill that sucker!" the boater yells. Around the same time, a Coast Guard cutter cruises by; spotting the sharks, the men on deck cheer and pump their fists.
But the days of big shark catches are drawing to a close. "Half the sharks you could be able to kill five years ago, you can't kill now," Quartiano grumbles. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will soon prohibit recreational anglers from landing sandbar sharks. In the Atlantic, the NOAA Fisheries Service also considers blacktips, bulls, tigers, and hammerheads to be overfished.
Some sharks are caught inadvertently on lines set for other, more commercially appealing fish. But demand for the big beasts' fins is still strong in Asia, where shark fin soup is a decadent dish that well-heeled ethnic Chinese serve at weddings and other special occasions. To satiate the demand for fins, fishermen frequently slice the valuable bits off sharks and release the rudderless creatures into the water to either starve or be eaten by other animals; finning is banned in U.S. waters.
Marine biologists such as Samuel "Sonny" Gruber warn that threats to sharks are threats to the entire marine ecosystem. "Take away the top predators and all their prey suffers," Gruber says. Without sharks, the entire system could collapse.
Gruber is a world-renowned researcher of shark behavior who loves to "debunk shark myths." In the late Fifties, during his junior year at the University of Miami, Gruber had a life-altering experience. He was spearfishing near Fowey Rocks Light, in Biscayne National Park, when a giant hammerhead began circling him, inspiring both terror and awe. To Gruber, the enormous fish was beautiful, more so because it didn't consume him. He knew then that he wanted to learn more about sharks.
Early on, Gruber sponsored shark fishing tournaments so he could get specimens to study. But lab work was boring, so Gruber took to the field. He monitored lemon shark populations in the Florida Keys. He discovered substances that can repel the creatures. And he noticed that, when flipped upside down, sharks enter a trancelike state that enables researchers to fiddle with them in relative safety.
In 1990, Gruber established a research station in Bimini, a cluster of small islands in the western Bahamas. There the station is known simply as "the shark lab." Gruber is now semiretired at age 70, but his little research base is still bustling with scientists, volunteers, students, and visitors — all of whom affectionately refer to him as "Doc." This year alone, the BBC, Discovery Channel's Myth Busters, and National Geographic — among others — have filmed segments at the station. Slaughtering sharks is a thing of the past for Gruber. "We don't kill sharks," he says firmly.
It's a recent day in May, and the Bimini Sands Resort has called on Gruber to entertain a group of 45 French tourists seeking an honest-to-goodness eco-adventure. Being a good neighbor, Gruber has organized a shark swim for the hotel guests. On the way there, he tells New Times: "You'll see that sharks are cute and cuddly."
A three-piece Calypso band plays a favorite local tune, "Lay Low in Bimini," on the white sand beach as Gruber outlines the basics of the shark encounter, via a translator, for the tourists. The French group is likely to get close to Caribbean reef sharks, he explains, which Gruber and his assistants have "trained" over the years by feeding them at the surface.
"Normally they're on the bottom," he says, "but these sharks know us. When we come with our boat, they know, Oh, — we're gonna get lunch. And it's not gonna be you that's the lunch. They're gonna get food. They don't want you. Of course, French food, maybe — I don't know."
The crowd laughs. A French woman pipes in, "Wait until they taste us!"
Gruber continues, "I want you to all stay close together. See, when the sharks see a large number of people close together, they see that as a wall, and they just stay away from it."
"If anyone gets bitten by a shark, we'll just go ahead and put a Band-Aid on it. Not to worry," he jokes.
Gruber quickly notes that "nobody has ever got bitten," and he recommends that every able body in the group take advantage of the opportunity because "it's very safe" and "once in a lifetime."
The French group asks one final question before heading offshore: Are sharks in danger? Gruber answers in the affirmative. "The Chinese have become very wealthy, and they cut off the fins because they think it makes them sexy."
Two shark lab boats motor out ahead of the tourists to prime the reef for sharks. They anchor at a location known in Bimini as triangle rocks, because of three formations that poke out of the water. The lab staffers call this spot "the arena." Here they conduct tests for products such as shark repellant. Enthusiasts and commercial fishermen alike are hoping that such a repellant, if sprayed on fishing hooks, will prevent sharks from bothering — and becoming — catch. Of course, galeophobes (people who fear sharks) might also want to slather themselves in a sunscreenlike version of the stuff before taking a dip in the ocean.
Gruber slips disposable plastic gloves onto his hands before reaching into a large blue cooler for bits of barracuda. He tosses the morsels into the water one by one, like a retiree might offer bread crumbs to ducks swimming in a pond. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, you guys. C'mon, reefies," he pleads.
A solitary reef shark shows up. It's a start, but not quite the spectacle Gruber had promised. Then the animal swims off, spooked by the arrival of the tourists in a pontoon boat. Gruber is deflated. "I never got skunked here. Normally we have a roiling mass of sharks."
But they are elusive creatures. Even when presented with a free meal, they might not grace human beings with their presence.
Unaware that the show had stalled, a dozen Frenchmen flop into the ocean wearing snorkel masks and fins. They swim haplessly in waters slick with 100 pounds of chum. For the grand finale, the shark lab's young manager, Sean Williams, bursts out of the water carrying two bottles of Moët champagne. The French crowd is giddy.
A similar show last year ended more fittingly. Williams emerged in the center of a bunch of sharks, tapping them on the nose with the bottles of bubbly as he cleared his way to the surface.
Sharing close quarters with sharks is the reason a steady stream of twentysomethings takes residence at the shark lab. Most are conservation-minded aspiring marine biologists, and all are essentially obsessed with the finned creatures. These are the kids who saw Jaws when they were tykes and thought, I want to swim with THAT!
As biology students, the dozen or so residents of the shark lab are keenly aware that feeding wild sharks might influence their behavior, perhaps even conditioning them to expect food from boaters. So they try to keep the feedings to a minimum.
