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Resilient communications
How responders can reduce the risk of communications disruption during emergencies by using ResilienceDirect, HITS and Telecoms Sub-Groups.
Telecommunications are a fundamental enabler underpinning the effective response to any emergency. Resilient communications are able to absorb or mitigate the effects of a disruptive challenge. A disruptive challenge is an event or circumstances that disrupts normal life. These can be natural events such as flooding, or may have occurred through human intervention such as an electrical power failure or terrorist incident.
Elsewhere, we provide advice on how to set about enhancing the resilience of telecommunications you may currently use and information about additional resilient telecommunications capability such as HITS (the High Integrity Telecommunications System), ResilienceDirect and MTPAS (Mobile Telecoms Privileged Access Scheme).
Experience during a number of emergencies in the UK such as the BT plc tunnel fire in Manchester (April 2004), floods in Boscastle (August 2004) and Carlisle (January 2005), and the bombings in London (July 2005) all showed that communication systems could be disrupted in an emergency and that emergency planning needed to take that into account.
The National Risk Register identified a number of generic challenges to business continuity. Drawing on experience and risk assessment work we believe that these generic challenges, adapted as necessary to local circumstances, should be used as the framework for testing the resilience of responder communications.
Keeping the UK safe and supporting lives:
ResilienceDirect™ is a unique digital online private 'network' which is a 24/7/365 live service with the UK and overseas territories. ResilienceDirect™ enables civil protection practitioners to work together – across geographical and organisational boundaries – during the preparation, response and recovery phases of an event or emergency.
ResilienceDirect™ provides emergency responders with situational awareness, clear communications and informed decision making. The platform enables organisations to fulfill these duties by supporting the adoption of multi-agency working practices, and ensuring that key information is readily and consistently available to users.
ResilienceDirect™ helps to facilitate multi-agency collaboration in many ways, which include:
- sharing emergency plans
- maintaining awareness of plans, exercising those plans and responding, followed by a recovery phase and lessons learnt
- real-time information sharing, supported by data visualisation
How does it work?
ResilienceDirect™ is a web-based service built on a proven resilient and secure platform. It is accredited to hold electronic documents with protective markings – we work with our National Cyber Security Centre colleagues as security is at the forefront of protecting our capability.
Who can access ResilienceDirect™?
ResilienceDirect™ is available for use by the emerging services, public, private and voluntary sectors, all working within the resilience arena.
Organisations are required to sign an End User Agreement to ensure the continued integrity of the service. To get a ResilienceDirect™ account, or for support with your existing account please contact email@example.com.
Prospective users should contact the ResilienceDirect™ team on email@example.com.
We are always here to help and support our users, as our ethos states: with you, for you and by you.
High Integrity Telecommunications System (HITS)
'The High Integrity Telecommunications System (HITS) provides a resilient and secure communications backbone between Strategic Co-ordinating Centres in police force areas in England and Wales, and central government crisis management facilities. Devolved administration sites in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast are also connected to the HITS network. It is designed to remain available in the face of a complete or partial failure of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
The system is delivered as a managed service by Airbus Defence and Space through a parent contract with The Ministry of Defence. It is accredited to handle voice and data communications up to official level. HITS resilience is delivered through the combination of a satellite pathway using reserved airtime on the military SKYNET 5 constellation, and landline connectivity independent of the commercial PSTN.
While HITS mobile terminals (the 'transportables') were withdrawn from service in 2013, new improvements aimed at increasing ease of access to, and thus usability of, the network will be announced before the end of 2016. Email email@example.com for more information.
Privilege access schemes
Privilege access schemes are limited to those with a role to play in an emergency response. The schemes covered in this section are:
- privileged access to mobile telephone networks
- privileged access to the fixed-line telephone system
- access by those outside the emergency services to use Airwave
Privilege access schemes will often form part of an organisation's arrangements to enhance the resilience of their telecommunications. However, some of the current schemes, notably access to mobile public telecommunications infrastructures, have acquired a level of importance that far exceeds their utility. Others, such as Airwave, are only really suitable as an everyday solution for those organisations with the need to be in contact with the emergency services and are familiar with the protocols applicable to using private mobile radios.
Mobile Telecommunications Privileged Access Scheme (MTPAS)
What is MTPAS and how does it work?
MTPAS was launched by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) in September 2009. Like its forerunner, the ACCOLC scheme, it is intended to preserve access to mobile networks by those engaged in an emergency response when network capacity is under pressure.
Public cellular mobile telephony has played an important part in enabling communications during the response to recent emergencies, but mobile networks can become overwhelmed by a high concentration of calls that often occur immediately after a major incident.
Privileged access is achieved by the installation of a special SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card in the telephone handset. These special SIMs are only available to entitled users within the responder community and not to members of the public. Privileged access SIMs are provided by the networks to their customers without additional cost.
Eligibility for MTPAS
Eligibility is restricted to organisations that have a part to play in responding to, or recovering from, an emergency as defined in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. Primarily these are:
- Category 1 and 2 responder organisations
- partners of Category 1 responders who have a requirement to be in communication with Category 1 responders when performing a front line role in the response phase of an emergency, including the voluntary sector
- central government departments
- devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Within an eligible organisation, MTPAS will only be available to staff designated as having an operational role at the scene of a major incident or emergency, or be required to directly support those with an operational role at the scene of an incident at a tactical or strategic level.
The majority of organisations are sponsored on MTPAS by Telecommunications Sub Groups (TSGs) which operate under the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) structure. The TSGs fully co-ordinate the scheme for their local resilience areas. Some responder organisations work on a national rather than a local basis and these will be sponsored by central government departments. The devolved administrations assess eligibility and provide sponsorship for their responders groups.
The arrangements for activation of MTPAS
At the onset of an emergency response, when a Strategic Co-ordinating Group (SCG) has been established, the Police Gold Commander, who is likely to be in charge of the response, will use an agreed protocol to notify all mobile network operators that a major incident has been declared and request that call traffic levels are monitored. If networks become congested, the network operators are asked to consider invoking MTPAS to give emergency responders a much higher likelihood of being able to make a call than other customers.
Further information
Queries relating to MTPAS may be sent to firstname.lastname@example.com
The Government Telephone Preference Scheme (GTPS)
GTPS was decommissioned on 1st March 2017.
The history of privileged access to the fixed networks using GTPS
The GTPS was established in the late 1950s when there was a threat of nuclear war destroying significant parts of the national infrastructure. The scheme was designed to conserve electrical power and provide assured access to telephony for essential users during an emergency. At such times there may be a heavy load placed on parts of the public telephone network that remained functioning. If the scheme were to be activated the majority of unregistered customers would have lost access to the 'dial tone' preventing them from making out-going calls (including 999 / 112). Only registered users would have been able to make calls from a telephone connected to a registered line. All customers would still have been able to receive calls. Largely as a result of the implications of restricting public access to fixed networks during an emergency (when at least 90% of lines connected to an activated exchange would not have enabled outgoing calls), the scheme has been used very rarely. It is now decommissioned.
Introduction to Airwave
Airwave is the secure and resilient mobile telecommunications system for the police, ambulance and fire and rescue services. While primarily for their use, the system is also available to organisations with whom the emergency services need to communicate in responding to emergencies.
The radio spectrum used by Airwave is allocated for use by the emergency services and public safety users which largely embraces Category 1 and 2 responders as defined by the Civil Contingencies Act (2004). As a consequence, Airwave is restricted to a closed community of responders.
Access for those outside the emergency services
Access to Airwave is managed by [Ofcom](http://www.ofcom.org.uk/, the telecommunications regulator. Organisations that are entitled to take up Airwave are contained on the Sharer's List (pdf). You can find guidance on making an application to become a Shareron the Ofcom website.
Organisations wishing to join the Sharers' List must:
- respond to emergencies
- be involved in emergency situations reasonably frequently
- be civilian, or required to respond to civilian emergencies
- require interaction with those who respond to emergencies
All local authority emergency planning units were approved for inclusion on the Sharers' List through a group application made on their behalf by Cabinet Office in 2010. Local authority emergency planning units need only to apply for a TEA2 user sub-licence (FULL) which allows use of the TETRA Encryption Algorithm (TEA2), to procure Airwave terminals and network access.
The Multi Agency Airwave User Group represents the non-blue light Airwave users and is open to all public safety organisations either using Airwave or interested in taking up the service.
To ensure that the advantages of having a common radio platform for responders were fully realised, the Civil Contingencies Secretariat worked with the former Multi-Agency Interoperability Programme within the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) to develop guidance for the use of the Airwave system.
Since 2011, all Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) have identified a multi-agency Airwave Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) to champion development of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for local Airwave use across the responder community.
Information and data sharing - emergency preparedness
Sharing information is at the heart of emergency planning. It has a direct impact on members of the community, ensuring that they are put in touch with and contacted by the organisations and public bodies that can help them through traumatic events.
Events over recent years have raised awareness of information and data sharing amongst a variety of stakeholders, and have prompted further thought and queries on wider issues outside the immediate emergency planning, response and recovery phases.
The issues touch on a variety of types of sharing:
- personal data
- emergency plans
- commercial or sensitive data, and all for a variety of planning, response and recovery purposes
"Information sharing" here generally refers to any information that is non-personal. This includes plans, schematics, commercial or business data amongst others.
"Data sharing" here generally refers to information that can be used to identify a living individual, and usually comes under the remit of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Information sharing
Appropriate information sharing lies at the heart of effective co-operation. Information sharing need not be formal and should happen as part of everyday co-operation.
