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I started this blog/space, to connect and share within the diabetes community. The switch from thinking about writing a blog to actually doing it (years ago), came from a prompt I read from Karen Graffeo at Bitter Sweet about participating in Diabetes Blog Week. I don't write many posts on this blog recently and I don't spend as much time within the DOC as I once did, but that doesn't delineate how much I value this sense of community, the connections I've made, and that this blog led me to expand my own role as an advocate. The connections I have made with others has become a vital part of my own wellbeing both physically and mentally. I have gathered knowledge and most importantly, I have made amazing friends through the diabetes online community (DOC) that are now part of my In Real Life (IRL) world and that is priceless to me.
Today is the first day of this year's Blog Week and here is the topic:
Lets kick off the week by talking about why we are here, in the diabetes blog space. What is the most important diabetes awareness message to you? Why is that message important for you, and what are you trying to accomplish by sharing it on your blog? (Thank you, Heather Gabel, for this topic suggestion.)
I do not like the photo below. My arm looks the diameter of my thigh (it is not, yet), the wrinkles in my face seem accentuated, and there appears to be a baby's foot growing out of my wrist. I do not like this photo, but I do LOVE this photo. This is friendship, admiration and joy.
This is my friend Karen. Karen was on my radar years ago because I read her comments in DOC twitter chats and I also read her blog. She's a fellow T1D, lives in the same city that I do and when I was trying to learn about T1D and pregnancy, she was someone who I knew had experience.
We met in real life through JDRF at a group event. Participants included DOC-ers from 3 JDRF chapters who decided to get together for dinner beforehand. Karen freaked out during our initial conversation. She knew of me through the JDRF NYC Walk (walk team). I freaked out too (just far less visibly and audibly) when I realized this was the woman whose blog I'd been reading and following around the internet.
We became friends. My friendship with Karen came with "accessories"… her husband and now 2 kids (please note: "accessories" is sarcasm folks. Her husband gave me a pep talk one time that I will always carry in my heart). They are all my friends and I love them dearly. Diabetes brought us together, specifically the DOC, and as much as I hate diabetes, I love my friend. LOVE.
We may talk about things far beyond diabetes, we may laugh so hard we can't speak to each other, and my life is richer because this family is in it, but I am aware that I would probably not know them if it weren't for diabetes, so why am I here… today, rushing to type this post? After an incredibly frustrating and annoying high BG and a messy pump site change in my office's bathroom, Karen popped into my mind and that we need to make plans soon. I text her a much shorter version of what I wrote above and explained that as frustrated as I may be, that diabetes sucks and she doesn't (that's always a nice text message, "you don't suck"). Diabetes gave me my friend. My hope being here today as part of Blog Week, is that it's a reminder of just how vital and wonderful these DOC friendships are and all it takes is ONE connection (I have many in my squad so please, no one be offended because these friendships are my wellness team).
A few weeks ago I went on a bike ride, I text Karen who happened to be right near my destination and subsequently had a cheer squad yelling my name (imagine Smurf voices) as the kiddos ran to my bike. It was just awesome and although I did some more formal diabetes advocacy this morning, my buddies are what I celebrate in this blog post today.


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We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.
Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

subset: commoncrawl


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As a blogger, I'm often asked to explain, "Why do I blog?" Frequently people assume the goal is to get a cookbook deal. That's not why I blog and I'm not working towards a cookbook deal nor have I pitched one to a publisher. However, I have said that should one ever fall in my lap, I would certainly take it. I have said that to so many people over the years and I can still hear my voice saying that. It's always been more of a joke and I was sure that would never happen.
Here I am in total shock. Last week, I was offered a cookbook deal! By a really lovely editor!! And… I didn't take it!!!


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What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians
Recognition would imply acceptance that they deserve to be treated as subhumans. Since the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel and much of the West have asserted that the principal obstacle to any progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace is the refusal of Hamas to "recognize Israel," or to "recognize Israel's existence," or to "recognize Israel's right to exist."
These three verbal formulations have been used by Israel, the United States, and the European Union as a rationale for collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The phrases are also used by the media, politicians, and even diplomats interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing. They do not. "Recognizing Israel" or any other state is a formal legal and diplomatic act by one state with respect to another state. It is inappropriate – indeed, nonsensical – to talk about a political party or movement extending diplomatic recognition to a state. To talk of Hamas "recognizing Israel" is simply to use sloppy, confusing, and deceptive shorthand for the real demand being made of the Palestinians. "Recognizing Israel's existence" appears on first impression to involve a relatively straightforward acknowledgment of a fact of life. Yet there are serious practical problems with this language. What Israel, within what borders, is involved? Is it the 55 percent of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78 percent of historical Palestine occupied by the Zionist movement in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as "Israel" or "Israel proper"? The 100 percent of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and shown as "Israel" (without any "Green Line") on maps in Israeli schoolbooks? Israel has never defined its own borders, since doing so would necessarily place limits on them. Still, if this were all that was being demanded of Hamas, it might be possible for the ruling political party to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a state of Israel exists today within some specified borders. Indeed, Hamas leadership has effectively done so in recent weeks. "Recognizing Israel's right to exist," the actual demand being made of Hamas and Palestinians, is in an entirely different league. This formulation does not address diplomatic formalities or a simple acceptance of present realities. It calls for a moral judgment. There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba – the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 – is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the Nakba to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven. To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point. Some believe that Yasser Arafat did concede the point in order to buy his ticket out of the wilderness of demonization and earn the right to be lectured directly by the Americans. But in fact, in his famous 1988 statement in Stockholm, he accepted "Israel's right to exist in peace and security." This language, significantly, addresses the conditions of existence of a state which, as a matter of fact, exists. It does not address the existential question of the "rightness" of the dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people from their homeland to make way for another people coming from abroad. The original conception of the phrase "Israel's right to exist" and of its use as an excuse for not talking with any Palestinian leaders who still stood up for the rights of their people are attributed to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It is highly likely that those countries that still employ this phrase do so in full awareness of what it entails, morally and psychologically, for the Palestinian people. However, many people of goodwill and decent values may well be taken in by the surface simplicity of the words, "Israel's right to exist," and believe that they constitute a reasonable demand. And if the "right to exist" is reasonable, then refusing to accept it must represent perversity, rather than Palestinians' deeply felt need to cling to their self-respect and dignity as full-fledged human beings. That this need is deeply felt is evidenced by polls showing that the percentage of the Palestinian population that approves of Hamas's refusal to bow to this demand substantially exceeds the percentage that voted for Hamas in January 2006. Those who recognize the critical importance of Israeli-Palestinian peace and truly seek a decent future for both peoples must recognize that the demand that Hamas recognize "Israel's right to exist" is unreasonable, immoral, and impossible to meet. Then, they must insist that this roadblock to peace be removed, the economic siege of the Palestinian territories be lifted, and the pursuit of peace with some measure of justice be resumed with the urgency it deserves. |
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If Americans Knew distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material, sometimes without the permission of the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of the Israel/Palestine conflict. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without profit for purely educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. This website is printer-friendly. Please Print this article and share it with your friends and family. IF AMERICANS KNEW |