Tristan Guttridge, a 25-year-old doctoral candidate who arrived at the lab in January 2006, is researching social organization among lemon sharks, which are abundant in Bimini. Lemons return to the western Bahamas each year to give birth in the same estuaries where they themselves were born.
Guttridge, a cheery bleach-blond Brit with blue eyes and a helluva sunburn, spends hours at a time perched in an observation tower with a pair of binoculars, trying to determine how lemon sharks interact. After two years, Guttridge says, at least five animals that hang together are still in the vicinity. He characterizes the network he's mapped out as a MySpace or Facebook for sharks.
When surveyed, the residents of the lab all nominate Guttridge as "the most obsessed" with sharks. Hearing this, Guttridge flashes a sheepish grin. He does in fact remember wanting to swim with sharks after watching Jaws. And his longstanding enthusiasm for the beasts is contagious.
"My mother still has a Mother's Day card that I decorated with sharks all over when I was seven," he recounts. Guttridge's parents embraced his passion, even paying for him to dunk into the waters off the coast of South Africa, in a cage, to swim with great whites for his 21st birthday.
The folks at the lab reckon that each live shark in the Bahamas generates several thousand dollars in tourism revenue for the island nation each year. Perhaps they're right. At least a half-dozen dive outfits in the Bahamas offer encounters with the creatures, each declaring itself a pioneer in the field. Most employ chum to attract the animals. And the practice is self-regulated.
Three days a week, Cristina Zenato, a 36-year-old Italian diver, dons a chain mail suit and descends 40 feet for shark dives. For the most part, the mackerel and herring she hands out attract Caribbean reef sharks. They are docile enough to let her stroke their heads and undersides. The recreational divers she leads into the water kneel on the sand, arms tucked in tight, as if genuflecting before sacred creatures. Zenato says she has never been afraid while in the water with the sharks, and that she can sense when they've had a rough day.
"Looking at their behavior," she says, "I know what's been done to them. If someone has been chumming the water, they get very agitated. If they've been caught and released, they become very wary and it's hard to get them to interact. I've even pulled hooks out over the years."
Zenato has been on a dive with Captain Abernethy on the Shear Water, which she says was a completely different yet still enthralling experience compared with the touristy encounters she leads for a company called Unexso on Grand Bahama Island. Abernethy and his crew suspend the bait box just a few feet above the sandy bottom of the sea bed, and they attract large sharks that are traditionally thought to be aggressive. Observers are expected to maintain a 15-foot distance between themselves and the grub, and Abernethy asks that they pause between taking photos to assess the situation around them.
"I've seen him pull people out of the water for not following the rules," Zenato says.
Like the shark lab, Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures hosts many underwater camera crews. Last November, Canadian documentarian Rob Stewart, who directed the 2006 film Sharkwater, joined three attractive young blond women aboard the Shear Water, which docks in Riviera Beach. The idea was to show that anyone — even three hot babes — can swim safely with sharks and live to tell about it.
The trailer for the film short, called Shark Angels, opens with eerie, suspenseful music straight out of a Gothic opera. Lemon sharks writhe in circles among bubbles from scuba tanks. Tiger sharks slither an inch above the white sand of the sea bed. The black silhouettes of divers drift down from the boat, through clear aquamarine water, toward the sharks. The lateral fin of one Jurassic-looking beast sweeps an inch in front of a diver's mask.
A soothing female voice narrates, "We've always loved to hate our monsters. And sharks are some of the scariest." Flash to another image: Flexible cartilage flips backward as a shark throws its jaws open in the direction of a black patch that's difficult to make out. Is it a fish? Chum on a stick? A diver's fin? The shark tears at the morsel with such swift force that the image becomes an indecipherable swirl of turbid white and gray dorsal, with a glimmer of sunshine beyond.
"We've been programmed to believe they're bloodthirsty killing machines," the narrator continues. Cut to an image of the divers kneeling on the sand, face-to-face with a gray beast. The shark tilts its body upward 45 degrees to avoid them. As the creature swishes over their heads, one diver reaches up to stroke its belly with her hand. "But sharks are also one of the most misunderstood and most hunted animals on the planet."
It's similar to the spiel offered by Captain Abernethy, who has refused to speak with media outlets, including New Times, in the wake of Markus Groh's death. His dive shop continues to operate day trips off the coast of Palm Beach. Inquiries about shark encounters get a frigid response from the shop's receptionists, though. Callers are informed that, in light of the Groh incident, the Shear Water won't be transporting passengers to shark haunts for some time.
According to his company website, www.scuba-adventures.com, Abernethy "dives every day, and each day is like his first." The site says he is a Florida native who has worked as a dive boat captain and scuba instructor since 1981, and has been diving off the Palm Beaches and the Bahamas for more than 30 years.
Abernethy has long spoken out about the supposed benefits of feeding, and then swimming with, sharks. "[Chum dives] provide people with firsthand knowledge of what the species is all about. We are teaching people that sharks are beautiful creatures that need to be protected," he told a reporter in 2000.
Then, in the summer of 2001, a few high-profile attacks (on surfers in Volusia County, an eight-year-old in the panhandle, and a Wall Street banker in the Bahamas) convinced Florida officials they should pass a law against chumming during shark dives. Some marine conservationists were equating chum dives with forbidden feedings of other wildlife, such as bears and alligators. Florida spearfishers and lobster divers were also opposed to chum diving, saying the practice taught sharks to equate humans with food.