Sharing information under the CC Act
Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CC Act), Category 1 and 2 responders have a duty to share information with other Category 1 and 2 responders. This is fundamental to their ability to fulfil the range of other civil protection duties under the act, including emergency planning, risk assessment and business continuity management. The statutory guidance on the CC Act also encourages information sharing between responders. In most instances, information will pass freely between Category 1 and 2 responders, as part of a more general process of dialogue and co-operation. But there are still some instances in which the supply of information will be more controlled, and hence a formal request for information may be appropriate. It should be noted that the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 does not contradict the Data Protection Act 1998.
Security classified information
Not all information can be shared, and the Civil Contingencies Act allows exceptions from the supply of some sensitive information. There are broadly 4 kinds of sensitive information:
- information prejudicial to national security
- information prejudicial to public safety
- commercially sensitive information
- personal information
Of course, there are different degrees of sensitive information. The guidance to accompany the Act, Emergency Preparedness, clearly states that some sensitive information may be suitable for some audiences but not others. The Act also offers safeguards that make clear that sensitive information can still be shared between Category 1 and 2 responders for emergency planning purposes – the organisation providing the information can specify that the information may only be used for the purpose for which it was requested.
There are other pieces of legislation which affect the use of information that responders should also be aware of, such as the Data Protection Act, the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) 2000, and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) 2004. No-one has an unqualified right to obtain information under either the FoI Act or EIR. There are limitations on releasing information under FoI legislation known as 'exemptions'. These are detailed at the Ministry of Justice website. Likewise, there are similar limitations on the release of information under the EIR. Exemptions under EIR can be found at the Defra website. Further details on both of these can be found via the links under the next heading.
Information sources
Data Protection and sharing
The Data Protection Act and personal data
As explained above, information sharing primarily relates to information that is not personal. The focus of the Data Protection Act 1998 is on personal data. The Act offers definitions of two types of data; personal data and sensitive personal data.
Personal data is defined as data relating to a living individual who can be identified from the data or from those data and other information which is in the possession of (or is likely to come into the possession of) the data controller. Sensitive personal data is defined as data relating to a person's ethnic origins, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, health, sexual life and criminal history. Full definitions of both can be found in the Data Protection Act 1998. The Cabinet Office published Data Protection and Sharing – Guidance for Emergency Planners and Responders which explains clearly and in an understandable way how the DP Act affects emergency preparedness and response. Again, it should be noted that the Data Protection Act 1998 does not contradict the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
Sharing data
A number of enabling conditions must be met by organisations who wish to share data about any living individual, if the information could be used to identify that individual. Explanations of the conditions that are required can be found in both the Data Protection Act 1998 legislation and the Cabinet Office guidance noted above.
Briefly, the conditions that must be met include the following:
- a legal basis to share the information (either express powers, implied powers or common law)
- ensuring that the processing of the data is fair to the individual
- meet one of 6 conditions to process personal data under Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1998
- meet one of a number of further conditions to process sensitive personal data under Schedule 3 of the Data Protection Act 1998
The Data Protection Act 1998 provides the framework within which personal data sharing should always take place, whether in emergency situations or 'peacetime' normal business. The important precursors to sharing data rest with the Data Protection Principles. Chapter 2 of the Cabinet Office guidance describes these principles, and, once understood, this framework is transparent and relatively straightforward to apply. Chapter 3 of the Cabinet Office guidance explains that legal power for Category 1 and 2 responders to share data is found under the Civil Contingencies Act. The chapter then goes on to explain how the Civil Contingencies Act interacts with the Data Protection Act.
There are other pieces of legislation and law that affect the ability to share data. These include the Human Rights Act 1998 and the common law duty of confidentiality.
Useful documents and links
If you have any queries on the application or interpretation of either the Civil Contingencies Act or the Data Protection Act in an emergency planning, response and recovery context that are not answered by the guidance signposted here, please let us know.
- Data Protection and Sharing in Emergencies - 2 page summary for Category 1 and 2 Responders
- Data Protection and Sharing - Guidance for Emergency Planners and Responders
- Ministry of Justice – legal advice and jargon buster
- The Information Commissioners Office
- The Information Commissioners Office – Sharing Personal Information (pdf)
- The government's report into the lessons from the 7 July attacks
- Emergency Preparedness document
- Ministry of Justice website
- legislation.gov.uk, provided by The National Archives - provides access to the official home of UK legislation covering all jurisdictions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).
- Local Government Association (LGA) website - The LGA promotes the interests of English and Welsh local authorities.
- DECC - information on the energy sector
- The Freedom of Information Act 2000
- The Environmental Information Regulations 2004
- The Data Protection Act 1998 on the OPSI website
Public emergency alerts
Why are public emergency alerts important?
Public alerting is quickly letting people know that something is wrong, this could be any type of emergency that affects them. It is vital that information is given to the public as quickly as possible so that they can take the necessary action to keep themselves and their families safe. This action might involve evacuation, taking shelter, or simply keeping a watching brief on the situation.
Different people have different preferences and needs when it comes to receiving important information. Because of this it is vital that local responders and the government can communicate in a number of different ways that will reach as many people as possible.
Public Emergency Alerts form part of the wider work on warning and informing the public as one of the statutory duties of category 1 emergency responders. More detail can be found in the warning and informing section. This work forms part of the resilient telecommunications programme which aims to provide resilient communications in order to enable effective response to and recovery from an emergency.
Government mandate
There are a range of ways in which the public are currently alerted to emergencies. However, these could be improved (eg the speed of dissemination of information following the onset of an emergency could be quicker).
The Strategic Defence Security Review published in 2010 outlines the government's commitment to evaluate the options for improving public emergency alerting in the UK.
In accordance with this mandate the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) have been looking at a range of options for improving the capabilities available to local responders to get emergency alerts out to members of the public in the quickest, most effective way.
Potential options for improving Public Emergency Alerting
To enable differing alerting methods to be compared the CCS commissioned the Defence Science Technology Laboratory to conduct a review of academic literature to determine what makes an effective alert system. A summary document for emergency responders has been produced. This research identified criteria that an alerting system could be assessed against and these were refined following consultation with responders to produce the following:
Criteria | Description |
Speed | The rate at which the warning is delivered to the target audience |
Targeted | The extent to which the alert is geographically targeted to individuals who need to receive it, and does not reach recipients who do not need it |
Automatic registration | The system will not require active registration but will automatically sign people up |
Intrusive | When activated the alert will interrupt the recipient's current activity |
Automated operation | The potential for the alert system to switch from normal mode to alert mode without the need for manual intervention |
Inclusivity | The method should not exclude people from receiving a message due to the technology used or their individual needs for receiving messages |
Support for additional languages | The potential for alert messages to be sent in additional languages |
Format | The variety of mediums used to present information |
Comprehension | The ease at which the message is interpreted by the recipient |
Receipting | Ascertaining whether the message is received by the recipient |
Security and Resilience | The extent to which the system could be appropriately accessed and is available for use |
Use of landlines
The Environment Agency currently operate the Floodline Warnings Direct System which sends alerts direct to people's landlines to notify them if they are imminent risk of flooding. One potential improvement for Public Emergency Alerting could be to extend this system to use it for a range of different risks other than flooding.
A consultation in 2012 asked Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to identify risks from their community risk registers where this alerting capability might benefit the response. The conclusions of this consultation identified that high-hazard areas such as major petrochemical or civil nuclear installations and areas at risk of reservoir inundation would be likely candidates.
In order to test how appropriate the Floodline Warnings Direct system would be to issue similar alerts for other types of emergencies such as those identified in the consultation, a live trial was conducted on 1 February 2012. The objectives of this trial were to:
- determine the appropriateness of using the Extended Floodline Warnings Direct (EFWD) approach to areas and risks beyond flooding
- identify the level of change needed to the existing system used for flooding purposes
- engage a sample of users through the trial and deliver test alert messages to them
- produce a consultation pack, on which the views of other Local Resilience Forums could be established
For further information and findings from the trial please read the final Extended Floodline Warnings Direct project report.
Use of mobiles
The government is looking at how the Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) could be used as a warning and informing capability. Cell Broadcast is the transmission (or more precisely broadcast) of a text-type message to all handsets within a defined geographic area. CCS are currently investigating to see how this system might be used to alert people within a specified area in the event of an emergency.
Social media
The soaring popularity of social media in recent years makes this another potential channel to get important information out to the public in the event of an emergency.
In order to better understand how responders can most effectively use Social Media to communicate with the public in an emergency CCS commissioned the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory to produce an accessible guide for emergency responders entitled Smart Tips for Category 1 Responders using Social Media in Emergency Management.
Established alerting methods
While it is important to consider new emerging technologies when exploring potential improvements to UK alerting, CCS is also keen that the more traditional alerting methods currently employed such as sirens, traditional media, door knocking and loudhailers are not discarded. The aim of this work is to provide local responders with a toolkit of alerting capabilities that can then be tailored and used however best fits the local need, not to replace any current alerting capabilities.
Local Resilience Forum feedback
Following the conclusion of the EFWD trial (detailed above), CCS conducted a series of workshops with 5 LRFs in England and with emergency planners in Wales and Scotland. The aims of this work were to:
- understand what alerting capabilities are currently used in different areas and the rationale for this
- understand views from responders on any gaps in alerting and how these might potentially be addressed with other capabilities
- test the findings of the trial conducted into extending the use of the Environment Agency's Floodline Warnings Direct service to warn the public about risks other than flooding
- validate the findings of the Defence Science Technology Laboratory research study 'What makes an effective alert system'
For further information on any of this work please contact firstname.lastname@example.com
Local Resilience Forum Telecommunications Sub-Groups
For many areas, the focus for local resilience enhancing work remains the Telecommunications Sub Group (TSG). The groups will bring together representatives from statutory responder bodies (Category 1 and 2 Responders under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004) and partner organisations creating a forum for both contingency planning and information technology expertise.