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Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake and Palmer Dies
Keith Emerson, the outsized co-founding keyboardist in Emerson Lake and Palmer has committed suicide at 71, according to both Billboard and TMZ. He'd reportedly been suffering from depression over a degenerative nerve issue in one hand that had sharply curtailed his ability to play, TMZ added.
Long-time bandmate Carl Palmer said Emerson passed last night (March 10) in Santa Monica, Calif., though he gave no further details on the manner. ELP later confirmed Emerson's death, as well.
"Keith was a gentle soul whose love for music and passion for his performance as a keyboard player will remain unmatched for many years to come," Palmer said. "He was a pioneer and an innovator whose musical genius touched all of us in the worlds of rock, classical and jazz."
Law enforcement sources apparently have told TMZ that Emerson was found by his girlfriend with a single gunshot to the head. Billboard says his death is being investigated as a suicide.
Emerson Lake and Palmer hadn't performed together since 2010, when they staged a 40th anniversary reunion at the High Voltage Festival in London. Their most recent studio effort was 1994's In the Hot Seat. Since, Emerson had regularly collaborated with Marc Bonilla. They released 2008's Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla, 2009's Boys Club: Live From California (which also featured Glenn Hughes) and 2012's The Three Fates Project.
The keyboardist first rose to wide fame as a member of the Nice, earning initial widespread notice by turning a 1968 instrumental rearrangement of Leonard Bernstein's "America" into a proto-prog protest song. Two years later, Emerson joined Palmer and Greg Lake in forming one of progressive rock's best-known early bands.
Emerson Lake and Palmer's first five studio albums, each featuring heady combinations of rock and classical themes, reached the U.S. Top 20. Emerson also conceptualized their 1971 live project Pictures at an Exhibition, a 37-minute rock adaptation of Mussorgsky's piece of the same name. Still, as technically gifted as he was, Emerson may be best remembered for the sense of high-stakes drama that he brought to the stage.
Over the years, the flamboyant Emerson played on a rotating platform, destroyed an organ in order to create a feedback-laden soundscape, set explosions to go off, and performed on a specially rigged piano that turned end over end. He would reach into the instrument to pluck a piano string, or use a knife given to him by former Nice roadie Lemmy Kilmister to hold down the keys. That same sense of adventure translated into the studio. ELP's debut single "Lucky Man" finds Emerson trying out a new Moog for the very first time.
"I will always remember his warm smile, good sense of humor, compelling showmanship, and dedication to his musical craft," Palmer added. "I am very lucky to have known him and to have made the music we did, together."
Emerson's first solo work arrived in the early '80s, a few years after ELP closed out their initial era of albums with 1978's Love Beach. Emerson Lake and Palmer subsequently reunited for two more '90s-era albums, but only after Emerson took part in a pair of offshoot bands. He and Lake joined Cozy Powell for 1986's Emerson Lake and Powell, then Emerson and Palmer collaborated with Robert Berry on 1988's 3. Emerson reunited with Lake again for a duo tour a few years ago, dates the ultimately produced 2014's Live from Manticore Hall.
Rockers We've Lost in 2016


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Beyoncé, Gaga offer hope at all-star event fighting COVID-19
NEW YORK-The Associated Press
REUTERS File Photo
Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Lizzo, Shawn Mendes and others sang classic songs brimmed with messages of hope and change during a TV special aimed at fighting the coronavirus, while Beyoncé and Alicia Keys spoke passionately about how the virus has disproportionately affected black Americans.
Beyoncé made a surprise appearance on April 18's TV special "One World: Together At Home," thanking "delivery workers, mail carriers and sanitation employees" for their hard work during the pandemic.
"Black Americans disproportionately belong to these essential parts of the workforce that do not have the luxury of working from home. And African American communities at large have been severely affected in this crisis. Those with pre-existing conditions are at an even higher risk. This virus is killing black people at an alarmingly high rate here in America," Beyoncé said.
African Americans account for more than one-third of COVID-19 deaths in the United States where the race of victims has been made public. Data from states, cities and counties show black people are regularly overrepresented compared to their share of the population.
"Please protect yourselves," Beyoncé continued. "We are one family. We need you. We need your voices, your abilities and your strength all over this word. I know it's very hard but please be patient, stay encouraged, keep the faith, stay positive and continue to pray for our heroes."
An Associated Press analysis, based on data through April 16, found that of the more than 21,500 victims whose demographic data was known and disclosed by officials, more than 6,350 were black, a rate of nearly 30 percent. African Americans account for 14.2 percent of the 241 million people who live in the areas covered by the analysis. The nation had recorded more than 33,000 deaths as of Thursday.
Keys presented similar data when she spoke during the special, ending with: "Keep your frequency high and I'm sending you all my love."
Gaga, who curated the all-star TV event, kicked off it off by urging people weathering the coronavirus pandemic to find a way to smile through the pain with a performance of Nat King Cole's version of the song "Smile."
She performed during the second part of an eight-hour event supporting the World Health Organization alongside advocacy organization Global Citizen.
"I care so much about the medical workers that are putting their lives at risk for us," Gaga said.
Wonder performed "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers — who died on March 30 — while playing piano. He told viewers: "During hardships like this we have to lean on each other for help." John Legend and Sam Smith, each from their own homes, duetted on "Stand by Me"; Lizzo sang "A Change Is Gonna Come" with passion; and Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, sitting together, performed "What a Wonderful World."
Paul McCartney sang the Beatles' "Lady Madonna" and talked about the work his mother did as a nurse. The members of the Rolling Stones — from four different locations — joined forces to perform "You Can't Always Get What You Want." And Taylor Swift sang "Soon You'll Get Better" while playing piano.
Former first ladies Michelle Obama and Laura Bush, Oprah Winfrey, Bill and Melinda Gates, Ellen DeGeneres, Pharrell Williams, Kerry Washington, Lupita Nyong'o and Henry Golding offered positive words while photos of health care workers and everyday people were shown on the screen. Reggaeton star J Balvin even offered tips on handwashing, while doctors and other medical workers spoke about social distancing and relief efforts.
"One World: Together At Home" featured stars appearing in intimate settings, beamed virtually to the world. It aired simultaneously on ABC, NBC, CBS, iHeartMedia and Bell Media networks and was hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel.
Colbert told viewers to "take out their wallets and put them away." Kimmel added that over $50 million had already been raised to help those during the worldly crisis.
Performers included Billie Eilish and her producer-brother Finneas, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, Kacey Musgraves, Maluma and Keith Urban. Gaga, Legend, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli and Lang Lang closed the special with a collaborative performance of "The Prayer."
Earlier in the day, a six-hour streaming event featuring Andra Day, Niall Horan, Kesha, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Heidi Klum and Jason Segel aired on digital platforms as part of the "One World: Together At Home" event.
"It's Kesha from quarantine day 500. I miss my fans so much," Kesha said, sitting in front of her fireplace as her cat made noises in the background. "I know that there's so many people working and not sleeping and sacrificing so much to help figure this out for everyone and I just think the vulnerability of us all as human beings right now is really showing a really beautiful side to humanity."
Country singer Maren Morris, rock performer Hozier, British star Rita Ora and Emirati singer Hussain Al Jassmi also performed during the early part of the special, which included videos focused on health care workers on the front lines fighting the spreading coronavirus. It also aired a package of people getting married — some in front of their homes, others inside — during the pandemic.


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Hermes Birkin – Special Order
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- Color Chartreuse, Parchemin
- Material Taurillion Clemence
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- Size 35cm × 25cm × 18cm
- Condition Vintage
- Availability Enquire