As Florida wildlife officials mulled a statewide ban on shark chumming, Abernethy told a news crew: "I don't think there's a shark in the world that would bite you unless he was confused." Florida banned shark-feeding dives in September 2001. At the time, only three dive shops even offered such excursions. One of them was Jeff Torode's South Florida Diving Headquarters in Pompano Beach. Torode says the law was a political ploy and that concerns about feeding sharks are overblown. "A fishing boat can pull up right next to us and put chum in the water, and that's legal," he explains. "If you can put fish in the water to kill them, why not to look at them?"
Torode scrapped his shark dives when they were banned in Florida. But Abernethy simply changed locales, carrying passengers from Palm Beach County to the waters of the Bahamas.
February was a busy month for the folks at Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures. The Shear Water was booked with three consecutive trips for "European shark enthusiasts," as Abernethy refers to the passengers in entries into his Captain's Blog on the company website. The post about the February 1 voyage employs church words such as blessed and prayers, as if the charter captain were unveiling a new religion:
"The water was clear and the sharks were plentiful.... At the end of the trip, we were blessed with 150 feet of visibility at Tiger Beach.... Roughly 12 tigers and 30 lemon sharks showed up for the event, answering our prayers after the rough weather."
In fact many passengers who traverse the Gulf Stream with Abernethy to convene with sharks return to land as born-again converts. They recite the mantra that sharks are mellow creatures worthy of reverence, not bloodthirsty terrors eligible for indiscriminate slaughter.
In a blog entry recounting the events of the Shear Water's February 11 sailing, Abernethy introduces some esteemed members of his cast of underwater characters. There's a 14-foot tiger shark named Emma, which Abernethy calls "our superstar." Alas, for the second consecutive week, Emma was a no-show in February. "Hopefully she is off on a very well-deserved vacation after working so hard since we met her a little over four years ago," Abernethy muses. Or perhaps she tired of "working" for fish scraps.
Abernethy adds that his crew had prepared a "special treat" for Emma that they instead gave to a new supermodel they named Angel. Oh, but that Angel sure is a wily one! Abernethy goes on to recount how the new fish made off with a diver's Canon 5D camera — though thankfully not his hand.
That was Abernethy's last post on the blog. But other divers swear they've seen the Shear Water out at Tiger Beach, a popular spot in the Bahamas for mingling with sharks. And on the website www.wetpixel.com, underwater photographer Eric Cheng has posted an announcement of an Abernethy-led "expedition" that departs July 19 from Palm Beach County. The eight-night voyage costs $3,870 and is open to only eight divers.
"We screen our passengers and accept advanced divers with shark-diving experience only," Cheng warns. "I hate to have to say this, but please do not book if you are squeamish about using bait to attract sharks. We will absolutely be baiting sharks and do not want to fight with you about the issue."
The trip is one of four coveted underwater photography workshops offered in 2008 by Alex Mustard, a British marine biologist turned award-winning underwater photographer. The website www.amustard.com proclaims that such workshops are run only in collaboration with "first-class partners." The trip with Abernethy, Mustard advises, is sold out. He adds under the heading "News" that, even though a diver was recently bitten on a Shear Water charter, the July workshop is expected to ship out as planned.
In the wake of Groh's death, hundreds of divers have flooded the Internet with messages of support for Captain Abernethy. Some people venture that, although they didn't know Markus Groh, they recognize him as a kindred spirit who adored sharks and died doing something he loved. Surely, they argue, Groh would want the dives to continue.
They beg his family members not to allow their grief to morph into hatred for sharks. The divers attest to having been subject to stringent security measures while diving with Abernethy. They thank him profusely for having introduced them to the world of sharks. And they worry that they might never be able to dive on the Shear Water with the captain again.
"As an avid shark enthusiast, I had craved having intimate shark encounters like that since I was a young girl," writes a woman who calls herself "sharkdiverheidi." "We do not dive with sharks for a simple adrenaline rush or to thrill-seek, but to realize a connection with nature that few people take the time to experience on land. It is our passion and it cannot be caged."
Adds another diver: "Some won't be satisfied until everyone is bound up on their couch staring at CNN like zombies."
A New York-based nonprofit called Shark Savers, founded in 2007 by a group of divers interested in improving the public image of sharks, began a petition in support of continued shark diving in the Bahamas. Among the signers is Kent Bonde, a 50-year-old diver from Miami Shores who survived a bite from a bull shark while he was spearfishing off Grand Bahama in 2001.
"It was like getting hit by a Mack truck," Bonde remembers. The wound, on his left calf, looked like "a perfect ice-cream scoop all the way down to the bone." As blood filled the water around him, Bonde says, he thought, Please don't bite me again. He managed to get to Freeport, and then to Jackson Memorial by air ambulance.
As Bonde lay recovering in the hospital, undergoing six weeks of painful treatments to regenerate tissue on his leg, he decided to get back in the water as soon as possible. Otherwise, he worried he'd acquire an acute fear of sharks. He has since gone on numerous dives with sharks and now considers himself an avid shark conservationist. He gives talks at grade schools, comparing a sea without sharks to a major metropolitan area without garbage pickups — it's a mess.
"They're just like big dogs," Bonde insists. "They swim up to you and say, 'Oops, that's not part of the menu.'"
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Markus Groh, however, was not particularly fond of sharks, according to his sister Veronika Groh, a cancer researcher in Seattle. She is troubled by the efforts of self-labeled shark divers to turn her brother into a poster boy for their underwater hobby.
"None of us really understand why he got himself into this," Veronika says. "The friends who went on that trip ... felt extremely uncomfortable from the first day on. They just did not feel safe and unfortunately did not have the guts to say, 'Well, let's get out of this.'
"He [simply] wanted to spend some time with his friends.... It could have happened skiing or mountain climbing.... All I can say is he didn't want to be [on the boat], and I'm sure he suddenly didn't want to be ... down there."
Click here to view the slide show of Markus Groh's shark attack on his final dive.