Groups have developed local plans that provide a focus for all communications arrangements that support a response to an emergency. Plans should go beyond a communications directory and provide a source of reference for all responder organisations enabling interoperability arrangements to be clearly understood. The plan should also contain contact details for key local telecommunications service providers enabling liaison with industry. At their inception, TSGs were given advice on how to draw up a plan to enhance the resilience of local responders' communications of and their partners. The guidance suggested that the plan should contain:
- an assessment to identify key local responders and resilience partners, their communication requirements and their arrangements for telecommunications
- a 'gap analysis' to identify shortfalls in the resilience of the current arrangements for telecommunications when viewed against the requirement for communication and the local risks to telecommunications
- steps to be taken to enhance the resilience of telecommunications and a timetable for undertaking any remedial actions
- arrangements for liaising with neighbouring LRF areas
- an exercise programme for resilient telecommunications
While TSGs have so far operated chiefly as planning forums, they also have a valuable role to play in support of the Strategic Co-ordinating Group, providing a technical and advisory resource and promoting the timely application of the local telecommunications plan. The TSG will hold contact details for telecommunications service providers and be able to liaise with industry as required.
Annual national symposium
As part of its strategy of engagement with the local sub groups, the Civil Contingencies Secretariat organises (with the support of British APCO) an annual event to bring together TSG Chairs from across England and Wales.
The 2012 Symposium was held at Conference Aston, Birmingham on 7 November and saw close to 100 delegates from the public sector, central government and the communications industry gather to discuss progress on current resilient communications work at both national programme and local planning levels.
View the report on feedback from the event published in December 2012.
Updates to this page
Last updated 10 March 2021 + show all updates
ResilienceDirect™ section has been updated.
Updated 'Who can access ResilienceDirect' section.
Updated text.
Updated the ResilienceDirect email
Updated to show that transportable terminals have been withdrawn from service.
First published.


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Each week, we round up the tech and culture stories from NPR and beyond. Let's do this, folks.
Online and on air, we've started our new effort to report several stories on a single theme during the week. Our first themed week explored kids and technology, with my look at babies and screen time, Steve Henn on the science of video games, Laura Sydell on tracking the social media use of your teens, and Eric Westervelt on iPads in the classroom. The stories are aggregated on this page for you to go back and read, and on Monday, we'll put up a mashcast podcast for you to listen to the kids-and-tech journey as one enjoyable download. Also this week, April Fehling asked you how you deal with the scourge of texting-while-walking, I showed you the new airline safety videos making me smile, I continued reporting on the debacle of HealthCare.gov and we chose the Bulb Flashlight as the weekly innovation.
The Big Conversation
Another major revelation came out this week about the sheer extent of the surveillance state, when The Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency infiltrated a link between Google and Yahoo's data centers to create a back door to collect data from millions of users, without the companies' knowledge. Google and Yahoo both expressed their outrage and by Friday, Senate intelligence committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein came out against the NSA's surveillance of U.S. allies, and Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that perhaps the government had sometimes "reached too far." In Europe, Spain reacted to news that the NSA collected data on 60 million phone calls, in addition to the news about snooping on France and dozens of world leaders. Security expert Bruce Schneier wrote in The Atlantic that this represents the ongoing struggle over control of the Internet.
In tech industry news, Twitter's marching toward its stock market debut, and this week, it made a significant change in its display of users' tweets, showing pictures and Vine's short videos in user timelines by default, without a click. This will make visual ads on Twitter much more prominent, as The New York Times noted, which will help the company serve more mobile ads.
Other Curiosities
The Wall Street Journal: BlackBerry in talks with Facebook about a bid
Could this be a marriage that would benefit both parties?
Los Angeles Times: Is the mysterious barge in San Francisco Bay a secret Google data center?
Water can keep servers cool. The project could be a floating data center, something Google was granted a patent for in 2009 but never built. But CBS San Francisco reported the barge will be used as an exclusive showroom to market Google Glass and other gadgets.
Gawker: 'The Zuckerberg Files' Tracks Everything Mark Zuckerberg Says
A new site logs every public utterance of the Facebook founder and CEO.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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Day 5: Revelation 15-16 Recap
Week 8: Revelation 15-16
Day 1: 15:1-4
We ended chapter 14 on a very sobering note. We are told that there is coming a "winepress of God's wrath." Chapters 15-16 will show us a little of what is to come, because we now enter the fullness of God's wrath against those on earth who have rejected His Son and persecuted and killed His beloved bride.
- The Chorus of Heaven
- We need to pay attention when heaven erupts into song
- God is JUST in all that He does
- Only God is holy—no one else, not even the saints
- All the saints are deserving of the same fate if it weren't for Jesus' blood
Day 2: 15:5-8
- The Temple
- The angels come out with their bowls of the wrath of God
- Like Solomon's Temple, here again we have smoke that prevents the normal operation within
- This is a holy moment in heaven—God is unapproachable until the bowls of wrath are complete. He will not be bargained with at this point.
Day 3: 16:1-11
First Bowl
- Painful sores—these will persist throughout the bowl judgments
Second Bowl
- Sea turned to blood—everything left dies
- The seals and trumpets dealt in fourths and thirds. The bowls are now absolute and complete.
Third Bowl
- Fresh water turned to blood—now all the water on earth is undrinkable. Where does anyone get drinking water now?
- This judgment is so harsh that the angel stops for a moment and acknowledges that God is righteous in what He is doing. It is vindication for the blood of the saints.
Fourth Bowl
- Scorching heat—the people of earth know that God is doing this and they hate Him all the more for it. The judgments are magnifying what is truly in their hearts.
- Here again is vindication—we see in Revelation 7:16 That many saints were held in scorching heat, exposed to the sun, during the tribulation.
Fifth Bowl
- Somehow darkness now falls on the kingdom of the beast. The darkness causes them all to stop and have to live with nothing but the torment of their painful sores and scorched bodies.
Day 4: 16:12-21
Sixth Bowl
- Like when the Persians conquered Babylon, again the Euphrates will be dry for the armies of Satan to try to conquer.
- The demonic frogs will gather the kings of the earth for war against Jesus Himself!
- By this point, the people of earth are so used to supernatural events that these prophetic frogs are obviously not enough to cause anyone to think twice about their involvement!
- Jesus Himself gives one final warning here—He is about to come, like He said, as a thief in the night to those who do not know Him. He promised us that for those who know Him, He will not come as a thief (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5)
Seventh Bowl
- Planet earth is shaken so that all the cities of the earth collapse.
- What is curious is that the earthquakes are not what the people of earth find the most egregious—it is the hail
- For some perspective, each hailstone will be about the size of a large living room sofa. The world has never seen such a thing.
- The people of earth will with their last breath curse God one more time. What comes next for them is the winepress of God's wrath as we have seen before


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David VE3KCL launched his second balloon flight on 22-Jul-2015 at about 12:40Z. Like the former flight, this one also uses a special U3 firmware version on an Arduino Nano board, with QRP Labs Si5351A Synthesiser. Two "party" balloons were used, filled with hydrogen. The payload total weight was 39.6g and there was a calculated 2g of free lift.
The transmission schedule includes CW on several different bands (for the reverse CW network), 30m JT9 and a special WSPR message on 30m. The special WSPR message types encodes two additional WSPR messages which contain the additional 5th and 6th character of the locator, altitude, battery voltage, temperature, ground speed, GPS status, and number of GPS satellites (a single bit, 0 means under 8, and 1 means 8 or more). The "special" WSPR transmissions therefore show up in the WSPR database with locators and powers which are not the actual locator and power, but encode the additional data. The conversion back to actual flight data is done later in an Excel spreadsheet. This is very experimental at the moment.
The transmission schedule for the flight is based on a 12 minute transmission cycle, commencing on the hour and repeating every 12 minutes:
0:00 CW ID, and 22wpm CW on 30m, 20m and 17m bands
0:01 JT9 on 10,139,800: "#CS#AT" (callsign, altitude)
0:02 JT9 on 10,139,800: "#LT#A0" (latitude, temperature on analogue A0)
0:03 JT9 on 10,139,800: "#LN#A3" (longitude, battery on analogue A3)
0:04 WSPR on 10,140,150 (standard WSPR transmission)
0:06 WSPR on 10,140,150 with special type #1
0:08 WSPR on 10,140,150 with special type #2
0:10 22wpm CW on 15m, 10m and 6m bands
0:11 Calibration
0:12 Repeat...
Special WSPR type #1 encodes 5th and 6th Maidenhead locator, and altitude into the message; type #2 encodes temperature, battery voltage, ground speed, GPS status and Satellite coverage.
Example, WSPR reports at 13:52Z, 13:54Z and 13:56Z are:
13:52 VE3KCL FN05 13 (normal WSPR)
13:54 VE3KCL DN55 43 (special type #1)
13:56 VE3KCL MP87 20 (special type #2)
This telemetry decodes to:
Callsign | VE3KCL | |
Power | +20dBm | |
Locator | FN05FA | |
Altitude | 3960m | |
Temperature | 14C | |
Battery | 4.1V | |
Groundspeed | 30m/s | |
GPS | Ok | |
Satellites | >= 8 |
The JT9 also contains some of the same data but receive station network coverage is likely to be less comprehensive. The advantage of the WSPR telemetry is that there is an existing vast network of WSPR receiving stations, automatically receiving and loging the data. The CW on multiple bands is such that it could be decoded by the reverse CW network i.e. "TEST TEST DE VE3KCL VE3KCL".
Flight data
The flight lasted about 2 hours 15 minutes, ascended to a maximum altitude of 4,120m and travelled approx 91km. The flight was therefore similar to the former flight. Dave has since attributed the shortness of the flight to problems he has found with the gas cannister used to fill the balloon, which apparently still contained some propane. The gas mixture therefore did not provide as much buoyancy as it should have, and the theory is that one of the balloons burst at 4,120m causing the gradual descent.