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AIFRTE Statement on suicide by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula
"I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.
I loved Science. Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. . . . The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind."
[Rohith Vemula's last letter to the 'ASA family' before his suicide at the University of Hyderabad's campus on 17th January 2016]
The death of Rohith Vemula, a self-conscious and political Ambedkarite-Marxist academic who was pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has ripped open the façade of a democratic society and polity where all sections and opinions can claim equal space and rights. AIFRTE lowers its head in shame that the future of a young mind of such promise should have been cut short by a callously uncaring caste-divided society. We condemn the prominent and direct role of ministers of the present ruling party and of the organizations affiliated to its caste-protectionist ideology for their direct involvement in setting the stage this tragedy. AIFRTE also recognizes that the malaise of Brahminical domination runs deeper into institutions and structures of our society and polity. Caste discrimination and oppression in various forms has been institutionalized even in the so-called premier institutions of learning. This needs to be recognized to effectively challenge and annihilate caste otherwise these institutional killings and violence will continue unabated.
As leading activists of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA), Rohith and his colleagues consistently fought for the democratic and human rights of students and hence had fallen foul of right-wing Hindutva forces on the campus and their student wing the ABVP. The details of the events that led to the suspension of five Dalit scholars of the UoH have become shamefully common across campuses and communities in India. Any lifestyle, activity or political expression that does not conform to positions taken by the self-proclaimed 'nationalist' Hindutva right-wing forces is typically confronted through vigilante attacks and dubbed divisive, communal/casteist and anti-national. It is then politically and administratively treated as such under the present regime. This signals the descent of government institutions and functioning into a network of fascist practices and represents a serious threat to the struggle for protecting and expanding the democratic rights of the mass of the Indian people who suffer numerous forms of socio-economic oppression and discrimination.
At the UoH the ASA's screening of the film Muzzafarnagar Baqi Hai was sought to be disrupted by the ABVP. When student resistance defeated their intentions, the ABVP leaders and supporters resorted to social media to post abuses and caste-based hate speech against ASA activists. Forced to give a public apology when faced with the anger of the students, the ABVP claimed that its leader had been physically assaulted by ASA activists. A university inquiry committee came to the conclusion that no conclusive evidence supported this complaint and hence the ASA activists could not be held responsible for any such attack. At this point, ABVP brought in current Union MoS for Labour and BJP's Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattareya to demand that Minister of HRD Smriti Irani use her 'dynamic leadership' to ensure that University authorities do not remain 'mute spectators' to the actions of 'extremist, casteist, divisive and anti-national' elements on campus. Irani promptly forwarded the letter to the V.C. demanding to know what action the University was taking in pursuance of Dattareya's complaint. A formal letter was sent to the University authorities in September 2015 following which the Proctorial Board recommended strict action against five ASA student activists for manhandling the ABVP student leader, a recommendation which was rejected by the then V.C. Prof. R.C. Sharma who retired shortly after this. The new V.C. Dr. Appa Rao was clearly under pressure and took the decision to suspend the students. Following more letters and e-mails from MHRD through October and November 2015, on December 17th the University rejected the students' appeals denying all charges. On 7th January 2016, the suspension was made 'conditional' by barring the students from their hostels and from all non-academic and political activities on the campus.
This clearly meant that the students were subjected to a totally unconstitutional political and social boycott, which was aggravated by the fact of their status as Dalits. The experience of social exclusion and denial of dignity of Dalit scholars even at the highest level of academic and professional education in various institutes and universities as evidence of a deeply entrenched sense of caste hatred and revulsion in a society dominated by upper castes is by now an open secret. However, the recent actions taken by the authorities in many such institutes, for example IIT Madras, against politically conscious Ambedkarite groups – usually in conditions of direct confrontation with and in response to charges leveled by right-wing Hindutva forces – points to a heightened threat perception by the latter when they are faced with the growing confidence of radical, organized Dalit youth. Under the banner of the emancipatory ideologies associated with towering leaders like Periyar and Ambedkar these groups are steadily mounting a reasoned and open challenge to caste based Hindu ideology and refusing to be incorporated as socio-political appendages to organizations like the RSS and its Sangh Parivar affiliates that blatantly glorify caste as a celebration of ancient Hindu achievement.
Another shocking fact is that through the entire process of the University's flip-flop decision-making, Rohith had been denied his fellowship from July 2015 onwards. This violates the fundamental principle of all democratic norms of investigation of charges against persons that such punitive actions cannot be taken until the entire process of investigation is completed. It was a calculated move to financially mount severe pressure on students struggling for their political and intellectual rights and makes the university authorities and the V.C. responsible for driving the young scholar to his death.
AIFRTE therefore demands that
• Minister of HRD Smriti Irani and MOS Labour Bandaru Dattareya be immediately dropped from the Union Cabinet for their role in aiding and abetting the tragic death of Rohith Vemula;
• V.C. Prof. Appa Rao be immediately sacked from UoH;
• A completely free and transparent enquiry can only then be conducted into the whole tragic and shameful episode to identify all those who politically and administratively are to be held responsible;
• Apart from payment of the outstanding fellowship dues of Rohith his family should be paid damages arising out of his untimely death;
• All punitive action against the remaining four students to be withdrawn forthwith and any fellowship dues payable to them released immediately.
AIFRTE calls upon all its member organization and fraternal groups of students, teachers and democratic activists to hold protests and organize meetings to condemn the tragic incidents that have occurred at UoH. We appeal to them to condemn the call by government, certain political parties and sections of the media not to 'politicize' the issue. Caste oppression and the descent into fascist modes of action by right-wing groups, administrations and government are 'political' issues and they must be fought politically.
AIFRTE Presidium
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NC_017295:1507956 Clostridium acetobutylicum EA 2018 chromosome, complete genome
Host Lineage: Clostridium acetobutylicum; Clostridium; Clostridiaceae; Clostridiales; Firmicutes; Bacteria
General Information: This organism is a benign saccharolytic and proteolytic soil bacterium capable of producing a number of organic solvents (solventogenic bacterium) through fermentation of various organic compounds. The first strains of C. acetobutyricum were isolated by Chaim Weizman during the World War I and used to develop industrial starch-based acetone, butanol and ethanol fermentation processes. This genus comprises about 150 metabolically diverse species of anaerobes that are ubiquitous in virtually all anoxic habitats where organic compounds are present, including soils, aquatic sediments and the intestinal tracts of animals and humans. This shape is attributed to the presence of endospores that develop under conditions unfavorable for vegetative growth and distend single cells terminally or sub-terminally. Spores germinate under conditions favorable for vegetative growth, such as anaerobiosis and presence of organic substrates. It is believed that present day Mollicutes (Eubacteria) have evolved regressively (i.e., by genome reduction) from gram-positive clostridia-like ancestors with a low GC content in DNA.


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An Icelandic brewery has teamed up with a whaling company to create a beer infused with dead whale, to the horror of environmental groups.
The Steðji brewery created the 5.2 percent alcohol beer with whaling firm Hvalur for a midwinter festival in Iceland, according to the Independent. The beer reportedly contains whale meal, a byproduct of reducing whale flesh to oil, said to be high in protein and vitamin B. The brewery claims drinkers will become "true Vikings."
Environmental group Whale and Dolphin Conservation heavily criticized Steðji for brewing beer using endangered animals. "Reducing a beautiful, sentient whale to an ingredient on the side of a beer bottle is about as immoral and outrageous as it is possible to get," activist Vanessa Williams-Grey told The Independent.
Dagbjartur Ariliusson, the brewery's owner, said the whale beer would only be on sale for six weeks and would not be exported. He defended the cetacean ale as an accompaniment to the traditional Icelandic meal of cured whalemeat. "Now we have the beer to drink with this food," he said.