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CSEA Helps with Campus Sustainability
SUNY Canton's Civil Service Employees Union (CSEA) Local 603 has provided new energy efficient appliances for break rooms around campus.
Union President Joseph Kelly said that they had provided eight Energy Star-rated refrigerators and nine microwave ovens during the Fall 2009 semester. The purchases included a brand-new 21 cubic-foot refrigerator in French Hall, which came just in time for potluck holiday meals and on-campus celebrations.
The purchase of the new appliances is another step in a larger campus-wide effort to conserve energy. To read more about the College's green initiatives, visit www.canton.edu/sustainability.
Media inquiries should be directed to Gregory Kie, Media Relations Coordinator, or call 315/386-7528.
Tags: CSEA, green, Joseph Kelly, refrigerators, Sustainability


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CH Ripsnorter's Mt View Lookout
We have on more tidbit for you before we shut it down for the night. We hear that the German Wirehaired Pointer, CH Ripsnorter's Mt View Lookout, was Linda Robey's choice for BIS today at the Scot County Kennel Club show in Rock Island IL. Scout and handler Frank Murphy have been rocking it lately and now have five all breed Bests to go with all those Sporting Group Ones (somewhere around 30, we can't keep up).


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I don't think this page is necessary.
The car existed before the manufacturer came out, so I think we should use the Emperor's page instead.
Thescarydude 00:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
So you want everyone else to become completely confused and that everyone will think that the Emperor is both a car and a manufacturer? it's like playing riddles by a guard, who won't let you pass until you answer his riddle question. Captain Seven-Twenty 00:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, personally, I think it would keep things neat & tidy if the pages were merged - considering the Willard had the same car vs. manufacturer problem. Hardrock182 03:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The manufacturer, Willard is associated with the car but the Emperor manufacturer has no relation with the car (which is manufactured by Albany). And we need to get rid of one page on the car either this one or the other (Emperor) its too redundant. Is it really confusing? If it is, should we also make a Dukes (borough) page? Thescarydude 11:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh right, I see, I never realised there were 2 pages the same, lol. Well, I guess it would make sense to keep Emperor isntead of this page, as the car is a more prominent 'item' in the series than the manufacturer is. However, Emperor (car) helps keep the difference between the car and the manufacturer clear - a disambig would solve that though. So, to be honest, it would probably just be better to keep Emperor. Hope my wording isn't to confusing. Hardrock182 14:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Ok. Let's see if these work. You can disambugate them both. it won't be confused to us, of course. To newcomers, they'll get easily confused, at first. Captain Seven-Twenty 18:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll just make the Emperor page a disambiguation page, there's now no need to delete this page. Thescarydude 23:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Ford Sierra Cosworth
Could we add also that the GTA SA variant resembles a Sierra Cosworth too?--Snake. 17:29, January 1, 2010 (UTC)
Man, this isn't Europe, from front to back it is an Infiniti.--Thescarydude 17:43, January 1, 2010 (UTC)
I have a Windows 7 Computer and using the Snap ability, Comparing the emperor and the infiniti at the same time I can tell you 100% that the San Andreas Emperor is definetly an Infiniti (Snap= The ability to view Two different websites at once) Andrew nicholson 21:33, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
Green Roof
Any reason the green roof beater variant pic was removed?
NssJ 20:27, September 4, 2011 (UTC)


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When anything gets spoofed, one of the first places you go in geekdom is Star Wars. It's, like, a rule. Which really means a Star Wars parody of those obnoxious "Windows 7 was My Idea" commercials was bound to happen.
Microsoft's spots have taken some flak in the past for portraying PC users, however cheeky, witty, or ordinary they may be, as completely clueless about how to make an operating system. Naturally, the parody depicts the Death Star, already a feat of Imperial engineering, as the result of some Stormtrooper dicking around in the desert. [DVICE]


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Bucks get rare win
Ilyasova's 31 lead Milwaukee to 114-88 win over Utah
MILWAUKEE — Ersan Ilyasova scored a season-high 31 points on 13-of-14 shooting, and the Milwaukee Bucks hit a blistering 57 percent from the field to beat the Utah Jazz 114-88 on Monday night.
Zaza Pachulia added 14 points, six rebounds and five assists, and five Bucks scored in double digits. The NBA's worst team improved to 12-47 and enjoyed a rare breather at home.
Enes Kanter had 27 points to lead Utah, mired by a mistake-prone third quarter in which the Bucks regularly led by at least 20.
NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took in some of the action.
Drafted No. 1 overall by the Bucks in 1969, Abdul-Jabbar was in town to promote a tourism ad for the state of Wisconsin that played off his acting role in the movie "Airplane."


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According to https://openmw.org/faq/#legal_stuff
The wiki link though says nothing about the shaders and the shader files themselves contain no license header.All fonts, shaders and other assets shipped with OpenMW are licensed under separate terms. Details can be found in the Readme file or in the Wiki.
Background: I would like to use some of the shader code in a LGPL-licensed project of mine: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/ ... 926.0.html - a graphics extender for Il-2 Sturmovik.


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Scott Parazynski
NASA Astronaut
Personal data
Born 28 July 1961, in Little Rock, Arkansas USA. Married to the former Gail Marie Vozzella. They have two children. He enjoys rock climbing, mountaineering, flying, scuba, skiing, travel, woodwork and nature photography. A commercial, multi-engine, seaplane and instrument-rated pilot.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Stanford University in 1983, continuing on to graduate with honours from Stanford Medical School in 1989.
Special honours
Various US medical awards and achievements and various NASA awards including four Space Flight Medals, two Exceptional Service Medals and a Distinguished Service Medal.
Parazynski studied antigenic variation in African sleeping sickness. He conducted research at the NASA Ames Research Center on fluid shifts during human space flight and has been involved in the design of exercise devices being developed for long-duration space flight. He has also conducted research on high-altitude acclimatisation and has numerous publications to his name.
NASA experience
Selected as an astronaut in March 1992. After completing one year of training and evaluation, Parazynski served as one of the EVA crew representatives in the Astronaut Office Mission Development Branch. He served as the Astronaut Office Operations Planning Branch crew representative for Space Shuttle, Space Station and Soyuz training, and also served as Deputy (Operations and Training) of the Astronaut Office ISS Branch. Most recently, he served as Chief of the Astronaut Office EVA Branch. He was the Astronaut Office Lead for Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System Inspection and Repair following the Columbia tragedy.
Space flight experience
The STS-66 ATLAS-3 mission (3-14 November 1994): ATLAS-3 was part of an on-going programme to determine the Earth's energy balance and atmospheric change over an 11-year solar cycle, particularly with respect to human impact on the ozone. Parazynski had responsibility for a number of activities including operation of the ATLAS experiments. An exercise device he developed was also evaluated during the mission.
STS-86 (25 September to 6 October 1997): This Shuttle mission to the Mir Space Station included the first Shuttle-based joint American-Russian spacewalk. Parazynski was the navigator during the Mir rendezvous and performed a 5-hour spacewalk with Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov during which they retrieved four experiment packages. Other EVA objectives included the evaluation of EVA tools and a systems flight test of the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER).
STS-95 (29 October to 7 November 1998), which included ESA astronaut Pedro Duque was a 9-day mission during which the crew supported a variety of research payloads, including deployment of the Spartan solar-observing spacecraft and the testing of the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform. Parazynski's tasks included being the navigator for the Spartan spacecraft rendezvous and operating the Shuttle's robotic arm.
STS-100 (19 April to 1 May 2001) during which the crew successfully delivered and installed the "Canadarm2" robotic arm, on the International Space Station used for assembly and maintenance. Parazynski conducted two spacewalks with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to assemble and power the robotic arm. Parazynski also operated the Shuttle's robotic arm to install and remove a European-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.
All of these four missions have included a European astronaut: Jean-Francois Clervoy (STS-66), Jean-Loup Chrétien (STS-86), Pedro Duque (STS-95) and Umberto Guidoni (STS-100). Parazynski will serve as the Lead Spacewalker during the STS-120 mission.