In the charts and path map below, BLUE is data from the JT9 telemetry, and RED is data from the WSPR telemetry. There were 11 data packets. Some comments on the data are below. Click the images for larger versions.
Altitude: The reported altitude is parsed from the GPS data, the snapshot is taken right before the calibration i.e. at approximately the 11th minute of each 12 minute transmission cycle; this is then the data used in the subsequent transmission cycle. The JT9 transmission contains the full precision altitude reported by the GPS receiver, whereas the WSPR telemetry is more compressed, so the resolution is lower: 20m in this case. Considering the scale of the data, it is to be expected (and actually happened) that the JT9 and WSPR altitude data match each other closely.
Battery voltage: it is reported in JT9 as the 10-bit analogue-to-digital value converted by the ATmega328 processor. In WSPR the data is highly compressed, and so the telemetry supports 40 battery voltage values in the range 3.0 to 4.95V with resolution 0.05V. It should be noted also that unlike the location data from the GPS module, the battery voltage is snapped at the message encoding stage, which means right before each message transmission. Not at the beginning of the whole 12 minute cycle. Therefore the JT9 and WSPR data is not even sending the same data value to start with. It is not surprising the values don't track each other exactly.
Temperature: it is reported in JT9 as the 10-bit analogue-to-digital value converted by the ATmega328 processor. Dave uses an LM335 temperature sensor which has a linear voltage/temperature characteristic with a slope of 10mV/C, and output 2.73V at 0C. The WSPR data is compressed, and the temperature range is -49C to +38C with resolution 1C. Like the battery voltage, the snapshot is taken at the message encoding time at the start of each transmission, NOT once at the start of the whole 12 minute cycle; therefore WSPR and JT9 aren't reporting temperature values taken at the same instant. That and the resolution limitations make it un-surprising that the values don't match exactly.
Speed: groundspeed is parsed directly from the GPS serial data. It is not sent in JT9 in this balloon flight. The compressed WSPR telemetry format encodes speed from 0 to 79m/s with 2m/s resolution. Note that the speed data in the chart seems to be wrong by a factor of 2. The distance between two location reports 1 hour apart in the middle of the flight is 54km. This equates to 15m/s which is about half what is reported in the telemetry. There may be a bug in the firmware or in the spreadsheet, and it needs further investigation.
Path: The path plot (blue line) is from the JT9 data, which is latitude/longitude to the full resolution provided by the GPS NMEA serial data string. Each data point is shown as a BLUE dot. The RED dots are the location data as determined by the WSPR telemetry. The compressed WSPR telemetry format transmits 6-character Maidenhead locators (Maidenhead subsquare resolution). The balloon is therefore known only to be in a certain Maidenhead subsquare, which means an uncertainty in its position, of several km. This is why the red dots (WSPR) don't precisely match the blue dots (JT9). This resolution compromise in the WSPR telemetry still provides quite reasonable accuracy and for a longer flight would be adequate for tracking purposes.
Other: During the flight, the GPS Status bit was consistently 1 (means the data validity flag in the $GPRMC sentence is "A", which means valid); and the Satellites bit was always 1, meaning at least 8 satellites were tracked at all times.
The photos below show various aspects of the payload (click for larger images) and are mostly self-explanatory. The foam-enclosed flight package contains five modules: uBlox GPS receiver, Arduino Nano (programmed with U3 firmware), QRP Labs Si5351A Synth kit, LiPo battery, and voltage boost converter. For weight saving, the GPS receiver doesn't use a patch antenna or an external patch antenna. Instead Dave uses a small length of miniature coax, and a wire dipole. The antenna is plenty good enough for good GPS reception.
Dave uses a thin wire 30m dipole suspended from the two hydrogen party balloons. The electronics paylaod is suspended at the center of the dipole.


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Today we had some exciting announcements to make for all of our franchises. Check out the news below!
Sideshow CollectiblesSideshow revealed our newest statuette, StarCraft's Kerrigan, Queen of Blades, sculpted by Mark Newman and Ray Villafane. Two versions of the statuette are being considered: the traditional Infested Queen of Blades AND Primal Kerrigan from Heart of the Swarm. She is on the same scale as our recently released Arthas Sideshow statue in terms of size. Preorders will start later this year.
We also announced the new 1/6-scale Raynor figure, also from StarCraft. This guy is hyper-articulated and has some epic armor as well: his terran marine suit has light mechanisms, chest cartridges that mimic the cold fusion effect, and LEDs accentuating the afterburner effects on his pack. Keep an eye out for preorders coming REALLY soon!
In addition, we showed off the first look at our biggest statue to date: the menacing and majestic Deathwing in grayscale. Check out that wingspan!
Attendees also got to see progress on the upcoming Diablo statue, including LED eyes that glow like the fires of Hell. This infernal beauty will be shipping in November. (We take no responsibility for souls consumed by this incredibly detailed work of art.)
FunkoAnnounced as a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive, this Shadow Illidan Funko vinyl figure (limited quantities available at the show) is part of a new line of Blizzard-themed Funko toys hitting stores in September. Are you prepared?
Along with epic books, you can buy World of Warcraft- and Diablo-themed stationary and poster books now over at Insight Editions. What better way to protect your notes than with Sindragosa or Tyrael?
And as we teased previously, the Diablo III: Book of Tyrael is coming this October!
Blizzard's own Chris Metzen and Wei Wang are collaborating on a World of Warcraft-themed children's book, due to premiere at BlizzCon this year. This book is sure to warm even the Lich King's heart.
Last but not certainly not least, we're excited to be working with Ncca on a new Diablo action figure! Stay tuned for more information on its release.
For more updates and information about Blizzard licensed products at San Diego Comic-Con, be sure to follow @TheLyns on Twitter. If you're attending the convention, you can also stop by the official Blizzard booth (#115) in Hall A!


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Hello everyone! I can't believe it has been over
two weeks since I posted something on my blog.
It seems that this is the time of the year when
life takes over a little and I can't blog as much
as I wish. I have been working on lots of sewing
projects these days but I can show none of them yet,
so in the meantime I want to share with you some
of the fun fabric I have gotten in the past month.
This is the vintage fabric that I found on ebay the other day
that I KNEW I would have to get! Mister Donut is
a donut franchise that you can find anywhere in Japan.
I have never seen a single Mister Donut shop here in
America, so it was surprising to find this being offered
by someone in Illinois. I googled and found that Mister
Donut was actually originally founded in th 50's in
America but was acquired by its competitor, Dunkin Donuts
20 years ago, so almost all the shops of Mister Donut
have changed their names to 'Dunkin Donuts'. How interesting!!
This fabric must have been produced to make something like
curtains or table clothes for the shops, but since it
lost its purposes, it was kept somewhere unused for decades.
Then it eventually decided to travel to join my vintage stash.
Welcome, Mister Donut fabric!! I love you so much!
Just looking at this fabric, I hear "♪Mister Donut♪"
in the head that I have heard over and over on
TV commercials, growing up in Japan.
This is another interesting ebay find.
You know how much I love fabric with writing
and kitchen- food- themed fabric, so I was
really excited to discover this guy. The salvage
says "An original Home Yardage Design 'Australia
Fair'" so I am assuming that it was produced
for a fair in Australia where each of these products
were promoted. I am not sure how old this is. Do you
Australians have any guesses? I was a bit surprised
when I opened the package though, because this print
was about 10 times larger than I expected. I thought
I can cut out each label to make a small pincushion
but it is actually large enough to be a quilt block, haha.
I think I'll cut out those vintage looking words
and do some patchwork.
This is one of the fabrics I got from Japan last week.
It is from Cat and Dog Show collection by Lecien.
I hadn't seen this fabric before, so I am pretty sure
it is out of print already and is pretty rare now.
I bought more than I needed, so I listed a fat quarter
of it in my etsy shop in case you want it ;)
This is also must-be-out-of-print fabric from Lecien.
I found the pink one when I was in Japan two years
ago and I happen to have found it in different colors,
so I snatched them all! I love them. I also listed
a set of these three linen/cotton fabric in my shop.
I have posted this in my flickr a while ago, so it
may not be your first time to see this, but I realized
I had never had a chance to talk about it here.
This is my first attempt to design fabric via Spoonflower.
I was very inspired by this picture posted by
Amy of Amy a la mode and thought how cool it would be
if there were fabric with the design like that.
So I took the courage to design fabric like that!
To tell the truth, I am very embarassed to share
this fabric with you when there are so many
awesome colorful fabrics with strong attention to
details in Spoonflower. I know that this is not
the prettiest fabric I have, but it is special
to me because I designed it :D
I took the liberty of throwing out random words
that just came to my mind when I was designing it.
You can tell how intelligent I am from those words
I picked, huh. It was funny when one of my friends
saw this fabric and told me "Wow this is good, Ayumi!
Although it was designed by a Japanese person,
there are no mistakes! Awesome!" I cracked up!
Oh what made me decide to talk about this fabric here
was that today I found there was one person who
purchased this fabric from Spoonflower!!!!! Oh my
I was sooooo pleased!! And I thought that there could
possibly be somebody else out there who would like the
fabric also..? And if you happen to be the one, (Really? Thank you!)
it is available here at Spoonflower's website.
I'd be super thrilled if you made anything with it
Hope you all have a great day :)


text:
This tool allows you to visualize a sequence (or series) of real functions. With an animation corresponding to the variation of the index, this visualization often gives a very revealing indication on the behavior of the sequence / series.
To visualize numerical sequences or series, please use the tool Sequence plot.
If you don't have a sequence ready to get visualized, try some Samples.
The most recent versionPlease take note that WIMS pages are interactively generated; they are not ordinary HTML files. They must be used interactively ONLINE. It is useless for you to gather them through a robot program.