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- Haggai 2:9
- Haggai 1:2
- Zephaniah 3:20
- Zephaniah 3:9
- Zephaniah 2:3
- Zephaniah 1:18
- Habakkuk 3:18-19
- Habakkuk 2:14
- Habakkuk 1:5
- Nahum 3:19
- Nahum 2:13
- Nahum 1:15
- Micah 7:18
- Micah 5:2
- Micah 4:10
- Micah 4:13
- Micah 4:6-7
- Micah 4:5
- Micah 4:1
- Micah 1:2
- Micah 1:2
- Jonah 4:11
- Jonah. 3:10
- Jonah 2:10
- Jonah 1:1-2
- Obadiah 18
- Obadiah 16
- Obadiah 10
- Obadiah 1
- Amos 9:15
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Friday, June 24, 2022
Habakkuk 3:18-19
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
For further study - Habakkuk 3:1-19
Those of us who are using this third chapter of Habakkuk for our daily devotion most likely have difficulty even pronouncing the prophets name as we endeavor to understand what is taking place in this little prophetic book.
Before we look at our passage for today I think a quick look back at the entire prophecy would be good. Because of destruction, violence, strife, conflict, injustice and wickedness all around him, Habakkuk, as recorded in chapter one, was so depressed that he was about to go under when he started this book.
The prophet had a number of questions for God. All of his questions started with "Why". Habakkuk cried out to the Lord for some answers and his call did not go unheeded.
In the Lord's response, as revealed in chapter two, He not only answered the prophets demanding questions as to why "bad things happen to good people" but the Lord gave His prophet the confidence to lift him up from the "pits to the mountaintop".
In the third chapter God gives the prophet a "prayer of praise" that was the "song of joy" for a servant who began in a "valley of distress" and ends his journey on the "mountaintop of delight".
As you read our extended passage you can almost hear the music. It is a "hymn of praise", a "prayer of praise" put to music that glorifies the Lord, with who the prophet had been conversing and complaining.
Now Habakkuk will celebrate as he comes to the understanding of why Judah was being punished and the "who" that God had chosen to chastise the Jews, Babylon.
To make the song complete, God revealed the defeat of Babylon and that Judah would return to the Lord. The key verse of the entire book, 2:4, expresses the principle upon which we must develop our own lives in this time, similar to the times of Habakkuk.
"The just shall live by his faith" is the principle that must be applied in our day of wickedness, distress, violence, evil, conflict, injustice and destruction. God has a plan that is found in the pages of His prophetic passages that prepare us for His purpose in these days.
As we stop and listen to Him, by reading His Word daily, we can move from "distress to deliverance", as did Habakkuk. One very interesting thought before we conclude, the ultimate destruction of Babylon, modern-day Iraq, will take place after the Anti-christ sets up his worldwide political, economic, governmental kingdom in that "literal" city of Babylon (Revelation 18 and 16:17-21 ).
All that we see going on in Iraq today is setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled, seemingly in the near future. But remember, the total destruction of Babylon takes place just before Jesus comes back to Earth and steps down on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
These events will take place at least seven years from today, and I say that because the next event on God's calendar is the Rapture, which has not happened yet. However, it could happen today……….Keep looking up.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Help me Lord, to live by faith, faith in You and Your plan for the future, which will be the very best for me.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Help me Lord, to live by faith, faith in You and Your plan for the future, which will be the very best for me.


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Bird spikes in Panjagutta
You do not need to go any further to get the ultimate bird spikes solution because we have the best quality bird spike for you. You can freely contact us to choose the bird spikes of your choice, as we have several options available for you. These bird spikes work as anti-roosting spikes, and they are very different from other safety nets. The bird spikes are generally made of long rods that are specifically designed in the shape of needles. People prefer to install bird spikes in order to prevent the entrance of birds into your loving place and therefore stop them from roosting there as well. While making these bird spikes, it is made sure to make them narrow and only use stainless steel for long use. Bird spikes do not harm any bird as they are specifically designed to prevent injuries to birds as well as to the labourers who help you to install them. Spikes are blunt, not very fine-sharp in shape. Landowners use these bird spikes on their building ledges. You can install these bird spikes in any place, whether commercial or personal. You will be free from the sounds of birds chirping in the mornings or evenings, and hence, you can enjoy a peaceful time or sleep comfortably. Installing bird spikes is very important to prevent disease that may occur from their feathers or their waste which can make you prone to sickness. It will also help you keep your clean all the time.


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Tjan, the kid with the golden voice, returns with another amazing song, "Your Smile". In a voice that takes you back to the true R&B feel of the 90's, over the amazing Cobhams Asuquo's instrumentals, Tjan finds the love his life, his real "eminado". As valentines day approaches, this song is sure to be the soundtrack for the day!
Tjan, originally from Nigeria, is a multi-talented artist. He basically created a new genre called "Afro-Alternative". His silky voice and smooth bars will have you coming back for more. Stay tuned for more news on Tjan and his journey to success.
Listen Up and Enjoy!


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glschool — a 3D schooling simulation
glschool [-display host:display.screen] [-visual visual] [-window] [-root] [-wireframe] [-fps] [-delay number] [-nfish number] [-maxvel number] [-minvel number] [-acclimit number] [-avoidfact number] [-matchfact number] [-centerfact number] [-targetfact number] [-minradius number] [-momentum number] [-distexp number] [-goalchgf number] [-fog] [-drawgoal] [-drawbbox]Description
Uses Craig Reynolds Boids algorithm to simulate a 3d school of fish. See <http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids> for a description of the algorithm and the original paper. This is a lightly modified version of the algorithm that supports goal attraction.Many different behaviors are possible by tweaking the parameters. No sanity checking is performed on the command line params, so if you want to use negative accelerations or minimum velocity that is larger than maximum velocity or that sort of thing, the simulation will try to digest it.
It looks best with the highest number of fish that will give you an FPS of > 25 or so.
- -visual visual
- Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.
- -window
- Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.
- -root
- Draw on the root window.
- -delay number
- Per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default: 20000 (0.020 seconds.).
- -wireframe | -no-wireframe
- Render in wireframe instead of solid.
- -fps
- Display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count.
- -fog | -no-fog
Whether to show foggy (cloudy) water. - -drawgoal | -no-drawgoal
Whether to show the school's attraction goal. - -drawbbox | -no-drawbbox
Whether to show the bounding box. - -fog | -no-fog
Whether to show foggy (cloudy) water. - -nfish number
- Number of fish. Defaults to 100
- -acclimit number
- Acceleration limit. Defaults to 8.0
- -minvel number
- Minimum velocity. Defaults to 1.0
- -maxvel number
- Minimum velocity. Defaults to 7.0
- -goalchgf number
- Goal change frequency. Defaults to 50 (frames)
- -avoidfact number
- Avoidance acceleration factor. Defaults to 1.5
- -matchfact number
- Match avg velocity acceleration factor. Defaults to 0.15
- -centerfact number
- School centering acceleration factor. Defaults to 0.1
- -targetfact number
- Target attraction acceleration factor. Defaults to 80
- -distexp number
- Distance weighting exponent. Defaults to 2.2
- -momentum number
- Momentum. Defaults to 0.9
- to get the default host and display number.
- to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.


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A male lion can eat up to 140 pounds of food in one meal.
Tigers can see six times better than humans at night.
The okapi's dark tongue is long enough to reach its ears and eyes.
Armadillo is Spanish for "little armored thing."
Every zebra's stripe pattern is different—no two are alike.
A male Galápagos tortoise can weigh more than 500 pounds—and may live 150 years or more.
Andean bears are the only bears found in South America.
African penguins can hold their breath for over 2 minutes and dive over 400 feet deep!
The Andean flamingo is the only flamingo species with yellow legs.
A gorilla's big toe is opposable, like our thumb, to help the animal grab food or climb trees.
A butterfly's wings move in a figure "8" motion that pushes them through the air.
A herd of hippopotamuses is also called a "bloat."
Together we can improve animal care, reduce threatening processes, and save endangered species.
act for wildlife


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Just published in Dear Navigator 1:2/3 is a new poetry generator, Sea and Spar Between, by Nick Montfort and Stephanie Strickland.
This has been a major project of mine and Stephanie's over the past year. We started seriously working on this project on December 15, 2009, when we met for the first of a few days in New York to discuss and start developing it. I thought it might take only a few days to complete – not a completely outrageous idea, since I have been working on tiny poetry generators such as "The Two" those in the ppg256 series, which were not time-consuming to produce. As you might guess, since it was just published today (on December 16, 2010), I was wrong about the time it would take. But, I am delighted that the project is appearing now in wonderful company in Dear Navigator, a beautiful and appropriately-named journal.
If memory serves, Stephanie and I met at Digital Arts and Culture '99 in Atlanta. I remember the conversation we had about innovative literature soon afterwards at Limbo, a long-gone coffeehouse on Avenue A in New York. Stephanie offered her advice as I was putting together my application to the Boston University poetry program – one way in which she's long been a mentor as well as a friend. We've served the Electronic Literature Organization together; I had the chance to collaborate with her in editing the Electronic Literature Collection, volume 1; and I've gotten to read with her and present in the same session at conferences many times over the years. Sea and Spar Between, though, is our first collaboration as poets.
We have a short statement about the project on the "How to Read Sea and Spar Between" page; the text also appears on the page of Dear Navigator that introduces and links to the piece. I won't quote from that page here, but I'll mention that the generator produces a navigable space of stanzas and draws on the vocabulary of and our readings of Dickinson and Melville.
A few words about our collaboration on Sea and Spar Between: I sketched in code as the two of us worked together; we looked at and ran many intermediate versions as we figured out how we wanted to generate lines. I wrote the early versions of the stanza generator in Python, because I find that a better language to think and sketch in than JavaScript. Although I was the one who did the programming, Stephanie and I worked closely on all aspects of the project together: The strings that serve as data, the way lines are assembled, the way stanzas are assembled, the overall interface, and beyond. She and I were even working together to properly comment the code as the new issue of Dear Navigator was preparing for launch.
Speaking of that code, as you can see for yourself in the file seaspar.js, Sea and Spar Between is licensed under a free software license. As the license says, anyone may copy it, modify it, or make use of it in some other way in creating another project. I hope the project proves pleasing to interact with and read from on the Web and pleasing for those who wish to turn to the code.