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Posts tagged 'Economy'
Expectations from Rio+20
Thousands of people from governments, civil society, the private sector and other groups coming together in Rio+20, one of the most important conferences in the history of the United Nations. The environmental challenges are greater today than 20 years ago, and the question remains whether political leaders will manage to commit to the necessary concrete actions. The expectations are low, as many rich nations are battling with financial crisis and a production-consumption system that seems to have reached its limits in a great part of the world.
I met Jonathan Watts at the campus of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro at the Forum on Science, Technology & Innovation for Sustainable Development. In this interview, Watts reflects on expectations from the Rio+20 process, and provides interesting insights on the necessary transition to sustainability.
With a decade of experience as Asia Environment Correspondent for the Guardian, Jonathan Watts is in Rio as freshly appointed Latin America Correspondent. An influential author, with his latest book When a Billion Chinese Jump exploring the leadership role of emerging new global powers like China.


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Madeleine Albright Says U.S. Must Use Diplomacy Surge
Former State Secretary Says Iraq Worse Than Vietnam
Once the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government, Madeleine Albright spent Friday in central Iowa.
The former Secretary of State is campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Albright dealt with serious issues all over the world in her position as secretary of state. She said the world is in serious trouble.
"I don't think I have ever seen the world in such a mess," Albright said to a packed house at the West Des Moines Community Center.
"I believe that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy. That means that I am acknowledging it is worse than Vietnam," she told the group.
Albright is advising Clinton on foreign policy and believes the U.S. needs to withdraw from Iraq, stabilize the country, help in reconstruction and use a diplomatic surge.
"Our national security toolbox has a lot of different tools in it, and this administration has basically only used the military tool," she said in an exclusive interview. "Diplomacy is the way countries talk to each other and that has not been used enough."
As the first female secretary of state, Albright said the world is ready for the first female president.
"There are so many countries that have had women heads of state," she said.
Albright said Clinton spent a lot of time at the United Nations as first lady. She said they are both tough.
"I used to tell my friends that one reason I looked fatter was that I had developed a thicker skin," she told the group.
Albright said Clinton is a caring person who understands the problems of real people.
"There has been an attempt to portray her as a cold fish, and she is not. She's really a good friend and somebody who reaches out," Albright said.
Albright also met with Iowans in Grinnell and Ames.


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Oh my god, it's full of lulz!January 4, 2010
Take that you slutty, pornographic, crappy RTS bitch. You've been one-upped. *points to attached photo*
Whatcha' gonna do now?
(In all fairness, I'm pretty sure that this game is another Asian grinder with an item shop that you have to use if you want to get any enjoyment out of the game. Yet, after this ad, I'm certainly willing to go take a look at their game and give a try. XD Their marketing department knows what's up, at least.)
(Edit: After looking at the game's logo and the main page, I remember this game now. It's a popular Japanese card game, of all things! A not too bad one, if memory serves me correctly. Card games aren't my thing anymore, but heck, I'll give it a shot tomorrow, perhaps.)


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As Pastry Chef at Lincoln Ristorante, Richard Capizzi crafts refined renditions of Italy's classics: light, lush and beautifully constructed. Using the freshest seasonal ingredients, he makes elegant desserts such as tartufo alla nocciola with salted caramel and chocolate meringue, brioche con gelato with almonds and fresh berries, torta paradiso with chamomile poached apricots and almond milk gelato.
A gifted baker as well as confectioner, chocolatier and maker of gelato and sorbetto, Capizzi is at the helm of the bread service, comprised of focaccia, flatbreads, carta di musica and grissini in addition to bar snacks.
Capizzi derived his cooking philosophy and enhanced his skills from the time he spent in and out of the kitchen with some of the world's most renowned chefs, from Thomas Keller to Jean Louis Palladin and Pascal Brunstein. Growing up, baking pastries with his Sicilian and Neapolitan family led him to take a job at a local bakery. His ever-growing passion prompted him to attend The Culinary Institute Of America in Hyde Park, NY.
While studying, he conducted a stage at Le Cirque in New York City with Pastry Chef Jacques Torres and later became a Pastry Cook Extern and then Pastry Assistant at Chef Jean Louis Palladin's Napa Restaurant at The Rio Hotel, Las Vegas. After graduation Richard remained in Hyde Park for a continuing education program on Artisan Breads and Viennoiserie.
Capizzi later relocated to France and began an apprenticeship at The Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo. The following year, he worked at The Royaume du Chocolat in Lyon, honing his skills in chocolate work, gelatos and sorbets. Richard returned to the U.S. in 2001 and worked at The Russian Tea Room as a Pastry Assistant under Pastry Chef Andrew Shotts. A year later he moved to Mondrian Pastry as Sous Chef under Michelle William, and then The Chocolate Loft/Garrison Confections as Assistant Chocolatier.
He was the Pastry Sous Chef for the opening of Per Se, working closely with Pastry Chef Sebastien Rouxel, before being promoted to Pastry Chef for both Per Se and Bouchon Bakery two years later. He worked closely with the Head Baker on a specialty breads and pastries program and developed his working relationship with Chef Jonathan Benno.
Capizzi won the title of Pastry Chef of the Year, as well as gold medals for "Most Artistic Plated Dessert," The Vatel Club's "Technical Prize" and the Societe Culinaire Philanthropique's Award for Exceptional Taste at the 14th Annual US Pastry Competition in New York in 2003. He was the youngest and the first pastry chef ever to sweep the entire competition. While at Per Se Dessert Professional honored Richard as one of the top 10 best pastry chefs in 2009. Richard Capizzi lives in Merrick, NY, with his wife Phyllis and their two children.
Instagram: @richardcapizzi / @lincolnristorante