text:
Ok, so I've encountered this twice in 24 hours. So it's probably worth talking about it.
The preprocessor does a simple text substitution as it works its way through your source files. Sometimes this has "unanticipated" side-effects. When this happens, you'll normally get a "hey, this makes no sense at all" error from the compiler. Here's an example:
$ more c.c #include <ucontext.h> #include <stdio.h> int main() { int FS; FS=0; printf("FS=%i",FS); } $ CC c.c $ CC c.c "c.c", line 6: Error: Badly formed expression. "c.c", line 7: Error: The left operand must be an lvalue. 2 Error(s) detected.
A similar thing happens with g++:
$ /pkg/gnu/bin/g++ c.c c.c: In function 'int main()': c.c:6:7: error: expected unqualified-id before numeric constant c.c:7:6: error: lvalue required as left operand of assignment
The Studio C compiler gives a bit more of a clue what is going on. But it's not something you can rely on:
$ cc c.c "c.c", line 6: syntax error before or at: 1 "c.c", line 7: left operand must be modifiable lvalue: op "="
As you can guess the issue is that FS gets substituted. We can find out what happens by examining the preprocessed source:
$ CC -P c.c $ tail c.i int main ( ) { int 1 ; 1 = 0 ; printf ( "FS=%i" , 1 ) ; }
You can confirm this using -xdumpmacros
to dump out the macros as they are defined. You can combine this with -H to see which header files are included:
$ CC -xdumpmacros c.c 2>&1 |grep FS #define _SYS_ISA_DEFS_H #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 32 #define REG_FSBASE 26 #define REG_FS 22 #define FS 1 ....
If you're using gcc you should use the -E option to get preprocessed source, and the -dD option to get definitions of macros and the include files.


text:
- COVID-19 vaccines are capable of causing damage in a number of different ways. Disturbingly, all these different mechanisms of harm have synergistic effects when it comes to dysregulating your innate and adaptive immune systems and activating latent viruses
- The worst symptoms of COVID-19 are created by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and that is the very thing gene-based COVID vaccines are instructing your body to make
- While the natural spike protein is bad, the spike protein your body produces in response to the vaccine is even worse, as the synthetic RNA has been manipulated in such a way as to create a very robust and unnatural spike protein
- The spike protein is toxic in and of itself, and has the ability to induce vascular, heart and neurological damage
- The COVID-19 vaccine disables the Type I interferon pathway, which explains why vaccinated patients are reporting herpes and shingles infection following COVID-19 vaccination
In this interview, Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., a dream-team in terms of deep insights into the scientific details, explain the problems they see with gene-based COVID-19 vaccines. There is a load of highly useful technical information that you can use to defend your opposition to these dangerous vaccines.
However, unless you have deeply studied molecular biology and genetics, it would be wise to view the video two or three times, as with each review, you will learn more and understand just how dangerous these vaccines are. I recently interviewed Seneff about the excellent paper1 she published on this topic. That interview was featured in COVID Vaccines May Bring Avalanche of Neurological Disease.
In May 2020, I also interviewed Mikovits about the possibility of these vaccines causing reproductive harm and other health problems. At the time, Mikovits warned that fertility rates may drop thanks to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein creating antibodies that attack syncytium, and indeed, we're now starting to see that.
Still, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are recommending pregnant women get these vaccines, as well as children as young as 12, which is unconscionable, considering the potential lifelong risks and impairment of fertility.
The Spike Protein
Is the Bioweapon
As noted by Mikovits, we now know that the worst symptoms of COVID-19 are created by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and that is the very thing these gene-based vaccines are instructing your body to make. But it's far worse, as the vaccines do not cause your body to make the same spike protein as SARS-CoV-2 but one that has been genetically modified, making it far more toxic. So, it's no wonder things are going wrong.
"The SARS-CoV-2 infection never was what they said it was," Mikovits says. "There was no infection asymptomatically. It's a monkey virus coming out of a monkey cell line and that's the problem, but the spike protein is clearly [causing] the disease.
So, you just injected the envelope of HIV … a syncytin gammaretrovirus envelope, and a SARS S2 receptor binding domain. That's not a vaccine. It is the disease-causing agent. It's a bioweapon. So now your cells are all producing that bioweapon and you're going to take out the innate immunity, NK [natural killer] cells and dendritic cells …
You're going to disrupt your white blood cells, your immune response. You're going to turn on an anti-inflammatory cytokine signature in every cell of your body. It exhausts your NK cells' ability to determine infected cells. It's the nightmare we predicted."
The Spike Protein Produced
in Your Body is Highly Unnatural
In her paper, Worse Than The Disease: Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19, published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice and Research in collaboration with Dr. Greg Nigh,2 Seneff explains that a significant part of the problem is that while the natural spike protein is bad, the spike protein your body produces in response to the vaccine is even worse.
The reason for this is because the synthetic RNA has been manipulated in such a way as to create a very unnatural spike protein that result in it not collapsing on itself into the cell once it attaches to the ACE2 receptor, as it normally does. Instead it stays open and attached to the ACE2 receptor, disabling it and causing a host of problems leading to heart, lung, and immune impairment. As explained by Seneff:
"They modified the RNA to make it really sturdy so the enzymes can't break it down … Normally, enzymes that are in your system would just break down that RNA. RNA is very fragile, but they've made it sturdy by putting in PEG [polyethylene glycol], by adding this lipid membrane, and the lipid is positively charged, which causes the cell to be very upset when that goes into the membrane of the cell.
But I think maybe the most disturbing thing is they actually modified the [RNA] code so that it doesn't produce a normal version of the spike protein. It produces a version that has a couple of prolines in it, side by side at the critical place where this spike protein normally would fuse with the cell that it's infecting.
So, the spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptor once it's produced by the human cell … but it's a modified version of the spike protein. It has these two prolines that make it very stiff so that it can't reshape. Normally it would bind to the ACE2 receptor and then it would reshape and go straight into the membrane like a spear.
Because of this redesign, it can't do that, so it sits there on the ACE receptor, exposed … That allows the immune cells to produce antibodies specific to that place where it should be fusing with the cell, the fusion domain. It messes up the fusion domain, keeps the protein open, and prevents the protein from getting in, which means the protein will just stick there on the ACE2 receptor, disabling it.
When you disable ACE2 receptors in the heart, you get heart failure. When you disable them in the lungs, you get pulmonary hypertension. When you do it in the brain, you get stroke. Lots of nasty things happen when you disable ACE2 receptors …
The other thing they've done with the RNA is they've stuck in a lot of extra Gs (guanine) and Cs (cytosine), which makes it much better at making proteins. It's turned up the gain on the natural virus 1,000-fold, making the RNA much more willing to make a protein. So, it'll make a lot more spike protein than you would've had from a natural RNA virus."
Reality Is Exponentially Worse
Than Predicted
With the added information provided by Seneff, Mikovits now believes the reality of these vaccines may be exponentially worse than she initially predicted a year ago. Not only is the lipid nanoparticle a serious hazard, as we've seen with Gardasil and some of the newer hepatitis B vaccines, but we now also have the added issue of unnatural mRNA, made more robust so as to evade its natural breakdown.
As explained by Mikovits, free RNA acts as a danger signal inside your body, so now your system is on red alert for however long the RNA remains viable. Now, by manipulating the RNA code to be enriched in G and C, and configured as if it's a human messenger RNA molecule ready to make protein by adding a polyA tail, the spike protein's RNA sequence in the vaccine looks as if it is part bacteria,3 part human4 and part viral at the same time.
"We use poly(I:C) [a toll-like receptor 3 agonist] to signal the cell to turn on the type I interferon pathway," Mikovits explains, "and because this is an unnatural synthetic envelope, you're not seeing poly(I:C), and you're not [activating] the Type I interferon pathway.
You've bypassed the plasmacytoid dendritic cell, which combined with IL-10, by talking to the regulatory B cells, decides what subclasses of antibodies to put out. So, you've bypassed the communication between the innate and adaptive immune response. You now miss the signaling of the endocannabinoid receptors …
A large part of Dr. [Francis] Ruscetti's and my work over the last 30 years has been to show you don't need an infectious transmissible virus — just pieces and parts of these viruses are worse, because they also turn on danger signals. They act like danger signals and pathogen-associated molecular patterns.
So, it synergistically leaves that inflammatory cytokine signature on that spins your innate immune response out of control. It just cannot keep up with the myelopoiesis [the production of cells in your bone marrow]. Hence you see a skew-away from the mesenchymal stem cell towards TGF-beta regulated hematopoietic stem cells.
This means you could see bleeding disorders on both ends. You can't make enough firetrucks to send to the fire. Your innate immune response can't get there, and then you've just got a total train wreck of your immune system."
With respect to Mikovits' comment that pieces and parts of the virus are actually worse than the whole virus, that is precisely what we have with the COVID vaccines. In last week's interview with Seneff, she explained how the manufacturing process leaves fragmented genetically modified RNA in the vaccine. They are not filtered out and assumed to be harmless, but as Mikovits states, this is not the case. This is being completely missed as one reason why this vaccine is so dangerous.
Latent Viruses May Flare
if You Receive the COVID Vaccine
As noted by Seneff, her and Mikovits' findings mesh well to explain many of the problems we're now seeing from these gene-therapies. For example, vaccinated patients are reporting herpes and shingles infection following COVID-19 vaccination, which you'd expect if your Type I interferon pathway is disabled.
"Basically, you've got these latent viruses that are not bothering you at all until your immune system gets completely distracted by this crazy thing going on in the spleen with all this messenger RNA and all these spike proteins," Seneff says.