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Contrary to popular belief, training is not the only way to stimulate muscle growth. In fact the biggest growth spurts for the average person occur in the absence of any intention to increase muscle mass (adolescent development and puberty).
A good example to illustrate the various ways of stimulating hypertrophy is with arm training. Everyone says you need to perform whole body compound movements and gain 10-15 lbs. overall scale weight to gain an inch on your arms right? However, you'll routinely see guys at the gym who increase their arms by an inch or more without gaining a pound. You'll see plenty of guys with big upper bodies who probably don't even know what a deadlift is. You know they didn't start out big because their lower bodies are skinny. Same thing for guys with big arms, but rather normal sized upper bodies and pencil necks. Is this just genetics or what's going on here?
Additionally, you have "gurus" saying that it doesn't take "extra" nutrition to grow muscle. They give examples of guys who gain significant amounts of muscle eating 1500 calories per day of fast food and pop tarts. On the other hand, you have guys who won't gain an ounce unless they really tie on the feed bag and take a hardcore no holds barred attitude when it comes to spending hours at the dinner table and driving that scale weight up. So what's going on here?
To understand all this it helps to understand the 3 keys for growth:
A.) Stimulation – Training (load, density, volume etc)
B.) Supply (nutrient and protein intake)
C.) Signaling (anabolic hormones, testosterone, insulin etc.)
Training stimulates growth, eating supplies material for growth, and various hormones signal growth to occur.
Stimulating Growth
Training stimulates muscles to grow. Not exactly a "cutting edge" observation, but any work you do that your muscles are not accustomed to will cause some protein breakdown in your muscles which, assuming that nutrient supply and anabolic signaling are optimal enough, your body will repair the damaged muscle with a little more protein to make them a little bigger then before. Regardless of how you create the stimulation (traditional lifting, isometrics, strongman, manual labor, partials, rubber bands, lifting rocks, pushing cars, negatives, or whatever), all physical work creates tension and greater levels or volume of mechanical tension then what your muscles are accustomed to stimulates protein breakdown. The more total muscle cells you have in a given muscle group, the greater potential growth improvements you tend to have in that muscle. Although the stimuli can vary, a muscle can only respond to so much stimulation workout to workout. In other words, if you can stimulate growth from 1 or 2 sets, it's not like doing 20 sets will enable you to grow 10 times as fast
Supplying Material for Growth
A pound of muscle requires a little more then 700 calories to manufacture. Under certain situations, the body can and will sometimes get those calories from the breakdown of energy from stored bodyfat, or it can get them from your diet, but the energy has to come from somewhere. Since muscle is made up of 70% water and a pound of muscle only contains about ~136 grams of protein it might make sense that if you simply eat maintenance calories and an additional 20 grams of protein per day that you'd consistently gain about a pound of muscle per week. But it's not quite that simple and here's why…
Imagine you're locked up in a cage in a concentration camp and you're totally dependent on someone else to bring you food. Ok. Let's say you're in this concentration camp and have a choice of whether to stay the same size and burn up the same amount of energy or get bigger and use up more energy. Now, remember, you never know when the next meal will come or how much food will be contained in each meal. One week you might go 3 days without eating and another week you might get 3 meals per day every day. Would you choose to get bigger and increase your daily energy needs when a period of starvation might soon follow? Probably not.
Your Muscles Tend To Assume A Food Shortage Is Around The Corner – Unless You Tell Them Otherwise
The relevance of this is that your muscles are the same way. If your muscle cells get bigger, this increases your daily energy needs. Your body is always striving to operate as efficiently as possible in the event that a famine might be just around the corner. Bigger muscles mean greater food requirements for you, which would not be a good thing if a food shortage is just around the corner. Thus, in order to grow, a muscle needs "assurance" or a strong "signal" that says, "Ok I'm very well fed so I can get bigger and not have to worry about an impending nutrient deficit." What sends that signal? Mainly a "chronic" nutrient surplus, which means full glycogen stores and a chronic influx of amino acids (protein)
Genetic Variability and Experience
Now, based on the strength of your "growth signaling" network (a.k.a. genetics – which I'll cover next), and how far above your baseline level of muscle mass you are, in order to get that chronic nutrient surplus it's often necessary that you eat more then just maintenance calories and a few extra grams of protein per day. Some people need to jack their calories and protein intake way up into the stratosphere in order to send that "fed" signal and supply enough excess material for growth, while others might grow on maintenance or below maintenance calories with little attention paid to nutrition. However, there is no doubt that a good supply of nutrients allows the body to maximize the stimulation response (grow faster). If that weren't true, then guys who consciously pushed the scale weight up wouldn't gain so much more muscle then the measly 3 or 4 pounds of muscle per year that natural bodybuilders gain when trying to stay ultra lean year around.
One last point relevant to this topic: Even in the absence of exercise, supplying excess raw material (food and protein), can cause some growth too occur. In one study, sedentary people overfed 1000 calories per day for 100 days gained 1/3 of their newfound scale weight as muscle.
Signaling Growth To Occur
The last "S" is hormonal signaling. Various anabolic hormones such as testosterone, insulin, IGF-1 etc. stimulate growth to occur. Think of the muscle mass difference between a male and female. It's all due to hormonal signaling. Think of someone labeled with "good" genetics vs someone with "bad" genetics. Again, the difference is mostly hormonal. People naturally vary in their hormonal signaling. Genetic freaks tend to have much better hormonal profiles. How powerful is hormonal signaling? Even in the absence of training, anabolic signaling can cause plenty of growth, which is why the average male gains ~40 pounds of near permanent muscle during puberty even without training. In studies done on steroids, guys who took 600 mg of testosterone and sat on their butt and did no training over an 8 week period of time still gained twice as much muscle (9 pounds) as another group of guys who busted their ass training naturally over the same period of time. (4.5 pounds)
It's worth noting that the growth that results from eating and the growth that results from anabolic hormones kind've go hand in hand. When you eat well and manage your stress levels, the growth is not necessarily just from the food, but from an optimization of your hormonal status which maximizes your hormonal growth signaling.
The relevance of all of this is that if you maximize stimulation, supply, and natural anabolic signaling, you obviously have a superior environment for muscle growth.
Beginners Can Grow Even Without Everything Being Optimized
Initially, you can get a growth response from anything. This is why you can take a sedentary person and have them start lifting, even with suboptimal eating habits and a caloric deficit, and they'll often still gain some muscle. For example, let's say a person buys a curl bar and decides to start training their arms a couple of times per week. Initially, even though they might lose bodyweight, they will most likely still be able to gain maybe an inch or so on their arms. That right there would appear to shoot the "15 lbs per inch" theory straight into the ground and it does. Anytime somebody tells you that you need to gain 15 lbs to gain an inch of muscle on your arm consider them full of crap unless they can qualify that statement and tell you under what conditions that might be necessary.
Growth=Excess Repair
Localized hypertrophy from training is really just excess repair. The important thing is, there is a limit to how much of that excess repair or hypertrophy the body will create on it's own unless you start adding in excess raw materials (food), and/or excess anabolic signals (extraneous hormones or the hormones that come from eating). That point will vary from individual to individual so a few will be able to stay at practically the exact same bodyweight and be able to cause significant growth all over or on only one area of the body and some can gain quite a bit of muscle without much intentional attention paid to increasing their nutrition.
Local Stimulation vs Whole Body Stimulation
Ok. Now, the growth stimulation from training (mechanical loading) by itself is also local. You train a muscle group and cause some damage and the body repairs that muscle group with a little more muscle so that it can better deal with the stress next time. In other words, if we're only referring to growth that results from training, if you train your biceps you're not gonna get your calves to grow. The only muscle that will grow is your bicep.
So Compound Movements Like Squats Aren't The Answer?
"But what about these gurus who say the quickest way to get big all over is to do squats?" Well they're also right in a way. (Assuming good eating). If you train your legs hard your legs will grow. Your chest might also grow from leg training but WILL NOT grow from the mechanical training effect that spilled over from your legs. Growth "spillover", such as training legs and getting the whole body to grow, tends to occur more from the overall anabolic effect.
The effects from training itself can be localized. However, the effects of eating and/or hormones tend to be more systemic. That means you can't really relegate their action to just a specific part of the body. They tend to affect the entire body and cause growth all over.
In other words, if you take a sedentary person and overfeed him for 2 weeks he'll probably gain a few pounds of muscle mass and a few pounds of fat. That muscle will tend to be distributed over the entire body not just in one area. If you give that same person steroid injections he will gain muscle all over his body. If you give him testosterone injections for 6 weeks, AND have him do arm training, he'll probably gain 10 lbs of lean muscle mass. Even though he only trained arms, the majority of that muscle will be distributed over the entire body.
So What About That 15 pounds For Each Additional Inch On The Arm?
Let's say a guy starts training, eats maintenance calories, and takes his arms from 13 inches to 14.5 inches and then gets stuck. At this point, he's gotten all out of the lone "stimulation" signal that he can get. His arms have reached a state of homeostasis. His cells have adapted to the stimulation thrust upon them so he no longer causes much breakdown when he curls and, providing he does change his routine a bit so that he can once again stimulate some breakdown, he still has 2 other problems:
A.) With his current diet the amount of nutrients reaching the muscle cells in his arms isn't enough to provide much extra raw material to stimulate growth.
B.) The amount of anabolic hormones circulating throughout his body isn't enough to "signal" anymore increased protein synthesis in his arms
Clearly, in order to get his arms bigger he either has to eat more food or increase his anabolic hormone levels, both of which affect things systemically. At this point, in order to continue getting his arms bigger, his whole body will have to grow a certain amount to. It so happens that after one reaches their threshold of growth from training alone, the average amount of whole body growth from eating and/or hormones is usually around 15 lbs in order to put approximately one inch on the arms. So, if this guy wanted to get a 15.5 inch arm he'd probably have to gain about 15 lbs of overall scale weight.
If a guy or girl does a lot of squats or other compound movements, not only do they tend to "stimulate" a lot of various muscles, they also tend to stimulate the metabolism in such a way so that more nutrients can be taken in and directed to muscle groups all over. That's one of the superiorities of compound movements. Nothing really complicated about it.
Explanation for the "Collection of Bodyparts" Syndrome
What's also interesting is that the muscle generated from training and the muscle generated from anabolic hormones is somewhat different. Certain muscles groups have a greater preponderance of testosterone receptors and tend to develop disproportionately in men vs women or men on steroids vs natural trainees. These muscle groups include the neck and shoulders.
Additionally, a muscle will generally hypertrophy according to where the mechanical strain is highest (towards the muscle-tendon junction). Using anabolics or pubertal muscle growth will cause a more general hypertrophy however as the mechanism isn't 100% dependent on mechanical strain
If you take a close look at someone who has trained naturally a long time they will often look like a collection of bodyparts probably due in part to this difference. The traps, necks, and deltoids will often appear disproportionately underdeveloped then the quads, chest, etc.
Put Things Together
So, to sum it up. You stimulate growth with training. You supply material for growth with good nutrition. You create a good anabolic signaling environment for growth by maximizing your various anabolic hormones. Your hormonal environment can be maximized by optimizing your training, nutrition, and stress levels. The largest growth increases come from exogenous or pubertal hormones. If you're natural, past the age of puberty, or female, and you want to overcome those deficiencies, you gotta learn how to correctly apply these keys, which hopefully this article series will teach you how to do.