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Welcome to Watch List, where we identify five things on TV to watch while you stay at home and write a song about your wife leavin' you for a new man. And she's takin' the dog with her. That cheatin' woman ain't no good! LET'S GO!
44th ANNUAL CMA AWARDS – 8:00PM (ABC) Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood host this all-star celebration of the year in country music. Is it me, or is there a country music award ceremony every month or so? These people make Hollywood look downright restrained in their award show clutter. Anyway, joining in on the hoedown are (deep breath) Sheryl Crow, Alan Jackson, Lady Antebellum (isn't that a brand of deodorant?), Miranda Lambert, Reba, Rascal Flatts, George Strait, Sugarland, Taylor Swift, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Gwyneth? Really? She ain't country, dag nummit! ANTICIPATION: WHISKEY AND BEER!
UNTOLD STORIES OF THE ER – 9:00PM (TLC) A Desert Storm veteran decides to swallow razor blades on a dare. Seems reasonable. Here's a tip for you daredevils out there: If you're going to swallow a razor blade (or any blade, really), at least have the good sense to do it on a BET, and not a dare. Get some money out of it, for crying out loud. It's the only way you're gonna be able to pay your medical bills once they're done taking out your mangled intestines. ANTICIPATION: JAGGED METAL KRUSTY O IN EVERY BOX!
I SHOULDN'T BE ALIVE – 10:00PM (Animal Planet) A profile of three men are shipwrecked for 12 days before being rescued. How did they survive? What provided them sustenance? There wasn't even a Professor on hand to show them how to harness thepower of coconut milk. ANTICIPATION: NEARLY DEAD!
TRACK ME IF YOU CAN – 8:00PM (Discovery) This new show features expert Aton Edwards teaching you how to live under the radar and avoid detection. So if you're a deadbeat dad and you don't want your old lady back in Montana tracking you down, there's finally a show to give you the help you need! Hint: Do not hide behind the shrubbery. ANTICIPATION: HOW NOT TO BE SEEN!
WORLD WAR II IN HD – 9:00PM (History Channel) Rare footage of the US 8th Air Force's missions, brought to you in glorious HD and in color. So that you REALLY feel like a wuss compared to grandpa. ANTICIPATION: BOOM BOOM!


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2011 Porsche Cayenne
Porsche's Contentious SUV Gets Hybrid-ized, Sheds Some Pounds
Go ahead Porsche purists, sigh once again. The controversial Cayenne soldiers on into a second generation thanks in large part to a successful worldwide sales campaign launched in 2002. As one might expect, the 2011 Porsche Cayenne improves on many of the outgoing's traits while getting a boost in fuel economy and in some cases, more power. And of course, the Cayenne lineup is even greener thanks to a new hybrid model.
Designers reworked the Cayenne's façade to provide a more contemporary form. If you notice hints of Panamera, it's no mistake. The sculpted hood, headlights, and grille mimic Porsche's other contentious model. Dimensionally, the Cayenne is 1.9-inches longer than its predecessor overall with a 1.6-inch longer wheelbase. More interior passenger and cargo space are the result, Porsche points out. Its backend gets restyled LED taillights, also very reminiscent of the Panamera's wide, curvaceous units.
But the longer body doesn't necessarily mean more mass. Thanks to a new all-wheel drive setup and the use of new materials (Porsche wasn't specific), the range as a whole is promised to be lighter and more efficient. The Cayenne S, for example, sheds some 400 lbs.
The lineup's shining star is the Cayenne S Hybrid. It's a full parallel hybrid, meaning it can run solely on the 333-horsepower 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 or its 47-horsepower electric motor. It can also be powered by both simultaneously. Combined, the SUV packs 380-horsepower and 427 pound-feet of torque and is said by Stuttgart to match the Cayenne S in straight line performance. The brand's new eight-speed Tiptronic S automatic gearbox gets it up to speed.
A decoupling clutch connects the engine to the electric motor and ensures a smooth transition of power throughout the driving cycle. Electric power can propel the Cayenne at speeds up to 40 mph, according to Porsche. It can also "sail" on the highway by shutting down the V-6 at speeds up to 97 mph. The Cayenne S Hybrid qualifies as the cleanest Porsche in the portfolio, with emissions output at 193 grams per kilometer. No EPA fuel economy ratings have been published as of yet.
The entry-level Cayenne maintains its 3.6-liter V-6, but thanks to a few tweaks and eight-speed transmission, it gets 10 more horses (for a total of 300 horsepower) and is 20 percent more fuel efficient on the combined European cycle. Occupying the middle ground is a more powerful 400-horsepower (up 15 ponies) Cayenne S. Its 4.8-liter V-8's fuel efficiency is 23 percent better than last year's model. Same goes for the Cayenne Turbo's 500-horsepower V-8. Interestingly, there was no word on the autobahn-eating 550-horsepower Turbo S or sportier GTS.
The modern design continues inside. With more room to work with, engineers implemented a high center console between the two front passengers. Like the Panamera, it bears an elongated form, with a litany of control buttons set below and on either side of the Tiptronic lever. The leather dash gets a TFT screen capable of controlling all the pertinent in-cabin goodies. It's flanked by tall aluminum-surrounded HVAC vents. The whole is attractive, in true Porsche style.
Porsche's 2011 Cayenne will first bow at the Geneva motor show, followed by a North American debut at the New York auto show in April. U.S. Cayenne S and Turbo sales are scheduled to begin in July, while standard Cayenne and the Cayenne S Hybrid arrive this fall. Expect full details and pricing to arrive nearer to its U.S. sale date.


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Heading from Orlando to NS the first two weeks of June. First stop is to pickup a friend in Hiawassee GA, then on to Winchester VA, Killington VT...then into Canada.
Anyone have any "absolutely gotta do's" while we're there? Cabot Trail and Cape Briton are tops on the list. If you had a fav place to stay, place to eat or place for a beer...Please share.!