"Immune cells are distracted from their other job of keeping these viruses in check. So, you get these other conditions showing up, and there are several. There's Bell's palsy (facial palsy), for example. There are over 1,200 cases of Bell's palsy reported after the vaccine in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
And when you look at the research of what causes that, they really point to the herpes virus and the varicella virus as being the source of Bell's palsy. The Type I interferon system is what you need to keep these guys in check, and so those viruses are getting enabled and they're causing symptoms.
That is actually a very bad sign. If a woman who's pregnant has a herpes flare-up during pregnancy, she has a twofold increased risk of producing an autistic son.
Also, in a study on 200 Parkinson's patients, compared to 200 age- and gender-matched controls, six of those Parkinson's patients had at least one episode of Bell's palsy in the past, whereas none of the controls had. So, it looks to me like the Bell's palsy is an indicator of a future risk of Parkinson's disease."
To summarize, it looks as though pregnant women who are getting the COVID-19 vaccine are at increased risk not only for miscarriage but also for future infertility and having an autistic child. So, please, be careful out there and spread the word.
The best way to treat any disease is to prevent it. These vaccines simply are not decreasing COVID-19 but radically decreasing the health of those who receive it, especially pregnant women that the CDC merely a month ago encouraged to get vaccinated without a shred of safety evidence.
The Importance of
Type I Interferon
Mikovits has done a great deal of research on interferon for the last 40 years. Innate immune interferon makes up your entire frontline defense. People with HIV/AIDS have dysregulated Type I interferon, which allows parasites to gain a solid foothold. Interestingly enough, antiparasitic drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin have been shown to be effective against COVID-19, both prophylactically and in treatment.
Mikovits cites a research paper5 titled War and Peace Between Microbes, which details how HIV-1 interacts with coinfecting viruses, thereby accelerating the disease. Herpes viruses in particular have been implicated as a cause of AIDS. Human herpesvirus 6 (HHVS-6) has also been implicated in myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME-CFS).
In short, these diseases, AIDS and ME-CFS, don't appear until viruses from different families partner up and retroviruses take out the Type 1 interferon pathway.
In short, the COVID-19 vaccines are capable of causing damage in a number of different ways. Disturbingly, all these different mechanisms of harm have synergistic effects when it comes to dysregulating your innate and adaptive immune systems and activating latent viruses. "It's just an explosion of a nightmare of crippling every area of your immune response," Mikovits says.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein
Engineered With HIV
According to Mikovits, there's evidence showing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was engineered by integrating HIV and XMRV proteins. XMRV stands for xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, a human retrovirus that is very similar to endogenous retroviruses also found in other mammals.
XMRV has been linked to ME-CFS. HIV, which can cause AIDS, is another human retrovirus (although as mentioned earlier, HIV does not appear to trigger AIDS all by itself. It needs a coinfection.)
- "Our endogenous gammaretrovirus is called human endogenous retrovirus-W (HERV-W). HERVW is all the way back in genesis in our original endogenous genome. It's a gammaretrovirus that expresses only the envelope, because in retroviruses, the envelope alone is enough to cause the disease. That envelope protein is called syncytin. They're [now] calling it 'spike protein' just to throw us all off," Mikovits says.
According to Mikovits, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was created by introducing a mutation into a molecular clone. Vero E6 monkey tissues are known to be infected with SIV and other gammaretroviruses, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus has markers suggesting it was grown in a Vero E6 cell line, she says.
"So syncytin is the gammaretrovirus; it cross-reacts with the mouse and monkey gammaretroviruses. Monkeys, mice all have syncytin. Endogenous viruses express, especially during hormonal cycles. When it's expressed in the wrong place, like in the brain or the spinal cord, it's long been associated with the inflammatory disease and the destruction of the myelin sheet in multiple sclerosis (MS).
So, syncytin expressed it in the wrong place gives you the paralytics diseases. We know Parkinson's is associated with Type I interferon responses. We're now starting to appreciate that there is low-level expression of our endogenous virome all the time, and that in our innate immune response it's trying to shape and educate our Type I interferon pathways …
The final and biggest problem is these exosomes, because your body's exosomes are like your cells' response to express its regulatory RNAs, small inhibitory RNAs, long-chain non-coding RNA — which Ritchie Shoemaker has long associated with chronic Lyme and ME/CFS — and the TGF-beta I pathway.
TGF-beta I, that's the master switch to turn on which Type I interferon, which [is needed for] myelopoiesis. But these exosomes are packaging not only RNA that you're making, but now you've dysregulated the methylation so you've woken up your endogenous virome, and then syncytin is going to be expressed."
How mRNA Can
Alter Your DNA
In her paper, Seneff also describes how mRNA can, in fact, alter your DNA, essentially integrating the instructions to make spike proteins into your genome. Typically, mRNA cannot be integrated directly into your genes because you need reverse transcriptase.
Reverse transcriptase converts RNA back into DNA (reverse transcription). However, there's a wide variety of reverse transcriptase systems already embedded in our DNA, which makes this possible. This is an area that Mikovits has studied for decades, so, commenting on Seneff's findings, she says:
"When you activate latent and defective viruses, you turn on reverse transcriptase; you turn on the virome. But you also need an integrase gene. So how are retroviruses silenced? [Through] DNA methylation. [When] you throw in a lot of GC-rich regions — you've got that synthetic viral particle [i.e., the vaccine-induced spike protein RNA] — now you've woken up your herpes viruses.
[Latent viruses] are silenced [through] DNA methylation, but as our soil is depleted in minerals, we have people with methylation defects. This is why I said the first people who are going to die are people with inflammatory conditions and cancer."
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein
May Be a Prion
In her paper, Seneff also discusses evidence suggesting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein may be a prion, which is yet another piece of really bad news. "It's absolutely terrifying to me," she says, adding:
"I'm now thinking that may be the worst aspect of these mRNA vaccines, because they're producing this abnormal spike protein that doesn't want to go into the membrane. Prion proteins are known to be membrane proteins. They're alpha-helices in the membrane and then they misfold, becoming beta-sheets in the cytoplasm, and that's what leads to the prion problem.
They form a crystal that draws in other proteins and makes this big mess and builds fibrils and Alzheimer's plaque. The main prion protein is PrP, which is in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease. It's a sort of protein-source infection. It's quite wild because there's no DNA involved, no RNA involved, just protein.
But the thing is, when you have produced a version of mRNA that knows how to spew out tons of a prion protein, the prion proteins become problematic when there's too many of them and the concentration is too high in the cytoplasm.
And the spike proteins that these mRNA vaccines are producing … isn't able to go into the membrane, which I think is going to encourage it to become a problematic prion protein. Then, when you have inflammation, it upregulates alpha-synuclein [a neuronal protein that regulates synaptic traffic and neurotransmitter release].
So, you're going to get alpha-synuclein drawn into misfolded spike proteins, turning into a mess inside the dendritic cells in the germinal centers in the spleen. And they're going to package up all this crud into exosomes and release them. They're then going to travel along the vagus nerve to the brainstem and cause things like Parkinson's disease.
So, I think this is a complete setup for Parkinson's disease. What may happen is that because they got this vaccine, they get Parkinson's disease five years earlier than they would have gotten it otherwise. It's going to push forward the date at which someone who has a propensity towards Parkinson's is going to get it.
And it's probably going to cause people to get Parkinson's who never would have gotten it in the first place — especially if they keep getting the vaccine every year. Every year you do a booster, you bring the date that you're going to get Parkinson's ever closer."
Are Viral Vector Vaccines
Better or Worse?
Two of the four COVID-19 vaccines on the market in Europe and the U.S., AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, are using viral vectors and DNA rather than using nanolipid-coated mRNA. Unfortunately, while potentially slightly less dangerous than Moderna's and Pfizer's mRNA versions, they can still cause significant problems through mechanisms of their own. As explained by Mikovits:
"As mentioned, it's an adenovirus vector expressing the protein. So, the HIV, the XMRV envelope, the syncytin, the HERV-W envelope and the ACE2 are already being expressed in the vector.
With respect to the RNA component, it's less dangerous because you're not going to see much of the mechanisms we've been talking about. But these adenovirus vector protein-producing vaccines are grown in an aborted fetal tissue cell line, so now you've got human syncytin [in there]. You've got 8% of the human genome of another human.
So, again, looking at the communication that has to regulate your Type I interferon response, it's going to give you autoimmunity. In immunocompromised people, it's going to continue to express and that will give you a live infection, and you already have your firetrucks fighting another [infection]. You can't fight a war on three fronts.
I say, 'You only need one shot because it's the most toxic.' It's the most toxic in that sense. We have many mechanisms to degrade RNA, and we can restore methylation machinery. It's a nightmare, but I believe our immune system can break it [the synthetic vaccine mRNA) down."
Can COVID Vaccines 'Shed'
or Transmit Infection?
Disturbingly, it appears the COVID-19 vaccines may also cause trouble for those who decide not to get the shots but spend time in close proximity to people who did. While it cannot be viral shedding, as none of the vaccines use live or even attenuated virus, there appears to be some sort of spike protein transmission going on.
While the spike protein cannot replicate or multiply like a virus, it is toxic in and of itself. In her paper, Seneff details how the spike protein acts as a metabolic poison, capable of triggering pathological damage leading to lung damage and heart and brain diseases:6
"In a series of papers, Yuichiro Suzuki in collaboration with other authors presented a strong argument that the spike protein by itself can cause a signaling response in the vasculature with potentially widespread consequences.
These authors observed that, in severe cases of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 causes significant morphological changes to the pulmonary vasculature … Furthermore, they showed that exposure of cultured human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 subunit was sufficient to promote cell signaling without the rest of the virus components.
Follow-up papers showed that the spike protein S1 subunit suppresses ACE2, causing a condition resembling pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a severe lung disease with very high mortality …
Suzuki et al. (2021) went on to demonstrate experimentally that the S1 component of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, at a low concentration … activated the MEK/ERK/MAPK signaling pathway to promote cell growth. They speculated that these effects would not be restricted to the lung vasculature.