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The Internet could go dark for millions of users as early as March 8 because of a virus that has corrupted computers in more than 100 countries. Last year, authorities in Estonia apprehended six men believed responsible for creating a malicious computer script called the DNSChanger Trojan. Once set loose on the Web, the worm corrupted computers in upwards of 100 countries, including an estimated 500,000 in America alone.
Must Read : FAQ : DNSChanger Trojan, Impact and Solutions
The primary impact of this infection is that it caused web surfers to be sent to fraudulent websites by changing what is called the DNS settings on compromised computers.The Domain Name System (DNS) is the backbone of the Internet's address scheme and DNS servers are special computers around the world that act as Internet traffic cops providing directions to websites that you wish to visit.
Though the FBI has shut down the DNSChanger network and put up surrogate servers, they warned the solution was only temporary - and the court-ordered deadline is March 8. When the FBI pinched this group, if they had shut down the rogue DNS servers, everyone that was infected would have instantly been cut off from the Internet so the FBI chose a different strategy.They decided to get a court order allowing them to replace the rogue DNS servers with legitimate stand-ins so that all the infected computers wouldn't get cut off without warning giving them time to get the word out.
Both Windows and MacOS users are at risk for this infection because it exploits your browser, not your operating system. If you are somewhat technical, you can do a self-check of your computer to make sure you're not infected by comparing your computer's DNS setting to the list of rogue DNS servers:
220.127.116.11 through 22.214.171.124
126.96.36.199 through 22.214.171.124
18.104.22.168 through 22.214.171.124
18.104.22.168 through 18.104.22.168
188.8.131.52 through 184.108.40.206
18.104.22.168 through 22.214.171.124
The FBI has published a pretty decent guide to performing the self-check here. If you are infected by the DNSChanger Trojan, the FBI reminds us that this malware also disables security updates which could have further exposed you to other malware.
Must Read : FAQ : DNSChanger Trojan, Impact and Solutions


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Trips on Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Schooner Olad
The Schooner Olad is a completely restored 1927 yacht that can hold up to 22 passengers. It is the perfect way to get out on the water with a group of friends or family.
9:45 AM to 11:45 AM
best for viewing wildlife
12:00 PM to 2:00 PM
typically the best sailing breeze
2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
typically the best sailing breeze
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
typically a more relaxed sailing breeze
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
sunset sail
Sailing Vessel Owl
The Sailing Vessel Owl is a classic wooden sailboat that was built in 1941. She can hold up to 6 passengers and is ideal for private gatherings.


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Program Overview
In the General Career Preparation Program, students gain the skills and knowledge needed for success a variety of career fields. The program also prepares students for career college, vocational training, community college, or continuing education. This is an excellent option for students who are undecided in their career majors, but need career training they can apply in any occupation or course of study. The program stresses the personal and professional skills needed in today's workplace.