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Property Details for MLS® # C4279257
16 Gardner Close, Cayley
Land for Sale
- Price: $86,835
- Status: Active
Muir Ranch presents 16 Gardner Close. Build your dream home in this well laid out development located in the Hamlet of Cayley which is located just a short distance to High River, Okotoks and Calgary. Fully serviced, low taxes, and quality builder available and ready to work with you. 1. Down payment of 10% must accompany offer to Purchase--to be held in Trust with the Developer's lawyer 2. A Compliance/Cost of Repair Deposit in the amount of $5000 is required to be deposited with the Developer's lawyer at the time of final lot payment. this deposit shall be refunded without interest upon satisfactory completion of home construction minus any costs to repair any damage to services in place. 3. Architectural Controls apply to all building sites. All drawings must submitted to the Developer's architectural consultant for review and approval prior to commencement of construction. 4. Construction must be completed within 18 months of lot purchase.
Contact Kelly Kernick About MLS® C4279257
Kelly Kernick, 403-875-7629 at Urban Real Estate Services, 820, 26th Street NE , Calgary, Alberta, T2A 2M4
property information
- Property Type: Land
- Lot Shape: Irregular Lot,Level
- Restrictions: Easement Registered On Title,Restrictive Covenant-Building Design/Size,Utility Right Of Way
Community Information
- Address: 16 Gardner Close
- Neighbourhood: Cayley
- City: Cayley
- Postal Code: T0L 0P0
- Fireplace Details: For Sale
- Exterior Features: Irregular Lot, Level
- Frontage: 16 metres
Registration Benefits
By Creating an Account You'll Access:
- More Cayley Listings Browse through every listing in the MLS® System and do as many different searches as you like!
- Days on Market & Financial Info See protected details including Days on Market, Taxes, Condo Fees, Possession Dates, and more!
- Save Your Favorites Star favorite listings, add personal notes, and save custom searches you use frequently!
- Real Time Email Notifications Opt in to receive emails when new properties are listed that match your saved searches!


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- Degree: Applied Data ScienceDuration: 1 yearThis Master's enables you to become a data science professional with excellent analytic capabilities in a wide number of domains, such as health science, geo science, social and behavioural science and media
- Degree: Biosciences (68713)Duration: 2 yearsIn this Master's programme, you will master integrative and cutting edge computational approaches to crack the biological code. With these approaches you will be an expert scientist with plentiful research opportunities in academia and companies.


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4mm Pink AB Crystal Bicone
Return to 4mm AB Crystal Bicone
4mm Pink AB Crystal Bicone
One packet/bag of 4mm Crystal AB Bicone beads.
The Crystal Bicones are A Grade Crystal with clear defined facets. These Crystal Bicone beads have an AB (Aurora Borealis) finish and are cut crystal and have a sheen and sparkle to them that is characteristic only to crystal (leaded glass) beads. Add a touch of sparkle to your next creation or simply use tham as a great spacer bead to style up your personal jewellery collection.
- Colour: Pink AB
- Shape: Bicone
- Length: 3.5mm
- Width: 4mm
- Beads per Packet/Bag: 50 beads
The true beauty and magnifience of these beads is unable to be truly captured by a photo due to the way they glisten and reflect under different lighting conditions. Even though Crystal beads contain lead, it is less than 100 parts per million and in general terms can be classified as lead free.
In Stock: 56


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As tattoos for women, especially in the back area, become more and more popular, is it true that women who have lower back tattoos, cannot have an epidural to assist with delivery of their babies, and what are the dangers associate with back tattoos if any?
Once again this subject has hit the news, and just as in the past, has panicked many women who have a back tattoo and are pregnant.
There is actually very little information available since so few studies have been done. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) are currently conducting some studies about the inks used in tattoos.
According to Mayo Clinic obstetrician and gynecologist Roger Harms, M.D., most pregnant women who have lower back tattoos, can receive epidural,s. except if the tattoo is fresh and covers a large area, in other words, the skin is still healing.There have been very few studies on tattoos for women in the back area in fact there have been very few studies about tattoos in general and there is little conclusive evidence showing an increased risk of infection.
There are only three vertebrae where an epidural can be administered. They are L1, L2, and L3. This is also the area where back tattoos are positioned. Most anesthesiologists will give an epidural block to a pregnant woman with a lower back tattoo, and where possible will choose an area without a tattoo to inject the needle.
Does that mean that some doctors will still refuse to administer an epidural, sadly yes, if they believe that the practice may be detrimental or dangerous to the woman, then they can and will refuse to give an epidural, despite information to the contrary. Many medical practitioners will err on the cautious side rather than risk the health of the woman with the back tattoo.
If you have a back tattoo then it is a good idea to discuss your options with your doctor before the birth of your baby, and if you are planning on getting a tattoo to celebrate the new arrival, why not consider waiting until after the birth, again, discuss it with your doctor.
Pub Med, the Mayo Clinic and BME concluded that there is no proof to substantiate the dangers of tattoos and epidural,s
If having a tattoo is something you really want to do but are worried about the risks to you and your baby then why not try henna, henna has been used by women in the middle east, especially Egypt for thousand and thousands of years, and is believed to bring good luck during pregnancy,and can last up to four weeks. If you do decide to go in this direction, be aware that you do not use black henna. Black henna is a very dangerous substance and should never be used, ever, so stay with the safe and gorgeous colored orange and brown hennas.