The signaling cascade triggered in the heart vasculature would cause coronary artery disease, and activation in the brain could lead to stroke. Systemic hypertension would also be predicted. They hypothesized that this ability of the spike protein to promote pulmonary arterial hypertension could predispose patients who recover from SARS-CoV-2 to later develop right ventricular heart failure.
Furthermore, they suggested that a similar effect could happen in response to the mRNA vaccines, and they warned of potential long-term consequences to both children and adults who received COVID-19 vaccines based on the spike protein.
An interesting study by Lei et. al. (2021) found that pseudovirus — spheres decorated with the SARS-CoV-2 S1 protein but lacking any viral DNA in their core — caused inflammation and damage in both the arteries and lungs of mice exposed intratracheally.
They then exposed healthy human endothelial cells to the same pseudovirus particles. Binding of these particles to endothelial ACE2 receptors led to mitochondrial damage and fragmentation in those endothelial cells, leading to the characteristic pathological changes in the associated tissue.
This study makes it clear that spike protein alone, unassociated with the rest of the viral genome, is sufficient to cause the endothelial damage associated with COVID-19. The implications for vaccines intended to cause cells to manufacture the spike protein are clear and are an obvious cause for concern."
As explained by Mikovits, the transmission that appears to be occurring from vaccinated individuals to unvaccinated ones is the transmission of exosomes, basically, the spike protein. The problem is these exosomes look like a virus to your immune system, and "If that synthetic nanoparticle is a virus-like particle and they're literally self-assembling, then you've got yourself a synthetic nightmare," she says.
Which Vaccine Is
Most Dangerous?
As for which vaccine might be the most dangerous, Mikovits believes the vector-based DNA vaccines (AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson) are the most dangerous for those with chronic Lyme disease or any inflammatory disease associated with an abnormal host immune response, such as shingles, viral infections or cancer, women who have already received the Gardasil vaccine (as this may predispose them to problems with the lipid nanoparticle), and those with Parkinson's or Huntington-like diseases.
Seneff, meanwhile, worries that children may be susceptible to either type of COVID vaccine, simply because they've already received so many different vaccines. Mikovits agrees, but believes the mRNA vaccines may be more harmful in this age group:
"The most dangerous to the children are the mRNA vaccines because their immune systems are growing, growing, growing, growing. You introduce or you turn on a fire, what happens? All the stem cells that are important for growing that say, 'OK, all is calm in the immune system, go build bone, go build brain cells, go do the pruning with the macrophages.' You can't have your macrophages clearing all the viruses.
And yes, reverse transcriptase is 'on,' it's expressed in telomeres. You're growing. That's the whole idea of everything. All the brakes are off. Same thing in pregnancy. That's why we don't do anything in pregnancy because you've got to stay unmethylated in order to respond to your environment, that endogenous genome of the virome. That's your Type I interferon responses.
You don't want myelopoiesis, you want embryonic development. We're going to see things like Down syndrome … Rett syndrome. Rett syndrome, that's inappropriate DNA methylation in little girls. So, for the kids, the worst thing in the world is the RNA vaccines."
What Can We Expect
to See More Of?
While the variety of diseases we may see a rise in as a result of this vaccination campaign are myriad, some general predictions can be made. Seneff believes we'll see a significant rise in cancer, accelerated Parkinson's-like diseases, Huntington's disease, and all types of autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative disorders.
Mikovits suspects many will die rather rapidly. "We have evidence in the HTLV-1 associated myelopathy that these things go from long latency periods to [putting] you in a wheelchair in six months," she says. "So, with all these other toxins combined hitting you, it's not going to be 'live and suffer forever.' It's going to be suffer five years and die."
She likens the COVID-19 vaccines to a "kill switch" for all who have been previously injured by vaccines, whether they actually realize it or not. As noted by Mikovits, it's been shown that 6% of the American population are asymptomatically infected with XMRVs and gammaretroviruses from contaminated vaccines. The COVID shot will effectively accelerate their death by crippling their immune function. "The kids that are highly vaccinated, they're ticking time bombs," she says.
What Are the Solutions?
While all of this is highly problematic, there is help. As noted by Mikovits, remedies to the maladies that might develop post-vaccination include:
- Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin treatments
- Low-dose antiretroviral therapy to reeducate your immune system
- Low-dose interferons such as Paximune, developed by interferon researcher Dr. Joe Cummins, to stimulate your immune system
- Peptide T (an HIV entry inhibitor derived from the HIV envelope protein gp120; it blocks binding and infection of viruses that use the CCR5 receptor to infect cells)
- Cannabis, to strengthen Type I interferon pathways
- Dimethylglycine or betaine (trimethylglycine) to enhance methylation, thereby suppressing latent viruses
- Silymarin or milk thistle to help cleanse your liver
From my perspective, I believe the best thing you can do is to build your innate immune system. To do that, you need to become metabolically flexible and optimize your diet. You'll also want to make sure your vitamin D level is optimized to between 60 ng/mL and 80 ng/mL (100 nmol/L to 150 nmol/L), ideally through sensible sun exposure. Sunlight also has other benefits besides making vitamin D.
Use time-restricted eating and eat all your meals for the day within a six- to eight-hour window. Avoid all vegetable oils and processed foods. Focus on certified-organic foods to minimize your glyphosate exposure, and include plenty of sulfur-rich foods to keep your mitochondria and lysosomes healthy. Both are important for the clearing of cellular debris, including these spike proteins. You can also boost your sulfate by taking Epsom salt baths.
To combat the toxicity of the spike protein, Seneff suggests optimizing autophagy, which may help digest and remove the spike proteins. Time-restricted eating will upregulate autophagy, while sauna therapy, which upregulates heat shock proteins, will help refold misfolded proteins. They also tag damaged proteins and target them for removal.
It is important that your sauna is hot enough (around 170 degrees Fahrenheit) and does not have high magnetic or electric fields. Last but not least, Mikovits recommends never getting another vaccination.
"We knew the flu shot would drive the disease," she says. "It's the combinations. That's a ticking time bomb sitting there in every cell. So never get another vaccine and be very careful about drugs that compromise your immune system.
The answer is, don't hyper-immune activate. Don't eat GMO. Don't ingest it and don't inject it. And don't put it on your skin. Don't use toxins on your hair. Use essential oils, use antimicrobials … ozonated balms and creams break apart the lipid particles, cannabis balms and creams normalize skin, [which is part of] your immune system …
Remember, immune dysfunction accelerates every time you add an immune activation event. So, if the entire world never again took another shot, even the most susceptible populations, they could stay well … We really have to say no more shots because they're the single biggest toxin to anyone, and an immune dysregulator."


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Prior to being approved for a reverse mortgage, HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) requires each borrow to participate in a counseling session with an approved agency. These not-for-profit agencies are funded by the federal government and work closely with both the FHA and lenders to ensure a smooth process.
The goal of this session is not to steer a potential borrower in one direction or another, but to make sure they clearly understand all aspects of a reverse mortgage.
Here is what you can expect at your counseling session:
The potential borrower will need to schedule an appointment directly with a counseling agency. The lender does not initiate or take part in the session, but can provide you with resources to seek out a counselor. The session will take place in person or over the phone – although the FHA recommends a face-to-face meeting whenever possible.
Prior to your appointment, the counseling agency will provide you with a packet of information to allow you to prepare for the session. During the session the counselor will discuss your immediate and long-term financial needs, your reasons for seeking out a reverse mortgage, address any questions or concerns you may have, and clearly educate you on the process as well as the pros and cons of a reverse mortgage. Again, they are not there to "sell" you on the product, but to educate instead.
Once you have completed the counseling session, you will be provided with a "Certificate of Completion". This certificate verifies to your lender that you have completed the counseling session and that you understand the essentials of a reverse mortgage. Your counselor will also follow up with you to ensure you have no further needs, questions, or concerns.
Jan Jordan is a Reverse Mortgage Specialist serving the Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, Longmont, Boulder and other Front Range areas of Colorado, as well as the Cheyenne and Laramie communities of Wyoming. Contact Jan to learn if reverse mortgage is right for you.


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Cavaliers to face a struggling Hawks squad
The Atlanta Hawks suddenly find themselves mired in their longest losing streak of the season.
Fortunately for them, another matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers is up next.
Looking to get back on track, the visiting Hawks try for a ninth win in 10 games against the injury-plagued Cavaliers on Wednesday night.
After falling 85-84 at Detroit on Friday and 89-81 to Boston the following night, Atlanta (20-13) suffered another disheartening loss Tuesday, 108-103 at Minnesota. Josh Smith and Al Horford posted double-doubles with a combined 40 points and 24 rebounds but the Hawks were outscored 50-38 in the paint and committed 16 turnovers to the Timberwolves' 10.
They haven't dropped four in a row since closing the 2010-11 season on a six-game slide.
"There's some guys in there that are going to have to be held accountable," said coach Larry Drew, whose team has gone 7-2 in the second of back-to-backs. "As we move forward, if this doesn't change, there's going to have to be some changes. That's plain and simple. I'm not going to sit back and watch our guys come out and not be energized to play. That's totally unacceptable."
With the way things have gone of late, a visit to Cleveland (8-28) could be just what Atlanta needs to regroup. The Hawks have taken four straight at Quicken Loans Arena by an average of 13.0 points, most recently pulling out a 102-94 victory Dec. 28.
Atlanta has also won eight of nine in this series overall, with its only loss coming 113-111 on Alonzo Gee's putback with less than a second left Nov. 30. Kyrie Irving missed that game with a broken finger but Anderson Varejao had 20 points and 18 boards.