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West Nile Virus
What Is West Nile Virus?
West Nile virus is a virus that can pass to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. The best way to prevent infection with West Nile virus is to prevent mosquito bites.
What Are the Signs & Symptoms of West Nile Virus Infection?
Most of the time, a West Nile virus infection doesn't make a person sick or cause symptoms. When symptoms do happen, they're usually mild and can include:
Rarely, a person can get very ill with problems that affect the central nervous system, such as encephalitis or meningitis. Their symptoms can include:
- high fever
- severe headache
- a stiff neck
- being confused or disoriented
- seizures
- paralysis
- coma
Severe illness can be life-threatening, especially in the elderly and people who are already sick.
How Do People Get West Nile Virus?
Mosquitoes get infected by feeding on birds that carry West Nile virus. They can spread it to people and animals through bites. In the U.S., only one kind of mosquito (out of 175 types) can pass the West Nile virus.
The infection isn't contagious, so it can't spread from person to person.
How Is West Nile Virus Infection Diagnosed?
If someone has symptoms of West Nile virus infection, doctors consider:
- whether the person lives in or traveled to an area where infected mosquitoes have been found
- the season (mosquitoes are more active in warm weather)
The doctor can send a blood sample to a lab to test for the infection.
Someone with symptoms of encephalitis or meningitis may get a lumbar puncture (spinal tap). This test collects some fluid from around the brain and spinal cord for testing in a lab.
How Is West Nile Virus Infection Treated?
Most West Nile virus infections get better on their own. Acetaminophen or ibuprofen can help ease minor aches and pains, and drinking plenty of fluids can prevent dehydration.
Someone with more serious symptoms needs care in a hospital, with IV fluids, breathing help, and other treatments. There is no specific medicine for West Nile encephalitis or meningitis. Antibiotics will not work because a virus, not bacteria, causes West Nile disease. No vaccine for the virus is currently available.
Can West Nile Virus Infection Be Prevented?
The best way to protect yourself and your family from the West Nile virus is to prevent mosquito bites. Be sure to:
- Use screens on doors and windows, and repair broken or damaged screens right away. Keep unscreened doors and windows shut.
- Wear long-sleeved shirts, long pants, shoes, and socks when outside.
- Use insect repellent as directed. Choose one with ingredients approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as DEET or picaridin. For kids over 3 years old, you also can use oil of lemon eucalyptus.
- Limit time outside around dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active.
- Don't give mosquitoes places to breed. They lay their eggs in water, so get rid of standing water in things like buckets, trash cans, and tires. Empty and clean birdbaths, dog bowls, and flowerpots at least once a week.
What Else Should I Know?
Communities help health officials track West Nile virus infection patterns. If you see a dead bird in your area, do not touch it with your bare hands. Instead, contact your state or local health department to ask what to do with it. If they get a lot of reports of dead birds, they can look to see if they were infected with West Nile virus. If so, health officials can spray the area with pesticides or do other things to help control mosquitoes.
Note: All information is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
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Homicide Scene Documentation with 3D Laser Scanning
Kansas crime lab's trial test of new Leica Geosystems 3D laser scanner at a homicide scene provides a powerful demonstration of the forensic tool's superiority over traditional methods of crime scene mapping.
On Easter Sunday 2010, police detectives responding to a homicide within the Kansas City metropolitan area requested the Johnson County Criminalistics Lab to dispatch its crime scene investigation unit. For Ryan Rezzelle, supervisor of the lab's five crime scene investigators, the call represented an unexpected opportunity. Just two days earlier, Rezzelle had received on loan from Leica Geosystems the newest model ScanStation C10 3D Laser Scanner which he and his team had been testing as a forensic instrument for crime scene mapping.
"I thought, 'What better way to compare the ScanStation's capabilities with our current mapping methodologies than to use it at an actual crime scene," Rezelle said. "We could piggyback the scan data collection without any intrusion. That would provide a real-time field trial test and a side-byside comparison with the protocols used and evidentiary data obtained by the police traffic accident investigation teams that are currently called upon to do the measurements."
That the Johnson County Criminalistic Lab was considering cutting edge forensic measurement technology is not surprising. The lab, administered by the Sheriff's Office, serves a population of over 560,000 residents in both the rural and urban areas on the Kansas side of the greater Kansas City metropolitan area, and has a reputation as one of the most progressive, well-equipped high tech crime labs in the country. Both Sheriff Frank Denning, long a believer in the value of highly professional forensic services, and the lab's director, Gary Howell, were strong proponents behind the recent commencement of construction planning on a state-ofthe-art crime lab, slated to open in early 2012 in Olathe, Kansas.
In addition, the lab is accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board under the ASCLD/LAB International Program, a comprehensive accreditation that has been earned by only about five percent of the crime labs in the U.S.
After obtaining permission from the lab's quality assurance manager to trial the ScanStation, Rezzelle and his team investigated the crime scene, the focus of which was the body of a man shot to death in the front seat of a car. Mounting the scanner on its tripod, the investigators conducted three exterior scans within 45 minutes, along with the associated digital photographs. "The set-up and scanning was fast and easy," Rezzelle said. "We had learned the procedure in about half an hour on Friday with the Leica representative remotely talking us through the process on a speaker phone."
After the body of the victim had been taken from the car, the team removed the scanner from its tripod and placed the unit on a special Leica accessory mount on the car's center console armrest and captured a 360 degree scan of the car's bloody interior. A second 360 scan was conducted from the rear seat for a total of five scans.
"What amazed us was, from set up to the time we put the scanner away, we were there maybe sixty to ninety minutes, tops," Rezzelle recalled. "Compare that to the traffic accident unit, a two man crew using a total station and prism poles, along with their tape measures, hand-held laser distance measuring tools, and Rolatapes, who worked for eight to ten hours marking and measuring single points. We had captured the same scene with literally millions of points in a fraction of that time."
Late the following day Rezzelle overnighted the laser scanner to Leica Geosystems's Georgia headquarters, following which a technician there quickly processed the five scans and "stitched" them into a single "point cloud." Two high-value exhibits were then generated from the data consisting of a 3D fly-through of the crime scene and a Leica TruView. (Leica TruView is a free plug-in for Internet Explorer which allows CSIs to quickly and easily share scene data with command staff, detectives and prosecutors. TruView was recently used in a Georgia homicide trial to virtually place the jury at a crime scene.)
For agencies that have purchased a Leica 3D laser scanner, this procedure is performed by in-house personnel who have completed a police oriented training regimen developed by Leica Geosystems. In all, the process took five to six hours, the great majority of which was computer "rendering" and processing time. By Friday morning the results were in Rezzelle's hands.
"We were blown away. So was every one who saw it," Rezzelle said. "We had captured some fantastic data from the car's interior, and by stitching together all five of the scans we had a mountain of useable evidence. Sheriff Frank Denning was especially impressed by the fly-through animation. Personally, it's one of the most impressive presentations of a crime scene that I've seen in many years. So, even though we regarded ours as a rushed first-effort test, we produced something that could be viewed by prosecutors, CSIs, attorneys, and crime scene reconstructionists as stellar output for getting a good clean crisp perspective of the relationship of different components at a crime scene."
Three dimensional laser scanning has recently taken on additional importance in criminology in the wake of the 2009 report by the National Research Council (NRC), a committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Titled "Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community," the report focuses on strengthening the current benchmark standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), commonly called the ISO 17025. Historically, crime scene response units in most U.S. police agencies have been routinely exempted by their management from the requirement to become accredited. That attitude is changing fast as a growing number of agencies seek accreditation for their crime scene units in a tacit acknowledgment that ISO 17025 protocols should begin at the crime scene and not wait until the evidence reaches the crime laboratory.
Rezzelle is convinced the Leica Geosystems ScanStation C10 laser scanner will have an essential role to play: "I think this is what the NAS will want. Once people see the output that's available from the C10, there will be an expectation that this will be used to capture every crime scene in the United States. They [the NAS] are calling for forensic science to be based on science, and that's what we have here. It's telling. It's descriptive in terms of what you're seeing visually. This is going to be the next generation of mapping for crime scenes."
Written by Tony Grissim