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The Vampire Diaries Round Table: "The Ties That Bind"Matt Richenthal at .
A pair of family reunions dominated the latest episode of The Vampire Diaries, while Stefan showed some heart and Alaric displayed some stupidity.
Which scene stood out the most? How excited are we to welcome back Elijah? Join Round Table panelists Matt Richenthal, Steve Marsi, Dan Forcella and Eric Hochberger now as they break down "The Ties That Bind..."
What was your favorite scene from the episode?
Matt: Abby texting to Bonnie while the random hybrid dude stood nearby. She made Leonardo DiCaprio in The Descendants look like a text messaging amateur!
Steve: As Matt sums up very well in his review, there's almost too much going on from which to choose, or know what to invest ourselves in at this point. I was probably most interested in Tyler's storyline, though. Can Caroline's dad really fix him, and will he be the key to bringing down Klaus if so? It makes one wonder, and half-close one's eyes during every terrifying transition scene.
Dan: My favorite was Stefan's reaction to finding out about the kiss. At first it seems he's in shock, which is why he just walks away quietly, but then he gets angry and gives his bro a good right hook to the jaw.
Eric: Sure, it's cheesy to pick the obligatory TVD cliffhanger as my favorite scene, but the second I saw that dagger in Damon's hand I eagerly thought... Elijah!? And they delivered to a giddy fan.
Did you feel bad for Stefan when Elena told him about the kiss?
Matt: I did. It's been clear for a couple weeks now that Stefan is in denial. Of course he has the same feelings for Elena as always, he's just been acting out and focusing on Klaus because he didn't want to face the harsh, snark-filled reality: she's fallen for Damon.
Steve: I had mixed emotions, which speaks to the brilliance of this love triangle and the performance of all the actors (I'll elaborate more in question #4).
Dan: I did. I don't really know why, because he's been an absolute ass hole as of late, but I felt bad for the guy. The bro code is one thing, but the actual brother code puts things on a whole other level. As much as he knew Damon wanted Elena all this time, I bet he never actually considered something happening between them. It was pretty heart-wrenching.
Eric: Since FIOS decided I didn't need those 10 seconds, I cannot possibly answer this based on his actual reaction. But, either way, yes! Poor guy threw away his humanity to save Damon, only for him to violate the bro(ther) code.
Stupider course of action: Alaric telling Meredith about his ring; Elena leaving out the sheet that identified Abby; or Abby not thinking ahead when she took Jaime in years ago?
Matt: Abby taking in Jaime. Look, there are certain precautions you need to take when you're a powerless witch on the run. Foremost among them: do not invite others to live under your roof in case your past one day catches back up to you and a half-vampire/half-werewolf compels your quasi son to take action that threatens multiple lives. This is Former Powerful Witchery 101.
Steve: Alaric was distracted by Dr. Fell's hotness and Abby was dealing with some pretty significant external factors at the time, so both of them can be forgiven. Elena leaving out the sheet would never happen in real life, though. No one involved in any sort of covert activity would commit a blunder that obvious, save for O.J. leaving one bloody glove he wore while murdering his wife at his house and the other at hers. The Juice may have been acquitted, but in having Elena leave evidence simply to lead Stefan to her, TVD writers are guilty of a semi-weak plot device.
Dan: It has to be Alaric telling Meredith about his ring. This is life and death. He has that ring to protect him from dying, and whether he thinks the good doctor is a supernatural or not, he should tell no one about his life-saving ring. What a moron.
Eric: Hotness or not, you save talk about your live-saving ring for pillow talk! Everyone knows you can only trust a woman after...
More welcome return: Elijah, Bill Forbes or a semblance of humanity in Stefan?
Matt: I'm not sure if it makes sense within the show itself - didn't Elijah prove his loyalty to Stefan on the season two finale? - but gotta go with the obvious answer here: good to see you, E.
Steve: The latter. Ancillary characters come, go, die and come back to life so haphazardly that I'm rarely surprised, even by the better ones. I love the many layers of Stefan, however. Will his humanity ultimately win out? Will he snap and go off the rails like a bloodthirsty sociopath again? Paul Wesley and the writers are great at keeping us guessing every week.
Dan: Elijah! The dude is completely awesome. It really doesn't matter who he sides with, now that he's awake, he's going to be as cool and ruthless as ever, and it's going to be amazingly fun to watch. Did you see that heart-ripping bit? There will be more of that to come, and I welcome that more than anything else.
Eric: Did I not answer this with number-one? Elijah! I love me some HRG as much as the next former Heroes fan, but the Originals are a little more developed in my TVD heart.
Is Elena really better than both Salvatore brothers?
Matt: Is that really the point? We can't help who we fall in love with, can we? If the question were as simple as with whom we were best matched ethically, Elena would still be with Matt. But that guy is so boring I fell asleep before finishing this sentence.
Steve: If you define "better" as not having slaughtered hundreds of innocent people during various "ripper" phases throughout life, then yeah.
Dan: No. I paraphrase Zachery Ty Bryan in the movie First Kid when I say that I don't think Elena is better than... anybody. And even if she was, you can't be better than Damon and Stefan Salvatore. Well, unless you're Klaus, then you are just God's gift to earth, and you can do no wrong in my book.
Eric: Sorry Elena, nobody is better than Damon. Nope, Dan, not even Klaus.
Which is more painful, transforming into a werewolf or giving birth?
Matt: Transforming into a werewolf, no doubt.
Steve: Transforming into a werewolf, hands down.
Dan: Transforming into a werewolf, without question.
Eric: Transforming into a werewolf, d'uh.
Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.


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Bring forth your inner goddess in a flowy maxi dress from ZAFUL this year! An array of these styles are on your horizon. Read ahead to get acquainted with popular styles and how to wear them:
A beach maxi dress might be the right one for you if you'll spend a lot of time out of doors during warm months. Wearing a bohemian maxi dress might fit the bill for a summer stroll in a park, by a lake, or for a ride in a boat. The boho maxi dress is a look that's bound to be cute while not overdone. Any of the above styles and a cotton maxi dress would be good for casual occasions. Wear these casual maxi dress looks with gladiator or tie up sandals.
Maxi dresses are a good consideration for any formal event. Styles like the backless maxi dress, strapless maxi dress, or halter maxi dress can be good for outdoor venues on hot summer days and nights. For cooler weather, a maxi dress with sleeves could be more suitable for staying cozy. Long sleeve maxi dress designs are especially elegant, having a beautifully graceful effect on the wearer's figure. Selecting a dress of the right color and texture is another part of the equation that can impact your overall taste. A long white maxi dress may be good for a meet up with friends during summer time. A print maxi dress, like of tropical palm leaves or tie dye, could be a beautiful choice for an evening dinner. One could opt for something even more strong like a long sleeve floral maxi dress, which would leave an overwhelming impression. In contrast, try a short sleeve maxi dress a try.
A palette of neutral and primary-toned colors are in-style for maxi dresses this season. Dress up your standard black maxi dress with pretty much any shoes and accessory. Conversely, a blue maxi dress, red maxi dress, or yellow maxi dress can be worn beautifully with golds, silvers, and other neutral-toned pieces. Wear one of these colors on a lace maxi dress for a soft, gentle, and subtle look. A floral maxi dress of the above colors is another good way to spin the look.


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Goethe is as relevant today as he has always been. That is evident from the exhibition at the Goethe National Museum in Weimar.
The exhibition, which portrays the writer's extraordinary life, presents Goethe as an embodiment of the modern age that was emerging around 1800. Eleven rooms illustrate the many sides to Goethe, reaching far beyond his literary achievements – from his political role as a statesman and his talent for drawing through to his botanical expertise. The exhibition draws on an unparalleled stock of priceless original artefacts.
Opening times:
Tuesday-Sunday 9am-6pm
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