Varejao, though, is expected to miss his 11th consecutive contest Wednesday due to a knee injury that was originally supposed to only keep him out a couple games. The Brazil native is averaging 14.1 points and a league-high 14.4 rebounds.
"It's disappointing," Irving said. "We miss his effort. And more or less his intelligence as a basketball player. When he's not out there, we lose a little bit of leadership, but most importantly, we lose effort. We got 14 and 14 from him every single night. We miss that right now."
The Cavaliers enter this game in a 1-5 funk after getting blown out 118-92 at Chicago on Monday - their 11th straight loss in that series. Irving had scored a combined 63 points in his previous two games but was limited to 15 on 4-of-11 shooting for Cleveland, which was outrebounded 47-31 and outscored 54-36 in the lane.
The Cavaliers led 30-22 after the first quarter but were outscored by at least 10 in each of the next three.
"Just don't get the stops that we need, and that's basically what it boils down to," said Irving, averaging 28.5 points in his last two meetings with Atlanta.
"We just gotta get through it and stay mentally tough. ... We're just gonna continue to get better - we're a young team obviously, but just gotta learn every single day."
In addition to Varejao, the Cavaliers could be without C.J. Miles and Daniel Gibson. Miles is averaging 17.4 points over his last five games but could be held out after leaving in the third quarter Monday due to back spasms. Gibson, meanwhile, has been sidelined since suffering a concussion against Atlanta last month.
Luke Walton is also uncertain to be available due to personal reasons.


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Sorry, there aren't any EV charging stations in or near Ideal.
Tax incentives and/or other incentives for drivers of electric vehicles in Ideal.
Alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) displaying the proper alternative fuel license plate may use HOV and HOT lanes, regardless of the number of passengers. Qualified AFVs may also use the HOT lanes toll-free. AFVs include electric vehicles and bi-fuel or dual-fuel vehicles that operate on natural gas or propane. Applicants must provide proof they have paid registration fees in full before receiving the license plate. This exemption expires September 30, 2025. For more information on fees and eligibility for the AFV license plate, see the Georgia Department of Public Safety websites.
(Reference Georgia Code 32-9-4, 40-2-86.1, and 40-6-54)
Georgia Power offers a TOU rate for residential customers who own an EV. Eligible customers must own a smart meter capable of separately measuring EV charger usage. For more information, see the Georgia Power Plug-In Electric Vehicles website.
All-electric vehicles are subject to an annual licensing fee of $316.40 for commercial vehicles and $210.87 for non-commercial vehicles. These fees also apply to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and flexible fuel vehicles, but only if they have an AFV license plate.
AFV license plates are subject to a one-time manufacturing fee of $25, an annual $20 registration fee, and a $35 special tag fee. Electric, natural gas, propane, bi-fuel, and dual-fuel vehicles are eligible for an AFV license plate.
For more information, see the Georgia Department of Revenue Motor Vehicle Policy Bulletin and the Annual AFV Fee website.
(Reference Georgia Code 40-2-86.1 and 40-2-151)
Georgia utilities joined the National Electric Highway Coalition (NEHC), committing to create a network of direct current fast charging (DCFC) stations connecting major highway systems from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific of the United States. NEHC utility members agree to ensure efficient and effective fast charging deployment plans that enable long distance EV travel, avoiding duplication among coalition utilities, and complement existing corridor DCFC sites. For more information, including a list of participating utilities and states, see the NEHC website.
An income tax credit is available for 10% of the cost to convert a vehicle to natural gas, electricity, propane, and hydrogen, up to $2,500 per vehicle. Converted vehicles must be fueled solely by an alternative fuel and must meet the emissions standards for low-emission or zero emission vehicles defined by the Board of Natural Resources. For more information, see the Georgia Environmental Protection Division Clean Vehicle Related Tax Credits website.
(Reference Georgia Code 48-7.40.16)
Find all electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in and/or near Ideal (Georgia). Search and compare local EV charging stations in Ideal, and find a convenient location to charge your car.


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To Western scholars and specialists Salafism holds a double fascination: foremost it is treated as the fountainhead of jihadist ideology; second Salafism's uncompromising socio-religious doctrine is widely believed to be inimical to integration and community cohesion. A recent book offers a stunningly in-depth treatment of the foundational doctrine of Salafi ideology, namely Al-Wala' wal Bara'.
Mohamed Bin Ali', The Roots of Religious Extremism: Understanding the Salafi Doctrine of Al-Wala' wal Bara', London: Imperial College Press, 2016, 300 p.
Mahan Abedin is a research journalist specialising in Islamic affairs.


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Category Archives: sisterhood
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Canvas, Act 2
I have so many things to share with you! The Sisterhood of the Traveling Canvas has begun their own Blog!! We will be sharing in a sisterly fashion, all about our art journeys and include information about where we are going, what we are doing, glimpses into our art and personal lives, and lots of artsy goodies along the way. This blog will be all about sharing our love of Art and each other. We hope our little community will inspire you to create your own little communities, to share in the joys and sorrows of an artistic life.
The first order of business over there is to begin spreading the word about our contribution to aid the fight against Breast Cancer. We have joined The Pink Team and offered up the lovely canvas AND the journal that are featured in the current Somerset Studio! They will be raffled off in a very cool way. This cause has become near and dear to my heart as my step mom was diagnosed right at printing time of our article. It was our intent to auction the work and journal off for a charity right from the start, but when I shared with my sisters of my step mom's diagnosis, they stepped right up to the plate and agreed to donate our proceeds to this worthy cause.
Sisterhood of the Traveling Canvas
And then there's the 'Sisterhood'. Eight women who came together on the Etsy forums to form the bonds of friends and sisters. Sharing techniques, giving advice, sharing the joys and sorrows of everyday life. Our own little community supporting each other in the way that only another artist can.


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Similarity Index: Key Pump
Key Pump by Kilo Labs, a pump supplement, shares at least 75% of its ingredient profile with one other supplement product.
The Similarity Index is a percentage describing how closely the two products' ingredient profiles are. A similarity index of 100% means they are made up of the same ingredients. A similarity index of 75% means they share 75% of the same ingredients. Click on a product below to see a side by side ingredient comparison.
Matching Supplement Products
Matching Product Name | Product Type | Similarity Index | |
1. | Big Boy*2 by Ballistic Supps | Pre-Workout Supplements | 75.00% |


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Blood Type Linked to Earlier Decline in Fertility
A woman's blood type may yield clues to her fertility, a new study suggests. The results show that, of a group of women in their 30s who sought medical fertility help, those with blood type O were more likely than women with other blood types to have diminished ovarian reserve, meaning their ovaries had few eggs or had eggs unlikely to meet with success during in vitro fertilization procedures. Type O blood is the most common type in the United States. "I don't want the message to be that women in the healthy population should be petrified that their blood type may predict compromised fertility," said study author Lubna Pal, who researches reproductive endocrinology at the Yale University School of Medicine. But if the study's link is shown to hold up for other women, then the connection may provide a tool for earlier, more accurate fertility prognoses, Pal said. The study was published online on June 26 in the journal Human Reproduction. Babies and blood types Fertility doctors expect to see diminished ovarian reserve in patients in their late 30s and 40s, but sometimes it strikes early. "There is a subgroup of women," Pal said, who are young but whose bodies act as if they're older. "There is a lesser number of eggs in those ovaries." Researchers measure levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) to see if a woman may have diminished ovarian reserve; high levels usually indicate that she does. Although most young, healthy women do not get their FSH levels measured during routine checkups, women visiting fertility centers do. Pal and her colleagues studied the FSH levels of 544 women, whose average age was 35, seeking fertility help in Connecticut and New York. After taking into account the effects of age, they discovered that women with blood type O were twice as likely as those with blood types A and AB to have FSH levels high enough to indicate they had diminished ovarian reserve. Women with blood types A and AB were generally less likely than others to have FSH levels indicating diminished ovarian reserve, the study showed. There were too few women with blood type B in the study for the researchers to determine statistically if their ovarian reserve was affected. For young women with type O blood, "maybe routine testing should be the way to go," to determine their risk of fertility problems later in life, Pal said. How and why? Because Pal's study included only women seeking fertility treatment, she cautioned that the findings of her study do not apply to the general population. However, "having said that, we have enough reasons to be worried about high FSH levels in someone who's not infertile," she said. If a young, healthy woman came in to her office and had elevated FSH levels, "I would be testing that woman" for other signs of decreased fertility, she said. Researchers need to determine whether the relationship between blood type and fertility is consistent across national and global populations, and if it exists in healthy women, Pal said, then scientists need to ask: "How does it work?"
Pal hypothesized that the same molecular machinery that determines blood type could affect ovarian cells. Red blood cells have an identifier molecule that sticks out of the cell surface like a flagpole. People with blood types A, AB, and B have enzymes that modify the end of the flagpole, a process similar to raising a flag on the pole. In blood type O, no flag is raised. It's possible that some part of the process that raises the flag in blood type A and is missing in type O also performs some unknown function in ovarian cells, Pal said. "It is certainly possible" that these processes at work in blood type also at work in the ovary, "but there is little hard evidence to that effect," said Pamela Stanley, a professor of cell biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who was not involved in the study Further understanding of the connection between blood type O and diminished ovarian reserve would be a good thing, Pal said. If the results of the study are replicated in healthy populations, women with blood type O might start having "the ticking clock conversation" in their early 20s, she said. Then, anyone deemed at risk for diminished ovarian reserve could avoid "complicating factors like being a smoker," she said. "Ovarian reserve is like a retirement account," Pal said. "You don't worry about your retirement account only after you've retired. You need to keep an eye on your retirement account throughout your productive years." Pass it on: A woman's blood type and ability to conceive may be related, but lifestyle can also affect fertility.
This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, sister site to LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND
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