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The Value of Fellowship
- Heather Laurie The Old Schoolhouse
- Published Jul 22, 2011
My children were tucked into bed. In the silence I stared at the books and workbooks spread across the table in front of me. Two and a half years of trying various reading curricula; workbooks; the newest, best books on the market; and older books I had used as a child were piled in front of me. None of them were working. I cried. I felt so alone and inadequate.
My daughter Isabella still could not read. I was upset that my son's speech therapist had pointed out that Isabella could not rhyme. She continually flipped letters, numbers, and words. I knew she was smart. Her math and science work were outstanding, but her reading was lagging behind. Where had I gone wrong? Was it my fault she was having so much trouble?
That night sitting there alone and feeling depressed was the only time I truly considered sending my children to public school. I became consumed with all the wrong things. I let the words of others, who were not homeschool friendly, fill my head: "Public schools have teachers that can fix problems like this" or "One month in school and she'll be reading like a champ!" These comments swirled in my head, feeding my self-doubt.
I shared my concerns with a Christian sister. She, too, homeschooled, and she asked me a simple question: "Why do you homeschool?" That simple question brought me back to my senses. As parents the Lord has placed the responsibility of teaching them upon my husband and me. We are asked to teach our children in a manner that exalts the Lord. The Lord made no exceptions for special needs; He called us to teach all His children.
In talking with my friend, I realized that I was missing a vital component to my homeschooling: fellowship. I needed others to talk to who were walking the same path that I was walking. I decided to look for godly support. I needed to search for fellow Christians that I could share and pray with, refreshing and renewing our commitment to homeschool.
I started with my husband. I had not told him about the fear in my heart. My husband, Chris, told me he had faith in our ability to homeschool our children regardless of their strengths or weaknesses. Chris reminded me that there were no easy fixes for most learning problems. He encouraged me to maintain the persistent, steady pace we had set. He formed the base of my support.
Then I looked to my church. I formed several friendships that I could turn to for godly support. I looked to the local support group and the state groups in my area to make more connections. I found a Christian co-op that was starting near my home. These sources were good for me in a general sense. However, most of the ladies involved didn't understand the problems we were having. By this time I had learned that my daughter had dyslexia. It was hard for some to understand that Isabella couldn't just work harder and make her problems disappear, but I was never made to feel that my daughter or I was wrong. The problem was a lack of support because of a lack of experience in the area of special needs.
My children have a genetic disorder, and as the year passed this became more evident. Three of my children were diagnosed with forms of autism. Consequently, the co-op and many play groups were no longer options for us. My support systems shook again. I asked the Lord to provide the fellowship I needed.
Then I received the summer edition of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine. I loved the articles and wished I could sit and chat with the writers. I noticed that most of the writers had www.HomeschoolBlogger.com (HSB) accounts. The Lord had provided the support I was seeking! Here was a community of homeschoolers of all experience levels with a wide variety of styles and needs. I had found fellowship at last.
I have found the HSB community to be a balm to my soul. Homeschooling my special needs children has been one the most rewarding things I have ever done. It can also be uncomfortable. I have received more criticism for homeschooling my children since finding out about their medical and learning problems.
My journey to find fellowship and support has left me with a fire in my heart to reach out to other special needs homeschoolers. I have found HSB to be a place to stop in for encouragement at any time of the day. When the children are sick and I need support or have a prayer request, I know right where to go. I have my own blog now to reach out and share our homeschooling experience, http://www.HomeschoolBlogger/gfcfmomofmany/. I also host the Special Words for Special Needs blog on the Company Porch at HSB, www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/HSBCompanyBlog/specialneeds/.
When I found out I was hosting the Special Words for Special Needs blog, I praised the Lord. My husband and I have prayed that the storms in our lives would lead to sharing God's grace with others. I believe this is a wonderful opportunity to support, encourage, and inform the special needs homeschooling community.
There is no reason to travel this journey alone. You can homeschool your child—with all of his strengths and all of his weaknesses. I pray I can help you reach beyond merely "existing" to helping your children thrive!
Originally posted on Crosswalk Oct. 2009.
Interested in having The Old Schoolhouse magazine delivered to your door? Sign up with promo code "5OFFCW" and receive 20% off your subscription.
Heather Laurie is the host for Special Words for Special Needs—On the Company Porch at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com. She and her husband homeschool their five children, who have a genetic disorder that has left them with many special needs. Heather is also learning to live with lupus. To find out more about Heather, visit her blog at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/gfcfmomofmany/.
Copyright 2009. Originally appeared in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Summer 2009. Used with permission. Visit them at www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com.


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Unlike homeowner's or automobile insurance, dental insurance is something you definitely WANT to use. Other insurance plans are often designed to cover a loss. For example, your homeowner's insurance will reimburse you if you lose your home to a fire or natural disaster and if your car is damaged in an accident, your car insurance pays to have it repaired. Of course, specific coverage amounts vary depending on the policy, but the premise is the same (i.e., the insured must incur a loss before they receive reimbursement). Dental coverage, however, is set up as a benefit plan, which means it covers certain costs up to a maximum amount.
How does dental insurance work?
The typical dental insurance plan is structured based on a 100-80-50 model. While it can sound confusing, this means that they pay for 100 percent of preventive care (exams, cleanings and X-rays), 80 percent of basic treatments like cavity fillings, and 50 percent of major procedures such as tooth extractions and root canal therapy.
In addition, dental insurance companies also set yearly maximums for the amount they will pay towards certain types of treatment. It's common to have a limit of $1,500 to $2,000 annually for restorative procedures (fillings, crowns, etc.), and a $1,500 to $2,000 lifetime benefit for orthodontics.
While dental insurance is an asset, it's not a complete catch-all. It is possible that some procedures recommended by your dentist won't be covered at all by your dental plan. Another key factor is that the vast majority of dental plans are based on care delivered within a calendar year. What you don't use between January – December of that year, you lose. So, if your plan offers $2,000 a year for restorative procedures and you didn't need any in 2020, that $2,000 expires on December 31st. Instead of going towards keeping your smile healthy, unused funds go back to the insurance provider. To maximize your dental insurance, make sure you match or exceed your yearly maximums before they expire.
How to choose a dental plan
Selecting the right dental plan for you and your family is a personal choice and there are many options. Below are three of the most popular types of plans:
- Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) A PPO is a dental plan that uses a network of dentists who have agreed to provide dental services for set fees. The number of dental services covered depends on the plan. If you have a PPO plan and see a dentist out of the network, you will most likely have more out of pocket expenses.
- Dental Health Maintenance Organization (DHMO) DHMO is like an HMO. Network dentists are paid a set fee every month to provide covered dental services to you whether you see the dentist or not. Some of the covered services are no cost to you, while other services require a co-payment on your part.
- Discount or Referral Dental Plans Under this model, the company selling a discount or referral plan contracts with a group of dentists who agree to discount their fees. Discounts are usually applied to all services, including cosmetic procedures. Unlike PPOs and DHMOs, these plans do not pay for services received. Instead, you pay for treatment at the time of service at the reduced rate determined by the plan.
Between PPOs, DHMOs and 100-80-50 formulas, navigating the ins-and-outs of dental insurance can be stressful. However, our dental team is here to address your questions and help you maximize your benefits. Don't hesitate to contact our office to discuss options or schedule an appointment for your year-end cleaning.


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Overall: Nancy Location: Galloway, OhioDate Posted: 09/05/2014 09:28:47 AM
Tomatoe-Basil Cheese Pie: Great side dish during summer to use up tomatoes. Very tasty too. Got the recipe when a friend at work brought the cookbook to work. I'm going to have to buy this book now.
Overall: Vickie Location: Moorestown, NJ, USADate Posted: 08/17/2011 04:50:59 PM
There were so many to choose from on the rack in the shop I was in, but this title caught my eye. It is my "Go To" cookbook when I'm looking for a new way to use something I have in the pantry. Love it!
Overall: Anjeanette Location: Hartville, MODate Posted: 03/08/2011 02:30:11 PM
I grab this cookbook when I need a quick fix and haven't planned ahead. I can always find something that has the same five ingredients I have on hand.
Overall: Denise Location: Clinton Twp. MichiganDate Posted: 03/08/2011 02:09:41 PM
I use this book quite a bit and love that you only need 5 ingredients or less. It makes preparing a meal easy and fast!
Overall: Beverly Location: Amazon.com ReviewerDate Posted: 02/24/2011 12:48:17 PM
I LOVE this cookbook! So many quick and easy recipes ... and tasty! I've tried dozens already, and they've all been great. I went through and stuck Post-It's on pages with recipes I want to use. When I got through, there were Post-It's on about every other page! This cookbook, "5 Ingredients or Less!" is my new go-to gift for young people setting up their first home, bridal showers, and friends who cook like I do!